The Practice Run at the Reading Room
Day and night, I-eum buried herself in preparation for the college entrance exam.
It wasn't that she lacked confidence in the test. Studying had been the only friend to keep her company through a lonely school career — pulling a top grade in every single subject was, if anything, second nature to her.
The problem was never the grades themselves. This was a situation where not a single mistake would be forgiven, and for that, she needed to train her mind as much as her memory.
Listening to the audio exam sections amid noise.
Solving long, tedious passages with a full bladder.
And the final hurdle.
Taking a full mock exam in the place she hated most, the place that made her most uncomfortable.
At eight in the evening, when the family had gathered in front of the TV, I-eum quietly stepped out into the living room.
Everyone's faces went slack with surprise. During these hours, she absolutely never emerged from her room while the family was awake.
"What's this?"
The first to react was Bo-ra.
Clutching a timer and a mock exam workbook against her chest, I-eum spoke to her father, Yeon Chang-shin.
"I'm going to study at the table."
Bo-ra promptly turned the TV volume up with the remote, but I-eum didn't so much as flinch.
This is actually good for me.
The chance to focus on every subject while this tense and this uncomfortable was an opportunity she couldn't have engineered better herself.
Bo-ra, meanwhile, found it insufferable to watch I-eum holding steady in her concentration despite the racket.
What was the point of trying so hard to live, when she was going to be sold off to Assemblyman Park anyway?
Bo-ra remembered something her mother had said before remarrying.
"The man's daughter is apparently brilliant at her studies."
Bo-ra worked hard, certainly, but her results were nothing remarkable — and she hated the idea of I-eum scoring higher than her.
The exam was close now.
A sharp glint flashed through Bo-ra's eyes as she watched I-eum.
It was a crisp, cloudless day in late autumn when Ji-hoon finished his last engagement of the day.
The principal, the vice principal, and a handful of other teachers had insisted on a dinner banquet, and Ji-hoon — pleading his condition — hadn't touched a single drop of alcohol. Which made looking after the drunk staff feel like far more trouble than it was worth.
"Chairman, sir! Please get home safe, sirrr!"
Watching a principal — a man old enough to be his father — bow so deeply toward him was a sight Ji-hoon could have done without. A cluster of black heads ducked down in a wave behind the man, and he turned away from them with effort.
He hurried to his car like a man fleeing the scene.
Wanting nothing so much as to be alone, he turned the key in the ignition — and a certain face drifted, unbidden, into his mind.
"Ha. What a busybody I am."
Ji-hoon shook his head at once and pressed the accelerator, merging into traffic at the intersection.
But even though he hadn't drunk a drop, something kept flickering before his eyes.
He ignored it again and again — until, at the very last signal, he turned the wheel.
"As an adult. Going as an adult. It's late at night, and Shinhee-dong isn't far from school."
Muttering the excuse out loud in his crispest diction, Ji-hoon turned back toward the school all the same.
When he got out and looked up at the building, sure enough, one of the rooms on the top floor — the floor with the study room — was lit up bright.
He checked the time. Ten thirty at night.
He strode up the stairs toward the lit room, and the proctor on duty, recognizing him at once, sprang to his feet.
"Chairman?"
Ji-hoon raised a hand, low.
"I'll be here for a while. Go ahead and head home."
"But, sir——"
"It's fine. I just need to lock up, don't I?"
The study room, open until eleven, was dark and silent. Even a casual glance showed plenty of empty seats.
Which made sense. Most kids were at cram schools or private tutoring by this hour; the ones who actually studied in a school study room were few and far between.
But there was a single seat, a single lamp, lit all on its own.
Having sent the proctor home, Ji-hoon made his way slowly toward the only light left in the room.
There she was. The very person responsible for dragging him back to this school.
"...Honestly."
She was asleep.
She'd slumped forward over her desk, fast asleep, and the sight of it wrung a brusque little sound out of him before he could stop himself.
The LED lamp threw a bright wash of light across one of I-eum's cheeks.
Her lashes were long and perfectly even, unmoving as a doll's, and the small, sock-toe curve of her nose along with her faintly parted lips traced a remarkably harmonious line.
Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, Ji-hoon found himself studying her — soundlessly asleep, not even a breath stirring.
