After eating dinner alone, Kang Woo stepped outside the cafeteria and stretched.
The school day was over, so all he had to do now was return to the dormitory and sleep. Unlike the students who were heading to the study rooms to begin studying, Kang Woo had yet to decide what he ought to study.
He had never intended to go through the high school curriculum in the first place, and school life was still unfamiliar to him.
“Haaah, this is still so tedious.”
He was loosening up his stiff body, repeatedly straightening his back to look at the sky and bending forward to look at the ground, when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Who the hell is that?”
“Hey, brother! It's me! Me!”
Kang Woo turned around and found Go Hyeon-seong, the boy who had picked a fight with him at lunchtime.
“What do you want now?”
Kang Woo frowned in protest. He had no particular desire to see the boy, so he could not understand why Go Hyeon-seong kept pestering him.
“Brother, have you become an outcast?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Everyone else was eating together, but you ate alone.”
“What does that have to do with being an outcast?”
To Kang Woo, the very idea of gathering around a table to eat with a bunch of children was strange.
In truth, mealtimes had never held much significance for him. He preferred to finish his food quickly and quietly on his own.
He had seen Son Cha-hee and the other members of his group eating together that evening, but he had deliberately stayed away. Joining them would only have been a bother.
When Kang Woo answered without the slightest concern, Go Hyeon-seong tilted his head instead. As someone who considered whom he ate with a matter of life and death, he found Kang Woo almost impossible to understand.
“Anyway... did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“We made a bet during mathematics class, remember? And I solved the problem.”
“Oh, that?”
At the end of the lesson, hadn't Jeong Myeong-uk said that four students had derived the formula? Had Go Hyeon-seong's name been among them?
Kang Woo had paid so little attention that he could barely remember.
“Wahaha! I won, so stop hanging around Cha-hee from now on.”
Go Hyeon-seong burst into a laugh full of smug satisfaction.
Kang Woo would have turned down even a truckload of Son Cha-hees. He had neither the time nor the desire to fool around with romance.
Still, the record ought to be set straight. He had been willing to let the matter go quietly, but if this brat could not appreciate his generosity, he deserved to have that smug look wiped off his face.
“So you're saying you won?”
“Of course. You couldn't solve it at all, could you?”
Kang Woo patted the self-satisfied boy on the shoulder and calmly returned his challenge.
“Who says I couldn't solve it? Go ask the mathematics teacher. Didn't you hear him say that four students solved the problem and one of them even solved the quartic equation?”
“That's right! Four! Me, Sang-cheol, Cha-hee, and...”
“Who's the fourth?”
“Huh? There's someone missing?”
Go Hyeon-seong stared at Kang Woo in utter disbelief.
“...Don't tell me. That was you?”
“Of course. I solved the quartic equation perfectly too. So which of us won, you or me?”
Go Hyeon-seong had overlooked the fact that the teacher had never named one of the four students. And now, of all people, that student turned out to be Kang Woo? It could not be!
“Uwaaargh! You're lying!”
“Go check. You lost, so you owe me a meal! Don't forget.”
“Ugh...”
“Have the money ready. I'm going somewhere expensive.”
“Aaagh! Brother! Just you wait!”
Shaking with frustration and kicking at the air, Go Hyeon-seong stalked off.
“What a ridiculous kid.”
Kang Woo dusted off his hands and turned around, only to find Son Cha-hee, Yoon Su-a, and Choi Dae-woo standing across from him. Worse, Son Cha-hee was glaring at him with her eyes wide open.
This looked like the sort of encounter that would end badly for him... but it was already too late to escape.
“Kang Woo, what did Hyeon-seong want?”
Yoon Su-a narrowed her eyes slightly.
“How should I know?”
“Did you eat dinner with him?”
“Of course not.”
“Wait... are you shaking him down for money?”
Huh? Had patting Go Hyeon-seong on the shoulder made it look like that? The unexpected question flustered Kang Woo instead. Then again, he had managed to extract a free meal from him.
“Beats me.”
“It certainly looked that way...”
Feeling the situation turning against him, Kang Woo started to turn toward the dormitory. At that moment, however, Yoon Su-a grabbed his arm.
“Kang Woo! Kang Woooo! We have to go to the seminar room!”
Kang Woo had no idea what she was talking about. He frowned deeply and asked her,
“The seminar room? What's that?”
“Just come with us!”
