The way he deliberately drew attention was truly teacher-like.
“In the end, the car was completely destroyed. These bastards went so far as to throw chairs and desks at it.”
“…”
“What good is having CCTV in the hallway? When they’re all keeping their mouths shut, how are you going to find them? Teacher Gu went crazy and threw a fit, then ended up getting reported by the kids and transferred schools.”
Seo Juhan’s complexion also darkened at the dismal ending.
“Honestly, I thought Teacher Gu would get sued and fired. But even though he beat the kids like that, the parents didn’t say much. They can’t manage their own brats either, so they eventually gave up. Maybe they understood what Teacher Gu’s true intentions were.”
Seo Juhan, who had been nodding calmly, got to the point.
“…So that’s why you don’t bring your car either, Director.”
“Yeah. I’m scared my car will end up like that too.”
“That must be inconvenient.”
“It’s manageable. The morning air is nice because of the mountain.”
That seemed to be Yangseong School’s only advantage.
“I should buy a car later too.”
At the serious voice, Park Daekwon laughed heartily, finding something amusing.
“But don’t the kids follow you a bit, teacher?”
“…Me?”
Seo Juhan made a troubled sound as if it was absurd.
“Even though those bastards don’t seem like it, they secretly like it when young teachers come. They like it even more if they’re pretty or handsome. Why, even babies who can’t talk look at faces. These bastards are faithful to their instincts, so even more so.”
“…Half the class sleeps during my lessons, and half plays around.”
Seo Juhan quietly countered.
“Isn’t Juhan-teacher’s subject math?”
“That’s right, math.”
“Anyway, that means you’re at least conducting math class.”
“Well… I do conduct it.”
Not that anyone listens. Seo Juhan said to himself.
“Then that’s good enough. When those bastards band together, they’re so vicious. We’re the ones who get hurt instead. Have you seen a teacher getting ostracized in the classroom?”
“…”
“You haven’t, right? If you experience that, you really can’t even talk about it. How humiliating and agonizing it is.”
Park Daekwon shook his head. It seemed like he might have experienced it himself.
Seo Juhan just nodded silently.
“Someone like you should have gone to the student affairs department. Someone who knows how to cajole them. You’re the college prep class homeroom teacher now, right?”
“Ah… yes.”
Seo Juhan couldn’t agree with being called someone who knows how to cajole, but he answered the question.
“At other schools, teachers don’t want to do it because it’s hard dealing with college admissions issues. But here there’s less of that burden, so it should be manageable.”
“I suppose so.”
Seo Juhan walked along, barely answering or making words of agreement to Park Daekwon’s words.
The conversation that followed wasn’t particularly worthwhile. Park Daekwon even showed him videos of his five-year-old daughter while bragging.
Seo Juhan became a bit tired.
“See that over there?”
Park Daekwon broke the brief silence that had come as Seo Juhan closed his mouth.
Seo Juhan turned his gaze toward where Park Daekwon was pointing.
Several burial mounds sat on the sloped side of the mountain ridge. Weeds grew thickly as if they hadn’t been maintained for quite some time. A few proper tombstones stood there, but that was all. It seemed clear that visits from those honoring their ancestors’ grace had been cut off long ago.
“I heard this too, but there was a student who was rescued late at night after being buried with only his head sticking out on that mountain. In the first year Yangseong School opened.”
“…A student was buried?”
Seo Juhan’s face turned pale. It was because he involuntarily imagined the bizarre scene of just a neck sticking out from a pile of dirt.
“Yeah. That was in winter. He really almost died.”
Park Daekwon’s tone was light, but weight leaned toward it being true. The school ghost story that could have been dismissed as a floating rumor gained credibility with the single backdrop of “Yangseong School.”
“There’s also another legend about a gang fight with Sangji Technical College. Ah, but it’s no fun if I tell you everything all at once. I’ll tell you that one next time.”
“…Yes.”
Though he didn’t want to hear it, curiosity arose. The more he knew, the less he wanted to associate with them, but the tension as if standing in a scene from a crime drama sparked his curiosity.
Even in the midst of this, thinking about the day he’d spend with trash made him already feel weary. In society, they’d be the kind he wouldn’t even glance at.
