1st in Class Hides Regression - Chapter 9

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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 Hides Her Regression
Episode 9
“…Oh.”
Our eyes met without warning, and I froze for a moment.
“Move.”
A shadow fell across me from behind.
“Why are you blocking the way?”
That irritating low voice could only belong to one person.
Without turning around, I reached back to close the classroom door, but Jeong Eun-seong appeared behind me and casually blocked it.
Seo Jae-gyeom, who’d just turned his attention back to Ji-su, and Jeong Eun-seong, who stood there looking at me with bewilderment, both glanced between us.
“Is it her?”
“What do you mean? Never mind that—Jeong Eun-seong, what are you doing here? This is Class A.”
“I’m in this class too.”
“Think about it again.”
“Wow. Look at Kang Da-hye completely brushing him off.”
Do-yeon let out a short laugh and headed to her seat first.
Jeong Eun-seong was staring at me, so I hurried to add an excuse.
“I mean… I know you’re good at English.”
Your agency apparently teaches foreign languages too. I remember you had amazing pronunciation.
“But were you good at math too…?”
“No. I don’t know one plus one.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Class C is overflowing with math dropouts, so there’s no room. At least my English is Class A.”
“So all the other Class C kids… their English is all Class C too…?”
“Yeah.”
…….
Math dropouts of all nations have united……
“So, is she the one? The star of your playlist?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Come on. It’s obviously her.”
You’re so obvious. Jeong Eun-seong scanned Seo Jae-gyeom up and down as he playfully covered the Problem Set that Ji-su had buried her nose in with his large palm, letting out a scoff.
“So which class is she from?”
“…She’s… from our class. Class 2.”
No matter how recent the transfer, how could Seo Jae-gyeom not stand out?
Didn’t he catch everyone’s eye the moment he walked into the classroom?
“What’s her name?”
“Seo Jae-gyeom.”
“…That’s Seo Jae-gyeom?”
“You know him?”
“He’s not better-looking than me, though.”
I’m better. Jeong Eun-seong declared it as fact.
I had nothing to say, so I just looked up at him.
Jeong Eun-seong met my gaze confidently, as if to ask what the problem was.
Fine, you’re handsome.
“The one sitting down must be Ji-su, the friend you mentioned.”
“You don’t know Seo Jae-gyeom from our own class, but you recognize Han Ji-su from another class. Did you develop a crush?”
“That’s not it…… Ugh. Never mind.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to know. So what about her over there. Is she in our class too?”
“Do-yeon? Yeah, Do-yeon’s in our class.”
“Are you close? She seemed loud earlier.”
“Well…”
That’s right. He must have been in the cafeteria during lunch too.
He would’ve seen the whole scene between me and Song Yeo-reum.
I asked just to be sure.
“Jeong Eun-seong, do you believe what she said? That… about Do-yeon.”
“Do I look like an idiot to you?”
Jeong Eun-seong cut me off sharply.
“I may not know one plus one, but I still have a brain, don’t I?”
It seems I laughed at that response.
Jeong Eun-seong stared at me with an odd, searching look.
“You really like that I don’t believe the rumors, huh?”
“Of course I do.”
“They’re not even about you, though.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Anyway… you’re really something else.”
Who was he to talk.
I’d watched Jeong Eun-seong for over eleven years, so I’d built up some inner familiarity with him—but he’d only known me for less than a week, and here he’d been singling me out all day long.
I scowled and pressed him on it.
“Hey. What are you actually going to do about Music Performance?”
“What do you mean? Just sing a song you’re good at.”
“I don’t have any songs I’m good at.”
“Then pick something with complicated lyrics. Make everyone else mess it up, and you alone sing it perfectly—problem solved.”
“Oh.”
That was actually a decent strategy.
I was nodding at the sensible suggestion when Jeong Eun-seong kept staring at me intently. Since there was nothing on my face, but he kept scrutinizing every inch of it, I called him out.
“What, am I pretty?”
“Hah!”
“Don’t confess. I won’t accept it.”
“Please. My standards are high.”
Jeong Eun-seong held his hand horizontally, then lifted his arm above his head.
“My eyes are right here.”
Annoyed, I smacked that arm down.
“My eyes are set even higher than that!”
“I don’t think so.”
Jeong Eun-seong glanced at Seo Jae-gyeom again.
“They’re rolling around on the floor over there.”
“What are!”
“Your eyes.”
“Oh, come on…!”
“Hehehe….”
Jeong Eun-seong’s laughter cut short as he turned serious.
“Anyway. There’s absolutely, positively, no way I’d ever like someone as weird as you.”
“You haven’t even confessed, and you’re already turning me down….”
“Even if the sky fell, there’s no way. So relax, okay?”
“You can’t relax at a time like this!”
Right then, the math teacher walked into the classroom—Na Mun-gwa, who taught Class A math, caught Jeong Eun-seong’s words.
“The moment you let your guard down, you’ll drop to Class B! Kang Da-hye, what are you doing? Sit down, quickly.”
“Sir….”
To Na Mun-gwa, whom I was seeing for the first time since my Regression, this was the historic first question from Regression-returnee Kang Da-hye.
