The Confrontation I Could Never Attend
I wasn’t the only one stunned by Ma Haejin’s sudden choice of words. The other teachers were staring at one another’s faces, cold sweat beading as they scrambled to interpret what she meant.
If Eom Chaewon had been here, could she have decoded it for me? But the Ma Haejin I knew didn’t strike me as the type to force young slang or memes just to seem hip.
“Ms. Ma? Could you explain in a little more detail?”
“It means exactly what it says—the formula that produces the result is the same. Kids aren’t brainless idiots you just feed fragmentary information and stuff full, you know? Everyone has their own system for organizing their thoughts. It’s just a little clumsier than ours. You’ve all studied educational theory quite a bit, so why are you acting like this? Ah! Is it because you came in through the back door without taking the exam that you don’t know these things?”
“...”
While explaining her theory, Ma Haejin also delivered a scathing jab at the private school foundation’s unique hiring practices. And that was strange in its own right.
It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to rank the teachers. But a “counseling teacher” always carried a bit of a side-role feel, didn’t it?
Yet here was Ma Haejin, a mere counseling teacher, openly insulting them, and not a single person could easily open their mouth. Of course they weren’t free of resentment, but they seemed to think that talking back would only hurt themselves.
As if no one could beat her with words.
“So what you’re saying is that what the kids copied wasn’t the pledges themselves, but a kind of mechanism that produces those pledges?”
“Exactly. When you solve a math problem with the same formula, you get the same answer, right? The plan and direction for running the election, the goals and values they pursue—unless all of those overlap, there’s no way the results could come out this identical.”
At first glance it sounded like a forced string of nonsense. But as someone who knew the full truth, I couldn’t help being drawn in.
Because she had hit the exact answer. The reason the two teams’ pledges were the same was that the same person had made them.
Think about the process I used to create those pledges. As an election specialist, I had set up my own system and then cherry-picked only the most advantageous points to craft them.
In other words, there had been a mechanism. So Ma Haejin had simply reached a deeper conclusion; ultimately she had pierced the truth.
“So, Ms. Ma, who do you think copied whom?”
“Who copied whom? They’re just kids. They’re far too pure to steal someone else’s proposal and climb the ladder like certain people here.”
“Ms.—Ms. Ma? Could you please refrain from remarks unrelated to the meeting?”
Principal Lee Jaeseong, sweating profusely, tried to rein in her comments. At the same time, the face of foundation director Park Jiwon, who had been observing the meeting from the back, instantly hardened.
It felt as if some massive internal whistle-blowing had just taken place. Of course it was nothing more than vague, cloud-catching talk, and the less experienced teachers like Ms. Eunju seemed not to understand a word of it.
“So do you have a countermeasure?”
“Simple. Call in the people who can be considered the originators of each set of pledges and put them through a confrontation interview. The father of the student named Harin, and that senior who supposedly gave the pledges to Eunju—summon both of them to school tomorrow for a face-to-face. Then the answer will come out, won’t it?”
Murmurs rippled through the room...
She had wandered a bit off the path in the middle, but it was still a rather clear answer. The problem was that the answer was simultaneously choking my neck and sending me straight into the abyss.
Because that confrontation interview was impossible from the start.
“T-Teacher? You’re not seriously going to do that, right?”
I asked Ms. Eunju on the off chance. But Ms. Eunju, who had no idea what was going on inside me, just beamed.
“That’s what we decided. But isn’t it actually a good thing? You and Harin’s father can both come to school tomorrow and explain everything, right?”
“...”
That won’t work! They’re both the same “me”—how am I supposed to summon them to the same place?
Even if I made a huge concession and one of them could show up, the moment that happened the other would be confirmed as a plagiarist.
“I-It might be difficult, Teacher. From what I’ve heard, my fifteenth-cousin once-removed is insanely busy with work and can barely spare any free time.”
“But if his own daughter were in crisis, wouldn’t he try to come? When I spoke with him before, he seemed to love Harin more than anyone.”
“That’s true, of course, but this is a bit... So what did you do, Teacher?”
“I already told Harin and Eunju about the confrontation interview tomorrow.”
“...”
So that was why my phone had been vibrating nonstop like it was on fire. This was a complete disaster!
First of all, Ban Chulgyu—Timo of the A-Team and Harin’s sixteenth-cousin once-removed—absolutely could not attend that interview. The moment they called someone who wasn’t even on the school register, sirens would blare! I’d be tangled up in the worst criminal incident since the school was founded.
But if I came as Harin’s father, someone would inevitably see me. If the high-school-boy cosplay I’d been doing all this time was exposed, the father-daughter relationship would be completely ruined regardless of the election results!
“T-Teacher? Let me meet with my fifteenth-cousin once-removed first and talk it over, so could you wait just a little?”
“B-But we’ve already decided to call both of them tomorrow...”
“Haa... I’ll contact you even if it’s late at night, so please stay up a little later tonight. Of course I know beauties are sleepyheads, but this is such an emergency...”
“Aah... If you suddenly say something like that...”
“...”
