The Shocking Fitness Test
As they drew closer to where the teacher and students were gathered, voices drifted over. They were chatting idly before class began.
Spotting Seoha and Yeoncheong running toward them, Hasol spoke up.
"Teacher, everyone's here."
"Really? That's everyone, right?"
Hasol nodded with an utterly certain look on her face. The moment Yeoncheong and Seoha arrived, the bell signaling the start of class rang out from the school building.
"You all know who I am by now, so no need for introductions, right?"
"Actually, there's a transfer student."
"Transfer student... ah, was it Class 1 that had the transfer student?"
As the PE teacher craned her head around looking for the transfer student, the students parted like the Red Sea. The two of them came face to face in a rather unusual manner.
"Hi there, I'm Min Hayeong, your PE teacher."
"I'm Ha Yeoncheong."
"Right, then. Don't get hurt. That's all you need to remember in my class."
The teacher, who had introduced herself as Min Hayeong, smiled brightly. She looked about as young as Teacher Jisu, their homeroom teacher. Perhaps because she taught PE, or perhaps simply because she was a young teacher, she was remarkably friendly with the students.
Seizing her moment, Hasol thrust her hand into the air and cut in.
"Teacher, in that spirit, how about free time today?"
"No. Way. Give you free time and most of you just sit around resting. And how many times have I said we're doing the fitness assessment today? You were late for your first class, so it's happening today no matter what."
This had been the exchange the students had been having with Teacher Hayeong long before Yeoncheong arrived. With that much said, even Hasol had no choice but to retreat.
"If we finish early, we can rest, right?"
At Hasol's attitude—no longer even bothering to hide it—Teacher Hayeong let out a light, exasperated laugh.
"Fine. If you finish early."
Hayeong nodded as if she couldn't win. Starting with Hasol, motivation began to spring up in the eyes of the students who'd been dreading the whole thing.
The class bustled about preparing for the fitness assessment, which proceeded by attendance number—in other words, alphabetical order of names. Hasol and Suyeon followed Teacher Hayeong around, setting up the various measuring equipment.
The school really is nice, isn't it.
A private school—and not just any private school, a rich one. An athletic field laid with artificial turf, a running track, tennis courts visible across the way, even all the little pieces of measuring gear. The school clearly didn't skimp on money.
Last in the order of names, Yeoncheong stood at the very back, clenching and unclenching her fists over and over.
After becoming a girl, she'd undergone all sorts of tests at the hospital and confirmed she was healthy. But entirely separate from that, she knew absolutely nothing about her current physical capabilities.
The only thing she knew for certain was that nothing like a manga where the hero suddenly grows stronger while moving boxes had happened during her move.
At the little beep of the machine signaling the start, Yeoncheong lifted her head. The shuttle run—shuttling back and forth across the cones—came first.
Still, I should be better at this than the other girls, right?
Watching her classmates drop out rapidly, Yeoncheong thought so. Considering that more than half of her day was spent sitting at a desk, it was only a natural conclusion.
Teacher Hayeong barked at them not to slack off just so they could rest sooner, but to the students genuinely doing their best, the warning fell on deaf ears.
Some of them are really good, though.
It went without saying for Hasol and Suyeon, who looked athletic at a glance, and a girl with a yellow ponytail named Nayun moved with the unmistakable grace of a proper athlete. Seoha, too, breezed through the shuttle run as if there were nothing she couldn't do.
"Alright, last group, let's go."
It was Yeoncheong's turn, part of the final group, and the confident Yeoncheong came to a blunt realization about the objective state of her own fitness.
The moment the shuttle run ended, Yeoncheong flopped down onto the artificial turf. Her red jacket rose and fell with each ragged breath.
Teacher Hayeong had praised Yeoncheong for running herself to the bone, but Yeoncheong herself felt differently.
It was... this hard...?
Her score was above average, but Yeoncheong, who'd considered herself reasonably fit, was distraught. For someone who'd sprinted with everything she had, the result felt lacking. But there was no time to mope. Yeoncheong had been the last, which meant she had to get ready for the next event.
What awaited the dazed Yeoncheong was the flexibility test—the one she was least confident in. Unlike the shuttle run that measured endurance, her turn came around quickly.
Suyeon, who'd been helping the teacher record results, called her over.
"Yeoncheong, you're up."
"Already?"
With Hasol and Suyeon taking the lead in helping the teacher, the testing was proceeding smoothly.
Yeoncheong sat with her legs stretched out and took a light deep breath. Determined not to record a negative number this time, she bent forward—and the plate under her hands slid smoothly ahead.
She was still reeling from the unexpected result when Suyeon's voice announced her score, and Yeoncheong looked up.
"Really?"
"Yeah, that's right."
Suyeon double-checked the record just in case and nodded. Far from a negative number, it was a two-digit score—the first she'd ever seen—and Yeoncheong could only stare blankly.
The grip-strength test and the 50-meter sprint followed in turn.
Strange numbers filled the record sheet Suyeon was holding. By that point, Yeoncheong had no choice but to accept it.
The fact that she was now a girl no different from the friends in front of her. It was far more convincing than the doctor's explanations, thick with difficult jargon back at the hospital.
Yeoncheong, who'd kept believing that some part of her was still different somewhere in a corner of her heart, clicked her tongue with a bitter taste in her mouth.
Suyeon glanced at the stopwatch Hasol showed her and filled in the final score. Seeing that, Hasol looked around for the teacher.
"Teacher, we're done now, right?"
