The Top Student Hides Her Regression
Chapter 20
Kyung Sein of Class 2 of the 2nd Grade at Gogogo High School never wore light-colored bottoms.
It was because of her uncontrollable menstrual flow.
The time she wore white pants, bled through them, tied a friend’s jacket around her waist, and rushed home in a panic.
The time she forced herself to ignore that sudden, ominous sensation during class (since not many teachers let you go to the restroom in the middle of a lesson!), only to stand up after the bell and discover total disaster.
The time she stained her bed and got scolded by Mom despite using the largest overnight pad available at the mart ("Do you have any idea how much this mattress cost?!").
Sein had experienced every single one of them.
That day was one of those days that drove her to homicidal rage.
About ten months ago.
Not long after starting high school, Sein had gathered her things and headed down to another classroom on the floor below for a split-level class.
“…….”
This feeling.
The exact feeling where, if she desperately tried to brush it off hoping it was nothing, a catastrophe would inevitably strike during class.
Checking the clock on the classroom wall, Sein whispered to the friend who had come with her.
“Su-a, do you happen to have a pad?”
She had already spent six minutes of the break packing her bags and moving classrooms. Even if she grabbed a pad and sprinted to the restroom this very second, time was running short.
Hearing Sein’s whisper, her friend shook her head with a troubled expression.
“Mine’s in our classroom. Did your period start?”
“Yeah….”
“Oh no. …Hey, do you have a pad?”
“Ugh. No, I don’t.”
“What about you?”
“Me neither.”
Both the friends who had moved classrooms with her and the students originally in this class shook their heads. In the meantime, another minute ticked by.
“Can’t you just run to the snack shop and buy some right now?”
“Do they sell them at the snack shop?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hey, just go outside first. Think on your way.”
“Excuse me.”
That was when a voice chimed in.
A girl in the adjacent row, who had been reading a book so quietly she was practically invisible, looked up at Sein.
She was pale-faced with distinct, clear eyes. Wearing a school uniform cardigan that was far too big for her frame, she had a stack of textbooks piled on her desk. Her neck, exposed above the cardigan, was noticeably long and slender.
The girl spoke.
“I have one.”
“Huh?”
Funnily enough, what Sein thought at that moment wasn’t ‘Who is she?’ or ‘She has a pad?’, but ‘She looks so genuinely girlish.’
Her eyes sparkle so much. Is she wearing contacts?
Yet her casually loose hair and plain face—looking as if she hadn’t even applied any lip tint—were too simple for that.
Beneath the dark eyes gazing up at her and her slender chin, Sein saw the name on the nametag.
Kang Da-hye.
Kang Da-hye rummaged through her bag and handed over two pads from between the oversized sleeves covering the backs of her hands.
“Here.”
“Oh, uh… thanks.”
“If that’s not enough, go to the nurse’s office later and get more.”
“Does the nurse’s office give out pads too?”
“Yeah.”
Nodding, Kang Da-hye lowered her eyes back to her book.
Her loose black hair slid softly past her peach-fuzzed ear.
“Thank you…!”
Sein said. Kang Da-hye merely looked up at Sein once more with a smile.
However, Sein’s murder-inducing day didn’t end there.
About halfway through the period, Sein realized she had put the pad on wrong.
Either she had attached it too far back, or it had folded over.
-I think I leaked fml
-fml
-Gotta sprint to the restroom the second class ends
-Kk I’ll handle your chair and stuff here
Right as she was passing notes with the friend next to her.
“Kyung Sein, come up and solve this.”
“Pardon? Me?”
I can’t stand up right now.
Though her entire body radiated sheer panic, the unbothered teacher only hurried her along.
“Teacher… can’t I solve it next time?”
“What are you talking about? Come on up, hurry.”
“Ah… Teacher, I really can’t right now…….”
“Hurry!”
“The answer is 13.”
The one who saved Sein this time, too, was Kang Da-hye.
Kang Da-hye’s clear, crisp voice echoed across the classroom. The teacher gave a dry laugh.
“Kang Da-hye, I didn’t ask you, did I?”
“No, you didn’t. But I already solved it in the meantime.”
“Oh, look at you, confident, huh? Then you come up and solve this one too.”
“Sure.”
Replying nonchalantly, Kang Da-hye stood up from her seat.
As she stepped forward, Da-hye’s hand lightly tapped Sein’s desk. Sein stared at Da-hye, but Da-hye didn’t look at Sein.
After that, they had no particular point of contact.
Sein’s class was on the third floor while Da-hye’s was on the second, and after midterms, Sein’s leveled-learning class had changed.
Though they ran into each other a few times passing by or in the Cafeteria, Da-hye seemed not to remember Sein.
Only Sein hesitated whenever she saw Da-hye, pausing to wonder, ‘Should I say hi? Should I pay back that pad?’
And this year.
“Jackpot. We’re in the same class as Seo Jae-gyeom.”
“Ah, I’m so damn jealous. Did you save a country in your past life? We have Song Yeo-reum in our class.”
