Recompense [ Inso's Law ]

5: Record

Dark and hidden behind two boxes underneath the girl's bed, the notebook's cover rests with frayed edges. Standing in contrast to the organized information around it, one page is filled with scrawled text and scribbles.

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Why does everything seem to be a romance trope? Is 'webnovel' just another term for romance novels? Why is everyone I see suddenly smiling at eachother weirdly?

T̶o̶d̶a̶y̶,̶ ̶D̶a̶d̶ ̶s̶a̶i̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶M̶o̶m̶ ̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶o̶w̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶g̶e̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶c̶o̶l̶l̶e̶g̶e̶.̶ ̶S̶o̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶e̶l̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶d̶u̶c̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶r̶-̶c̶r̶o̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶e̶r̶s̶?̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶I̶'̶v̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶e̶t̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶n̶d̶p̶a̶r̶e̶n̶t̶s̶?̶ ̶

̶?̶?̶?̶?̶?̶

I hate it here.

I also hate the fact that reading romance novels may be the key to my survival. Between jumping out the window and reading one more disgustingly cliche story, the window is looking awfully tempting. (If Mom smiles knowingly at me when I grab a romance novel one more time, the decision will already be made)

I saw some boy run through a crowd to return this girl's wallet, and immediately thought "meet-cute." I'm going insane. 

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A crumpled yellow note is shoved into a desk. A new school year has begun. The notebook's pages stay unchanged for a while before a single line is written on an empty page.

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I didn't remember.

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Gradually, photos upon photos filled the USB drive. Spurred some manic obsession, they were taken from all over. Promotional materials, yearbook photos, school websites, social media posts with barely a few likes―all screenshots or downloads from the last couple months. Alongside them was a single spreadsheet file filled with information.

The notebook recorded the final results.

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Amount of Photos collected: 246

→mostly from social media or online searches (yep, this feels creepy)

Amount of Four Heavenly Kings: 634

→Didn't seem to have any duplicates but I may have missed some

Amount of Four Heavenly Kings with brown or Black hair: 396

Percentage of Four Heavenly Kings with brown or Black hair: ≈62.46%

Percentage of Koreans with brown or black hair according to the 20XX Census Data: 91.72%

Conclusion: W̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶.̶ Even if I counted some incorrectly, the difference is still massive. In short, appearance does link to importance. So, anyone with vibrant hair is more likely to be a Four Heavenly King. And Four Heavenly Kings tend to be more important to the story.