Chapter Text
The moment Yeon Sieun fluttered his eyes open, he immediately noticed the difference in the ceiling. It was high. too high. Painted white, with soft recessed lights and a hanging, sculptural lamp that looked like it came from a modern art museum. There were no water stains on the plaster, no glow in the dark star stickers from a roommate’s half assed attempt to be funny. Just clean, unfamiliar elegance.
The next thing he noticed was the air the moment he inhaled. Instead of the usual scented candles Suho always used to get a good night sleep, it was citrusy laced with pine. It was weird. It smelled expensive in contrast to the buy 1 take 1 candles in their shared dorm.
This isn’t my room.
He sat up too fast. His heart spiked from panic, not adrenaline, and the bedsheets tangled around his legs felt wrong. They were silk, cold against his skin. Definitely not the faded cotton sheets from his dorm bed at Seoul National University.
His dorm. His life. His world. A world where Ahn Suho was his best friend and roommate, and where the only thing he had to worry about was an upcoming problem set and the way Suho always smelled like cedarwood shampoo and unsaid things.
A soft grunt pulled him out of his spiraling thoughts. There was someone beside him. Panic began to set in him, What the hell? Did I get too drunk last night and slept with someone else? Suho—
Lying on his side, half awake and shirtless, was a man with messy black hair and a sleepy scowl that was far too familiar. But the familiarity only made everything worse. Because the face, that face, belonged to Suho.
No, not Suho.
This man was broader, a little older and less boyish and more man. When his eyes blinked open, heavy lidded and glassy from sleep, they held a kind of exhaustion that made Sieun’s blood run cold.
“Jihoon?” The man rasped, voice low, hoarse. “You’re up early.”
Jihoon?
Sieun stared, chest tight, throat dry.
The man sat up, rubbing his face with one hand, the other reaching across the sheets for him like it was normal. Like touching him was routine.
“You fell asleep so fast last night,” Suho or whoever was this man, said. His tone was soft now, like he was testing the waters. “I didn’t think you’d want to talk. Not after what you said.”
“I…” Sieun croaked. “I’m sorry, what?”
The man, Suho-not-Suho, froze. His hand stopped just inches from Sieun’s thigh.
“Jihoon?” He asked again, slower now, and there was something fragile in his voice this time. “Are we… are we really doing this again?”
“I’m not Jihoon,” Sieun said, and it came out strangled.
A heavy silence pressed down on the room like fog. The man stared at him. His face changed, subtle shifts, eyebrows furrowed, jaw tense, something vulnerable flickering behind his eyes.
“You said that last time too,” He mumbled, like it hurt. “I thought we were past that.”
Last time? Sieun wanted to scream.
He scrambled out of the bed, nearly tripping over a discarded hoodie on the floor. Everything around him was unfamiliar; marble floors, a floor to ceiling window overlooking the Han River, a sleek vanity cluttered with colognes and skin care products. The body in the mirror looked like his, almost but not quite. Lighter hair instead of his jet black ones, softer features, fuller and moisturized lips instead of his chapped ones. He raised his hand to his reflection. It copied him.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
Behind him, the man stood slowly. He didn’t raise his voice, only watched him like his heart was breaking in slow motion.
“Jihoon,” He calls out again. “It’s me, Hyunwook.”
That name. Sieun recognized it distantly, like a headline or a Netflix thumbnail. Choi Hyunwook, an actor.
This was impossible.
“Where am I?” Sieun asked. “What did you do to me?”
Hyunwook looked stunned. “Do to you?”
“I went to bed at SNU,” The smaller boy said, chest heaving, “with Suho snoring in the next bed and calculus notes under my pillow. I don’t know who the hell you are or why I look like this, but this, this isn’t my life.”
Hyunwook didn’t respond right away. He looked like he’d been punched in the gut.
“You said you didn’t want to talk,” he murmured, voice rough. “You said you needed space. So I didn’t push. I didn’t ask. But this? What the hell is this, Jihoon?”
