[Jaeshin steps out of school with the excuse that he is going to "go buy a hat", but Yongha predicts Jaeshin is evading the school meeting in which the west and east dormitory votes on which new student to deliver letters. Yoonhee observes how divided the political factions are when she sees that the seojae picks a noron student and dongjae picks a soron without fail, despite the fact that there are other few students within each dormitory that is not of the same faction. All this while, Sunjoon is also constantly being pressured to remove himself from dongjae from other students.
Yongha notes that Yoonhee is probably going to be alone with Sunjoon today, since their vacation day is two days away there's no reason Jaeshin will come back for one more day of classes. Yoonhee is both excited and nervous...]
Even though the two are alone in the room, nothing is different. Yoonhee still has to study to be able to follow the course content, and Sunjoon has his head buried in his book, as expected. Yoonhee loses all the anxiousness as she realizes that she has to stick to her studies or else she won’t be able to pass the next class. After the first class, it’s just a miracle for her that she can get through a class without professor Jang calling her out. On top of that, professor Yoo’s classes are so fast-paced she is having a hard time just reading what he assigned, never mind studying it closely.
When the books pile up one by one on her desk, she senses a strange feeling from Sunjoon. Even though he has his book open, his pages aren’t turning. Even though he isn’t showing it, his expression is dark, and Yoonhee can’t find herself able to ignore him. So she closes her book. She approaches his desk and puts her elbow on it, holding her chin up with her hand. Sunjoon, a little startled at first, smiles.
“What is it?”
“Let’s play. It seems like you don’t want to study either.”
Sunjoon jokes, “how did you come to such an idea? It seemed like after you came into Sungkyunkwan, you spent all your time with your books and hardly gave me the time of day.”
“When did I do that?”
“You did.”
She wasn’t ignoring him–she was trying to be careful not to meet his gaze. It seems like every time she is in front of him, she ends up reverting back to her female self. And with Yongha always around, she has to stay wary. No, she should be wary, with just anyone, not just Yongha.
That one day when she woke up, realizing she fell asleep before Sunjoon and Jaeshin did… She still can’t shake off the shock from that day. She went through heaven and hell wondering whether she was found out, until Jaeshin and Sunjoon woke up. Thankfully it seemed like they did not notice anything. Even so, she still can’t shake off the shock. That’s why she is being more careful now than ever.
Yoonhee relaxes at the sight of Sunjoon’s smile.
Sunjoon asks, “are you trying to comfort me?”
“Is there something you should be comforted about?” (Note, Yoonhee does know that Sunjoon’s unhappy with the peer pressure, but she is trying to joke it off to make him feel better).
Sunjoon looks at Yoonhee’s face. He finds himself smiling as he looks at Yoonhee’s expression. How can a man make such a lovable face? Yoonhee realizes that she has made a woman’s face yet again and reverts her voice and expression back to that of a “man’s”.
“You came into dongjae because you didn’t want to be picked, right? You wanted to avoid the fight between the norons and sorons…”
“There’s no one reason someone does anything.”
It’s a vague answer, but the best that Sunjoon can give her. How could he say, he wanted to stay close to the person in front of him, and that he came to dongjae because it was easier that he came here than to bring Kim Yoonshik into seojae? He says to Yoonhee,
