A Well-Earned Reward
As for a reward for helping—
Using her classmates as human shields during every break, Suyeon had managed to escape unscathed in the end.
With the remedial exams waiting after school, Yeoncheong, who had something important riding on them, had no more time to waste.
"Hey, Baek Suyeon! If I catch you today, you're dead!"
After leaving one final, murderous warning, Yeoncheong set off with Nayun to sit the remedial exam.
"So what exactly happened back there?"
Nayun, who had no idea what the whole affair had been about, got only a vague brush-off from Yeoncheong.
"Something like that."
"Fine, don't tell me. Just focus on the exam. You have to pass, no matter what."
Fail to hit the passing mark, and it was another week on top—remedial classes that could stretch out to three whole weeks at worst. If that happened, she could end up still attending remedials even after the Sports Festival was over.
Preferably—no, *definitely*—better to pass on the first try.
She took her seat in the classroom and got ready for the exam. Since this was a test that decided whether it all ended here or dragged on, the tension in the air rivaled the midterm itself.
"Is everyone here?"
The teacher, who had been waiting in the corner of the classroom, counted heads and handed out the test papers.
"Every single question comes straight from the quizzes. If you studied properly, you will—for sure—pass."
No one answered. The students had already poured every ounce of focus into their papers.
The same went for Yeoncheong, and for Nayun sitting beside her taking the exam as well.
Pass or fail was decided on the spot. Once a student turned in their paper, the teacher graded it and announced the result.
The teacher glanced over one student's paper and gave a small nod. The girl, who had suppressed a whoop of joy, grabbed her bag and slipped out the back door.
That was the future everyone hoped for.
Most students passed the remedial exam on their first attempt. Most.
But when the teacher shook her head lightly and held out a different paper, it was a silent signal: see you again next week. The girl who had just endured yet another soul-crushing quiz left through the back door, her face a portrait of despair.
That was the future no one wanted.
Yeoncheong was working through the questions with everything she had when Nayun, in the seat beside her, rose from her chair. Yeoncheong stole a glance up.
It was only natural for one's eyes to wander to a friend's result.
The teacher gave a nod. Nayun answered with a clenched fist raised toward Yeoncheong in place of any words.
If I fail, I'm guaranteed to become a laughingstock.
Nayun gathered her bag and headed out first. Her friend's success lit a fire under Yeoncheong.
Having finished the last question, Yeoncheong returned to the beginning and quickly checked her answers once more.
A short while later, her review complete, Yeoncheong received the teacher's passing mark without a hitch. As she packed her bag with a light heart and stepped outside, a congratulation came flying her way.
"One look at your face and I can tell you passed."
"Nayun? What are you doing here?"
Nayun was leaning against the wall in the hallway.
"Your friend wanted to know how it went, so I waited. Got a problem with that?"
"I figured you'd have gone to play basketball."
"Your friend waited for you and you can't even say thank you..."
Nayun's gaze sharpened, sweeping from top to bottom. Yeoncheong waved her hands in a placating motion.
"Ah—right, sorry. Thank you."
"Two more to go, yeah?"
"Yep, that's right."
Her blue hair bobbed up and down with the nod.
"Pass them. No excuses. We've got practice to do as soon as remedials are done."
Buoyed by Nayun's well-reasoned encouragement, Yeoncheong set off at once for the next remedial exam room.
***
Having breezed through her second remedial exam, Yeoncheong thought to herself:
The top student really is on another level.
Everything Seoha had flagged as important showed up like a cheat code. Thanks to that, Yeoncheong had been able to snatch a brief moment of rest in the literature remedial classroom.
Students taking other remedial exams or wrapping up club activities trickled into the room one by one.
With this particular teacher at the helm, the students' expressions had gone beyond nervous and into something closer to grim resolve.
"Hm? You're here early today."
Seobin, noticing that Yeoncheong had arrived earlier than usual, took the seat beside her and asked, opening a notebook filled with neatly summarized remedial notes.
