Provocation
"My sister went to this school too. Video Production Department — she graduated last year."
Minji's older sister, Pyo Min-hee, would one day become a film director.
Despite being a woman, she had a knack for hard-edged crime films and thrillers, and she'd become a star director with a remarkably consistent box office record. I'd never crossed paths with her before my regression, but now she was my senior, apparently.
"After hearing the rumors about the Chairman, I figured I had to check, so I asked her. Especially about what goes on inside the school."
The Chairman's corruption was quietly known even within the school walls, but with so many interests tangled up in it, neither teachers nor students could afford to stick their necks out.
"Setting the corruption rumors aside, the Chairman's public reputation is actually pretty good. Out there, they call him a visionary educator nurturing talent for the future of Hallyu."
"He ran a theater troupe for over thirty years and produced a whole roster of successful actors. Thanks to that, his connections in broadcasting networks and agencies run deep. Word is, when the Chairman asks for something, people practically fall over themselves to deliver."
"Geez, when I searched him up, there were tons of news stories about his charity work. He's even uploaded videos on Moutube of himself doing free performances with the students."
"My dad says he plays golf and drinks with agency CEOs and broadcasting station directors like they're his best buddies."
Each of them chimed in with a piece.
On the inside, the man reeked of rot — but he'd wrapped it up so carefully that nothing showed on the surface. In other words, we'd be dealing with a cunning, entrenched power player.
"Why can't we just gather up all the floating rumors and report him to the education office? From what I've heard, he's done plenty of dirty stuff."
That was a solution only Yujin would come up with — she hated complications.
"Some parent filed a complaint with the public reporting center, but they dragged their feet until it just fizzled out. The school went into an uproar threatening defamation suits and hounded the poor kid so badly they ended up withdrawing. That's what my sister heard, anyway."
"If that's true, that's seriously vile."
"To really expose him, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education would have to launch an audit. But he'd never sit still while something like that worked its way up the chain."
"Then we just have someone above the education office do it. I could ask my great-uncle."
Yujin's great-uncle was the chairman of Daesung Group. With his reach across business and politics, there was nothing he couldn't do in this country.
"If we were going to borrow an adult's hand, I wouldn't have bothered telling you any of this. My dad's connections would be more than enough. But that approach won't finish him off properly."
"Why not?"
"Say the audit turns up legal violations — then the police have to investigate, right? And if the Chairman lies and drags the trial out, who knows how many years that takes? Even after a verdict, he appeals. If he gets removed from his post, he files an administrative lawsuit... He will not step down before we graduate. Not a chance."
Minji had hit the nail on the head. In my past life, cutting down the Chairman alone had taken six years.
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
"We make him step down on his own. We have to make that seat impossible for him to stay in."
"So how?"
"The students join forces, defeat the evil Chairman, and cleanse the rotting, festering school. Doesn't just thinking about it give you chills? What a story!"
"......"
"Forget that idol-training-camp crap — I'm talking about making unprecedented history, becoming the first students ever to root out private school corruption with our own hands. Agh~ this is so thrilling, I can't stand it!"
"Hello? Earth to Minji!"
"Hm?"
I hauled Minji back down to earth from wherever she was beating her own drum.
"Purging private school corruption, all great, fine... but how? You're the one who said we'd do it ourselves."
"That's what we need to figure out now. That's why we're all here, isn't it?"
"What?"
"What did you say?"
"......"
So that's how I learned that Minji's drive was enormous, but she never thought past the immediate moment. Toss out the revolutionary idea, and leave the implementation to the engineering nerds — that was her whole operating philosophy.
Still, the meeting wasn't a total waste.
I'd learned about the school's inner workings from her sister — and more importantly, where the students actually stood in all of it.
"Some students are already regretting it, going 'this isn't what I enrolled for.' Of course, there are ones who try to resist too. Every now and then an exposé pops up on social media, and apparently the pressure that comes down on whoever posted it is no joke."
They'd get hauled before the discipline committee on charges of tarnishing the school's honor and slapped with punishment. Or they'd be called alone into the Chairman's office and coaxed into confessing wrongdoing in an atmosphere thick with fear. Or the school would phone their parents and threaten that their child's entertainment career would be over if this kept up.
He was so relentless about hounding people that most eventually caved and kept their heads down.
"There are teachers who toe the Chairman and the Administrative Director's line — a whole clique of them — but even they can't control every student in the school, right? So the Chairman builds a faction out of students who are loyal to him and has them keep watch."
"Students have factions too?"
"The bootlickers who ride the Chairman's coattails. The top of the food chain is the student council president."
"Kang Ji-hoon?"
"Ugh, blegh—"
The moment Yujin heard the name, she made a face like she was about to throw up. He must have made her life hell, being tied to that piece of garbage through a manufactured scandal.
"Yep. He's been glued to the Chairman's side ever since he decided he wants to debut as an idol."
So he was Chairman's line, just as I'd expected. One more reason he needed to be dealt with.
"Below him, there's one more kid to watch out for. Nothing special on paper, but dangerous."
"Who?"
"Oh Seok-tae, Practical Music Department. He's the unofficial boss of the second-years."
