Honestly, was it really necessary to go this far?
He felt pathetic and wretched for venting his anger in the wrong place. Yet strangely, he couldn’t stop.
“Is your mouth hole blocked?”
“…I’m sorry.”
Though he received a reluctant apology, his mood didn’t improve at all.
“…Shit, seriously.”
Seo Juhan cursed through his teeth.
Bang!
Then he roughly slammed the door loud enough to make the apartments above and below shake.
He took off his slippers and stepped on the floor barefoot. With each step, breath poured out in faint exhilaration. A thumping sound like beating drums rang in his ears.
His life’s first illogical act of tyranny made Seo Juhan’s heart race.
There was no such thing as guilt.
* * *
Beep.
Seo Juhan, who had scanned his card, entered the bus with puffy eyes.
Today there were quite a few people sitting.
Seo Juhan, who didn’t want to run into students on his way to work, always took an early bus. And he would arrive at school before any other teachers and open the locked staff room door.
But today the space that would normally be leisurely empty was lacking. It was because he’d woken up late due to the police box visit last night followed by the delayed delivery food.
He had no choice but to take one of the remaining seats. It was right behind the bus’s back door. Every time the back door opened, the coolness of early morning would rush in against his legs.
As expected. It overlapped with school commute time. The closer they got to the final stop, the more thugs wearing student masks filled the bus.
Seo Juhan put in his earphones and stared straight out the window as if to say don’t talk to him. Perhaps because he’d eaten late and quickly fallen asleep, his stomach felt a bit heavy.
As they moved away from the city center, desolate mountains spread out on both sides.
The moving truck parked on the roadside had blue paint peeling off and was covered in rust. It was loaded with all sorts of eyesores in the back. The blue slate roof placed on the low house was tattered.
In front of it was a small field. It was hard to even call it a field because of the weeds growing haphazardly and scattered stones. Behind it, crude container-style warehouses for some kind of distribution could be seen.
Juhan’s brown eyes were indifferent since it was a scene he always saw every morning.
He was staring at the scenery emptily. A faint but clear stimulus touched his nerves. It was an acrid and foul smell spreading from behind.
Now he could easily distinguish that it was the smell of cigarettes. Seo Juhan took out his phone from his pocket. Then he used the turned-off screen as a mirror to examine the source of the stench.
As expected, guys who appeared to be Yangseong School students were occupying the very back seats of the bus. The pig with scratches on his scalp looked like a thug, and there was also a visual terrorist wearing a fluorescent tight shirt under his uniform shirt.
Their weights and outfits were all different, but they all had the common trait of being delinquent scoundrels. That itself was proof that they were Yangseong School students.
In any case, the fact that they’d climbed up on that high platform meant they were in the upper echelons of the school’s power structure. It also meant they were prospective criminals or quasi-criminals who would dominate the old downtown of Jeonghan City.
Once the bus had only their own people or underlings on it, they were brazenly enjoying their “cloud snacks” with the windows slightly open.
It made his blood boil. Seo Juhan ground his teeth and glanced at the bus driver. His face, worn with fatigue, showed no will to exercise his legitimate rights as the owner of this bus.
The stench that caused lung cancer was unbearable. Even the defensive barrier applied with cologne was useless. Seo Juhan slung the backpack that had been on his thighs over one shoulder and pressed the stop bell without hesitation.
The bus, which had just reached a stop, immediately halted.
When the back door opened, Seo Juhan jumped off the bus. Since he’d been on the verge of suffocation, he inhaled deeply enough to burst his lungs. He felt like he could live.
He calmed his mind with the pastoral countryside scenery and started walking. He could see the back end of the bus rattling away into the distance.
“Teacher Seo Juhan!”
Seo Juhan flinched at the booming voice. The sudden shout from behind penetrated the earphones with excellent noise-canceling performance.
He took the earphones out of his ears. When he turned around, Student Affairs Director Park Daekwon was walking over.
“Hello.”
Seo Juhan bowed his head while putting the earphones in their case.
“First time meeting here. How is it, is school life manageable?”
Park Daekwon came right up next to him and asked while patting his shoulder.
“Ah, yes. Just getting by…”
It was an awkward answer that didn’t even try to hide his true feelings.