Sieun backed away until his back hit the wall. The room felt too big and far from everything real. His hands trembled as he gripped the edge of the dresser, catching a glimpse of a photo frame, a picture of Jihoon and Hyunwook, smiling, arms around each other, too close to be just friends. Too happy to be recent.
Were they married in this life? Or is this some sick joke Suho and others pulled on him for being too serious? He racked his brain with every possible excuse as to why he’s in here. And fuck, my huge exam is today!
He didn’t let Hyunwook touch him.
Not when he cautiously approached, hands raised as if trying to calm a stray animal. Not when he asked him, softly, painfully, if he remembered anything from last night. Not even when he said, “Jihoon, you’re scaring me,” like Sieun was the one unraveling their relationship with reckless hands.
”Is this some sick prank, Ahn Suho?” Sieun spat, eyebrows furrowed and steaming from anger. He didn’t have any time for Suho’s bullshit now.
At the mention of the name, Suho, or Hyunwook, parted his lips in surprise. He looked like he was shot. “Baby what?”
“What the fuck?” Sieun felt warmth on his cheeks, turning red at the endearment. His ears were turning red now, and he avoided the other man’s gaze.
“Are we really roleplaying now, hyung?” Suho or fucking Hyunwook sighed, trying to reach out again to Sieun. “Nows not the time but we can play pretend once we talk.”
They sat in silence across the kitchen island now, a yawning, delicate quiet stretching between them like the ghost of last night’s argument still lingered in the air. Morning light spilled through the towering glass windows of the high rise penthouse, casting long golden beams across the polished marble floors. The city shimmered, clean and distant and untouchable, like a postcard version of Seoul Sieun had never seen before.
The kitchen itself looked like it belonged in a luxury magazine. Sleek granite counters, matte black cabinets, a built-in espresso machine. Not a single cracked mug or mismatched plate in sight. No ramen stains, no instant coffee packets half finished beside a cheap kettle. Overall, it was wealth and order, sterile in its perfection.
It felt like sitting in someone else’s skin. Familiar at a glance, but foreign in every detail.
Hyunwook moved with a kind of weary precision, as if every step had been rehearsed too many times. He didn’t say much, just ground the beans quietly, set the water to boil, and retrieved two matching mugs from the cabinet above the sink. A routine. Something practiced. Something done a hundred mornings before this one, when the person sitting across from him had been someone he recognized.
He placed the cup in front of Sieun gently, like it meant something. He looked like he didn’t know what else to do with his hands except offer comfort in the form of bitter warmth.
Sieun didn’t touch it. The mug sat between his palms, untouched but cradled, like if he just held onto it long enough, the heat might help him remember who he was supposed to be. But the warmth didn’t spread. It sat there, inert like him. He stared into the dark surface, and saw nothing familiar. No reflection. No grounding, only the echo of a life he hadn’t lived.
A part of him wanted to convince himself that everything was just a prank done by Suho and his friends to get back at him. He wanted to convince himself that he’ll just wake up and he’ll be back in their small dorm room and he’ll continue to pine over his best friend. But he knew that wasn’t the case. Surely his friends couldn’t afford this type of set up for a small prank.
Across the island, Hyunwook sipped from his own cup, eyes flicking toward him occasionally; careful, unsure. He wasn’t angry, not exactly. But there was something brittle in his posture, something pulled taut like a wire ready to snap. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was heartbreak or a hint of guilt but why would he be guilty?
Sieun swallowed. The silence felt like a ticking clock in his ears. He hated this; the quiet, the care. The way Hyunwook looked at him like he was both the cause of his pain and the only cure he still wanted to believe in. He hated the way the sunlight poured in like it belonged here. As if this version of his life made sense to everyone but him.
I’m dreaming, He told himself. Or I’ve gone insane. Or I’ve died. One of those. Maybe all three.
Hyunwook sat in front of him. His eyes were puffy, like he hadn’t slept well. He looked like he had cried after whatever fight they’d had the night before. His voice was still quiet when he said, “You’ve been acting strange for weeks now, but this is… different.”
