Chapter 42
“Did you seriously lecture the transfer student, too?”
“What did I do? And what business is it of yours?”
“I'm only saying this for your sake, so please watch what you say...!”
“You seem to think you're something just because your grades are higher than mine right now. I'll definitely catch up to you in second year, so stay out of my business.”
Sihoo smiled bitterly as he recalled Seo Yuna leaving without even looking back.
When he thought of Seo Yuna at the beginning of the semester, her transformation was nothing short of astonishing.
The awkward country girl who had just arrived in the capital was nowhere to be found anymore, and only a personality sharpened like a finely honed blade now represented her identity.
Sihoo had already warned her about her behavior several times in the past.
[Try to be a little more considerate of your friends.]
[Why should I be considerate of other people?]
[Because if you keep living like that, no one will be left around you.]
[I'm fine on my own.]
But even as she gradually became isolated among her classmates, her schoolwide ranking climbed at a frightening pace.
She had started at a somewhat ambiguous rank of thirtieth schoolwide and eventually secured second place in the second-semester final exam.
Though no one would defend the way she had gone about it, there was absolutely no one who could deny Seo Yuna's hard work.
People said that relationships were just as important as grades at the academy, but Yuna had declared that she was giving up on them long ago.
Because of that, her classmates avoided giving her any reason to clash with them, and Yuna didn't seem to care in the slightest.
So Sihoo decided not to pay her any attention, either.
But this time was different.
The transfer student, who might have enrolled with bad intentions, had landed squarely on Yuna's radar.
Then it was obvious who would become her first target.
No matter how much he disliked Seo Yuna, Sihoo couldn't bring himself to wish for anything bad to happen to her.
He had to prevent a clash between Seo Yuna and Name somehow.
That was the conclusion Yoon Sihoo had reached after agonizing over it all day.
The morning commute to Sephiron Academy was incredibly chaotic.
It was the day the aptitude assessment results came out for every student from second through sixth year.
Most students were already tearing at their hair from the main gate onward, denying with every fiber of their being the future that awaited them.
‘If only Yuna would come first in this test...’
Sihoo soon shook his head.
If Yuna came in first, she might stop paying attention to her friends, but that wasn't a reason for Sihoo to willingly give up first place.
Yoon Sihoo intended to seize first place in second year as well, no matter what.
The corridor of the northeastern building, where the second-year classrooms were located, was already bustling with more than fifty students after he crossed the skybridge.
All their eyes were fixed on a single large notice.
It was the aptitude assessment ranking list—an award for students who had worked diligently and a punishment in itself for those who had neglected their studies.
Sihoo joined the crowd with his heart pounding.
‘Am I first? Surely Seo Yuna couldn't have finished everything, either, since she must have run out of time. It couldn't be Kim Hangyeol or Lee Haru, could it?’
Sihoo could confidently say that this was the most difficult test he had ever taken in his life.
“Oh, hi, Sihoo.”
“Hi, Gyeongwon. Did you do well on the test?”
“Just like the last final. But did you... see the results?”
“Why?”
Without hesitation, Sihoo read down the list from the very top.
But when he saw the first name written there, Sihoo was visibly flustered.
[1. Name (100)]
“I'm... not first?”
To make matters worse, the score was a perfect 100 out of 100.
He swallowed dryly.
‘Can this really be happening?’
[2. Yoon Sihoo (84.4)]
[3. Seo Yuna (82.6)]
The names of Yoon Sihoo, who had always boasted an overwhelming first place, and Seo Yuna, who had been fearsomely chasing him, suddenly seemed terribly unimpressive.
[4. Lee Haru (79.1)]
[5. Go Gyeongwon (78)]
[6. Kim Hangyeol (76.5)]
[7. Han Seori (73.3)]
...
[Average: 48.3 points / Standard deviation: 22.4]
“Isn't that insane? The transfer student finished everything in fifteen minutes!”
“Don't bullshit me. The teachers deliberately made the test too long to finish, so how could she have completed it all?”
“It's true! Everyone in our class saw her turn it in early because she had to use the bathroom.”
“This is the first time I've seen Yoon Sihoo look human.”
The students each voiced a thought of their own.
But Sihoo was too stunned to join the conversation.
And the same was true of another girl who arrived at school late.
“What the hell is that...”
It was Seo Yuna.
