Kyung Se-in, a sophomore in Class 2 at Gogogo High School, never wears light-colored pants.

It was because of her uncontrollably heavy periods.

There was the time she wore white pants, leaked through, and had to tie a friend’s jacket around her waist before rushing home.

There was the time she tried to ignore that ominous feeling during class (since not many teachers let you go to the bathroom during a lesson!), only to stand up after the bell and find a catastrophe had occurred.

There was the time she bled through onto the bed despite using the largest overnight pad she could find at the supermarket, getting an earful from her mom (Do you know how much this mattress cost!).

Se-in had experienced it all.

That day was another one of those murder-inducing days.

About ten months ago.

Se-in, who hadn’t been a high school student for very long, had just gathered her things for a class in a different classroom downstairs.

“…”

This feeling.

It can’t be, but she knew if she tried to ignore it, a disaster would surely strike during class.

Checking the clock on the classroom wall, Se-in whispered to the friend who had come with her.

“Sua, do you have a pad by any chance?”

She had already used six minutes of the break just packing up and moving classrooms. Even if she grabbed a pad and sprinted to the bathroom right now, time was tight.

Hearing Se-in’s hushed voice, her friend shook her head with a troubled expression.

“It’s back in our classroom. Did you get your period?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh no. …Hey, do you have a pad?”

“Shoot. I don’t.”

“What about you?”

“Me neither.”

The friends who had moved with her, and the friends who were originally in this class, all shook their heads. In that time, another minute slipped by.

“Can’t you just run to the school store and buy one now?”

“Do they sell them at the store?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey, let’s just go out. We can think on our way.”

“Excuse me.”

It was then that a voice cut in.

A girl who had been sitting in the next row, reading a book as if she were part of the scenery, looked up at Se-in.

She was a girl with a pale face and distinct eyes. She was wearing a school uniform cardigan that was way too big for her body and had several textbooks stacked on her desk. Her neck, long and slender, was noticeable where it peeked out from the cardigan.

The girl spoke.

“I have one.”

“Oh?”

Funnily enough, Se-in’s first thought wasn’t ‘Who is this girl?’ or ‘She has a pad?’, but ‘Wow, she looks so much like a young maiden.’

Her eyes are so sparkly. Is she wearing contacts?

But her simple appearance—her hair casually let down, a face that didn’t seem to have even a hint of common lip tint—suggested otherwise.

She could see the name written on the name tag below the girl’s slim chin and dark eyes that stared up at her.

Kang Da-hye.

Kang Da-hye rummaged through her bag and offered two pads, her hands hidden by the large cardigan sleeves.

“Here.”

“Oh, uh… thanks.”

“If it’s not enough, you can get more from the nurse’s office later.”

“They give out pads in the nurse’s office?”

“Yeah.”

Nodding, Kang Da-hye lowered her gaze back to her book.

Her loose black hair rustled down past her ears, which were covered in soft, downy fuzz.

“Thank you…!”

Se-in said. Kang Da-hye just looked up at Se-in one more time and smiled.

However, Se-in’s murder-inducing day didn’t end there.

About halfway through the class, Se-in realized she had put the pad on wrong.

Either it was too far back, or it had folded over.

-I think I leaked. FML.
-FML.
-I’m sprinting to the bathroom the second class ends.
-K, I’ll take care of the chair and your stuff here.

As she was exchanging notes with the friend sitting next to her.

“Kyung Se-in, come up and solve this.”

“What? Me?”

I can’t stand up right now.

Her whole body screamed her predicament, but the indifferent teacher just hurried her along.

“Teacher… can’t I solve it next time?”

“What are you talking about, hurry up and come out.”

“Ah… Teacher, I really can’t…”

“Hurry!”

“The answer is 13.”

The one who saved Se-in was, once again, Kang Da-hye.

Kang Da-hye’s clear, assertive voice rang out in the classroom. The teacher gave a dry laugh.

“Kang Da-hye, I wasn’t asking you.”

“I know. But I already solved the problem in the meantime.”

“Well, well, someone’s confident. Then you come up and solve this one too.”

“Kay.”

Kang Da-hye stood up, answering nonchalantly.

As she walked to the front, Da-hye’s hand tapped Se-in’s desk. Se-in looked at Da-hye, but Da-hye didn’t look back at her.

After that, they didn’t really have any contact.

Se-in’s classroom was on the third floor, while Da-hye’s was on the second, and after the midterm exams, Se-in’s level-based learning class had changed.

They ran into each other a few times in places like the cafeteria, but Da-hye didn’t seem to remember her.

Only Se-in would hesitate whenever she saw Da-hye, wondering, ‘Should I say hi, should I pay her back for the pad.’

And this year.

“No way. Seo Jae-gyeom is in our class.”

“Ugh, I’m so jealous. Did you save the country in your past life? We have Song Yeo-reum in our class.”

