Chapter 98
Chapter 98
Carrying out the plan wasn't especially difficult.
From the start, my ultimate goal wasn't for every student in this school to get smacked with a hammer of justice; it was to corner them so they'd have no choice but to acknowledge that I exist here.
Of course, if they also got the condemnation they deserved, that would be a bonus. But I thought the ideal approach was one by one, step by step, handling things carefully. Trying to process too much at once and botching it would leave me with nothing—neither one thing nor the other.
That was why, honestly, So-hee's attitude toward the other kids didn't matter to me.
The only thing that mattered was one thing: "making the accusation stick to the other kids."
"So, what's the best way to do it?"
Right in the middle of class, So-hee asked that without the slightest hesitation.
"If I just walk up with my usual face and shout, 'They started it!', that doesn't exactly sell the picture, you know."
So-hee had a point.
Even if the accusation might not be fully accepted as truth and get the perpetrators punished, the more convincing the scene looked, the better.
As So-hee spoke to me, the teacher's gaze flicked our way.
The classroom was dead silent, unlike usual.
Everyone was gauging the mood.
Right, if I were counting changes, this one definitely counted.
Originally, this was a school where almost nobody paid attention during lessons. Everyone got advanced tutoring at home or high-end private instruction. If they really needed to, there were kids who had their school grades managed with money.
So normally, during class, they'd chat with the person next to them or kill time on their smartphones browsing the internet or playing games. Naturally, the classroom wasn't particularly quiet.
Now, though, it was different.
Everyone was staring at their desks. Plenty of them were watching the teacher, too.
And some of them kept stealing glances at us.
Even the teacher, who was supposed to be running the lesson, kept sending looks our way mid-sentence.
As a result, the classroom atmosphere grew so heavy that every word of our exchange carried perfectly.
It felt as if the whole class was on high alert, monitoring whatever scheme we were cooking up.
Well, none of that bothered me.
"Can you do a crying act?"
.......
When I asked, So-hee's face scrunched up a little. It looked like a "what kind of question is that" face.
"Well?"
No, apparently it wasn't a "what kind of question is that" face, but So-hee's own version of a crying face.
"......You, uh, probably can't make it as an actress."
I'd thought that since she'd been consistently hiding her sexual orientation, she might at least manage minimal acting. But, on second thought, anyone can pull off that much. The genuinely hard part is "faking an emotion you don't feel."
Well, if just anyone could do that, actors wouldn't get paid to perform.
"In that case, how about acting angry?"
Ha-neul, who had been watching our back-and-forth from the side, offered advice with a serious face.
"If a crying face is too hard, go off in a rage—'Why did I have to be treated like this?' 'Where did all the money you took even go?'...That angle could be pretty convincing too, don't you think?"
At those words from Ha-neul, the teacher's shoulders twitched. The chalk writing on the board let out an uneasy squeak.
He didn't stop the lesson, though.
In truth, he probably had no idea what we were talking about. The only conversation we'd had was during lunch, while we ate. The cafeteria wasn't quiet just because we were there. And we'd been sitting a table away, so it wouldn't have been easy to eavesdrop even if someone had tried.
Being isolated, in other words, meant it was that much easier to scheme.
"Try making an angry face."
"Uh...."
At my request, So-hee pondered for a moment, then put on exactly the same expression she'd worn a moment ago.
No, the last time she threatened those kids, she was genuinely terrifying. What's with her now?
Could she be the type who can't pull it off the moment she tries to do it on purpose?
"Still, that one's a bit better."
Compared to the "crying face," the "are you kidding me" face did suit her a little more. Well, for anger, just frowning and raising your voice would probably look passable enough.
If it still seemed insufficient, she could always smash a few objects and call it done.
She'd taken well over a billion won, so she could handle that much on her own.
"There's nothing to worry too much about. We'll all help you with all our heart."
Ha-neul said.
"Yeah. 'Victims' ought to stick together."
So-hee deliberately put weight on the word "victims."
"Ahem!"
The teacher let out a loud, pointed cough, as if to say, "I can hear you." Coughing that forcefully had to hurt his throat.
"......Yu Ha-neul, come up front and solve this one."
His voice, as though he'd meant it to disrupt us, was unmistakably hoarse. Told you so.
"Yes, sir."
Ha-neul rose from her seat and replied as if nothing had happened.
*
.......
The Student Council President's mouth hung open as he stared at the stack of documents piled on the desk. The bundle had to be several hundred pages. Even though every single sheet was simple in content, checking each one would clearly take hours.
"What is all this?"
He pushed up his glasses and lifted his head. On the other side of the mahogany desk stood Son A-reum.
"It's the list of students to be sent to the Disciplinary Committee."
.......
