Night Study with My Childhood Friend
After we returned from the school trip, mid-April had arrived.
Which meant exam season was upon us.
In my case, I didn’t place much importance on studying, but I still needed to get through high school, so I signed up for night study.
I should’ve studied more in my past life.
I could remember most things, but math simply refused to stick. Whether in my previous life or this one, math and I had never gotten along. My natural enemy of a subject, you could say.
Our school ran voluntary night study, so the sign-up rate wasn’t particularly high to begin with. We were still middle schoolers, after all. Almost no one did night study at this age—only the ones who had genuinely decided they were going to hit the books.
Still, the school’s night-study facilities weren’t bad, so the people who started tended to keep coming. In my case, I knew perfectly well I wouldn’t study at all if I didn’t force myself into a time like this. Left with free hours, I would just keep swinging a sword at the kendo dojo and never crack a textbook. Honestly, if it weren’t for night study right now, I would already be there swinging away.
And tonight was no different.
The moment school ended, Riya and I grabbed a quick meal and headed straight to the night-study room. We had arrived early enough that the session hadn’t officially started yet, so we could still talk a little.
“Sihyun. How’s studying going?”
“Same as always—so-so? …Math’s still rough, though.”
“Here.”
Riya, sitting beside me, handed over a notebook labeled “Summary Notes.” When I opened it, every single concept from the math I was terrible at had been organized inside—cleanly, thoroughly, without a single awkward spot that made it hard to read.
She really is good at studying.
Riya excelled at academics. Her major path was art, yet she was still quite strong in her studies. Right now she was only doing “enough” because she was balancing art as well, but if she ever focused fully she could easily aim for the very top ranks. She herself didn’t seem interested in going that route, though. From childhood until now, she had never once talked about setting art aside even a little.
“Don’t fall asleep this time.”
“I won’t. I’m not that tired today.”
“You said that last time too.”
“…I really won’t sleep today.”
I claimed I was studying, but during night-study hours I tended to doze off quite a bit. Maybe because I had been pushing myself harder at kendo lately, my body felt a little more worn out these days. I barely noticed it in everyday life, but the moment night study rolled around the drowsiness hit hard. And after nodding off a few times, it was as if my body had formed a habit—fighting the sleep was getting harder.
Today’s already looking a little dicey.
I was already feeling a bit heavy-lidded. But I couldn’t keep sleeping every single time. Today I would stay awake. Seriously.
Math first, then.
Right. Start with math. They said it would be a little harder this time.
I made that resolution and lifted my pen.
I fell asleep.
I had completely passed out.
Deep enough that I lost all sense of time.
When did this even start?
When I came to, my eyes were unbearably heavy. After a brief moment of confusion I pieced the situation together and sat up. A glance at the phone beside me showed that roughly half of night study had already gone by.
I had slept.
For quite a long stretch, too.
The starting point was easy enough to spot.
Ten problems?
I had only managed to solve ten of the math problems in the textbook open in front of me. The last three of those were complete nonsense answers, so that was probably where the drowsiness had hit. Roughly twenty minutes after starting, I had gone under.
Where had my firm resolution not to sleep gone?
I looked toward the seat beside me, but the person who should have been there—Riya—was nowhere in sight.
Did she step out?
Riya almost never left during night study. She spent nearly the entire time seated and studying. Her concentration was impressive; she could keep going for three or four hours straight without issue. For someone like that to be missing was strange.
I should head out for a bit too.
The sleepiness still hadn’t fully cleared; I needed water at least if I wanted any hope of focusing again. I carefully slipped out of the night-study room so I wouldn’t disturb anyone around me.
Maybe because this was middle-school night study, the teacher on duty didn’t really stop students. As long as you didn’t make noise that bothered others, they left you alone, so stepping out midway was fine.
“Feels refreshing.”
Leaving the stuffy night-study room brought a strange sense of liberation. Maybe it was because you couldn’t speak or make a sound in there; even ordinary places felt freer by comparison.
Bathroom first?
I was about to head that way to splash some water on my face when the phone in my pocket vibrated. I pulled it out and found several messages from Riya waiting.
