『JenSoo Short Stories』

BP High #2: 1st Session

"You are taking the CSAT next year. You should think about it over the summer break. It would be a good motivation as well."

"You talk too much for our first session."

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The older is slightly hurt but she beams back and says, "just to know you better. Anyways, let's just start." Jisoo takes out her pencil case and asks, "any schoolwork that you won't work on? We can probably work from there."

Jennie pulls out a stack of paper from her bag and judging by how crumbled the papers are, they must have been sitting in her bag for long. The senior takes the stack and looks through each piece carefully.

"Gosh, this looks like they were from January and it is already early March. I guess we can work on those that are pending soon."

Jennie just nods absent-mindedly while looking around the library, trying to get distracted while the older is working hard sorting through the papers.

"Ok, let's start with biology or something. It is due tomorrow," the older tells the younger as she pulls out the worksheet from the stack and looks through the material, "oh wow, glycolysis. This question is interesting. So, what do you think the answer is?"

Jennie reads the question. It is the question that Ms Park asked earlier but she doesn't remember the answer. She tries to think hard. She remembers that it is a simple answer, but nothing comes to mind.

Jisoo chuckles and says, "it is 0."

"Oh yea... 0," the younger mumbles, feeling a little embarrassed. Zero is really a simple answer.

Jisoo takes out a black paper and scribbles out the metabolic pathway.

"You see, when the red blood cells utilise the 2,3-BPG pathway to counteract the low oxygen tension environment, it bypasses an important step that synthesises ATP, meaning 0 ATP in this step. Before this 2 ATPs were invested and afterwards 2 ATPs are generated in the last step, total ATP produced would be 2-2 = 0."

Jennie stares at the diagram and with how the important steps are annotated clearly, she manages to understand something that took 1h to be taught in class to less than 5 minutes in this tutoring session. Jennie is impressed, maybe this session isn't too bad after all.

"It actually makes sense."

"Alright, I will give you another question but don't worry, I will annotate the important steps on the pathway. Tell me, how many ATPs will be synthesised in a normal cell in the glycolytic pathway?"

Feeling the adrenaline rush of getting the answer right initially, she looks at the question hard enough and after a few minutes, she replies, "2 ATPs."

"Ok, how?"

Jennie explains clearly while using the diagram to help her.

"Actually, you are smart. Keep it up." The older is rather impressed. She doesn't give compliments so easily but maybe if she ignites some love of learning in Jennie, it will change everything.

After an hour, they manage to finish the biology homework and now taking a break. Feeling a little hungry and craving for something sweet, the senior tells the junior, "hey, I am going to the cafeteria to get some drinks. Do you want to go together?"

"Sure."

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- Cafeteria -

They are now at the cafeteria, looking at what is available now that it is way past after school hours.