The President looked back down at the documents. Sure enough, each form had a student's name carefully entered. And with impressive thoroughness, every single one had an ID photo attached, pulled from the school server. He couldn't guess how long it had taken to compile, but the contents were probably free of errors. Because the person in front of him, Son A-reum, was the one who had made it.
She could sometimes come off a bit dazed, and her righteous streak had a tendency to lurch off in unexpected directions. But when it came to handling work, she was dependable.
The President pulled the weighty stack toward himself and flipped through a few pages.
......The names of the vast majority of first-year female students were listed, sorted by Korean alphabetical order.
The reason for the report was written very simply on every single one.
[Participation in Group Bullying]
.......
The Student Council President took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. A headache was coming on.
Not long ago, this was the girl who'd been tailing Ye Sa-ra, hell-bent on exposing her misdeeds. She hadn't believed the truth even when she heard it, but after experiencing that absurd injustice firsthand, her thinking seemed to have changed.
And the moment she realized she'd misidentified the perpetrators and the victim, she had sprung into action, like this.
......He was the one who'd recruited her and put her in the Disciplinary Committee Member seat, but he hadn't known she was this rigidly black-and-white.
"You know as well as I do. No matter how far we take this, the teachers will ignore it in the end. The same kids will be standing there, no matter which side we put them on."
"No. I don't think it'll go that way this time."
"Huh?"
Normally, upon hearing that, Son A-reum would have gotten all worked up and raised her voice. This time, she showed no such sign.
Instead, with a faint smile, she pulled one more sheet of paper from inside her jacket.
Placed beside the stack, that single sheet bore the name "Shin So-hee."
She was the transfer student the rumors had been circulating about lately.
Tales of mountains of money, of bribes paid to the school... Those stories had naturally gone around, but—
"among the first-year girls, there's this really pretty one with an incredible figure who walks around with her chest practically on display"
—that was the rumor primarily going around the boys' classrooms. Honestly, whenever the topic of the first-year transfer student came up, the conversation would start with money but inevitably end with "she's hot." If Ye Sa-ra's name was brought up, most would say Ye Sa-ra was prettier, but the general consensus was that there was no comparison when it came to body.
And usually, those kinds of discussions fizzled fast, offering no real substance. The topic would quickly shift to movies, drama series, or something funny that happened yesterday.
If Ye Sa-ra were a male student, the atmosphere might have been different. But at this school, where boys and girls were split into separate classes, stories about a girls' class, let alone a different grade, were nothing more than fleeting entertainment.
Which was why the Student Council President was puzzled that Son A-reum was showing him this document.
Was she saying Shin So-hee had taken part in the incident, too?
"She's the victim in this case."
Son A-reum took a step forward, bent slightly at the waist, and pointed a finger at the reason field.
[Victim of Group Bullying]
That's what was written there.
.......
The Student Council President stared down at the section for a moment, then lifted his head and looked up at Son A-reum. Maybe because she'd regained a little peace of mind, she seemed much more at ease than usual.
"What's your angle?"
At the question, Son A-reum spoke.
"Whatever my angle may be, the incident itself genuinely happened. You know that."
"The victim is Ye Sa-ra."
"No. She's not the only one."
Son A-reum's face hardened a little.
"The other kids next to Sara, and several outside admits. They've all been 'ostracized,' haven't they?"
.......
It wasn't wrong.
He'd never heard of the sort of aggressive bullying that still occasionally made the news, but it was true that those kids were implicitly ignored and treated as if they didn't exist.
To escape that situation, you had to throw away your pride and everything else and grovel. That was the only way to be judged as "useful enough" to be worth something.
That said, no one tormented them by force. That style of bullying carried too much risk.
"But there's no evidence to punish every one of those cases."
No physical violence. No visible disadvantage. So naturally, no tangible evidence remained.
And on top of that, the perpetrators were kids from wealthy families. In the one-in-a-million chance it reached a trial, they'd likely hire good lawyers and walk away with a not-guilty verdict.
"That's nothing to worry about."
For the first time in this exchange, Son A-reum wore a slightly displeased expression.
And as though she were reluctantly bringing up material she didn't like, she spoke with that exact attitude.
"Apparently, the money this girl spent to get into this school is over a billion won."
.......
The Student Council President's mouth fell slightly open.
He had heard rumors. But only at the level of "she paid bribes"—he hadn't known how much. Even if he'd tried to guess, he would never have imagined a figure that high. It was an absurdly large sum for a bribe fed to teachers.
No, not just teachers. It was a sum large enough to buy off anyone you fed it to.
"So... that's how it is. We probably won't need evidence this time around. The teachers won't be able to 'ignore' it in the first place."
.......
The Student Council President couldn't close his gaping mouth for a long moment.