I Didn't Study (Seriously, I Didn't)
Bag slung over her shoulder, Yeoncheong stepped into her shoes at the front door. The clock had only just crawled past eight, yet she was already hurrying out of the house.
Something about exam days made her feel she had to get to school early and at least glance over her notes. Yeoncheong was no exception to that superstition.
It was a mere fifteen minutes earlier than usual, but the road to school was already busy with girls heading to class. Having left home and merged into the stream of students, Yeoncheong murmured today's exam subjects under her breath.
Perhaps because the clustered girls walked so briskly, she arrived at school in no time.
She was changing into her indoor shoes when she froze halfway into the classroom. Someone was already sitting at her seat.
Oh, right. We're seated by exam number. I forgot.
They'd rearranged the desks just last week, and she'd completely blanked on it. Naturally, Yeoncheong's gaze drifted to the very back row.
Ha Yeoncheong. Alphabetically—well, name-order—she was always either dead last or one seat away from it.
Settling into the pristine, empty desk, she immediately pulled out her textbooks and workbooks.
Who on earth decided to make math the first subject?
The classroom was so quiet that the only sound was the rustle of turning pages. Everyone who'd come early was buried in last-minute review.
Checking over the problem types she was weak on and the questions she'd missed on practice quizzes, Yeoncheong launched into her final sprint.
Teacher Jisu slipped quietly into the room, carried a chair up front, and sat down. She scanned the room for absentees, then wrote the exam time, subject, total number of students, and number absent on the blackboard.
When the first-period warning bell rang, the homeroom teacher rose from her seat.
"Do your best on the exam."
A chorus of "Yes, ma'am" rose from here and there across the classroom as the teacher stepped out. A moment later, the proctor came in, instructing everyone to stuff everything they'd been looking at into their bags.
The classroom was filled with nothing but the scratch of pens moving across paper.
Hard work never betrays you—or so they said. Yeoncheong could feel the payoff of those one-on-one lectures from her wonderful friends.
But there simply hadn't been enough time. Two weeks was nowhere near long enough to patch up every hole in her understanding. Pen spinning between her fingers, Yeoncheong sank deep into thought.
I can't even get a feel for it...
It was like running headfirst into problem thirty—clearly designed so that no one could solve it.
Desperate to scrape together even partial credit, she wrote something down with great effort, only to erase it again. Over and over.
Just then, Teacher Jisu cracked open the front door and poked her head in.
"Any confusing parts? Questions?"
"Ms. Jisu, it's way too hard."
At Hasol's whine from the front row, Teacher Jisu replied dryly,
"If you could all ace it, there'd be no point in giving an exam, would there?"
Finishing the banter with a grin, she swept her gaze around the room, double- and triple-checked that no one had problems, then exchanged a nod with the proctor and moved on to the next classroom.
The restored silence was soon filled once more with the sound of problem-solving.
"Ten minutes left. Start filling in your answer sheets."
At the proctor's announcement—given after a glance at the clock mounted at the front—the classroom grew a little busier.
While everyone began slowly transferring their answers, Yeoncheong was staring hard at her written-response sheet. She was agonizing over the final question, which she'd already covered in whatever scribbles came to hand.
It's either zero or one.
Having concluded her deliberation atop the twin pillars of short-answer tests—zero or one—Yeoncheong drew a single bold line.
Shortly after confirming her marked answers one last time, the bell rang to signal the end of the first exam.
The proctor counted the answer sheets, wished everyone luck, and left the room.
Instantly, the classroom erupted.
The reactions of classmates who'd just survived the day's greatest hurdle were all over the map. Some wandered around holding their question papers, comparing answers. Others dove straight into preparing for the next exam. Still others rushed to recharge the sudden energy drain with sugar.
Even Yeoncheong—half-melted onto her desk from sheer mental exhaustion—received a visit from friends.
"You've only done one exam and you're already trying to die?"
That was Suyeon, still bursting with energy.
"The math seemed pretty rough... Did it go okay?"
And that was Hasol, the benefactor who'd saved her. Apparently she'd come to see how her student's studying had paid off.
"Thanks to you, I think I'll dodge the remedial classes."
"That's all I needed to hear."
Hasol nodded with satisfaction. Suyeon tilted her head, puzzled.
"Was it hard?"
"Oh, be quiet. Someone with your brain wouldn't get it—I thought I was going to die."
When Yeoncheong shot her a glare, Hasol chuckled.
"Work hard on the next one too."
The incoming proctor cut the conversation short. The two girls returned to their seats, and Yeoncheong, taking her question paper and answer sheet from the front, threw herself back into exam mode.
During midterm week, exams were held only in the mornings.
In the afternoon, students usually studied in the school's self-study room or classroom, or headed home to study there. Yeoncheong, however, prepared for the next day's subjects in the club room with Hasol and Suyeon.
Apparently, having someone studying beside you naturally pushed you to study more.
She got several times more out of her hours than she ever did studying alone at home—and as a bonus, her friends were smart enough that asking a question always produced an answer and a full solution.
Once the grueling first day was behind her, the final day arrived in a blink.
By the time only one subject remained, the heavy air the midterms had brought with them had thinned considerably in the classroom.
"Yeoncheong, did you study a lot for the literature exam?"
Yeoncheong shook her head at Hasol's question.
"Nope, didn't study at all. What about you, Hasol?"
"Me? Not all that much either."
