Chapter 18
Chapter 18
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: The Top Student Hides Her Regression
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My locker, which I'd been using without a lock ever since breaking it open on the first day of my regression, was standing wide open.
The notebooks and textbooks inside had all been torn to shreds, and a pack of strawberry milk from the school shop had burst open and been shoved in there.
A sweet stench wafted from the locker door, which looked like it had been kicked in.
Sticky pink milk was dripping down, damaging the locker below mine as well...
My bag.
The one I'd carried all the way through high school graduation was also flung open and discarded in front of the locker. Another burst strawberry milk pack was stuffed inside it.
My reaction to seeing this mess?
'...What the hell.'
No way they bought that milk with actual money, right?
They spent 2,000 won at the school shop just to mess with me?
What, they got money to burn?
"Gasp..."
"Oh no..."
"Da-hye, you okay?"
The hallway entrance was now packed with kids. Some looked genuinely concerned, while others stared with gleeful curiosity.
"Kang Da-hye, you okay?!"
Somehow she'd caught wind of it amid the crowd. Han Ji-su came running from the bathroom clutching a whole roll of toilet paper and dropped to her knees, starting to wipe down my locker.
"I'm fine."
I took the toilet paper from her and first blocked the milk dripping downward. I pulled out a thoroughly soaked notebook, but it was so drenched it wouldn't even open.
This one's beyond saving.
I glanced around the classroom.
Near the back door close to the lockers, there was a familiar face standing with arms crossed, smirking.
Her uniform skirt shortened to the point where it was a wonder she could even walk, eyeliner drawn on like with a computer signing pen.
It was Song Yeo-reum's lackey, the one who'd appear on [High Teen Mom & Dad] about 396 days from now.
For once, not in casual clothes with a hoodie but actually wearing the uniform. I checked her name tag on her chest.
Bang Eun-ji.
...No need to ask who did this. It's obvious.
I asked quietly.
"Bang Eun-ji. Was this you?"
"What."
"Did you do this to my locker?"
"Watch your mouth."
Bang Eun-ji glared at me as I stared straight back, then spat out an insult right away.
The area around us had gone quiet in the meantime. Conscious of the eyes on her, Bang Eun-ji spat on the classroom floor.
She widened her eyes, the ones with the black lenses, and asked.
"Da-hye, why are you being such a bitch?"
Her typical thug speech wasn't scary—it was just funny.
"That's not an answer to my question."
"You a teacher or something? Gotta answer just 'cause you asked?"
"What? You don't even answer the teachers. 'Cause you don't know shit."
"Ugh."
Bang Eun-ji raised her hand threateningly, couldn't contain her rage, and kicked the door. I saw her phone in her hand—guess she got it fixed already.
After throwing her solo tantrum for a while, she glared at me for not backing down, then stopped, exhausted. She fiddled with her bangs a few times and smirked.
"Anyway, sounds like you're saying I did it."
She threw my words back at me.
"Got proof?"
"Ah."
She was turning it around like this.
Bang Eun-ji snickered.
"What, you got CCTV in the classroom? Or witnesses? Even the cops need evidence to move. Go ahead, report it. Try me."
"......"
"Pfft, total loser bitch."
Thinking my silence meant I was stumped, Bang Eun-ji hurled another insult.
Song Yeo-reum wasn't this bad, but Bang Eun-ji definitely lacked vocabulary—if she couldn't curse, she couldn't talk.
And yet she kept yapping.
My ears were rotting, so from now on, I'd apply my own filter.
"My dear friend Da-hye, remember back in middle school when you wore those Two★Star shoes to school? I publicly called you out in front of everyone that they were fakes, and you never wore them again?"
(Curses omitted)
"Looking at how you've been acting lately, I think that girl who used to strut around in Two Star knockoffs has grown up a lot. But why's your bag still the same old thing? How about buying a new one at the market where your mom makes ends meet selling tteokbokki? Your mom's slaving away all day, reeking of blood sausage from head to toe—can't she spare 100,000 won for a bag? How pitiful."