She must have heard she was pretty countless times in her life—why was she getting so flustered? Anyway, right now wasn’t the time to be fishing for favor with Ms. Eunju.
I had to find some way—any way—to dodge tomorrow’s confrontation interview!
But there was no such thing. All the way home my head felt like fog had filled it; I just stared blankly until I finally managed to open the front door.
“You’re back?”
“Huh? You didn’t go to the library?”
Harin was waiting for me again today. Sitting curled up on the sofa in the exact same posture as yesterday.
Thank goodness I’d changed clothes just in case. But why was Harin waiting for me today?
She kept glancing at me sideways... sideways...
She was only reading the room and saying nothing else. I could roughly guess the reason.
This kid wanted to talk about the confrontation interview. Her election team was in crisis, so she wanted to use the “dad card” she hated showing in front of others so much, just to break through the crisis.
“Do you have something to say?”
“No.”
“N-No? That can’t be right.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well...”
Because if she wasn’t going to ask me to come to school tomorrow, there was no reason for her to be waiting here. But I wasn’t the only one playing the reading-the-room game.
“Did you... get any kind of contact from your homeroom teacher today?”
“Huh?”
Why was she asking that? At my request, Ms. Eunju still hadn’t contacted anyone. Yet if Harin was the one bringing it up first...
This kid was planning to keep me from coming to school.
That was why she was asking whether I’d heard from Ms. Eunju without revealing the confrontation interview herself. In other words, Harin was prepared to lose the election if it meant not calling me to school.
But why? Was my having Saiyan Syndrome that embarrassing to her?
Embarrassing enough to abandon an election she’d prepared for days on end, enough to resign herself to disappointing the friends who’d worked hard with her?
“Actually, I did get a call. They asked me to come to school tomorrow and explain something about those pledges or whatever.”
“Don’t come.”
“Don’t come? Harin, I don’t fully understand the situation, but if I don’t go, won’t you be at a huge disadvantage?”
“It’s not like that. You don’t have to come. Absolutely don’t come.”
“...”
Harin repeated the words three times, demanding I not attend tomorrow’s confrontation interview. But why had she made that decision?
Harin didn’t know that both teams’ pledges had come from me. In other words, she believed that if I didn’t go to the interview tomorrow, Eunju’s side would win.
And yet she was willing to accept defeat. Jihye and Thuy would probably be deeply disappointed and she might lose the few friends she had, but she still insisted she hated the idea of me going to school more than anything.
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t want to put any burden on you. It’s just a student council president election, after all. So absolutely don’t come. There’s no need.”
“...”
Don’t you think you’re the one putting an even bigger burden on me? If one of the two absolutely had to attend the interview, it would have to be Harin’s father.
Because that one was the real one. After all, Ban Chulgyu—Timo of the A-Team and your sixteenth-cousin once-removed—was a nonexistent person.
From the beginning the person who would go to the interview had been decided, and so had the winner of the election.
The only problem was the extreme internal conflict caused by my own mistake. And yet Harin’s side had been the first to exercise a veto.
Do you really think I’ll accept that proposal as your father?
“All right.”
“Hoo... Then I’m going to the library.”
Harin finally looked relieved and went back to her room. How was I supposed to take this?
Was it really what a father should do—to drive Harin into suffering just because of Saiyan Syndrome? If I abandoned her for Eunju, who didn’t share a single drop of blood with me, would my heart really feel at ease?
A little past ten at night, I waited at the bus stop for Eunju to arrive.
Eunju had also contacted me several times by phone and text about tomorrow’s confrontation interview. The difference was that Harin had opposed my participation because she didn’t want to burden me, while Eunju desperately wanted me to be there.
That wasn’t something to criticize. Eunju simply wanted to claim her rights fairly.
Compared to Harin, who was only a supporter, it went without saying that Eunju—the actual candidate—would feel more urgency.
Screech...
Meanwhile the bus arrived. Eunju must have already spotted me through the window; she got off without any look of surprise and walked over.
“Why didn’t you answer any of my calls? What on earth did I do wrong?”
“It’s nothing. It’s quiet today—can we just talk here instead of going somewhere?”
“Sure.”
Eunju seemed to understand how urgent the matter was and wanted to settle things right away. But whether she would be able to accept what I was about to say was another question.
“I had an interview during lunch today. But...”
“I know. Eunchae told me.”
“E-Eunchae was there? Why didn’t I see her... Anyway, that wasn’t the end of it. In the afternoon the teachers held a meeting, and there...”
“I heard that from Ms. Eunju too. They’re doing a confrontation interview tomorrow, right? They’re calling in Harin’s dad and me—the two people who made the pledges for each team—to check why things turned out like this?”
“You’ve been looking into it on your own. It’s just like you said, Senior. So you absolutely have to show up. If you don’t...”
If the witness ran away first, she would become the loser on the spot. No—it wouldn’t just be losing the election; from that day on she would be branded a plagiarist and face enormous criticism.
Eunju had already been bullied once in the past. Compared to Harin, who had lived an ordinary life even without parents, she knew better than anyone what that pain felt like.
“Hoo... Eunju, there’s something you need to know first.”
