EAR Ch 1

Oh Seungpyo was good at studying.

During his middle school years, he never once missed taking first place in the entire school. That said, was Oh Seungpyo a model student who took expensive private tutoring, faithfully did pre-lesson prep and review, and invested a set amount of time into studying every single day? Absolutely not.

On the contrary, he was the type to fool around with the other kids in the hallway whenever he had free time—earning him scoldings from teachers—and he liked going outside to shoot a game of basketball. Once classes ended, he would skip academy classes, sneak off to PC cafes behind his older brother’s back to play games, or exchange text messages on his cell phone with girls he was close with.

Oh Seungpyo was good at sports and spent money generously, so he was popular with the boys, and because he was neat and handsome—not to mention already over 180 centimeters tall by his third year of middle school—he was popular with the girls as well. He had even received business cards from entertainment agencies while walking down the street, and he often heard people ask why he didn’t try becoming a celebrity.

To be honest, Oh Seungpyo thought he could easily outperform most actual idols, but unfortunately, he had no real talent for singing and dancing. He was tall, so when he danced, he looked akin to one of those dancing inflatable tube men used for cell phone store grand openings. Perhaps because he had quite a bit of muscle—the kind that still looked childish, gained from playing sports with his friends—he was even funnier than those inflatable dolls.

Thinking he might have a talent for acting, he secretly recited lines from TV dramas in front of the mirror and mimicked them, but even to his own eyes, it wasn’t it at all. In the end, whenever Oh Seungpyo was asked if he had any intention of becoming a celebrity, he went around replying that he had no interest.

Even living like that, Oh Seungpyo was good at studying. It was because he was smart. The saying that a high IQ means a good memory seemed to be true. After all, Oh Seungpyo usually remembered whatever he had read once. Even if he played around the entire time and only crammed properly the night before an exam, first place in the whole school was always Oh Seungpyo’s to take.

For example, it went like this: There was a time he was caught blatantly messing around during class. The teacher made Seungpyo stand up and grilled him with various questions, but Oh Seungpyo pretended to be taking notes, glanced at his blank notebook, and answered smoothly without stuttering once, getting off scot-free. Since it was content he had read before, even without listening in class, something of that level was fucking easy.

“You little bastard, you’re not pulling yourself together, are you? Just wait until Dad gets home, you’re dead. Crazy bastards, acting up just because you’re a year older.”

Seungpyo’s older brother was three years older than Seungpyo. Seungpyo’s brothers’ mother passed away when the brothers were young; while the older brother remembered their mother quite well, Seungpyo hardly remembered her.

Their dad was a captain on a deep-sea fishing vessel catching tuna, so he spent more time away from home than he did staying at home. Whenever Seungpyo saw canned tuna stacked on kitchen shelves or supermarket display racks, he thought of his dad, and he grew up big and strong while consuming protein, calcium, and DHA, which was said to help brain cell growth.

So to Seungpyo, his brother was a presence somewhat similar to a parent. Once or twice a week, his maternal aunt and paternal aunt would take turns checking in on them, but even so, they couldn’t compare to his brother who lived attached to him every day.

That isn’t to say his brother was a sweet and tender brother to Seungpyo—you could tell just by looking at the way he talked, couldn’t you? Ever since going off to college, claiming he was now a full-fledged adult in his 20s, he had become even more rude and impudent.

“It’s just because I took it easy this time. It’s my first time in high school, so it might take some time to adapt. You also suffered while adapting when you went to college.”

“Where does this bastard get off pointing his finger and saying ‘you, you’ to a brother as exalted as the sky? You wanna die?”

The reason his brother was angry was that Seungpyo’s grades took a sharp nosedive on the very first mock exam he took after entering high school. Seungpyo, who had never missed first place in the whole school, placed 13th in the entire school this time.

But it’s just a mock exam anyway, right? A mock? Oh Seungpyo was overflowing with composure. It was only because he hadn’t properly studied yet; if Oh Seungpyo set his mind to studying, he could recapture first place in the school anytime he wanted.

“Didn’t you say you’d pull yourself together? When are you going to do it? Are you just going to become a high school senior like this?”

