A Field Trip, a Gift, and a Very Generous Deposit

The classroom was already buzzing with its usual morning commotion.

Perhaps because it was the day of the field trip, the children were so wound up that even I felt myself floating on their excitement.

Unfortunately, unlike kids who could simply enjoy themselves, I was drowning in work.

So much to take care of.

I'd come in early to check the supplies I'd gathered from the storage room, and I was reorganizing the detailed schedule for what felt like the dozenth time. It wasn't until I had read every single line of fine print on the notice board that I finally found room to breathe.

I was straightening my aching back, stretching out my legs, when the kindergarten door swung open.

"Hello."

The door flew wide, and in stepped a child with a confident stride who somehow reminded me of someone.

Baek Cheonhyeong?

"Cheonji!!"

"Baek Cheonji."

"Cheonji, was your trip fun?"

"Yep! Cheonji! Baekji! Baekmanji!"

What a warm welcome. The children crowded around Cheonji in a bouncing, chattering mob, too busy gabbing to stand still.

It was like watching a family greet their father coming home from work with a bucket of chicken in hand.

Ah, it's Cheonji.

By the time I figured out who the kid was, I'd already missed my window to jump in like I usually would.

So instead of rushing over and killing the mood, I decided to simply watch the heartwarming scene for a moment.

"Cheonji! What did you do in Switzerland?"

"Hey, Baek Cheonji! You know we're going on a field trip today, right?"

Busy answering Seora and Noah's barrage of questions, Cheonji didn't even get the chance to set down his bag. Instead, the others peeled it off his shoulders and took his coat for him, and Taejae received them and tucked them neatly into the drawer.

"Was it fun?"

"Yeah! We saw a gigantic mountain called Grindelwald!"

"Grendelwald? Wow, that's such a unique name for a mountain!"

"Noah, it's not Grendelwald. It's Grindelwald."

"Right on, Nam Taejae! You're so smart!"

Their personalities really do show.

"I have something to show you."

Then the plush animal toy Cheonji had brought back from Switzerland became the new hot topic, and the cooling atmosphere burst back into flame.

Whoa. One look and I can tell that thing costs a fortune.

The toy in Cheonji's hand was a fluffy animal covered in impossibly soft fur.

If I recalled correctly, that plush—small enough to disappear entirely inside one small fist—was one hundred percent handmade.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gently swaying fur and the perfectly round, implanted eyes maximized that unmistakable stuffed-animal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠charm.

"My mom bought it at a handmade doll workshop. She even attached a little loop so I could clip it to my bag."

Something subtly smug drifted beneath Cheonji's gentle tone and faint smile.

I stroked my chin and offered a brief verdict.

The brothers really are two peas in a pod.

The plush began making the rounds, passing through each child's hands in turn, and every single time, a genuine gasp of admiration erupted.

"Wow, it's so pretty!"

"It's cute."

"So cute!"

"I have a 'Goodnight, Big Scallion' plush at home. Wanna see it sometime?"

With reactions this good, Cheonji looked positively giddy as he played tour guide.

When he bounced on his heels and announced he had even more to show them, Taejae—who had been watching him intently—clapped his hands together once and darted off somewhere.

He came back with the yellow bag he'd stowed in the drawer just moments before and handed it over.

"Here you go, your bag."

"Thank you, Taejae."

I let out a small sigh of awe at the boy's instincts—something you'd never see from his peers.

Reading a situation and the flow of conversation to deduce what someone needed before they asked, then fetching it unprompted—that was a level of consideration that even grown adults sometimes fumbled.

……It's honestly a little startling.

And here I thought the big kid from the class next door was the most perceptive one around.

"Okay, these are all for you guys! I bought them at the workshop along with mine."

Plushies spilled out of the yellow bag one after another, each with a round wire loop on its head.

And hanging from every loop was a name tag, handwritten one by one. You could feel the care that had gone into them.

Except there was one unexpected, rather funny detail….

It was how the children identified their own plushies with unnerving precision.