Park Daekwon laughed heartily with a “Kuhaha” and slapped Seo Juhan’s back firmly.
“Just getting by, what are you talking about. I know you’re lamenting why you got assigned to a place like this. Don’t just suddenly submit a resignation letter. If things are tough, tell me they’re tough.”
“…Yes.”
Seo Juhan smiled awkwardly.
“The previous new teacher took sick leave as soon as they arrived. The school is so remote it’s not easy to find contract teachers, and it was so hard for the remaining people to fill in during that time.”
As soon as he heard that, a fierce desire to be sick somewhere welled up in Juhan. But aside from the occasional psychosomatic headaches, he was fine.
“Where do you live that you walk all the way here? Do you live nearby? Or exercising?”
“No. I usually take the bus, but I got off a little early today.”
“Ahhh.”
Park Daekwon drew out the end of his words as if he understood.
“Did the kids smoke cigarettes on the bus again?”
“Yes.”
At the firm affirmation, Park Daekwon clicked his tongue.
“If those kids listened when you talked to them, that would be stranger.”
Seo Juhan was nodding as if in agreement when he suddenly asked.
“What about you, Director? Do you walk?”
“Ah, I drive, but I park at Daerin Apartments and walk.”
“Daerin Apartments…”
Seo Juhan tilted his head, not knowing where Daerin Apartments was.
“You should see it on the way here. The one with just two buildings standing.”
“Ahh. I know.”
Seo Juhan mumbled as if he’d just realized.
Daerin Apartments was the last apartment complex on the way to Yangseong School. It was one of the scenes that passed by the bus window every day.
The two-building apartment standing bleakly on the outskirts of the city was desolate and alien. As if the units hadn’t sold out, a yellow banner fluttering in the wind advertised first-come-first-served contracts for 59 and 74 square meter units.
Considering the extremely poor school district of Yangseong School, it was natural that units wouldn’t sell out.
More than that, puzzlement grew at Park Daekwon’s words.
“But why at Daerin Apartments…”
From context, Park Daekwon wasn’t a Daerin Apartments resident, yet he was saying he deliberately left his car there.
“There was a Teacher Gu at our school last year, do you know him?”
What followed was not an answer but an out-of-the-blue question.
Seo Juhan tilted his head at the appearance of a new figure called “Teacher Gu.” Forget last year’s Teacher Gu, he didn’t even know all the names of the staff currently working at Yangseong School.
“…No.”
“You haven’t heard yet. There was Teacher Gu who came here as a new teacher in his late thirties as a late bloomer. His major was physical education.”
“I see.”
“Teacher Gu, from what I heard, had a lot of various social experience. Anyway, he was a teacher with tremendous passion. He tried so hard to make people out of kids like that.”
“Ahh…”
Seo Juhan drew out his words as if impressed, but the focus in his eyes quickly became hazy. He couldn’t become such a passionate teacher. Nor did he want to.
“But his methods were a bit crude. What era is it these days? Do kids change just because they get hit?”
Park Daekwon continued speaking while looking at the distant mountains as if recalling the past.
“He called the parents to get consent forms, then beat them pretty hard. Even kids who weren’t in his class, he lumped them all together.”
Seo Juhan imagined hitting calves with a long stick. His imagination was poor, having never been hit at school or even verbally scolded.
“Making them do push-ups was just basic, basic. He’d make them do carpet bombing on the ground and then beat them with steel pipes or something. Man, their butts became bloody messes stuck to their pants. The kids who got hit couldn’t even walk properly.”
Seo Juhan felt queasy at the scene that came to mind.
Park Daekwon continued speaking while walking alongside Seo Juhan.
“Well, they’d listen for a bit. But those bastards aren’t the type to just sit still. Teacher Gu’s car was a Grandeur. It seemed used, but anyway.”
Park Daekwon made an unnecessary addition and poured out his words in succession.
“Those guys took revenge on that car. They spit phlegm through the windows, dropped drinks and milk. The car became such a mess, even I thought I’d be pissed. But do you think the great Teacher Gu would just let it go? He searched like catching mice until he found the culprits. He did public humiliation calling it group punishment. But what do you think happened?”
