"So Seola, did you finally get your bio exam back? The one you pulled an all-nighter studying for?"

"I failed that ." Seola replies flatly as her friends let out a collective gasp of horror. She reaches into her bag to fish out the offending material and tosses it onto the table for the girls' widened eyes to fix their gaze upon. She cringes at the sight of the scantron herself, several red marks lined up beside the question numbers and her result, a seemingly gigantic thirty percent, printed in the score box. "Well, at least there's a curve."

Luda scoffs. "With a grade like that, there's no way in hell that curve is gonna save you. Fifty percent is a fail. Thirty percent is like...a super fail. You went below and beyond to screw yourself over."

"Thanks for the reassurance, Luda. I really appreciate it. I reeeaaally do." Seola remarks sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"Girl, I thought you were smart."

"I am smart! It's just - college bio is a lot different from high school bio, and science is my weakest subject in the first place."

"You should make a friend in the class to study with, someone who actually knows what they're doing." Dawon suggests with a slight jab. Seola doesn't even bother to throw a glare her way, knowing that her friends are going to mercilessly, and frankly, she just feels like ranting about her situation at the moment, rather than trying to problem-solve.

"I can't. It's like an every-man-for-themself warzone in there. I don't even understand why everyone in this class is so competitive."

"It's bio, nobody should be surprised." With that said, there are some murmurs of agreements among Seola's friends.

"I'm an accounting major, for goodness' sake! Why do I even have to take this damn class?!" Seola exclaimed, snatching her scantron from the table and stuffing it back into her bag. Keeping the scantron around was the equivalent to saving a reminder of her failure. She would set the sheet on fire and burn it to complete ashes if she wasn't concerned about the possibility of needing it later (not that she probably would, but one can never be too careful).

"That's general ed for you. If worse comes to worst, you can always make that last ditch effort of...warming up to your professor." Luda tells her friend with a mischievous glint in her eye. Seola raises a questioning brow, and the shortest girl of their group continues, "Oh, you know, 'Professor, I'd do anything for an A!'" As if it were necessary for further explanation, she makes the mock motion of ing her shirt. Soobin looks scandalized and Seola would feel the same if she weren't used to hearing Luda's controversial ideas directly from the shorter girl.

"She's a woman."

"And?"

"I don't think I'm into girls, and I'm not about to try anything with my professor, of all people."

"Hey, Bona seduced her female TA; now she gets private tutoring, all the answers to the quizzes, and extra credit! You could be living that good life."

Seola holds up a fist, preparing to list her reasons for rejecting the idea: "One: Bona is actually into girls. Two: her TA is a young, gorgeous genius from China. Three: if they ever get caught - which I actually hope they do not - they're pretty much ed. Four: I am not going to make an attempt to seduce my professor, regardless of their gender, age, or level of attractiveness. Five: anything you suggest has never been and will ever be a good idea!"

"Fine, then you should just go and get yourself a damn tutor!" Luda says as she throws her hands up in defeat and somehow manages to scoot back in her chair (her feet don't even touch the ground!).

"I will!"

It's already too late when Seola realizes that hiring a tutor was one of Luda's suggestions, which she had said herself, not too long ago, are never good ideas. She seems to have jinxed herself. She wonders if she can still pin the blame on Luda somehow. The next time they go to a store together, she's going to hide from the shorter girl, then go up to the front and ask if they can make an announcement looking for a lost child named Lee Luda. She has always wanted to try doing that.

"Hey, you took forever to get here. I've been waiting for you. I'm starving." The brunette tells Seola as she sits down in the chair across from her. "Seola, right? The name's Exy, by the way." Exy doesn't add anything else to her self-introduction once she picks up the lunch menu of the casual diner they're sitting in. Seola doesn't even have to glance at her watch to know that this was the time they'd agreed on through text messaging. With the late, curt, and even unanswered messages (she didn't even answer her when she asked for her name), she's already annoyed...but she has to bear with it. She just wants to pass. Really.

She attempts to make some small talk with Exy while they wait for a server to approach their table. "Exy, that's not your real name, is it? I saw it in the list, next to your number. What was it again? Chu Sojung?"

