Graduation... Lee Yun-hui
Thursday, February 13, 2000. One o'clock in the afternoon.
With the third-years' graduation ceremony set for the next day, Yun-hui could not hide the turmoil churning inside her.
For the past several days, guilt had made it impossible to focus on her work. Even though she needed to review the student records and prepare for the third-years she would be taking on next year, a dazed fog clung to her and refused to lift.
It was bad enough that her closest friend, Ji-yeon, had started to worry.
"Yun-hui, what's going on with you lately? You're out of it all day. I call your name and you barely even answer."
"Huh? Oh! I'm just fretting about the third-years I'll be taking next year. Once you're a third-year homeroom teacher, you end up leaving late every night, you know?"
Ji-yeon nodded at that. Homeroom duty — especially for the graduating class — came with a slightly higher stipend, but night self-study sessions and everything else that went with it ate up huge stretches of time.
For Yun-hui, who was only just becoming a third-year teacher herself, it was a heavy load. But Dongnimmun High had an unusually large number of retirements this year, and the third-year homeroom assignment had fallen to her whether she wanted it or not.
"True. Looks like our evening drinking sessions are going to dry up too."
"You're not thinking of taking a homeroom class?"
Strangely enough, at Dongnimmun High the arts-and-PE teachers were never assigned homeroom duty unless they specifically volunteered for it.
"No way. Why would I take on that headache? I need the money, sure, but not enough to grind myself down for it."
"Yeah, fair enough..."
"Alright, I'm going to swing by the art room and tidy up. Be back in a bit."
"Okay."
Yun-hui watched Ji-yeon leave the classroom, then set about putting the room in order one last time. With the graduation ceremony tomorrow, even the first- and second-years had only morning classes, and the whole school sat wrapped in a heavy silence.
Ding.
Just as she reached to shut down the classroom computer, an alert chimed from the mail inbox. It was probably spam, but if it was work-related she wanted to finish it before leaving, so she opened the mailbox.
And there it was — a new message.
She flinched.
The initials KYA conjured a face at once — the very person who had made it impossible for her to get any work done all this time.
The student whose existence had been needling her conscience for months rose unbidden in her mind.
I didn't have a choice, Ian.
Yun-hui still regretted the previous year, her first as a homeroom teacher, with a raw and constant ache.
Accepting bribes from her very first year on the job had been unavoidable. She had paid her way into the appointment in the first place, and she had needed to clear a fifty-million-won debt as fast as she could.
The knowledge that she had done something unforgivable to a student had lodged in her conscience like a splinter driven under a fingernail, and it had never stopped hurting.
She had been unable to refuse So Mi-jin — Yu-ra's mother, the school chairman's granddaughter — when the woman made a request that was really an order.
Because So Mi-jin had dug up both the bribes Yun-hui had taken and the fifty million she had paid to secure her position at the school.
As a teacher, it had been shameful. Humiliating.
It may have been blackmail, but she had been hired under dishonest circumstances to begin with. And so she had done everything in her power to tank the grades of one of her very first students.
And then, out of that same shame, she had taken it out on the boy with even sharper cruelty.
Yun-hui sat with her head bowed, so flooded with guilt she could not bring herself to open the message.
But... what if this is real?
For a moment the guilt pulled her thoughts back to Ian. Then she looked at the subject line again, more carefully, and her expression only grew darker.
So Mi-jin is already treating me like dirt... what am I supposed to do?
If Yu-ra's results had at least been good, it might have been something. But in the end Yu-ra had not gotten into Hanguk University.
Yun-hui had heard that because Yu-ra scored an eighty-nine in English during the first semester of her third year, she had failed to meet Hanguk University's early-admission requirements.
So Mi-jin had believed that being the chairman's daughter gave her absolute power — but even she had not been able to touch a teacher on the verge of retirement.
As university acceptances rolled in one after another, So Mi-jin had started keeping her distance from Yun-hui, and that fact alone was enough to leave Yun-hui on edge.
What if the email contained evidence? The thought sent a rising tide of fear through her.
Her hands trembled as she clicked the message open.
What appeared were several MP3 files.
She hurriedly plugged her earphones into the computer and opened 1.MP3.
"Ji-yeon, how is it going with docking Ian's art practical scores?"
"Fine. What about you? I heard you're cutting his math performance assessment."
"I gave him a zero too. Said I never received the homework — that he'd hidden it."
It was short.