She even threw down her bag, pushed through the crowd, and approached the notice board.
Apparently unable to accept the results, she rubbed her eyes over and over.
“Why... why...”
Trembling all over, she slammed her fist into the notice board.
“Let's go back to class. Who knows what she'll do to us again if we stay next to Jaewang?”
“Damn, what am I supposed to tell my mom later?”
She must have found it impossible to accept.
Yesterday, Yuna had laughed scornfully after seeing Name give up on the test early.
Furthermore, she had just finished studying ahead through the sixth-grade curriculum during vacation before taking this test.
She had struggled in first year because she had started from a position behind everyone else, but while taking the test, she had sensed that she was now right on the verge of reaching Yoon Sihoo's level.
The test was certainly difficult, but she felt that she was solving it better than usual.
Yet Yoon Sihoo remained as formidable as ever, and now another towering mountain had appeared—one far beyond her reach.
“How am I supposed to... beat her...”
She couldn't leave. Her feet wouldn't move.
Yuna continued standing helplessly in front of the notice board.
Then she quietly walked to a deserted corner of the corridor and wiped away her tears in silence.
* * *
Ah, a perfect score.
Naturally, it didn't stir any great emotion in me.
It was embarrassing enough for a full-grown adult to lord it over children.
I was only a little uncomfortable that the atmosphere in the class had become unsettled because of me.
“Everyone, you'll be doing a group activity, so please push your desks together front to back, with four people in each group.”
Sihoo and I turned our desks ninety degrees and greeted the children seated behind us.
One was a diligent boy named Bae Yohan, and the other was, well... Seo Yuna, who was glaring daggers at me.
Was this Korean class or staring-contest period?
“As you can see, we can read the same poem and still have different thoughts. Some of you read the part that says, ‘The spring rain comes down and settles,’ and felt that the rain was like a person, while others presented the opinion that it described spring rain falling little by little.
Now, why don't you each talk about an experience when your thoughts on something differed from those of the people around you?”
It was a group activity during a break in the lesson.
Unlike the other groups, whose members were already freely sharing their opinions, our group was terribly gloomy.
Somehow, the first-, second-, and third-ranked students in the entire school had ended up in the same group.
“If nobody has any thoughts... should I go first...?”
Yohan glanced around timidly.
For children this young, it probably wasn't easy to come up with an experience involving differences in opinions or thoughts.
At most, it would be something like, “I hate rain, but someone else likes it.”
“I really like days when it snows, but whenever it snowed, my older brother would complain that garbage was falling from the sky.”
Just as expected, it didn't stray even an inch from my prediction.
The textbook was certainly right: life was a succession of conflicts and confrontations.
Because our backgrounds, values, and goals were all different, we were inevitably placed in situations where we had to clash with countless people throughout our lives.
I couldn't help wondering whether many problems would be solved if adults possessed even half the ability elementary school children had to listen to and understand other people's values.
Though cultivating those abilities from an early age was precisely the purpose of educational institutions.
“I like playing the guitar in my free time, but my father thinks musical instruments are useless, so I always felt self-conscious about it.”
Sihoo reluctantly added a word for the sake of the group activity.
What a cool hobby to have.
But Yuna suddenly folded her arms and frowned.
“I work my ass off every day, and it really pissed me off when people who spent their time at home wondering what to do for fun presumed to lecture me.”
“Hey, Seo Yuna, enough. You've crossed the line.”
“It fucking pisses me off that you guys skip lunch to decide what to buy at the snack bar... It fucking pisses me off when you debate whether to switch to the latest phones this month... And you especially, transfer student—pretending to be casual when you know perfectly well how talented you are pisses me off the most.”
“Seo Yuna!”
Unable to watch any longer, Sihoo shouted.
But Yuna was already overwhelmed by her emotions, and she continued speaking in a voice thick with tears.
“You have no idea how hard it is to get up before dawn and come to school every day...”
The whites of her eyes were streaked with red.
In the end, Yuna shoved her chair aside and stormed out of the classroom.
“What's going on?”
Jackie, who had been organizing the materials for the next lesson, came over to our group in surprise.
“She must be stressed because of the test. I'll go check on her.”
“No!”
Sihoo suddenly grabbed my wrist and stopped me.
Why was his face so pale?
“She probably went to the girls' restroom. Are you going in there?”