Work Text:
Go Yeongeun aspired to be a Doctor.
It was a path she had chosen for herself after long deliberation. She had spent extensive amounts of time researching and reading about this career path, carefully contemplating its pros and cons.
She could handle the gore and blood. She wasn’t someone to balk at the idea of a challenge, she could keep her cool in most situations, and most importantly, this was something she wanted to do.
Saving people, assisting them in their recovery, wasn’t that such a noble thing to do?
Her parents were so proud of her when she told them. This didn’t weigh into her decision whatsoever.
Anyways, Go Yeongeun aspired to be a Doctor, but she had many hurdles she needed to pass through.
Her first and largest hurdle, high school physics.
Go Yeongeun hated physics with a burning passion. No hate to her teacher, Mr. Kim Soleum, but she truly couldn’t fathom how he could remain so sane and happy while teaching such a cursed subject.
Said teacher took his place in front of the whiteboard at the front of the class with a blindingly bright smile on his face. Go Yeongeun felt like death.
“Okay everyone, raise your hands, who did last week's assigned homework?”
A few hands tentatively raised into the air, Go Yeongeun’s along with them.
Unperturbed, Mr. Kim continued his class. “Great! Because today, we are learning Electromagnetics!”
Go Yeongeun almost thought that she had let out the groan that was building up inside her throat, but she quickly realized the source.
Sitting next to her was her girlfriend Kang Yihak, who was practically bowled over the top of her desk.
Faintly, Go Yeongeun recognized that Kang Yihak hadn’t raised her hand just now.
She turned her attention back to Mr. Kim. If she wanted to achieve all her future goals, then she needed to pass this accursed obstacle first.
“Observe the following , a loop of wire connected at points A and B, with a magnet held in the middle. Now, with this diagram in mind,” Mr. Kim etched some hieroglyphics onto the whiteboard, “Which of the following actions will induce a current into the loop?” Tapping the erasable marker against his chin in a mock thinking gesture, he looked out into the sea of students. “Let’s see… Miss Go?”
Go Yeongeun tried not to scream.
‘At least this one is easy,’ She thought to herself hysterically. Composing herself the best she could, she lifted her head and answered. “Any form of movement made by either the magnet or the loop,”
Mr. Kim smiled, “Very good, Miss Go! That is correct.”
Slumping into her seat in relief, Go Yeongeun caught sight of her class notes.
Her usually neat handwriting had devolved into frantic scribbling barely ten minutes into class. The scribbled out words and little notes trailing off the page were an eyesore.
She sighed, ‘At least it’s usable.’
With that stray thought, her eyes automatically moved to the side, landing on a long brown ponytail draped messily over the desk. Kang Yihak had long given up on listening to class and Mr. Kim had long given up trying to corral the more difficult personalities of his class, so she was often getting away with such blatant displays of inattention.
Her lack of interest didn’t mean that she was a worse scorer for it. In fact, Kang Yihak was probably one of the people with the best scores out of their entire class, something Go Yeongeun often lamented about.
(“It’s so that my clients have the guarantee that my products work!” She flashed a peace sign to no one.
“Product?” Go Yeongeun was almost scared to ask.
“Why, your class notes of course!”
“What.”)
A shrill bell cut through the air, startling Go Yeongeun and sending the class into a flurry of activity. Kang Yihak had somehow revived and was excitedly packing her bags with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. Go Yeongeun shuddered, slowly bracing herself to Kang Yihak’s brand of chaos.
Sighing, she slowed down her packing, timing the flurry of students making their way out the door.
Bounding up behind her, Kang Yihak’s hands landed heavily on Go Yeongeun’s shoulders.
art made by the lovely Nini, Bitter_Tanghulu
“Hey slowpoke, why the rush?” Kang Yihak leaned forward, dropping her entire body weight onto Go Yeongeun. Her eyes roved around on Go Yeongeun’s notes with a raised brow, and she had to resist the urge to rip it all out.
“Wow, did you get possessed halfway through?” Kang Yihak whistled, as if she were inspecting a piece of art at the gallery.
Go Yeongeun rolled her eyes and shoved Kang Yihak away. “You go on ahead I… have to ask Mr. Kim some questions.”
Humming her assent, she roughly patted Go Yeongeun’s shoulders once more before prancing out the door behind the last of the stragglers.
Go Yeongeun’s eyes remained fixed on Kang Yihak’s disappearing back. Outwardly, she carefully tidied her desk, putting away her books and her stationeries, meticulously gathering up the small scraps of paper for disposal, and organizing her stationeries. The picture perfect model student.
Inwardly, she kicked herself repeatedly.
The decision to stay behind was a rather impulsive one, born from the many days she had spent suffering over this subject whilst also agonizing about her future. Her mind would drift to her oddly chipper teacher, and she would often wonder, ‘Could she be like that one day?’
Standing up, she straightened her back in false confidence, she strutted towards the desk placed at the front of the class, acting as a mock podium.
Mr. Kim was marking off some papers that she recognized as some assigned work from a few days before. She did her best not to look, lest she sees a score she would end up losing sleep over.
Hearing her approach, Mr. Kim looked up at her with a kind smile, “Yes, Miss Go?”
Go Yeongeun played with the straps of her bag nervously. Shifting from one foot to the other, gaze darting everywhere except to the man in front of her, Go Yeongeun opened her mouth, “How… How do you do it?”
Mr. Kim tilted his head in question.
“How do you… remain so motivated everyday?”
Mr. Kim paused, expression stuttering. It wavered between confused and baffled, before settling into something like… pity?
“Miss Go,” He started, “You are one of my brightest students, and I know you’ll go far in life, so I’ll tell you the truth.”
Go Yeongeun gripped the straps of her bag so tight her knuckles went white.
A truth? What sort of truth?
Mr. Kim leaned in, lowering his voice as if he were letting go of a tightly guarded secret. “You see… Miss Go,”
He paused dramatically for effect.
“I lie to myself.”
Go Yeongeun blanked. What…?
“Every morning, when I wake up, I say ‘everything’s gonna be okay’,” Mr. Kim gave her a self-deprecating smile. “But I’m lying.”
Mr. Kim’s dark eyes bore into her soul.
“And I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”
Go Yeongeun instinctively took a step back. Then another, and another. Her mouth flapped open and closed, the words dying on her tongue.
Coming to her senses, she turned away with a half garbled mumble of thanks. Then, under Mr. Kim’s unnervingly bright gaze, she rushed out of the classroom as fast as she could.
“Woah! Where’s the fire?”
A bright voice sounded behind her, and two hands reached out to steady her frantic gait. Go Yeongeun whipped her head up to meet Kang Yihak. She had been leaning somewhere off to the side of the hallway before she saw her girlfriend rush out oddly.
Taking in Go Yeongeun’s expression, Kang Yihak’s bright expression rapidly cooled.
“Do I need to get rid of someone.”
The blunt statement startled Go Yeongeun, “What? No! No, everything is fine.”
Nodding her head, Kang Yihak shifted to putting her arm around Go Yeongeun’s shoulder, steering her… somewhere. Go Yeongeun let her girlfriend do as she pleased.
“Hey, do you think the neighbouring schools would buy the cheat sheets?”
Go Yeongeun blinked. “I don’t know, probably? Exam season is coming up, so there might be some desperate seniors.”
Kang Yihak grinned, her cute snaggle tooth catching Go Yeongeun’s attention like always.
“Exactly my point.”