Archive of Our Own ^beta

“How far have you all gotten?” Yeongeun asks immediately when arriving. She looks down, her desk filled with various notes, highlighted to oblivion, and her biology textbook cracked open. “I’m on transcription right now.”

On the screen, Soleum’s camera turns on. His hair is pushed back with a pink bunny headband; the only thing illuminating his face was the blue light from his phone. 

“Translation.” He says, voice full of dread.

Saheon turns his head, moving so close to his device’s camera that his irises are clearly visible. “How bad?”

Soleum closes his eyes. 

It’s enough for a collective groan to erupt from them, Heoun being the single expectation. He, like always, tries to look on the bright side.

“Come on, if we all study now till—” Heoun quickly glances at his clock, “- twelve, we’ll be prepared and have six hours to sleep!”

His smile falls. Even he knew that was false. 

“Let’s just do our best. If not, we can all just skip tomorrow.” Yihak says, relaxed in her chair, sporting none of the stress her friends had. 

Clearly, she hasn’t studied yet.

Saheon coughs, clearing his voice as he looks at his notes, wondering what question he should ask. 

“Okay, list all the enzymes in replication, go!”

“Helicase, topoisomerases, single-strand binding proteins, DNA polymerase, DNA ligase, and uh—“ Heoun pauses.

“RNA primase,” Yeongeun says, not even glancing up.

“Yeah, yeah, RNA primase…” Heoun murmurs, shutting his eyes.

Soleum’s mic turns on, and the sound of sizzling comes through with his voice. “Don’t quiz about replication, it’s the easiest phase.”

Saheon squints his eyes. “Where are you?”

“Kitchen. Reheating curry.” The camera turns, and a pan of egg curry is shown being heated up. “I’m hungry.”

“Hunger is a sign of sleeping. You're gonna pass out now, Soleum?” Yihak asks cheerfully, and a bit mockingly. “Weak.”

“No. I’m gonna pull an all-nighter like all of you.”

“Um, I’m going to sleep soon,” Heoun calls out.

The group stays silent; his sentence lingers in the air.

Saheon breaks the silence. “Keep telling yourself that.”

At the third-hour mark, Heoun’s hand starts to ache. Not in the slight cramp way, no, no, no. He can’t feel his right pinkie. 

He stares down at his notebook. His writing had been clear and legible at the beginning, but as the pages go by, his writing has sprawled into near chicken scratch to the point he can’t tell if that’s an a or y in polymerase.  

On his laptop screen, a glaring, bright slide 30 out of 48 practically blinds him. He has four slide shows that are of the same length. 

Heoun can’t help but put his head in his hands, silently regretting ever thinking that Mr. H* was nice or funny in his delirious states. 

“You good?”

He looks up to Yihak, staring blankly at him. For a second, he thought her screen froze. 

“My hand is aching.” Like it explained everything, and it did.

“Ohhhhh. When I get that, I use this cream and a mini massage device that could also be used for your feet. I could lend it to you right now, but it’s pretty expensive, so like just tell me where you finally live and PayPal me—”

Yeongeun cuts her off, “Just rest your hand for a few minutes. Do a few hand exercises too.”

Heoun hums, nodding along.

“Jaw claw.” Saheon shows his right hand, his fingers curling onto themselves. “It helps.”

Soleum frowns, leaning in closer to his screen. “Are you stupid? That looks like a cat’s paw.” 

“Jaw claw, cat paw, same thing. What, like you have some advanced method to write so long without cramps?” 

“Yes.”

The camera suddenly flips, now showcasing pictures of DER characters telling him to lock the fuck in.

With an almost proud-sounding voice, he says “Rate the setup,” in a tone that seems to expect praise. 

“You’re such a nerd.” Yihak cackles, loud enough for her mom to yell at her to keep it down. “What do you have a body pillow of your niche seme from your SCP knockoff?”

Soleum ignores her laughing, “I just need a Viper picture. Can any of you send me one?”

“I’m right here, I can just tell you to lock in.” Saheon comments. “The guy’s practically me.”

“Viper looks nothing like you.”

“That guy’s literally me, though.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“You should wear your glasses because, yeah, he is.”

“I don’t need my glasses.”

“Seems like you really do.”

“An mRNA strand went through a transitional mutation that resulted in the polypeptides decreasing by 99 amino acids. What would be the specific mutation type of this?” Soleum says, finally having a chance to relax his fingers as the questioner this time. 

On his lap, his fatass bunny snuggles into him. 

