➪The Man|| WINRINA

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢-𝚜𝚒𝚡

The exam day ended with the winds blowing, a sign of misfortune for the citizens.

Students from the academy were drained, looking like dead souls who wandered the corridors with gloomy eras. Some were in the sides contemplating their life choices. those who made actual effort to pass were going over their notes with their friends, debating among themselves of their answers and solutions for the science and math subject. Those who didn't place that much effort were boasting how they knew they already failed, laughing heartedly.

The teachers were gathered in the gym, tables with their individual names placed on were checking the papers. The faster they started manually checking the papers, the sooner the results would be released.

Karina could only pray that her grades for the exam would be enough to keep her on the top 100. She couldn't afford transferring with a recommendation to transfer. Her classroom was full of students wailing on how they would fail and be kicked out; the smarts ones were in front of the board writing down their solutions and arguing; those who didn't had fallen asleep on their desks.

“I'm gonna fail!” lia wailed, banging her head on her desk, arms clenched at the side of her head on table. “I failed in balancing the chemicals.”

Ryujin snorted, moving from sitting on her chair to her desk, on leg raised and perched on the table. She covered her safety shorts with her skirt. “balancing? I think I failed in the decile, percentile, and quartile. Not to mention the theories of circles!” she scoffed in disbelief, “I failed math.”

“I bet Karina will be part of the top ten.” lia raised her head, perching her elbow on the table before placing her right cheek on her open palm. “you know, bestie goals.”

The aformentioned rolled her eyes. “nah. I failed TLE and social studies.”

“now why would you fail a subject that's about the contemporary issues surrounding our society?” ryunjin asked, confused how someone could fail such a subject.

Maybe because I don't have a solution, Karina answered. Like the contemporary issues that were timely to their society, her problem with winter/minjeong was something that needed great effort to solve. She had to solve it since she brought up the issue in the forst place.

She let out a heavy sigh, pushing herself back and leaned backwards on her seat, crossing her arms over her chest. “what would you do if you were the reason of a problem but someone else is facing it?”

“eh?” ryujin scrunched up her nose in confusin, face twisting. “you mean like someone is facing it? Like experiencing it?”

“it's a butterfly effect, I guess.” lia answered, “why?”

“I may,” karina pursed her lips, “have done something wrong and someone else is reaping the consequences of it.”

“and what have you done?” ryujin asked, “Don't tell me you pranked jaemin. You know he's scary when he's mad. Take Donghyuck's word for it ”

And winter experience, karina didn't know if she laugh or feel sorry. Probably feel sorry. “I know. But it isn't jaemin, it's someone else.”

“Is it minjeong?” lia asked, surprising karina. “because we can tell with your body language. You keep on approaching him this intention. You aren't approaching him because you want to, aren't you.”