As Yoon Su-a dragged him away, Kang Woo tried to appeal to Choi Dae-woo for help. But the instant his eyes met Son Cha-hee's fierce glare, he gave up without a fight.
* * *
“Wow! So this is a seminar room?”
The four of them sat around a large table that occupied a room roughly ten to thirteen square meters in area.
Kang Woo was surprised to discover that a high school study facility had a place like this, where students could hold discussions. Science high schools really were different.
“It was a lot of work reserving this room, you know.”
Yoon Su-a proudly held up her phone.
She had used the Classroom app they had learned about during their lesson. As someone who still fumbled with apps, Kang Woo felt the generation gap keenly and sank into his chair.
“Now, the reason we've gathered here today... is obviously to make our group better! We're already the best group in our class, but if we want to become the best in our entire year, we need to get along really well. So from now on, we're going to study together and have fun together!”
From what Yoon Su-a was saying, it seemed they would have to do everything as a group from now on.
“Th-that's going a bit too...”
Kang Woo began to object without thinking, but the moment he saw Son Cha-hee's piercing glare, he shut his mouth. There was no doubt that Son Cha-hee was pulling Yoon Su-a's strings behind the scenes.
Yoon Su-a continued her explanation enthusiastically.
“First, why don't we come up with a good name for our group? Come on, give me some ideas.”
What was this, a children's game of make-believe? Kang Woo grumbled inwardly but could not voice his displeasure.
“Since Cha-hee's the boss... how about Cha-hee's Group?”
Choi Dae-woo, who had been watching the others carefully, made the first suggestion. Son Cha-hee shook her head, though she did not seem particularly displeased.
“I'm sure there's a better name.”
“Invincible Cha-hee!”
“Cha-hee and the Fools!”
“The Four Lackeys!”
“Oh, come on! What's that supposed to be?”
Son Cha-hee burst into giggles at Yoon Su-a's and Choi Dae-woo's suggestions.
Countless names followed.
Their laughter and chatter had the fresh, innocent quality of high school students enjoying themselves. Unfortunately, every name they came up with was embarrassingly corny.
'Are they this hopeless at naming things because they're science geniuses? They have absolutely no sense for it.'
Unable to stand it any longer, Kang Woo tossed out a comment.
“You call yourselves geniuses, but you can't even come up with a decent name?”
“We're not geniuses in the humanities, you know!”
Yoon Su-a puffed out her cheeks. Kang Woo clicked his tongue and raised his voice.
“That's no excuse for Go-gwak geniuses! Use your heads! Your heads!”
“Oh! Go-gwak Geniuses! How about that? Go-gwak Geniuses?”
The name was an abbreviation of “Goryeo Science High School Geniuses.” Outsiders might not understand it, but anyone connected to the school would know exactly what it meant.
“Wow! That's perfect! We have Son Cha-hee, a Go-gwak genius, in our group!”
Son Cha-hee's face lit up as she basked in the praise. After checking her reaction, Yoon Su-a glanced at Choi Dae-woo and Kang Woo, then tilted her head.
“Although, looking at the two of you, the name doesn't really suit us...”
“Ugh! Just pick it already.”
Desperate to get back to the dormitory and sleep, Kang Woo agreed without reservation.
And so, after much fuss, they settled on “Go-gwak Geniuses” as their group name. Kang Woo, of course, still had no idea why a group needed a name at all.
Next, Yoon Su-a eagerly laid out the basic rules for running the group.
“Cha. Hee. decided all of this, by the way. From now on, the Go-gwak Geniuses are a community bound by a shared destiny, so we have to do everything together. We'll study together, eat together, and have fun together. Once we're all getting along perfectly, our grades will improve too!”
Kang Woo could barely make sense of her reasoning, but the idea that they were trying to control his behavior made him frown.
“Hold on. Do we really have to?”
“Of course! Who ate dinner all alone today? You can't do that anymore, understood?”
“Haaah, that's inconvenient...”
“Go! Go! Go-gwak Geniuses!”
Kang Woo was still grumbling when Son Cha-hee's fierce gaze made him hunch his shoulders. No matter how he looked at it, Son Cha-hee was more than he could handle.
“Cha-hee will be in charge of improving our group's academic abilities. If there's something you don't understand, ask Cha-hee. If you need advice about studying, consult Cha-hee. Basically, everything goes through Cha-hee, because she's the best student.”
“Then what are you supposed to do?”
Kang Woo, dumbfounded, protested to Yoon Su-a.