"Well, there's still the BMI measurement, but..."
The students shot her desperate, pleading looks, and Teacher Hayeong scratched her head.
"We'll do that next time. I'll let the nurse know."
Taking the record sheet from Suyeon, Teacher Hayeong went on.
"Don't go back to the classroom. And don't get hurt."
As if they'd been waiting for exactly that, the students broke off into their own groups to relax. Teacher Hayeong told them to move the measuring equipment aside, since she'd need it for another class later.
Hasol and Suyeon grumbled about it. Yeoncheong, who'd finished her measurements last, happened to be nearby, and the two shot her hopeful looks.
"Sh-shall I help?"
"We'd appreciate that."
Seeing the two of them beam at her, Yeoncheong realized she'd been played. The realization came exactly one beat too late.
With the cones, the grip dynamometer, and the flexibility board in hand, the three of them headed for the storage shed on the far side of the field. They set everything down in front of it.
"Thanks a ton, really."
"Oh, it was nothing."
"By the way, Yeoncheong—you're way more athletic than I expected."
"You think? I was a little disappointed, honestly."
Chatting about the fitness test, the three of them cut across the open tennis court. Taking shortcuts even over short distances was simply human nature.
Yeoncheong's path diverged ever so slightly from the other two. Hasol and Suyeon went around the net, but Yeoncheong went straight. Finding a shortcut within a shortcut was also instinct.
Hasol and Suyeon passed by the side of the net, and Yeoncheong leapt lightly to clear it.
And then disaster struck. They had measured strength, flexibility, endurance—but never jumping power. That was the cause.
Despite jumping with all her might, her eye level was too low. Yeoncheong knew it a heartbeat too late.
Uh-oh...
Her foot snagged on the taut net, and the body that had been moving forward changed trajectory. Her lower half stopped dead while her upper body kept going, tipping forward—and down she went.
That's... really low.
Face-to-face with the ground in an instant, Yeoncheong twisted her body in a panic. An instinctive movement—she must not land headfirst.
In the illusion that time itself had slowed, what Yeoncheong saw as her head whipped up was Hasol and Suyeon, mouths agape, eyes gone round.
Then came an impossibly blue sky, and with a heavy thud, the world went black.
In her second year at Hwaryeong High School, the school nurse Lee Haeun loved her new job. The leisurely peace of the infirmary was proof enough of that.
Yes. This is exactly the nurse's life I always imagined.
Occasionally a girl feeling under the weather would lie down for a while and leave, but that much was charming, really. Compared to the boys' high school she'd worked at before.
At the thought of those days, Haeun's brow creased.
Broken bones at the drop of a hat, bruises that never came until they'd swelled up like balloons—that was daily life back then. Whenever she ran toward some student hurt in a major accident, Haeun half-suspected she wasn't a school nurse at all but an emergency physician.
Haeun was calming herself with the aroma of coffee when her ears caught the sound of footsteps sprinting down the corridor. Even after more than a year, her body still remembered that dread.
No way... it can't be.
Shaking her head in denial, Haeun flinched at the sound of the door being thrown open. Behind Teacher Hayeong, who was panting hard, a girl was riding on her back.
Haeun knew it instinctively. Her peaceful school life had just ended, today.
An unfamiliar ceiling.
Yeoncheong's eyes snapped open and she bolted upright on the infirmary bed. Startled by the ninety-degree launch, the school nurse clutched her chest and let out a sigh of relief.
"Goodness, why do you sit up like that?"
As Yeoncheong looked around, trying to piece together the situation, the nurse explained.
"You remember falling and passing out, right?"
"Ah... yeah."
"Judging by your face, your memory's just fine."
The memory of what happened before she collapsed came flooding back, and Yeoncheong buried her face in both hands. Haeun came closer and gave her a once-over.
"Anything else hurt? Your head, anywhere?"
Yeoncheong moved her body this way and that, then shook her head.
"You scraped the side of your forehead, so I only treated that. It looks like a simple faint, so I kept you here for now, but just in case, you absolutely have to see a doctor. Understood?"
"Aw, I'm f—"
Haeun cut her off.
"That's not a suggestion, it's an order. You will go."
"Yes, ma'am..."
"You're the transfer student, aren't you? Boys or not, take a little more care of yourself."
At the word boys, Yeoncheong flinched hard. Luckily, the bell rang right then, and Haeun didn't notice.
"School's over. Hurry back to your classroom. Your friends were worried sick about you."
"It's over already?"
"Yep. They were so worried you wouldn't wake up, wondering if they'd have to take you to the hospital."
By the busy school nurse, Yeoncheong was ushered out into the corridor.
When she slipped in through the classroom's back door, every eye turned to her—Teacher Jisu in the middle of end-of-day announcements, and all her classmates.
"Yeoncheong, are you okay?"
"Yes. I didn't get hurt badly, but they told me to see a doctor just in case."
Yeoncheong answered sheepishly and took her seat, and the homeroom teacher returned to what she'd been saying to wrap things up. As her classmates packed their bags, Hasol and Suyeon were the first to come over.
Yeoncheong reassured the two of them, who felt guilty for having caused her injury while helping out. Seoha handed her notes covering the classes Yeoncheong had missed. After receiving worried greetings from the other classmates as well, Yeoncheong took her time tidying up her desk.
Picking up her gym uniform, she hesitated a moment before stuffing it into her bag. She was headed home anyway; there was no need to change back into it.
As for what she'd do about changing clothes once PE class ended in the future—that problem was put off until another day.