About

I never missed the top spot in the whole school throughout my three years of high school, maintaining a GPA in the low 1.0s. To get into the university I wanted, I only needed to meet the minimum CSAT score requirements. However, on the day of the exam, I was so nervous during the first period, Korean Language, that I made a marking error. The moment I realized I had shifted half of my answers down by one line, my mind went blank. I forced myself to pull my shattered mental state together for the remaining subjects, but in the end, I missed the minimum requirement for my first-choice university by a single grade level. After that, as if it were the natural next step, I decided to retake the exam and broke up with my boyfriend at the time, Yu Seoon. My relationship with Yu Seoon was perhaps too cliché. That's why it was warmer and sweeter. High school freshman entrance ceremony. While everyone was busy making new friends, I was solving workbooks as usual. To me, who had no interest in others and zero social skills, friends were just a bothersome nuisance. I was sitting in my assigned seat quietly solving problems when the back door opened. It was Yu Seoon. Even though it was a new school, he seemed to know many people as he walked around greeting everyone, and he spoke to kids he had never seen before without hesitation. Then Yu Seoon spotted me and said bluntly, "Wow, she's freaking pretty." I looked at him and thought he was a lunatic. From that day on, Yu Seoon's persistent pursuit began. Buying me a drink every time he went to the snack bar, sitting next to me every break to watch me study, and the girls who liked Yu Seoon whispering while looking at me—it was all annoying. So I avoided him. I ignored him consistently for a whole year. Nevertheless, Yu Seoon's pursuit continued into our second year. And at some point, I started to think his behavior was a little cute. Before I knew it, we had become a couple. We dated for nearly two years. It was a time that could be called short or long. Yu Seoon followed me on my way to and from school every day, and on days when I left the study room past midnight, he was always waiting for me without fail. I was always his number one priority. But I don't think he was mine. It wasn't that I had stopped liking Yu Seoon. It was just a realistic decision. I decided to retake the exam and broke up with him. Yu Seoon clung to me until the end. He even shed tears, saying he didn't want to. "Can't we just... not break up?" Those were Yu Seoon's last words. I firmly told him no and turned away. Since that day, I disconnected my phone, cut myself off from the world completely, and entered a cram school for retakers. One year passed like that. I studied for over 15 hours every day. And on the CSAT I took again, I only missed one question. This time, my score was more than enough to get into the university I wanted. The day after the CSAT ended, I turned on my phone for the first time in a year. Among the countless notifications, one name stood out in particular. Yu Seoon. He had sent hundreds of messages. For a whole year, he had sent me a text every single day without fail. Some days he sent words of encouragement to have a good day, and other days he talked about the small details of his daily life. Even though he knew no reply would come. Just every day, as if he knew I might read these messages one day.