The final score of the exam was going to be announced at 0 o’clock.
Yeom Jun-yeol sat in the middle of his room, waiting nervously to check his rank.
‘If I don’t sleep early today, I might not be able to carry out tomorrow’s schedule as usual… ’
It’s been a long time since he’s been awake until this late, except for the day he arrived home in the middle of midnight due to his school uniform commercial filming.
‘Why is time passing so slowly?’
He checked the holographic watch several times, but the time almost didn’t change. Yeom Jun-yeol always did his best in every exam, but this was the first time he aimed for the top with such enthusiasm and sincerity.
‘My teacher must be someone who’s associated with the school. I don’t know if he’s a student or a staff member, but the place we always meet for our training class is the closed area of the school. He also seemed like he was able to check the chess match result right away.’
If his teacher, who he admired so much, is someone associated with the school, the first thing that he had to do to be recognized was to receive a good grade.
Yeom Jun-yeol also knew that a student’s worth cannot be judged by grades. However, the most common criterion for evaluating students in the school was their grades.
‘I only showed my lacking side to my teacher so far. I really want to achieve the first rank this time.’
In the chess competition, which my teacher showed interest in, Jun-yeol lost to Jo Eui-shin, who was a year younger than him. He tried to make up for this by competing with last year’s chess champion, Cheon Dong-ha, but he lost again.
Growing up among high-ranking players of the Red Lion Clan and the Dragon Clan, Yeom Jun-yeol was used to losing. However, he was not used to losing to his peers, especially humans.
Beep!
Suddenly, the alarm that was set at 0 o’clock rang. When he refreshed the page, the holographic screen turned white, and soon, the text appeared.
[Second-Grade Semester 1 Final Exam Rank Accouncement]
[1st place: 2-1 Cheon Dong-ha]
[2nd place: 2-1 Yeom Jun-yeol]
[3rd place: 2-0 Geum Chan-sol, 2-0 Wang Chan-sol]
……
……
……
After checking his rank, Yeom Jun-yeol’s eyes turned dark.
‘I missed the 1st place!’
He lost although he did his best and didn’t give up until the last.
He lost both the chess match and the final exam.
A sense of helplessness and despair overwhelmed him.
‘What should I say to my teacher…?’
Yeom Jun-yeol always talked about how he was going to win the chess tournament and aim for 1st place in the final exam, but never actually achieved what he said. He also told his teacher every training class that he would succeed in ‘swallowing powers’ next time, but he could only barely swallow a flame the size of the palm of his hand.
When he compared himself with his teacher, who always blocks evil deeds and saves people without being arrogant, he became embarrassed.
‘I’m a bad student….’
Yeom Jun-yeol stayed up all night looking at the hologram and thought about what he should say to his teacher. In the end, he only sent a message saying ‘I’m sorry.’ to his teacher and got ready to go to school.
Not so long after, there was a reply.
[Teacher] You don’t have to say sorry.
[Teacher] Well done.
The caring teacher, who cherished his student, gave the answer that he expected. The fact that he sent such a message, knowing what the teacher would tell him, made Yeom Jun-yeol even more self-deprecating.
When Yeom Jun-yeol went to the living room, Cheong Ryong and Yeom Bang-yeol were talking with serious faces, which he found strange, but he couldn’t hear their conversation clearly.
* * *
After school, at the newspaper department room located in the Club Hall,
Today, the manager of the newspaper department summoned all the members to give a presentation about the summer vacation schedule. While waiting for the manager in a shared meeting room, I turned on the small screen and checked the messenger.
‘Yeom Jun-yeol isn’t responding.’
After the message of apology, there was no additional message from Yeom Jun-yeol. Objectively speaking, Yeom Jun-yeol did bring an excellent result but still, I could tell that he was upset.
‘He must be suppressing his emotions.’
He must know that as soon as he says ‘I’m not satisfied with 2nd place’, he’ll only be overwhelmed by the inferiority complex. And he won’t say such a thing to the Dragon Clan or the Red Tiger Clan since he won’t want to make them worry.
‘I want to give him encouragement.’
Should I say you will do better next time?
No, this will only put more pressure on him.
Should I say 2nd place is good enough?