"You passed everything?"
Instead of answering, Yeoncheong raised a V with her index and middle fingers. Seobin let out a small gasp of admiration.
"So all that's left is literature."
"Naturally."
Right on the hour, the literature teacher walked into the classroom. Sweeping her gaze across the students, she spoke.
"Everything back in your bags. You're taking a test."
As the students filed their books away one by one, Seobin gave Yeoncheong a little nudge.
When Yeoncheong looked up, Seobin whispered.
"Fighting."
"Fighting."
Yeoncheong snorted a laugh and raised her fist for a quick fist bump.
And then, from the front, the literature exam papers made their way down.
Sure enough.
The literature teacher had made her remedial exam every bit as brutal as her reputation promised.
Not a sound could be heard—yet somehow, you could almost hear the groans rising from every corner of the room.
Yeoncheong was no exception.
No matter how pinpoint Seoha's tutoring had been, there was a limit to how much Yeoncheong's brain could absorb in such a short window of time.
There had been a few small speed bumps along the way, but Yeoncheong, who had been cruising through the questions, finally slammed into a wall too big to climb.
Ugh... it's all blurring together and it's driving me crazy. I'm pretty sure Seoha went over this exact thing...
The answer hovered just out of reach, and that only made the frustration worse.
The teacher, who had been watching her students from behind the podium, checked the clock.
"Ten minutes left. If you're done, you may turn in your paper."
Even at the teacher's words, the classroom stayed silent. With a literature exam stuffed wall-to-wall with long reading passages, the real question was whether anyone could finish in time at all.
Clouded by that maddening almost-there feeling, Yeoncheong anxiously began bouncing her leg as the time limit crept closer.
And then—something surfaced—and she froze mid-bounce.
It was a memory of the day Seoha had been teaching her.
***
One of the days Yeoncheong had spent studying literature under Seoha's guidance.
She couldn't quite remember why it had happened, but she knew she'd been bouncing her leg that day too.
The desk Yeoncheong used in the club room was somehow warped, sitting just slightly off-balance.
The room was littered with spare desks, so swapping it out would have been easy enough.
But she rarely needed the desk at all in the first place, and it had never been more than a minor nuisance during exam prep, so she'd simply kept using it.
Except when she bounced her leg, the desk wobbled up and down. Seoha, pressed in close for their one-on-one lesson, noticed it at once—even if Yeoncheong, half her soul escaped under Seoha's proximity, did not.
After several pointed glances failed to stop the shaking, Seoha took matters into her own hands.
Slipping down beneath the desk, Seoha's left hand closed around Yeoncheong's thigh.
A spot that no one's hand ever had any business touching. Seoha's fingers traced along it, and the hem of Yeoncheong's skirt rode up ever so slightly. At the soft sensation of her thigh being stroked, Yeoncheong flinched.
A pair of little suns blazing on both her cheeks, Yeoncheong stammered.
"S-Seoha?"
"The desk keeps shaking."
Only then did Yeoncheong's leg fall obediently still—and her slightly parted knees drew neatly together.
Still stroking her thigh, Seoha caught the bunched-up hem and smoothed it back down.
"Shall we keep going? This part's important."
"Y-yeah."
And so the one-on-one lesson resumed.
Except Seoha's left hand, once it had made its descent, stayed exactly where it was—resting on Yeoncheong's thigh. Or to be precise, on top of her skirt.
***
...I remember now.
Yeoncheong ducked her head deep.
Thanks to that bouncing leg, the material came flooding back. Along with a memory she could have done without.
Her face flared hot on pure reflex.
"Five minutes left."
Snapping back to her senses, Yeoncheong shook her head side to side and shook off the thoughts along with it.
Her hands got busy again. Armed with that vividly resurrected memory, her pen swept across the page without resistance.
The moment her never-stopping pen finally dotted its last period, the teacher rapped the podium twice.
