“Hoo?”
A reflexive rebuttal mixed with a question jumped out.
In the end, that phrase was heard not just at school but also at home.
Without overreacting to the question I had heard several times already, I simply shook my head and replied flatly.
“No? It’s like that at school too, the kids are asking weird things.”
“It’s just that it looks like that.”
I brushed off my classmates’ questions with an annoyed answer, but…
If even Siyeon, who lived in the same house, felt seriously about it, then it was a different story.
Does it really seem like that to those around me?
I briefly glanced at Taehyun, who was sitting across from me.
Even from an objective male perspective, Taehyun’s appearance was decent.
He wasn’t as scrawny as Sunhyuk, nor as hefty as Dongha.
He had a perfectly athletic build.
Taehyun, perhaps aware of Siyeon’s question, glanced this way and when our eyes met, he quickly looked away.
Even with the atmosphere about to get weird, I felt no emotion, and I casually changed the subject to the food.
“Let’s just eat.”
“Okay.”
Thus, the couple gossip was neatly wrapped up with the declaration to eat.
After finishing our uneventful lunch, I didn’t immediately chase Taehyun home.
While wondering if I had anything to offer him, I pulled out some cut pineapple that was rolling around in the bottom of the fridge, and the three of us enjoyed a short dessert time.
Later, a brief conversation ensued among the students.
“Oh right, have you guys done your vacation homework?”
With only a week or so until the end of the vacation, this was a common question among students plagued by the fear and anxiety of returning to school.
They would ask this to gain reassurance that their surroundings were just as unprepared as they were, hoping for the answer, “I haven’t done a single thing,” much like their own blank slates regarding the homework.
But reality is ruthlessly harsh, and I ended up mentioning the homework I had already finished long ago.
“I’m done.”
“Really?”
Hearing that I had completed it, Taehyun looked utterly incredulous, mouth agape.
If it were just Taehyun surprised, it would have been whatever, but Siyeon was wide-eyed too.
The vibe felt really strange, so I subtly turned my head towards Siyeon and asked cautiously.
“Siyeon, how much homework did you do?”
“Me? Uh…”
Siyeon couldn’t meet my gaze, trying to divert her attention elsewhere as she walked off.
The delay in her response indicated that there was something she didn’t want to say.
I swiftly got up from the sofa and grabbed her obnoxious shoulder as she tried to flee.
“Homework.”
“Ah, I haven’t done any…!”
As soon as I caught her shoulder and said “homework,” her genuine feelings finally spilled out.
One of us hadn’t done our homework, and so had Siyeon.
‘These guys really…’
I didn’t care too much about poor grades, but I couldn’t just stand by while they messed up their performance evaluation scores.
After all, fundamentals are important.
I first seated Siyeon at our wide dining table and set down her dusty schoolbag on the adjacent chair.
“You both better gather with your homework.”
“Me too?”
“You too. If you don’t come down, I’ll come up!”
Taehyun asked, pointing to himself, after I said “both.”
When I said “gather with your homework,” it naturally implied those two.
So, I dragged the two of them into the forced task of vacation homework.
Siyeon, who had been so eager to travel, hadn’t even finished a single homework assignment before going!
‘How ridiculous, utterly ridiculous….’
I was taken aback to learn this fact late, but still relieved to have discovered it, so I urged them to get to work.
Still, middle school first-year vacation homework is easier than expected.
Gathered around the table, with our combined intellect, we could finish it in about three hours.
Rather than stressing out until just before the start of school over such trivial homework, it was better to finish it quickly.
…Though, it was only natural that none of us felt particularly inclined to do so.
By the way, a few days before the vacation ended, Taehyun’s aunty came by and thanked me for making her son do his homework, taking us both out for meat afterward.
What was supposed to be a month-long vacation whizzed by in an instant…
The infamous hot and humid Korean summer heatwave had arrived.
“Ugh…”
A weary groan escaped as I slumped over the desk, spreading across the floor.
The fans dividing the classroom into four zones spun furiously, while the central air conditioner worked at maximum output.
Even so, with twenty to thirty people crammed into the large classroom, sweat was dripping profusely.
As we tried to beat the heat with the airflow from the fans rotating every three seconds, a shrill female shout rang out in the room.
“Damn it, get lost, you bastards!”
“Ugh, I’m about to die.”