No, this won’t encourage him at all, but rather, he’ll interpret my words as ‘You did well, but why are you upset?’.
Back in elementary, I was selected as a pre-member instead of a representative in the National Chess Olympiad selection match. Recalling how others reacted and how I felt after coming back from the match, I could clearly understand Jun-yeol’s feeling.
After thinking about it for a while, I finally sent a message.
[Me] When do you want to have our next class?
The reply came right away.
[Yeom Jun-yeol] ….Teacher!
[Yeom Jun-yeol] I’m available any time!
[Yeom Jun-yeol] (Emoji)
He sent an emoji of a red dragon with sparkling eyes.
When I tapped to open the next message,
[Eun Seo-ho] We got scolded by Mr. Baek Ho….
What’s going on?
There’s no way that Eun Ho’s juniors did something very wrong that made Baek Ho, who doesn’t easily get angry over things, mad.
[Eun Lee-ho] Mr. Jeok Ho seemed a little depressed today. So we decided to make him feel better by surprising him with the prank that the mountain spirit taught us, but failed.
Seeing the explanation that followed, I could understand why Baek Ho got so mad.
Eun Ho’s juniors attempted to do the corpse prank that caught Hwang Jiho on Jeok Ho, who had already become sensitive with Kim Shin-rok becoming the target. While Baek Ho was reading the book in the basement of the mansion, the kids covered themselves in fake blood again and gave a great shock to Jeok Ho, who was left alone.
As a result, the juniors are currently sitting in the living room with Jeok Ho, and the mountain spirit is doing his mental training again with Baek Ho.
‘I don’t think it’s the mountain spirit’s fault this time…. But whatever, he’ll become stronger after the training, so it’s not that bad. Does Hwang Jiho know about all this?’
Hwang Jiho seemed like he lost his concentration from rotating his clones. When I stared at him, who was sitting next to me, he turned his head and looked into my hologram.
After seeing the conversation I had with Eun Ho’s juniors, his face became serious and he ground his teeth.
“That damn mountain spirit……”
Although it was the fault of the juniors, Hwang Jiho also seemed like he was going to punish the mountain spirit only. The three juniors kept sending me messages as if they got bored sitting in the living room.
[Eun Jae-ho] (Picture)
Among the three, Eun Jae-ho was the one who took pictures the most. His photography skill was getting better day by day, but unlike usual, the picture of Olmu he sent was out of focus. Still, I could see the cuteness of Olmu even through the blurred picture.
[Eun Jae-ho] I’m sorry. I wanted to take it well but I failed.
[Eun Seo-ho] It’s strange… because usually when we tell Olmu that we’ll take a picture of him to send to Eui-shin hyung, he poses for us… But today, he keeps running away.
[Eun Lee-ho] He didn’t even come out to see Eui-shin oppa this morning. Perhaps he’s sick?
It seemed like the three juniors didn’t know that Olmu got mad at me.
After a while,
[Eun Jae-ho] (Picture)
This time, he sent me a good one. It was a picture of Olmu sleeping.
[Eun Jae-ho] This picture of him sleeping is perfect.
As Jae-ho said, the picture was perfect with a good focus, and the model Olmu was also perfect.
“Stop making that stupid face.”
Hwang Jiho spoke to me as I downloaded the pictures. What he then said after sounded as if he was a little disappointed.
“….There’s no message sent to me.”
‘What is he complaining about when he sees the juniors every day at his mansion?’
“Okay, attention!”
I could hear the manager’s energetic voice. The manager got straight to the point without further ado. The deputy manager, who was waiting at the back, projected the title on the wall.
[Summer Vacation Overseas Report Plan]
The members exclaimed, seeing the title on the wall.
“We didn’t do this last year! You must’ve prepared a lot!”
“This will be my first time going abroad! We can use our player registration card instead of a passport, right?”
“Are we going to Russia? The UR-class world often appears in Russia, can’t we go see it?”
“I want to go to the player training school in the US and China!”
“Isn’t China being strict on immigration these days?”
“This is our club activity, right? Is Mr. Zhuge Jagul also going with us?”
The manager spoke with a strong voice among the members who were chatting in excitement.