"The muscle?"
"When words stop working, nothing beats a fist. He's big, he's done MMA for about a year, and his classmates and juniors are terrified of him."
"Sounds like a school delinquent."
"Close enough. This senior, Hajin — he's yours."
"Why me?"
"He's been swaggering around with one year of MMA — is a master with ten supposed to just sit there? You've got to show him there's a sky above the ceiling."
And then she cackled away, going hahaha, that was a great line.
How did she even know I used to do martial arts?
"Bum-joon, you especially need to watch out. A shut-in who hides in the corner staring at his tablet all day is exactly the kind of prey that senior loves."
"Uh, uhm... I-I'll be careful."
Somehow, I had a feeling Minji's warning would be the first one to come true.
"Byun Ha-jin from the Acting Department? He's stupidly handsome. First time I've ever seen a guy better looking than Oracle Minwoo. When he acts, even our teacher goes all gooey over him. And did he used to be an athlete or something? That forearm — whew."
"There are so many pretty girls in the Practical Dance Department, but all I ever see is Yujin. Some idiot got their account nuked for posting her photo, remember? There's probably a bunch more fan accounts out there too."
"That Pyo Minji girl is insane. She already blew me away with how she handles a camera, but the dialogue she writes into her scripts? Dead on every time. She showed me a novel she wrote in middle school and I hit a wall. An actual wall."
"And Bum-joon barely talks, so I honestly thought he was mute. But the first time he sang, everyone was like — whoa, holy crap, this kid is unreal. Lives glued to his tablet, and then he goes and composes a track on the spot. That guy's crazy. Crazy about music."
Whether it was the raw genius Minji had bragged about or not, the four of us hadn't been enrolled more than a few weeks before we were being treated as some legendary four-man crew. It probably didn't help that we somehow kept ending up in a pack together.
"Hello, sunbaenim."
"Oh, uh... yeah."
I'd run into Kang Ji-hoon a few times now, and each time he forced an awkward smile and widened the distance. He hadn't actually done anything to me, but apparently something about me made him flinch on instinct.
Oh Seok-tae, on the other hand, muttered something under his breath and glared at me every single time our eyes met. He was keeping himself in check this early in the semester, but the air around him said it was only a matter of time before he tried something.
What I didn't expect was for that "something" to start with someone other than me.
.
.
.
Someone came sprinting after me, calling my name. A Practical Music girl, by the look of her, though I didn't know her name.
"Ha-jin! Ha-jin! Seok-tae sunbae is beating the crap out of Bum-joon!"
She must have seen us hanging out together, because she'd run straight to me despite being from another department. Her expression was anything but calm, and I took the stairs up to the Practical Music classroom in one breath.
Bum-joon's tablet was lying in pieces across the classroom floor. The screen went without saying — the body itself was mangled past the point of recognition.
"Bum-joon!"
"What's this? Who let a first-year up here?"
Oh Seok-tae looked at me and smirked, ugly and thin-lipped. Bum-joon sat with his head bowed before the wreckage, hollow-eyed with shock.
"That's your tablet, isn't it? What happened here?"
"Hkk... Ha-jin... *sniff*..."
He'd taken at least one punch — one of his cheeks was badly swollen.
"That was self-defense. The little freak clawed at me and tried to choke me first."
"Bum-joon would never just do that out of nowhere. What actually happened?"
"Ah, well, you see..."
He clearly had no interest in dressing it up, because the whole story spilled out of him, inflated in every direction that favored himself. Filtered down, it went something like this: he'd called for Bum-joon, Bum-joon was buried in his tablet and didn't respond, and that made him angry.
He'd grabbed for the tablet and started looming over the kid — and Bum-joon had "had a fit" and lunged at him. Startled, Seok-tae stumbled backward and dropped the tablet. When Bum-joon picked up the shattered thing and screamed, Seok-tae had hit him once, then pounded the tablet into scrap for good measure.
Bum-joon treasured that tablet beyond words. It was packed to the brim with everything he'd ever worked on. Turn it into that, and no matter how mild-mannered the kid, there was no way he wouldn't snap.
And for that, Seok-tae had thrown a punch at him — for startling him.
"Ha-jin, that song I made yesterday... I really loved that one... and it's gone. What do I do?"
He was a kid who almost never showed a change in expression, and now he was clutching my sleeve, tears welling in his eyes.
"The drop was my fault, so I'll pay for a new one. But first, don't you owe him an apology?"
A new tablet wouldn't bring back the lost work. Buying a replacement bought back nothing.
"The apology should be coming from you, sunbaenim. That's not just a tablet. It's got every song Bum-joon ever composed on it — it's the most precious thing in the world to him."
"Bullshit. How the hell would I know what's on it? If it was so damn precious, he should've answered the first time I called him! And the second!"
So he really had been genuinely furious about being ignored? Or was he posturing because he'd seen me getting friendly with the other departments?
I stared at Oh Seok-tae in silence, and his face twisted with indignation at the nerve of it.
"Oh-ho? Keep looking at me like that and you're gonna catch one too."
"Good. I was starting to want to hit you."
"The hell? This little bastard, for real."