Episode 33
17 May 2025, Saturday. Late evening. So-mi's family residence.
Baek So-mi sat alone in her room, studying.
She was irritated.
Not because studying was hard. For So-mi, being a top student had always been as natural as sunrise.
The sun rose every day. The moon came every night. And So-mi studied religiously, somewhere in between.
It was a process as automatic as breathing.
What irritated her was something else.
Another test. Another perfect score.
100 points.
She hadn't made a single mistake.
And neither had Mi-yeon.
Because Mi-yeon had also scored perfectly, the overall ranking in Chemistry hadn't changed.
So-mi was still second. Behind by just two pesky points.
Which meant her father would still be dissatisfied.
She pressed the pen tip into the paper harder than necessary
"What am I supposed to do?" she thought coldly.
"You can't get 102 points. You just can't."
Her father's voice echoed in her head, sharp and absolute:
"The strong look for solutions. The weak look for excuses."
Her throat tightened.
For the first time in a while, the emotion wasn't anger—it was hurt.
Why can't he praise me even once? she thought.
Why can't he hug me?
Or at least say it—So-mi, you did well. You made no mistakes.
She stared at the page, but the words blurred.
Was he always like this?
She tried to remember her father from before her mother had died.
She had been too young to remember clearly.
So-mi remembered her mother a little—warm hands, a faint scent, a vague softness.
But her father, as he had been back then?
She couldn't remember him at all.
And somehow, that hurt even more.
Her phone vibrated.
Soo-yeong.
So-mi's lips pressed into a thin line.
"What does this snake want now?" she muttered under her breath.
She opened the message.
Photos loaded one by one.
A car show at night.
Den and Yu-ra.
His arm around her waist.
The way they were looking at each other.
A kiss—caught perfectly, dramatically.
Another message followed immediately.
Looks like our Russian isn't so cold after all. Entertaining our little country girl by day, kissing senior girls by night.
No wonder he doesn't respond to my flirting, he's too busy chasing our pretty sunbae.
So-mi let out a short, contemptuous breath.
She muttered to herself, her voice flat. "He doesn't respond to your flirting because you have the brain capacity of an inflatable doll."
Then she typed back, calm and cutting.
So what? Why would I care who Den kisses? You're the one who said you'd make him your boyfriend, not me.
Soo-yeong replied almost instantly.
Don't be such a bitch, So-mi. You know as well as I do—if he starts dating Mi-yeon, everyone will say the foreigner chose a village ugly girl over me and you. I don't want to be in the middle of such rumors.
A pause.
Another message appeared.
But if he's with Yu-ra? That's fair. She's popular. They're the same age.
No one will question why he didn't choose us if the prize goes to her.
So-mi's eyes narrowed.
One more message came through, slower this time.
All we need to do… is help her get him. And make sure Mi-yeon sees these photos.
So-mi lowered the phone.
For a long moment, she did not move.
Her expression did not soften. It did not harden either. It became something colder—more precise.
Perhaps a distracted Mi-yeon will not have enough focus to get 100 out of 100 on the next test.
And Yu-ra is indeed hard to resist, even for someone like Den. It might work.
She looked back at her open textbook, untouched.
Quietly, she made her decision.
Sorry, Mi-yeon. I hate to ruin your chances with Den, but you left me with no choice.
Her lips curved—not into a smile, but into something sharper.
She replied to Soo-yeong.
Ok. I am listening.
19 May 2025, Monday. Morning. SNU, chemistry faculty.
At 7:00 a.m., Soo-yeong had anonymously uploaded the photos to the university forum.
The post had been harmless on the surface. Almost innocent.
"Does anyone know what kind of SUV this is? I swear I've seen it near campus. Do we have someone who is into racing at our university?"
No names. No accusations. Just curiosity.
It had spread through student chats in less than two hours.
By the time the first lecture began, everyone knew.
It was Den and Yu-ra.
Mi-yeon saw the post too.
She didn't press "like." She didn't comment.
She didn't ask anyone anything.
She just looked.
And something inside her quietly went dark.
Just… a light turning off.
Mi-yeon shed no tears. There was no visible reaction.
She wasn't even surprised.
It was destined to happen.
They have been close for a while. And I knew that.
It only makes sense for Yu-ra to get what she wants.
We were always just friends.
19 May 2025, Monday. Late morning. SNU, Building 501, 3rd floor, chemistry department office.
Yu-ra saw it as well.
She didn't panic.
But she did feel the familiar, heavy irritation of being pulled into something she had never asked for.
She was in the office, sitting across from Ko Su-ho and Choi Mi-rae.
They spoke carefully. Politely. With concern.
They talked about rumors. About image.
About how, "if things have already come to this," it might be best to make the relationship official—just to stop the gossip.
Yu-ra listened.
Patiently.
For longer than she wanted to.
Then she exhaled and cut in.
"You don't understand," she said flatly.
"We can't announce that we're dating. Because we're not."
The room stilled.
Mi-rae tilted her head slightly.
"Not… dating?" She exchanged concerned looks with Su-ho.
Yu-ra shrugged.
