Ajin was as capable as ever. Either she has a way of coming up with some very convincing bullshit to feed the teachers to diffuse a situation like a fight we had in the class, or she was so well trusted by the teachers that even some iffy stories were taken at face value by them and the school administration. She seemed to have the ability to manipulate narratives to make a believable alternate reality, or maybe she just had a way of telling an alternate reality in a way that people wanted to believe.
No action was taken against anyone. The rest of the day, and the following days, passed as if nothing happened, except that there was an unbearable tension in the air now in the classroom. The weight of unspoken gloom filled the class. There was a sense of nervousness behind smiles and awkward strain in laughter. It felt like an unanchored moment in time that everyone was uncomfortable with. When there was a fixed victim of bullying in the class, normalcy could continue as all the rest of the class had to do was ignore the disgusting and enjoy their carefree high school life. However, with no lamb to slaughter at the moment, we all knew that eventually one of us would be picked and serve as the involuntary sacrifice.
Seyun, who had become a new target for Hechan, just packed and left after the incident and did not come back. I asked Chin if he had been in touch with Seyun or heard anything, but Chin had no idea. Gina was right though to some extent; Chin tried his best to ignore his friend getting bullied. If I were Seyun, I'd feel pretty betrayed too. Only after three days or so, we were told by our homeroom teacher that Seyun's family had to move somewhere suddenly for his parents' work, so Seyun transferred out of our school. Of course, other than the teachers, we all knew what happened, so it must be that Seyun and his parents found some quick way to bail out, which was probably the best for everyone involved.
Something was definitely changing in our class. Hechan had not bullied anyone since the Dongsu incident, so there had been a break of some weeks. That brief break felt like a fragile peace, where we all silently hoped it would last. However, he finally got started again with a new target, but that target got saved in the middle of getting bullied and slipped out of his grip. His female sidekick, Soojin, got badly beaten up by some random girl that barged into our class, not to mention that she was embarrassingly put to sleep by me too.
Ajin, although it has always been the case that she did not interfere with any bullying going on in the class, was explicitly stopped by Hechan from getting involved when she was trying to get the situation under control. The way she approached the scene but was halted and backed off at Hechan's command was a clear visual confirmation that Ajin had no power to do anything. Even if something has always been within expectation, when you actually see it happen with your eyes, things become a little different. To me, it seemed that Ajin wasn't controlled by fear of becoming a new target herself, but rather, she had something important to lose if she ever rubbed Hechan the wrong way.
On top of all this, there was also the new boy Woobin, who was fully devoted to me but still gained a lot of following from the girls in the class for being… well, just good-looking, I guess. He had an effortless charm that seemed to draw people. It's not that Hechan ever wanted to compete in a classroom popularity contest, but Woobin joining the class and becoming a figure of idolization must have been something that probably made Hechan want to puke. To my relief, Woobin wasn't as clingy to me as I initially feared on his first day, but he still came over to where I sat and tried to make small talk whenever the chance arose. I still didn't like him much, but at least toward him, I had no reason to be hostile. And to be honest, I kinda liked the fact that my talking with Woobin was rubbing Hechan the wrong way, although Hechan did not do anything about it. Yet.
Perhaps it's in the back of his mind that Woobin is part of the family now and is off-limits?
In any case, all these things combined undermined the established order in the class that everyone had implicitly accepted before, the order in which Hechan was at the untouchable position at the top. Although Hechan himself did not get challenged in any way, his lackeys got embarrassed in front of everyone yet nothing was done about it. To challenge his underlings meant indirectly challenging his authority, and this bastard certainly wasn't gonna just take that.
As days turned into weeks, it became increasingly clear that the fragile balance we had settled into wouldn't hold for long. I think everyone knew that things would not last like this forever. The King's order was challenged, his soldiers wounded, his subject ran away, and the new prince was charming. There was absolutely no way that Hechan would let this be the end of his reign. Someone would be targeted, brutally crushed to be made an example of, and humiliated, and the fears would be instilled to restore order. Nobody wanted to be that person.
Each day passed increased this tension in the classroom more and more. On one hand, you could say every day that passed without Hechan doing anything was undermining his authority even more. On the other hand, there not being a clear target to be sacrificed meant that anybody could become one at any time, so the fear was increasing every day too.
It was the typical 'calm before the storm' situation, but there was an actual person who could bring that storm any time he wished.