The King of the School
"That guy..."
I had gotten through the first scene without a hitch, and with time still left before the next one I was sitting in a chair waiting when a man caught my eye.
A few months back, Boram unnie and I had come across a guy getting hassled by a pack of delinquents in front of a karaoke place. I'd bolted on the spot back then, so I never got a proper look at him. At first I only thought he looked similar.
The slightly hunched shoulders. The way he kept glancing around, reading the room. And how he folded in on himself the second someone raised their voice.
What were the odds that someone who looked that much like him would move the same way and have the same personality, too? I was sure of it. This was the man who'd run that day.
I stood up and walked over to talk to him. Not because I wanted to be friends. I just wanted to ask whether that same pack of punks was still giving him trouble.
A crash cut me off before I could even open my mouth. He went down hard, and the staff started laying into him at once. He didn't make a single excuse—just kept apologizing—and I felt a twinge of pity even as my brow tightened. From the way the crew was talking, he sounded about my age. He'd messed up, so getting chewed out was fair. But personal attacks? That was crossing a line.
"What's going on here?"
I couldn't listen to any more of it. I stepped in.
"Are you okay?"
I wasn't asking about the fall. I was asking about the cuts and bruises on his face. He muttered that he was fine and tried to get up, and I saw his hand go straight to his ribs. You almost never break a rib just from tripping on flat ground. This was bad. Left like this, a broken rib could punch into a lung or something worse.
"You need to get to a hospital. Now."
I tried to send him, but he shook his head and turned me down. He didn't have the money.
"Tsk. Just go. I'll cover the bill. And—"
Hospital fees I could handle.
"If those punks come after you again, tell me. I'll help."
Help, I could give him too.
"Haa... so it's going to be like this after all."
He didn't take my help. He just clutched his ribs and vanished from the set. In other words, he ran. I still don't know why, but the look on his face right before he bolted was pure shame.
"Jiwoo? Is something wrong? You've been standing here this whole time."
I'd been rooted to the same spot for a full ten minutes. We were supposed to start shooting again any second.
"Why is it always the victim who has to just take it?"
"Huh? You talking about the script? That's just how it is. Isn't that how dramas work? People lose their minds over something provocative."
"Provocative..."
He wasn't wrong. People really did love a provocative hook. The scene we were shooting now had the lead getting targeted by a delinquent and put through hell. The more she fought back, the worse it got, until she finally couldn't weather the threats and got forced out of school. The audience would feel sorry for the heroine, Kang Mirae, and they'd tear into the bully, Lee Bohyun.
"PD Oh—if today's footage actually airs, what kind of hate do you think it's going to draw?"
"Hate? You think anyone's going to trash Kang Mirae?"
"No. Not me."
"Then... Lee Bohyun?"
I nodded slightly, without a word. Oh Seok-ho scratched his chin, thought it over, and finally answered.
"Probably every curse word in the book."
"Right? Then I need to work even harder."
"Jiwoo? What do you mean by—"
"Alright! Let's shoot! I'm ready!"
I wanted to be in front of the camera right that second. I took off for the set. Oh Seok-ho watched me go.
"I have no idea what just happened, but... well, all's well that ends well. And actress Oh Hye-jung's fired up too."
He turned to the crew and called them back to work.
"We're rolling again! Lighting, props—get ready, now!"
Filming started up again. Same classroom as before, different time. About a week had passed since Kang Mirae and Lee Bohyun first met.
Lee Bohyun hadn't laid a finger on Kang Mirae. If they crossed paths, she just walked by. She never came close, not in any way. Kang Mirae wasn't an idiot. She already knew Lee Bohyun had something cooking, and it was hard to believe the girl had ever approached her just to be friends. So why the cold shoulder? The reason was simple.
She'd found a different toy.
Over that week, rumors about Lee Bohyun had flooded the school. That she'd been a notorious delinquent since middle school. That she'd greased the principal, the vice principal, even the teachers, so that nothing that happened on campus would ever come back on her. The girl at the center of all that gossip just sat at her desk reading a comic book. Any other kid who brought a comic to school would have had it ripped up on the spot. The teachers never touched Lee Bohyun, and that only made the rumors burn hotter.
This isn't the eighties.
The government had been cracking down hard on bribes lately, so Kang Mirae shook her head. There was no way.
The door scraped open, and a girl walked in trailing a rotten stench. The smell yanked every pair of eyes in the room toward her. Her uniform was caked in filth, and the garbage piled on her head reeked so badly that fruit flies were already circling it.
