The images were back online, this time with better explanation. Meaning less outrageous rumours. But, still, Ophely was on the internet again. People recognised her from the concerts now that everyone had settled down after the tour, and had also seen her with the band and more staff other than the main manager. It was clearer now that she really was a part, more or less, of Pledis entertainment and was working with the people surrounding her. However, it didn't make her feel any better to be once again scrutinised for where she came from and her age. And that right before sitting for the Suneung. Where people didn't need a distraction.
Ophely sighed as she took her seat at the office she had been lent for the time being. The room was still empty, she was the first one present. Not that she was surprised as everyone had finished working very late, she had only left home earlier to call her parents and find her previous sleep schedule so that she was well rested for her exams. One week, or less, Ophely forgot. She laid on top of her desk, study books beside her head, and sighed again.
Why was it happening now?
Like, wouldn't it have made more sense for the photos to surface back again when she was picked up after her Suneung? She rubbed her face to wake up, she shouldn't dwell on these things yet, she had to study. But the books were boring, and her attention was pulled back to her phone every few minutes to check if her parents had seen the news and wanted to talk to her. She didn't want them to worry any more than they already had. Her French high school friend had already messaged her, she who checked all of the news regarding her favourite group (Seventeen for those who hadn't guessed already), and then Inyeong had sent a nice supportive message not long ago. She, too, was studying diligently for the national high school test.
But Ophely had no motivation to study, she knew where she lagged, and had many little revision sheets to memorise and think back to them in an instant, but none of them were touched. They sat in neat piles on her desk, everything ready to be used for revising.
She was going to sigh a lot that day, Ophely breathed in deeply as she sat up, told herself a few words of encouragement, turned on some background music to focus on the words she was reading, and then started a mock-exam sheet.
Times passed quietly, not fast nor slow, but tiring nonetheless. The boys had gotten there two or three hours after her, making sure not to disrupt her, Jeonghan dropping off her headset that she had forgotten to bring earlier that day. And with the noise surrounding her blocked, she got to work harder, undisrupted by her coworkers that had come not long after the boys either.
And the last days blended that way before the Suneung. Her parents were going to be leaving soon, but they were still going around Korea to discover the beautiful countryside. Ophely didn't have to worry about them right now. Time passed so seamlessly that Ophely hadn't even been ready for when the time came.
A moment that she had not thought through very much. She knew that it was a very important event for everyone, especially in Seoul. When she had left the building to go where she had been told to go, it was like the city was on standby. Streets were visibly clearer, and police officers available and around. And the atmosphere was filled with stress. Even more so when she arrived at the school, nearly an hour early, and saw the throng of students her age stressing in the halls. She had never seen something like that.
Standing quietly in the waiting space dedicated to the students as officials checked everyone and what they brought inside of the halls one by one, Ophely observed the other students around her, filled with dread and some ready to faint. She was glad that she wasn't very stressed, maybe because she hadn't been at school and study academies that showcased truly what was to come, she didn't know. So she stayed by herself, hiding from the potential cameras and crazy fans that should be more worried about the other students doing well than her masked face in the crowd.
Ophely thought about everything that she had brought with herself, appropriate pens for the papers (mechanical pencils were not allowed nor were fountain pens, so her pencil case had had a little makeover). She also had with her her convocation, her identity card and legal papers. She had checked thrice already, and was going to look once again to be sure as the line in front of her was getting shorter, when a hand clasped on her shoulder and a high pitched voice called her name out from just beside her ear.
"Opely!"
Startled, Ophely turned to see a surprisingly familiar face. Bright smile and gleaming eyes, Inyeong apologised to the people around them that had turned at the commotion before facing her friend again.
"I tried calling you so many times already, I thought you were ignoring me. But by the look on your face I think you just didn't hear." Ophely's guts slowly retracted back to their original place, Inyeong had that magic in her. To make people freeze up but also to relax them. And right now her indecent (and stressed) words were calming Ophely down more than she had thought they would. She was glad that they had been assigned the same hall as her friend, grateful for the impromptu meeting.
She smiled under her mask, still trying to hide away from the few stares now towards them. It was like no one had realised that a foreigner had been standing mere metres away from them.