“I told you,” Sieun said numbly, “I’m not Jihoon.”
“Then who are you?”
Sieun stared down into the coffee, watching the reflection of a face he didn’t recognize. His voice came out flat.
“Yeon Sieun.”
Hyunwook let out a dry, humorless laugh. “That’s the character you play.”
“No,” Sieun snapped, voice sharper now. “That’s me. I’m a student at Seoul National University. Math major. I live in a shared dorm with Ahn Suho, who looks exactly like you, which is fucking insane. I was out with my friends until 2AM, and then I slept, and now I woke up here. In this… whatever this is.”
Hyunwook stood too, slower. “You’re scaring me.”
“You think I’m not scared?” Sieun snapped, louder than he meant. His chest ached. His head throbbed. “I woke up in someone else’s body, in someone else’s home, with someone else’s boyfriend—you—calling me by someone else’s name and pretending like I didn’t just wake up in a goddamn stranger’s life.”
For a second, it looked like Hyunwook might yell or cry. But instead, his shoulders just sagged. He walked over to the corner of the kitchen where his phone was charging, typed something quickly, and returned with the screen facing Sieun.
Google.
A tab open to Netflix.
The first search result read,
“Park Jihoon as Yeon Sieun in Weak Hero Class 1”
There was a photo of himself, or more accurately, this body he now occupied, staring back, sharp eyed and bruised and cold.
Breakout role: Park Jihoon as the calculating, steel-willed Yeon Sieun in the action packed teen drama that took Korea by storm.
He scrolled. More images. More articles. Video clips of interviews. Behind-the-scenes footage.
Hi, I’m Park Jihoon.
I play Yeon Sieun in Weak Hero.
Sieun sat back down, slowly. “I’m not an actor,”
Hyunwook was quiet for a long time. “You’re not even wearing your contact lenses.”
“What?”
“I didn’t notice before,” Hyunwook murmured. “But Jihoon never lets anyone see him without them. Even in the morning. Even me.”
Sieun didn’t know what to say to that. His hands shook.
“Okay,” Hyunwook said, exhaling like he was bracing for impact. “Let’s say I believe you. Just for now. That you’re someone named Yeon Sieun who got… what? Body swapped? Dropped into a parallel universe?”
Sieun didn’t answer. He was staring at the actor’s face in a paused Netflix thumbnail, reading his own name in a stranger’s voice.
Hyunwook sat down across from him again, something gentler settling into his eyes.
“Then where’s my Jihoon?”
Sieun swallowed. That thought hadn’t even hit him yet.
If he was here then where was the real Park Jihoon?
Where was he?
Park Jihoon woke up choking on dust. Or maybe it was the weird mix of mothball air, drying laundry, and men’s shampoo that hung in the air like regret. The bed beneath him was stiff, the blanket too thin, and the pillow smelled like someone else’s dreams, probably anxious, academically traumatized ones. He blinked hard. The ceiling was a blotchy off white, no fancy lighting, no chandelier. Just a single overhead bulb with a flickering halo of dead bugs trapped inside.
Okay, Jihoon thought. I’m not home.
He sat up, and immediately winced. His back hurt. His neck hurt. His face felt unfamiliar.
He stumbled toward the mirror.
“What the actual f—”
The boy in the mirror looked back at him with narrowed eyes, messy black hair, and the unmistakable sharp jawline he’d memorized in so many behind the scenes photos. But it wasn’t him. Not Jihoon.
It was Yeon Sieun.
Or rather, he was Yeon Sieun.
The version of himself he’d built with scripts and camera angles and subtle glances. Cold, brilliant, painfully introverted. The boy with a spine made of steel and a heart buried somewhere under ten years of silence.
Jihoon clutched the sides of the tiny metal desk for support, blinking hard. This is a dream. Or a psychotic break. Or a deeply cursed PR stunt.
From behind him came a groggy voice. “Why are you standing like that? Did you piss the bed?”
Jihoon whipped around.
