A Choice Made with a Plan
The weekend after her shelter volunteer trip passed by (and Yeoncheong, having taken to calling herself a puppy, spent that day getting thoroughly pampered with head pats).
Time marched toward mid-April, and with it came the midterms looming at the edge of the calendar.
Studying mattered to every student, of course, but especially to the third-years.
The third-year classrooms, where teachers' pleas to study had always been dismissed as mere nagging, were now wound especially tight.
In a world where a college degree had become the bare minimum, students couldn't afford to coast like before when faced with such concrete stakes.
The two exams left in this semester alone could change the tier of university they'd apply to.
A hush of self-study settled over the classroom as a whole — so much so that even Yeoncheong and Nayun, who seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with studying, took their seats and actually opened their books.
Which was exactly why Yeoncheong and her friends went looking for a refuge outside the classroom where they could breathe easy.
There was the club room, tucked away in a corner where few footsteps wandered and quiet reigned — and as it happened, they had the key.
"Ahh~ I seriously have no idea how to thank Ms. Jisu for this."
While Suyeon sprawled across a desk, taking her rest, Yeoncheong — seated beside Seoha with her books open — shifted her lips uncertainly.
"If she found out, she'd just take the key back, wouldn't she?"
All Jisu had done was hand it over, saying she trusted the two of them. That certainly hadn't been permission to use it like this.
Friendly as she was with her students, a teacher was still a teacher. If she learned of the current situation, confiscation would be a certainty.
But Suyeon just brushed it off, asking who else would come all the way to this back corner at this hour anyway.
"As long as we don't get caught, who cares? It's a fact that it lets us study while chatting comfortably with everyone."
"...Well. Fair enough."
Yecheon couldn't exactly argue that point, so she just nodded along.
A thank-you gift, huh... Teacher's Day is in May, too. I should start thinking about something appropriate.
It wasn't only about the club room key. Jisu had volunteered to take her class, serving as homeroom teacher for two years running.
When it came to people worth thanking at school, she ranked right up there with Chairwoman Yurim, who had helped with her transfer.
Yeoncheong bundled the three keywords — Teacher's Day, Ms. Jisu, gift — together in her head and filed them away as neatly as if she were studying them.
Just then, Nayun poked at Suyeon, who was lounging around on the desk, with her pen.
"Hey, quit wriggling up there. You're shaking my desk. And aren't you supposed to be studying?"
Hasol was studying with Yeoncheong, and Yeoncheong was studying with Seoha — Nayun's point being that Suyeon was being far too relaxed about it all.
"I'm working hard in my own way. You've got to take it easy during times like this, when we're all together."
"...You. What happens if you lose this exam to me?"
Suyeon seemed to think she was studying in her own fashion.
But Nayun, who had traded blows with Yeoncheong at every exam last year, wasn't fazed by the taunt in the slightest.
"Nayun. As wild as this sounds, isn't me beating Seoha actually more plausible than you catching up to me?"
Instead, a counterattack came flying back...
Thwack.
"Ow!"
Nayun's patience ran out and she resorted to physical force.
Suyeon, having taken the rolled-up notebook to the stomach, rubbed her belly while Nayun muttered that this hadn't nearly settled the score.
"Ugh... it stings worse because it's true."
"You know it's true, so why are you hitting me? Honestly..."
"I'm hitting you because it's true! You deserve a beating for it!"
"Kyaa!"
A merciless whaling ensued, Suyeon's sprawled form serving as the target for notebook-turned-club.
Hasol, watching the two scuffle with an air of long familiarity, murmured as she played mediator.
"If you only picked the better score from each of Nayun's and Yeoncheong's results, you might actually stand a chance."
At this passing remark, Nayun's eyes lit up.
"Hmm... that might actually be worth a shot."
Her amber eyes slid sideways toward Yeoncheong, hard at study.
Seoha was pressed close beside her, walking her through the difficult parts, while Yeoncheong groaned and struggled yet somehow kept striving to understand.
And so it was.
Neither of them was slacking off on their studies like last year, and this was their first midterm since moving up a grade.
If a wager was to be made, now was the perfect moment.
"What do you say, Yeoncheong? Two-on-one this time?"
"Hm? What?"
But Yeoncheong only tilted her head.
She'd apparently been so absorbed in the difficult sections that she hadn't heard a word.
"Why are you taking a random remark so seriously? Yeoncheong studies hard, you know. Hurry up and study yourself."
Was studying impossible for Nayun without a bet on the line?
Hasol tapped Nayun's book, telling her to focus.
"Ugh, hold on just a second."
But Nayun couldn't give up so easily.
She was convinced this was her one and only chance to beat Suyeon, who sat two whole rungs above her in the rankings.
Undeterred by the interference, Nayun dutifully explained what conversation she'd been attempting, then naturally waited for Yeoncheong's agreement.
Competitive spirit aside, she'd assumed Yeoncheong would be thinking the same thing.
"Hmm... sorry. Midterms — I wasn't planning on trying that hard for them."
But what came out of Yeoncheong's mouth was...
Hardly the kind of thing one would expect from a third-year whose almost singular goal was getting into university.
***
In a sense, it was a bombshell declaration — blowing off the single exam that carried the most weight.
"WHAT?!"
No one could say who yelled first, but the chorus of shouts made Yeoncheong jolt in surprise.
"You scared... me. Even you, Seoha? Is it really that shocking?"
"Of course it is!"
"Hasn't your dad said anything? Aren't you going to college?"
"I am going."
For all that Yeoncheong might be the type of child parents describe with a fond 'as long as she grows up healthy.'
For all that her father might shrug that any university short of a prestigious one was much the same.
Unless she was learning a trade, virtually any path in this country demanded that tired old college degree — that was simply the air everyone breathed.
