1st in Class Hides Regression - Chapter 20
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Top Student of the Entire Grade Hides Her Regression
Chapter 20
Gyeong Se-in, a second-year student in Class 2 of Gogogo High School, never wears light-colored bottoms.
It was because of her menstrual cycle—something she couldn’t control.
There was the time she’d worn white pants, only to have blood seep through, and she’d rushed home with a friend’s cardigan tied around her waist.
There was the time she’d ignored an ominous feeling that suddenly struck her during class—suppressing it because, after all, not many teachers would let her leave for the restroom—only to stand up after the bell and discover complete disaster waiting for her.
There was the time she’d applied the largest overnight pad she could find at the mart, and yet still bled through onto the mattress, earning a scolding from her mother (Do you have any idea how much this mattress costs?!).
Se-in had lived through all of these experiences.
Today was one of those days when murderous impulses rose up in her.
About ten months ago from now.
It was when Se-in, barely adjusted to high school life, had come downstairs to another class to gather her things for a class change.
…….
This feeling.
If she tried to ignore it, disaster would definitely strike during class—she was certain of it.
Se-in checked the clock on the classroom wall and whispered to the friend who’d come with her.
“Do you have a pad on you?”
They’d already used up six minutes of break time gathering her things and moving classrooms. Even if she grabbed a pad right now and rushed to the restroom, time would be tight.
Her friend, hearing Se-in’s hushed voice, shook her head with an uncomfortable expression.
“I left mine in my locker. Did it start?”
“Um….”
“What do we do? Hey, do you have one?”
“Oh no, I don’t.”
“What about you?”
“Me neither.”
Both the friends who’d moved classrooms with her and the friends already in this class shook their heads. Another minute slipped away in the process.
“Can’t we just go to the convenience store right now and buy one?”
“Do they sell them there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hey, just go. Get out and figure it out.”
“Um.”
It was then that a voice cut in.
A girl who had been reading a textbook at the next desk, barely noticeable, looked up at Se-in.
Her face was pale and her eyes were sharp and striking. She wore a school uniform cardigan that was far too large for her body, with several textbooks stacked on her desk. The long, slender neck exposed beyond the cardigan caught the eye.
The girl spoke.
“I have one.”
“Huh?”
Oddly enough, what Se-in thought in that moment was not ‘Who is this girl?’ or ‘She has a pad?’ but rather ‘She really looks girlish.’
Her eyes sparkle so much. Is she wearing contacts?
But her loosely tousled hair and her face, which seemed to wear no tint at all, were modest and plain.
Below her sharply defined jaw, which she was tilting up to look at Se-in, a name tag came into view.
Kang Da-hye.
Kang Da-hye rummaged through her bag and handed over two pads through the large cardigan sleeves that covered the back of her hand.
“Here.”
“Oh, um… thanks.”
“If you need more, go to the health office later and ask.”
“They give out pads at the health office?”
“Yeah.”
Kang Da-hye nodded and lowered her gaze back to her book.
Her loosened black hair fell in a soft cascade past her fluffy ear.
“Thanks…!”
Se-in said it. Kang Da-hye simply looked up at her once more and smiled.
But Se-in’s day of murderous impulses was far from over.
Halfway through the next class, Se-in realized she’d attached the pad incorrectly.
Whether she’d placed it too far back or whether it had folded.
-I think I’m leaking
-Damn
-Gotta bolt to the bathroom the second this ends
-Yeah I’ll handle the chair and your stuff
She was exchanging notes with the friend sitting beside her.
“Gyeong Se-in, come here and work through this problem.”
“Me? You’re asking me?”
I can’t even get up right now.
Every fiber of my being screamed discomfort, but the teacher paid no mind—only hurried me along.
“Sir… can’t I solve it next time?”
“What are you talking about? Come on up.”
“I… sir, I really can’t…….”
“Now!”
“The answer is thirteen.”
It was Kang Da-hye who saved me this time.
Her crisp voice rang through the classroom. The teacher let out a dry laugh.
“Da-hye, I wasn’t asking you.”
“I know. But I happened to solve it already while you were talking.”
“Oh, confident, are we? Then come up and solve this one too.”
“Sure.”
Da-hye rose from her seat with perfect composure.
As she walked to the front, her hand tapped lightly against my desk. I looked up at her, but she didn’t look back.
After that, there wasn’t much connection between us.
My class was on the third floor and hers on the second, and after the Midterm Exam, my Level-based Learning class changed anyway.
We crossed paths a few times in the School Cafeteria and other places, but Da-hye didn’t seem to remember me.
Only I hesitated whenever I saw her, caught between wondering if I should greet her or thinking I owed her a Sanitary Pad.
And this year.
“No way. We’re in the same class as Seo Jae-gyeom.”
“Ugh, I’m so jealous. We’ve got Song Yeo-reum in our class.”
“You must have sold the country in your past life, then.”
