The Scholarship Rules She Never Read

Mirae had never read the scholarship regulations from the beginning.

The booklet she got at admission was forty six pages, and of that, what she'd read was the payment schedule and the freeze conditions. Reading only the necessary parts had been efficient.

Yesterday's compass changed that judgment. She'd needed to tear the board apart to get a signature.

So at two in the morning she read all forty six pages from the start.

The clause was on page thirty one.

Chapter seven, item four. Individual abandonment residue generated by a scholarship student belonging to a quarterly practicum team during the practicum process shall revert to the academy as shared property.

Mirae read that sentence three times.

Individual abandonment residue. What came out of a target when Doyun used his ability. What Seorin's ability consumed when fixing a decision. And what got generated every time students gave something up during practicum.

Reverts to shared property.

By efficiency calculation, the clause wasn't bad. The academy provided practicum equipment and safety personnel, and students handed over rights to byproducts generated during practicum. It was a common contract structure.

Mirae had one standard for evaluating that kind of structure. Whether the party handing it over could later take it back.

The clause had no withdrawal item. Once residue reverted, it never returned to the original person. And the clause never defined what residue actually was.

A sentence that permanently claims an undefined object is the most dangerous kind a contract can contain.

The problem was the wording.

Mirae pulled another piece of paper from her bag. It was four years old, and it had her father's signature.

Career contract, article four. Individual achievements and ancillary rights generated by the contracting party during their course of study shall revert to the company as shared property.

Individual. Generated. Reverts to shared property.

Three parts matched. Even the word order and particles matched.

Mirae set the two papers side by side and did nothing for ten minutes.

Plenty of contracts use the same wording. There are standard forms, and legal staff recycle phrases among themselves. It could be a coincidence.

But Mirae knew what she was doing right now. She was looking for a reason to file it as coincidence.

At three in the morning she decided. She would challenge the clause. She would not mention her own contract.

The two decisions were separate, and she told herself twice that they were separate.

In the morning Mirae went looking for Seorin.

"I need a joint signature," Mirae said, skipping the greeting.

"For what." Seorin closed her morning training log.

"A request to delete chapter seven, item four of the scholarship regulations." Mirae held out a copy. Three spots were marked in highlighter.

Seorin read the clause. She read faster than Mirae did.

"How long has this been in here." Seorin's finger stopped on the revision history column.

"Revision history says four years ago."

"What happened four years ago."

Mirae's answer came half a beat late. Mirae figured Seorin had noted that half beat. Seorin was the kind of person who noted things like that.

"I don't know. I need to look into that too."

It wasn't a lie. There was one thing Mirae knew about four years ago. Her own career contract. Whether that had anything to do with this revision, she genuinely didn't know.

Putting the unknown part in front and hiding the known part behind it. Mirae also knew that was the contract technique she disliked most.

"Why me."

"I need a signature from someone who's won twice." Mirae said it honestly. That part was fine to say honestly. "With just my name, it gets rejected on the spot."

Seorin looked at the copy again. Then she asked.

"Who does this clause hurt the most right now?"

"Han Doyun."

"Then why isn't his name on here."

Mirae had expected that question. Expecting it hadn't gotten her an answer ready.

"If the person concerned files it themselves, it's treated as private interest."

"The reason my application went through yesterday was that I wasn't the person concerned." Seorin set the copy down. "But that was a reason I decided on. What you just said is a reason you decided on. Same sentence, but do you know why it sounds off coming from you?"

"... No."

"Yesterday I was able to say I had no interest in it. You haven't said that just now."

Mirae traced parentheses in the air. Then she looked at her own hand doing it.

"Seorin."

"Yeah."

"I won't say my interests are unrelated to this application." Mirae chose that sentence. Not a lie, and not the whole truth either. "But whether the clause is a problem is a fact regardless of my interests. That much can be verified."

Seorin looked at Mirae for three seconds. It was the same look she'd had watching for the direction a wall was coming from in the maze.

"So you're going with not saying it."

"Yes."

"Then I've got one condition too." Seorin picked up her pen. "If a moment comes where your interests change the outcome of this application, you tell me. Me, or the whole team."

"... Okay."

"And until then, I won't ask."

Seorin signed. Watching that signature, Mirae calculated what she'd just been given. It was a grace period. A grace period wasn't an exemption.

Filing the request took two hours. The clerk rejected it three times.

The first rejection was over the form. Mirae rewrote the form.

