Time to Check Grades
The exams were over. She had all but won the bet, she'd teased the thoroughly riled-up Suyeon to her heart's content, and on top of that, she'd even managed to pet the black cat that always ran away from her.
The day after such a fulfilling day—good mood, good luck, the works—Yeoncheong, who up until now had done nothing but study, finally faced a real, honey-sweet weekend. From early morning, she bustled around the little house.
She sent a congratulatory text to Hasol, whose birthday it actually was, then knocked out the cleaning and laundry she'd been neglecting while buried in her books.
And just as she was putting on her shoes at the front door, ready to fill the utterly bare refrigerator—
Well, that figures.
After confirming, one last time, that her socks were indeed a matching pair, she grinned and headed out the door.
She had no idea whether Suyeon's ominous words—her curse, really—had any truth to them, but so far nothing had affected Yeoncheong. Aside from the traffic lights, that is.
Even those had turned green at every single step she took today, clearing her path ahead. The sky that was supposed to rain was nothing but blue, and she felt for all the world like the main character of some story.
That feeling peaked at the supermarket, right as she snagged the last of the special-sale items, almost none of which had been left.
Wow... she came by at this hour just to buy these.
Her arms were heavy, but her steps were light as she left the store. Yeoncheong snickered to herself—between everything that had happened, she had more than enough material to tease Suyeon thoroughly over her cutesy little curse.
It was only Saturday afternoon. And if she could help it, she wanted to see that reaction with her own two eyes, live and in person.
How was she supposed to hold out until Monday? And what if some more lucky break came along that she could rub in Suyeon's face?
Hurrying her steps home, she whiled away the walk on happy daydreams.
The weekend passed far too quickly compared to the grueling finals, and the endless rainy season came drizzling down again. With the taut, exam-season tension gone from the school, everyday life had returned.
Contrary to her promise with Teacher Jisu, the kids of Class 3-1—who were supposed to come to school with their heads on straight—all slouched around in a collective stupor. Partly because, for some, the weekend was already over and it stung. And partly because...
"Teacher... something's wrong with this."
"With what?"
"My score. It's wrong. Someone stole it, I swear."
The grades were being released far faster than anyone had imagined.
Normally, there'd be some time spent reviewing problems on the test, then a slow, careful check of the short-answer responses one by one—that was the standard way of it.
But apparently the third-years wanted their final grades ready to use for the upcoming college counseling sessions, because the scores from subjects tested just the day before were being released all at once. Fast was an understatement; this was absurd.
"Stole it? What is there to steal? If there's no problem with it, sit down and quit whining."
"...Yes, ma'am."
At the teacher's scolding to cut the nonsense, the grumbling classmate slunk back to her seat, and the next student in line checked her score and short-answer sheet together.
Still a long way from her own turn, Yeoncheong drifted over to linger near the two friends who'd already seen their results.
"Hey, you do better than you expected?"
"No. The short-answer section was graded pretty harshly..."
"Seems like they graded everything strict across the board."
At the lamenting exchange between Hasol and Nayun, she allowed herself a sly little smile. So that's why my luck's been so good lately. It's working out in this department too.
Strict grading actually suited her just fine. All she had to do was avoid the supplementary classes, and locking in the results of the bet even a day sooner was better for her peace of mind.
Lunchtime.
Yeoncheong, huddled in the classroom with her friends, regaled them—Suyeon in particular—with the story of her weekend.
I haven't even used up all my luck yet, she'd say, exaggerating just a little to sound as insufferable as possible. Yet not a single hair on Suyeon's head seemed to rustle in irritation.
She just nodded along serenely, going "Is that so~?" like a saint.
It was exactly the same serene confidence she herself had worn when she'd been sure of winning the bet. Properly served a taste of her own medicine, Yeoncheong turned to Seoha.
"What's with her?"
"The two subjects she checked this morning. She got a hundred on both."
Between Hasol's astonished seriously? and Nayun celebrating as if she were the one who'd scored the hundreds, Yeoncheong—who had momentarily frozen as if shipped off to another dimension—clapped her hands a beat too late.