"......"
"Isn't it hilarious? Her shoes said Two Star on them, I swear. Like she was starring in [Butchery 101]. And her mom..."
I shrugged, watching Bang Eun-ji keep dragging my mom into it to piss me off.
'Constantly bringing up parents like that—must be some kind of complex.'
Actually, I knew exactly what to say to shut Bang Eun-ji up right here.
'Yeah, my mom sells tteokbokki at the market. But your mom sells something else at the karaoke bar across the street.'
That's why you avoid that road even if it kills you. Scared you'll run into her.
But I held back from saying it.
I didn't want to stoop to her level.
Instead.
"Yeah, you're right. I wore them not even knowing what they were. I don't know brands."
I admitted it coolly.
"True, I don't have money to think about buying brand shoes. But so what?"
I haven't done anything wrong. I just didn't know.
"Must be nice having money and knowing your shoes. But even if I don't have shoes, I've got more in my head than you."
"What?"
"Didn't get it? Your head's empty. It's not that you suck at studying—it's that your brain doesn't get that bullying and humiliating people like this crosses the line."
Other kids don't say hurtful things because they don't know how.
No—they know they shouldn't, so they hold back.
"You've never respected the lines everyone else naturally follows, so one day you'll cross one big-time, and society won't cut you any slack. Your ending? If things go well, [High Teen Mom & Dad]. If not, Cheongju Women's Prison?"
Go ahead and tell prison stories about how you were Jeong Eun-seong's classmate while watching him on TV—no one's gonna believe you.
Thinking that, I genuinely felt sorry for Bang Eun-ji.
She wasn't even worth getting mad at. I just looked at her pitifully.
"Who cares right now if you know shoe brands or not? What matters is what you'll be doing ten years from now. I'll have achieved my dreams by then if I start working at it now—what about you? Still gonna be judging random kids' shoes?"
"Ha..."
"Serious advice: Instead of this crap, go home and study geography. You thought Gyeongsang Province was above Seoul."
Your geography quiz—I graded it and couldn't stop shaking my head in shock.
"You saw the 'Gyeong' character above 'Seoul' on the map and thought it was Gyeongsang? Go live there sometime. It's North Korea, after all."
Live there ten years and come back to write your memoirs—I'll buy a copy.
Title: Two Star Crash Landing.
Sounds good. Fullmetal something.
Of course, Bang Eun-ji didn't understand a word I said.
She barely grasped the part about me succeeding and sneered at me.
"How's a dirt-poor loser like you gonna succeed? Win the lottery or something?"
"We'll see from now on."
"Crazy mental gymnastics..."
"Yeah. At least I've got my mind winning. What do you have?"
I looked her up and down.
"Staring all day at what random strangers carry or wear, ranking them—your head must be hell even without seeing it."
"......"
"Mind's gone, argument lost. You won nothing?"
Bang Eun-ji's face turned beet red; she couldn't continue.
You don't read a single line of a book—how could you win a war of words against me...? Read some books.
That was when.
"Hey! What the hell's going on?!"
The teachers coming up for homeroom shouted at the crowd gathered in front of our class.
The teacher from the next class over banged the wall with her pointer—tang tang tang—and the kids scattered in a panic.
"What happened...? Oh my."
Our homeroom teacher, arriving with Do-yeon, widened her eyes at my trashed locker and bag.
"...Who did this?"
Her voice dropped low with anger.
Everyone naturally turned to look at Bang Eun-ji, but.
'No evidence, though.'
As Bang Eun-ji said, no CCTV.
Leaving the locker open because nothing would get stolen was my mistake.
Annoyed, I scowled.
That was when.
"Bang Eun-ji did it."
A clear voice rang out from among the kids who hadn't scattered yet.
Someone pushed through the turning crowd and stepped forward.
It was Gyeong Se-in's friend—the girl who sat right in front of me.
"Bang Eun-ji opened Da-hye's locker, pulled out the books, stomped on them, and threw in the milk. I saw it."