Envelove // Choi Yeonjun

the one that got away

Our school always has exams before long school vacations. In a way, it's wonderful, because you can almost feel the weight lifting off your shoulders on the last day and you can enjoy your vacation to your heart's content.

In another way, it makes you absolutely drain out all of your brain's juices during the last week because once you come back to school, teachers are going to be done with marking the exam papers, and you'll have to face your grades.

And then you have to face the aftermath of exams. Teacher's are going to insist your grades are never good enough (nothing is ever good enough until you've taken the college entrance exams) and they'll bombard you with more exercise sheets and more tuition classes, making you stay up to the wee hours of the night.

And the cycle continues. But for now, we have to face preparing for the exams, which is just as exhausting.

There's a blur of mathematical equations and flashes of study tables, where we have tuition classes to revise the inner workings of a plant. There are heaps of flash cards and notes crumpled at the edges all over each dorm. There's the class moodmaker walking through corridors and wishing each student luck for tomorrow's subject.

Somehow, being at the hostel during an exam makes it all bearable in a way. If I were lonely during times like these, I'd just spiral down a point of no return.

Either way, I haven't really interacted with much people except those at the girl's hostel. School is just weirdly calm yet hectic. Everyone is minding their own business trying to reach their fullest potential for the exams next week.

Which is why the sight of Jake Sim in front of my class caught me off guard.

My class is partially empty during study hall, because half of my classmates prefer doing their homework at the library. Unless Taehyun has a shift at the library and promises good company, then I almost never go to the library during weekdays. Weekends at the library are so much better.

Jake approaches me, asking if the seat beside me is occupied. I shake my head, knowing that my seatmate, Aera is at the library and doesn't mind anyone sitting at her desk. I look back to see Taehyun raising a brow at me, silently questioning why Jake Sim out of all people was here at such an unexpected time.

Here's the thing; Jake's from class 4-A. Our school has some kind of tiering system, sorting students into classes by their final year exam rankings. Taehyun and I are from class 4-B.

4-A and 4-B are like heaven and hell.

It's not about the grades; truthfully, most of us are on the same level regarding education. But what differs us is the atmosphere of our classes.

Rather than heaven, I think graveyard aesthetic suits class 4-A more. When you step into it, everyone is so silent, focused on their schoolwork and it's inevitably intimidating.

Basically, 4-A students like ambience and quiet. 4-B students on the other hand, are trying everything we can to break the ambience and quiet. There's literally a bunch of my classmates doing a heated bottle flip challenge at the back of the class right now.

4-A students can barely stand an hour of joint English classes with us.

"Hey," Jake says, his smile unwavering despite how Taehyun is shamelessly staring at him with a confused and curious expression, "I need help with my English assignment."

Well that explains it. Jake is one of Mr Kim's golden students, so when he asked for Mr Kim's help, our teacher must've referred him to me since they're busy preparing for the upcoming exams.

There are no other surprises, really. We both skim through our assignments, highlighting through keywords as we go, discussing potential points to add.

We haven't spoken face to face since the Sunday breakfast, but everything seems to roll out naturally. We're both still careful around each other; but there's a new casualty to our interactions. It takes time, and we're not rushing.