One day, Han-gyeol, walking to school as usual, stumbled to the shoe rack. He spotted Woo-seok there and hesitated. It was early morning, and sleepy, he slammed his shoes down hard on the shelf. To Han-gyeol, Woo-seok looked angry. Woo-seok met Han-gyeol's eyes briefly, and he passed him by without a trace of expression. For some reason, Han-gyeol was becoming concerned about Woo-seok.
-
“Kim Woo-seok.”
"why?"
“These days, you don’t talk much about idols?”
"Now is the time. I need to focus on what I have to do."
Seungyeon, who had been watching Wooseok speak dryly and write in such small, illegible handwriting, spoke again. "Can you even read my handwriting this small?" He had been memorizing model answers to past essay questions without a second thought, but Seungyeon kept talking to him, causing Wooseok to let out a short sigh and put down his mechanical pencil.
"Didn't I tell you after summer vacation ended, or rather, after I submitted my application? Let's break up for a while until winter comes."
“Hey, why are you talking like that? You could have just told me not to bother you while you prepare for the college entrance exams.”
"Then you would have rejected me a long time ago? You who applied through the academic selection process and were already confirmed to have passed?"
“But you really said that to me? That we should break up?”
“Okay. Let’s stop talking.”
Unlike the other students, Seungyeon seemed quite relaxed at this point, and Wooseok shook his head. Still, for Seungyeon, Wooseok, whose only way to get into a decent university was through essay writing, was probably just a worthless friend she could tease whenever she was bored. In this situation, ignoring him was the answer. Seungyeon snatched Wooseok away from his mechanical pencil, trying to focus on his answer sheet.
“Why again?”
“Please recommend me just one poem.”
“What’s with all this sudden excitement? You’re a science major to the core.”
"After I was finally accepted, I was bored, so I read some of the works you'd been touting as masterpieces. Like Lee Sang, for example?"
“When did you say that the works were so difficult that you couldn’t read a single word?”
"I originally planned to just read novels, but that person's poetry is quite interesting. Anyway, can you recommend some poetry that I can't find easily on the internet?"
"Why would our school have a library? There are so many poetry books, so you'll have to find them yourself."
"Third graders can't borrow books anymore. Don't ignore me. Tell me at least one thing."
Seungyeon, who seemed determined not to return the mechanical pencil without a poem recommendation, rummaged through his pencil case, searching for a spare. Oh, perhaps because he'd recently cleaned out his pencil case before his midterm exam, there was nothing suitable. Wooseok finally raised his hand, seeing Seungyeon's inability to stop teasing, despite the poem being a waste.
“Give it to me. I’ll recommend one.”
“It’s a poem that’s hard to find on the internet, so please write the entire text.”
“Okay, then hurry.”
As soon as Seungyeon handed him the mechanical pencil, she also handed him her notebook. It was a rare blank notebook, one of those she'd been studying so hard for. Wooseok, wondering why she was going to such lengths, tilted his head, then without hesitation, wrote a poem and handed the notebook back to Seungyeon. Seungyeon scanned the handwriting, which was incomparably neater than when she'd been writing her answers earlier, and exclaimed in a small, impressed expression.
"The poem isn't that short, yet you've memorized it all? I've heard of 'Sky, Stars, Wind, and Poetry,' but 'Stars and Wind' is definitely a first for me."
“I don’t know if it will come up when you search for it on the Internet.”
Wooseok muttered, turning to Seungyeon to find she had already returned to her class. "Is this really why you came?" Wooseok chuckled, finding something a bit amusing, and quickly looked back at his essay answer sheet. Perhaps it was the interruption of his busy writing that made it difficult to look at the densely packed letters. So, Wooseok rewrote the poem he'd written for Seungyeon earlier: Kim Jun-sik's "Stars and Wind."
The star is a fool who can't even speak.
The wind is even more foolish. It is a fool who cannot even light itself.
They are fools who only know how to give a clear, innocent wink and pass by with a quick touch.
But I was captivated by its brilliance
We are even more foolish when we stumble at a single touch.
We are fools who despair of everything in the wind and stars.
After rewriting the poem, something felt strange. The stars and wind in the poem seemed like someone else, and we, he thought, seemed to refer to himself.
“No, I don’t despair.”
-
Since morning, several kids had been talking about application forms. Han-gyeol wondered what they were looking for. After all, it couldn't be a club application, especially since midterms for the second semester of their second year were over.
“What application?”
"There's a humanities event, you know? It's called the Humanities Shine Evening or something."
“Oh, are you looking for that application form?”
"No, there weren't any applications at all. It's first-come, first-served, but they're already closed."
The Humanities Evening was a famous on-campus humanities event that even Han-gyeol, who couldn't fully devote himself to his school life, had heard of. It was a bit odd that such an event accepted participants on a first-come, first-served basis.
“Hey, that’s not it. The applications and participant announcements were all closed last week, but there were a lot of cancellations, so we had to fill the empty seats on a first-come, first-served basis.”
“Was it like that?”
“You’re not even Lee Han-gyeol, so why are you so indecisive about going back to school?”
Hangyeol quietly returned to his seat, leaving his friends, who couldn't figure out where they were bickering, behind. Whether it was first-come, first-served or not, didn't really matter. Hangyeol was simply disappointed that he didn't have the chance to participate in this event. Even if attendance was inevitable up until now, he felt he needed to start filling out the student record book. He'd missed a great opportunity to add a few lines to it.