The violet box held onto its contents dearly as he looked up at the monster that was devouring them grumpily. A tight tug between the chosticks and they get pulled out of the box to be shattered into bits and swallowed away. Slowly, the contents of the box exited one by one to meet their final judgement inside a red tunnel with white rocks and a sticky red monster. All but the last piece of kimbap. The monster had seemed to have granted him a longer time like always. He sat there cozily in the lunch box chatting with it. Three months ago, his uncle too seemed to have undergo the same fate. A longer time with the box only to meet a harsher and quicker judgement. It was this monster, a girl in her mid teen's usual routine. Her result day routine rather. Lunch with rolled eggs, kimbap and sausages cut like a four legged octopus and to eat them all, all but that one last roll of kimbap for the last 10 second countown before 1:30 pm(Result annoucement time). Post which she shall gulp some water and check the results before 1:31pm. She had discovered this lucky routine in her middle school years. When one not so fine day she had accidentally followed this routine but ended up with an astounding result for the first time. Since then, this routine had stuck with her and well did manage to fetch her the desired results till about a few months ago. For the past couple of times, it seemed like this routine wasn't working or rather the universe had decided to mess up her routine wantedly. But our girl still hadn't lost hope. She looked down at her watch for the hundredth time that afternoon, bit her lip harder, grabbed that last kimbap roll and shoved it in tapping her feet frantically. Munching it down her food pipe she mumbled 10..9...8...... "YAAAAAA !!! THEY HAVE PUT UP THE RESULTS",  a shrill voice screamed making her choke on her kimbap. "T!!!" she muttered. Had her watch had gotten slow? She checked the time again just to be sure. 5 seconds to 1:30pm. Coughing hard, she reached out for the bottle in her bag thinking she got to see the results by 1:31 atleast, which to her dismay was empty. "Bad signs", she scowled to herself flinging the bottle to the floor. She frantically looked around for water coughing up badly. Her eyes landed on her seatmate's bottle which was full but could she drink that? She had hardly spoken a word to her plus she had denied helping her with a problem just the previous class. She couldn't drink her water. She didn't want to be obligated to anyone."Aishhhhh" she muttered comforting her coughs by hitting her chest with her fist. She calmed herself the no-water way while the other hand frantically entered her student id on the phone screen which flashed 13:32 on the top right. Taking a huge breath she tapped on the 'go' icon. As the screen loaded, she shut her eyes tightly , held onto that breath and mumbled her usual prayer all the while crossing her fingers tightly. 
Slowly she opened one eye followed and peeked at the screen. Midterm Results!! The screen read in blood red. Opening both the eyes and with trembling fingers, she placed a finger on the screen to scroll down to...........
' 1. Choi Min-Ho      -     99.5  
  2. Lee Mi-Kyong    -     98.7
  3. ......                                    '

Her brain went blank as her ears caught on some random chaotic screams. Sounds of her classmates. Some celebrating that they had passed, some for getting above 90, some wailing over thier terrible performance but her heart had dropped as the phone sloppily fell off her hands onto the desk. The world had suddenly fallen silent. Her senses seemd to have left her. She had come second in both the midterms consecutively. She reloaded the page again just to be sure. The results stayed the same shattering her 0.0001 percent of hope. The margin of difference glared up at her. Her mind worked the math immediately. She had to get 2% higher than him in the final examination besides placing first to top that year. Sighing she let her head fall over the table with a little thud. She felt ashamed. She felt the whole world laughing at her. She could hear her mother telling her how she let the family pride down. She could sense her dad's intense glare ready to burn her with his eyes. Her head spun frantically asking a zillion questions. How will she face her mom? What will her father tell her? Will she be able to beat him by 2 percentage in finals? Her body quivered in fear as sweat started tricking down her forehead. The repercussions that ran in her head were horrendous. "Hello miss second place", a voice next to her beamed. "I dont have time for this !" she mumbled to herself standing up on her seat. With a weak smile, she uttered "Congratutions!" to the boy smirking at her like she was some tiny insect squished under his presence. Her head went berserk but she had to stand when talking to him. The thought of her sitting down as he looked down to speak to her seemed like he was looking down at her and she would never accept that. Holding onto the desk dearly, she stood upright to the boy who was still smirking at her. Although her knees were trembling and she was sweating profusely, she looked in her eye one last time before they gave in and she crashed to the floor gasping for breath.