Standing by the other bed, rubbing his eyes with one hand and yawning like a lion in a tank top, was Ahn Suho.
Jihoon nearly dropped dead on the spot. Suho wasn’t Suho here. He wasn’t his co-star. He wasn’t Choi Hyunwook his boyfriend. He wasn’t laughing between takes or bickering with him during script readings.
This was someone else; same face, different vibe. Messy hair, bare arms, and sleepy eyes. And very much real.
“You okay?” Suho asked, frowning. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Jihoon’s mouth moved. “You’re… not him.”
“What?”
“You’re not Hyunwook. You’re—you’re Ahn Suho. You’re his best friend, right? You go to Byeoksan. You were in a coma, you—”
He stopped talking when Suho stepped closer, brows drawn. “Okay. What’s going on with you? Did you hit your head or something?”
Jihoon backed away.
“No. No, this can’t be happening. I was just filming yesterday. I was with Hyunwook. We had a fight; he called me a coward and I left to clear my head, and then I went to bed and now I’m, now I’m him?” He jabbed a finger toward the mirror. “This? This isn’t me. This is Sieun. I played him. I am not him.”
Suho gave him a long look, arms crossed. Jihoon was suddenly very aware of the fact he was barefoot, his voice was getting shrill, and that he probably looked insane.
Suho tilted his head. “You’re really not joking.”
“Does it look like I’m joking?!” Jihoon snapped.
That earned him a blink. To his horror, Suho started laughing.
“You’re pulling something. This is a prank, right? You and Baku planned this?” He grabbed his phone and raised it like he was recording. “Say hi to the camera. Nice acting. What method is this? Is it like, premium gaslighting?”
Jihoon stared at him, jaw slack. “I won a Baeksang, you asshole.”
“Yeah? You also forgot how to brush your hair, apparently.”
Jihoon groaned, running a hand down his face. “I’m not playing. I’m not Sieun. My name is Park Jihoon. I’m twenty-six years old. I’m a professional actor and I live in Seoul, in a real apartment, not a glorified storage closet. And I need to get back to my world, or set, or something before people realize I’m gone.”
Jihoon sat hunched on the edge of the desk chair, breathing shallowly, fingers still trembling. His voice had gone hoarse. He didn’t even realize how tightly he was gripping his knees until his knuckles went pale.
“Sieun doesn’t talk this much,” Suho said at last, voice flat. “And he definitely doesn’t panic. Or swear. Or call me an asshole.”
Jihoon let out a breath. “Because I’m not him.”
Another pause before Suho laughed; quiet and cold. “You’re right. You’re not.”
For a split second, Jihoon thought he meant it; that Suho believed him. That he was about to stand up, say okay, let’s figure this out, and help him get home. But then Suho stood, walked to the closet, and pulled out a hoodie.
“You’re not Sieun,” Suho said without looking at him. “You’re just someone who doesn’t want to be him anymore.”
Jihoon blinked. “What?”
“You’re cracking,” Suho continued. “Midterms, sleep deprivation, god knows what else. You’ve been off for days, saying weird things, zoning out in class. I thought it was stress, but this?” He slipped the hoodie over his head. “This is worse than I thought.”
“Wait, no. I’m serious—”
Suho finally looked at him. “You should get help,” He said softly. “Real help.”
Before he knew it, Suho grabbed his bag and headed for the door.
Jihoon shot to his feet. “Suho!”
Suho paused in the doorway, not turning around. His back was so broad Jihoon almost drooled.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing,” He said, “but when you’re done pretending, let me know.”
The door clicked shut behind him. Jihoon stood in the middle of the room, the silence crashing down like static in his ears. Still wearing someone else’s skin. Still trapped in a story he thought he had written.
After Suho walked out on him that morning, he’d stayed exactly where he was, sitting in the stiff chair by the desk, legs folded up to his chest like it could make him disappear.
It didn’t.
He didn’t even know where to begin. His mind was racing, half in panic, half in denial, all in deep, existential crisis.