A month later, his brother chirped again. On the second mock exam, Seungpyo ranked 8th in the whole school.

Of course, it wasn’t a bad grade. However, Oh Seungpyo was a student who never missed being first in the school. The kind of honor student whom the principal himself would pat on the shoulder and act friendly with at every opportunity. His brother was also a former honor student who lacked for nothing when it came to being good at studying, so he seemed to have no intention whatsoever of understanding his younger brother’s unexpected grades.

Above all, Oh Seungpyo himself didn’t want to accept it. He had never even dreamed of grades around 10th place in the school, and above all, the fact that these were the grades he got after doing what he considered ‘exam studying’ was something embarrassing enough to make him do forward rolls on the floor. Despite that, Oh Seungpyo answered as if he were annoyed, pretending not to be shaken in the slightest.

“I got the hang of it now. My grades will properly come out next time for real, so don’t worry.”

Because until then, it was still just a mock exam. Oh Seungpyo could still afford to act leisurely. Even if it was just a fake composure that was all for show.

Oh Seungpyo was slowly starting to get nervous. It was because he had firmly caught onto one thing through the second mock exam he took after entering high school: namely, that in high school, if you relied solely on natural brainpower like in middle school, you could end up failing miserably.

Even after coming to high school, Oh Seungpyo was naturally very popular, but he now began to politely decline his friends’ invitations to hang out.

Going to PC cafe?

No no

Why

Allowance cut off

Gasp I have money

Dad came home

There were a few guys who came from the same middle school, and because those bastards took it upon themselves to spread rumors about how strict and scary Seungpyo’s father was like a ghost story (it was actually a considerably exaggerated story), his new friends seemed to view Seungpyo’s father as a Hulk-like figure who fought with his whole body against sea monster-like tuna. Even though captains don’t actually catch tuna themselves.

The claim that his dad had returned to the country was a lie, but anyway, once he said Hulk had returned home, the kids no longer bothered him to hang out.

Oh Seungpyo was fairly serious. Having passed through two mock exams, the midterm exams that would actually be reflected in his internal high school transcript were approaching. Now was truly not the time to act leisurely. He had to normalize his grades somehow.

So Seungpyo studied hard to a degree he never had before. He cut off hanging out with friends, and as for exchanging text messages with alumni whose high schools had split off, he temporarily put that on hold using the excuse that he couldn’t use his phone because of his dad.

If it were middle school, it would have been embarrassing to show kids that he was studying this hard, but since most of his high school friends were newly made anyway, they just accepted it as normal even if Seungpyo was staring into a book claiming he was studying. It didn’t help much because they would always come nearby at least once and chatter away as they pleased, but they didn’t actively interfere either.

And just like that, the midterms arrived.

📚

“Wow, Oh Seungpyo is insane.”

It was the policy of the school Oh Seungpyo attended to publicly display ranks 1st through 50th in the school on a large poster in the hallway. They even possessed the meanness to hang the poster before handing out individual report cards, making sure the kids saw it no matter what. While making it into the top 50 in the whole school was not a bad achievement, it was a method that kids caught awkwardly at the very edge sometimes disliked, thinking it wasn’t a grade worth bragging about.

On the day the first midterm exam results were posted, his classmates looked up at Seungpyo with admiration, as if seeing him in a new light, letting out a series of exclamations.

Oh Seungpyo really worked hard this time. Once he actually tried studying for the exams, high school studies weren’t any big deal. The content written in the books was still easy to memorize and easy to understand, so practice problems were solved smoothly. Thanks to getting most of the questions he was unsure about correct, objectively excellent scores came out. A 1st tier grade was a given, and this was a score more than sufficient to aim for 1st place overall.

So Seungpyo was confident. Confident that he would return to his original place.

“This is no joke. How did it jump so drastically? Give us your secret.”

“You’re fucking good at studying.”

Even at the words offered by his new friends—containing a mix of congratulations, envy, and jealousy—Oh Seungpyo’s stiff facial expression did not easily relax.

From behind his back, exclamations from strangers could be heard.