NC POV
NC learned the rules by watching who got corrected first.
The morning after the first propaganda screening, the campus moved like it had already decided what kind of day it would be. The sky stayed gray, wind sharp enough to sting. Students lined up for roll call with their jackets zipped to their throats, hair pulled tight, shoulders squared.
Staff did not raise voices.
They did not need to.
They carried clipboards and pens like weapons.
NC stood with the girls in the dorm corridor line, hands behind her back, eyes forward, expression neutral. She could feel the tension in the group. Not panic yet, but something close. A collective awareness that the campus was taking notes on them, even when it pretended it wasn't.
The staff member reading names paused once, looked up, and scanned their faces.
"Discipline points have been updated," he said casually, as if he were announcing weather.
A ripple moved through the line.
Someone whispered, "What points."
The staff member ignored the whisper.
"Some of you received deductions last night," he continued. "Failure to attend civic education screenings is considered lack of engagement."
He tapped his clipboard lightly.
"Lack of engagement will be reflected."
NC felt her stomach tighten.
Not because she cared about the propaganda video. Because she understood the structure. They weren't punishing them openly for skipping.
They were punishing them administratively.
Quietly.
So you couldn't argue.
So you couldn't even name the punishment without sounding irrational.
Beside NC, Anna's hands trembled slightly. She pulled them into the sleeves of her hoodie like she was trying to hide her shaking from the air itself.
Cherry, standing three people down, didn't move at all. Chin slightly lifted, face composed. But NC noticed how Cherry's eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, the way they did when she felt insulted.
Jihye stood behind them, lips pressed together like she was swallowing a joke she wasn't sure was safe to say out loud.
Once roll call ended, they were marched toward breakfast. Beans curry, rice, water. Again. The same smell, the same taste, the same dull heaviness in the stomach afterward. The campus didn't want pleasure. It wanted routine.
NC sat with the girls and tried to keep her voice casual.
"Okay," she said softly, "we have to assume points exist for everything."
Anna whispered, "Like grades."
"Like obedience," NC corrected, still calm.
Cherry scoffed. "I'm not collecting points like a dog doing tricks."
NC looked at her. "Then don't give them a reason to punish you."
Cherry's eyes flashed. "I don't get punished."
NC didn't argue. She let silence do the work. Because she understood something Cherry didn't yet.
This campus didn't punish you to teach you.
It punished you to mark you.
Later, in the hallway outside the lecture block, students whispered about the points like they were rumors of a disease.
Someone said the staff had a chart. Someone said the points affected who would be sent back to Campus 2. Someone said the points affected scholarship chances. Someone said the points meant nothing but fear.
NC watched the staff member at the end of the corridor. He smiled politely at passing students. His eyes never stopped tracking.
NC felt the walls tightening and tried not to show it.
That night, she gathered the girls in a corner near the laundry room, where the hum of machines muffled voices.
"Whatever they're doing," NC said quietly, "we don't panic. We don't fracture. We don't give them scenes."
Anna nodded quickly, relief visible in her eyes. She needed someone to tell her the shape of survival.
Jihye raised her hand slightly like she was in class. "Can we still hate them quietly."
NC almost smiled. "Yes."
Cherry leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "I don't hate them. I'm bored by them."
NC watched Cherry's posture. The confidence was real. But it was also a cover. NC didn't call it out. Calling it out would be a mistake.
You didn't rip armor off someone who was still in the war zone.
She simply said, "Be bored later. Right now, stay smart."
Cherry's mouth curved slightly. Not a smile. A challenge.
NC understood then that Cherry's survival strategy was going to be power.
And power always attracted attention.
Cherry POV
Cherry didn't believe in fear.
Not because she had never felt it. Because fear made people ugly, and she refused to become ugly.
She walked through the campus like she owned her footsteps. Like the cameras were there for decoration. Like discipline points were a joke and staff members were background characters.
That was how she survived.
If you walked like you belonged, people hesitated before they tried to remove you.
Still, she could feel the campus trying.
It tested her with tiny humiliations.
A staff member correcting her posture when she stood in line. A note on the dorm door reminding them their hair should be "neat." The way the dining staff looked past her when she asked for another spoon, as if her voice didn't qualify as a request.
Cherry didn't show anger.
She stored it.
When she sat with Anna and Jihye at lunch, she spoke softly, like she was sharing gossip rather than strategy.
"They want us to beg," she said.
Anna blinked. "Beg for what."
Cherry shrugged. "For comfort. For food. For points. For permission."
Jihye glanced around. "Your voice is loud for someone saying that."
Cherry's eyes slid to the nearest staff member. "They can hear everything anyway."
That was the difference between Cherry and the others. Cherry didn't pretend privacy existed. She treated surveillance like weather. You dressed for it.
In the afternoon, Cherry saw two girls from another major leaving the propaganda hall in a rush, cheeks flushed with panic. A staff member followed them, clipboard in hand, not shouting, just walking. The girls looked like they were being hunted by politeness.
Cherry's stomach tightened.
So the campus was counting.
That night, she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.
She missed Campus 2. Not because it was kind. Because it was hers. Here, she was only a number. A body in a system.
A tapping sound came from the bunk below.
Jihye's foot, impatient, restless.
Anna whispered, barely audible, "Do you think we can leave."
Cherry didn't answer right away. Because in this room, the word leave felt dangerous. It sounded too close to the bell.
She said instead, "We can outlast."
Anna whispered, "I don't want to outlast. I want to go back."
