Parent-Teacher Conference
Suddenly the day I first set out on a fishing expedition came back to me.
Rain poured from a sky thick with dark clouds as if a hole had been punched straight through it. The boat, tossed by heaving waves, rocked like a Viking ride at an amusement park.
“So this… is the ocean?”
Only then did I realize that every near-shore training voyage had been a complete scam. But I was already standing on the open sea, my entire body locked rigid before nature’s overwhelming power, nothing but my balls trembling.
“You little shit, what the hell are you doing?! Grab the goddamn net right now!”
From behind came Captain Park Changsu’s eardrum-splitting roar. A net? Hadn’t I come aboard as a navigator?
Apparently that sort of thing didn’t exist on a fishing boat—cargo ships maybe, but not here. Rain or scorching sun, every last man was expected on deck to haul fish.
“B-but if I take even one step, the waves are going to sweep me away…”
“You think this is a joke? You really wanna die?”
Click!
The captain instantly drew a Walther PPK from his coat and leveled it at me. Wait—what was he aiming right now?
“You’re not actually going to shoot me, are you?”
“Your choice, you bastard. Take a bullet and die with a hundred-percent certainty, or grab the net and live with a one-percent chance?”
“…”
For a second I wondered if I’d boarded a pirate ship instead of a fishing vessel. Of course the seniors had warned me a few times about the dangers of deep-sea fishing, but I’d figured they were just trying to scare the new guy.
Bang!!!
The captain pulled the trigger without hesitation. Smoke curled lazily from the muzzle, and only then did the full reality of the situation hit me.
“First round’s a blank. You gonna grab that net or not?”
“I-I’ll grab it!!”
In the end I chose the one-percent chance at survival. After nearly twenty-six straight hours of the first fishing run in the middle of a typhoon, I somehow managed to live through that one percent.
Back then I thought Park Changsu was a complete lunatic. Yet fourteen years later, on this very day, I had become an even bigger lunatic—pointing a gun at my own temple.
Cheonji High School
I stood at the front gate and stared blankly at the school sign. Getting this far after steeling myself and dragging my heavy body out of the house deserved some credit.
But today, even if Park Changsu pressed a gun packed with live rounds against the back of my head, I didn’t think I could take that final step.
Maybe I’d overreacted. It wasn’t even confirmed that Harin was actually being bullied at school, right?
And even if it were true, did I really need to investigate it this way? Once we got a little closer I could just casually ask her about the cigarettes. That would be enough.
Besides, the risk was enormous. If school staff caught me and I ended up humiliated alone, fine.
But what if Harin found out? If it came to light that her dad was a pervert cosplaying as a male high-schooler and wandering the campus, wouldn’t that actively encourage school violence against her?
I shook my head hard.
Yeah, this was a bad idea. Something had clouded my judgment.
Better head home, rinse off with cold water, and rethink a solution—
Whoosh—thud.
Just as I rounded the corner to leave for home, some ninja leapt down from the school wall and tried to block my path.
More precisely, a shinobi. Because she was wearing a school uniform skirt over athletic track pants for better mobility.
I slowly lifted my gaze and studied her. Like most well-developed kids these days, she looked nearly 170 cm tall—a solid, sturdy build for a girl.
Green gym pants and a yellow winter jacket covered her frame, but I could tell. The way the clothes hugged her body spoke of firm muscle—classic athletic type.
Her features, though, were pure classic Western beauty: a sharp T-zone and slightly full lips. Quite the gap moe, honestly.
“What’re you lookin’ at?”
Her somewhat low, dull voice carried a boyish edge. That faintly contemptuous, queen-like expression was weirdly irritating.
More than anything, wasn’t she being way too casual with a complete stranger?
“Uh, student? No matter how young I look, jumping straight into informal speech the moment we meet is a bit…”
“You older than me?”
The girl smirked and looked down at me. Wait—right now I was wearing the exact same school uniform as her, wasn’t I?
She thought I was a fellow student. And the reason she still didn’t consider me her senior was simple: she was the highest grade in this school.
“Hey! You, stop right there!”
“Tch…”
A young man’s voice came from over the wall. The girl’s face twisted in dismay and she bolted the opposite way.
“Huff… huff… Where the hell did that girl go? Hey! Kim Hyeonji came this way, right?”
A man about my age in a tracksuit appeared over the wall. Anyone could tell he was a PE teacher at this school.
“Uh… someone did run that way.”
In the confusion I even learned that the shinobi cutting class was a third-year named Kim Hyeonji. The problem was that I was now the teacher’s next target.
“Ah, fuck… Huh? Why are you standing there?”
“Pardon? I, uh, wasn’t feeling well so I submitted a late-arrival notice after going to the hospital.”
“Late-arrival notice? Kids call it tardiness, not late-arrival… Anyway, if you’re at school already, hurry inside. What are you doing out here?”
“I-I was just about to go in.”
I spun around and headed for the main gate. “Late-arrival notice”? What was I thinking? I almost blew my cover before even getting through the front door.
“…?”
But I’d succeeded, hadn’t I? Both that truant Kim Hyeonji and the school teacher had accepted without a shred of suspicion that I was a student here.
