Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The Top Student Hides Her Regression
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10 years ago. The morning I headed out to take the college entrance exam.
On the subway, some old man grabbed me by the hair.
"You insolent brat, not yielding your seat to an elder!"
"Aaah!"
"Oh dear, sir! The student was reading and didn't notice!"
"Help! Save me!"
I was the kind of girl who was all but guaranteed to get into Korea University, as long as I didn't bomb the exam.
As long as I didn't bomb it.
And now, 10 years later.
I'm standing on the rooftop.
Obviously not to die.
"I'm up here because this shit's pissing me off..."
My current age: twenty-nine.
All my male classmates who finished military service have jobs already.
The ones who got jobs early are busy with promotions and job-hopping. Even the price tag at the restaurant where we college buddies meet up once a quarter keeps climbing.
Meanwhile, I'm the only one still drifting, stuck in a temp-to-perm internship.
Ever since I turned down that perennial assistant manager—eleven years my senior—who asked me out for drinks after work, he's been hounding me, and my evaluation score for going permanent is rock bottom.
Conversion's already a lost cause, so I'm toughing it out just for the internship paycheck.
...Holding back the urge to bolt.
-Ding-dong.
[Mom: I made kimchi stew at home. Eat it when you get back from work]
"...How am I supposed to face Mom? If I fail this one too."
It's been four years now since I started slipping through the cracks in applications and interviews.
She's not saying it outright anymore after all these failures in a row, but I can tell she's really pinning her hopes on this one.
This suit I'm wearing right now? Mom bought it because I had nothing decent for work.
When I drag myself home late at night, the sink is piled high with Mom's pill packets. She stands on her feet twelve hours a day at that job, keeping her healthy 29-year-old son-of-a-bitch daughter fed.
"What the hell am I gonna do? If I fail this time too."
I sighed and looked up at the sky.
If someone in high school had spoiled my future for me like, "This is how you'll end up," I would've laughed in their face.
Where the hell did it all go wrong?
"Beats me."
I sighed again and glanced at the building across the way.
A massive digital billboard on the high-rise was glowing brightly.
The biggest one on Gangnam Boulevard featured a ridiculously handsome guy in an American football uniform, black paint under his eyes, his face blown up billboard-sized.
And below it, the text read:
[Happy 10th Debut Anniversary, Jeong Eun-seong]
"Why are you chasing me all the way here to rub it in?"
I grumbled at the handsome guy beaming like the sun.
"You know I'm hiding up here because I don't wanna see you, right?"
I glared hard. The photo must've been airbrushed to hell, because the faint scar on Jeong Eun-seong's left cheek wasn't visible from here.
"Still, congrats, Jeong Eun-seong. You made your dream come true."
As long as you don't screw up, you'll keep riding high forever. A little scar on your cheek won't dent that charm of yours.
Q. Why'd you suddenly drop the sob story and start talking about some guy? Who's he?
A. Actor Jeong Eun-seong.
He debuted at 19 as the main vocalist of a boy group under a major agency.
Exploded in popularity right out the gate, became one of Korea's top boy bands... but...
Less than three years in, the leader got busted for drugs and went to prison.
The maknae had a premarital pregnancy scandal with his influencer girlfriend, one variety show regular got blackout drunk at a club and assaulted staff, the eldest hyung went overseas gambling, someone else did a hit-and-run drunk drive-by, the one foreign member quit and bounced to America.
Jeong Eun-seong was the sole survivor, finished out his contract, and switched to acting.
He was my high school classmate, even in my class for a while, but I hadn't seen him since graduation—
Until today.
Jeong Eun-seong came to our company for a photoshoot, and we met again after ten years.
"Kang Da-hye, I'll make damn sure you don't go permanent, you hear me?!"
Of all the timing, it was right when my boss was chewing me out like a dog in front of everyone.
I was flustered, mumbling apologies, when Jeong Eun-seong walked in—and our eyes locked.
"...You recognized me, huh?"
Of course.
Did you see his face? That the look of someone who didn't know me?
At least he had the street smarts not to act like he knew me right there. Thank god.
A puff of white breath escaped my lips as I smirked.
I glanced back at Jeong Eun-seong's 10th anniversary ad one more time.
"You haven't changed a bit since high school."
High school.
Looking back, that was probably the most hopeful time in my life.
Tough, sure, but I believed without a doubt there was a bright future ahead.
Whereas now...
"I'm just smoothly crashing and burning."
I don't want to live like this, but I can't see a way out.
Always frustrated inside, chest tight just thinking about the future.
Every night when I lie down to sleep, the thought that crosses my mind is...
"What if I hadn't taken that subway on exam day?"
I know it's ridiculous to still blame the exam after ten years.
I know bombing the exam doesn't mean your life's over.
But I just want to say that's when it all started going wrong.
Prepping for a retake alone, I got in a car accident, so the next year's exam went down the drain too. After that, everything I touched turned to shit.
A few years back, COVID tanked Mom's shop too.
Nothing went right.
Like someone had twisted my fate on purpose.
For ten straight years.
More than enough time to turn an ambitious teenage girl into a depressed, jobless twenty-something with no dreams or hope.
"Sigh."
I rubbed my stinging eyes with my palms.
Don't cry.
Crying up here would just make me even more pathetic.
"I don't wanna live."
More precisely, I don't want to live like this.
The moment I pulled my hands from my eyes, dusted off, stood up, and turned around.
I locked eyes with someone pushing open the rooftop door.
Jeong Eun-seong.
His face was deadly serious, like he'd overheard my muttering.
I panicked and stepped back—
"...Huh?"
It was 7:30 a.m. I hadn't eaten, my body wrecked from the ordeal, and it buckled under me.
"Kang Da-hye?"
"Wh...? Wha...? Wh-what!"
"Kang Da-hye!!!!!!!"
I fell off the rooftop.
And I regressed.