“Looks like you sold the country in yours.”

“Go on, get back. Back to your class with Song Yeo-reum.”

Amidst the noisy group of friends, Se-in saw Da-hye sitting alone over there.

Kang Da-hye, flipping through her literature textbook, pre-reading the works inside. And Kang Da-hye, who would occasionally lift her head to steal glances at Seo Jae-gyeom.

She rolled her eyes, thinking.

I want to be her friend.

I wonder if I can?

“I don’t feel like studying. Want my books?”

I was dumbfounded by Jung Eun-sung’s bombshell declaration.

Life… is it okay to live it that coolly?

Don’t wanna study, maybe I’ll just toss my textbooks~♪
Don’t wanna take the test, maybe I’ll just kidnap the teacher~♪
Don’t wanna go to work, maybe I’ll just blow up the company~♪

‘Kidnapping the teacher is a little tempting.’

No, that’s not what’s important right now.

“If you give me your books, what about you?”

“I don’t need books. I’m not going to look at them anyway.”

“So cool…”

I jabbed Se-in in the ribs with my elbow as she expressed her admiration. Snap out of it.

“Then what are you going to do during class?”

“Sleep.”

“You’re not going to study?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to.”

“You have to study even if you don’t like it. What we’re learning in school right now isn’t knowledge, it’s common sense. If you go out into the real world and don’t know this stuff, people will call you ignorant.”

I gave him advice born from experience, but Jung Eun-sung’s expression was unimpressed.

I tried to persuade Jung Eun-sung, who looked like his only thought was to hand over the textbooks to me and go home.

“Why don’t you like studying?”

“Because it’s not fun.”

“Just think of it as fun.”

“How can I think it’s fun when it’s not?”

“Me or studying? You have to like one of us.”

“I guess I have no choice. I’ll choose studying then.”

“…”

That’s strangely upsetting…

Jung Eun-sung, who nodded with a very smug look on his face, wiped the floor once more with the mop he was holding.

“Wipe your feet here.”

After ordering me to wipe the strawberry milk off my indoor slippers, he gathered the wads of tissue scattered around.

Just like that, without even a goodbye, he spun around and left the classroom.

A silence fell.

“…Da-hye, are you sure you’re not close with Jung Eun-sung?”

“…Yeah.”

I have no idea why he’s acting like that.

I shook my head.

To cut to the chase, my homeroom teacher gave me a new set of textbooks.

“Oh no. You must have taken so many notes.”

“Ah, it’s okay, I wrote them so long ago I don’t remember any of it! And the workbooks… well, I can just buy new ones.”

I was telling the truth, but she patted my cheek with a pitying expression.

“I’ll look around when I get home and give you any leftover workbooks I have.”

“Really? Oh. I was short on money, too.”

After being thoroughly doted on by a teacher younger than me, I dragged the girls in a group to our store.

“So what’s going to happen to Bang Eun-ji?”

“She’s totally screwed.”

“I love that.”

“Kya-ha-ha… Hello, ma’am!”

“Ugh, but my face has been so oily lately. It’s like my face is absorbing all the oil in the world.”

“Are you a paper towel?”

“Whoa. This tteokbokki is freaking delicious.”

Did you know? It’s delicious if you cut up a pizza-bread with scissors over spicy tteokbokki and then microwave it.

“By the way, why hasn’t Seo Jae-gyeom been coming to school lately?”

“I heard he went somewhere with his family?”

“His family seems well-off, don’t they.”

“Dude, did you not see his Chasebook? That picture taken on some yacht.”

“That yacht belongs to his family?!”

“Do you think our homeroom teacher would like it if we gave her our boys’ album?”

“Do you think she even knows who our boys are?”

“Probably not? She didn’t even know BAST or Infinity.”

“She was probably just pretending not to know.”

Adults like idols even more.

That R-rated fanfiction you read using your older sister’s ID for age verification—be careful, the author could be your homeroom teacher.

“Do-yeon, can you handle spicy food?”

“I can’t eat it. Because I never have it.”

“Oh.”

“So Da-hye, do you watch the online lectures with Do-yeon?”

“I’m just mooching off her.”

“You don’t go to a separate academy?”

“Nope. Ah, wait a second. I’ll get you some coke.”

Seeing Do-yeon and Sua’s faces turn red from the spicy food, I stood up from my seat. As I was getting a coke from the fridge outside, Se-in came up and spoke to me.

“Hey, Da-hye.”

“Yeah?”

“About what you said earlier, about being short on allowance.”

“Ah, yeah.”

She must have overheard me telling the teacher I was broke.

Se-in looked around, then brought her face close to my ear.

After hearing Jung Eun-sung’s ridiculous comment earlier, I was tense.

‘What is she about to say.’

I’m starting to get scared of the radical thinking of teenagers.

Is she going to suggest we rob a bank together or something?

Short on allowance, maybe I’ll just rob a bank~♪