A Smooth-Looking Record.

At the next math practice, Saeon stood at the table with two silver disks. Sodam stood beside them, and Dure hugged the notebook. The science observation container was behind them now.

Last time, Dure had pointed all the way down to the water at the bottom. Saeon remembered the space they had almost left blank. Today, they wanted to hear how far their friend would look.

This was the table under the arch they had seen before. Two disks sat side by side in the middle of the eight-sided, dark blue stone.

The three silver trays were empty. The three small lamps around the edge were off. All the blue cores had been put away.

Teacher Gwak Doeun stood near the disks. Dure opened the honey-colored notebook on the shelf. A wide hallway lay open behind them.

“The preparation is finished. Just change the record.”

The teacher pointed to a display beside the table.

Saeon looked at the rounded tips of the hands. Both hands were still. Low covers hid the notches around the disk edges.

“So we're not preparing it now.”

“We're looking back at a finished record.”

Saeon lowered a raised hand. There was no preparation to hurry through. They were here to write time that had already passed in another way.

Ichan's voice came from upstairs.

“Wrote it down.”

Saeon looked up. Ichan stood behind the railing, folding a short cloth strip into a measuring-tape case. A little note display floated beside it.

Saeon saw the number and turned back to the table. The original record had a two, too. Ichan had already written something. Saeon's hands were still empty.

A temporary record lit up beside the disks.

A smooth coating circled the right disk's side. No bumpy strands showed. Saeon looked at the neat display and that smooth shine together.

When they had watched one full turn before, a hundred had come to mind. This time, there were two minutes. Two hundreds seemed to make two hundred.

Saeon opened the folding board. They pointed to the left of the blank face, then the right, imagining a hundred in each spot.

“Two hundred works, right?”

There were no copied notches on the board. Looking only at the two blank places, Saeon brought their hands together. The hand starting toward the disk paused.

Above, Ichan was checking the note again. A little smile stopped. Ichan pointed to the blank after the number.

“Left out the unit. I'll fix that.”

Saeon looked up at the changed note. The same two, now followed by minutes. Now it was clear what the number recorded.

Ichan lowered a hand from the corrected display without giving the number in seconds. Saeon checked “seconds” after the two hundred again.

How could they check that minutes had really changed to seconds?

Sodam adjusted the arm of their glasses.

“Hang on. The two is minutes.”

Sodam pointed separately to the preparation record and the temporary record.

“This one's seconds. It has to be the same time.”

Dure raised an empty hand in front of their chest.

“Not yet. Hear me out, too.”

Saeon put down the open board. Dure looked from the left disk to the right, keeping fingertips outside the covers.

Amber strands appeared on both disk sides. On the left, they tangled into a round knot. On the right, they lay flat and smooth.

Two cream-colored, eye-like gaps opened in the light connecting them. The hand tips remained visible. One Tangle wrapped around both disks.

Saeon checked the right-hand shine again. At first, it had looked like a place already set correctly. That made the two hundred seconds beside it easy to believe, too.

It was a device made from a mistaken idea. The strands stayed on the disk sides. Even after Saeon lowered their hands, nothing stretched toward the hallway.

Saeon watched Dure's fingertips. The hand had paused while about to point to both disks. On Saeon's folding board were only two guesses of a hundred.

What time did the two disks hold?

“Let's hear your reason, too.”

Dure lowered the empty hand. Saeon shut the board and waited. The shallow recess at the table's front opened.

Inside were three little stone steps. The slot shaped like one more step above the highest was empty. Below the empty place at the bottom lay a separate little stone.

Saeon kept their hands outside. Last math practice, light had connected top and bottom. This time, it began moving from the little stone below.

A thin blue light climbed the edges of the steps. It passed the lowest step and went toward the empty upper slot. The gap between the small stone and stairs stayed open.

“It's going up this time.”

Sodam leaned forward a little, too. The stone did not move. No letters or patterns appeared. Only the light's direction had changed.

Saeon's eyes followed its tip to the end. At the science station, light had reached just below the upper slot. Here, it traveled from bottom to top.

The recess closed. They still had not checked the disks. Saeon turned toward Dure.

The teacher opened both low covers. Round, shallow notches appeared around the silver edges. Each hand rested at its first notch.

Instructions lit up beside the disks.

Dure pointed outside the left disk.

“The first part is here.”

The fingertip moved outside the right disk.

“When that ends, it continues here.”

Saeon looked between the hands. These were not two clocks moving together. They held the first and second parts of the same preparation time.

Both disks had equally spaced notches. Six sections of ten circled each one. Saeon remembered the hand returning to its starting point before.

Dure pointed beside the left starting notch.

“From here, one full turn.”

Saeon tapped the playback control at the table's edge. The left hand moved to the next notch. The right stayed at its starting place.

The amber strands on the left twitched. Saeon drew back a hand and watched. Each move made a little sound.

One section passed. Ten moves. The next section continued with the same spacing. Instead of choosing a big number first, Saeon counted along the notches.

Sodam pointed to seconds in the instructions.

“The same one second for every space.”

A thin cream-colored pin touched the strands on the side. The knot loosened, but the movement stayed the same. A crack opened in the smooth coating on the right.

After the final section, the left hand came around. The sixtieth sound rang. The hand stopped at its first notch.

Dure lifted the hand that had pointed left.

“The first minute. Sixty seconds.”

Soon the right hand began to move. The left stayed still. Sodam's fingertip moved to the right-hand instructions, too.

Saeon watched from the first movement on the right. The same six sections of ten. Counting the first part did not mean they could skip the second.

Dure's finger waited beside the right starting notch. When the final section ended, the hand returned there. Both disks fell quiet.

“Sixty seconds for the second part, too.”

Dure pointed to each disk in order.

“Sixty plus sixty.”

The finger moved from the left to the far right.

“We included both. One hundred twenty seconds. Finished.”

Saeon checked where both hands had stopped. There were not a hundred moves' worth of notches in one turn. Both parts ended after sixty moves.

Dure swept a hand once along the notebook page's edge and stopped at the end. The final strands on the disk sides came undone.

The smooth coating broke into cream-colored specks, too. Both silver disks remained. Three lamps around the table glowed clear cream.

The same time, shown in minutes and seconds. Saeon compared the preparation record with the new one. Both the first minute and the following minute were included.

“I put a hundred on each side.”

Saeon rested a hand on the closed board.

“One turn was sixty. So two hundred's out.”

Sodam pointed to the empty space between the records.

“Only the units are different. The time is the same.”

Saeon looked up at the teacher.

“The second part followed the first.”

Dure looked up from the disks, too.

“We counted both all the way. One hundred twenty seconds.”

The teacher waited until all three had finished, then nodded.

“Nice and clear.”

Dure set the notebook at the table's edge. Two round pressed marks remained on the open page. They held the two turns the friends had watched.

Saeon followed their outlines with their eyes. If they had closed the book after only one, part of the record would be missing, too. Dure left both marks and hugged the book.

“Got the record. Let's go.”

Sodam waited beside the open hallway. Saeon stepped that way. This time, they had waited all the way to the end of their friend's explanation.

All three were still on the lowest floor. Saeon looked up as they walked. Light that had traveled downward now rose from the little stone.

What was at the top?