Image Laundering, I Suppose (2)
Lee Yeong-bin turned toward Jin Gyeo-wool, who was glaring at him with eyes sharp as axe blades, and asked,
"Gyeo-wool. How about it? Want to be temporary class president and vice president with me?"
He was still beaming at her with that blindingly bright smile of his. Painfully so.
"I'll pass."
Jin Gyeo-wool snapped back, irritated. She barely had enough time to practice as it was — and now he wanted her to be vice president? Even if Yeong-bin was a decent guy, that was one favor too far.
Every minute, every second was precious. Spending any of it elsewhere was pure luxury, no matter how you looked at it.
Her icy refusal froze the classroom atmosphere in an instant. True to her name, four little syllables were all it took to plunge the room into tundra climate.
Sensing the sudden cold front, Kim Seongyeong scrambled to change the subject.
"Alright, alright. Yeong-bin, Gyeo-wool says she doesn't want to. Anyone else? Is there someone who'd like to—"
"Come on, Gyeo-wool. It's not even real vice president — it's temporary. Just two weeks, okay?"
The chill in the room deepened another degree. Nobody said it out loud, but every face was screaming at him to leave the scowling Jin Gyeo-wool alone. Standing at the teacher's desk and taking the full brunt of that arctic blast, Kim Seongyeong shivered as she spoke.
"Alright! Who wants to be vice president?!"
"Jin Gyeo-wool. Come on. Let's do it together?"
"……"
Kim Seongyeong desperately tried to pass the baton to someone — anyone — else. Lee Yeong-bin was equally determined to drag Gyeo-wool in. And Gyeo-wool herself stayed silent, hoping the whole thing would just blow over.
At this rate, morning assembly was never going to end. Han Yeo-reum leaned over and whispered to Cha Ga-eul, who was already secretly chewing on a gummy jelly she'd brought along.
"Hey. At this rate Yeong-bin's never gonna let assembly finish. Do something."
Cha Ga-eul just shrugged.
"Why? That's their problem to sort out."
"Weren't we supposed to be here to help her?"
Yeo-reum had a point. The two of them had transferred in at the request of Gyeo-wool's mother, Min Cheong-ha, specifically to keep Gyeo-wool from causing trouble at school.
There had been a deal. Looking after her wasn't optional.
"Babysitting her through every little thing like this won't help her personality improve one bit."
"Ahhh. So we can't just spoon-feed her everything?"
"Exactly. And this barely even counts as a problem. She hasn't blown up or flipped a desk or anything."
Ga-eul's threshold for what counted as a "problem" was higher than Yeo-reum had expected — but between the two of them, Ga-eul was the opinion leader. If she said it wasn't, it wasn't.
So Yeo-reum kept quiet and decided to watch how things played out. Quite some time had passed, and the standoff still hadn't broken.
The person at the center of it all — Jin Gyeo-wool — was thoroughly annoyed.
Why the hell is this guy so obsessed with me? Plenty of other people could do it.
She'd been face-down on her desk, trying to wait it out, but finally had no choice but to lift her head. She scanned the classroom.
Every kid who'd been looking her way immediately averted their eyes. She genuinely felt like Medusa.
"I already said no. I don't have time. Instead of wasting it on vice president crap, I need to practice even a little more."
Ever since Hon Gyeo-wool had come to this school, she had never once told anyone about her specialty — her hobby.
Part of it was that she'd caused trouble the moment she entered high school and had no friends. But more than that, back in middle school, simply mentioning that she played LoC as a hobby had always led to problems. An instinctive avoidance had taken root.
So none of her classmates had any idea what Jin Gyeo-wool did for fun. She'd posted an apology video on her own YouTube channel, sure — but she only had a few thousand subscribers, and she'd been wearing a mask. Nobody had recognized her.
Which meant her mention of needing to "practice" now lit up everyone's curiosity.
Practice. A word usually associated with sports. Popular ones for girls included golf, tennis, that sort of thing. But none of those refined pastimes matched Jin Gyeo-wool's image in the slightest.
And so a picture formed, unbidden, in every student's mind.
Mixed martial arts…?
Amazingly, even Kim Seongyeong standing at the podium was thinking along the same lines.
Back when Hon Gyeo-wool was a first-year, Kim Seongyeong had forced her into career counseling after seeing her catastrophic report card.
What she'd said at the time:
"I don't know. There is something I want to do, but I don't know if it'll work out. I guess I just don't have the talent."
Back then she'd been sulking about a supposed lack of talent. Listening to her now, it sounded like she'd made up her mind.
