She was no different from a beast

Chapter 17

—–CROW—– 

“Oh.  Um.  H-Hi, Yuna.”

“Hi, Yuri!”

Have you heard of Nolto?

Before the five-day work week… or rather, school week… it was a common abbreviation, a relic of the past, only mentioned when reminiscing about the good old days.

“Playing Saturday.”

In those days, you went to school for morning classes on the first and third Saturdays of the month, and had the second and fourth Saturdays off.

Anyway, March was coming to an end, the last cold snap had retreated, and warm, gentle sunlight brought life back to the island, along with the chirping of birds.

Green sprouts emerged from the moist earth, and the faint scent of spring filled the air.

Well, the mornings were still chilly.

Unlike the crowded summer months, the road was quiet.  At the top of the hill, Yuri, with her black bob and gentle, puppy-like face, waved at me.

Cherry blossoms were just starting to bloom, scattering white petals that formed a soft carpet under my feet as I ran towards her.

“…Did you walk here?”

“No? I ran.”

“I-I mean, I thought you’d take the bus!”

Ah, that’s what you meant? The bus comes every 40 minutes! How could I take the bus?

I could crawl here on all fours and still arrive faster!

The bus might be comfortable, but the insane bus schedule on this rural island is unbearable.

I even run to school these days.

“Phew, I’d call anyone else a liar, but with Yuna, it seems possible.”

“It’s possible, that’s why I ran~ So? What are we going to do?”

The gentle and quiet Yuri actually asked *me* out on a Saturday.

Of course, I have nothing but time!

Mom’s been giving me worried looks lately, seeing me come straight home after school and stay home all weekend.  She probably thinks I’m a friendless loser.  It’s been a bit much.

“S-So… could you maybe… help me with my studies?”

“???”

Huh? Suddenly?

I tilted my head.

Wasting our precious, fleeting weekend… on studying?

Is that something a nine-year-old should be saying?

“You know I’m in first grade, right?”

“Y-Yeah. But I thought Yuna would be good at studying. You knew so much in the mountains last year.”

Well, I can’t argue with that.

It might sound arrogant, but you won’t find a more brilliant elementary school student on Ulleungdo.

Thanks to my super-elite past life, I’m a prodigy, at least at the elementary school level. There’s no elementary school problem I can’t solve~ probably.

“But why studying?”

“I want to be in the top 10 on the midterm exams next month… Top of the school is impossible, but top 10…”

Mom promised to buy me a cell phone if I get in the top 10!

“Oh.”

A cell phone.  Nice.

But wouldn’t that be a feature phone in this era?

You know, those evil devices that charge you a fortune if you accidentally connect to the internet.

Wow. Giving such a dangerous device to a nine-year-old…

I used a smartphone in my past life, so I’m not particularly envious, but for Yuri, it must be a huge deal.

“Are you studying just to get a cell phone?”

“Y-Yeah…”

Honest.

I like that!

Studying is inherently tedious and awful.

Even adults who’ve graduated say, “I should have studied harder back then,” but when they actually try to study as adults, they give up, saying it’s too much.

If they regret it, they should study hard, even at a later age, but they don’t.

It just proves that humans, with their normal brain structure, can’t find studying exciting or pleasurable, whether they’re children or adults.

It brings headaches, boredom, frustration, and aversion. Who would enjoy that?

“Okay! I’ll teach you everything!”

“R-Really?”

“Yep! But you can’t become good at studying overnight, so how about we meet every Saturday?”

“Okay! Thank you, Yuna! Heehee.”

Don’t mention it.

This is a good excuse to avoid Mom’s worried gaze.

Studying might be boring and awful when I’m the one doing it, but teaching might be frustrating, but not boring.

Why?

Because Han Yuna, descendant of the gorani, has a rather… *vigorous* teaching style!

“Yuri, are we studying at your house?”

“Huh?  Uh… no!  Is it okay if we study at my academy?”

Oh?  Wow!

‘She goes to an academy at that age?’

Terrifying!

How serious about education is her family to send a second-grader to an academy?!

