The Top Student Hides Her Regression
Chapter 9
“…Ah.”
As our eyes met without warning, I froze for a second.
“Out of the way.”
A shadow fell over my head from behind.
“Why are you blocking the door?”
This obnoxious, low voice was definitely—
Without turning around, I reached out to close the classroom door, but Jung Eun-sung, appearing from behind, smoothly blocked my hand.
Looking back and forth between Seo Jae-gyeom, who had already turned his attention back to Jisu, and me, standing there blankly, Jung Eun-sung asked.
“Is that him?”
“What? No, more importantly, Jung Eun-sung, why are you here? This is Class A.”
“I’m in this class too.”
“Think again.”
“Wow. Look at Kang Da-hye blatantly looking down on you.”
Letting out a soft chuckle, Doyeon headed to her seat first.
Feeling a twinge of guilt under Jung Eun-sung’s steady gaze, I tacked on an excuse.
“I mean… I know you’re good at English.”
They say agencies teach foreign languages these days. I remembered his pronunciation being really good.
“But were you good at math too…?”
“Nope. I don’t even know one plus one.”
“Then why are you here?”
“There were so many math-abandoners that Class C ran out of room. At least my English is Class A level.”
“What about the other Class C kids? Is their English all Class C too…?”
“Yeah.”
“…….”
Math-abandoners of the world unite, I guess…….
“So, is that him? The star of your playlist?”
“No, he’s not!”
“What do you mean, ‘no’? Anyone can see it’s him.”
Your standards are really low. Scanning Seo Jae-gyeom up and down as he playfully blocked the workbook Jisu was buried in with his large palm, Jung Eun-sung snorted.
“So what class is he from, and who is he?”
“…He’s in our class…… Class 2.”
Even if he transferred in only a few days ago, how could he not know Seo Jae-gyeom?
Didn’t he stand out the moment you walked into the classroom?
“What’s his name?”
“Seo Jae-gyeom.”
“…That’s Seo Jae-gyeom?”
“You know him?”
“He’s not even better looking than me, though?”
I’m better. Jung Eun-sung asserted.
Speechless, I looked up at Jung Eun-sung.
Jung Eun-sung held my gaze confidently, as if asking what the problem was.
Yeah, yeah, good for you.
“And the girl sitting over there must be Jisu, the one you’re close with.”
“You don’t know Seo Jae-gyeom in our class, but you know Han Ji-soo from another class. Did you fall for her or something?”
“It’s not that…… Sigh. Never mind.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to know. Then what about the girl over there? Is she in our class too?”
“Doyeon? Yeah, Doyeon is in our class.”
“Are you close with her? Things seemed pretty loud earlier.”
“Ah….”
Right. He must have been in the cafeteria during lunchtime too.
He must have seen the whole scene between me and Song Yeo-reum.
Just in case, I asked.
“Jung Eun-sung, do you believe those rumors too? That… Doyeon, you know.”
“Do I look like an idiot to you?”
Jung Eun-sung cut me off testily.
“I might not know one plus one, but I still have a brain, you know?”
I must have laughed at that answer.
Jung Eun-sung gave me a strange look.
“Are you that happy I don’t believe those baseless rumors?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“They’re not even rumors about you.”
“Even so.”
“You really are… so weird.”
Look who’s talking.
Sure, I might feel an internal closeness with him after watching him for over eleven years, but he hadn’t even known me for a week—so why had he been taking potshots at me all day?
Scowling deeply, I pressed him.
“Hey. What are we seriously going to do about the music performance evaluation?”
“What do you mean? Just sing a song you’re good at.”
“I don’t have a song I’m good at!”
“Then pick one with difficult lyrics. Make everyone else get them wrong, and only you sing it right.”
“Oh.”
That actually wasn’t a bad idea.
Nodding at the plausible suggestion, I noticed Jung Eun-sung staring intently at me. It wasn’t like I had anything on my face, but he was scrutinizing every inch of it, so I snapped at him.
“What, do I look pretty?”
“Ha!”
“Don’t confess. I won’t accept it.”
“Oh, please. Hey, my standards are sky-high.”
Jung Eun-sung held his hand flat and raised his arm high above his head.
“My standards are up here.”
Annoyed, I smacked his arm.
“My standards are even higher than that!”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Jung Eun-sung gestured toward Seo Jae-gyeom with his eyes once more.
“They’re rolling around on the floor over there.”
“What is?!”
“Your standards.”
“Ugh…!”
“Heheheh….”
Jung Eun-sung, who had been chuckling, suddenly turned serious.
“Anyway. There is absolutely, positively, never a chance I’ll ever like a weird kid like you.”
“I didn’t even confess and you’re already dumping me, unbelievable…….”
“Not even if the sky falls down. So put your mind completely at ease.”
“You shouldn’t put your mind at ease!”
Just in time, the math teacher entering the classroom—Teacher Na Mungwa, who taught Math Class A—chimed in on Jung Eun-sung’s words.
“The moment you relax, you drop to Class B! Da-hye, what are you doing? Hurry up and sit down.”
“Teacher…….”
To Teacher Na Mungwa, whom I was seeing for the first time since my regression, regressor Kang Da-hye posed her historic first question.
“Where is my seat…?”
“…….”
“Over here…….”
From behind, Seo Jae-gyeom raised his hand with an unenthusiastic expression.
