Sixteen Again

1

On the morning of May 4th, Kim Jiyeon carried a school bag that was half of her weight and arrived at school. The first thing she did when she arrived was to grab her friend's homework and copy it down.

Her friend was not stingy with her mocking contempt: “Kim Jiyeon, can’t you do your homework?”

Jiyeon pressed the end of her pen to the shoulder, exposing the tip of the press-type fountain pen she used, and replied while her head was still lowered and looking at the answers to the multiple-choice questions her friend had written down.

“I’m a performing arts student, why do I have to do homework?”

Every time her friend, Chu Sojung, told her to do her homework, she would refute this exact argument. However, her reasoning was sound as she is a performing arts student and so as long as she could pass her cultural and standard courses, it didn’t matter what grade she gets or how much homework she does. After all, her future career and her performing arts classes were much more important. She usually only comes to school for the last two months of the school year or so. So if she wants to copy someone’s homework, might as well just let her copy it.

After copying all the English multiple-choice questions, Jiyeon suddenly looked up, “You haven’t forgotten about tonight’s plans, right?”

Chu Sojung picked up the pen and was considering finishing today’s homework before she left today when she heard her friend’s words and froze, “We have classes today. Are you seriously still planning on going?”

“Of course, I’m going to go!” she said loudly, “If I miss it this time, who knows when I’ll ever get another chance!”

“You’re not afraid of being discovered by your mother?” Sojung asked with a suspicious tone.

Jiyeon's eyes flashed with hesitation at the mention of her mother, but she quickly grew determined once again, “I’m not afraid! We’ll just take a quick look and then hurry back. There are two and a half hours for self-study in the evening anyways, so if we take a taxi we’ll have plenty of time.”

Sojung still had her doubts, but Jiyeon lowered her head again to continue copying the homework.

She had already thought about it. Skipping class once or twice should be fine. Coming to this conclusion, Sojung decided to just go with it.

Due to the implementation of the new rules, except for senior high school students, all other grades will get out of school at 5:30. Although the school said this was because they wanted to reduce the mental strain of school on students, the administration had secretly added another two and a half hours in the evening in the name of ‘self-study.’ Thus, school often didn’t end until nine in the evening.

This new regulation made the entire student population feel quite miserable. They barely had time to return home for dinner and then they would have to trudge back to school again around 6:30 in the evening. Sojung lived in the school’s dorms, so to her, it was just time spent doing homework not at home, and hence, she didn’t feel too bothered by this rule. As for Jiyeon, she thought this rule was cruel and mean.

As a performing arts student, she hardly ever came to school and when she did, she lived a very carefree student life.

Her home is direct across from the school. Every night she went home for dinner, and then watched some TV before coming back. When school finished, she would leave half of her things in the classroom and take the other half home.

“I’m going home first. See you at the back gate in half an hour!”

Sojung's eyes were still stuck on the paper, and she merely waved a hand to indicate she heard Jiyeon.