The reason for such dire straits was none other than the students going mad from the heat.
To get even a little closer to the air conditioner, students dragged their chairs and squeezed into the narrow gap between desks.
They positioned their chairs in that snug corridor and stood on them, reaching out to the air conditioner’s vent.
The unfortunate student sitting right under the air conditioner suffered every break period.
With sweaty students crowding around, there was no way it could be pleasant for them.
On sweltering summer days like this, even the usage rate of the school store plummeted.
Leaving the classroom itself became a challenge.
Even I, someone who usually got a set of baked goods and drinks from the store, was just sitting quietly in class.
I didn’t even think of leaving unless there was an urgent need for the bathroom.
Ignoring the hallway’s water purifier that I used without a second thought before, I now brought an insulated bottle filled with ice water from home.
As the extreme heat warnings flashed for what felt like the hundredth time and sunlight was nearly blinding, the students’ attitudes toward gym class shifted drastically.
“…”
As the first period ended and it was time for recess, the second period was gym class.
It was time for the boys to hurry and grab their gym clothes, clattering out of the classroom.
But instead of the clattering noise, the only sound filling the classroom was the whirring of the fan and air conditioner.
“Oh, it’s gym class.”
Even when a student casually remarked this, nobody moved an inch.
They fully expressed it with their bodies, declaring that even if they died and came back, there was no way they were going to have gym class in this heat.
Even the class leader didn’t even get up to ask the gym teacher whether we were having indoor or outdoor gym class, instead burying his face in his desk.
A dutiful student rummaged through his locker to fetch his gym clothes but subtly began to glance around at the others.
Prepared for class, but he also didn’t want to go out in this heat.
“Hey, hey, don’t pull it out, don’t pull it out.”
When the diligent student pulled out his gym clothes, a more playful friend lounging at the back whispered to discourage him.
They feared that a diligent student might cause someone to have to leave the classroom.
Under the five words of “I don’t want to go out,” all the students silently united in an unusual spectacle.
In this weather, who would want to engage in outdoor physical activities? It was bound to be indoors.
Looking around at the atmosphere in the classroom, it seemed everyone shared the same thought.
The bell signaling class time echoed throughout the school, leading to a bizarre scene where not a single student ventured out, remaining sprawled out in the classroom.
About five minutes after the bell rang, the sound of the front door of the classroom opening echoed.
“What are you all doing? Not going out? Are we having indoor gym class without even asking?”
“Ah…”
When the teacher stepped in to announce that it was indeed outdoor gym class, the students released sighs that bordered on complaints.
The teacher seemed a bit surprised by the outbursts, having not anticipated such a reaction to a little joke, chuckling softly as he clarified.
“I was just kidding, just kidding, feel free to lay down.”
Students who had started to lift their heads in protest instead flopped back down, reversing the situation with the teacher’s words.
There are things that can be taken lightly and things that cannot, so the students all returned to their sprawled positions.
Each one using their pencil case or book as a pillow, they began to enjoy several minutes of blissful sleep in the darkened classroom.
This kind of class time passes the quickest, and it’s nice for the gym teacher to just fiddle with his smartphone at the desk.
And for students to catch up on the sleep they’d missed.
Even though I wasn’t particularly drowsy, I collapsed over my desk as though enchanted by the atmosphere of the dim classroom.
Closing my eyes to match my classmates, before I knew it, I was engulfed in drowsiness.
As I felt overwhelmingly sleepy and thought, ‘I should take a nap as soon as I get home’…
“Now that vacation is over, everyone better shape up, see you tomorrow-”
“Yeeeeeah-”
‘Now I’m not sleepy.’
It was amazing how my eyes would snap open at the end of the school day.
As the sounds of the fans and air conditioning that had been working tirelessly halted at last.
Getting back home during the summer posed another hurdle.
When it’s cold, you can just pile on layers, but when it’s hot, you can’t shed your skin, making it the most torturous season.
Thinking about the damage, it might be a careless thought, but I could really use a cool typhoon right about now.
As I thought that, the moment I stepped out of school.
“What the hell is that?”
I found myself speechless at the banner hanging from a truck parked right in front of the school gate:
[In search of a 13 to 20-year-old woman who doesn’t want to study, doesn’t want to work, and doesn’t want a glamorous life, to live with a tough 60-year-old grandpa who will have children and manage the household. Please come with this vehicle.]
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