“You’re the one who asked to sit together, Kang Da-hye. Don’t you remember……?”
“…….”
“Pfft.”
I ignored Jung Eun-sung’s snicker.
‘Look who’s calling who weird. The guy who doesn’t even know one plus one.’
Why wouldn’t you know one plus one?
One plus one is…….
Gwiyomi, obviously!
“A quadratic equation where the coefficient is a rational number, x squared…….”
“You’re pretty fearless.”
Over Teacher Na Mungwa’s explanation, of which I didn’t understand a single word, Seo Jae-gyeom’s whispering voice overlapped.
With my mouth slightly agape and my brow furrowed as I glared at the blackboard, I shifted only my eyes toward Seo Jae-gyeom.
When our eyes met, the corners of Seo Jae-gyeom’s mouth curved up.
“Earlier in the cafeteria. Facing Song Yeo-reum.”
“I wasn’t. I was scared out of my mind.”
Honestly, even now I was terrified her gang would hunt me down and beat me up. I was planning to leave through the back gate on my way home.
“If they ever try to mess with me, make sure you stop them. And be my witness when I report it to the police. Got it?”
“Haha.”
Why is he laughing when I’m 100% serious?
“Seo Jae-gyeom, why haven’t you helped Doyeon all this time? If someone like you had just said a single word, things would’ve been very different from how they are now.”
“Well… because me stepping in would only make things worse, right?”
“You know that’s just an excuse, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“…….”
Since he readily admitted it, I couldn’t even say anything back. Just as I was about to turn my gaze back to the blackboard, Seo Jae-gyeom spoke.
“Sorry.”
“For what?”
“What I said to you earlier. I didn’t need to go that far.”
“Ah. Whatever.”
Among the many ways to deliver the truth, you really did choose the cruelest one.
“To be honest, there’s a girl I’m interested in too. But when you cut in, I got annoyed for a moment. Felt like you were getting in my way.”
Well, aren’t you honest.
I don’t think he ever told me things like this before my regression.
“So, excluding number four for now…….”
I couldn’t recognize more than half the symbols the teacher was writing on the board. Jotting down all the explanations for now, I replied half-heartedly.
“I know. You like Jisu.”
Right.
Seo Jae-gyeom liked my friend Jisu.
During floating classes like this where the three of us took lessons together, even while sitting next to me, Seo Jae-gyeom’s gaze would frequently drift to Jisu. And whenever break time came, he would head to Jisu as if freed from shackles.
Every time that happened, unable to join in between the two until Jisu called for me, I would fiddle around organizing my desk.
In the past, I had been deeply hurt by that.
There were times I fell into self-loathing, wondering why I couldn’t be as amazing as Jisu.
And now?
Whatever.
Having feelings for Seo Jae-gyeom was, from my perspective, something from eleven years ago already.
No, wait.
Since I liked him all the way through my senior year, make that ten years ago.
At my calm words, Seo Jae-gyeom’s eyes widened slightly.
“You knew?”
“How could I not?”
“Well. Han Ji-soo is pretty.”
Meaning I’m not.
“This isn’t going to make things awkward between you and Han Ji-soo for no reason, right?”
“Why would I do that? I’m not going to like you anymore anyway.”
Those words must have been unexpected, because Seo Jae-gyeom even turned his body to look at me.
Leaning so far forward to take notes that I looked ready to pitch onto the desk, I simply nodded.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I’d be grateful if you did, but…… can feelings really change just because you want them to?”
I already don’t like you, though.
To me, you’re already a person of the past.
“Well, it won’t be easy. But once we turn twenty and go to college, it’ll all be over. They say out of sight, out of mind.”
And that was truly what happened.
Once I bombed the CSAT and my own life was crashing down right before my eyes, I didn’t even think about Seo Jae-gyeom.
Even if my feelings for Seo Jae-gyeom still existed, their expiration date was two years at most.
“Even if it’s uncomfortable, just bear with it until the CSAT, Seo Jae-gyeom. We’ll be split into different classes in our senior year anyway, and once we go to college, we won’t be seeing each other anymore.”
“We won’t see each other?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“Kang Da-hye, you’re cold. Won’t you even say hi if we bump into each other in the neighborhood?”
“Turns out we never ran into each other.”
“You talk like you’ve already experienced it.”
Seo Jae-gyeom muttered to himself, his tone carrying somewhat more weight than usual. Over that, the teacher’s voice overlapped.
Far more important than the grumbling of Seo Jae-gyeom, a connection with a two-year expiration date—
“Alright, I’ll explain again. A quadratic equation where the coefficient is a rational number…….”
What on earth is a coefficient, Teacher……?
I know the 'clear stream' from the classical poem…… Will that not do……?
“Then who wants to solve this problem?”
Math really is hopeless.
As I was biting my lip—
I met Jung Eun-sung’s eyes.
Grinning, Jung Eun-sung slowly parted his lips.
“Teacher, Kang—”
Aaaargh!
I grabbed Seo Jae-gyeom’s hand as he was in the middle of saying something. I grabbed it and shoved it straight up into the air.
“Teacher! Seo Jae-gyeom says he’ll solve it!”
One minute later.
Seo Jae-gyeom returned with a furious expression masked by a smile, and asked.
“So, are you ditching me to switch to him now?”
