Side Story 6
The incident in which most of the freshmen failed to endure the anatomy practical and dropped out midway caused quite a stir. The professor announced that the next day there would be a surprise test in which they would draw anatomical diagrams of the human body themselves, and that it would count for a large portion of their grades.
They had only a single day. The students, suddenly pressed for time, immediately split up into groups of acquaintances and occupied one practice room each.
The problem was the female students. Slower on their feet and fewer in number, by the time the female students heard the news and hurried downstairs in search of empty practice rooms, every single one was already full.
Asking to practice together was difficult, given the prideful clashes they had waged with one another so far. Relations on both sides were poor.
“How many hours are you going to use it?”
“We’re staying here all night.”
“Who spends an entire night doing anatomy…”
“We have to study hard too. It’s going to be reflected in our test scores.”
The female students knocked on practice room doors and tried to negotiate over usage time, but every attempt ended in failure.
As the representative of the female students, Polina knocked on the door of the last remaining practice room. The moment she saw the face that appeared when the door opened, she had a premonition of certain defeat.
“What is it?”
It was Ethan. What was more, a group of classmates could be seen behind him as well. A strong wariness had already settled over their faces, and it did not look as though they would give up the practice room, if only out of competitiveness.
“Never mind.”
Of all their classmates, he was the most difficult one for her to deal with, and she could not bring herself to ask him to yield the practice room. Nor did she want to show herself lingering or hesitating.
Polina slammed the door shut and turned away.
“Let’s just try to recall as much as we can among ourselves.”
The female students gathered in the library and spent the entire night piecing together the fragments of memory left in their minds. When someone found and borrowed an anatomical chart from the library’s collection, they even forgot where they were and let out cheers.
“I don’t think this anatomical chart is accurate…”
“And it’s too old. They must be rather careless with managing the collection.”
“Who stayed in the anatomy practice room until the end?”
“Polina was there, for one, and I was too…”
“I did stay as well, but I was far away, so I probably won’t be much help.”
They all put their heads together, drew anatomical diagrams, and practiced until their hands grew accustomed to it.
“Those people are truly stubborn. They won’t come out of the practice rooms. I suppose the smell of corpses is bearable to them.”
“They know we’ll be waiting outside, so they’ve locked the doors and are staging a sit-in.”
“Let’s just do what we can. It’s not as if this will be the only test.”
One student glanced at the night sky, now grown deep.
“It’s much too late. Going home is already out of the question.”
“I’m just going to stay up all night in the library.”
“Ah, me too.”
“Since we’re sitting here anyway, shall we all study together? We can share our notes as well.”
Since they were not staying up alone but together, one topic after another continued without end. By the time they had finished reviewing and even previewing what they could in the remaining time, dawn had come.
The female students had warm tea and biscuits for breakfast, then entered the lecture hall. They comforted one another, saying they had done their best and that it would be all right, but in truth, their expressions were not very bright. No matter how hard they had tried, they would inevitably lack detail compared to the male students, who had occupied the practice rooms and likely finished dissecting the bodies themselves. Now that the female students’ average grade was about to plummet for the first time, it was not easy to empty their minds, however much they wished to.
“What is that smell?”
As the female students entered the lecture hall to take the surprise test, they frowned and covered their noses. From the male students, who had been shut up in sealed rooms with corpses for hours, came a stench too dreadful to describe in words.
“Let’s open the windows.”
“Polina, come over here.”
Following her classmates’ gestures, Polina walked over while glancing sideways at Ethan. The man who always insisted on maintaining a neat and splendid appearance no matter what seemed not to have had the time for that today; he was wearing a wrinkled shirt and trousers.
“Now, is everyone present?”
Seeing the haggard state of the students, the professor smiled broadly.
“How nice that there are no latecomers for once. Judging by your faces, you all seem to need sleep, so if you finish the test early, you may leave and rest.”
With a swift stroke of his pen, the professor wrote down several topics. There was not a single question about anatomical diagrams. The students, bewildered by topics based on past lessons and assignments, all began murmuring at once.