That was Ahn Suho, right? But not the version played by Choi Hyunwook. That was just him. A real student. With sleep mussed hair, real breath, real weight to the way he left the room.
Instead, the silence rang louder. He tried checking the phone in his hoodie pocket, an older model, beat up and full of group chats with names like “THREAT SQUAD (no snitching)” and “P.S. Don’t Let Sieun Study Until 2AM.” Half the messages were from people he didn’t know. Some had nicknames like “⚡️BAKU ⚔️” and “💢TaeJuntaeSlaps💢.”
He didn’t reply to any of them, and instead put the phone face down and tried to convince himself this was a stress dream with an expensive production budget.
Then the banging started.
“Yo! Open up!”
Jihoon flinched.
“Sieun!” Someone yelled through the door. “If you don’t open this damn door, I’m calling campus security and reporting a hostage situation!”
Another voice, deeper. “Sieun, I swear to God, if you’re doing that thing again where you hide because you skipped breakfast, I’m breaking the door down.”
“Wait. What if he actually died this time?”
Jihoon stood, frozen. The voices were familiar.
Too familiar.
He opened the door and there they were. Three boys barged into the room like they owned it. The tall one in sweats and a duffel bag. The lean one with a blue jacket. The shorter one with eyeglasses perched on his face.
Ryeoun
Lee Minjae
Choi Minyoung
He stared at them, jaw slightly slack. Except they weren’t those names here. These weren’t his co-stars. These weren’t actors waiting for camera cues and re-takes.
These were the real versions. The boys they had portrayed. And they were calling him—
“Sieun,” The tall one (who looked way too much like Ryeoun without his stage hair) said, “why do you look like you got possessed by a ghost with anxiety issues?”
Jihoon blinked rapidly. “Ryeoun hyung?”
Gotak raised a brow. “The hell’s a Ryeoun?”
Juntae let out a soft wheeze. “Okay, now I’m convinced he hit his head.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jihoon stammered. “You’re—you’re actors. We worked together. Don’t you remember? You’re not real, you’re characters! Baku, Gotak, Juntae! From Weak Hero! You’re not, this isn’t—”
He trailed off when all three of them looked at each other with the kind of deep, resigned exasperation that could only come from knowing someone too well.
Minjae— Gotak, sighed. “Great. Full mental break.”
Ryeon, who was supposed to be Baku in this verse, crossed his arms. “Are you high?”
“I can’t be here,” Jihoon said, voice rising. “This isn’t my life. I’m Park Jihoon. I’m an actor. I played Sieun. On set. With you guys. You’re actors! You’re not supposed to know me like this!”
Juntae leaned forward and squinted at him. “Wait… is this your way of asking for lines? Is this, like, a skit?”
“Oh my god, he’s actually lost it,” Gotak muttered.
Baku didn’t say anything. He just walked over and grabbed Jihoon by the hoodie.
“Okay,” He said firmly. “Whatever cosplay you’re doing right now? Save it for after class. You’re coming with us.”
“What—no, I’m not—!”
Jihoon flailed as Baku started physically dragging him toward the door.
“This is kidnapping!”
“It’s a rescue mission,” Gotak deadpanned. “Don’t fight it.”
“You don’t understand, this isn’t real!”
Juntae raised his phone. “If you don’t cooperate, I’m calling your mom.”
“I don’t have a mom here!”
They all paused.
Then Baku shrugged. “Yeah, well, she doesn’t have a sense of humor either. Let’s go.”
Ten minutes later, Jihoon found himself wedged into a seat in the middle of a cramped lecture hall, drowning in fluorescent lighting and the overwhelming scent of too much body spray.
He was wearing a hoodie that didn’t belong to him; it smelled like someone else’s detergent and static electricity. On his lap sat a generic spiral notebook with pages covered in handwriting that definitely wasn’t his. Small, neat, methodical. It looked like someone had been trying to solve the universe one equation at a time.