I’d slipped up mid-sentence, sure. But the fact that they let it slide proved my cosplay was that perfect.
Suddenly my confidence was overflowing.
“Ah, hello…”
Just in case, I half-stepped through the gate and politely greeted the school security guard. He glanced at me once and tossed out a single word.
“Hospital?”
“Yes…”
He just nodded.
No further reply. That was irrefutable proof I had completely blended into this school.
I squeezed out the last of my courage and pushed the rest of my body through.
Silence.
With classes in full swing the school was extremely quiet. I checked my watch—just past noon. Lunchtime soon.
Since I was already inside, I reviewed the original plan. My goal was to find out what Harin was going through at school.
How. Ever. There was one ironclad rule I absolutely had to keep: I must never run into Harin herself, the very person involved.
Because she was the only one who knew my face. The moment she saw me, our decent father-daughter relationship would be gone forever.
It might even shift from school violence into the realm of domestic violence. Clear child abuse.
Hmm… but it was too hard. I’d come to learn about Harin, yet I couldn’t meet Harin. How was I supposed to—
“Can’t we rethink this? Your friends all want you to come back out, you know.”
“…?”
Unable to enter any classrooms, I’d kept thinking until I wandered all the way to the school’s back courtyard. That was when a woman’s voice drifted from under the shade of a tree.
“As I told you before… I really don’t think I can handle it.”
An adult woman in somewhat casual formal clothes and a uniformed female student sat facing each other, talking. At a glance it was a teacher-student counseling session.
“Sigh… All right. I heard you were pretty ambitious. That’s why it felt so disappointing to see you give up this easily…”
“Thank you for worrying about me. I’ve been out of class too long, so I’ll head back in.”
The girl bowed politely and returned to her classroom first. The teacher remained alone on the bench, cupping her chin in both hands and letting out a long sigh.
Huuu…
And I just kept watching. No particular reason—simply because that female teacher was far too pretty.
I had no right to say this after infiltrating the school with a grand purpose, but the moment I saw her I fell in love.
Really. If someone had told my past self that I would meet this woman, I wouldn’t have cared even if Yu Jiyeon had given birth to ten sets of twins with my brother.
She was a traditional beauty with a refined impression. Just the sight of her slender frame exhaling a sigh made the whole world feel refreshing, yet when I looked into those eyes that seemed to melt with a soft, wistful light, I couldn’t move from sheer pity.
I shook my head hard.
What the hell was I thinking? Just because I was cosplaying as a male high-schooler, was I going to fully immerse myself and start crushing on a teacher?
I reminded myself of my original purpose and tried to slip away unnoticed. Only it was no longer “unnoticed.”
“Y-you, how long have you been standing there?!”
“Pardon?”
I’d been careless and gotten caught red-handed. The teacher stared at me with eyes so round they looked ready to pop out.
“I, uh, went to the hospital today so I was late… I mean, I was a bit tardy.”
“D-did you hear our entire conversation?”
“Ah… no? I didn’t catch a single word of what you were talking about.”
“Huu… Thank goodness. Then hurry inside.”
“…”
Her mouth said go inside, but her eyes stayed locked on me. How was I supposed to move when she was staring that hard?
Probably, as a teacher, she wanted to make sure the student safely entered the classroom—except I literally couldn’t do that.
“Why… aren’t you going in?”
“Class is in session right now. Wouldn’t barging in midway be disruptive?”
“But there’s still fifteen minutes until lunch. Shouldn’t you go in?”
“Well, the kids are getting pretty sensitive around this time…”
“No way! You were sick and went to the hospital—everyone will understand.”
“Haa… Actually, there’s something I’d like to consult with you about, Teacher.”
She cut off every excuse with surgical precision, determined to shove me into a classroom somehow, so I had no choice. Taking a hint from the earlier scene, I immediately played the “counseling” card.
“W-with me? What do you want to talk about? Sit down first.”
She pointed to the bench in front of her. Since I’d already opened my mouth, there was nowhere left to run.
Besides, the chance to converse with a beauty like this might never come again, so I slowly took a seat.
“By the way, who are you? Honestly, this is my first year so I haven’t even memorized all the names in my own class yet.”
“…”
I hadn’t thought that far either. I’d just cosplayed as a male high-schooler; I hadn’t prepared any detailed backstory for a situation like this.
“Well… isn’t that funny? Actually I transferred this year too, so I barely know anything about the school. Sorry, but may I ask your name, Teacher…?”
“Ah-at… Is that so? I’m Kim Eunju, the second-year Korean language teacher.”
I had no choice but to reverse-question her. Fortunately our kind Teacher Kim Eunju completely forgot her duty as a Korean teacher and fell for the context-derailing tactic.
“Second year? Then you must teach Kang Harin as well?”
“Kang Harin? You mean our Harin?”
“Our… Harin? Why ‘our’ Harin?”
“Because I’m Harin’s homeroom teacher, of course!”
“…”
How was this possible? The very first person I happened to run into the moment I entered the school was none other than Harin’s homeroom teacher?
Let’s organize this. If this woman was Harin’s homeroom teacher, and if I was that girl’s father…
This was a parent-teacher conference, wasn’t it?