Cherry swallowed.
She wanted the same thing.
But she wouldn't give the campus the satisfaction of hearing it in her voice.
Anna POV
Anna had always believed she was strong.
Not loud strong. Not fight strong. Quiet strong. The kind that gets through exams. The kind that smiles when she's anxious. The kind that doesn't bother people with her feelings.
This campus made that kind of strength feel fragile.
On the second day, she learned her body couldn't hide fear forever.
Her stomach clenched before roll call. Her hands shook when staff walked too close. Her throat tightened when the propaganda hall doors closed.
She hated it.
She hated that her body betrayed her without permission.
At lunch, she forced herself to eat beans curry even when she didn't want to. She chewed slowly, telling herself it was fuel, telling herself she had to keep moving.
Across the room, she saw June and Kitty sitting with their group, composed, controlled, still somehow elegant even in this place. For a second, Anna felt envy. Not jealousy. Envy. The kind that rises when you see someone who looks like she still belongs to herself.
Anna looked down at her tray.
She didn't want to be remembered here as weak.
That night, after the phone ban, the dorm grew too quiet. Silence made fear louder.
Anna heard whispers from the hallway. A staff member walking by, keys jingling, checking doors.
Then she heard Jihye's voice, soft and conspiratorial.
"Guys," Jihye whispered, "I got something."
Anna turned her head slightly.
Jihye held her phone in her palm like it was illegal. Screen brightness low, face lit faintly by the glow. Cherry leaned down first, eyes narrowing, suspicious. NC moved closer next, careful, alert.
Anna scooted toward them.
Jihye showed them a screenshot.
Text. Not a campus notice. Not a schedule. Not propaganda.
A poem.
Anna's heart lifted strangely, like language had suddenly become food.
Jihye whispered, "JP wrote it."
Cherry frowned. "JP can write."
Jihye nodded. "JP can do everything. He just pretends he can't."
NC glanced at the hallway, then back. "Read it quietly."
Jihye scrolled.
Anna read the title line first and felt a chill run down her arms. Not fear. Recognition.
Jihye POV
Jihye didn't trust silence.
Silence was where panic grew.
So she collected small things to fight it.
A tarot deck, shuffled under blankets like a secret prayer. Screenshots of jokes. Notes scribbled in the margins of notebooks. Anything that reminded her she was still a person, not just a trainee.
JP's poem was her newest weapon.
She had gotten it from a private message right before the phone ban hit. JP had sent it to their group chat with one line:
"Don't clown me. Just read."
Then he deleted it immediately after.
Jihye, faster than everyone, had screenshotted it.
She wasn't sure why. Instinct. The same instinct that told her the world was going to get darker and they would need small lights to survive it.
Now, huddled in the dorm, she opened the screenshot again, voice barely a thread.
"This is his prologue," she whispered. "And the first act."
NC leaned closer. Cherry's eyes stayed sharp. Anna looked like she might cry just from the fact that words existed.
Jihye read softly, not dramatic, like she was reciting something sacred in a place that didn't allow sacred things.
Prologue
The Season We Almost Belonged To – Volume 2 Poem
When youth collides with the edge of tomorrow
And laughter learns the weight of goodbye
We meet beneath borrowed seasons
Pretending time will wait for us
Promises bloom like summer rain
Brief, shining, impossible to hold
The room went still.
Not the staff-made stillness of roll call.
A human stillness.
Cherry swallowed once, her throat moving in the dim light.
NC's face softened, just slightly, like she had been holding her own breath all day and didn't realize it.
Anna's eyes shimmered. She blinked hard like she didn't want anyone to see her cry over words.
Jihye scrolled down.
Act I
We believed love was infinite
Because our days felt endless
Hands brushing in hallways
Eyes speaking what pride refused to say
Yet even still waters tremble
When hearts begin to wander
Cherry's mouth tightened, like the line hit somewhere she didn't want it to.
NC's eyes stayed steady, but her fingers clenched lightly at her sleeve.
Anna whispered, barely audible, "That's… true."
Jihye nodded slowly. "It is."
Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Keys jingled.
Everyone moved at once, smooth and practiced, hiding the phone, turning away, pretending they had been asleep. Jihye tucked the tarot deck beneath her pillow and closed her eyes.
The staff member passed. The footsteps faded.
When the room settled again, NC whispered, "We keep this. We don't spread it carelessly."
Cherry murmured, "Why. It's just a poem."
NC answered softly, "Because it reminds us we can still speak. And they don't want that."
Jihye stared at the ceiling.
Outside, wind moved across the campus and the bell rope creaked faintly.
Jihye imagined the bell in the center square, waiting for someone to admit defeat.
She didn't want any of them to ring it.
Not yet.
Not ever.
But she knew how this place worked.
It didn't break you with a single event.
It broke you with repetition.
Beans curry. Rice. Water.
Clipboards. Points. Smiles without warmth.
Extra credit for clapping.
Punishment for looking away.
In the dark, Jihye shuffled her tarot cards once, quietly, under the blanket, just to hear the soft sound of paper against paper.
Not a prophecy.
Just a reminder.
She still had hands. She still had choices.
Even here.
Even now.
And as the campus settled into enforced sleep, each girl held onto her own version of survival.
NC held strategy.
Cherry held pride.
Anna held endurance.
Jihye held small lights.
And somewhere beyond the dorm walls, the bell waited, heavy and patient, like it already knew someone would eventually walk toward it.