The syllabus on the projector read:
Quantitative Reasoning in Social Contexts
GEN-105: MWF, 10:00AM - 11:30AM
Instructor: Prof. Kim Seonmi
Math, but social. Jihoon didn’t know what the hell that meant. To his left, Gotak was already leaning back in his chair like a man on the verge of a nap, arms folded and earbuds in one ear. To his right, Juntae had taken out a pack of gum and was sneakily distributing it behind his back like they were in the military.
Baku, thankfully, was sitting two rows up, chewing a pen like it owed him money.
It was a Gen-Ed class, something they all took to fill requirements. None of them shared majors; Sieun was supposedly in a Math Major, Suho in entrepreneurship, Gotak was doing something with criminology, and Baku was undecided but somehow passing everything with half the effort. Juntae was studying Pharma. Jihoon had gathered that much from the dorm, the phone, the snatches of conversation that still made his head hurt.
So here they were, crammed together by university scheduling, half-conscious and completely not ready to absorb whatever the hell Quantitative Reasoning in Social Contexts was.
Jihoon’s stomach twisted.
He had no idea what this class was. No idea what came next. No idea who he was supposed to be.
He glanced around the room again, trying to anchor himself. Faces he didn’t recognize. College students scribbling notes like their scholarships depended on it. The soft tap of keyboards. A pencil rolling off a desk. The professor setting up her laptop with practiced boredom.
His eyes locked with Suho’s. Three rows down.
Suho sat with one elbow propped lazily on the desk, chin resting in his palm, pretending to be absorbed in the open notebook in front of him.
But he wasn’t writing. He wasn’t reading. Every few seconds, his eyes flicked upward. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough.
Watching.
Jihoon immediately looked away.
But he felt it; the stare, the quiet, unreadable calculation behind it.
Suho didn’t believe him. Not really. But he wasn’t not believing him either. It was worse than rejection, it was doubt. That creeping thing that sat at the back of your mind and whispered, Something’s not right, but I’ll let it rot instead of fixing it.
Jihoon hated that look. He’d seen it before in the industry; casting directors who smiled politely but already knew they weren’t calling you back. Fans who said you did well but meant you weren’t enough.
He hated seeing it on Suho’s face.
So he shrunk into his seat, curling in on himself slightly, hoping the projector lights would burn a hole through the floor and let him fall out of this nightmare universe entirely.
He was an actor, sure. But not like this. Not without a script. Not with people he’d memorized lines with now acting like they’d raised him.
Gotak leaned over. “Hey. You good?”
The boy’s face was the same as the actor’s, but the voice was too real. Too lived-in. Too close.
“Yeah,” Jihoon croaked. “Just tired.”
“Same,” Juntae muttered through a yawn. “Let me know if you start foaming at the mouth though. I’ll record it.”
Professor Kim started her lecture then, droning on about logical fallacies in data presentation and ethical survey design. Jihoon tried to focus, but the words blurred together.
His eyes wandered again back to Suho, but the boy was already looking at him. Like he was waiting for the real Sieun to slip back into place.
Jihoon held the gaze for a second too long. Suho just blinked once, slow and heavy, before turning back to sleeping.
Jihoon exhaled.
I’m not him, he thought. But they all think I am.
And there was no one left in this world who knew the difference.
If Jihoon thought the Gen-Ed class was bad, the next hour decided to humble him entirely. Gone was the casual chaos of Gen-Ed classes; no girls whispering about their crushes, no guys half asleep in their chairs, no slack jawed boredom or last minute cramming. This hallway was quiet, the kind of quiet that felt sacred or cursed.
“Okay,” Gotak said, slinging his arm around Jihoon’s shoulders as they stepped out of the lecture hall. “We’ll grab food after Calculus. Juntae and I are ditching so good luck.”
“Wait, what?” Jihoon asked.
Baku shoved a notebook into his chest. “You’ve got your math class next, right? That Applied Linear Algebra thing you love so much.”
Jihoon’s soul left his body. “I—what—I love what now?”
“You always say that solving matrices is your version of ASMR,” Juntae said helpfully.
Jihoon stared at them.