“Professor, wasn’t the question for this test supposed to be drawing anatomical diagrams?”
“I hear you spent the entire night practicing in the dissection rooms. In that case, you should be able to draw the locations and shapes of the organs with your eyes closed.”
The professor burst into hearty laughter.
“And there won’t be any more students vomiting or running away during practicals, either.”
The faces of the male students, who had stayed up all night occupying the practice rooms, locked in cramped spaces while breathing in the smell of rotting corpses, twisted with irritation.
In contrast, the female students, who had rested from time to time in the clean library and studied while sharing their notes whenever they could, were in far better condition.
These are all questions from what we reviewed.
Polina stopped writing her answer and glanced at Ethan. Ethan, looking tired as he yawned and stretched, was smiling all by himself even as their classmates grumbled around him.
Ah, I see. Even if he wasted time all night in the practice room on the wrong thing, he’s confident he’ll do well on the test.
If I don’t want to lose, I’ll have to do my best. No, I must.
Polina filled her answer sheet densely.
“Wasn’t this test rather manageable?”
“Ah, seriously, those dumbfounded expressions.”
When Polina came out after finishing the test, the female students who had left before her and were chatting waved her over.
“Polina, congratulations. You’ll definitely have the best score this time.”
She had done well on the test, but such congratulations were still premature. Polina shook her head.
“I’m not sure. We won’t know that until the grades come out.”
“Come on, if it was manageable for us, it must have been even easier for you, Polina.”
“But you know. How did the professor know the students stayed up all night in the practice rooms? It’s not as if a previously announced test question has ever changed so suddenly before.”
Someone raised the question offhandedly. Now that they thought about it, no one knew the reason why the test topic had suddenly changed.
“You’re right…?”
“Could someone have gone and tipped him off?”
“No one among us went to tell him. We were all together the entire time. If anyone, it would have been one of the male students, but they had no reason to reveal a situation that was advantageous to them.”
The fact that the entire faculty was male in the first place symbolized the narrow position of women in higher education. Even if it became known that the male students had occupied the practice rooms to keep the female students in check and prevent them from entering, there was no professor who would take their side. If anything, as the saying went, blood was thicker than water; they might have gone ahead with the anatomical diagram test as planned.
“I suppose we were just lucky.”
“Well, you could tell just by looking at their faces that they’d stayed up all night. They were all wilted and musty.”
“It worked out, anyway.”
It was a little strange that everything had gone so well, but in the end, it was the female students who had benefited, so there was no need to add unnecessary words. The female students, having finished the test well, soon erased this doubt from their minds. Polina, too, did not bother thinking about it any further.
Not long afterward, the grades of the students who had finished their midterm exams were posted publicly. Polina pushed through the noisy crowd of students gathered to check their grades and searched for her name on the bulletin board. Just as her classmates had predicted, Polina’s name was positioned at the very top of the rankings.
Thank goodness.
She was feeling relieved by the result that had not betrayed her efforts when, out of nowhere, a voice slipped into her moment of vulnerability.
“Polina.”
Ethan greeted her with a smiling face.
“As expected, the top student in the medical department is Polina. I knew it would be. Do you have time now? To celebrate, why don’t the two of us go have a meal together?”
Even though his ranking had fallen because she had surpassed him, there was not the slightest trace of hesitation in Ethan’s attitude.
How can he act so unconcerned?
It was strange. Wasn’t this a situation where students split into factions over a single rank and bickered with one another? Moreover, Polina and Ethan were rivals who would have to keep competing until the day they graduated. When it was already awkward enough to see his face, he wanted to celebrate?
Why on earth?
Just imagining it made indigestion rise in her chest.
Polina stared coldly at Ethan, who wore a beaming smile across his entire face. No matter how she looked at him, he was a man she could not understand.
I have no idea what’s going on in his head. The meaning of that smile, which makes me feel so uneasy, is suspicious too.
How unlucky would the woman who marries a man like that be?
Ignoring the hand Ethan held out, Polina spun around and walked away.