"Oh my... did something happen? Did someone pick on you?"
"Ah. N-no... it's nothing..."
Lee Bohyun walked right up to the girl covered in waste.
"So? Did you buy the milk I told you to get?"
"Uh... h-here.... the white milk you asked for earlier."
The girl held out a carton of white milk. The smile vanished from Lee Bohyun's face as she took it.
A wet glug spilled through the classroom. I turned around in spite of myself.
"When... did I ever tell you to buy white milk? I can't even drink white milk... Haa. Your friend asks you for one favor... and you can't even get that right?"
"I-I'm sorry... but... you really did tell me to buy white milk earlier..."
"Ha! Hey, you guys! Did I ask her to buy white milk? Huh?"
Lee Bohyun barked it at the whole class. Every kid kept their head down. Nobody backed her up. They were too busy looking anywhere else.
"See? Nobody agrees with you."
"I-I'm sorry... kyah!"
Lee Bohyun's foot drove into Yebin's side. Yebin went down hard, clutching the ribs she'd been kicked in.
"Are you insane? Let's say I did tell you to buy white milk. So you actually bring white milk? When you know I can't drink it?"
"I-I didn't know... I-I'm sorry. I won't mess up next time..."
"Look at this. You reek of milk. What are you going to do about that? Huh? Because of you, nobody else can even study in here!"
"Ghk! Kahk! S-stop... I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Lee Bohyun crouched to Yebin's eye level and started slapping her. Smack. Smack. Smack. The sound of an open palm hitting a cheek cracked through the room again and again. Yebin screamed and threw a look around the class, begging someone, anyone, for help.
Every head turned away.
The only person who answered that look was one girl.
I can't take this anymore.
A chair scraped back hard as Kang Mirae stood. She was a heartbeat from running straight to the back of the room.
"Don't. If you go now, you'll just put yourself in danger. You know that. Lee Bohyun... it's not an exaggeration to say she's already swallowed this school whole."
"So what."
"...What?"
Kang Mirae's childhood friend had always chosen safety over adventure, ever since they were kids. Of course what she was about to do would rattle him.
"Even if she's got the school in her pocket, that doesn't make it right. I'll fight that kind of evil with my own convictions. Because... that's the promise I made with my late dad."
Kang Mirae's father had been a cop who hunted the worst people society had to offer. The words he'd always had on his lips: Don't surrender your convictions. Fight by them. It was time to keep that promise.
I went straight to the back of the room and caught Lee Bohyun's wrist mid-swing.
"Stop. You can be a nouveau riche brat who bought the whole school with money... but you can't buy my heart."
That line was one I had asked writer Park Ja-wook to put in myself. Even if someone bullied you in school until you thought you were going to die, they still couldn't trample the convictions still alive in your chest. I wanted it to mean that the victim should be the one to square their shoulders—and the one doing the hurting should be the one to hang theirs.
"Ha... our new friend... doesn't know who I am yet, huh? And we're friends, right? Can't friends mess around a little? Right, Yebin?"
"Uh... y-yeah... w-we're friends... Mirae. So..."
"Hey. Speak properly."
"Kyaaah! I-I'm sorry! We're friends! Because we're friends!"
"Hey."
Even with someone standing right in front of her, Lee Bohyun didn't stop. Yebin's cheek was already swelling, and her mouth was so full she couldn't get a clean word out.
"Hey? Haa..."
Lee Bohyun, who'd been crouched on the floor, slowly stood and met my eyes for the first time.
"Looking at how cocky you are... you must come from money too, huh? So. Which company? Gangcheol? Or Hanwang? What exactly makes you this confident?"
The door scraped open. The homeroom teacher walked in.
"Alright, alright, quit playing around and sit down."
"Want me to tell you something fun?"
Lee Bohyun put her hand on my shoulder. Her face lit up like a kid who'd just found the best game in the world.
"Teach~ can we do class later? My head hurts."
"Huh? Uh, uh... you shouldn't be sick. Okay, we'll take a short break... ten minutes enough?"
"Thank you~ Teach."
The homeroom teacher left the classroom.
"See that? In this school, nobody can do a thing to me. Nobody. And listen carefully."
Lee Bohyun leaned in and whispered against my ear.
"Ha..."
I couldn't take it anymore. Watching this brat call herself the king of the school, my convictions screamed at me not to stand for it.
The result was simple. My fist went straight for Lee Bohyun's face. She took it on the jaw, completely unguarded, and hit the floor.