As Expected, Mission Success Comes With Rewards

The whiteboard in front of us displayed a new message.

“Hey, Kim Hanbin… You set this up, didn’t you?”

Seo Jian’s voice was trembling. Her eyes were filled with a messy swirl of hostility, distrust, and utter bewilderment directed straight at me.

“What the hell are you talking about! Why would I pull some insane prank like this!”

“…It was weird from the start. You were the one who said the door wouldn’t open first! Ugh… Stop messing around and just… open the door…!”

Seo Jian was clearly suspecting me. Was she really thinking I’d orchestrated this crazy situation just to watch my former classmate squirm like some kind of pervert?

Her legs were shaking uncontrollably. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead, and her face had flushed a deep, burning red. Probably because she was so desperate for the bathroom that she couldn’t think straight…

I felt unfairly accused and raised my voice.

“Ha! Who are you calling a criminal?”

Thinking this ridiculous joke had to be erased, I grabbed the eraser and started scrubbing the whiteboard. But…

“What the— Why isn’t this coming off?”

“I told you to stop screwing with me! You son of a bitch…!”

Seo Jian shot up from her chair, snatched the eraser from my hand, and began scrubbing the whiteboard so hard I thought it might break.

But the same thing happened.

Not a single letter on the whiteboard would erase.

“What the hell? Why won’t it really come off? Hey, when did you even set this up? It’s been there so long it won’t wipe anymore…!”

“…I keep telling you it wasn’t me. And aren’t you the one in a hurry? I can just wait until the old lady who runs this place comes by. You should be begging me nicely instead of…”

“Y-you… you bastard… You’re trying to take advantage of my weakness…!”

When I shot back in disbelief, Jian’s face turned red then pale, looking like it might explode as she glared at me fiercely.

Honestly, being suspected this much hurt my feelings. We’d kept our distance back in high school, but over the past few weeks I thought we’d gotten pretty close. Was that just me?

I’d felt pretty good about becoming friends with someone who used to be so popular in high school, even if it still felt a little awkward. But hearing her swear at me like this… yeah, it didn’t feel great.

No matter what I said, the current Seo Jian wasn’t listening. She seemed to have lost her mind—her eyes were unfocused, and even while twisting her legs together she kept spitting curses at me. Did I really seem that untrustworthy?

It was unfair to get cursed out for something I didn’t do, but if she actually wet herself here it would be a huge mess for both of us…

I grabbed the hand holding the eraser. My intention was purely to take it away from her.

And at that exact moment—

New text appeared on the whiteboard.

“……”

“……”

It had only been about a second before I let go, but both Seo Jian and I had seen the timer. I definitely saw it, and since she’d suddenly gone quiet, she must have seen it too.

A timer that appeared the moment we held hands and vanished the moment we let go.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I grabbed Jian’s hand again. She didn’t push me away.

The timer was counting down again.

“…What the hell is this?”

“I don’t know either.”

It was a very short conversation.

Faced with an incomprehensible situation, it seemed to have brought her back to her senses. Seo Jian grew calm. We didn’t speak, just silently held hands and watched the timer tick down.

My throat was so dry I must have swallowed about ten times by the time the whiteboard changed to this.

“…Should we sit and wait for now?”

At my suggestion, Seo Jian returned to her chair without a word. Of course she didn’t let go of my hand. If anything, I could feel her gripping it tighter.

She sat on the blue plastic chair covered in doodles and curled into herself. Legs twisted together, one hand pressing hard against her lower belly.

I looked down at her and swallowed hard. My throat was burning. Burning up.

What the hell was this absurd situation?

The timer on the whiteboard kept decreasing. How likely was it that this old, beat-up whiteboard actually had a state-of-the-art digital display built into it? No matter how I thought about it, nothing made sense.

It didn’t even have a power cord, so it would need to be wireless or have a battery, but that didn’t seem possible either.

There was no way this run-down Happy Reading Room run by an old lady would have that kind of over-the-top technology.

Sweat was pooling in our clasped palms.

Was it mine? Or Jian’s? The sticky feeling of our skin clinging together made me want to yank my hand away and wipe it with a tissue, but I couldn’t.

The moment I let go, the timer reset. I’d seen it with my own eyes.

This whole situation was incredibly confusing and ridiculous, but strangely enough, I was staying calm.

Mission: Hold each other’s hands for 10 minutes.

When I followed that ridiculous mission, the timer activated.

Time limit: unlimited.

The phrase “Room will not unlock until cleared” clearly meant we couldn’t leave this room until we completed the mission.

Then what was the clear reward?

It was marked with question marks, so there was no way to know.

What bothered me most was the participant line at the very bottom.

Whoever prepared this whiteboard clearly knew that Jian and I would come here. It couldn’t have been the old lady. There were two or three other people in the reading room, but we’d never even greeted them.

Moreover, the fact that the timer started the moment we held hands… maybe someone was watching us right now.

Fuck. Who the hell is it?

“Haa… ha… fuck…”

“Just hold on a little longer. Only five minutes left. It should open then.”

It was a baseless belief, but I thought it would open. If this situation had been created with pure malice, even this mission could be a prank… but something told me otherwise.

Call it a gut feeling.

That “reward” part really bothered me. If this situation had been designed exactly as written, it meant there would be something in it for both Jian and me. In that case, whoever was behind this probably didn’t want us to die trapped in here.