“Just go back to your class with Song Yeo-reum.”
Among the noisy chatter, I spotted Da-hye sitting alone on the other side.
Flipping through her Literature Textbook, reading the works in advance. Every so often, she’d lift her eyes and sneak a glance at Seo Jae-gyeom.
I rolled my eyes and thought.
I want to get closer to her.
Is that even possible?
* * *
“I don’t feel like studying. Want my book?”
Jeong Eun-seong’s bombshell statement left me stunned.
Can you really live your life that cool?
I don’t feel like studying so maybe I’ll throw out my textbook~♪
I don’t feel like taking tests so maybe I’ll kidnap my teacher~♪
I don’t feel like going to work so maybe I’ll blow up the company~♪
‘Kidnapping my teacher does sound kind of tempting, though.’
No, wait, that’s not the point right now.
“If you give me your book, what about you?”
“I don’t need a book. I wasn’t going to look at it anyway.”
“That’s so cool…….”
I elbowed him in the ribs. Get your head straight.
“So what are you going to do during class?”
“Sleep.”
“You’re not going to study?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t feel like it.”
“Even if you don’t feel like studying, you have to. What we’re learning at school right now isn’t knowledge—it’s basic sense. Later when you’re out in the world, if you don’t know this stuff, people will call you ignorant.”
I offered advice drawn from experience, but Eun-seong’s expression remained unmoved.
I tried to convince him, though he looked like he’d rather just hand over the textbook and head home.
“Why don’t you like studying?”
“Because it’s boring.”
“Try thinking of it as fun.”
“How can I think it’s fun when it’s not fun?”
“Between you and studying, you have to like one or the other.”
“I guess so. Fine, I’ll study.”
…….
Somehow that feels worse.
Jeong Eun-seong nodded with an expression of supreme arrogance, then ran the mop across the floor one more time.
“Wipe your feet here.”
He issued orders to clean even the strawberry milk smudged on my indoor shoes, then gathered up the scattered tissue wads from around the room.
Without so much as a goodbye, he swept out of the classroom.
Silence descended.
“…Da-hye, you really aren’t close with Eun-seong, are you?”
“…Yeah.”
I have no idea why he acts like that.
I shook my head slowly.
In the end, the homeroom teacher gave me a new textbook.
“Oh no. You must have written down so many notes.”
“Ah, well, I wrote it all down so long ago anyway. I don’t remember any of it, so it’s fine! And the problem set book—I can just buy a new one.”
I told the truth, and she patted my cheek with a look of sympathy.
“I’ll dig through things at home and give you any extra problem sets I find.”
“Really? Oh, I wasn’t planning on having the money for one anyway.”
After basking in the affection of a teacher younger than me, I rounded up the kids and we headed to our shop.
“So what’s going to happen with Bangjiwon?”
“It’s going to crash and burn.”
“That’s perfect.”
“Hehehehe… Hi, Mom!”
“Oh, but lately my face has been getting so oily. It’s like my face is absorbing all the oil in the world.”
“Are you a paper towel or something?”
“Wow, this tteokbokki is incredible.”
You know what? If you cut up pizza bread with scissors, lay it on top of spicy tteokbokki, and microwave it, it’s delicious.
“By the way, why hasn’t Seo Jae-gyeom been coming to school lately?”
“I heard he went somewhere with his family.”
“His family seems pretty well-off.”
“Hey, didn’t you see it on Face-space? Some picture of him on a yacht.”
“That yacht is his family’s?!”
“Think the homeroom teacher would like it if we gave her an album of our group?”
“Do you think the homeroom teacher even knows who we are?”
“She probably doesn’t. She didn’t even know who Bastrang and Infinity were.”
“She was probably just pretending not to know.”
Adults like celebrities more anyway.
Watch out with those nineteen-plus fan fictions you read using your sister’s resident registration number for adult verification—the writer might be your homeroom teacher.
“Do-yeon, can you handle spicy food?”
“I can’t. Never had it.”
“Oh.”
“So you’re watching online lectures with Do-yeon, Da-hye?”
“I’m just freeloading off her.”
“You don’t go to a cram school separately?”
“Nope. Oh, wait a sec. Let me grab you some cola.”
I stood up at the sight of Do-yeon and Su-ah, their faces flushed from eating spicy food. As I pulled cola from the outside refrigerator, Gyeong Se-in approached and spoke to me.
“Hey, Da-hye.”
“Hmm?”
“That thing you said earlier about being short on pocket money.”
“Oh, yeah.”
She must have overheard when I told the homeroom teacher I didn’t have money.
Se-in glanced around and leaned her face close to my ear.
After hearing Jeong Eun-seong’s ridiculous comment earlier, I tensed up.
‘What is she about to say?’
I’m getting scared of teenagers’ audacious ideas these days.
Is she about to suggest we rob a bank together or something?
We’re short on pocket money, so should we rob a bank?~♪
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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