“Anyway, you’re late,” Gotak added. “Room 402, across the library. Go, genius.”
Before he could protest, the boys turned on their heels and disappeared down the hallway, probably to get fried chicken and avoid responsibility.
Room 402 loomed at the end like a final boss.
He held Sieun’s notebook to his chest like a shield. It was warm from the sunlight but no comfort at all. He’d flipped through it on the walk here, trying to make sense of the color coded tabs, scribbled formulae, and meticulous notes, but it was like reading alien scripture. Sieun’s handwriting was as sharp and precise as the boy himself; small, neat, unforgiving.
The moment he opened the classroom door, thirty heads turned in unison like a horror movie.
Jihoon flinched. The professor, a woman in her late forties with a pixie cut and eyes sharper than broken glass, didn’t even raise an eyebrow.
“Yeon Sieun,” She said crisply, arms folded. “You’re two minutes late.”
Jihoon froze in the doorway. Oh god. She knows his name.
“I—uhm,” He let out a weak laugh. “Would you believe I was… helping someone with existential panic?”
The professor gave him a look so blank it could have erased him from existence.
“Take your seat,” She said, shaking her head disappointingly. “The exam has already begun.”
Exam?
What exam?
But it was too late to turn back. A sheet of paper was slapped onto his desk as he passed, and he felt like he was walking to his own execution.
He slid into the chair, hands clammy, knees knocking against the underside of the table. Students around him were already scribbling furiously, their brows furrowed, pens flying across the paper like they were composing symphonies.
Jihoon glanced down.
MATH 217 – Applied Linear Algebra
Midterm Exam
Duration: 1 hour. No notes. No calculators. Show all solutions.
Midterm exam.
He actually felt his soul leave his body.
There were matrices. Determinants. Greek letters. A lot of arrows. One question casually asked him to “prove that the eigenvalues of A are real.”
The eigen-what?
This wasn’t math. This was war.
He stared at the page. His brain responded with static.
“C’mon, Jihoon,” He whispered to himself. “You’ve delivered emotional monologues in a single take. You can fake this.”
He picked up his pen. First, he wrote his name at the top of the page Yeon Sieun, in shaky block letters. That alone felt like identity theft. Next, he drew a cat next to it. Because why not? The world was ending anyway.
He flipped to the second page and tried answering a question. It asked him to diagonalize a 3x3 matrix. He wrote,
This matrix looks very diagonal to me already. Good job, matrix.
He gave it a smiley face.
By question five, he had fully abandoned math and was writing a letter to the professor.
Dear Professor,
Today is not my best day. In fact, it may be my worst. I am currently experiencing an episode of severe identity confusion, imposter syndrome, and metaphysical displacement. Please forgive the lack of calculations. I promise I respect mathematics very much.
Warmly,
Someone who is not Yeon Sieun, but is trying.
Someone a few seats away coughed. Jihoon looked up, startled and locked eyes with a familiar figure walking past the door, just outside the glass paneled wall.
Suho.
A paper cup in one hand, phone in the other. He looked like he was on his way somewhere, not paying much attention, until he saw Jihoon.
Their eyes met for a split second. Jihoon instinctively lifted his exam paper, as if to block his face or maybe as a silent SOS.
Suho slowed. For a moment, Jihoon thought he’d stop. Thought maybe he’d come in, say something, drag him out of this hell. But Suho just stared, expression unreadable before he kept walking.
Jihoon lowered the paper. His shoulders slumped. He’s really not coming.
The classroom buzzed quietly with the sound of focused writing. He looked down at his test again. There were still three pages left. He sighed, grabbed his pen, and wrote on the bottom margin of the final page,
A is invertible because she believes in herself. We should all be more like A.
When the professor came by to collect the papers, she paused at his desk. Her gaze lingered for just a moment, down at the notebook with only a cat doodle, a motivational message to a matrix, and three sarcastic answers.
Jihoon held her gaze, smiled weakly, and whispered, “Art is subjective.”
She took the paper without a word.