Eighteen’s Bed

Chapter 28.1

Through the winter of twenty, after going through the age of nineteen, there was a mix of things I didn’t know and things I did know floating in the air. In the media and in my imagination, there was nothing but fantasy. Even though I could now be called an adult, the square classroom still existed.

The twenty I had so desperately wanted wasn’t really much. It was simply about being able to choose between a boxed life and a wild, boundary-less life. That’s all there was to it. As someone who wanted a stable life, I naturally chose the boxed life, but life doesn’t always go the way you want it. Just like right now.

“Shit.”

I muttered softly to myself. It was 11 a.m. now. On my desk lay the exam paper. And on the board were the words ‘open book.’ Open book? My trembling hands flipped through the printouts and lecture notes, but I couldn’t find the answer to the question.

On the other hand, the people beside, in front, and behind me were aggressively filling out the short-answer questions. The sound of the ballpoint pen tapping on the plywood desk seemed to chase me from behind. I read the question eleven times, a question I alone couldn’t understand.

Did Kang Suhyeon learn his messy Korean grammar from the professor?

That’s right. In our school’s mechanical engineering department, it’s like being in a small-town medical school. So, of course, he must have studied well. Shit, it was the shadowing learning method. No, wait, I don’t have time for this.

I clenched my teeth hard. Then, I broke down every word in the question and classified it by whether I’d heard it during the lecture or not. I discarded the words I hadn’t heard. Then, I wrote down everything I could recall, including related information I’d heard in the lecture.

After writing down what seemed to be connected from my scrambled sentences, I pressed my index finger hard on my brow. I then brought my finger down and pressed hard between my chin and neck. With my remaining right hand, I created some nonsense novel. But still, I wrote it based on the information the professor had taught. Whenever I got stuck, I flipped through the lecture notes to find plausible content.

Why did the professor ask questions on things that weren’t even covered in class? While writing, I couldn’t hold back my frustration, and pressed down hard on the pen, causing the ink to smudge, but I didn’t have time to worry about such trivial things.

I squeezed every bit of memory out of me, packaged it, and with just 15 minutes left, I placed the pen on the last remaining space and thought.

Should I write a letter or not? If I write, what will I even say? Damn, Professor, why are you making my life such a mess? Why are you putting exam questions on things that weren’t in the lecture?

Then I saw a clear D in front of me. I shook my head.

Then... Dear Professor, I’m a passionate student who has never missed a single class of yours, but... why are you making the exam like this?

“There’s no answer.”

That’s it. I won’t write anything. I threw the pen onto the desk.

There were about seven people left in the classroom. Looking at their faces, it seemed like they were in the same situation as me. They sat there with bored faces, and when I stood up, one of them suddenly stood up as if to say, ‘Finally, someone else is leaving.’ It seemed pitiful, in a way.

I handed my exam paper to the desk at the front, returned to my seat, packed my things, and turned on my phone. The phone, in silent mode, had dozens of unread messages. Since it was rare for me to get any messages in my life, I was surprised and checked them. To my astonishment, they were from the department group chat.

I quietly slung my bag over my shoulder and checked the contents.

“Deleted content.”

• Hello.

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