"We flirted, yes, but he didn't choose me."
"That kiss… After it, we both knew we were only friends."
She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms—not defensive, just tired.
"You're worrying about the wrong girl," she continued. "You're worried about me. But this doesn't hurt me."
She gave a small, ironic smile.
"At worst, I'll just get more popular. People will find it cool that I like racing, tuned cars, and kiss pretty foreigners."
Her gaze sharpened.
"But somewhere out there is a girl who's, I bet, in love with him. A girl who thinks she's been betrayed. And she most certainly wasn't."
That was when her voice softened.
"That's who you should be worried about. Her reputation. Her feelings."
She paused.
Su-ho frowned slightly.
"Then who is this girl?" he asked.
Yu-ra shot him an annoyed look.
"How would I know? If I knew, I'd already have erased her from the face of the earth."
The words were sharp—but there was no real malice in them. More wounded pride than cruelty.
"She took a guy I wanted, right out from under my nose."
Yu-ra sighed and nodded, mostly to herself.
"Are you two done interrogating me yet? Can we now move on with our lives?"
Mi-rae stood before anyone answered.
"I think I know who she is."
Yu-ra looked at her.
Mi-rae spoke calmly, with certainty.
"I'm almost sure it's Jeong Mi-yeon. The quiet first-year girl from our faculty. The one he helped during the dance contest at orientation."
The room went silent.
19 May 2025, Monday. Late morning. SNU's chemistry faculty, Lecture Hall 301.
Den had a bad habit of ignoring student chats.
He barely checked even the mandatory academic one So-mi had forced everyone to join.
Rumors weren't exactly his thing to begin with—reading them in Korean was even less appealing.
So he hadn't seen anything yet.
But the people around him already had.
During the first lecture, Den felt it almost immediately.
Something was wrong.
Mi-yeon avoided his gaze.
She always avoided it—but not like this.
She hadn't given him the quiet, timid "hello" that morning, the little, comforting sign of attention he had grown used to.
Mi-yeon didn't smile shyly and drop her eyes when she accidentally met his.
She just sat there the entire lecture, head lowered, writing notes.
Carefully. Neatly. Mechanically.
Meanwhile, everyone else kept glancing at him.
Not openly.
It wasn't rude.
But glances were often enough to feel strange.
As if he was suddenly… noticeable.
More than usual, that was.
The professor delivered his chemistry lecture in a calm, even tone.
At one point, he paused—to give the students time not just to write, but to think.
Den's phone vibrated.
A message from Soo-yeong.
You're so photogenic, Den! Great pictures!
Followed by a few smiling faces and heart emojis.
He had turned his head toward her.
Today, unusually, she wasn't sitting next to Se-a. She was sitting beside So-mi. Smiling at him like she had just been crowned in a beauty contest.
What the hell is she tripping about?
His jaw had tightened. Now he clearly had a bad feeling about the whole atmosphere. He didn't reply to Soo-yeong.
Instead, he opened a new message—to Mi-yeon.
Hi Mi-yeon. Is everything ok? You don't look like yourself. What's wrong?
Mi-yeon's phone lay face-down on her desk.
She sat very still, trying to become invisible, shrinking into the shadow of the back row.
When the phone vibrated, she flinched—just slightly.
Barely noticeable. But she did.
She turned the phone over.
She saw his name.
For one second, her heart stopped.
Her fingers trembled.
She stared at the screen for a long moment, as if she couldn't believe that he had noticed her at all.
Then everything she had been holding inside since morning—the photos, the whispers, the looks, her own quiet conclusion of 'it was never me'—snapped tight inside her chest.
Is he serious right now?!
Her fingers moved before she could stop them.
You could have told me about you and Yu-ra. And now you're asking me what's wrong?
She stared at the words.
Her lips tightened.
Why am I angry? We are just friends.
She deleted the message. Typed again.
I just… thought. I understood something wrong.
She stared at that too.
Why am I even explaining myself?
Deleted.
Her vision blurred slightly.
Just… just stop being kind to me.
That thought hurt the most.
Finally, she sent a very short message.
Careful. Polite. Distant.
No. Everything's fine. Don't worry.
The moment it was sent, it felt colder than she had meant it to.
Why did I write it like that…?
What if I push him away?
Her chest felt hollow.
Before she could overthink it, another message was sent—short, tightly restrained. A small, late correction she hadn't planned to make, but had to.
I just didn't sleep well.
She didn't lift her eyes.
She pretended to write her notes.
But her pen didn't move.
The page was blank.
The professor kept speaking, but Mi-yeon didn't hear a word.
Den watched her from where he sat.
The way she had turned slightly toward the wall. Her shoulders drawn in. The dimness in her gaze.
She's lying.
It was obvious to him—she wasn't fine.
He turned his head toward Min-jae, who was sitting beside him.
Min-jae was glued to his phone.
Probably texting Han-bin again.
Den sighed.
That idiot's so in love he's going to miss the whole lecture. He would be of no help right now.
Den exhaled slowly.
I won't solve anything during class, he decided.
I'll deal with this during lunch.