The two of them had always gathered in the art room to talk, careful of being overheard — and somehow Ian had recorded their conversations. A chill ran through her. Her whole body began to shake.
And right then, another new email arrived.
The message was brutally short.
She scrambled for her phone.
In her panic she could not remember where she had put it — it was not in her bag. She searched frantically for what felt like forever before a ringtone finally sounded from under the desk, near the computer.
She grabbed the phone. Ji-yeon's name lit the screen.
"Yun-hui. What do we do. You got the email too, right?"
"Yeah. Ian..."
Ji-yeon must have opened the message as well — there was already a catch of tears in her voice.
Yun-hui told her she would call back later, hung up, and dug through her contacts for Ian's number.
She dialed in a rush. The ringing tone came through — and it felt impossibly long. Less than ten seconds stretched out like a full hour. Anxiety climbed her throat, and the image of her father, who had gone into debt to raise that fifty million, rose unbidden behind her eyes.
This was not simply a matter of losing fifty million won. This was the kind of scandal that would keep her off a classroom podium for the rest of her life.
No — the kind that would keep her from being hired even at a private academy.
Ring... ring...
"Hello."
"Ian? It's me — Teacher Yun-hui."
A low, steady voice answered, and the first thing that hit her was relief. He sounded so calm that for a second she wondered whether he had even been the one to send it — but the initials fit, and the only student who would have held a grudge this deep was him.
"I take it you received the email."
So it was him after all. Anger surged up in her at once. Only moments ago she had been drowning in regret over what she had done to him — but Ian was still just the weak kid she had tormented for a full year two years back.
The thought of being blackmailed by someone like that made the rage burn even hotter. Being threatened by a person she considered beneath her was something she simply could not stand.
"...You didn't actually send that, did you?"
"Why not? Because of you I didn't get into Hanguk University. If you ruined my life, you should have been ready for yours to get ruined too."
She remembered Su-hyeok — Ian's current homeroom teacher — coming by around April. He had wanted to put Ian forward for Hanguk University's early-admission recommendation, but Ian's math grade from the first semester of second year had held him back. Su-hyeok had asked, carefully, whether someone might have tampered with the answer sheets.
"He never submitted the performance assessment."
"Really? That doesn't sound like him..."
"..."
She could not force the word sorry out of her mouth.
In that moment Yun-hui cursed herself for still being so far from decent. He was no longer the weak boy who used to tremble in front of her. He was the one holding the leverage now.
Her father's face — the man who had gone into debt for that fifty million — flickered before her eyes. This teaching position had been so hard-won; she could not simply throw it away. Desperation drove her to start calculating how to win Ian's pity.
"Ian. I'm sorry."
"Forget it. What's the point now. You quit teaching, I go to Yeonseo University — we're even. Let's just end it here."
His voice was already pulling away, as if he were about to hang up.
Yun-hui panicked. If this call ended now, her life would truly plunge into freefall — and it was not only her own face she saw. She saw her parents in the countryside, farmers who had staked everything on their only child. The fear tore a shout out of her.
"Ian. Please, Teacher is begging you — forgive me. Okay? I'll do anything."
[...]
A brief silence.
In that pause Yun-hui felt as though she had found a crack of light. Silence meant he was thinking. She kept talking, desperate to keep the line from going dead.
"Ian. I'm sorry, okay? Teacher will do whatever you say. Just please forgive me."
"...Whatever I say?"
There was a strange undercurrent of amusement in his voice, and her heart dropped.
Just then the door slid open and Ji-yeon came in. Yun-hui quickly pressed a finger to her lips. Ji-yeon nodded, then mouthed, Ian?
Yun-hui nodded back and switched the call to speakerphone.
"Yes. I'm sorry. Ji-yeon is sorry too. We'll do whatever you tell us to. Please just forgive us."
"Ji-yeon's there too, huh? Kim Ji-yeon — you thinking the same thing?"
The tone that came through was high-handed and absolute. Ian had dropped all formality with Yun-hui, and though both women flinched, neither of them could muster any resistance.
"Yes. I'll do whatever you say."
Ji-yeon's voice was urgent.
Her parents may not have gone into debt the way Yun-hui's had — but she was now the sole provider for her family.
"..."
He's insane.
Yun-hui's and Ji-yeon's faces twisted. Yun-hui had half-expected something — but not this.
Her own student was demanding their bodies.