Exy appears to have made a choice as she sets down the menu and slides it toward the edge of the table. "That isn't important. What is important is the fact that you've totally bombed your first bio exam, and you have hired me to tutor you."

"I didn't choose you specifically," Seola begins to clarify, "all the other tutors were unavailable - "

Exy holds up a hand, and Seola is now annoyed with herself for even following that gesture and stopping. "That isn't important. I'm just here to help you. You need me. I have one condition aside from weekly payment, and one condition only for you to follow, should we work together to improve your performance in that class: you will do everything I tell to you without question. Your cooperation is of utmost importance." Seola knows what else Exy must consider important: her life, which will be in danger if she hears 'that isn't important' one more ing time - "Is that understood?"

Seola grits her teeth, uncurls her fingers, and forces herself to bear a grin. "Of course." 

"Great, our first official study session will take place tomorrow, at your dorm room. We can discuss the details later."

Their server finally arrives to their table and takes their orders. After that, they don't speak much, with the exception of the moment in which Exy nonchalantly points out something green stuck in Seola's teeth.

Science may not be Seola's forte, but she knows one thing at least: she and Exy share zero chemistry. She can't deny it though, the fact that Exy is a good tutor. 'Good' is as far of a positive description word as she's going to get from Seola, because no matter what, she's still an -

"Do you really have to sit here and breathe down my neck while I'm reading?" Seola questions as she sets her biology textbook down and turns around to face her tutor. It's especially distracting when she's trying to read about the sodium-potassium pump and her brain is begging her to pay attention to anything else but that. She rubs at the back of her neck, hoping to get the little hairs standing up to calm down again. "Have you ever heard of something called, 'personal space'?"

Seola isn't surprised when Exy ignores her and proceeds to inquire, "Do you understand the foundational concepts of the chapter? You need to understand the fundamentals of what, when, how, where, and why before you can start picking up the details. Otherwise, you're just memorizing gibberish, and from what I can see, your exam questions aren't exactly asking for you to just regurgitate facts. You have to apply the concepts." She waves a stack of the first exam questions at Seola, who sighs like she's heard Exy repeat herself for the fiftieth time. She might as well have.

"I know, you've told me this so many times. I get it. Just give me some space while I try to read, would you? Or find something else to do while you wait. You don't even need to be here. Geez."

What does surprise Seola is Exy's unexpected obedience as she moves away from her. "If you have any questions, do ask. That's what I'm here for."

"...what made you want to become a tutor anyway? Honestly, you don't seem like a people kind of person at all. Is it for the money?"

Exy pauses, then answers, "I'm in no way lacking money, but you're right about me not being a people person. I have my personal reasons. Just continue your reading. We have a lot to cover with this chapter." She picks her phone up from the table and shifts her attention to the handheld device, indicating that their conversation is over.

Seola turns around and comes face-to-face with a diagram of how the sodium-potassium pump works. She thinks of what, when, how, where, and why, but at the back of her listless mind, she's thinking about Exy's possible reasons for becoming a tutor when the obvious and commonly desired benefit of money isn't a factor. What would motivate someone like her?

"Okay, here's the plan for today's session: you read and fill out this worksheet I did the favor of making and printing out for you while I take a nap right over there." Exy declares as she points at Seola's bed. "You can ask me anything you want when I wake up." Seola wouldn't have minded otherwise but as her eyes skim the page Exy handed to her, she knows that she's going to need her tutor by her side to make some explanations. When she looks up, however, Exy is already on her bed, laying on her side, eyes closed.

"Wait, what? Do I really have to memorize all of these functional groups and their structures?" She moves closer toward her bed currently occupied by Exy. "Hey!" When the other girl doesn't even flinch, she draws her face closer to hers in hopes that she wouldn't be able to ignore her. "Get up, would you? Do you really have to take a nap now? I'm paying you for this!" There is complete silence, and no movements whatsoever, except for the gentle, rhythmic rise and fall of Exy's body. "How the hell are you dead asleep already? Fine, I'll let you sleep." She huffs and returns to her desk to tackle the worksheet alone.