Leaf Me Alone // minsung

「⸙ ch.35 ⸙」

JISUNG

Jeongin's eyes went wide as Chan announced what the third challenge consisted of. Hyunjin's jaw was on the ground. Seungmin scoffed incredulously, rolling his eyes at Chan's final attempt at getting his seven kids to do something productive.

Changbin piped up, voice dripping with unwillingness. "A maths paper, Chan. Of all the things in the world there is to compete with, you chose a fucking paper. And not just any paper, a maths paper. Really?"

Chan waved around the two papers with an enthusiasm I strongly suspected was fake. "Yes! A maths paper! I'm the one that sets the challenges, and I set a maths paper. Anyone unhappy with the challenge is free to forfeit and therefore lose! Be my guest."

No one spoke. Whatever else was uncertain about their wild behaviour, their competitive streak ran deep.

With a grin on his face, Chan slammed the two papers down on the table with a flourish. "That's what I thought. Minho and Jisung? Your final round awaits. Person who gets the most right answers in 10 minutes wins."

Pulling a face at Chan for such a ridiculous challenge, I sat down on the chair that he had magically produced out of nowhere.

Minho slid unwillingly into the chair beside me, taking up the pen set on the table by Chan with something that looked like mild disgust on his face.

Chan, who was looking all too gleeful at this genius idea of his, took the flag from Seungmin and held it up, motioning to Jeongin to set a timer. "Contestants at the ready? 3, 2, 1... go!"

Putting pen to paper, I scanned over the paper. Although at first the questions seemed difficult (also because it was maths, ew), they broke down nicely into straightforward steps. Blocking out Jeongin and Felix, who were immaturely yelling random numbers out at us, I made my way through the first few questions.

10 minutes passed quickly, and the stopwatch's harsh monotone of beeps halted my pen.

Standing up from my chair, I exaggerated a wink at Minho, head held high. "I have a good feeling about this one, you know?"

Minho grinned in response. "How coincidental, so do I."

We stood side-by-side, watching Chan drag a reluctant Changbin along to mark our answers. Chan finished counting up Minho's scores first, writing his final number at the top of the page with a flourish: 17/20.

I glanced at the total, then back at my paper where Changbin was squinting over one of my questions. "What are you looking at? I thought Chan was the one that needed old-age spectacles."

Changbin turned to me, deadpan. "Jisung. Come here and look at this question."

Curious, I shuffled over to him. On one of the last questions I had rushed, he had put a big circle over my calculation, then drew a massive arrow towards my final answer.

"Jisung Han. What is 8 plus 7?"

"15?"

"So why did you put 12?"

We both stared at my paper.

After a while, I opened my mouth. "That's... that's a really good question."

My final score was in.

16/20.

I lost.

I saw all of the freshly cooked dishes and cute snacks slip past my fingers. I had lost because I couldn't do simple addition. I had lost to Lee Minho, and all of my bravado was for nothing. The lazy dinners where I didn't have to lift a hand to get a mouth-watering meal served right to me, the blessing of my taste buds that stemmed from Minho's magic hands when working with a frying pan, the homemade cheesecake I had secretly been craving for longer than I'd been friends with him... all of it had dissipated in the face of my one mistake in the final competition.