"This one's Taejae's, and this one is… Noah's."

"That one's mine!"

"Then this must be mine."

Curiosity got the better of me too, and I leaned in over the kids' shoulders to take a look.

"……Oh."

A snort escaped before I could stop it.

The plushies look just like them.

The more I studied the stuffed animals, the more each one bore a subtle, uncanny resemblance to a particular child.

The twins were a black cat.

Noah was a yellow lizard.

Taejae was a white Maltese.

And Cheonji was… a wolf pup?

They'd scrawled the English names in fancy, sprawling handwriting, so I'd worried someone might grab the wrong one. That concern, it turned out, was entirely unnecessary.

Never should have worried.

All five of them were peering at the toys like people holding up mirrors to their own faces, and I couldn't stop the laughter bubbling up at the sight.

"I love it so, so much! My mom always says that even if you receive a single bean, you should bow all the way down in gratitude!"

And with that, Noah immediately bent at the waist in a crisp ninety-degree bow. "Thank ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you!"

"Gasp! Is that how it works? Thank you too!"

"Thank you."

"Cheonji, I'll treasure it forever. Thank you."

The rest of the children each offered their own thanks and folded themselves in half like flip phones.

Their foreheads hovered a hair's breadth above the floor that the repair crew had made good as new.

Why does… this picture look so wrong somehow?

It was clearly a lovely moment. And yet….

Four children bent deep at the waist around a beaming, chuckling Cheonji…. It reminded me of a scene straight out of a noir film.

"And this one's for you, Teacher."

"……!"

Before I knew it, a plushie appeared right in front of me, and I caught it on reflex.

"…Oh. Thank you."

I hadn't even managed a proper hello yet, and here I was receiving a gift.

Squishy. The plush's fur felt amazing against my palms. Simply holding it was enough to make me imagine my stress melting away.

Mine says 'to. teacher' on it.

"My brother told me to give you this one."

"Your brother?"

At the word brother, something in me lurched, but I accepted the item Cheonji handed over next all the same.

A yellow slip of paper, folded in quarters.

Baek Cheonhyeong gave me this?

Not an envelope. Not even a document folder. A yellow sticky note. That alone made me deeply suspicious.

Please, God, let it not be an invoice for the repair costs of a Dolphin Class that got burned to a crisp.

I unfolded the note on the spot.

Ding!

"……!"

A chill shot straight up my spine.

My personal phone had chimed—not my work phone.

And at the exact moment I'd unfolded the note.

Gulp. I swallowed dryly and opened the banking app on my phone.

After a few seconds of loading, my balance appeared on screen along with the most recent deposit record.

How many zeros is that…?

Thirty thousand?

No—three hundred.

"……."

Too flustered even to remember that I was supposed to be stopping the kids from bowing, I quietly settled myself down beside them instead.

"Teacher, did you get something from Cheonji too?"

Through the gap between bent backs, Taejae's black eyes met mine from where he knelt.

His expression could not have been more serious.

"Yeah. I got the thing I love most in the whole world."

Suddenly, the whole world looked beautiful.

"Allow me to walk you through the schedule."

Being the rookie teacher, I was stuck handling all the grunt work.

Organizing the storage room to prepare the supplies we needed, plus every random miscellaneous task in between.

And among those tasks was presenting the field trip itinerary.

- Departure at 10:00 a.m.

- Commemorative photo at 10:30 a.m.

"Lunch at noon, and…."

It was a mercy I'd found out the day before. If I'd learned we were going on a field trip this very morning, I'd have spent a full hour just wiping away tears.

We threw this together at the last minute because of the time crunch, which means there's definitely something we've missed.

The proper way to run an event on this scale is to plan it out at the end or beginning of the year, then fine-tune it over a month or so of lead time.

But I got dropped in mid-operation, so there's nothing I can do about it.

And since Kwon Haeseong seemed to assume I already knew, I couldn't exactly complain to him either.