And after sending her home that day, Kim Seongyeong had spoken with her mother, Min Cheong-ha, and gotten this answer:
"As long as she can protect her friends, she'll do anything. Just leave her be. And keep her from getting into fights."
Protect her friends. Something she wants to do. Unsure if she has talent. Keep her from fighting. Combine those four elements and the picture snapped into focus.
Gyeo-wool's PE grades are outstanding, actually…
Her slightly smaller build and absolute nightmare of a personality had kept her off everyone's radar, but her physical ability was easily top-tier in the school.
In the long jump she practically flew. In sprints she left everyone in the dust. Early in the semester — before the whole mess with Lee Yeong-bin and his crew — she'd even played soccer with the boys. Her raw strength was lacking, but her athletic instincts were absurd.
And the moment that talent had been confirmed beyond any doubt was when she'd gone toe-to-toe with Lee Yeong-bin, who had a good fifteen centimeters on her, without giving an inch.
She'd thrown a straight punch into the much larger Yeong-bin's brow, used the chaos to trip him and mount him, then climbed on top and ripped at his hair with both hands.
It had been a street brawl, pure and simple — and to the rest of the class, pure terror.
"But it's only two weeks."
"Two weeks is long enough. If I don't make pro, are you gonna take responsibility?"
Pro. That single word snapped everyone's scattered thoughts into perfect alignment.
Jin Gyeo-wool was training to become a female fighter. She was going to take that talent of hers and start beating people up legally instead of illegally!
"…Alright. Sorry. I thought we'd gotten a little closer. I overstepped."
Thankfully, Lee Yeong-bin decided pushing any further was impossible and backed down. The class's collective heart rate, which had been racing red-hot, cooled back to a comfortable blue.
Gyeo-wool flopped face-down on her desk again like she needed more sleep, so the classroom would stay peaceful for a while.
And since the kids already knew that arts-and-athletics track students at academic high schools tended to sleep through everything, the "Gyeo-wool the pro fighter" theory quietly solidified into accepted fact.
"Alright then… who wants to be vice president?"
But as everyone well knew, almost nobody ever volunteered for temporary class president or vice president. Gyeo-wool had withdrawn her candidacy — not that she'd ever been a candidate — but that didn't mean a suitable alternative had appeared.
Time dragged on. Lee Yeong-bin found his courage one more time.
Gyeo-wool worked up the nerve to make peace with me first last month, didn't she?
Not even close. That had just been her asking to eat lunch together because she hated eating alone. And it hadn't even been the same person saying it.
But there was no way Yeong-bin could know that. The Jin Gyeo-wool he saw now was a reformed girl rising from her past to start a brand-new future.
"Gyeo-wool. Let's just do temporary president and vice president together after all."
The blizzard had finally died down and the classroom had started to warm — only for a hailstorm to come crashing down. Jin Gyeo-wool shot up from her seat, murder blazing in her eyes far worse than before.
We're screwed. That was what everyone thought. At this rate, last April's tragedy was about to replay itself.
In the eyes of the class, Lee Yeong-bin looked completely insane. He was picking a fight with a snarling beast that had its fangs bared — and he wasn't even wearing armor.
A Siberian white tiger growled.
"Fine. Then you do all the work. I'll do it."
What they'd braced for as a roar came out as a meow.
"Really? You're saying you'll do it?"
"Yeah, I'll do it. But you're doing everything. I'm not helping with a single thing."
Everyone looked back and forth between Jin Gyeo-wool and Lee Yeong-bin in pure disbelief.
Gyeo-wool muttered to herself.
Wool looked after this guy, so I can't just leave him hanging. And he's the only guy around — I should keep him close…
Feeling sorry for him was part of it, sure. But more than that, she had something concrete she wanted from him. That was why she'd decided.
It's not like I can talk about LoC with Yeo-reum or Ga-eul anyway…
Just as she thought, Han Yeo-reum and Cha Ga-eul knew nothing about LoC. Ordinary girls had no reason to care about it, and both of them had their own clear hobbies, so they rarely ran into related news.
At a school where she spent a third of her high school life, Lee Yeong-bin was the only person she could talk LoC with. She wasn't in a position to get friendly with anyone else right now, so she had to hold onto him at least.
Sandwich herself between Yeo-reum and Ga-eul like twin towers for peace of mind, use Yeong-bin ruthlessly as a meat shield, and hang out with him whenever she wanted to talk LoC — and her cozy high school life would be fully prepared.