“…Ugh… How would you know that? Seriously, you…”

She still didn’t believe me.

Her eyes were full of venom, but the tear stains at the corners made me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠feel more drained than angry. It was like she was forcing herself to act tough.

But I was just a fresh high school graduate and repeat examinee too—my words didn’t always come out the way I wanted.

“Ha, how many times do I have to say it wasn’t me? Want me to let go and reset the timer? Want to add another five minutes? There’s only one way to find out, so let’s just trust it.”

“……”

Seo Jian shut her mouth tightly again.

Did she think I was actually going to let go? Instead, she gripped my hand even harder.

After that, we didn’t say another word. Inside the small, sealed rest area, we ignored each other’s pulse, each other’s breathing, each other’s sweat…

I held my breath and silently counted along as the timer on the whiteboard decreased second by second.

Had three minutes ever felt this long?

I might actually have hyperhidrosis.

When about a minute remained, I sneaked a glance beside me and saw Seo Jian with her face buried in her knees, whimpering. She was gripping my hand really hard.

Looking at her like this…

She really had become smaller.

My memories of what she looked like in high school were already blurry. The gap between Seo Jian and Seo Jiwon felt that vast.

…It really felt like a girl’s hand.

“Huuu…”

“……”

I was crazy. What the hell was I thinking?

Thanks to that insane thought, the endlessly long minute finally passed, and the timer entered single digits.

It’ll open… right?

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

Click.

The moment the timer stopped, a sound came from the door that hadn’t budged for over three hours.

Jian and I reflexively looked at each other. Without needing to say anything, we both rushed to the door. The instant I grabbed the handle and turned it clockwise—

Bang! The door flew open.

“……”

Right in front of the rest area, at the counter, the old lady was playing one of those countless TTS audio novels uploaded on YouTube. Nothing had changed from when we went into the rest area for lunch three hours ago.

Even the view outside the window was bright.

There were no windows inside the rest area, after all.

“…Ugh!”

Jian violently yanked her hand from mine and sprinted toward the bathroom.

Come to think of it, we’d been holding hands the whole time. My left hand was soaked with sweat. Unless I was crazy, this definitely wasn’t a dream. I watched Jian’s retreating figure and roughly scratched the back of my head.

What the hell is going on…?

The clock above the old lady’s head still pointed to around lunchtime. If that clock wasn’t broken…

I wedged the door open with a stopper just in case it closed again and stepped back into the rest area. The clock inside, which ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I’d thought was broken, was now running normally.

…If this was reality,

there was something I needed to check.

When I turned my head slightly to look at the whiteboard in the corner of the room, I froze in place.

“…Clear reward?”

Five thousand won for Kim Hanbin.

Sixty-nine thousand five hundred won for Seo Jian.

What kind of standard was this? It was ridiculous that the reward was money. And how were they even going to give it? Deposit it into our accounts?

When my eyes moved back to the table, I found the answer to how.

On the table where Jian and I had just eaten tteokbokki and kimbap and left our English vocabulary books, there were bills that definitely hadn’t been there before.

A crisp fifty-thousand-won note that looked freshly withdrawn from the bank. A ten-thousand-won note. Two five-thousand-won notes. Four one-thousand-won notes. And finally, a lonely five-hundred-won coin sitting beside them.

After a string of incomprehensible events, my brain simply refused to process any more.

As soon as the March mock exam results were uploaded, I printed them out, timed myself, and solved them separately.

To be honest, the results weren’t good.

Even using the grade cutoffs for current high school seniors, I barely scraped one 2nd grade. And that single 2nd grade was only in the absolute-evaluated English section.

I bought two banana milks at the convenience store and headed back to the reading room. Seo Jian happened to be drinking water at the water dispenser.

After what happened yesterday,

things had gotten a little awkward between us. We hadn’t properly talked about that bizarre incident, but I felt like I needed to say this.

I handed her one of the banana milks and spoke.

“Hey. Starting tomorrow, I probably won’t be able to come to the reading room anymore. I didn’t want to just disappear without saying anything… so I’m telling you. I bombed the test.”

“…I figured.”

“……”

“You don’t even know a word like ‘volatile.’ Of course you’d fail.”

“Hey, English is actually my highest grade, you know?”

“……”

I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

The atmosphere suddenly became awkward and quiet. We used to talk pretty comfortably, but now I had no idea what to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠say.

While I was licking my lips and hesitating, she spoke first.

“Sorry.”

“…Out of nowhere?”

“I swore at you yesterday. You had no reason to do something like that. I… ha… never mind. Making excuses is annoying, right? I’ll just say I’m sorry. You must have been freaked out too.”

“Nah, it’s fine. You really looked like you were about to burst.”

“Hey, that’s…”

Seo Jian’s face turned bright red.

I chuckled inwardly. Still, after getting cursed out so suddenly yesterday, it felt like I’d landed a decent counterattack. Well, since she apologized…

I could head to the academy with a lighter heart.

“But, um…”

“What?”

Seo Jian hesitated like she was debating whether to speak, sighed, grabbed her hair, twisted her legs again just like yesterday, and finally took a long breath.

Then she said something I never expected.

“How about… delaying going to the academy for a bit?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll teach you! Not just some half-assed vocabulary quizzes! I’ll go over your homework and everything you don’t understand… So that room! Just go in there with me one more time!”

“……”

Seo Jian must have lost her mind.