Take It Off
The words hit me like a slap.
“A… a parent just showed up at school?”
Parent.
The moment I heard it, my face twisted without thinking. Yejin, standing in front of me, took a cautious step back. Beside her, Uchan’s shoulders stiffened as he stood awkwardly between us, unsure where to look.
I pushed my chair back and stood up.
“…Jinho.”
“Wait here.”
Leaving Uchan’s hesitant voice behind, I stepped out of the classroom.
The entire school was buzzing in a strange way. It wasn’t the usual chatter of break time. This was the distinct atmosphere that came when a rumor spread from floor to floor.
With every step I took, fragments of conversation clung to my ears.
“Teacher Jinhui’s younger sister…”
“They say she was a drug addict.”
“She was a school violence perpetrator.”
“…One of the bullies…”
My senses blurred as I passed classroom after classroom. The same story spilled from different mouths at different angles. Jinhui’s name was always followed by talk of her sister, and the labels that should have stayed buried were now plastered across the middle of the hallway. Everything that had been tormenting Jinhui had supposedly been resolved, yet now it was all leaking out at once.
The real question was who had let it out.
Someone had deliberately chosen this exact moment to spread the rumor.
My blood ran cold from head to toe. The chill that reached my fingertips somehow cleared my mind.
Getting angry came last.
I grabbed a passing student. The kid who recognized my face immediately tensed up.
“Where did Teacher Jinhui go?”
“S-she’s in the counseling room. The principal took her there…”
I jerked my chin and the student scurried away.
The counseling room.
That room where stripes of light fell between the blinds. The sofa where I had sat across from Seol-a. The fact that it was now Jinhui sitting there left a particularly bitter taste in my mouth.
I pulled out my phone and dialed my grandfather. The call connected before the third ring.
“What is it this time?”
His low, clipped tone. It was his way of saying get to the point.
“Please take care of Teacher Kim Jinhui.”
“…Is this a request?”
“Yes.”
A short sigh came through the receiver.
“Come see me in person and explain later.”
“Understood.”
Click.
He hung up before I could even finish answering. I slipped the phone back into my pocket.
I turned away from the commotion and headed for the stairs on the opposite side of the main building. The noise grew distant behind me but never fully disappeared. I knew the rumor wouldn’t die down in a single day. There was no need to kill it. I just had to find out where it had started.
The hallway leading to the counseling room was eerily quiet.
The moment I reached for the doorknob, the door opened from the inside first.
It was Jinhui.
Our eyes met. Her face was a little pale, but that was all. There was no bloodshot look around her eyes, and her lips weren’t trembling.
Before the door opened fully, my gaze slipped past her into the room.
Beyond the low table, a woman sat on the sofa with her legs crossed. She was heavyset, with narrow shoulders and small eyes. She appeared to be pouring words at the principal, who sat across from her. The speed at which the principal nodded was slower than usual.
The picture was obvious.
I clicked my tongue and started to step inside.
“Don’t go in.”
Jinhui blocked my path. She reached behind her and closed the door.
“Why not?”
“Don’t make this a big deal.”
Jinhui’s voice was calm. It sounded almost like she was reciting something to herself. Her eyes didn’t waver. She seemed to be handling it better than I’d expected.
“…I don’t like that.”
“No. This is something I have to deal with myself.”
“Haa…”
I let out a long sigh.
“You’re mine now. I can’t forgive anyone who touches what’s mine.”
Jinhui’s mouth opened slightly, then closed. The corners of her eyes softened just a little at my words.
“I know.”
It was short.
“You already called anyway.”
Her gaze dropped to my pants pocket before rising again.
“…”
“Right after you hung up, they told me to leave.”
Jinhui nodded toward the hallway. It meant the woman sitting with the principal had been the one to send her out. I didn’t know exactly who my grandfather had contacted, but one phone call had clearly changed the principal’s attitude.
“I know you went out of your way for me.”
Jinhui took half a step closer. She lifted her arm and pressed her fingertips—neither cold nor warm—against my cheek.
“This is enough. You know I’m not trying to make this a huge issue. This is just someone trying to shake you up.”
Warmth slowly rose from her palm.
“I’m fine.”
Her voice dropped at the end.
