Matching the Numbers

It was around noon on Wednesday when I stepped into the rest area and claimed the intermission reward. By twelve-thirty I was at the nearby ATM depositing the money. At one o’clock I returned to the reading room and resumed studying. I tried to align my schedule with the actual exam timetable, focusing on English during that slot. The rest of the day followed the same ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pattern—matching study blocks to real test times. I visited the bathroom twice: once a little after two and again around four-thirty. After the second trip I stretched a bit and drank some water at the cooler before returning to my seat. I timed myself on a private math mock exam until about five forty-five. I finished well under the hundred-minute limit simply because I had time to spare. By the time I finished grading it and checking every solution, the clock read 5:45. As always, I headed to the convenience store for a small cup ramen and a hot bar to call dinner. After a casual walk and chat with Jian, we returned to the reading room around six-thirty. I wrapped up Wednesday’s studying by lightly cycling through past inquiry exam questions to loosen my brain. At eight I took the subway home. The moment I arrived at eight-thirty, my little sister grabbed me to help trim her eyebrows; that ate up roughly thirty minutes. Thanks to that, I didn’t get to shower until nine. The shower itself took about fifteen minutes. I called Hanbin at 9:25. After we hung up I sat straight down at my desk and solved math problems until ten-thirty. Thanks to my usual habit of avoiding oversleeping, I finished the day by writing out my daily schedule, then closed my eyes in bed at eleven.

“…Wait, isn’t this way too detailed? If you’re going to organize a whole week like this, it doesn’t make any sense.”

I couldn’t hold back anymore. I cut Jian off mid-sentence and threw in a jab. We had promised over the phone yesterday to organize and compare our daily routines, but I never expected her to bring something this densely packed.

“Yeah, maybe, but if we’re not going to be this thorough, what’s the point? We have to break it down to the smallest detail so we can actually analyze it later.”

And she still wasn’t finished. Everything she’d recited so far only covered yesterday from lunch through dinner. There was still a ton left from when she woke up this morning until right now. If we really turned this into a full seven-day log like I’d said…

“Do you pay for AI or something?”

“Why the sudden question? Yeah, I have a subscription.”

“Perfect! Just feed all this into the AI and it’ll organize it nicely for you. Easy!”

The world really has gotten convenient. Feed it decent data and it spits out something clean and readable. No need to manually count how many bathroom trips you took in a day, multiply by seven, then tally showers on top of that. Jian, however, only ever used the free version for occasional quick questions. She had never considered a monthly plan. Paying a hefty fee for something she barely used felt like too much of a burden.

“Ugh, if I’d known I would’ve just written it as a document from the start.”

“……So that expensive graphics card and all that RAM were made just to organize stuff like this.”

I sighed in a joking tone. Seeing that, Jian puffed her lips out in a pout, then suddenly snatched the paper I’d been keeping under my arm.

“Let’s see what Mr. Perfect did after he got home yesterday, shall we?”

“Go ahead. Knock yourself out.”

“……”

From one to six in the afternoon, studied at the reading room. Quick bathroom break at three. Ate dinner with Seo Jian afterward, then reviewed wrong answers until eight to wrap up. On the way home, stopped by the nearby park and ran about ten laps. Arrived home around 8:50. After showering and returning to my room, Jian’s call happened to come in right then. From ten to eleven I browsed the examinee community a little, then after eleven I just lay in bed scrolling on my phone. Turned the lights off around twelve-thirty. Don’t remember when I actually fell asleep.

“This… is everything from yesterday?”

“…Pretty much?”

“What do you mean ‘pretty much’? There are huge gaps in the timeline.”

When we laid our two logs side by side, one thing became immediately obvious. This was completely pointless. Jian set her pen down with a clack and let out a heavy sigh.

“…There are too few hints. And to begin with, are we even sure the count is accurate?”

“It might not be about the number of times. Could be the amount instead.”

“Ughhhhhhh…”

She had really wanted to succeed at this mission. The daily schedule she’d written with such enthusiasm now looked utterly useless. Even if I had filled every single minute, it probably wouldn’t have changed much. Jian slumped forward and rested her chin on the table.

“Think of something already. You’re better at this kind of stuff. You watch porn every day, after all.”

“…Hey, why the hell are we suddenly talking about porn?”

“What? If you didn’t want to get teased, you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shouldn’t have been caught watching it in the reading room ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the first place. I’m planning to tease you about it all year, so you’d better get used to it.”

“……”

There was no way to argue. Claiming I only watched it to erase the image of Jian as a girl would just sound like a pathetic excuse and earn me nothing but curses. I subtly looked away. Jian stared at me with narrowed eyes. Then, all of a sudden, her mouth fell open in realization.

“Hold on. This part is missing from yours, isn’t it?”

She pointed at the paper I had written.

“What porn?”

“Yesterday. Before bed. You’re telling me you didn’t watch any? Can you swear on it?”

“…Well, I did watch a little before sleeping.”

“Knew it. But surely you didn’t… masturbate, right?”

“Hey, that’s straight-up sexual harassment!”

Whatever. Jian just shrugged shamelessly, turning the accusation right back on me. Clause 2 of the contract clearly states that both parties must do their utmost to complete the missions. The question was purely for gathering information needed for the next mission. Even if the contract had no guarantor, was a total mess, and full of holes, the only reason the two of us could do these ridiculous things under the excuse of “missions” was because that contract existed. We were nothing more than friends, and any dirty jokes that happened along the way would lose all meaning the moment we left the rest area. The door wasn’t closed, but since we were already talking inside the rest area, we could have this conversation without feeling awkward.

“You can ask me anything too. I won’t call it sexual harassment like someone I know.”

“Honestly, who doesn’t watch porn?”

“I haven’t watched any in a really long time?”

“…And masturbation?”

“With this body? You think I’ve tried it? Well? Nothing to say now, huh?”

Jian giggled. Strangely, her teasing words didn’t actually feel that bad. Even so, my face grew hot and I averted my eyes. It wasn’t because I was embarrassed about masturbation or porn at my age. It was because I could faintly see the strap of her bra inside the neckline of her oversized hoodie. Instead of trying to come up with an excuse, it was far more urgent to mentally recite the national anthem and will my erection down.

A week passed faster than expected. Wednesday morning, April 22nd. While Jian and I studied as usual, we tried to narrow down anything that could possibly be counted. After setting criteria and trimming the list again and again, almost nothing remained.

“Think about it. We’ve never once seen that room give us a normal mission. We have to connect everything to something sexual, right?”

“Yeah… I guess so.”

Hours spent studying, number of bathroom trips, hours of sleep, steps taken in a day—none of those seemed worth counting. But after narrowing down every possible case, we finally reached one conclusion.

“So once we figure out the counting criteria, how are we supposed to prepare for it?”

“……Good question.”

“And were those even real hints to begin with?”

There was no instruction on what to do with the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠count, so even after listing every possibility, we had no idea what actions to take. Besides, the possibilities themselves were so absurd… Number of kisses in a week, number of times masturbating in a week, number of times doing XX in a week, number of touches in a week. We kept insisting we were “just recording data,” laughing “Hahaha!” the whole time, but eventually the reality hit us so hard we tore the papers up and threw them straight into the trash. In the end, it was safe to say we had done absolutely zero proper preparation.

[12:07 PM]

And now, one minute had passed since the 168-hour mark after the intermission.

“Close it?”

“…Yeah. Close it.”

Hearing Jian’s answer, I shut the rest area door. That was how our seventh mission began.