The second was insufficient grounds. Mirae wrote in two lines that the clause claimed a permanent right over an object it never defined.

The third went like this. This clause is linked to the academy's financial structure, so it cannot be deleted on its own.

"Then show me the linked part," Mirae said.

"That's confidential."

"If a confidential item restricts student rights, the scope of that restriction has to be disclosed." Mirae cited the academic regulation number. It was in the forty six pages she'd read at dawn.

The clerk gave her a receipt. It meant the matter would go to review, not that it would pass.

On the way out with the receipt number in hand, Doyun asked her about it.

"Why didn't you tell me about that clause?" Doyun looked at the receipt.

Mirae had known this question was coming.

"You're the person concerned."

"Shouldn't the person concerned know more, then?"

"You should know." Mirae handed him a copy. "I'm giving it to you now. The application's already been filed."

"Giving it to me after filing isn't telling me. It's notifying me."

It was an accurate point. Mirae knew where that accuracy had come from. This person had recently learned the difference between notifying and consulting.

"You're right. It's a notification." Mirae admitted it. "I'll apologize. But if I did it again, I'd do it the same way."

"Why."

"Because if you knew, I know what you'd do." Mirae looked at his left hand. "You'd go to the director. You'd say you'd take the track if he deleted this clause."

Doyun opened his mouth, then closed it.

"... I thought about it."

"Then my calculation was right."

"That's your calculation being right. It's not the same as you asking me."

Mirae wrote that sentence down on a memo pad. Team member objection, one instance. Reason, failure to give prior notice.

"I wrote it down. You can use this against me later if you object."

"I won't go that far."

"Making sure you'd have to is what the clause is for."

Doyun folded the copy and put it in his pocket. The way he folded it was a way Mirae recognized. He pressed the paper twice before folding.

"Mirae."

"Yes."

"If this clause gets deleted, who loses out."

Mirae had two answers to that question. One was the academy's finances. The other was the client institution.

"The academy. They said it's linked to a financial item."

"Not that. Besides the academy, who else."

"... That's not confirmed yet."

Doyun didn't ask further. Mirae thought she understood why he didn't, and understanding it made her more uncomfortable.

In the evening Seorin came to the dormitory. She had a stack of papers in her hand.

"Regulation appendix. I filed a viewing request with the academic office and got it." Seorin stood without taking off her shoes.

"There was an appendix?"

"It's not even listed in the main text. Only a number shows up in the revision history." Seorin set the stack down. "It got attached during the revision four years ago."

Mirae flipped through the appendix. It was eighteen pages, mostly technical items. Storage capacity, export procedures, inspection cycles.

There were numbers in the inspection cycle item. Full inspection every three years, partial inspection every week. Results of the weekly partial inspection are published as a single index.

A single index. Mirae remembered the fourteen point two Doyun had mentioned yesterday.

There were three seals on the last page.

The academy's seal. The city's disaster prevention department seal. And a third one.

Mirae's hand stopped.

The third seal had a company name on it. It was the name Mirae had seen on her career contract four years ago.

Seorin was looking at that seal. Not at Mirae.

"Have you seen this?" Seorin asked.

Mirae had no time to prepare an answer. Instead, Seorin spoke first.

"You don't have to answer. I set a condition earlier."

"... Right."

"But just one thing." Seorin pushed the appendix toward Mirae. "You keep the original copy. If I hold onto it, I get to decide when I bring it out."

Mirae took the stack. The paper was heavier than she'd expected.

After Seorin left, Mirae opened the last page of the appendix again.

There was small print under the third seal. Contracted inspection agency. A business registration number followed the company name, and Mirae had that number memorized.

It was the company her father had worked for ten years. Four years ago that company had drafted Mirae's career contract, and in the same year it had stamped its seal on this appendix.

Mirae sorted what she could calculate from what she couldn't.

What she could calculate. If the clause was deleted, the academy would lose its claim to abandonment residue. If deleted, the client institution wouldn't receive its data either. Without receiving it, the contract would shake. Her father's company's contract would shake.

What she couldn't calculate. How that shaking would reach her father.

Mirae wrote both lists on a single sheet of paper. After writing it, she didn't tear it up. If she tore it up, she'd have to calculate again next time, and calculating again might change the conclusion.

Instead she folded the paper and slipped it between the copies of the contracts. Not into the team's shared ledger, but into the inside of her own bag.

That was the choice Mirae made today, and she didn't write that choice into any ledger.