English teacher Choi Namseon was a fresh young bachelor teacher in his second year after being assigned. He was so-called ‘easy prey’ for the students. As friendly and soft as he was due to the small age gap with the students, he was constantly dragged around by students during lunch time and made to buy small snacks.
At first, he spent money modestly out of affection, but the kids didn’t accept his goodwill at face value. Unlike experienced teachers, the young teacher who would eventually open his wallet after being nagged and nagged became an outright target for snack extortionists. Later, he was so harassed that he was in a situation where he hid to avoid being spotted by students.
After passing his first year when even his living expenses were extorted by students, entering his second year, he established an iron rule of ‘I will not buy snacks without any reason’ and announced it to the students.
“From now on, I’ll only buy for whoever gets first place on pop quizzes, first place in homework submission, and whoever gets the highest scores on midterms and finals.”
Booo… Naturally fierce jeers followed, but he was determined.
Among them, the one protesting most fiercely was none other than Shin Yumyeong. Yumyeong pushed back his chair with a clatter, half-rising to incite reactions.
Teacher Choi calmly steadied his mind.
‘They’re still kids, still kids.’
If you asked him to name the student who extorted the most from him, it would undoubtedly be Shin Yumyeong in first place. And that was still the case even now after applying the rules.
As soon as class ended, Yumyeong grabbed onto Teacher Choi, who had taught the last period, and clung to him.
“Teacher, today’s the day. You really have to buy it for me today. You said last time you’d buy me a hamburger if I got 100 points on the pop quiz.”
This was true. A week ago, Teacher Choi had offered a hamburger as a reward for the pop quiz, and Yumyeong was the only one who got everything right. Teacher Choi, with Yumyeong attached to his tail, struggled and took difficult steps toward the teacher’s office.
“I said I’d buy it, didn’t I? When did I ever say I wouldn’t?”
“Ah, I trust you, but you keep postponing it. Let’s set a date.”
“I’ll be in big trouble if I miss my bus. Let’s eat at lunch. Lunch. Okay?”
“No way. We have to eat school lunch at lunchtime!”
Teacher Choi, whose commute was so long, hurriedly went home every time to not miss the intercity bus. Yumyeong had sensed that if he kept postponing like this, he’d never get to eat it. He persistently followed Teacher Choi all the way to the teacher’s office.
“Teacher, you don’t have a lover and no one’s waiting for you at home, so why do you go so fast?”
“Doesn’t your class have closing homeroom? Hurry back to the classroom!”
“I’ll stand here until you finish packing up.”
Yumyeong grinned and stood his ground in front of the teacher’s office.
While Teacher Choi was clicking his tongue like that,
“Well then, kids, have a good rest of the day… Where did Yumyeong go?”
The homeroom teacher was looking at the empty seat, searching for Yumyeong. Hanju raised his hand high and made the excuse he’d prepared in advance.
“Ah, he said his stomach hurts for a moment, so he went to the nurse’s office…”
Displaying poor acting skills, Hanju broke into a cold sweat. He was annoyed at Yumyeong for making him lie, but he had no choice since he promised to get him a hamburger set as compensation.
“Oh my, really? If he’s very sick, should I tell the teacher on duty?”
“Ah, no! It’s fine. That bastard has diarrhea as a habit.”
If Yumyeong found out, he’d be disgusted, saying it had a harmful effect on maintaining his dignity. But Hanju didn’t care.
“Anyway, you guys can’t get sick. You’re already living in dorms away from home, so how much would your parents worry if you get even a little sick? Eat your three meals properly, sleep well…”
The students heard the homeroom teacher’s daily repeated worried admonitions in one ear and out the other. Meanwhile, the friend sitting in front of Hanju tapped him and spoke.
“Hey, where did Shin Yumyeong go?”
“He went after the English teacher. To get a hamburger. He said he has to catch him before he runs away home.”
“Ah, that pop quiz from before?”
Stimulated by the mention of hamburgers, another guy spoke up.
“I want some too. I’m sick of school meals, should we go eat hamburgers? Anyone want to come?”
“Count me in!”
“You bastard, you eat all the fries by yourself.”
Closing homeroom ended. At the same time the homeroom teacher left, the kids also rushed out of the classroom.
Hakyoung, who had been silently listening to that conversation beside them, quietly stood up.
And a short while later, Yumyeong was following Teacher Choi out with a delighted face. His steps were light as he headed past the stream in front of the school toward the shopping district a little distance away.
“But but teacher, can’t you buy me two hamburgers?”
“Sure, I’ll buy you about two.”
“As sets.”