“Me? I'm the leader of the Go-gwak Geniuses. A group leader isn't supposed to do anything.”
Kang Woo shot Choi Dae-woo a pleading look. Choi Dae-woo leaned closer and whispered,
“They promised to provide snacks.”
No wonder Choi Dae-woo had been as meek as a lamb in front of the two girls. Was he really so easily bribed with food? Given his build, though, perhaps that was hardly surprising.
Now that the numbers were so decisively against him, Kang Woo had no choice but to accept it.
'This is the tyranny of the majority!'
“All right, time to start studying! From now on, we'll study here together every evening until dormitory roll call. How does that sound?”
Before Kang Woo could answer, Son Cha-hee laid down the law.
“And no objections. This is all for your own good.”
“Ugh.”
Kang Woo groaned and let out a series of heavy sighs.
“All right, let's study.”
Everyone took out the books they had prepared in advance. Kang Woo, naturally, had brought none.
While Son Cha-hee looked at him with utter exasperation, Yoon Su-a handed him a set of printed materials.
“Kang Woo! Kang Woooo! You have to prepare for the second diagnostic assessment, don't you?”
“An exam? I don't care about that sort of thing.”
“No way! You can't disgrace our group's good name. My academy gave me these to study in advance, so at least read them.”
Kang Woo looked down at the handouts. They were biology materials.
He fell asleep before he had finished reading a single page. Watching him, Son Cha-hee could only let out a disbelieving chuckle.
* * *
Dormitory roll call was at eleven o'clock at night.
Kang Woo and Choi Dae-woo hurried back to their room and prepared for it.
Of course, there was nothing particularly special about roll call. The dormitory supervisor simply went around checking that everyone was present and passing on any instructions. Sometimes even that was handled by the student appointed as the floor leader on each floor.
As long as they were back in their rooms, there was no problem. Kang Woo changed into comfortable clothes that served as both pajamas and a tracksuit, and he and Choi Dae-woo finished getting ready just as Kim Seon-ho, the dormitory supervisor, entered.
“Kang Woo? Choi Dae-woo?”
“Yes, sir!”
They answered loudly, like new recruits in an army barracks.
“Do you have anything to do tonight?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I need to do some astronomical observations late tonight. Would you be interested in helping?”
Naturally, Kang Woo could not understand why the teacher would ask such a thing, and his first reaction was indignation. He was desperate to sleep. Work in the middle of the night? Absolutely not.
Choi Dae-woo, however, reacted very differently.
“Wow! Sir! Of course! I'd love to help!”
Kang Woo jabbed Choi Dae-woo hard in the ribs.
“Hey, what about sleeping?”
“He's going to make observations at the observatory! This is a dream come true!”
Did this school have an observatory? When Kang Woo had entered through the school gate, he had noticed a large white dome on the roof of Building B. But hadn't that been the planetarium dome?
In any case, that was beside the point... Shouldn't someone from Ulleungdo have grown tired of looking at stars by now?
“Kang Woo, you can come along too if you're interested.”
Kim Seon-ho started to leave, and Choi Dae-woo immediately grabbed Kang Woo by the arm.
“Come on, let's go together.”
“Our school actually has an observatory?”
“On the roof of Building B, next to the planetarium dome.”
Of all things, there really was one.
In the end, Kang Woo was dragged along by Choi Dae-woo. The boy was not only enormous but also ridiculously strong. What a bother.
Catching up with Kim Seon-ho, Kang Woo tried one last desperate gambit.
“Isn't leaving the dormitory at this hour against the rules?”
“Not if the dormitory supervisor gives permission.”
“Huh? Then if we join the astronomy observation club, can we go out at night?”
Kim Seon-ho chuckled, having seen straight through Kang Woo's intentions.
“Of course, if I give you permission.”
Oh! What a privilege! Kang Woo immediately changed his mind and began enthusiastically persuading Choi Dae-woo.
“We absolutely have to join the astronomy observation club. If there isn't one, we'll start one. Okay?”
“Haaah, of course! I love looking at stars!”
Hadn't Choi Dae-woo said he had spent a great deal of time watching the stars on Ulleungdo? Right now, the boy looked as though he had been given the entire world.
Seeing his expression, Kang Woo felt a little embarrassed by his own selfish motives. Even so, he became fired up with a sense of duty not to let Choi Dae-woo go to the observatory alone.
At this rate, he might end up switching from physics to Earth science.