When she had said she would do whatever he asked, she had privately assumed it would stop at kneeling and apologizing, or maybe a few hundred thousand won once he considered his own financial situation.
Instead he had gone straight for their bodies without a second's hesitation.
"No? I've already drafted the emails, you know. Should I hit send? Let's see — Ministry of Education, Blue House, National Police Agency, Supreme Prosecutors' Office, and the principal. All on the recipient list."
Ji-yeon's eyes met Yun-hui's.
A short silence.
Then Ji-yeon nodded. Yun-hui stared at her in shock, but Ji-yeon's expression was set and unyielding.
"...Fine. But only three times."
Yun-hui had no experience. Ji-yeon at least had had a boyfriend.
Three times. It sounded like almost nothing — and yet to Yun-hui, three times felt like an enormous number. She had her virginity to lose, among other things.
"I'll text you the address. Get over here right now. And for the three days you're having sex with me, you address me with full respect. Click."
He said his piece and hung up without waiting for a reply. A moment later her phone chimed with a new text — Ian's address. Seodaemun-gu, Daesin-dong... unit 401.
"Ji-yeon. Why did you...?"
"My dad needs surgery. I can't lose this job."
Yun-hui thought of Ji-yeon's father — the frail, sickly look of him. So he had finally taken to his bed, just as they had feared. She had a fifty-million-won debt; Ji-yeon had surgical bills... She let out a long breath, ran a cleaning utility on the computer, deleted the emails, and made sure to log out before she stood up.
The fact that she was about to go spread her legs because a student was blackmailing her left Yun-hui briefly wondering whether this was even real — a confused, dreamlike unreality.
Misery settled over her, then a heavy depression. She hung her head. Ji-yeon, frantic, grabbed her by the hand and pulled.
"Why... we can take our time..."
"He texted again. If we're not there within thirty minutes, it becomes five times."
Yun-hui jolted.
She could picture her former student's face, laughing under his breath.
The boy she had always looked down on — and now she was the one who would be pinned beneath him, about to lose her virginity.
I should have just given it to Min-ho back in college...
Her ex-boyfriend, the one she had broken up with when he asked for sex, rose in her mind with painful clarity.
And then a bitter unfairness took hold — why should only the two of them end up like this?
She looked at Ji-yeon behind the wheel, made up her mind, and spoke.
"Ji-yeon. You said you recorded all those conversations you had with that bitch So Mi-jin, right?"
"Yeah. Wait... you're not thinking—?!"
Yun-hui nodded.
Why should they be the only ones to suffer this? The real culprit was someone else entirely. The resentment burned hot enough to strip away what little reason she had left. She would not feel better until So Mi-jin tasted the same humiliation of being taken by Ian.
"Yeah. It's not fair if it's just us. When we get there, we negotiate with that first."
"...Should we? Come to think of it, Lee Yu-ra got into Yeonseo University's humanities track, didn't she?"
"She did. After she failed Hanguk University's early admissions, her whole pace fell apart. She barely scraped into Yeonseo humanities. Still — that's something."
"True enough. But a kid who was aiming for Hanguk University's business school ending up there... the shock must have been brutal."
Yun-hui thought of the small, pretty student she remembered. An innocent child. Her mother was a villain who had orchestrated the tanking of a classmate's scores — but the girl herself was soft-hearted to a fault, and mentally fragile.
Yun-hui turned over how she might pull Mi-jin into this, then pictured that venomous face and decided that moving too openly would only get her fired. She sank into thought.
Yu-ra? Yes. I need to reel Yu-ra in first.
Yun-hui considered herself an extraordinarily good person — but in truth she was closer to a villain herself.
She had simply never been given the chance to show her true nature, and so she had been able to live out the performance of being kind.
"The files are in your email, right? When we get there, send them to Ian and tell him to go through Yu-ra to get to her."
"What?!!!... Well, that bitch So Mi-jin wouldn't crack even if you pulled her teeth out anyway."
They were still trading this kind of talk when Ian's villa turned out to be practically next door. Through the tunnel, one right turn, and there it was.
They parked, entered the building code Ian had texted them for the shared entrance, and climbed to the fourth floor.
Unit 401.
They hesitated for a good ten minutes. Then, with the thirty-minute deadline nearly up, they pressed the bell.
Ding-dong.
The bright chime made her chest lurch. Her heart hammered violently. Fear and wretchedness flooded her mind, and the depression rose in her like deep water, pulling her under — a nauseating, dizzying descent.