“What is it?”
“Well...”
The time for dodging with clever little tricks was over. If I didn’t clearly reveal why this whole situation had happened, Eunju would never accept it for the rest of her life.
Of course that didn’t mean I could reveal the real “truth.” So, just like I had done with Ms. Eunju, I would have to guide her toward the closest possible fact...
“Actually, Harin and I are relatives.”
“...?”
Eunju’s pupils dilated as if she had never expected this. But she was a sharp kid.
All the connections between Harin and me that she had never been able to understand until now were probably flashing through her mind in an instant.
“But Harin doesn’t know I exist. Starting from the fact that I attend the school, all the way to the fact that I’m her cousin.”
“W-Wait a second. I’m a little confused right now...”
“But Harin’s father knows. That’s why he asked me to look after her without putting any burden on her.”
“So that’s why you’ve been asking around about Harin all this time?”
“That’s right.”
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t completely wrong. As Harin’s father I had always worried that there might be some problem in her private life.
I just hadn’t been able to work up the courage to approach her myself. So I had created another self and made him do the job in my place.
“Then I accidentally leaked Harin’s pledges to your side. To make up for it I rewrote the pledges, and in the process I got help from Harin’s father.”
“So that’s why the two sets of pledges were the same? In reality it was a set of pledges the two of you made together. But...”
“Exactly. There was a bit of a communication error. Somehow it ended up going over to Harin’s side. Harin thought it was a set of pledges her dad had made and used it, but it turned out that wasn’t the case.”
“...”
It was truly a ghost-story level of coincidence. Unfair beyond words, and with no one to complain to.
Eunju’s expression of pure shock explained everything. But compared to what I had to say next, this was only the appetizer.
“So, Eunju? I can’t go to school tomorrow.”
“Y-You can’t go?”
In the end I drove a huge dagger straight into her chest. In a way, it was the one single fact that had never changed from the beginning until now.
If there was one thing in this world to which the word “absolute” could be attached, it was only this: that tomorrow I would not be able to attend the interview as Eunju’s witness.
“Th-That doesn’t make sense. In the end those pledges were for me, weren’t they? If Harin’s father handed them over by mistake, shouldn’t you come to school tomorrow and reveal everything instead?”
“You’re right. But I really can’t go to school. Because...”
“Because you’re Harin’s cousin? So in this situation you have to take her side no matter what?”
“...”
Correct. No matter how much all of this had started from my mistake, in the end blood is thicker than water.
That’s what family is. No matter how bad a thing someone has done, you end up covering for them.
On the high-and-mighty internet people act like incarnations of justice and fairness and criticize those who protect criminal family members, but I guarantee that if the same thing happened to them, everyone would act exactly the same way.
Of course I couldn’t expect that understanding from Eunju. Because she was different.
She still kept, in one corner of her heart, the father who had disappointed her and left this world—a true incarnation of fairness rarely seen in this world.
“I’m really sorry.”
“Sorry for what? Because you have no choice but to take Harin’s side? Because I have to step down after receiving every kind of mockery and contempt, and that’s what you’re sorry about?”
“That’s right. You haven’t done anything wrong. This is all my...”
“So what? People won’t know any of these circumstances anyway. I never named you, right to the end, for your sake. But Senior, you’ve just been running away this whole time, and when you finally show up, this is all you have to say?”
Eunju had completely lost her composure. Her trembling fists looked ready to fly at me at any moment, and the tears barely hanging on her eyes seemed about to turn into a waterfall.
“But Eunju? I’ve prepared something of my own—”
“I don’t want to hear it. I was an idiot for trusting you in the first place. I should have known the moment you said you were A-Team. Why on earth did I try to join hands with someone like that?”
“...”
Come to think of it, that had been this kid’s real goal all along, hadn’t it? The real reason she had decided to run for office even with trouble between her and her running mate.
The disbanding of the A-Team.
Of course I didn’t have the face to ask her the reason right now. But I didn’t need to ask to know how deep her sense of betrayal ran.
She had accepted me even knowing I was A-Team. Of course it was because I had said I didn’t need the A-Team or anything, but accepting a potential enemy and trusting them was entirely her generosity.
And in the end I had stabbed her in the back like this. A guy who regretted wasting half his life after being backstabbed by his older brother was now about to inflict even greater pain on a high-school girl who had lived only half as long as I had.
As an “adult,” I couldn’t feel more ashamed than this.
“This has nothing to do with the A-Team. It’s something more personal—”
“Enough, stop with the pathetic explanations.”
“But this isn’t the end. Tomorrow—”
“I don’t want to hear it. Could you get out of my way? I’m going to need some time to write new pledges from now on.”
Whip!
Eunju walked straight past me. From the footsteps that seemed ready to smash the earth, I could feel just how deeply she was disappointed.
Then suddenly a thought came to me. The me of my childhood who had lost his first love to his older brother and left the family.
Before I knew it I had been regretting it. I had reflected countless times on that day’s choice, calling myself the most pathetic guy in the world.
But perhaps the me of right now was far more despicable than I had been back then.