All my classmates were complaining that the rain had come at the worst possible time because they were having fun. Everyone except me had gone to the amusement park. They all looked annoyed in their updates. Finally, Yuna uploaded that they had only been there for half a day because of the rain.
Ding.
I got a message notification and tapped it. Yuna had just sent me a message.
Yuna: Sorry I’m only able to message you again now. I was busy with everyone else earlier. Yuna: Where are you? Yuna: Did you get caught in the rain earlier? The wind was really strong. Yuna: You waited a long time at the bus stop, didn’t you?
I replied that I’d already gone home a while ago and was fine. If I’d waited, I would’ve been completely soaked. They also knew that I got sick very easily—even getting caught in a little rain could leave me with a fever and the flu the next day. So this was apparently how they had chosen to get revenge because I hadn’t come to help them during their exam.
Since I was fine, I started studying for my make-up exam. I hadn’t had time to take the exam yesterday, so two days from now, when school started again on Monday, I would meet my teacher and take the make-up exam alone. I had already asked my teacher for permission to be absent and requested that a make-up exam be scheduled for me later.
I started looking through my notes from several subjects, one by one. There were already plenty of books on my desk that I needed to study, and I flipped through the pages, carefully examining everything in them. Before every exam, I always studied like this while thinking about how to secretly give them the answers.
Even though all the staff at school already knew my identity, I still felt uncomfortable at the thought of being caught helping someone during an exam. I helped them because I felt sorry for them, but it seemed I wouldn’t need to do that anymore. I could focus on myself and my own grades.
I felt a little nervous because this was the first time I was going to take a make-up exam. Make-up exams were usually held in the teachers’ room, and this time I would be alone. That was why I had to study even harder. I had tutoring scheduled for tomorrow, so I was already planning to ask about the parts I wanted to review. Actually, I didn’t need to study that much since I’d studied everything before, but I wanted to prepare myself more thoroughly.
Tomorrow, my tutoring session was scheduled from two in the afternoon until five. That was what my everyday life was like: endless tutoring sessions I had to attend. Yesterday, because I was too exhausted from thinking about the Yunaz group’s problems, I’d asked for permission to skip tutoring for two days, including today, because I had plans with them—even though I ultimately didn’t go to the amusement park.
It looked like I would have to add another tutoring session tomorrow to make up for the class I’d missed yesterday. I started looking at my free time and figuring out where it would be best to add a new session. I decided to add one tomorrow, scheduling tutoring from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon, and the next day I would use three hours for an extra session as well. With that arrangement, I could make up all the tutoring classes I hadn’t attended before.
In the past, whenever the Yunaz group invited me somewhere, I always said yes, even though afterward I had to deal with rescheduling my tutoring sessions. I gave up so much of my time for them. Whenever they ran into problems, I gladly helped them because I thought that was what a real friend was supposed to do. But it turned out that was only the role I played in their group—the person who solved all their problems.