The Narrow Gate (6)
"So… in that short span of time, you all decided to become friends with Miss Shin So-hye?"
After hearing the rough outline of what had happened, I asked the question, and Su-ryeon answered with a gentle smile.
"Yes. Even after this study group ends, I'll probably keep running into Miss So-hye quite often. So I figured it would be better in the long run to get close to her now."
"I-is that so."
I couldn't help wondering whether friendship was really something that could be conjured up so quickly, but I decided to leave it at that.
Come to think of it, it hadn't been all that long since I'd grown close to Su-ryeon and Chae-rin myself. Becoming friends in less than a day didn't seem so strange after all.
"And Miss So-hye says she wants to get closer to you, Miss Ha-eun."
"Miss Shin So-hye?"
At Su-ryeon's quiet whisper, my eyes drifted toward Shin So-hye of their own accord. She must have been looking this way, because the moment our gazes met she hastily turned her head away.
Looking back, my connection with Shin So-hye had run deep from the very first day of enrollment. The whole reason I'd gotten tangled up with Yoon Seo-a in the first place was because I'd tried to help her when she was being bullied.
Of course, I hadn't been the only one offering help. Shin So-hye herself had even confronted Yoon Seo-a head-on trying to save me. And when I'd skipped class and gone to the infirmary last time, she'd come by to visit me as well.
Back then I'd been so desperate to keep her from finding out I was being harassed by Yoon Seo-a that I couldn't remember a word of what we'd talked about. But if I'd simply been there because I was sick, I would surely have felt grateful.
On top of that, since she sat right next to me, we exchanged greetings every morning and made small talk… Wait.
"Have I been putting up walls without even realizing it?"
"Pardon?"
"Ah, it's nothing."
The realization had been so startling that the thought slipped straight out of my mouth. I offered Su-ryeon an awkward smile to cover for the question in her eyes, then went on thinking.
Even after all of that, Shin So-hye and I still weren't friends. More precisely, we shared a sense of belonging as classmates — nothing more, nothing less.
With the first regular exams right around the corner, if you set aside Shin So-hye and Yoon Seo-a, I could count on one hand the people in my own class I'd ever had a real conversation with!
Looking at it objectively, I might have been a bit of a jerk.
Of course, I wasn't actively shutting Shin So-hye out, and I didn't pretend not to know her outside of class, so calling myself trash was probably an overstatement. But in my own mind, it amounted to the same thing.
We'd talked so much and shared a certain connection — so why had I never thought of Shin So-hye as a friend…?
I turned it over for a moment, and the reason came to me surprisingly fast.
I resented Shin So-hye. Not because she'd done anything wrong to me.
It was simply that she had been more timid than anyone else in the class, and because of that she'd caught Yoon Seo-a's eye and been bullied — and of all people, the one sitting right next to her had been me, still carrying the previous owner's habit of never looking away from injustice.
And so, for the single fact that Shin So-hye was part of the reason my entire academy life had started to fall apart, I had begun to hate her without even realizing it.
Of course, the person I should have hated most was Yoon Seo-a, who had tormented both of us. But no one curses the sky for being struck by lightning, do they?
Blaming the person who got hit alongside you for being next to you in the first place — that was ordinary human psychology. And I was just another ordinary person.
"Haa…"
Once I became aware of it, I felt thoroughly pathetic. To have refused friendship with Shin So-hye — to have actively disliked her — over a reason that absurd.
Thankfully, it seemed I hadn't unconsciously shown her any open hostility all this time. But if I hadn't realized this now, I might have done something irreversible eventually.
Like what had happened with Su-ryeon in the bathroom. Just recalling that made my head throb all over again.
I'd thought I was handling things well. Discovering that I hadn't been was a shock. Was my heart rotting away little by little, so quietly that even I couldn't notice?
"All right, all right — enough with the bonding session."
While I was lost in those thoughts, Yoon Seo-a clapped her hands, drawing everyone's attention as if to clear the restless atmosphere.
"We didn't gather here today to deepen our friendships, did we? Of course we can do that on the side, but we mustn't forget why we came."
"You mean preparing for the first regular exams."
"Exactly. Of course, people like me — who will be moving up to Class A next year — and the two of you from Class B here don't really need a study group. But Miss Ha-eun and Miss Shin So-hye are a different story."
"Did you really have to say that out loud…?"
There was no need to spell it out. When I grumbled the question, Yoon Seo-a smiled sweetly.
"Miss Ha-eun. Explaining the purpose of a gathering at the start is a perfectly natural procedure, you know?"
"Well, yes, but… if you put it simply, it's just a study group for exams. It doesn't need to be so grand."
"I know. I only said it to tease you."
This brat. I glared at Yoon Seo-a before I could stop myself, but she only snickered and pulled out several sheets of paper.
"These are practice questions I prepared for a level assessment. Fifty questions in total, at roughly the difficulty of the entrance exam you're all familiar with."
