Chapter 5. Soonjung’s Record
March 2, 20XX — Sunny
On my first day of school, I met a strange guy.
He’s handsome but scary. And when he smiles, he’s even scarier.
The entire school—boys and girls alike—talks about him. Even the teachers do.
Because he’s smart, tall, athletic, handsome, and knowledgeable. Because he rides in a car with a driver. Because his family is wealthy.
People call out to him for all kinds of reasons, and every time, he responds with the bare minimum effort, wearing a blank expression.
That’s exactly how it feels.
With a clearly unwilling look, he says only what needs to be said, just once, with minimal movement—then puts in his earphones as if to say, Don’t bother me anymore.
Sometimes, a few students would call out to Taegun just to tease him or provoke him for no reason.
When that happened, he would simply stare at them for a few seconds.
And that was it.
Most of them would immediately stop fooling around, and the few who didn’t would be held back by others.
In other words, Koo Taegun stood at the very top of the school’s hierarchy.
It’s ridiculous to talk about hierarchy, but in high school, that kind of thing matters.
The one fortunate thing is that maybe because I transferred at the start of the semester—or because all the attention is focused on him—no one is interested in me.
I only have one wish.
By the time I graduate, I hope to have just one friend I can smile with and eat lunch together.
That’s enough.
Or even if I end up alone, I just hope I can quietly get through high school and move on to college in peace.
Please.
Moon, it’s not that difficult of a wish, right?
* * *
Starting from the chaos of the first day, a wave of confessions from girls toward Koo Taegun followed.
When a girl blocked his path and confessed, Taegun would nod—
and then the next time they met, he would break up with her.
Even if the same girl confessed again after being dumped, he would still say yes.
Whether they came to find him during break or lunch, or contacted him the next day—
whether by phone or text—
Taegun would always break up the moment they spoke for the second time.
And he never once properly remembered or called them by their names.
<I think he just called me “Hey.”>
<That’s still better. He called me Shin Joo-eun.
<At least he got part of your name right. He called me “Hey” until the very end. I guess even asking for names is too much effort now. >
As more girls shared their “ultra-fast breakup” experiences, this became widely known.
If he wasn’t even going to remember their names, why didn’t he just reject them from the start?
Soonjung couldn’t understand him at all.
This strange situation eventually turned into a kind of game among the students.
No one had expected it to go this way, but since you could technically remain his “girlfriend” as long as you didn’t talk to him again, more and more girls started competing to set records.
Who was it again from Class 7 that held the longest record?
She was even called the only victim of “two-timing.”
She had confessed to Taegun by blocking his path as he was about to get into his car after school.
But just minutes later, she got into a motorcycle accident and had to stay in the hospital for two weeks.
By the time she returned to school, Taegun had already gone through six girlfriends.
In other words, he had forgotten he was “dating” her and accepted another girl’s confession.
When she confronted him in disbelief, he didn’t even apologize.
<So, what—do you want me to date you again? >
<…Huh?>
<What do you want? Say what you want. >
<…No. Never mind.>
<Okay.>
And that was the end of it.
After that, an unspoken rule formed among the girls.
To ensure each other’s “relationship periods,” they agreed not to confess until the previous girl had been dumped.
“I’m confessing next.”
“Hey, I was going to!”
“You already did last time.”
“So what if I do it again?”
“Let’s just decide the order with rock-paper-scissors.”
Passing by the chatting girls in front of the school store, Soonjung threw away her empty milk carton.
She couldn’t understand what the point of all this was.
Koo Taegun was strange—but the girls constantly confessing to him were just as strange.
And over the past two months, she had come to one conclusion:
Koo Taegun was a total weirdo.
What’s the point of being handsome? What’s the point of being smart?
He’s still a weirdo.
And the girls who turned confessing to him into a game were just as bizarre.
At this rate, it might become harder to find a girl who hasn’t been his girlfriend.
And that prediction turned out to be true.
Taegun didn’t reject anyone who came to him—but he pushed away anyone who stayed.
His incomprehensible behavior continued.
Just like that, a year passed.
As time went on, even the girls who had tirelessly confessed to him began to lose momentum.
By the end of the second semester, there were plenty of girls who used to be his girlfriends—
but not a single current one.
Just as she had wished, Soonjung spent her school life quietly, blending in as if she were barely there.
She briefly gained attention when teachers praised her for her grades—
But she was always second place, behind Koo Taegun, who never gave up the top rank.
And even then, there was a big gap in their mock exam scores.
He always scored perfectly.
Compared to that overwhelming first place, her second place felt almost… human.
In a world that only remembers first place, she was grateful.
“Phew…”
Feeling thankful for the peaceful year that had passed, Soonjung—now nineteen—opened the door to her new classroom for the new semester.
It was worth arriving early.
She placed her bag on the third seat from the front, near the hallway, and looked around the empty classroom.
No matter how she looked at it, this seat seemed to attract the least attention.
There was a clear reason why Soonjung avoided attention.
“…”
Ever since she started school in Australia as a child, she had suffered from racism.
She never told anyone—so they wouldn’t worry—but she had been bullied simply for being different.
The children in Australia saw her small frame as an easy target.
They mocked her for being Asian, making gestures about her “small eyes” and “yellow skin,” isolating her.
Ironically, her eyes were bigger and her skin was fairer than theirs.
Still, after enduring that for so long, she came to prefer a life where she didn’t stand out.
If you don’t stand out, you don’t become a target.
That was something she realized in middle school in Canada, when she started covering half her face.
<She’s kinda bookish. >
<You know, that library girl. She’s just a quiet nerd. >
<She’s like… always there, but never talks. She just stays in the library all the time. >
They called her a “library girl,” a “bookworm,” and a “creepy nerd.”
But that was all.
Her vision felt suffocating—but in exchange, she gained peace.
No one smeared yellow cheese cream all over her locker handle.
No one acted like they had caught a disease just because they brushed against her.
Indifference was better than hatred.
And so, “peace of mind” became the most important thing to Soonjung.
To protect that peace, she gradually became more withdrawn and passive—
But she had no complaints.
She had gained what she wanted.
Hoping that this year would pass without trouble as well,
Soonjung took a fine comb out of her pencil case.