"Good luck, Inyeong." She muttered to her friend as they got their seats in different halls, a hug for chance too and they were off in opposite directions. Inyeong turned around at the same time as her, signing very obnoxiously to contact her after the exam. Ophely sent her thumbs up with chuckling eyes before she too turned back and walked over to her seat in the giant hall she had just entered.
Once seated with nothing on her desk except what she needed to write and rehydrate, Ophely didn't see the time pass. No worry had time to fall upon her shoulders, even during the breaks given between subjects, she was just reading Korean all day long and answering uselessly complicated questions in English. It was weird, even if she had studied and done a lot of mock exams, even doing the ones that had been given the previous years, she was still surprised by the questions offered. They were, in simple words, complicated for no reasons. The hardest part was understanding where the question wanted to go.
And even though her Korean was great, some words were there just to trick people.
The day passed just like the papers did, so many pages of just multiple choice questions. It was nearly the opposite of the French exam she had just sat a few months prior. Where she had to write a multiple page essay about whichever notion that it was in philosophy, here she just had to circle letters and call that the end.
Not that it was easy, it wasn't. But not as straightforward as it should have been.
And then was the French paper. One of the fewest foreign languages taken in the Suneung (in number of takers) for the past many years. It is seen as elegant and popular, but the number of students who take it comparingly to Japanese, Chinese or even Arabic is low. A few people looked at her as she received the paper at the start. It wasn't close to being as hard as Russian or German, but, still, she got a few stares. Not that she could blame them, as a French person she could attest to the hardness of her native language. It wasn't easy.
But she finished on that note, a whole day had passed. She had brought lunch with her, but the stress of finishing everything, well, had made it impossible for her to eat more than a single Sneakers bar during the less than hour long pause for lunch.
Once done with the papers and having left the hall to take her belongings from the waiting room, Ophely sent a little message to her friends and family to tell them that everything had gone right and that she had finished and was still alive and in one piece. She immediately received an answer from Inyeong that sent her lots of hearts and words expressing how happy she was that Ophely hadn't fallen under the pressure and short time to prepare herself for the exam. And then there was one unread message from Seventeen's manager, telling her that he would be there waiting for her outside to take her back to the studio right after so that she didn't have to daddle in front of the public building.
Ophely was surprised but glad to see Seventeen's manager clearly standing outside of the hall to pick her up and whisk her away from the medias ready to interview students about the hardest and most anticipated school test of the year. She didn't need her face plastered on the news again.
The surprise, actually, was in the fact that the manager hadn't come alone to pick her up. In the van a few streets away was half of the band ready to congratulate her with cheers and warm hugs and lots, loads, of take-away food. Ophely couldn't help but laugh as she hugged everyone back, elated to have this stressful chapter of her life over with.
"We don't even know if I passed." She managed to mumble as Wonwoo draped his big body over hers in a hug, everyone heard her.
"It doesn't mean anything. We know how hard it was to just go there and pass it."
"Celebration is in order for you to survive through the Suneung stress!" Seungkwan said from his place at the back of the group. His laughter contagious to everyone as they made their way back through Seoul to Pledis' dance practice studios.
-
Back with the boys wasn't quite as calm as the exam hall had been. Between some having fun banter on one side and a useless argument on the other, Ophely bathed in the rowdiness that often accompanied the boys practising. There was never a dull moment, especially not when it was accompanied by fried chicken and beer, chimaek could only be a meal filled with loud conversations. The youngest of them all bathed in the noise as she observed each and every one of them as they helped her clean up in their own way. Like for example the strongest putting the tables back where they had sat before, and the busy-bodies picking up the litter to put in bags
It was weird, Ophely thought then, that she was enjoying spending time with rowdy male idols that had (half of them) been hostile to her at first. And now she worked for them. She sat down, suddenly feeling faint. It was all coming to her in ways. Now that she was really there, the choice now lowly looming over her head.
She didn't see Jeonghan sit down beside her until she felt his hand rubbing her back.
"You still have time, you know." He said, seemingly looking into her head. She let herself fall against him, suddenly feeling so much pressure on her.
"I know."
"But still, you worry." His hands went around her back and pulled her closer to him in a side hug.
"Yes."
