chaejin was smart. she always did her homework, tried extremely hard and refused to give up. she naturally was not gifted with intelligence. she worked for it.
intelligence ran in the family, however. her mother and father were smart, both doctors. her four older brothers were gifted with natural intelligence too. her eldest brother was a psychotherapist, her second oldest brother an attorney and her other two brothers who were twins were a vet and a scientist. even her younger brother was intelligent and he was in primary school. he'd won so many awards. it seemed as if these 'smart genes' skipped her, so she had to make up for it in academic achievement that she worked for herself. she worked harder than all of her siblings combined, but her parents, her teachers and her friends never saw the hard work and the blood, sweat and tears that went into everything she ever did. so of course, she felt an immense amount of pressure to be like them. this was her main source of motivation.
chaejin was always at the top of the class. however she always felt disappointed even if she knew she tried her best because she always felt she could have tried harder. instead of 99/100, she could have got 100/100 if she just put in that extra amount of work. when teachers handed out her results, the entire class already knew that she had the highest score without anybody even seeing her paper.
"and the highest scorer for this semester's paper is-" everybody already knew that it was chaejin without even hearing the teacher say it.
"choi chanhee,"
everybody looked to the teacher, in shock before looking to chaejin. nobody could quite believe it, but chaejin was too focused on finding out who this person was that beat her. a boy across the classroom with brown hair stood up and bowed before going to collect his paper, giving her a cocky look as he went back to his seat. chaejin was friends with a lot of people, but she had never seen him before. perhaps he was a new student who she didn't notice until now.
"it was very close, choi chanhee with 99/100 and ahn chaejin with 98/100," the teacher spoke, smiling to her. "looks like you've got some competition now, chaejin,"
chaejin couldn't help but feel a mix of anger, disappointment and confusion. anger because how how unfair the whole situation was. she was smart but she worked for it, chanhee was probably just one of those naturally gifted people who are good at everything they attempt. disappointment because she was of course, disappointed in herself. it seemed that even if she got 100, she'd feel disappointed even though you couldn't get higher than full marks. confusion at how she worked so hard, but managed to get one less than last time. and she felt nervous too, nervous because how on earth was she going to tell her parents?
on the way home she was walking inbetween her two friends jiseo and yumi, whilst they were talking about their shared crush on the cliché jock boy in their yeargroup. but she couldn't help but think of who this choi chanhee was and worry about how he was going to take her place if she didn't up her game.
she watched him get into a black car, backpack slung over his shoulder with headphones on. who was this new boy?