"Congratulations. It paid off, all that hard work."
Two subjects. Only two subjects left.
She still had room to breathe, which was why she could offer her congratulations in all sincerity.
"Oh~ so you can still congratulate me? For now?"
"What do you mean, 'for now'? My friend got a hundred. Of course I'm going to congratulate her."
The smug leisure of it all was as infuriating as ever, but Suyeon had likewise predicted that a mere two subjects wouldn't shake her.
"Right. Keep it up. Keep congratulating me exactly like this."
And with that, she resolved: this time, she was going to land a real hit on that relaxed, insufferable face.
And hit her hard, she had. Yeoncheong's forehead had ached all weekend from where Suyeon had smacked it.
Was Suyeon's curse finally taking effect now? Or did fortune simply impose a cap on how much luck a person could spend in a given period?
A jar lid she'd barely tightened yesterday refused to budge no matter what she did. She'd turn off the lights and climb into bed, only to remember something she'd forgotten to do. And so on.
It almost felt like Lady Luck was playing games with her, averaging things out.
And the most unfortunate item on that list was...
"I got a hundred!"
"I got a hundred on everything else."
Suyeon and Seoha, reporting their perfect scores.
As the days passed and results trickled out one by one, the two friends in the neighboring class racking up perfect scores in what felt like open competition became the talk of the school.
One claim was that Suyeon had beaten Seoha in chemistry. Then that they'd both scored a hundred on the next test.
To everyone else, it must have looked like a challenger had appeared to dethrone Seoha, the unshakable first-in-the-grade, so the clamor made sense.
But scrutinized closely, the frontrunner for first place was still Seoha. However brilliant Suyeon was, overtaking years of accumulated study was no easy feat.
And while Suyeon had always been a good student, her scores had jumped noticeably beyond even that—prompting endless speculation. The truth, of course, was that it was simply an alliance formed to put one specific person in a maid outfit.
"Hmm, this one's a bit disappointing..."
"I know, right? Nothing where you both hit a hundred at the same time?"
The club room, after school.
Suyeon, mid-audit of the bet—that is, cross-checking the exam scores so far—turned her gaze on Yeoncheong.
"I've already got a hundred on all of them. What more do you want?"
Only a handful of subjects remained.
At the curt reply—her composure long since evaporated—Suyeon stroked her chin thoughtfully.
"Hm... now, who was it that said she'd congratulate us if we got a hundred? I can't quite remember..."
Out of anything to say, Yeoncheong whipped her head away and pressed her palms together.
Exactly one thing left.
All that stood in the way was math—the subject everyone was up in arms about for being brutal—where both of them simply had to fail to score a hundred.
"Teacher? Can't I see the other class's scores?"
The next day, at Teacher Jisu's puzzled look over the question—Yeoncheong being the last, by attendance number, to come check her grades—the teacher tilted her head.
"Of course not."
"...Then just whether Suyeon or Seoha got a hundred on it? Please?"
Hands clasped tightly together, sparkling eyes gazing up from below, plucking at the teacher's sympathies. Layered on top, a voice with just a hint of aegyo.
It was an unconscious act, born of sheer desperation—she couldn't possibly hold out until her friends deigned to tell her—and it moved Teacher Jisu's heart.
"...Fine. I can tell you that much."
"Really!? Thank you, Teacher!"
Tidying the OMR sheets and short-answer papers spread across her desk, the teacher hesitated, lips wavering.
"Seoha. Just the one. Seoha's the only hundred in the entire third year."
BANG!
At that impossible news, Yeoncheong slammed her hand down on the desk before she could stop herself.
"No! Why on earth—!"
Every eye in the classroom snapped toward her in an instant, and a recovered Yeoncheong quickly lowered her voice.
Fortunately, the class assumed the grade announcements were still underway and sank back into their own chatter.
"Seoha really got a hundred? A hundred, and only Seoha?"
"That's right. It was a ninety-eight at first. Got regraded to a hundred."