Mikyong woke up to find herself at the infirmary. Immediately looking to her side, she found nither an IV drip attached nor any artificatial ventilation. She wasnt serious enough to be forgiven by her mother. She sighed deeply as the curtains opened to reveal a dashing woman in her 30's smiling at her. "Hello Dr. Byeol", mikyong answered feebly sitting up on the bed. "Hello mikyong! Seems like your lunch break went bad." she said. Mikyong looked at her perplexed. Did she also know her results? Was she also looking down at her? Dozen question battled in her mind as the doctor continued, "Well, what did you have for lunch today mikyong?". She stared blankely at the doctor as the questions ran past her mind. "MIKYONG!! LUNCHH. WHAT WAS YOU LUNCH!!", Dr Byeol repeated in a slightly higher tone breaking Mikyong's thoughts. "Huh!! Well........ I... I.... I had Kimbap?" Mikyong answered raising an eyebrow. "Well well. You still seem to be in a daze. But nothing to worry. I think you kimbap didn't like you." the doctor snorted laughing. Mikyong's face switched from dazed to perplexed. What was this woman blaberring? she thought to herself. "The food, kimbap, was stuck in you wind pipe, which you had failed washed down properly making you breathless and blackout", Dr Byeol said. "Aaaaaaaah!" mikyong exclaimed, remembering the choking incident she tried to resolve the waterless way. "You seem to be alright. Off to class girl. Remember water is the best medicine." Dr Byeol chimed closing the file she was holding as she got up and walked towards her chair. Mikyong moved her self to the edge of the bed and put on her shoes as she got up to leave. Bowing to the doctor, she shut the door of the infirmary behind her and started walking to class. Her head which had been briefly deviated by the recent turn of events was back to focussing on her results and her parents. She walked along the corridoors lifelessly till a familiar board came into view. She slid open the door to 32 pairs of eyes looking at her. She bowed slightly excusing herself to the teacher and entered the classroom. Minho was standing next to the homeroom teacher proudly with his head up and spine erect like a liason officer. The homeroom teacher , Minho's pet goes an extra mile to brag about him topping the class. Mrs. Min had been hyping Minho since the start of the year. Now that he had secured two consecutive first places, her praises rang through Seoul. Having other more important things bothering her head, Mikyong paid no heed and walked back to her seat quietly. She sat down, staring at the trees outside as her brain continued to overthink about the coming evening.

The last bell of the day rang to mixed reactions. While some sprung out of their benches to celebrate end of another day, some dragged their bodies around either due to a tiresome day or at the thought of their results. Mikyong rose from her chair with deadpan expression, folded those books taking all the time in the world, fetched her bag from under her chair, ped it at the slowest possible pace and placed the books in one by one in an orderly fashion. Little did she know, her bag packing would attract audience. Not exactly an audience, but one Mr. First rank. He loved watching that defeated look on her face, it gave him ultimate joy. That 2% difference, he too had calculated. Its way too much to be able to beat him, he will finally be the class topper this year. All those years of humiliation he had faced thanks to miss smarty pants, coming second is finally going to give her the same pain he faced. Unknown to him, an evil smile was plastered over his face attracting the attention of the one he had been observing. Being caught offguard,he immediately wiped that smile  off his face only to fetch a poker face reaction from her. She simply dropped her head and headed out of the class. Shoving the rest of the stationary in his bag, Minho jumped out of the desk tiptoing behind her. Mikyong walked ahead with her head, swinging her arms in a zombie fashion. Behind her, Mr. Creepy smile now had a twinkling smile. He was thinking about the XBOX waiting for him at home. His father had promised him one, if he topped this midterm too. But the reason for the 32 teeth display was the upcoming dinner. 

Her heart was beating at an unbearable pace as the approaching entrance arch. Mikyong's mother was at the entrace with an expectant look. Although there was a smile plastered across her face, she was evidently waiting to hear the result from her daughter. "So??? She asked not caring about the pale drained girl's health. "Second place omma" Mikyong said as she sat in the car. Mrs Lee's face dropped as she hurriedly walked to the driver's side and banged the car door after her and drove away. "MY TOPPER SON!!!!" squeaked a female as she ran towards Minho and hugged him tight. "You made us proud once again, my son!" she claimed beaming planting a kiss on his cheek. "Yaaaaah!! Omma. Stop it!" Minho said wiping that saliva off his cheek and running to the car, face red with embarrassment. The mother followed happily tip toing on her feet. She had access to his academic results and all the student ids for the number was the same except the last 3 digits which was their respective roll number. She had looked up the results that afternoon itself and informed Mr. Choi too. They were having a party that evening with none other than the Lee family. Even though they were both senior lawyers at the same firm, their son attaining more grades than Mikyong meant they were superior to the Lee's. Mrs Choi was silently observing Mrs Lee as Mikyong told her about her coming second and rejoiced at the look. "No one can beat my son", she chirped happily humming to the radio as she drove her son home which waited with her son's favourite platter and video game console. But what made her happier was her eager await for the look on Mr lee's face as they talk proudly about Minho and belittle Mikyong all the while not acting like they meant it that harshly.