I’m screwed…
Seongyeom stared at Yi Cheong and Seoldong lying tangled together on one bed with empty eyes.
Where had his spirit of earning a large sum of money gone? Less than five minutes after entering the kids’ room, Seongyeom went back to find their boss.
I momentarily lost my mind over the big money earlier… If you’ll just let me off this once, I’ll act like I saw nothing and heard nothing and live quietly like a dead mouse, he’d said.
But the answer that came back was merciless.
“Haah…”
Seongyeom let out a deep sigh.
“Why did he ask about my eyesight and blood type… So scary… Haha… Hahahaha…”
As Seongyeom laughed emptily, something hot welled up in his chest. It wasn’t some sense of mission as a prospective educator. It was 100% pure, concentrated survival instinct.
“Hey, you two.”
At his cracked voice, the two’s gazes turned to Seongyeom. Seongyeom gripped the workbook tightly with trembling hands.
“I just met your hyung-nim… no, the Boss, you know? And his eyes, wow. This is real.”
Seongyeom recalled the earlier conversation with a face like he’d just high-fived the grim reaper.
“If your grades don’t go up, he told me to take responsibility. But that responsibility, it’s not something that ends with writing some statement. You saw your hyung-nim’s eyes, right? They were eyes that had already calculated in his head whether to bury me in the mountains or throw me in the sea. It felt like I’d completely disappear without a trace, very cleanly!”
“…Do you take any medication?”
Yi Cheong sat up as if he was used to it and asked. When he showed interest, Seoldong also hugged Yi Cheong’s waist and looked back at Seongyeom. Seongyeom took another step forward. His bloodshot eyes were filled with broken capillaries, and spasms ran through the corners of his mouth.
“I’m scared! I said I’m scared! I almost wrote my will just now! Hey, you tried to throw a dart earlier, right? Just throw it! Shoot! Kill me! It seems way more humane to go cleanly here at your hands!”
Seongyeom cried out while pounding his chest. At the desperate, almost insane scream, Seoldong picked up his phone and pressed the record button.
“I want to live, kids. I haven’t even paid off all my student loans yet, and I haven’t finished paying for our Poppi’s patella surgery either. So please… please let’s just study. Hm? I’ll teach you well. Math? Science? What’s the problem? Huh? If you learn from me, there’s absolutely no way we’ll all die together from your hyung-nim’s glare! I really guarantee it!”
Seongyeom’s momentum was like that of a cornered mouse just before it bites the cat. Cheong and Seoldong swallowed dryly. They’d chased away numerous tutors every exam period, but this was the first time they’d seen a tutor gone crazy with fear.
That wasn’t acting. It was a vibe only someone who’d truly tasted the fear of death could emit.
‘…Hyung, is he serious this time?’
‘Knowing the Boss’s personality, he might really bury him.’
Seoldong quietly lowered his phone. Siwon’s vicious smile flashed through the two boys’ minds. Just imagining what kind of discipline awaited them made them gulp.
“…Ah, fine. We’ll just do it.”
Finally, pretending to give in, Cheong grumbled and got up from the bed, walked over to the folding table Seongyeom had set up, and sat down. Seoldong also got up awkwardly.
“We’re only doing one page, right?”
“Yes, yes! I’ll teach you the important stuff!”
Seongyeom’s tearful struggle for survival was opening its curtain.
***
“Can you solve this?”
“…?”
When he pointed out one problem, Seoldong, who’d been quietly looking down at the book, had his expression crumple viciously. Seongyeom knew that expression. It reminded him of a humanities major friend who said just looking at math formulas made him nauseous.
What, don’t tell me he can’t solve this?!
Like Seoldong, Seongyeom’s expression also rapidly became serious.
“Then, can you bring me a workbook you’re currently using?”
“Gae Seoldong, look at this!”
“Yeah. Cheong. You called?”
“S-Seoldong?”
Cheong’s attention span was really just enough for one page. As soon as one side was over, Cheong went back to the bed and pulled out his game console. Seoldong pretended to listen to Seongyeom’s words and approached Yi Cheong.
Those bastards…
If it were up to him, he’d love to give Choi Seoldong a good smack on the back of the head, but this was a gangster den. Seongyeom swallowed his saliva instead of cursing.
Strategy 1. Ask about them in a gentle tone!
“You guys, have you decided which university you want to go to? There’s less than a year left until the college entrance exam.”
“…”
“…”
Fuck. They’re not even pretending to listen.
Strategy 2. Fire off a business smile that gives tons of trust!
Seongyeom sent an affectionate gaze toward the two high schoolers. Regardless, the two were busy focusing on the game screen. Having apparently reached the highest score, Choi Seoldong cheered while lying sprawled next to Cheong.