“Remember how we talked about the student exchange between Korea, China, and Japan? We will go abroad together to analyze the opponent’s power and to increase the unity within the newspaper club! So everyone needs to adjust their schedules!”
The next screen showed our overall schedule chart.
After staying for a day using the air hotel ‘Icaros’ accommodation voucher obtained from the second-grade class 0, we’ll head to the airport together in the morning and start the vacation schedule. The more I looked at it, the more it seemed like a tour, but anyway, the interview schedule was included.
“To make it clear, I didn’t plan this because I wanted to go on an overseas trip with Mr. Zhuge Jagul. Still, it doesn’t mean that I don’t like going on a trip with Mr. Jagul!”
It seemed like the third graders who planned for this trip wanted to go on an overseas trip with Mr. Zhuge Jagul.
Saving the proposal to the device, the club meeting ended.
The club meeting was over but I still had a schedule.
‘These days, I rarely go straight to my dorm.’
A chess game was scheduled today. At the request of the opponent, it was planned to be held in a place other than Stalemate’s room or Ji-Ik Hall.
[Me] The club activity ended.
There was a reply right away.
[Cheon Dong-ha] I’ll take the seat first.
The place where Cheon Dong-ha and I decided to meet was Eungwang’s private study cafe. Cheon Dong-ha was the only one sitting in the study room for four people that he reserved.
“Sorry to make you come all the way here. Too many people came to see the match I had with Jun-yeol yesterday, so I wanted to have it in a quiet place this time.
“It’s okay.”
On the table in which the wooden chessboard was placed, there was a capsule coffee machine, and there was an empty coffee sachet next to the paper cup as if he just had one. After helping him clear the table, I sat in front of him.
“Congratulations on taking 1st place.”
“Thanks.”
The score gap gradually narrowed due to Yeom Jun-yeol’s objection, but Cheon Dong-ha eventually took 1st place by a small gap. The situation could’ve been reversed if only the grades raised by Yeom Jun-yeol were taken, but a few of the questions that Cheon Dong-ha got wrong were also subjected to correction.
“I didn’t expect that you will request me a match.”
It was a bit surprising that he actually requested a chess match first.
“Because my sibling is a fan of Anonymous Supernova.”
Sibling?
Cheon Dong-ha has a sibling?
But didn’t he have no sibling in the game?
I was surprised to know that I have a fan, but what was even more surprising was the fact that he has a sibling.
“My fan?”
“Yes.”
I found it strange but Cheon Dong-ha didn’t mention his sibling any further.
We had a match in a quiet study room.
I won the first match.
Cheon Dong-ha won the second.
After that, we had an egg sandwich for dinner and parted.
* * *
Weekend.
Today was the day that Yoo Sang-hoon and I planned to meet Jang Nam-wook, who promised to buy lunch for us. It was Yoo Sang-hoon, who usually paid the bills but this time, we were going to ask Nam-wook to buy lunch at an expensive restaurant.
“Why is he here.”
Seeing Do Shi-hoo, Yoo Sang-hoon asked in an annoyed voice.
“Nam-wook told me that he’ll hang out with you guys so I came.”
“Then it must be you who bought the baseball game ticket.”
Last night, Nam-wook suddenly changed the meeting point to Jamsil, telling us that he wants to watch baseball. Do Shi-hoo must have gotten us a ticket.
“I’m sorry, I’ll buy you guys lunch next time! For the time being, Juo will have local games, so I can’t miss today’s one!”
There were so many things I wanted to say, but seeing Nam-wook wearing Juo Dragons goods from his head to toe, looking excited, I couldn’t say a word.
For today’s game, there were a lot more TC Knights fans than Juo Dragons, but still, Jang Nam-wook looked around the baseball stadium in excitement.
“Let’s take out one menu from each of the restaurants.”
“We have to line up for snowflake cheese chicken!”
“Let’s make Do Shi-hoo stand there while we move to the next restaurant.”
“Huh?”
While Do Shi-hoo was standing in the line, we bought almost all menus from the restaurants near the stadium and took our seats at the center. While waiting, a familiar-looking person caught my eyes.
‘Why is Ok To-yeon here?!’