Yes, yes, even if Mr H* is terrorizing him from the astral plane above with biology and the image of his annoying youthful probably botox-filled face, Braun is there to ease the pain in him. 

“Large-scale deletion,” Yihak answers, having finally started studying. 

In less than an hour, her carefully combed and manufactured hair that seemed to just curl just about right was now messy, strands sticking out, with her invisible split ends now being able to be seen by a mile away. 

“Isn’t a deletion mutation a type of point mutation? Wouldn’t it only apply to small-scale mutations?” Heoun asks.

“No, but it could be a small-scale actually,” Saheon murmurs, stretching out his arm. “Large-scale only qualifies if it involves a whole gene or regions of chromosomes.”

“99 amino acids are a lot more than whole genes,” Yihak says, eyebrows furrowing. She never liked being told she was wrong whenever she was in a state like this. “Wouldn’t that qualify?”

“Sure, 99 is a lot, but is it that much compared to the amount we have in our bodies?”

“And how much is that, huh?”

Saheon clicked his tongue, “A lot, okay, definitely not a hundred like whatever you think.”

“It could also be a nonsense mutation,” Yeongeun speaks up. “One, the question didn’t say whether or not the base pairing disappeared, just specified the amino acids. Second, it said transitional. Deletion isn’t transitional.” 

“And Yeongeun is correct,” Soleum says brightly with a smile while Heoun, Saheon, and Yihak deflate physically on his screen. He gives a light clap.

A small soft smile comes onto her face, but it falls off the second her attention moves towards her textbook.

“We have to study viruses.” 

Yihak bangs her head.

“Are you deadass?” Saheon says. It wasn’t really a question but rather a defeated sentence full of sleep deprivation and misery, already knowing the answer. 

“We had one lesson on it,” Soleum whines. Said lesson was only three slides too. “And didn’t he say it was chapter 6 and 7 heavy?”

“67…” Yihak murmurs, face still down on her desk.

“It’s still going to be on the test. Knowing him, it's going to be an application question worth a lot of marks too.” 

Saheon goes to the review guide, scrolling down to see that yes, viruses are going to be on the test, and his eyes widen at the practice questions listed below.

“The practice questions ask us about our assignment topic.” He says, slowly, like he can’t believe it. “Has anyone started?”

Silence.

None of them are getting even a wink of sleep tonight.

All of them get the notification at two in the morning. 

“Sorry, guys, for the sudden announcement, but viruses are not going to be a large part of the unit test.” Soleum reads the email out loud, his knuckles turning white at how hard he grips his phone. His voice turns high-pitched, almost cracking. 

“Hope you all have a good night’s rest for tomorrow. Signed, sincerely Mr Ho!” 

“I’m killing him. I’m actually going to kill him.” Saheon repeats, throwing his notebook on the ground in anger before instantly reaching down to grab it.

Soleum laughs, extending into an uncomfortable amount of time as his three friends in the call watch him with growing concern and despair that even their most stone-faced fellow victim was crumbling to Mr H*’s evil. 

As his voice starts to settle down, Yihak speaks up with wide eyes, like a light bulb went off in her head.

“Why don’t I pay people to say Mr. Ho touched them, so he gets fired?”

“You. You want to pay someone?” Yeongeun’s face wrinkles. “Who even are you?”

“You’re right… one of us should do it.”

Immediately, Saheon proposes, “Kim Soleum should do it.” 

“What!?”

“Oh my god, you’re so right. They’ll totally believe him!” Yihak smiles widely. Saheon returns it with his own.

“Excuse me, why should I be the one doing this hypothetical scheme?” Soleum asks, exasperated.

“Uh, you’re a model student, and you’re like the fav of every teacher in our school.” She looks at him like he’s an idiot, not a model student, as she described him. 

“They’re like, ugh, love that student Kim Soleum, greatest kid I’ve ever taught. So of course, if you say oh Mr. Ho touched my no-no square with your sad cat eyes, glasses, and gloriously fake uwu voice; the teachers are gonna come to your defense.” 

“I see you thought about this long and hard.” He replies, sarcastically. 

Yihak nods, not getting his tone at all. “Oh, no, no, I’m just this smart. No need to praise me.”

One of the most common questions in the class behind hidden doors and hushed whispers is the question: why is Mr H* like this?

“I bet he’s going through menopause,” Saheon says, slamming down his pencil. “He’s so cranky and bitchy, like Ms. Cheong.”

Heoun looks up from his notebook. His figure stayed still on the screen as his voice rang out. “Isn’t he only twenty?”

“Plastic surgery exists.” Yihak comments.

“Yeah, but what about the money? He’s a teacher.” 