Yeah, cheer a lot while you can… From now on, you’ll only be screaming going crazy over college entrance exams…
Seongyeom suppressed his escaping sigh and got up from his seat. When he approached Seoldong and Cheong’s side, he saw a backpack shoved under the bed. Inside it was a single notebook that had gotten wet and dried all wrinkled, a mechanical pencil, and an eraser just sitting there without even a pencil case.
“…”
He also opened the small backpack next to it, which was a grayish sky blue. This time, it contained proper third-year high school workbooks, a ‘basic theory book’, and practice test papers. On the test paper cover, ‘Kwon Yi Cheong’ was written neatly.
So Cheong does study a bit.
The Korean test was 70 points. For math, there were traces of him agonizing with a pencil here and there, seemingly stuck on calculus, but with a score of 80, he could aim for grades 1 or 2 with just a bit more effort.
“What are you doing? Why are you rummaging through someone else’s bag?”
When he looked toward where the voice came from, Yi Cheong was looking down with a frown. However, Seongyeom didn’t care and took out the crumpled notebook from Seoldong’s bag and flipped through it.
“There’s not a single proper note. You always fall asleep during class, don’t you?”
“…What does that have to do with you, Teacher?”
Good.
Since he called him ‘teacher’, it seemed he didn’t plan to completely ignore Seongyeom. Seongyeom, feeling a bit more confident, held up Yi Cheong’s test paper.
“I see Cheong studies a bit. Choi Seoldong, you’re pretty serious. This isn’t the time to be playing games with Yi Cheong.”
Seoldong, who’d been pouting his lips, picked up a stuffed animal next to the pillow.
“Ah, forget it. I’m not going to university.”
“What will you do if you don’t go to university?”
“I’ll work under the Boss.”
Seongyeom inwardly scoffed. What’s so good about becoming a gangster?
Pretending to listen to Seoldong’s words, he placed the kids’ books and test papers on the table. He’d only bought advanced workbooks, but seeing Seoldong, it seemed they wouldn’t be useful. Instead of the workbook he brought, he opened Yi Cheong’s textbook and wrote down basic concepts in Seoldong’s wrinkled but almost new notebook.
Perhaps curious about Seongyeom’s actions as he silently wrote something, the beeping game console sounds had disappeared at some point. Seongyeom could tell the kids were watching his actions even without looking back.
“Now, Choi Seoldong. First, memorize just this notebook by heart.”
“Ah, really…”
Seongyeom, who’d been speaking in a deliberately stern voice, belatedly discovered a baseball bat placed next to the bed ladder. …His heart suddenly started pounding.
He wouldn’t hit me with that just because I hurt his feelings, right? Seongyeom tried hard to maintain a confident attitude.
“Gangsters need to be smart too. Didn’t you know? Who would hire kids like you with mediocre grades and no promise? Do you think your boss is a charity worker? To bother keeping two idiots.”
“…”
“The basics of organizational life is hierarchical order. Are you trying to disobey a superior’s orders already?”
“That’s not it…!”
“Your boss acknowledged me as a teacher, and I have a duty to report your class attitude.”
Overwhelmed by the barrage of correct statements, the two reluctantly got up from the bed again and plopped down in front of the folding table.
Seongyeom suppressed a laugh about to escape and handed the notebook to Seoldong and the advanced workbook to Cheong.
Ah, they’re kind of cute. Both are still young after all.
Now that Seoldong and Cheong had yielded once, Seongyeom expected that the class would proceed smoothly from here.
“Aren’t you going to study?”
Smooth my ass.
Both just stared blankly at the books without ever bending their final pride.
Can’t help it, it’s the last resort. Seongyeom got up from his seat as if he couldn’t stand it anymore and walked toward the door. He also didn’t forget to drop his shoulders with a big sigh to scare the two.
“What, where are you going?!”
When he grabbed the doorknob, a voice flew urgently and grabbed Seongyeom’s ankle. Seongyeom lowered his gaze pointedly and bit his lip.
“I’m going to the Boss to report the situation. Since you two have absolutely no intention of cooperating with the class, I can’t do much more than this either. It’s okay. What more can happen than death…?”
At Seongyeom’s wistful expression, Yi Cheong glared with a sick-of-it face.
“Ah, we’ll do it! We’ll study!”
Yi Cheong and Seoldong grabbed random mechanical pencils from their pencil case and started reading the problems with their noses buried in the books. At the two high schoolers’ cute appearance, Seongyeom suppressed the laughter about to burst out and sat back down in front of the folding table.
As expected, Seoldong had no basics at all. When he read “music” as “mu-si-keu,” Seongyeom felt like he was facing a huge mountain from the first day. Every time he taught the pure-brained Seoldong, Seongyeom felt a kind of wonder.
“Let’s stop here for today. Cheong, if there’s anything you don’t know, check it. Seoldong, look at your notebook often whenever you have time.”
He was completely exhausted in those two hours. Trudging out of the room, Seongyeom looked out the window. The sun was already setting.