Teacher Choi burst out laughing, finding Yumyeong both absurd and cute as he clung like a chick chasing a mother hen just to eat a hamburger.
“But you have to do well on this midterm. You can’t mess up like last semester.”
At those words, Yumyeong didn’t answer. His mouth was firmly shut while he hung a smile created only around his eyes. Teacher Choi was anxious because it clearly wasn’t a face that would obediently listen.
Yumyeong was an excellent student. No one doubted that he was brilliant.
However, slowly signs of his grades collapsing appeared, and in the final exam of the second semester of first year, he recorded 80th place in the entire school. Since the school had a total of just over a hundred students per grade, 80th place meant it was faster to count from the bottom. The entire school was abuzz at the grades where the school’s top student plummeted from 1st place in the entire school to 80th in an instant.
Around the same time, he got involved in a violence incident, so evaluations of Yumyeong split extremely. Some teachers were disappointed, calling him a pathetic guy who only believed in being smart, and cut off their interest, while some teachers thought there must be a reason and coaxed and cajoled Yumyeong, looking for the cause of his deviation. Teacher Choi was the latter.
“If I get first place in English, what will you do for me?”
At those words, Teacher Choi let out a deep sigh.
“Do you only study if there’s a reward?”
“Of course. Why would I study when there’s nothing to gain?”
“When I was in high school, I had no idea why I had to study either. It all just sounded like nagging. When I was doing it on my own, they told me to do more, so I just got annoyed. But the time you spent studying then becomes your asset and leads to diligence in whatever you do later. Studying is good for you, not for me, right? In the end, it’s all for your future…”
It was before Teacher Choi could even finish speaking. Yumyeong, who had been walking side by side, suddenly dashed off. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the crosswalk where the green light was blinking, then stopped on the opposite side.
Teacher Choi was helplessly caught by the signal and the two faced each other. Yumyeong, who had effectively blocked the nagging, leaned against the traffic light on the other side and grinned.
“Teacher! If I get first place, buy me a laptop! If you offer a laptop, I’ll work hard.”
Now he’s even eyeing my salary.
Teacher Choi laughed as if insane, dumbfounded.
Arriving at the hamburger shop, Yumyeong quickly picked two hamburger sets in the flavors he liked.
“Aren’t you eating, teacher? Let’s eat together.”
“If I eat and then go, I’ll be late. The bus intervals are long. Take it and eat it at the dorm.”
It seemed his words about needing to get home quickly weren’t a lie. It was a bit disappointing, but since Yumyeong had gained hamburgers, he decided to obediently send the teacher home.
“Then buy me cheese sticks too.”
Seeing Yumyeong smiling brightly while holding the hot hamburger package that came out quickly, Teacher Choi smiled bitterly. Sometimes he seemed to be playing on top of the teachers’ heads, but the sight of him being happy over a hamburger was unmistakably a high school student. When Teacher Choi pressed down hard on that fine-textured head and roughly tousled it, Yumyeong made an “Ah!” sound and dodged.
“Eat heartily and study hard.”
“Always ending every sentence with study, study…”
“Because someone who can do it isn’t doing it! You got rejected by Heeun, right? Girls also like guys who study well.”
“I’ll take care of it myself.”
Yumyeong made an abruptly sulky expression and swept out of the hamburger shop. Even so, he stopped at the bus stop and waited together, eating cheese sticks until Teacher Choi’s bus came.
Thinking this is why you can’t hate the kids, Teacher Choi boarded the bus. Then, outside the car window, he waved back at Yumyeong, who was standing at the stop waving at him.
***
After the bus left, the expression smoothly disappeared from Yumyeong’s face as he remained alone at the stop. His eyes that seemed to be blankly staring at the road across from him weren’t actually looking at anything.
‘For the future.’
Among the purposes of studying, there was probably no reward as vague as that. Yumyeong thought.
He wasn’t ignoring the teacher’s words. However, it wasn’t as if everyone who graduated from prestigious universities succeeded. In the first place, the standard of happiness couldn’t be seen as being in success. So sacrificing the present for the vague reward of ‘success’ that might follow in the future felt foolish.
Rather, it was much easier to understand having rewards that were visible and tangible.
The reason Yumyeong had worked hard until now was because his parents wanted him to. Because rewards of parental recognition and praise followed, Yumyeong felt a reason to exist as an excellent student.
However, from a certain point, his parents, especially his father, gradually began to give up expectations for Yumyeong. From the time his younger sibling was born, the process of affection moving from him to the sibling was blatantly visible. He’d felt faint discrimination from the beginning, but if in the past they at least pretended to give affection equally, now they’d thrown away even that pretense. That gradually bruised Yumyeong’s heart.
