The Cat hides its Claws

Yuja raised his glasses once more.

“You know, we won prize money during the festival.”

Snow White and the Lazy Prince. Their play had won first place. All the teachers loved it. It already had been five months after that.

It naturally led Myohan think of, ‘I’m Class 1’s Snow White.’, and he looked at O Shin, trying not to laugh. He looked back at him, his chin on his hand.

“Why don’t we go and eat meat after the midterm?”

“Oh, great!”

“Yes, yes!”

All the boys who were tired after studying for the exams for days were glad to hear it. Even Sinsul, who had been sleeping, said ‘Meat is great!’ and clapped. Yuja made sure none of them objected his idea and looked at Myohan at last. Myohan looked somewhat bored, but he nodded to show he was fine with it. Yuja smiled with contentment.

“Let’s go together on the last day of exams, as long as none of you has any plans on that day. I’ll choose a place.”

“Okay!”

“Yuja, please make sure you choose a good place.”

“As there are many of us, it would be better to go to a buffet, right?”

Then Yuja started to calculate the number of boys and the amount of money they would need. They had just enough money to go to a cheap meat buffet. Each of them had to pay just a little more for it.

However, neither the money reward nor the meat buffet was of any interest to Myohan. He stabbed his workbook with his pen, and then he glanced at O Shin. His black eyes were full of affection. He asked with a warm smile, “Why?”

Myohan just looked down instead of saying anything. 7 months. During that time, the man had become a part of his life. Now he was completely used to his warm eyes and loving hands. Since when had he been looking at Myohan like that? He tried to recall, but he couldn’t guess. Maybe O Shin had been looking at him the same way all along.

Myohan knew nothing about it. How he knew him, the meaning behind his deadline, what his name was, how old he was, and where he lived. What he did know about him was much deeper than those. Like how he looked at him, and how warm his lips were. He always looked at Myohan and knew what he was thinking. He even knew about Myohan’s mysterious memories, which even Myohan himself didn’t know about.

“Four to go.”

O Shin smiled. They had managed to find eight out of the twelve zodiac animals, but there were still four more to find: tiger, dragon, monkey, and pig. Their letters were common, and they had no more suspects.

“So we’ve found almost all of them.”

He looked unconcerned. He seemed to believe Myohan would be able to find the rest of them before the deadline. The thing was, even Myohan himself was sure he could do it.

“Myohan.”

Myohan was almost lost in his thoughts, but then he heard his name and looked up. Yuja was right in front of him now. He pointed at Sinsul, who was already back to sleep, and spoke.

“We’re going to study for the exams today.”

***

“You can find X, right here. So you first differentiate this, and then…”

A calm voice filled the wide living room. One pen moved fast on the white paper. Yuja filled a page of his notebook with equations and looked up.

“You got it?”

“…”

Only two nodded. Miho, who had been listening in silence, and Jagyeom, who was writing equations down in his own notebook. Yuja looked at the other two with blank eyes and looked down again.

“Well, I’ll explain again.”

Myohan, who was reading an English text, muttered to himself.

“So he’s going to explain it five more times, at least.”

He had accepted Yuja’s demand without protest. He knew Sinsul was going to bring the boys anywhere. At least Yuja leading the study group would be quieter.

And he had been right when the group of five, Myohan, O Shin, Yuja, Chookjae, and Sinsul, arrived at his place. It had become a group of ten.

‘Today, we are going to do math.’

Yuja took out one workbook after another as soon as they arrived, without giving the others time to chat. Math 1 and Math 2. He saw Sinsul’s eyes die out at the sight of the word math. He nodded and put back Math 2. Sinsul was terrible at math.

“Do you get it now?”

“…”

But only two of them got it again. Sinsul and Myo Cheong were still in a daze. However, Yuja didn’t give up. He chose a little easier problem and started to explain it. It was an extremely simple equation.

Sinsul was first to send out a distress call. He pleadingly looked at Myohan, who was studying another subject, but it changed nothing. Myohan just said, “You’re in 11th grade, you should be able to do it.”

“…You can do it.”

Jino, who was watching the cat resting on the sofa, tried to cheer him up a little. Yuja was now teaching four boys: Sinsul, who made him think of doing this, Myo Cheong, whose grades were dangersouly low, Jagyeom, who was good at other subject but not so good at math, and Miho, whose eyes were full of curiosity now. Jino was not among them as he was an athlete and didn’t have to do well on school tests. He let out a sigh of relief.

“Do you get it?”

“Yuja, don’t you think it would be better for me to just give up on these?”

“…Shit, I don’t remember learning any of these things.”

Sinsul and Myo Cheong were still lost. Jagyeom, who got it perfectly, shook his head. Miho also nodded carefully.

“I admire you for not getting it even with that perfect explanation.”

“Um, I got it too.”

“…You and Sinsul will do it again. Just watch what I do, okay?”

Sajun, who was always among the top 10 students of their grade, smiled and looked at them. He seemed to find Myo Cheong, who usually had temper issues, quiet. Myohan finished reading his English text and poked at Chookjae who was right next to him.

“How do I solve this problem?”

“Oh, you see….”

Chookjae started to explain quietly. This is just what Myohan had wanted. No craziness and everybody focusing on their studies like they were supposed to. O Shin looked at the back of Myohan’s round head and laughed. The cat was diligent, no matter what he or the others said.

“Ahhh! Shit, I can’t get it!”

“There goes Myo Cheong’s patience.”

“Cheong, please calm down.”

“Yuja, I can’t do it. You go first.”

“…You two are not doing it on purpose, are you?”

“But I could get it….”

After some time, Myo Cheong gave up first. He angrily messed his hair, lay back, and started to roll on the floor. Actually, he had tried. Normally, he wouldn’t have taken a look at his schoolbook, but even he couldn’t be bad to Yuja as he was spending his own precious time for their good.

Yuja looked at Myo Cheong and Sinsul behind his glasses. He looked at the clock. About an hour and half had passed. He had been speaking all the time and now his neck felt sore. He took off his glasses and massaged his eyes.

“Let us take a break then.”

“Yuja, you must be tired.”

“Myohan, how did you teach Sinsul last time?”

“I really didn’t….”

Myohan frowned as he closed his book. Last time, Sinsul got mad and went home, so they really didn’t get to do much studying. Plus, he wasn’t capable of explaining thoroughly like Yuja in first place.

“Just do one subject per day and then do the workbooks, it will raise your grades significantly.”

“Hey, shit, thank you, but why aren’t you studying?”

Yuja raised his eyebrows as if he was confused by Myo Cheong’s question. Sajun answered it for him instead.

“We don’t really have to study for school exams. We just go through some subjects that require memorizing, and then we just let our usual skill do the thing.”

That sucked, but Yuja, Chookjae, and even Myohan nodded. Jagyeom frowned a bit, but even he couldn’t deny it. Actually, he got quite good grades too, except in math.