"Time. Papers to the back."
Handing in her paper, Seobin let out a long, deep breath and turned her head to the right—to ask how the exam of the remedial buddy who always sat beside her had gone.
But one look at Yeoncheong's face, and Seobin had no choice but to change her question.
"Yeoncheong, why is your face so red?"
"Oh, it's—it's nothing..."
Covering her mouth with her hand, Yeoncheong shook her head.
***
Having seen Seobin off as she departed with a bright, easy smile, Yeoncheong paused to think it over.
Should I stop by the club room first?
Best case, the runaway Suyeon would be there. And if not, she could just write it off as taking a stroll.
Arriving at the club room at a leisurely pace, Yeoncheong reached for the door.
It'll open.
Confirming it wasn't locked, she flung the door wide.
"Baek Su! Yeon—huh?"
Yeoncheong froze at the appearance of someone she had not expected. Through the open door, a breeze stirred a curtain of silky black hair.
Seoha had been waiting for her.
"Suyeon said she might genuinely die if she waited with me, so she left early."
"Did she now?"
Yeoncheong closed the door carefully behind her, scratching her cheek awkwardly.
Seoha, who had been chuckling, asked:
"Judging by all that energy, I take it you passed everything."
"It's all thanks to you, Seoha."
Seoha studied her for a quiet moment, then said:
"Then can I look forward to a reward?"
"A reward?"
Seoha nodded.
"Hasol helped you with the midterms too, and she asked you to take her to the after-party as thanks, remember?"
"I—I mean, yes."
Apparently she'd heard it firsthand—Seoha knew the details all too well.
"Then shouldn't I get to look forward to a reward too?"
Seoha took a step closer, as if she were ready to collect.
"I—I don't exactly have anything to give you right now..."
Yeoncheong, empty-handed in every sense, took a step back.
Even so, Seoha didn't stop. She closed the distance with another step.
"Then how about a favor? You can grant that much, can't you?"
"What kind?"
"You just have to stand still. Close your eyes."
Close her eyes.
At those last words, Yeoncheong's blue eyes wavered.
"C-close my eyes...?"
"Honestly, you could keep them open, but I figured it might make you uncomfortable."
When Yeoncheong kept hesitating, Seoha added one more thing.
"If you hate it, you can tell me to stop halfway through."
"It's nothing weird, right?"
"Not at all."
Hearing all that, Yeoncheong decided the terms weren't bad at all.
"Okay. I just have to stand here and stay still, right?"
Seoha nodded, and Yeoncheong closed her eyes.
In a world plunged into darkness, the sound of Seoha's approaching footsteps grew ever clearer.
Seoha's footsteps stopped with a soft tap, and Yeoncheong's nerves wound tighter still. Her head swiveled this way and that as she scanned the darkness for no good reason.
Just as the unbearable suspense drove her to the verge of calling Seoha's name—Yeoncheong flinched.
A soft, whispering rustle.
Hair that sometimes caught the sunlight and gleamed like a clear blue sky, and other times deepened into a shade like the dark of the sea, swayed gently side to side beneath Seoha's touch.
Startled by the sudden contact, Yeoncheong realized what it was: Seoha's hand, stroking her hair.
This was the favor?
All that build-up just to pat her head. And yet somehow, the sheer audacity of asking to stroke her hair.
There was real feeling in those careful, delicate fingers. Did Seoha actually like her? Yeoncheong, who had almost opened her eyes, found her thoughts tangling into knots.
Watching Yeoncheong keep her eyes squeezed firmly shut, Seoha let a soft smile bloom.
She was savoring the fruits of a week's worth of effort.
This feels... so strange...
Maybe it was because her eyes were closed, but the hand combing through her hair felt impossibly sensitive. Yeoncheong didn't know what to do with the tingling, ticklish warmth spreading through her.
But Seoha's stroking went on for quite a while. And Yeoncheong never once asked her to stop.