There’s a joke that kids who do well in school are the ones whose parents send them to academies, but she’s still at an age where she can get good grades just by paying attention in class.

At nine years old, shouldn’t she be focusing on health and friendships, playing at the playground instead of cramming at an academy?

I, a two-time liver, couldn’t comprehend this suffocating craze for private education.

I had a lot to say…

‘But it’s not my place to interfere in their family matters.’

If she really hates studying, I should tell her, “If you hate studying, ask your parents to stop sending you to the academy.”

I was starting to understand why Yuri was such a frail, tearful city girl.

The academy Yuri attended wasn’t a cram school filled with terrifying, brain-splitting instructors.

It was a Taekwondo academy.

One of the most cost-effective and popular after-school activities in Korea!

Some Taekwondo academies even offer tutoring!

And they provide transportation, picking up and dropping off the kids.  During vacations, the master, in his white dobok, even comes to greet them?!

For parents concerned about their children’s safety, it’s the perfect after-school program, offering both physical activity and social interaction!

They take care of the kids’ health, tire them out, provide tutoring, and offer pick-up and drop-off service! All for less than 100,000 won a month?!

Wow! Sign me up!

And into this Taekwondo academy, frequented by parents with this mindset… suddenly appeared a wild child from the countryside.

“So, Yuri? How do you read this number?”

I wrote ‘7826’ on the board. Yuri groaned and hesitantly answered.

“Seventy-eight hundred twenty-six…?”

“Oh… Yuri! Do you want 10 hits on the calves or 10 push-ups?”

“I-I was wrong?!”

“Yes, you were wrong.”

Seventy-eight hundred twenty-six?  What is that?

I should explain why she was wrong.

I’d asked the master for permission to borrow some 1,000 won bills as teaching materials. I held one up and showed it to Yuri.

“Yuri, how much is this?”

“One thousand won!”

“What if you have seven of them?”

“Seven thousand won!”

“Right? Not seventy hundred won.”

“Ah.”

“If you ask for seventy hundred won worth of tteokbokki when you grow up, people will think you’re stupid. You don’t want that, do you?”

“N-No!!”

“Then get in the push-up position.  Down on one, up on two~”

She wasn’t completely clueless. She understood quickly with examples, which made teaching enjoyable.

I sat on the teacher’s desk and smiled gently. Yuri groaned but obediently got into position.

Now, let’s see about the other one.

“Jeongwoo, have you finished the problems I gave you?”

“Huh?  It hasn’t even been 10 minutes.”

“Come on~ Simple subtraction problems, and they’re taking you 10 minutes? Do you want to join Yuri?”

“…”

I heard he was taking Taekwondo, but I didn’t expect him to be at the same academy as Yuri!

But I don’t understand.  Even with just mental calculations, 20 subtraction problems should take 5 minutes, not 10.

He hadn’t even finished half of the problems I’d carefully prepared, and he’d gotten most of them wrong. I smiled brightly at his test paper.

“Jeongwoo.”

“B-But! I’ve never learned this before, how can I…”

“Jeongwoo.”

“…I’ll get in position.”

Good boy.

One more word, and I would have shown him the magic trick of snapping a pencil in half.

Jeongwoo joined Yuri on the floor.

He might not be smart, but he’s quick-witted.

But how can he get so many simple subtraction problems wrong?

Looking at his test, I couldn’t help but sigh.

Did I give him multiplication or division?

I just gave him addition and subtraction problems from our textbook.

He wasn’t sleeping in class… Is he really just that bad at math?

He wasn’t my friend, but as my partner, I couldn’t help but be a little more concerned about him.

Getting such simple problems wrong…

7286 – 865 + 962 = ?

‘Heh heh.’

What? What’s wrong? The numbers are a bit big, but it’s just addition and subtraction.

It’s a perfectly solvable problem if you calmly calculate step by step.

Huh? Isn’t this harder than the problem I gave Yuri?  Nah, it’s just your imagination.

Yes.  It’s just your imagination.

I’m definitely not trying to make things difficult for him because he called me a monster.

I’m not that petty.

—–CROW—–