Swallowing my complicated feelings, I read the schedule sheet down to the last line.

"……That's all."

Nothing seemed to require any special vigilance.

Aside from a few locations that made me question whether it was really okay to bring children there at all…. It was a reasonably tame lineup.

"Alright, alright! Since the kind folks who made our field trip possible are here, we've got to snap a commemorative photo, don't we~"

The moment my presentation ended, the director materialized as if summoned by a demon, flashing his oily, good-natured face.

Ah. So that's why the photo was scheduled first thing.

Right on cue, a cluster of people in expensive-looking suits hovered awkwardly at the edge of the room before drifting over to join us as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"The executive directors are here."

"Ooh, even the department head~"

So that's the game. The brass had come to shove their faces into the photo, trumpeting the crumb-sized stake they'd contributed to this field trip.

If I remember right, they each chipped in about 150,000 won toward the snack fund.

Ten of them pooling a measly 150,000 won between them and then showing up like this was absurd, but I plastered on a smile and let it go.

Using the executives' pleasantries as background music, I unfurled the banner I'd hauled out of storage.

I'd noticed it when I pulled it out of the dusty storage room, and I noticed it again now: the banner reeked of age.

Is this a re-used one?

Whatever I thought, the others held the banner just fine and lined up in front of the camera. In no time they were beaming at the lens with benevolent, sunny smiles.

But no matter how peaceful a moment is, there are always those who insist on more action than the scene calls for.

Like so:

"Hey, mister! That's uncomfortable!"

The man who had planted a hand on Noah's shoulder in a bid to seem friendly jolted at the child's outburst and coughed awkwardly into his fist.

"S-sorry about that. Ahem. Ahm."

He's soliciting.

"Are you soliciting, sir?"

For the record, that line was not mine.

Park Edeun had stage-whispered it into my ear with a comically impish grin. I nodded ever so subtly and deployed my ventriloquism skills.

"Smile, Teacher. You'll give us away."

"I know. I know. 150,000 won for snacks~ Say cheese~"

This guy is hilarious.

Dry sarcasm pitched precisely loud enough for only the nearby executives to catch—this was not the work of an amateur.

Well, if even they know how embarrassing they are, I can't fault them.

"I must say, asking this of you all is quite embarrassing on our end as well~"

"Oh, please, Director, say no more! It's thanks to you executives that we can put food on the table!"

After salvaging a few photo cuts without incident and exchanging a round of formulaic pleasantries disguised as collegial bonding, the executives and the director took their leave.

They looked ready to hold a company dinner in broad daylight.

All that remained behind the men who'd snapped their photos and vanished was a row of teachers wearing fishy smiles and a pack of children blissfully unaware of anything.

Honestly, better they leave than stay.

We proceeded into the headquarters building as planned, under Yoo Jinchae's lead, to begin the field trip proper.

"Teacher, where are we going?"

"We're heading to the research department on the fourth floor."

At eleven o'clock, we boarded the elevator for the second item on the itinerary: a visit to the research department.

- Then stop by the headquarters research lab tomorrow and ask them about it.

The words "research department" dredged up Kang Sagwa's advice, which I'd half forgotten, but I shoved it aside quickly.

Maybe it'd be different if I asked an actual expert.

……Although honestly, I wasn't holding out much hope.

I'd made similar attempts before and come away empty-handed every time.

Well, if the chance comes up, I can at least drop a casual question.

Just as I finished wrapping up that thought, the elevator stopped on the fourth floor.

Beyond the opening doors stretched a perfectly ordinary office space under flat fluorescent light.

The occasional clerk hurried past, casting us a glance without a second thought.

For a hunter corporation, the scenery was surprisingly mundane.

The thought that even Korea's number one hunter company was no different from any other office had barely formed when—

"…The research teams have a lot of weirdos too. Watch yourselves…."

Kwon Haeseong's chilling warning cut through the air.

First the finance department, now the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠research department too.

So this entire company is a den of lunatics, is what you're telling me.