The class was dismissed before I even realized it, and soon, one of my old friends came towards me.

"How did you do?" he asked. Before I answered, he snatched up my report card from my desk.

"What the hell! Give it back," I yelled, getting up from my chair and reaching for the report card. He looked at it, then he smirked.

“Wow, I beat the almighty Cho Kyuhyun for once,” he said, looking satisfied.

I gritted my teeth. “Good for you. You beat me the one time when I had more than full-time work on top of school.”

"Not up to your usual standards, is it?" he said smugly. I glared at him, furious. "But you're rarely ever at school. You weren't expecting to top the rankings again with such little effort, I'm sure."

Little effort? I suppressed my rage. "Shut up," I said, then with gritted teeth, I grabbed my now-crinkled report card from his grasp and sat back down at my desk.

After the rest of the class had filed out, the teacher came to my desk.

"Kyuhyun..."

"Sir, I really - I really studied so, so hard. I - I don't know why - " I just looked at the card, trying not to show the tears in my eyes. There was a long silence while I sighed. I then broke the silence by asking the question that I so wanted to know the answer to. "What did I need to rank 20th?" I asked quietly.

"You know that once you get up there, each percent makes a huge difference, right?" asked the teacher. I looked up at him and nodded uncertainly. "20th had a 94.2."

I goggled at him. "The difference between 31st and 20th is less than one percent?" I asked. The teacher nodded. "Oh my god," I said, leaning back in my chair in exasperation.

"But it's like saying you needed almost a percent higher in every single course, or almost 10 percent higher in one course. It does make a difference, Kyuhyun."

"But I was so close," I said, pained.

"You really weren't," he said frankly. I finally got a better look at the report card and sighed.

"I really thought I did better than this in physics," I muttered, disappointment flooding over me. "I've never had such a low mark on an exam before."

"You thought the test was easy?" he asked, surprised. "I've heard students complain that it was the hardest exam."

"No, it was really hard, but I thought - I thought I figured most of it out," I said. I buried my face in my arms for a few moments, then I looked up. "Sir, I know it's a lot of work for you to prepare take-home work for me, but I'll try harder to do well on the entrance exams."

The teacher sighed and shook his head. "Kyuhyun, you ranked 31st in the school. How do you plan on ranking in the top 2000 in the country?"

I rested my elbows on my desk and with my forehead in my hands, and just stared at the report card. My mind was blank, but every breath seemed to be a sigh. I then looked up.

"Sir, I'll do anything," I pleaded.

"I asked you to rank. You didn't," he said.

"I'm so sorry. But I really tried my best. If only you knew how hard I worked for this - ”

"Then all the more I realize that you don't have the potential," he said. "It doesn't make sense for me to waste my time, and for you to waste yours if this was the best you could do," he said.

"If I had known how well I needed to do earlier, if it wasn't just before promotions, if - " I said desperately, but the teacher cut me off.

“Have you thought about switching departments?”

“To – to liberal arts?” I asked, perplexed that the teacher would recommend such a thing.

“Well, that does – "

“No, I’m actually really good at sciences. I – I really like math and science.”

“So physics. What happened there?” he asked, pointing at the 73 that stuck out like a sore thumb among my otherwise stellar grades.

I opened my mouth to tell him the truth, but then I realized that…

“It’ll just sound like an excuse,” I sighed. There was a silence while the teacher did nothing except stare at me.

"Kyuhyun," he said finally. I looked down into my lap. "All I can tell you is to use celebrity status and get into the school you want."

I looked into his eyes for the first time since we began the talk. “I won’t.”

“Then give up on your top 10,” he said after a sigh.

"Sir, I'll do anything. If you want to beat me until I can't walk anymore instead, I'll take it all, and I won’t say a word of complaint. Please," I pleaded.

The teacher just shook his head. "Stop coming to class," he said quietly, then he moved to the door. Watching this, I got up halfway from my chair as well in a state of panic.

“Sir, please!” I yelled after him, but he paid no attention and left the classroom, leaving me alone in it.

I walked out of the classroom with a sigh about five minutes later to a hallway full of students; the manager hyung usually made sure that I was a few minutes late for the beginning of class and a few minutes early to leave it, but that hadn’t happened today because of this talk. For the first time, I ignored them all and just pushed past them with my face covered.

I heard several shouts of “Cho Kyuhyun!” and “Kyuhyun!” around me, and I felt them close in on me.

“Guys, not today,” I muttered, and I just tried to push past them when I felt myself being pushed against the wall by the crowd. With my hand still raised to cover my face, I lowered my head. “Guys, please.”

I tried to wiggle out of the crowd, but I couldn’t. Realizing this, I finally feared for my safety in a crowd for the first time.

“Oh my god, guys, please, let up,” I said, bringing my arms close to me to protect myself as much as I could, but it seemed like the crowd couldn’t control itself either; although it wasn’t a huge crowd, the narrow hallway was making it difficult for them to move. I started shaking with my head down, and I was close to tears when –

“HEY! HEY! GIVE HIM SOME SPACE!”

I felt the crowd dispersing a little, and saw someone pushing through the crowd to extend a hand towards me. I looked up, then a small smile of relief formed on my face.

“Hyung,” I said, looking at the manager hyung.

“Kyuhyun, come on. Let’s go,” he said, waving the hand that he had extended. I finally pushed my way through the crowd towards the manager hyung, and he took me by the shoulders as soon as I got close enough to him. I put my head down as the manager hyung guided me through the crowd until I felt a breath of fresh air, then he took me by the arm and started walking so fast to the entrance that I was half-running to catch up with him. When we got to the van, he opened the door to the passenger seat to let me inside, then quickly made his way to the driver’s seat.

“Are you okay?” he asked, starting the car.

“I’m fi – " I stopped. Was I really fine? As I hesitated, the manager hyung stepped on the gas and started driving.

“It’s okay,” he said. He sighed. “I got worried when you weren’t coming out before all of the other students.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, my head down.

He glanced at me for a little. “So why were you late?”

I bit my lip, then held out the crumpled report card for him to take. He glanced at it for a split second, then took it, keeping his eye on the road. When we were stopped at a light, he finally looked at it. I didn’t even bother watching his expression; I just turned my head away from him.

“Oh, Kyuhyun –" he said, horrified. “God, I’m so –"

“Please don’t say you’re sorry,” I said, still turned away from him. “I heard it enough. And it’s okay. But… but I think he’s right. Maybe I should just use celebrity status to get into a school I want. I don’t think I can do this if I have to work harder than this to get there.”

The manager hyung was silent for a while, then he sighed. “You deserve a break.”

“I don’t know anymore,” I said, putting my face in my hands. “I’m so tired of school. I hate having to worry about these damn tests and all this homework – I can’t do it anymore.” I took a deep breath, but it came out as a sigh. The manager hyung looked at me for a short while before turning his attention back on the road.

“Try spending the next week or so just focusing on the stage, and see how you feel. I promise you’ll be ready to go back to studying once the summer break hits and no one has to go to school.”

I looked up at the road for a second, then down in my lap again, then opened my mouth with difficulty.

“Hyung, I can’t do this on my own. It doesn’t matter if I’m going to feel like studying. Because I won’t be able to do it by myself anyway.”

“Just trust me,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m responsible for this. And I’ll fix it somehow, Kyuhyun. In the meanwhile –"

“I know,” I said. “Focus on the stage. I know.”

“Good. I know you can pull through this,” he said.

I nodded, promising him that I would give it my all on the stage, but neither of us knew at the time what would happen during the next broadcast performance that we would have.