The rehearsal room felt hollow with only three of us inside. Jin-hyun was missing again, swallowed up by another one of his mandatory, high-society family extracurriculars, and Myung-dae was naturally nowhere to be found.
I dropped the administration's decree onto an empty amp with a heavy thud.
"Top 100?" I paced the floor, running my hands through my newly styled hair until it completely ruined the comma shape. "It hasn't even been a month since I started those evening extra lessons! What do they expect from me? I'm translating mathematical theorems from Hangul to Ukrainian in my head before I can even solve them!"
Leo looked up from tuning his violin, adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses with a clinical shrug.
"You are the official Foreign Student Representative, San. The administration's reputation relies on you looking like a prodigy, not a struggling musician. Obviously, the pressure would be tenfold."
"He's right," Jun-seo chimed in, leaning against his guitar stand with a deep frown. "Kirn Arts can't send a frontman who is academically disqualified to a high-stakes festival on Hanyeong's home turf. It's a legal lock."
"I worked so hard to get this group together," I groaned, leaning my head against the cool wall. "What could possibly be worse than H-Wnot disbanding before we even hit the winter stage?"
Leo opened his mouth, raising a finger.
"Excuse me, I got into this band completely by accident, so technically—"
"Not now, Leo," I interrupted, waving my hand dismissively. I turned back to our leader. "Anything. Jun-seo, if you have a solution, give it to me. Anything is better than getting kicked out."
Jun-seo tapped his chin thoughtfully, a hesitant expression crossing his face.
"Well... I have an idea. But you're really not going to like it."
"Tell me."
"You have a big-brain sister living under the exact same roof," Jun-seo pointed out. "Lee Ha-neul is literally the best in both the Hanyeong and Kirin academic circles when it comes to mathematics. Plus, her Korean literature and history scores are practically perfect. Your English is fine, but your other subjects are falling back. You should ask her to tutor you."
I froze.
The image of the pink-pajama-wearing dictator holding a yardstick over my notebook flashed through my mind.
I slammed my palm against my forehead.
"Well... those words about 'anything being better'? I take them back. Entirely."
"It's logical," Leo added unhelpfully. "I advice you to simply study harder, but a domestic tutor is statistically more efficient."
"Thanks for the profound advice, Leo. Truly life-changing," I sighed, picking up my backpack.
The reality of the situation began to set in. To actually get Ha-neul's help meant squeezing into her impossibly tight schedule. Between her own intensive Caligraphy... or whatever that club is called activities, private piano lessons, and an army of elite tutors, she barely had time to breathe.
'Aish, why is that girl so ridiculously smart?' I thought. 'And... beautifully infuriating.'
I walked out of the practice wing and down toward the main courtyard, my mind a chaotic blur of land reforms and trigonometric equations.
"San-ah!"
A bright voice cut through my dark thoughts.
I looked up to see Lee Sora jogging toward me from the third-year lockers.
She wore a soft, oversized cream sweater, and her chestnut hair caught the pale autumn sunlight perfectly.
She waved enthusiastically.
I forced my arm up, waving back with a thoroughly depressed expression.
Sora stopped right in front of me, her large, warm eyes instantly scanning my face. She began bombing me with questions before I could even greet her.
"What's wrong? Did something happen with the rehearsal? You look like you've aged five years since lunch!"
"Everything is... well, it's better, but it's complicated," I answered, trying to offer a reassuring smile. "I just have a massive academic mountain to climb. But I think I have a solution for it."
As I stood there looking at her dazzling, camera-ready smile, a sudden realization hit me.
Damn.
To also have a girlfriend takes a serious amount of time.
And she wasn't just any girlfriend; she was a top-tier trainee whose life was calculated down to the minute.
'Why is everyone in Korea like a demon?' I complained inwardly, completely baffled by the pace of life around me. 'How is twenty-four hours a day enough for them? Do they just skip sleeping entirely?'
"Don't look so down," Sora cheered, reaching out to lightly pat my arm. Her touch carried a genuine warmth that instantly made the heavy knot in my chest loosen a fraction. "You're the 'Mountain,' remember? You can handle a few tests."
She smiled secretly, leaning in a bit closer.
"Actually, I have an idea for the weekend. My cousin has a girlfriend, and he asked her if she wanted to meet the boyfriend of his older sister—which is me, luckily! Since you and I are dating, he thought it would make a perfect double date. What do you think?"
I blinked, my brain stalling.
"You have a cousin at this school?"
"Yeah," Sora giggled, adjusting her bag. "By the way, if I'm not mistaken, his girlfriend is actually in your class."
"In my class?" I stared at her, completely lost.
In Class 2-B, I was barely familiar with everyone's names. In the middle of this entire cross-school chaos, I had been forcing myself just to keep up with the faces around me, let alone memorizing thirty-plus names and tracking their complex relationship situations.
"I'll... I'll have to check," I muttered, quickly dismissing the thought before my brain short-circuited. "I'll figure everything out later, Sora. I should get going."
"Okay! Text me tonight!" she called out, waving as she headed toward her agency van.
I watched her leave, taking a deep, cold breath of the autumn air.
I had an academic survival campaign to plan with a hostile sister, a double date with a mysterious classmate to decode, and a band to save.
But as I turned toward the school gates, my mind drifted to the missing bassist.
Tomorrow was Myung-dae's birthday.
A slow, sharp, and thoroughly ominous smile curved onto my face.
The social exhaustion faded, replaced by a malicious, brilliant energy.
'Just wait, Prince of Darkness,' I thought, my chest vibrating with a silent chuckle. 'Your dessert-based retribution is coming.'