"Will entrance-exam difficulty really be enough to gauge our levels? I heard the regular exams are completely different from the entrance exam."
"It's fine. I've only collected the hardest questions from every past entrance exam."
Yoon Seo-a answered Chae-rin as if she'd expected the question.
The hardest questions from every past entrance exam? If I wasn't careful, I might not even hit a passing score.
I glanced around with uneasy eyes and found Shin So-hye looking just as fidgety. The sight of her was oddly reassuring. At least I wasn't the only one nervous.
"Time limit… shall we say a generous seventy minutes? Anyone who finishes early may turn theirs in first. Just submit quietly so you don't disturb the others."
As she spoke, Yoon Seo-a handed a test sheet to each person seated around the table.
"I trust no one here would stoop to peeking at their neighbor's answers?"
It was a round table with no partitions, so a slight turn of the head would reveal anyone else's paper. But no one present would cheat. Anyone capable of that wouldn't have gotten into this academy in the first place.
"Please say something that makes sense, Miss Yoon Seo-a. As if any of us would do that."
"Well, one never knows."
Su-ryeon seemed to share the same thought, rebuking Yoon Seo-a in a tone of pure disbelief, but Seo-a merely shrugged and slid past it with the ease of a snake.
Then she set an electronic timer she'd produced from somewhere in the center of the table, dialed it to seventy, and said:
"When I call out 'start,' open your papers and begin."
At her words, even Su-ryeon — still wearing a look of displeasure — and everyone else took out their writing instruments and focused on the test sheets.
Once she confirmed that everyone was ready, Yoon Seo-a pressed the button on the electronic timer.
"Then… start."
Click. The timer flipped to [69:59], and the sound of papers being turned over rang out in a continuous wave.
Rustle, rustle. The sound of pages turning grew more frequent as time passed — a sign that everyone was working through the problems at a similar pace.
At first I managed to keep up with that rhythm, but from page three onward my speed dropped sharply.
Six or seven questions per page, fifty questions total — a quick calculation put the test at roughly eight pages. Judging by the sounds alone, the others were finishing page four and about to move on to page five.
I, on the other hand, was still only halfway through page three. A glance at the timer showed about forty-five minutes remaining. At this pace, I should at least finish within the time limit.
I steeled myself and kept working. Whenever I hit a problem I didn't know, I set it aside for later and methodically worked through the ones I did, turning them over in my head.
Thanks to studying without rest even after enrolling at the academy, there weren't many questions I simply didn't recognize. Plenty I still couldn't solve even after studying them, though.
"Miss Ha-eun. Your posture."
"Hm? Ah."
At Yoon Seo-a's correction, I hurriedly lowered the hand that had climbed up to my forehead. It was a habit that came out whenever I got stuck while studying, and the moment a problem stumped me it had surfaced on its own. I composed myself and refocused on the questions, and Yoon Seo-a spoke again.
"Test scores matter, but so does the attitude you bring to the exam. No matter how much you're struggling with a problem, if you twist your body or bow your head too far, the supervising Senior Officers may call you out."
That had actually happened during the entrance exam. Not to me — to someone who, like me, had looked like a commoner.
I wondered whether that person had passed. I chased the memory for a moment, then shook my head hard and cleared my thoughts. Right now I needed to focus on the test booklet.
Rustle, rustle. The sound of pages turning continued. The timer steadily ticked down until about fifteen minutes remained.
Somewhere in that stretch, the first person to submit appeared. Su-ryeon was the one.
She rose without a word, circled around the outside so as not to disturb anyone, and held out her booklet to Yoon Seo-a.
"You finished with time to spare."
"It was certainly difficult, but if I couldn't handle this much, I wouldn't deserve to be in Class B."
"Well, fair enough. You're not as good as I am, but you are Class B."
Yoon Seo-a smirked at Su-ryeon's unabashed confidence and shot back. Coming from someone who was still in Class D herself. Listening from the side, I thought as much — and Su-ryeon seemed to share the sentiment, her face twisting with disbelief.
But perhaps conscious that others were still working, she only clicked her tongue under her breath and spun on her heel.
As the numbers on the timer dwindled, more people submitted. Five minutes after Su-ryeon, Chae-rin finished. Another five minutes after that, Shin So-hye did the same.
And I was still working through page seven. I wasn't stubbornly clinging to problems that confused me. I had finished every question I knew and was now tackling the ones I didn't.
Pages seven and eight were completely blank. They covered politics and society — my absolute weakest subjects.
Even knowing I was supposed to mind my posture, I clutched my head with my free hand and thought hard. Maybe because time was running short, Yoon Seo-a didn't stop me.
I finally finished page seven and turned to the last sheet — but time, mercilessly, left me behind.
Beep-beep-beep. At the timer's shrill cry, the strength drained from the hand holding my pen.