“Guess you sold out your country.”
“Go on back already. To your class with Song Yeo-reum.”
Amid the noisy chatter of her friends, Sein saw Da-hye sitting alone over there.
Kang Da-hye, flipping through her literature textbook and reading the works ahead of time. And occasionally looking up to steal glances at Seo Jae-gyeom.
Sein rolled her eyes thoughtfully and pondered.
I want to get close to her.
Would I be able to?
* * *
“I don’t feel like studying. Want my books?”
I was stunned by Jeong Eun-seong’s bombshell remark.
Can you really live life… that coolly?
Don’t feel like studying, shall I throw out my textbooks~♪
Don’t feel like taking tests, shall I kidnap the teacher~♪
Don’t feel like going to work, shall I blow up the company~♪
‘Kidnapping the teacher is kind of tempting, though.’
No, that’s not what’s important right now.
“If you give your books to me, what about you?”
“I don’t need books. I’m not going to look at them anyway.”
“So cool…….”
I nudged Sein in the ribs with my elbow as she marveled. Snap out of it.
“Then what are you going to do during class?”
“Sleep.”
“You’re not going to study?”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“Don’t want to.”
“You have to study even if you hate it. What we’re learning in school right now isn’t specialized knowledge, it’s common sense. If you don’t know this when you go out into society later, people will call you ignorant.”
Though I gave advice born of firsthand experience, Jeong Eun-seong looked thoroughly unimpressed.
I tried to persuade Jeong Eun-seong, who looked like he had nothing on his mind except handing the textbooks over to me and heading home.
“Why do you hate studying?”
“Because it’s boring.”
“Try thinking of it as fun.”
“How am I supposed to think it’s fun when it’s not?”
“Is it me, or is it studying? You have to like one of the two.”
“No other choice, then. I’ll study.”
“…….”
That feels oddly insulting…….
Nodding with an utterly arrogant expression, Jeong Eun-seong swabbed the floor once more with the mop he was holding.
“Wipe your feet here.”
After ordering me to wipe off even the strawberry milk on my indoor shoes, he gathered up the wads of tissue scattered around.
Then, without even saying goodbye, he strode right out of the classroom.
Silence fell.
“…Dahye, are you sure you’re really not close with Jeong Eun-seong?”
“…Yeah.”
I have no idea why he’s acting like that.
I shook my head back and forth.
To cut to the chase, the Homeroom Teacher gave me replacements for the textbooks.
“What a shame. You must have had so many notes written down.”
“Ah, it was written so long ago anyway. I don’t remember any of it, so it’s fine! And as for workbooks… well, I can just buy new ones.”
Even though I told the truth, the teacher patted my cheek with a sympathetic expression.
“I’ll go home, look around, and give you whatever spare workbooks I have.”
“Really? Oh. I didn’t have any money anyway.”
After receiving plenty of doting from a teacher younger than me, I brought the kids in a crowd over to our shop.
“Then what happens to Bang Eunji?”
“She’s totally screwed.”
“Love that.”
“Ahaha…… Hello, Mother!”
“Ah, but my face has been so oily lately. It feels like my face is absorbing all the oil in the world.”
“What are you, a paper towel?”
“Whoa. This tteokbokki is crazy good.”
Did you know? If you cut up a pizza bun with scissors, put it on top of spicy tteokbokki, and microwave it, it’s delicious.
“By the way, why hasn’t Seo Jae-gyeom been coming to school lately?”
“I heard he went somewhere with his family?”
“His family seems really wealthy, right?”
“Hey, didn’t you see Chasebook? The picture he took on some yacht.”
“Is that yacht his family’s?!”
“If I give the Homeroom Teacher our boys’ album, would she like it?”
“Would the Homeroom Teacher even know our boys?”
“Probably not? The Homeroom Teacher didn’t even know BAST or Infinity.”
“She’s probably just pretending not to know.”
Adults like idols even more.
Be careful—the author of that 19+ fanfic you read by age-verifying with your unnie’s resident registration number might just be the Homeroom Teacher.
“Doyeon, are you good with spicy food?”
“I can’t eat it. Because there isn’t enough.”
“Ohh.”
“Then Dahye, are you taking online lectures together with Doyeon?”
“I’m just freeloading off her.”
“Not going to a separate cram school?”
“Yeah. Ah, hold on. I’ll get you guys some cola.”
Seeing Doyeon and Su-a with flushed faces from the spicy food, I stood up from my seat. As I was taking out cola from the refrigerator outside, Sein came over and spoke to me.
“Um, Dahye.”
“Yeah?”
“About what you said earlier about being short on allowance.”
“Ah, yeah.”
She must have overheard when I told the Homeroom Teacher I had no money.
Looking around, Sein leaned her face close to my ear.
Having heard Jeong Eun-seong’s ridiculous remarks earlier, I grew tense.
‘What is she trying to say?’
I’m honestly scared of teenagers’ radical mindsets now.
Is she going to ask me to rob a bank together or something?
Short on allowance, shall I rob a bank~♪