Before long, the school gate came into view. Standing in front of the fence was only the student affairs teacher on morning duty. The students who had poured off the bus in a horde had probably already caused a ruckus and gone in dawdling.
Just then, a motorcycle whizzed past Seo Juhan’s side.
Seo Juhan’s gaze reflexively turned toward the source of the loud noise. It was an excellent engine sound that would stir the hearts of bike enthusiasts.
The design was distinctive enough to catch Seo Juhan’s eye even though he knew nothing about motorcycles.
A streamlined, well-shaped body in matte black. It suited racing across wilderness more than the asphalt of these country roads. The shamelessness of flaunting such an angry displacement in such a shabby place even inspired a kind of awe.
But the reason the bike caught Seo Juhan’s attention was actually something else.
“Hey bastard! Where’d you leave your helmet!”
Seo Juhan flinched at Park Daekwon’s thunderous shout. It was vocalization that seemed like it would resound all the way to the auditorium.
The bike disappeared in a flash, kicking up sand and dust without even looking back.
“Ah, that bastard really… He’ll only come to his senses when his head flies off.”
Park Daekwon let out a worried sigh.
Seo Juhan walked silently while inwardly suppressing his surprise.
The fluttering navy blue uniform jacket and the white shirt underneath. The inverted triangle back fully revealed. The long, straight navy blue uniform pants stretched out.
A neat appearance hard to find at this shithole school.
It was Go Un.
Though it was only a back view, Juhan could recognize him at a glance.
So there really are no proper students at Yangseong School after all.
The driver riding the two-wheeled vehicle looked very skilled at operating it. Seo Juhan felt somewhat deflated by the extraordinary appearance of the kid he’d thought was at least exemplary.
To think the guy wearing the title of class representative would ride a bike to school. His mind went blank with bewilderment to the point where he wondered if this was really something to be so disappointed about. It seemed he still harbored some old-fashioned fantasy about the teacher-student relationship.
“Ah, Director.”
Looking at the slowly approaching school gate, Seo Juhan suddenly spoke up.
“Last time during the broadcast assembly, you said there was a motorcycle accident last year or something…”
“That’s right. It was a huge incident. There was a triple collision at the intersection.”
Park Daekwon exhaled deeply as if filled with life’s regrets and added.
“The kid ended up dying.”
Seo Juhan sharply inhaled at the sudden obituary news. The atmosphere became solemn.
“The homeroom teacher had a really hard time then too. Reporters chased after him asking what the school did, what the teacher did, questioning him like that.”
Seo Juhan walked silently. The subject had become too heavy, so he didn’t know what to say.
“But actually, he made his own fate. What fault does the homeroom teacher have? No matter how much you tell them not to do it, if they insist on doing it, how can you stop them?”
“…”
“No matter how much they only cause trouble, when a kid from your class dies, how much of a wound is that from the homeroom teacher’s perspective? It creates trauma. That teacher also went to a psychiatrist for counseling. Now it seems like they transferred schools and are doing well… Anyway, whenever something happens, they only try to place blame, but nobody acknowledges the wounds we receive.”
“…”
“Well, things like that happened occasionally. Such extreme cases aren’t common, but it’s like an annual event that happens once every few years.”
“…I see.”
Answering, Seo Juhan became absorbed in thought.
For him, young as he was, the struggle of life and death felt like something in the distant future that felt impossibly far away. It would come someday, but if it were now, it was a world of emptiness he absolutely couldn’t accept with a clear mind.
The parents’ hearts must have been torn apart.
Though he inevitably felt disillusioned every day, saying it would be better if the Yangseong School bastards disappeared, just for that moment Juhan also mourned, if only a little.
* * *
Seo Juhan, standing in front of the teacher’s desk, flipped through the college entrance exam prep book and asked.
“Page 44… Did you open it?”
His gentle voice spread through the classroom like calm white noise.
“We’re going to look at example problem number 2. When tangent alpha plus pi over 4 equals 2, find the value of tangent alpha. I proved the addition formula for trigonometric functions last time, right? You can solve this using that too.”
Was it because it was his homeroom class, or because it was the college prep class? As expected, the class atmosphere was on the better side.
Of course, it was only a relative comparison. Most were quietly playing around, just not blatantly lying down on the floor sleeping or putting their legs up on their desks.
