Hana from Class 1, Grade 3 of Starlight Elementary School became the talk of the town among the boys.
The boys, curious about what the rumored transfer student looked like, couldn’t help but return to their class with a crush on her.
First of all, her appearance was strikingly beautiful. It made the hearts of the boys her age race.
Her big, sparkling eyes that reminded you of Westerners, a nose that looked like it had been sculpted by plastic surgery, a small, round moon-like face, and despite being a child, her long legs contrasted with her short torso in a way that was hard to believe.
Humans are slaves to beauty. The purer the child, the more obvious it was. In modern society, good looks were an excellent ability. It wasn’t the kind of ability that could backfire or diminish if it was too good. It was the kind of ability that endlessly spread love.
When the boys tried to approach Hana and talk to her, Yumi and Jiyu, who were always by her side, desperately protected her. It was their belief to shield their precious Hana from the wolf-like boys.
But even Yumi and Jiyu couldn’t always be on guard, so sometimes the boys managed to talk to Hana. When they did, they noticed a strangely familiar vibe from her, unlike other kids her age.
At first, the boys even gathered to discuss what this unfamiliar yet familiar atmosphere around Hana was.
“She’s clearly a girl… but why does it feel like the vibe you get when you visit your grandparents during Lunar New Year or Chuseok…?” They soon found out why. Hana, despite being a 10-year-old girl, had an old-fashioned way of thinking.
Except for her love for the Little Magician Lumi, she reminded them of their uncles who stayed holed up in their rooms like unemployed bums every time they visited their grandparents. Hana wasn’t an uncle, but the unique vibe she gave off was eerily similar to that of their uncles.
“But still, it’s unique, right? It’s not like Hana’s a bad person.”
“I wish I could talk to Hana more…”
“Remember when Siwoo tried to confess to Hana last time? It didn’t work out, did it?”
“Siwoo’s just trash, right?”
“?”
Second.
Hana’s actions were sometimes way too bold. It was like the kind of pranks boys played on each other.
When talking, there was a lot of skinship. Hana seemed to do it without a second thought, but for the boys on the receiving end, it was enough to make their faces turn red. It was the kind of thing they’d think about when lying in bed at home.
And then there was the annual tradition of her walking into the boys’ bathroom. Sure, she often went into the girls’ bathroom, but weirdly, Hana would occasionally walk into the boys’ bathroom. When she did, the boys’ screams echoed through the hallway. No matter how lenient the school was about girls entering the boys’ bathroom, the act itself was enough to make you scream.
Third.
Despite her airheaded and slightly unhinged demeanor, she was incredibly good at studying. The midterms were said to be quite difficult this time, but Hana confidently took the top spot in the entire school.
And she did it by a significant margin over the second-place student. They say if you marry a woman who’s beautiful, you’ll last three years, and if she has a good personality, you’ll last thirty years. In Hana’s case, with her added advantages, you could probably live off her looks for about ten years.
Plus, they say if you’re smart, your family will prosper for three generations. But since Hana was even smarter, wouldn’t her family prosper for five generations? Some of the girls and boys who focused on their studies even felt inferior to Hana.
What kind of environment did she grow up in to be so beautiful?
And what kind of academy did she attend to be so good at studying?
But it seemed like no one had ever seen Hana’s parents. They only ever saw a young woman who looked like her older sister…
Anyway, unlike Hana, who seemed to breeze through school without a care, the boys in Class 1 were very much aware of her.
——————————————————————–
“Ugh, I wanna go home.”
I was lying on my chair, staring blankly into space. A beer would be nice right now… Going to school was fine, but sitting through classes was just too much.
Honestly, it was hard not to feel a sense of self-loathing while learning addition and subtraction. The answers were obvious at a glance, but the kids were diligently writing numbers in their notebooks and calculating them one by one. Watching them was laughable, but what could I do? They were only third graders.
It would take at least ten years for these kids to step into society. The same went for Korean and English. Even if they went to a prestigious university…
The grades weren’t great, but I managed to pass with just average scores, and the problems were so easy that I could yawn through them.
It felt like I had become a muscle-flexing bully. My conscience was pricking me too. What’s so great about showing off strength among little kids? But I had no choice. If I didn’t get first place in the midterms, they said they wouldn’t buy me the Little Magician Lumi’s transformation set.
To get Little Magician Lumi, I had to hold back tears and aim for first place. Of course, the difficulty level was easier than twisting a kid’s wrist.
“Hana, how do you solve this?”
Yumi asked me from the seat next to me. Jiyu, who had built a wall against studying, never asked me for help, but Yumi was different. She was the model student type you see everywhere. I picked up my pen and explained the problem she didn’t understand.
Elementary school third-grade problems were so easy you could solve them with your feet. Explaining how to solve the problem was harder than actually solving it. The answer popped into my head as soon as I saw it, but explaining the process out loud made me stumble a bit.
I thought teachers and people in teaching professions were amazing. Even teaching easy problems drained so much mental energy, and doing that for eight hours straight seemed like an insurmountable challenge from my perspective.
Anyway, after explaining the problem to Yumi, I got bored again. Since it was break time, I took out my tablet and searched for the latest anime.
*Tap tap!*
“Hana, you’re really smart. Do you study at home? I’ve never seen you study at school.”
*Gulp!*
Yumi hit a nerve. I hardly studied at school. I didn’t mess around, but to others, it looked like I had completely abandoned studying. Yumi said I seemed to study even less than Jiyu.
“Uh… yeah! I prefer studying at home.”
I lied because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of admitting I didn’t study much at home either. Of course, I did study at home, but not that much. I mostly focused on memorization subjects. After all, you could solve basic problems in Korean, English, and math with fundamental skills, but without knowledge in memorization subjects, even a professor wouldn’t be able to solve them.
“Let’s study together at home sometime! I want to see how you study!”
“Sure!”
I had no idea when we’d actually study together, but I threw out the offer anyway. Jiyu, who was watching the anime I was looking at from behind, said,
“This is so childish and boring!”
“What did you say?”
How could she call this childish!? Elementary school third-graders really couldn’t be trusted. To call such a tear-jerking, emotional story childish… I decided I needed to give Jiyu a special education on how great this anime was.
“Jiyu, you just don’t have the eyes to appreciate it! I could talk about how amazing this anime is all day!”
I blamed Jiyu’s poor taste and chattered on about the fun and greatness of the anime. Jiyu looked like her eyes were spinning as she listened. After just a few minutes, she clasped her hands and said,
“Listening to you, Hana, it sounds like a fun anime! I’ll watch it when I get home!”
Hearing that made me feel good. It felt like I had guided another lost soul to the right path. I think I understood why religious people proselytize. The thrill of leading someone on the wrong path to the right one was just too good.
“Yumi too…”
I glanced at Yumi and started to say something, but she turned pale and shook her head.
“Ah… no! Hana, I don’t really watch anime, sorry!”
“Oh, okay?”
I didn’t plan to force someone who didn’t like anime to watch it anyway.