And Yeoncheong knew the trend well enough.
Which made her friends find her claim that she wouldn't study hard for the exams all the more baffling.
"Rolling admissions only count your senior grades through the first semester! By the weight of it, you should be working even harder right now!"
"Oh."
"Not 'oh' — !"
Only then did Yeoncheong realize the conversation had gone slightly off the rails.
There were indeed two routes into university — rolling admissions and the CSAT track — but among current students, rolling admissions claimed the higher ratio.
After all, going head-to-head with repeat test-takers who spent an entire year doing nothing but preparing for the entrance exam was a tall order.
Her friends had simply assumed Yeoncheong would be aiming for rolling admissions too.
"So you weren't even going to give rolling admissions a glance. Got it."
Among them, only Seoha — who had been calmly observing how things unfolded — caught the disconnect a beat ahead of the others.
"Whaa? Seriously?"
"So you're going the CSAT route?"
"Taking the hard road on purpose?"
It sounded a little odd to put it this way, but the college entrance exam bore little resemblance to a pure assessment of academic ability.
Its very nature demanded that it sort students into clear-cut grades, so the difficulty went without saying. The broad framework was largely fixed, which meant shortcut techniques for zeroing in on correct answers existed, and so on.
Naturally, the repeat and triple-takers who poured all their time into that particular system held the overwhelming advantage.
"I know that."
Yeoncheong shrugged.
Even so, there was a reason behind her choice.
Her friends looked utterly unable to comprehend, so Yeoncheong spread her fingers and explained.
"First of all, there's my grades — and my attendance record is a serious problem too."
There was a gaping hole of unexcused absences in the middle of her second year.
Even if she somehow made it to an interview stage, questions about it would be unavoidable, and she had zero confidence in re-explaining what had happened back then.
The second reason that followed was related in its own way.
"And I don't trust myself to sit through an interview."
She had no hope of properly explaining her complicated circumstances and the upheaval in her life — and she couldn't bear the thought of the looks she'd receive while trying.
You could search the whole world over and Yeoncheong wouldn't technically be unique, but she was undeniably one of a kind, rare to the point of near singularity.
And she knew full well that not every gaze aimed at such a person would be a kind one.
"I'm a girl now. I'd hate to have people gossiping about how I used to be a boy."
Besides, she was still young, Chairwoman Yurim said.
Someday, the years she'd lived as a woman would outnumber the ones she'd lived as a man.
That was why Yurim advised against airing an unreturnable past, and Yeoncheong felt exactly the same way.
"Oh..."
"I'm sorry. I didn't even think that far."
She'd simply adapted so well that it slipped their minds.
Her friends fell quiet as it dawned on them, anew, that the girl before them had lived through something no one could truly empathize with.
What had begun as a conversation about midterms and college admissions had somehow drifted into territory that jabbed at Yeoncheong's sore spots.
So in the heavy silence, Yeoncheong forced her voice bright.
"Hey~ if we get all gloomy like this, I'm the one who looks like a fool for bringing it up."
She waggled her lips, all but daring them to tease her like they always did.
"You asked for it?"
Suyeon joined the effort to drag the mood back up, in her own way.
"What are you going to say? No. Don't. Just don't."
"Boo hoo~ Yeoncheong, who threw her promise of equal treatment straight out the window, shall now face awakening."
"Y-you—!"
At that combination of words — a pointed reminder of what had happened over the weekend — Yeoncheong sprang to her feet and pounced on her lounging friend.
But Suyeon was up in a flash, widening the distance and dodging the attack.
"Aaargh! Why do you never get caught?!"
"I can read every move you're going to make, dear."
In raw athletic ability, Yeoncheong held a slight edge, but Suyeon's half-beat-ahead reactions, as if she held Yeoncheong in the palm of her hand, were truly superb.
The razor-thin standoff continued.
Studying had been abandoned mid-sentence for friends to suddenly start scuffling across the desks, and the heavy atmosphere swiftly reclaimed its usual shape.
"You brats! If you're going to fight, take it outside! I have midterms to ace!"
Nayun bellowed that her midterms were the urgent ones here.
Hasol pulled the chairs inward, clearing a lane for them to run wild and making sure no one got hurt.
"The CSAT... so she's going the CSAT route..."
And Seoha was busily drawing up a whole new plan for how to help Yeoncheong study.
***
In the end, Nayun, who had managed less than ten minutes of actual studying afterward, grumbled.
"Wow... I got zero studying done."
"It was fun, though."
"We're coming back after school, you know? If this happens again then, you're dead."
Nayun gathered her books and stepped out of the club room first, while Hasol declared she'd join the group starting next week.
Just like last year, this year's exam prep would apparently take place in the club room as well.
Tucking in chairs, closing the windows — the room's owners finished the sparse bit of tidying up and rose from their seats together.
"Really... we need to decorate this place as soon as possible."
Suyeon, surveying a space where a few bookshelves, one large table, and five chairs still constituted the entirety of the furnishings, issued a mission to her two club members.
"You two. We're decorating the club room tomorrow, so bring anything useful."
"Tomorrow? Shouldn't we wait until midterms are over?"
Yeoncheong hesitated, feeling the room was perfectly fine as it was, but the club president shook her head firmly.
"Nope. We're only using it for one semester. It was cozy and clean at first, but now it's just too bare — I can't stand it."
"What should we bring, then?"
When Seoha asked for specifics, Suyeon considered for a moment, then raised her index finger, lips twitching with mischief.
"Anything at all! Whatever you want!"
She flung her arms wide, gesturing at the tidy room — which, depending on your perspective, looked distinctly empty.
"It's our club, and it's our hangout. However we decorate it, who's going to complain?"
All the grand talk aside, she hadn't actually thought of a single thing.
It was a quintessentially Suyeon move.