The Father's Method
“I’m sorry… I was wrong, I was wrong.”
A short while later.
The bully was crawling on the floor, begging for his life.
The cocky attitude he’d shown since the start of the semester—hands shoved in his pockets, sneering at teachers like they were trash—had vanished without a trace.
He must have realized it too.
You have to stay alive first if you want a “next time.”
The view through the hallway window was brutal.
I’d never seen Dad beat someone that savagely in my entire life.
Even stranger was the fact that there wasn’t a single bruise left behind.
The dull thuds had been loud and clear.
Maybe there’s a veteran construction-site way of beating people up?
Dad eventually calmed down, but the second-year floor was already in chaos.
After the homeroom teacher heard the whole story from a still-fuming Dad, she quietly led the three of us—me, Dad, and the thoroughly beaten bully—toward the teachers’ office.
“Hyunwoo’s father, I understand you’re angry after seeing something unpleasant. But using violence could become a problem…”
The teacher tried to soothe Dad while calmly explaining the situation point by point.
“If beating up a kid who tried to take my child’s money is a problem, then I’ll just be a problem guy.”
Dad stubbornly stuck to his opinion, arms crossed so tightly they looked welded together.
When her persuasion hit a wall, the teacher pressed her lips shut in frustration.
Still, something had clearly happened in her class.
She turned to the cowering bully.
“Is it true?”
“No… I just asked to borrow some money.”
The bully scratched the back of his head, eyes fixed on the floor, and muttered while waving his hand dismissively.
Even I could tell he had no intention of actually “borrowing” anything.
He was trying to lie his way out of it.
He still hadn’t come to his senses.
Dad’s eyes widened.
“Are you close with my son?”
“No, but we’re in the same class…”
“Oh, so if you’re in the same class, you can ask to borrow money?”
Dad cut in after hearing the bully’s pathetic excuse.
The air felt like another fight could break out at any moment.
Still, causing a scene in the teachers’ office wouldn’t help, so I reached out and grabbed Dad’s wrist.
“Dad, stop…”
“Say it again like you did earlier. You said you have plenty of money, so it’s not asking for it—it’s borrowing, right?”
Dad repeated the exact words the bully had said to me, eyes blazing.
I wondered how much he’d overheard.
Everything Dad said was right, but the situation and atmosphere didn’t exactly favor him.
“Sir, please calm down. It’s true he said he wanted to borrow money, so…”
The homeroom teacher spoke gently into the heavy silence.
She was trying to soothe Dad, but her words only made things worse.
“No, teacher. When someone shoves their face right up to yours and says, ‘Your family looks rich, so lend me some money,’ how is that asking to borrow? Even loan sharks these days don’t do it like that.”
Dad was furious, yet every word he spoke was perfectly reasonable.
The teachers couldn’t just ignore it.
Every class has one or two troublemakers like that.
They show up for lunch, sneak out for cigarettes during breaks, and throw eraser shavings at weaker kids.
At our school, at least, actual violence doesn’t happen unless someone really gets on their bad side.
Teachers usually turn a blind eye as long as things don’t escalate too much.
The goal is to keep them in school with minimal trouble until graduation.
This time, something that was supposed to stay small had blown up.
Still, the teachers reached a conclusion quickly.
One side was a rare-disease patient who had never caused problems.
The other was a chain-smoking delinquent who was lucky if he even showed up to class.
Everyone already knew who was more at fault based on their usual behavior.
“You really tried to take his money, didn’t you?”
“…Well.”
Even the homeroom teacher had made up her mind and pressed the bully again.
The kid hesitated, unable to outright deny it anymore.
Just as the tension seemed stuck, Dad clicked his tongue and stood up.
“You. Come with me for a second.”
“Ah, sir… just a moment.”
“Dad…!”
The teachers panicked and tried to stop him.
I clung to Dad as well, speaking urgently.
Anyone could see he wanted to beat the kid until he was satisfied.
The bully’s face went pale.
“No, no, it’s not like that. Hyunwoo and that kid… anyway, I’ll let them leave early today.”
Dad waved his hands dismissively, as if reading our minds.
Then he suddenly announced he was making both me and the bully leave early.
The teachers exchanged glances at the unexpected turn.
Dad looked at them and continued.
“These kinds of kids disappear after lunch anyway, right? And you teachers don’t want to make a big deal out of it either.”
He had read the room perfectly.
Seeing their silent agreement, Dad turned to me and waved his hand.
“Lee Hyunwoo, go get your bag. You didn’t bring yours, did you?”
“Yes…”
Dad told me to fetch my bag, then asked the thoroughly intimidated bully a short question.
The kid had instantly switched to polite speech.
Violence really does solve everything sometimes.
“Then only Hyunwoo needs to get his bag and come here.”
“Yeah…”
After giving a short reply, I walked down the quiet hallway back to the classroom.
The moment I opened the front door, every pair of eyes turned toward me.
I felt self-conscious more than anything else.
Having your dad show up at school when you’re already a high school student was embarrassing.