“Where’s my seat…?”
…….
“Right here…….”
Seo Jae-gyeom raised his hand from behind, his expression lukewarm.
“You said we’d sit together, Kang Da-hye. Don’t you remember…?”
…….
Phew.
I ignored Jeong Eun-seong’s snort of mockery.
‘And who’s calling whom weird. Acting like he doesn’t know one plus one.’
Why wouldn’t he know one plus one?
One plus one is…….
Adorable!
“Coefficients of rational numbers in quadratic equations, x squared…….”
“You’ve got nerve.”
Over Na Mun-gwa’s explanation—which I couldn’t make heads or tails of—came Seo Jae-gyeom’s whispered voice.
I stared at the blackboard with my mouth open and brows furrowed, then cut my eyes toward Seo Jae-gyeom.
When our eyes met, Seo Jae-gyeom’s lips curved up.
“Back in the Cafeteria. To Song Yeo-reum.”
“That wasn’t it. I was terrified.”
Honestly, I’m still scared their whole group will catch up to me and beat me up. I’m planning to leave through the Back Gate when I go home.
“If they try to mess with you, just tell me. I’ll back you up and testify to the police if it comes to that. Got it?”
“Ha ha.”
I’m completely serious, so why are you laughing.
“Seo Jae-gyeom, why didn’t you help Do-yeon all this time? If someone like you had just said something, things would be very different from how they are now.”
“Because… if I step in, things will only get worse?”
“You know that’s just an excuse.”
“Yeah, I do.”
…….
He admits it so readily that I have nothing to say back. Just as I’m about to turn my attention back to the blackboard, Seo Jae-gyeom speaks.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“What I said to you earlier. I didn’t need to put it that way.”
“Oh. Never mind.”
You chose the cruelest method of telling the truth, that’s all.
“The thing is, there’s someone I’m interested in too. But when you got involved, I got annoyed for a moment. It felt like you were in my way.”
He’s being honest.
Before the Regression, it doesn’t feel like he ever talked to me like this.
“So for now, I’m excluding number four and…….”
I can’t make sense of more than half the symbols the teacher is writing on the blackboard. I jot everything down as he explains and respond halfheartedly.
“I know. You like Han Ji-su.”
That’s right.
Seo Jae-gyeom likes my friend Han Ji-su.
During Moving Class like this, even when the three of us sit together and listen, his gaze often drifts toward Ji-su. When class ends, he breaks free like he’s been let loose from chains, heading straight to her. And whenever that happens, I can’t join in between them until Ji-su calls me over, so I just end up tidying my desk for no reason.
Back then, it hurt me every time.
I used to feel self-loathing, wondering why I couldn’t be as accomplished as Ji-su.
Not anymore.
What’s the point.
By my reckoning, my feelings for Seo Jae-gyeom are already eleven years old.
No, wait.
I kept liking him until senior year of high school, so ten years.
At my matter-of-fact words, Seo Jae-gyeom’s eyes widen slightly.
“You knew?”
“How could I not?”
“Well. Han Ji-su is pretty.”
So I’m not, he’s saying.
“This isn’t going to make things awkward between you and Han Ji-su, is it?”
“Why would it? I’m going to stop liking you anyway.”
That answer seems to surprise him—he actually turns his whole body to look at me.
I scribble notes as though I’m about to lunge forward, nodding only with my head.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I’d be grateful if you did, but…… can you just make your heart stop?”
I’ve already stopped caring.
To me, you’re already a person from the past.
“It won’t be easy, sure. But once you turn twenty and go to college, it’ll all be over. Distance makes the heart forget, right?”
It was true.
After I bombed the College Entrance Exam and my own problems came crashing down, I stopped thinking about Seo Jae-gyeom at all.
Even if my feelings for him still exist somewhere, their expiration date is at most two more years.
“Even if it’s uncomfortable, just bear with it until the College Entrance Exam, Seo Jae-gyeom. You’ll be in different classes once you hit third year anyway, and we won’t see each other after college.”
“Won’t see each other?”
“Nope.”
“Wow.”
“What.”
“Kang Da-hye, you’re cold. You won’t even say hello if we run into each other in the neighborhood?”
“We won’t run into each other.”
“You talk like you’ve already lived through it.”
There’s something heavier in Seo Jae-gyeom’s muttering than usual. Layered over it, the teacher’s voice.
A connection with an expiration date of two years matters far less than this.
“All right, let me explain again. A quadratic equation with rational coefficients…….”

What’s a coefficient, teacher……?
I know about the stream at Cheongsan Valley……but won’t this work……?
“So who wants to solve this problem?”
Math is truly hopeless.
I was biting my lip.
My eyes met Jeong Eun-seong’s.
Jeong Eun-seong smiled slightly and began to open his mouth.
“Teacher, Kang—”
No way!
I grabbed Seo Jae-gyeom’s hand mid-sentence, yanking it upward.
“Teacher! Seo Jae-gyeom wants to solve it!”
A minute later.
Seo Jae-gyeom returned with an irritated smile and asked.
“So now you’re switching over to him instead of me?”

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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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