"Huh?"
When she asked what on earth that meant, it turned out Seoha had filled every inch of the short-answer section—every possible line covered in work. The grader had missed it the first time through and caught it later, correcting the score.
"Usually it's only kids desperate to scrape together partial credit who do that. And to think she wanted it that badly—I never would've guessed it of Seoha."
Just as the teacher said. If that kind of determination had come from a healthy desire to get the problem right, it would have been admirable.
But what had driven Seoha to it was the ambition of putting Yeoncheong in a maid outfit.
And in that moment, Yeoncheong—the girl who had staked everything on luck in the name of prayer—accepted her defeat for certain.
Only one subject remained... but given how desperately she'd clawed her way through the math exam herself, she held out little hope.
After school.
With finals over, the club room—which should have held only three—had Nayun in it as well.
"Hah..."
"Haah..."
They'd gathered to settle the bet once and for all, yet not a word passed between them. Just deep, heaving sighs.
Both sides were clearly doomed, which left Nayun frankly baffled.
"What's wrong with you two? One of you was supposed to have won. Why do you both look like you lost?"
"You won. Teacher Jisu said Seoha got a hundred on the math."
All that bravado lately, and it had all come down to math. A hundred there, and there was nothing left to say.
But the moment Yeoncheong finished speaking, Suyeon's lips began to tremble.
"No. You won, Yeoncheong. They both slipped up on the easiest exam of all..."
Choking on the unfairness of it, she couldn't even finish. A brief silence fell.
A beat late, Yeoncheong processed what her friend had said. Flustered, she shot up from her seat, stammering.
"Really...? You're serious? You're not just lying to mess with me?"
"Do we look like we're lying?"
Seoha buried her face in both hands. Suyeon glared with narrowed eyes.
If this were all an act to tease the celebrating Yeoncheong, it was acting that would put professionals to shame.
"NICE!"
Yeoncheong, realizing she'd genuinely won, let out a whoop of joy.
"Ugh... and it was literally one subject..."
"We got careless because it was the easy one..."
The two friends who'd stumbled on the very last subject sank into despair.
Heaven and hell, spread out across a big table from each other. Watching the scene like a detached observer, Nayun's lips began to twitch.
"The easy one, huh... Earth science, was it?"
Of the notorious four—physics, chemistry, biology, earth science—earth science, along with biology, leaned heavily on rote memorization, making it the comparatively gentle one.
When Seoha gave a faint, hollow nod, Nayun flashed a wide grin.
"Well, whaddya know. We won. I got a hundred on Earth science."
"WHAT!?"
One sentence was more than enough to flip the entire situation on its head.
The club room's atmosphere swung back and forth like a coin being tossed. Color rushed back into the gloomy shadows that had fallen over Suyeon's and Seoha's faces, and just as Yeoncheong had done moments before, they asked again, as if they couldn't believe it.
"Seriously? For real?"
"Of course. Remember how Yeoncheong cheered me on that day, telling me to get a hundred? I guess the prayers worked."
At Nayun, who grinned at her with an obvious you're welcome, a strangled sound escaped Yeoncheong's lips.
"...Eh...?"
She had said she was rooting for her. But had that really been why Nayun scored a hundred? Thinking back on just how absurdly lucky she'd been that day, Yeoncheong couldn't help regretting that she'd jinxed it all by running her mouth.
Frozen solid in the exact pose she'd struck—both hands thrown high, bouncing up and down in celebration—she could only blink her wide, round eyes, with no idea how to react.
Meanwhile, the opponents on the receiving end of this dramatic upset were in full festival mode.
"I believed in you!"
"Things almost went badly without you, Nayun."
An thoroughly excited Suyeon wrapped Nayun in a fierce hug, while Seoha sighed in relief and finally allowed herself to breathe.
And then...
"I—I don't believe it! I won't believe it! I'm not accepting any of this until the report cards come out!"
It wasn't exactly three days of glory. In under three minutes, Yeoncheong had fallen from heaven straight into hell, and she refused to accept the situation.