“What happened?”
Seokjun was the first to ask, his face flushed.
I couldn’t explain the full details.
So I just passed on the instructions I’d been given.
“Dad said to bring my bag and come out.”
“Why?”
“…I don’t know.”
Rustle, rustle.
I answered Seokjun briefly and started packing my bag, even though I was just as confused.
Second period had barely started, and already this mess.
“Let’s go.”
By the time I returned to the teachers’ office with my bag, Dad was already saying we should leave.
He walked out with me and the bully in tow.
The walk down the hallway felt awkward and uncomfortable.
The bully beside me looked just as uneasy.
Still, with Dad’s overwhelming presence right there, neither of us could say a word.
After a long stretch of tense silence, I finally spoke up.
“Dad, aren’t you supposed to be at work today?”
“I took a day off.”
When I asked about work, Dad said he’d used a vacation day.
Only then did the fragments of what I’d heard in my half-asleep state come back to me.
Wait, that means it wasn’t a dream.
What else had been said?
Actually, the dream didn’t matter right now.
What mattered was why Dad had come to school.
“Why did you come to school…?”
“Your mom was worried about you. She told me to check how you were doing if I had time.”
“Huh?”
Why would she be curious about her perfectly fine son’s school life?
The absurdity made a dazed sound slip out of me.
“She has your bankbook, remember? Besides the stuff you bought, there were over ten thousand won spent at the school store every time. She thought you’d become a bread shuttle.”
Dad explained Mom’s concern without missing a beat.
That was how it all started.
Mom had been balancing my account and noticed repeated ten-thousand-won withdrawals at the school store.
She figured I couldn’t possibly eat that much food alone, so she assumed I was buying for someone else and talked to Dad about it.
Dad decided to tail me and ended up witnessing everything.
“That wasn’t him. I really bought it for my friends…”
I couldn’t even finish my sentence at Mom’s terrifying deductive skills.
From a few small school-store transactions, she’d reached the shocking conclusion that her son had become a bread shuttle.
The bully had just been extremely unlucky to get caught up in it.
Wait a second—if Mom saw the transactions, then she must know about the game I bought too.
“But that’s not important right now.”
Dad didn’t care about that anymore.
The only thing on his mind was the audacious little punk who had tried to take his child’s money right in front of him.
“Where are we going?”
“Just shut up and follow.”
Dad’s usual playful demeanor was gone.
He looked ready to bury someone.
A short while later, we arrived at a Korean barbecue restaurant in the food district.
I tilted my head at the strange destination.
It was only ten in the morning.
Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch.
“You haven’t eaten breakfast, right?”
“…No.”
The bully sat down under Dad’s intimidating pressure.
While Dad ordered meat like it was already lunchtime, I muttered from beside him.
“I already ate breakfast…”
“Then eat lightly. I’ll buy you something later.”
“Okay.”
Dad skillfully ordered meat and began grilling it.
No matter how full I was, the smell of cooking meat was tempting.
…Though the cigarette smell coming from nearby was annoying.
“I’ve seen plenty of kids like you who live without thinking ahead. Even back in my school days, and I still see them now and then.”
Dad portioned out the grilled meat and started reminiscing.
He explained how he’d ended up in construction work because he had no education, then began listing what had happened to the so-called “troublemakers” from his old class reunions.
The guy who died in a motorcycle accident, body never found.
The guy who showed off on a construction site and broke his back.
The guy who died of lung cancer in his thirties.
Every story was told for the bully to hear.
“Quitting smoking is a real pain in the ass, isn’t it? If you’re just doing it to look cool, drop it. It costs a decent amount of money too.”
“…Yes.”
The bully nodded quietly while accepting the meat.
After finishing the early lunch, Dad pulled out a fifty-thousand-won bill from his wallet and handed it to the kid.
“Sorry you had to go through that. Go play some games at a PC bang and buy yourself some chicken.”
“…Thank you.”
The bully bowed politely, took the money, and disappeared without looking back.
Dad watched him go and asked,
“Do you think that kid will actually quit smoking?”
I looked at Dad after the sudden question.
Did he really think saying that would make the kid quit?
Even adults struggle to quit.
I shook my head like it was obvious.
“No…?”
“Correct. Still, at least he won’t bother you anymore.”
Dad declared it confidently.
The very next day proved him right.
Just as he said, the bully never tried to get revenge.
Dad’s folk-remedy method of dealing with delinquents had somehow worked.
The same bully who used to show up for fourth period, last an hour, disappear after lunch, and skip fifth period.
The moment he passed behind me like nothing had happened—
‘…Huh?’
I turned around after catching a faint scent.
The usual sharp cigarette smell was noticeably weaker.
While I spun around in surprise,
“What’s wrong?”
Byeonghwa, who had been talking to me, asked curiously.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
I shook my head and turned back around.
It must have been my imagination. My nose had just gotten used to the smell.
Surrounded by that acrid cigarette odor as always,
I pretended not to notice the familiar scent of oil.