“And a high school one at that.” Yeongeun murmurs, “Seems like Seoul University didn’t do much for your career, huh, Mr. Ho.”

“His face is full of botox and surgeries, I just know it…” Soleum murmurs. He pats Braun’s fur like an evil villain with their cat. 

Yihak sighs. “Y’know the most likely thing is that he’s probably pissed off that Ms. Cheong and Mr. Choi from Sekwang High mogs him.” 

Soleum’s eyes practically lit up at the mention of Choi. 

“You’re so right. Have I ever told you were a genius?”

“Not as much as you should.” She fake sniffles, as if about to tear up.

“Well, you are. Mr. Ho is a bitter, bitter man who’s upset he’ll never be twice as much of a human being as Choi is!”

Saheon rolls his eyes so far back it should be harmful. “Go jack off to your crush some other day. I don’t wanna hear this.”

“It’s not a crush—”

“And denial is a river in Egypt—”

It’s Monday morning, and the first thing Yeongeun sees when she steps outside her house is Mr. H*.

“Oh, Yeongeun-ssi! A pleasure to see you so energetic today!” H* greets her, a bright smile on his definitely fake surgical face.

“Ah, you too!” Yeongeun greets back, her smile twitching at the corners of her lips.

Fuck, why did the universe hate her? Why on earth did Mr. H* have to be her neighbour? Wasn’t it enough that she had to deal with him back when she lived in Segwang? And he’s even pretending that she looks alright. Energetic, her ass! The stress and sleep deprivation are clearly visible in her face and messy hair. 

“I hope you’re ready for the big unit test today.” He says, still acting oblivious to her inner anger that anyone can sense. Beginning to walk off, he yells one last thing happily. 

“This one’s a bit of a doozy!”

Kill yourself.

Soleum and Heoun are already in the biology classroom, doing their test early, when the others come in.

Saheon gathers eyes to his clothes, specifically the rolled-up wet sleeves that looked nauseating to wear. 

“What happened?” Heoun mouths. 

“He got paint on his sleeves in art class,” Yeongeun whispers, a smile tugging on her lips. 

Saheon kicks Yeongeun’s ankle lightly, clicking his tongue in annoyance as he sits down.

Having taken her seat already and waiting for the test paper to arrive, Yihak leans back on her chair. “How bad?”

Soleum looks up from his paper, and his eyes are the most sympathetic and kind she’s only ever seen when he’s putting on that weird uwu act of his. 

Kang Yihak regrets not having gone through with her scheme. 

When the school bell rings and H* gets back all the tests, the five start talking not even a second after they leave the classroom.

“I didn’t finish,” Heoun says, leaning against his locker. One could see small tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “That last question got me. I didn’t even know what to put on it.”

“Wait, which version did you get?” Yeongeun asks.

Heoun blinks, his face morphs in a mixture of confusion and exasperation. “God, I don’t know? I had questions about eukaryotic regulation, history, and the Lac Operon—“

“Holy shit, you got B,” Yihak exclaims, her hands freezing in the midst of unlocking her locker. “You got the harder one!”

“Fuck.” 

In a rare moment of weakness, Heoun cursed under his breath.

“I got Typ, thank god. I like Typ Operon better anyways. Much easier.” Yihak says, a piece of her usual glow came back. 

“I don’t like anything in biology.” Soleum murmurs. He hands Saheon’s brown jacket to him. “That Botox devil made me hate it.”

“He’s going to burn in hell for sure,” Saheon says.

“At least we can go home now.”

To that, everyone smiles. 

Home. 

After an evil unit test by an evil internally white teacher, going home was the best reward for their prevalence.

Yeongeun comes home after missing her stop twice because certain people don’t move and stay still like a damn statue when others are going off on the bus with a ruined art project. 

The first thing she does is sleep in her warm, cozy bed at 3:45. It’s the least she deserves for what she’s been through, and she’s gonna wake up later to do other things. 

She wakes up at 6:30.

6:30 am.

Go Yeongeun slept for a solid fifteen hours and feels like shit waking up.

Going through the group chat, the others felt the same way.

Kang Yihak had to walk home for an hour and a half in the snow because she didn’t have enough money for the bus fare. Kim Soleum got slapped, not once, but twice on the bus by randos. Baek Saheon lost his house key and had to walk to his cousin’s for their spare, then back, only to find it wasn’t the right key and had to go back again. And Jang Heoun’s bus broke down, and he had after-school tutoring, meaning he came home at 7.

Clearly, this bad luck could only mean one thing.

This must be the work of Mr. H*.