"If you get in the way of my practice even once—"
"Got it. I'll handle everything!"
For Lee Yeong-bin, who'd spent all of last year trying to get closer to Jin Gyeo-wool after their fight, this was a hard-won triumph. For the classmates who'd half-expected to see another classroom brawl, it was an ominous sign.
And for their homeroom teacher Kim Seongyeong, it was an election result she never saw coming.
Of all people, it had to be Gyeo-wool…
She'd desperately hoped some other kid would take vice president. But in the end, Jin Gyeo-wool had been chosen. The whole class just wanted the temporary election over with, so forcing a different outcome wasn't an option.
With Gyeo-wool in the role, there was absolutely nothing they could ask her to do. Every single chore now fell on Lee Yeong-bin.
He'd already suffered through every possible hardship as class president in the second semester last year. At this rate, he was looking at the first-semester presidency too.
But what could you do? That was just the kind of person he was born to be.
The truth is, Yeong-bin wasn't even the main culprit who stole Gyeo-wool's homework…
He hadn't been the ringleader, and yet he'd been the one who caught enraged Jin Gyeo-wool's eye and taken the beating for it — and now he was basically her slave.
Even knowing that, Kim Seongyeong had no choice but to put her faith in him.
I'm counting on you, Yeong-bin. Keep Gyeo-wool in check this year too!
"So then — temporary class president and vice president are Yeong-bin and Gyeo-wool~?"
As if on cue, the entire class began clapping with awkward, forced enthusiasm.
"I genuinely thought you'd lost your mind."
"For real. This guy is actually insane."
"You and Jin Gyeo-wool both. You look all nice and wholesome, and neither of you is right in the head. That's for sure."
"You guys are being way too harsh…"
On the way back from the opening ceremony in the auditorium, Lee Yeong-bin's friends were mercilessly tearing into him for the completely unhinged stunt he'd pulled that morning.
"You going to play LoC today?"
"Obviously. You're not coming?"
"Teacher said I have to stay after. Guess there's something to do."
"Figures. That's why they picked a temporary president."
Under normal circumstances, they would have headed straight for the PC bang as if by prior arrangement to enjoy some League of Council. Four-man ranked wasn't an option, so they'd grab one random and run five-man.
But now that he was temporary class president, Lee Yeong-bin couldn't just go home. He had no idea what he'd be doing, but he'd been told to stay, so stay he would.
"It'll be quick. Just go ahead and save me a seat. Text me the number."
"Okey."
At the news that Yeong-bin would be joining late, Choi Go-yun — the highest-ranked player in the group — muttered in complaint.
"Ugh~ Without Lee Yeong-bin, that bastard Yuk Min's gonna int his brains out again. Who's gonna babysit that?"
"The hell did you just say? Keep that up and I swear I'll lock in support Tryndamere in ranked."
"That's disgusting. Yeong-bin, please hurry."
"You ignoring me? Huh? You ignoring me?!"
Lee Yeong-bin was the first of the group to reach the classroom. He unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Inside, a single goddess sitting by the window in the very back row greeted them.
Bathed in the warm late-morning spring sunlight, Jin Gyeo-wool sat half-lidded, completely absorbed in some video. Wireless earbuds in, she looked for all the world like the languid young lady of some noble house.
But that free-spirited air of hers always hit Lee Yeong-bin like a jolt. To someone who lived quietly inside the fence his parents had built for him, her desperate struggle to reject the path laid out for her and carve her own way was nothing short of beautiful.
Of course, the reality was that she was a straight-up delinquent who didn't listen to teachers and ran wild.
Everyone just kept quiet about it because they knew her mother, Min Cheong-ha, was a major donor to the Hwasong High foundation — a private school — and even the teachers tiptoed around her.
"Wow. Classic Fight Gyeo-wool. Skipping the opening ceremony entirely?"
"Hey. Yuk Min, she'll hear you. Keep it down."
But if the person in question had heard that, she would have found it deeply unfair. Hon Gyeo-wool might have stayed behind of her own free will — but Jin Gyeo-wool had been left in the classroom against hers.
She'd fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion after the vice president election. When Han Yeo-reum and Cha Ga-eul tried to wake her and take her along, Lee Yeong-bin had stopped them.
So she never got up. When she finally opened her eyes, everyone was gone and the school day was already over.
"Hey. Lee Yeong-bin."
The sudden summons. His friends practically kicked him forward.
"Go on. Your master is calling."
"Hurry!"
The message was clear: if you don't go, the classroom atmosphere is getting wrecked again. Move.