After escaping from the cafeteria, Seo Juhan wandered aimlessly around the school grounds, lost in thought.
Hot sunlight poured down on his brown crown, but he didn’t even notice the heat. Faintly seeping sweat made his t-shirt sticky.
When he felt a burning thirst, Seo Juhan spotted Student Affairs Director Park Daekwon.
He was standing at the wall behind the school. Since there was a ledge to grab onto making it easy to climb over, it was the most preferred spot for those wanting to escape.
“Teacher.”
Seo Juhan approached Park Daekwon while speaking.
“Oh, Juhan-ssaem.”
Park Daekwon, who had been looking at his phone, raised his head.
“Are you busy?”
“No. Why?”
“Well…”
Seo Juhan hesitated while wiping the sweat from his nape, then asked.
“There’s a student named Go Un in my class, do you know him? He’s also the class representative, and he studies pretty well, so I’m curious what kind of kid he is.”
“Of course. I know him well. Who in this school doesn’t know him?”
Park Daekwon answered gruffly while putting his phone in his back pocket.
Seo Juhan’s chest cooled chillingly. It felt like what was coming had come. Park Daekwon’s manner, which seemed to wonder why he was only asking now, amplified Seo Juhan’s anxiety.
Seo Juhan deliberately opened his mouth calmly.
“FunEat Burger… his family runs a handmade burger franchise and it seems like he sometimes helps with deliveries.”
“That’s right. I saw him once when I took the kids there at night.”
This much he already knew.
Seo Juhan nodded silently and spoke carefully.
“But I saw that he took a year off from school in middle school. Well, he said he was in a traffic accident before…”
“Ah. Right. But he didn’t get into a traffic accident, he caused one.”
As expected, he must have been riding a bike around since his green youth.
“What kind of accident was it…”
Seo Juhan asked almost with certainty. He probably wasn’t even punished since he was a juvenile offender. He suspected whether he might have injured an innocent person.
“Yeah. You still didn’t know? The teachers next to you didn’t tell you? It was a really famous incident here in Jeonghan City. I didn’t say anything thinking you’d naturally know.”
Park Daekwon seemed a little surprised.
“No. Maybe it was better not to know. He has changed a lot now.”
He muttered as if talking to himself, creating impatience.
“He stole his dad’s car and caused an accident.”
Park Daekwon blurted out.
“…”
At the nonchalant tone, Seo Juhan was rather at a loss for words.
“It was in the news headlines that he drove all over the highway. At least he crashed into a guardrail so he didn’t kill anyone, just got hurt himself, thank goodness.”
Seo Juhan’s heartbeat gradually grew frighteningly loud. Loud enough to hear in his ears.
Park Daekwon clicked his tongue and continued with a worried look.
“At least he’s become somewhat human now. Why? Go Un, did he start up again? Did something happen?”
“No, it’s not that…”
He did commit shameless acts too unspeakable for me to even mention.
“If you have difficult problems, don’t try to solve them alone and tell people around you. Otherwise, it’ll only make the problem bigger and more complicated.”
Park Daekwon’s voice filled with concern struck Juhan’s heartstrings. He was even moved.
“…Yes.”
But Seo Juhan lowered his gaze and closed his mouth.
Unless a cleaver flew at his neck, he couldn’t say it with his own mouth. No, he’d rather just have his neck cut off.
“Still, doesn’t the kid kind of follow you, Juhan-ssaem?”
“Ah… Yes?”
The brown eyes that had been drawn to the strange drawing on the wall turned toward Park Daekwon.
“When I passed through the hallway before, it seemed like he was studying pretty hard.”
“…He does study… hard.”
Seo Juhan reluctantly agreed. That was relatively speaking. A gloomy air seeped into his pale face.
“Well, his original personality wouldn’t go anywhere.”
Park Daekwon looked at such Seo Juhan pitifully while quietly beginning.
“He was famous at the high school he attended before coming to Yangseong School too. There were even rumors that he deliberately dropped out because he was going to be expelled.”
“…”
“Teacher, you also came to the school this year so everything’s new, so of course it’s difficult to deal with kids like that. So don’t suddenly go to the principal’s office with a resignation letter, and if you have hard times, talk about it.”