A pair of pale fingertips peeking out from the sleeve of her thick hoodie caught his eye. Her nails were short and neat. Very much a student's hands.
How long did he stand there watching her?
A strand of hair slipped from behind her ear and drifted down her cheek. I-eum frowned faintly in her sleep, and before he knew it, Ji-hoon's hand was already reaching out to brush it away.
Just as he was tucking the strand back behind her ear again, a small sound came from behind him.
Despite being guilty of nothing, Ji-hoon whipped around.
A boy with round glasses was standing there, his backpack half-hoisted, looking straight at him.
"Ah——"
Yeon I-eum had not, as it turned out, been alone in the study room.
Ji-hoon felt a flicker of inner dismay, but he recovered quickly and strolled over to the boy as if nothing had happened.
"How long are you planning to stay?"
At the low growl in his voice, the boy's eyes went wide.
"Sorry? Oh — I was, I was just leaving——"
"Are your parents coming to pick you up?"
"Yes. My mom's outside."
"Good. Get home safe."
Ji-hoon gave the boy's shoulder a pat.
The kid hunched his shoulders all the way up to his ears, gave him a stiff bow, and turned to go.
Once he was gone, Ji-hoon surveyed the study room more carefully.
Now, at last, it really did look as though Yeon I-eum was the only one left.
Yet when he returned to her desk, she — apparently having woken at that small noise — was slowly pushing herself upright.
She stretched both arms toward the ceiling, then picked up her phone to check the time.
"Ugh, I didn't even finish."
He heard the mutter of a girl scolding her own sleeping self.
Ji-hoon checked his watch, pulled out the chair three seats down from her, and sat.
"Finish it. I'll wait."
I-eum's shoulders jumped violently, and she spun around.
The moment her eyes found him, her mouth fell open in a blank stare.
"Teacher...?"
She looked utterly unable to tell whether the Ji-hoon in front of her was dream or reality.
It was such a perfectly age-appropriate expression that an unearned laugh nearly forced its way up his throat, but Ji-hoon kept it off his face and spoke.
"Time me, would you?"
"……"
"You do your practice sets against a timer, don't you?"
Her eyes rolled slowly, as if wrestling with something — and then she closed the workbook she'd had open.
"No, thanks. I'll do it at home."
"Why? I said I'd wait. The proctor's already gone."
At that, I-eum stopped tidying her desk and looked back at him.
"So then it would be just the two of us, you and me, alone here. Is that what you're saying?"
"Uh? Well... yes."
It was true, though.
Something about the whites of her eyes gleaming bright in the darkness made Ji-hoon wave his hands and stand up.
"If you've got strange ideas, just go home."
"What strange ideas?"
"Home. Now. I'll drive you."
"Why are you suddenly avoiding my eyes?"
Ji-hoon made a flicking motion at the forehead of the relentless I-eum and walked out of the study room first.
When she followed right after, he confirmed one last time that no one else was inside, then locked the door and killed the lights.
All the way down to the parking lot, I-eum's chick-beak of a mouth never once stopped.
"Teacher. You should start getting ready to marry me soon."
"Tell me that after you pull a perfect score."
"I'm really, really confident, you know."
I-eum pumping both fists in the air was cute enough to wring a snort of laughter out of Ji-hoon, before he quickly schooled his expression again.
And so the car pulled out, bound for her house.
Even with the heater on full, the cold of the late hour had seeped into the car. He was glad, at least, that I-eum had worn track pants instead of a skirt.
"Oh, right. Teacher."
As they crossed an intersection, I-eum suddenly turned to him, as if something had just come back to her.
"Assemblyman Park's secretary called the house this afternoon."
"What?"
His hands tightened around the wheel on their own.
Had the man taken that beating and learned nothing?
"What did he say?"
"No idea. I said I had class and hung up. But that's why I'm telling you — I think he'll call again."
I-eum's pearl-like eyes rolled once, and then she spoke, as if she'd finally made up her mind.
"I'm going to tell him I like you, Teacher."
And then she went on, wearing a brave little smile.
"The strongest power in the world is sincerity. Isn't that what they say?"
For a moment, Ji-hoon was at a loss for words.
City lights glittered like jewels in the eyes of the girl looking at him so straight and true.
"But, Teacher."
And yet, the fear came creeping in alongside it.