He rubbed her shoulder in confort gently, a physical opposite of what was happening around her. She watched as the boys gather in a group, playing a game she had no mind trying to decipher. Wonwoo tiredly came to the duo and lent against the wall beside Ophely on her other side.
"How well do you think you did?" He asked quietly, nearly unheard through the loud cheers of the playing group in the middle of the room.
Ophely stayed quiet, leant against Jeonghan and eyes closing on their own. She thought about her exams, distracted away from what loomed over her. She realised she was tired, really sleepy, body aching, now that she had finished. "Good." She answered. She really thought she did okay. "I am confident in many answers, just not in my literature paper. There were some names I had no idea about. But I feel good overall." She added an afterthought, "And tired."
The boys could relate, they had been in her stead a few years ago, or a bit more depending on who you asked, they knew how the pressure was. The sleepless nights and comparison to their peers. Ophely had lived it differently, working for less than a year for this event prepared for years, she had not the comparison and support of classmates as she had done it on her own.
It was no surprise to the boys that less than ten minutes later she was sleeping in Jeonghan's embrace. Not even half past eight and she was out like the light, her hair spread out around her life a soft blanket. The boys quietened down after that, they too were tired.
While Ophely had been studying hard for the exams, the boys were preparing for their comeback. Not only practising, but also filming in advance some videos for the seventeen Youtube channel, as well as vlogs of the preparations.
-
The next day, all freshened up, Ophely was with her parents one last time before the Christmas holidays. She waited for them in a café not far from their hotel to say goodbye before their flight. As she waited, she observed her surroundings, remembering how it felt just months prior. Weird. She told herself, as she overheard the couple behind her talking about their 100th day anniversary. It wasn't something she could have understood even half a year back. She was proud of herself. Yet there was this nagging feeling in the back of her mind telling her that she hadn't been supposed to be in her stead. Maybe she wasn't supposed to be forced to live in Korea and learn the language just to survive.
Again, Why her? What was the reason for all this?
"Ophely!" Her mother's joyous voice broke her out of her reverie. She gazed up to her mother's light green eyes, crow's feet appearing at the corners as she smiled, bringing her daughter in a tight embrace. Her father came in right after, turning away from the entrance to find a seat beside his youngest child.
It was bittersweet. She was just having a nice coffee date with her parents to talk over the organisation for the holidays, when she would be coming back and all. One last meal in Korea as a family.
Ophely was happy, of course, but the dilemma was still there gnawing at her mind every hour. After the holidays and her graduation, what was she going to do? Her mind was further away than it should have been from this sweet gesture from her parents. Wanting to spend time with her, yet she wasn't really there for them to enjoy her as much as they could have.
They knew. Because they were parents, they knew what their daughter was thinking about. Why her mind was away from them. But they didn't push. The only thing said was when her father hugged her as they separated after their meeting.
"Do what your guts tell you to do, what makes you happy." Before kissing the side of her temple and breaking out of the hug to finally leave the country in which his daughter had stayed for nearly a year. Ophely went to hug her mother one last time, and then they left.
The girl sat back down in the café, watching her parents make their way back to their hotel to take their luggages. And then they would be gone in two hours back on a long plane ride to France, where her family awaited them, as well as the grounds they had left to their neighbours for tending.
Ophely ordered another hot chocolate and sat back down to look over the street on the other side of the window.
It was a calmer part of Seoul, not very touristic. And the weather wasn't very grand either. People preferred hurrying down with umbrellas tightly tucked under their arm rather than stroll leisurely to watch grey clouds over the city. Once her drink in hand, Ophely took out her sketchbook and earphones, a few songs going through them as she worked on a few designs. Woozi had actually been the one to give her these few scrapped songs for her to work on. They hadn't made the cut for the last releases and he hoped that with some visuals he could rework them for upcoming projects and not let them be forgotten. Ophely agreed with the thought as all of the songs were enjoyable, so she drew what came to her mind following the lyrics and tones of the songs.
And then she was back at the dorm, helping the clean up of the apartment while the boys met up with the agency to discuss the later details of the next album.
It had become a habit already.
When had it actually become recurrent for her to discuss the designs of the boys' releases and work with them? Ophely didn't know, but the thought stayed with her for upcoming days.