With such a short window to shore up weak subjects, selection and focus were essential. It was only natural that literature—a subject you could manage if you could just read—had slid down the priority list.
Suyeon, who'd been listening quietly, narrowed her eyes.
"Kang Hasol. I watched you spend all of yesterday doing nothing but Korean, so where exactly is this lie coming from?"
At Suyeon's expose, Yeoncheong studied Hasol's face. Hasol smiled awkwardly and countered.
"Yeoncheong said she didn't study either, didn't she? That's just how it works—you say you didn't even when you did."
"Uh... is that how it works...?"
Yeoncheong's voice was dead serious as she searched both their faces. Two pairs of eyes went round with surprise and locked.
"Yeoncheong, you seriously didn't study?"
"If I didn't, then I didn't... I was busy studying other things, so I barely touched it..."
Shadows fell across Hasol's and Suyeon's faces. Moments later, the proctor walked in carrying the Korean exam papers.
"Yeoncheong, rest in peace."
"Huh?"
Suyeon darted back to her seat, and Hasol quickly supplied the explanation.
"The literature teacher writes the hardest exam in the whole school."
"The exam begins shortly. Take your seats."
"Yes, ma'am."
And with even Hasol gone, Yeoncheong muttered under her breath,
Could you people warn me about these things in advance?
The bell announced the end of the final exam, and the teacher hushed the chattering students.
"Back row. Collect the answer sheets."
Yeoncheong dragged her chair back and hauled herself up with visible effort. The way she went around collecting answer sheets, half her soul seemed to have departed her body.
Was that really just a school exam I just took?
The Korean exam did come with more pages than the other subjects, but this had been beyond anything she'd imagined.
Reading the passages alone ate up a huge chunk of time, and every time she tried to tackle a question, she had to go trudging back through the text all over again.
The time limit was absurdly tight. It felt less like a school exam and more like a mock CSAT or an actual college entrance test.
The proctor finally took the answer sheets from Yeoncheong's hands, compared the student count against the sheet count, and left the room—which was when the wailing broke out everywhere.
"Ugh, insane. What was wrong with that Korean exam?"
"Were we actually supposed to read all of that and answer in time?"
Her classmates were clearly fed up with the bomb dropped on them at the very end.
Teacher Jisu walked in for the end-of-day homeroom and faltered at the mood in the room.
"What's going on? What's the matter with you all?"
Complaints came pouring in from every direction at once. Unable to bear it any longer, Teacher Jisu rapped her attendance book against the lectern.
Only then did the room quiet down, and she spoke.
"Take that up with the teacher who wrote it. Aren't you all going home? Should we just skip homeroom?"
When the homeroom teacher picked up her attendance book and made to leave again, the classmates called out her name to stop her.
Having gotten halfway out the front door, Teacher Jisu returned to the lectern and continued.
"If your grades come out bad, you just take supplementary lessons. Isn't that great? The teachers will personally teach you everything you're missing. And if you pass the makeup exam right away, it's only a week—no, wait. Just five days."
"Ms. Jisu, no. We don't want it either way."
Spotting signs of the room getting noisy again, Teacher Jisu moved first.
"Anyway, exams are all over, so go home and rest. Play around, forget all about it. Got it?"
As if refusing to tolerate any further local broadcast, she hurried into the closing announcements.
The students' grumbling lasted all of a moment.
Just as Teacher Jisu had said, the midterms that had tormented them for so long were finally over. Relieved classmates gathered in little clusters, brimming with plans to savor an early-afternoon release.
Yeoncheong was no different. In a way, she'd studied harder for these exams than for anything else in her life, so she had no regrets.
She simply packed her bag, thinking, well, Korean's a guaranteed trip to remedial class.
I should just go home and rest.
With that thought, Yeoncheong tidied up her friend's desk that she'd borrowed for three days and stood.
"Yeoncheong!"
Only one person came charging at the sound of her name. Thanks to repeated training, Yeoncheong dodged Suyeon's lunge.
Suyeon's arms flailed through empty air. Behind her, as she glared at Yeoncheong, Hasol walked up.
"Yeoncheong, do you have plans today?"
"Not really..."
Feeling an inexplicable sense of foreboding, Yeoncheong drew the word out long and slow.
Having caught her on the second attempt, Suyeon beamed.
"Let's go hang out!"
"Just the three of us?"
"You can invite anyone you want, but Yeoncheong, you don't have that many friends anyway."
Yeoncheong flinched. It wasn't wrong, but it stung.
"What about Nayun?"
"She said she already had plans with friends from another class."
"What about Seoha?"
"Seoha?"
Hasol and Suyeon's eyes met, as if the name had caught them both off guard.
"We didn't ask her. She usually turns down that kind of invite anyway."
Hasol nodded along in agreement.
"I'll ask her now."
Unable to find Seoha in the classroom, Suyeon pulled out her smartphone.
Seizing that opening, Hasol closed the distance, cutting off Yeoncheong's sneaking retreat.
"Yeoncheong, I'll take my payment now."
"Huh?"
"As thanks for tutoring you. This is what I'll take. That's okay, right?"
Yeoncheong made a strangled nngh sound and scratched her head. Then she let out a long, deep breath and spoke.
"...Fine."
Coming from Suyeon, she might have found a way to squirm out of it—but when Hasol, who had worked so hard to help her, put it that way, there was no escape route left.