“…Yes.”
Seo Juhan’s complexion, already pale, became even paler as if mummified.
“But compared to before, now he’s completely transformed?”
As if frustrated by such silence, Park Daekwon spoke cheerfully as if trying to change the atmosphere.
“This is something people don’t know well, so only Juhan-ssaem should know. By any chance, do you know ‘Club Carnival’ in Gangnam?”
Park Daekwon whispered as if sharing a secret story.
Seo Juhan nodded slightly while feeling déjà vu.
“Yes.”
“Oh. Juhan-ssaem goes to places like that too. You don’t seem the type, that’s unexpected.”
Park Daekwon grinned, splitting his lips. It was an attitude as if cooing over a fresh young person.
“It’s not that… I saw it on the news before.”
Seo Juhan shook his head lightly.
There was once when he was led by friends’ hands down the dark underground stairs heading to a club. And that was definitely the worst experience.
The explosive speaker noise that seemed to tear eardrums, the frantic lasers firing indiscriminately, the population density that felt like being crushed to death.
The worst among them were those who rudely entered his personal space without permission and rubbed and pressed their bodies against him.
After that, even during his bright university days, Seo Juhan cut ties with not only clubs but all entertainment districts with clubs, but because of that experience, he knew about Club Carnival.
“It became widely known for the drug incident.”
It wasn’t because of rumors about the good scene, but because of the atrocities revealed to the world through a current affairs exposé program.
Club Carnival was the source of evil that had secretly and illegally distributed drugs with even the MD involved.
Unlike becoming the topic of public interest, once public attention cooled, he didn’t really know what conclusion it reached. He thought it was probably brazenly resuming business while generating massive profits that escaped taxation.
“Right, right. The ones who reported that were Go Un’s parents.”
Park Daekwon grinned and whispered.
“…Go Un’s parents?”
Seo Juhan’s eyes widened.
Park Daekwon glanced around and spoke quietly in a rough voice.
“Yeah. A young kid going in and out of clubs all the time, how could his mom not be angry and stand it? But since she couldn’t handle the kid, she targeted that place instead.”
“…How does a minor go to a club?”
Seo Juhan frowned as if truly unable to understand.
“You know his family is really well-off, right?”
“…Yes.”
“He must have taken his mom’s card. A VIP customer who swipes ten million won every visit—would they refuse that? They must have welcomed him delightedly.”
“Ten million won…”
He was at a loss for words at the reckless behavior that would only appear in movies.
Seo Juhan’s complexion turned pale, but Park Daekwon continued matter-of-factly.
“His mom must have lost it too. They let in a minor and he spent money like water. But since she couldn’t do anything about her own child, she caused a ruckus saying she’d shut down the club. She reported them everywhere. That place had lots of problems with drugs and prostitution too.”
Park Daekwon clicked his tongue and continued.
“Anyway, they say his mom brought personnel and dragged Go Un out from inside the club. They forcibly loaded him into a private ambulance service and sent him away.”
“…”
“Did he go to some convalescent ward in the suburbs? Or was he confined in a mental hospital…”
He really was a psycho.
It wasn’t an empty statement when he said mental hospitals were no fun. Now thinking back, he seemed to have acknowledged it too calmly.
“Anyway, it seems like he came to his senses from that point on. Ah, the funniest part was that in the midst of all that, they sent an absence note asking to approve his attendance. Really, I was amazed at Korea’s passion for education.”
Park Daekwon laughed heartily as if he’d told a very funny story.
In contrast, Seo Juhan stiffened as if he’d heard grievous news.
His thoughts reached the point that Go Un must have enjoyed not only drugs but promiscuous sex life at the time. The habit of carelessly playing with the thing between his legs didn’t seem to have been formed just yesterday or today. He felt like vomiting at the fact that something like a rag used countless times had freely entered and exited his own body.
It was the worst. He’d broken through the surface and been buried underground with nowhere further to fall.
The wealth and fortune that had been rotting and overflowing since infancy must have created such a psychopath.
Even the faint humanity remaining inside Seo Juhan completely evaporated.