She was at the convenience store? That was pretty unexpected.
Still, if Riya was waiting, I couldn’t dawdle. I redirected my steps from the bathroom toward the outside and headed straight for the convenience store near the school.
Just as I was about to go down from the second floor where the night-study room was to the first floor—
“Senior?”
“…Haryeong?”
I spotted Jin Haryeong coming up the stairs the other way. Both of her hands were full of coffee cans—more than five, by a rough count.
“Are you doing night study, Senior?”
“It just kind of happened. What about you?”
“I’m doing it too. I decided to do it together with Hoyeon Senior.”
“Hoyeon?”
Kim Hoyeon. I had almost never seen him study. He was born loving to play and hating to study. He only maintained decent grades because he was naturally smart. For a guy like that to sign up for the ultimate form of self-study—night study?
I felt a flicker of doubt, but the answer was right in front of my eyes.
She’s the reason, isn’t she.
He had probably signed up just so he could study with Haryeong. If not for that, there was zero reason for him to do night study.
“Where are you going, Senior?”
“Riya called me. Just heading to the convenience store for a bit.”
“Riya Senior?”
Haryeong thought for a moment, then held out two of the coffee cans from her arms. They weren’t small cans either. When I took them with a questioning look, she answered,
“Share them with Riya Senior. It was a two-plus-one deal, so I bought a lot.”
“Ah… thanks.”
A little flustered by the sudden coffee gift, I said goodbye and continued on toward the convenience store. The nearest one was the CS 26 a five-minute walk from school.
“Sihyun, over here.”
“Aren’t you cold?”
“Not really.”
Riya was sitting at one of the outdoor tables waiting for me. Even though the weather had warmed, it was still spring—once the sun went down it got a little chilly—but she didn’t seem bothered.
She never did feel the cold much.
Maybe it was the Russian side of her mixed heritage. She had always been resistant to cold. I was a bit chilly myself, but not enough that I couldn’t handle it. I sat across from her, and only then did the things on the table come into focus.
One bag of snacks.
And an energy drink sitting in front of my seat—one of the stronger ones a student could buy.
“Wake up. Don’t sleep. You said you wouldn’t.”
Had she come out on purpose just because I was sleeping? I was grateful for the consideration, yet at the same time I worried I might have stolen her study time.
“I didn’t take up your time, did I?”
“It’s fine. I already finished most of today’s work during regular class.”
That was Riya for you. Thorough as always with her studies.
Impressed, I pulled one of the two coffee cans from my arms and held it out to her.
“What’s this?”
“Haryeong gave them to me. I ran into her on the way.”
“…Haryeong?”
She accepted the can and slowly turned it in her hands, then looked at me with an expression that had grown oddly serious.
“You two met?”
“Yeah.”
“…Really?”
Her expression darkened a little at my answer. Even that look was beautiful, but I could tell she was misunderstanding, so I quickly added more. Last time I hadn’t explained properly and she had sulked for quite a while; with things like this it was better to clear the air fast.
“It was completely by chance. She was going to give these to Hoyeon, but when I mentioned you were here she handed them over.”
“Ah…”
Riya stayed quiet for a moment, then gave a small smile and opened the can right then and there. She looked thoroughly pleased.
“Let’s eat and head back.”
“Including the snacks.”
“Mm.”
After that short exchange we quietly drank the canned coffee and ate the snacks in front of us. The snacks were chocolate-flavored—the sweet kind Riya liked.
I don’t particularly care for it, though.
Maybe picking chocolate was her own little form of punishment.
Once we finished the chocolate and coffee and threw away the trash, we headed straight back to school.
“Don’t sleep, Sihyun.”
“I won’t. For real this time.”
“Promise.”
As if sealing a vow, Riya held out her slender white pinky. I hooked my own pinky around hers. Looking satisfied, she smiled, and before long we were back at the night-study room.
And amazingly, I did not fall asleep for the rest of the session. Fall asleep, that is.
Dozing a little at the very end… she’ll understand, right?
I had resisted.
It was force majeure.
That was what I told myself as I left the night-study room.