“So… don’t waste your energy on this.”
The face of the woman telling me to hold back showed no sign of forced restraint. On the contrary, her calm expression made the tension drain from my body without me realizing it.
When I wrapped my fingers around the hand touching my cheek, it flinched for a moment before staying still.
It would have been easy to open that door right now, grab the fat woman by the scruff of her neck, and drag her out. Suppressing the principal would have been just as simple. The only problem was what it would leave on Jinhui’s face.
The fact that she had said this was something she would handle meant she already trusted me. It meant she would wait and endure because I would take care of it.
I let out one long breath.
“Do you have class right now?”
“Last period with the exam prep class.”
“Skip it. It’s not like you actually want to teach it.”
Jinhui tilted her head slightly.
“I’m okay. I don’t want to run away from school like I’m fleeing.”
“…”
“Besides.”
The corner of Jinhui’s mouth lifted—just a little.
“I’m going to hold on until graduation.”
“…Why?”
“Because it’s the only time we can be alone together.”
The warmth against my cheek disappeared. The lingering sensation stayed on my skin.
A small laugh slipped out before I could stop it. The anger that had filled my head just moments ago settled with that single sentence. While her own sister’s name was being torn apart, Jinhui was thinking about the time we could spend together.
“Fine. But from now on, I’ll handle things my way.”
“Okay.”
Jinhui nodded.
“Thank you.”
I walked Jinhui all the way to the teachers’ office.
The moment we reached the door, every eye turned toward us. A few teachers standing by the walls stopped their conversation mid-sentence. The atmosphere made it clear that everyone inside already knew what was following Jinhui around.
Jinhui stopped in front of the teachers’ office door. I could see her taking a steadying breath.
Standing beside her, I scanned the room once. I didn’t glare or put any particular force into my gaze. I simply met their eyes. One. Two. Three. In the order they met my stare, each person turned their face away first. The whispers that had briefly risen died all at once.
After today, everyone in this school would know about my relationship with Teacher Kim Jinhui. I had no intention of hiding it.
“Have a good day.”
“Yeah.”
Jinhui stepped into the teachers’ office. Just before the door closed, her shoulders rose and fell once. It was the motion of someone gathering herself before going inside. Once she was in there, she would return to her usual self.
I turned on my heel.
As I left the area in front of the teachers’ office, I pulled out my phone again. The call to my grandfather had only covered shutting down one crazy bitch within this board. Anything beyond that belonged to a different board.
I selected a name from my call log.
The phone rang twice before it was answered.
“…Mr. Jinho?”
Her voice sounded slightly surprised. Maybe she hadn’t expected me to call first. It felt like she had answered with only half her mask on.
“Let’s meet for a moment.”
“…What is this about?”
“If you don’t come right now, I’ll upload it immediately, so handle it however you want.”
There was a brief silence on the other end.
“…Where should I go?”
I drove into the city.
The place I had called Seol-a to was a private room inside the hotel’s basement restaurant. It was a floor used by people who came to discuss business, so it was thoroughly soundproofed against both outside and inside noise.
I sat down first, took a sip of water, and waited. Soon, the sound of high heels echoed from the hallway. The pace was neither fast nor slow. Just from the sound of her steps, I couldn’t tell what was going through that woman’s head right now.
The door opened and Seol-a entered.
She wore a black suit jacket over a white blouse. Her golden curly hair flowed with a silvery sheen under the lights. A modest curve hung at the corner of her mouth. She stood before me wearing the same mask she had worn in the counseling room.
“What is this about?”
Her first words were smooth. There was no sign that she had been urgently summoned, nor any indication that she felt like the weaker party. She was telling me to state my business.
As she sat across from me, not a single emotion showed on Seol-a’s face.
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I stared at her face for several seconds.
There was no visible point of disturbance. Her eyes were the same as usual, and her breathing was steady. If she had been the one pulling the strings after the counseling room incident, then today’s event at school should have been a trap she had set. Yet her current attitude was closer to someone who had been called in without knowing anything.
If Seol-a hadn’t orchestrated today’s incident…
That meant there was someone else moving specifically to screw with me. And there was only one person I could think of.
I decided to shake her first.
“You’ve been doing some interesting things.”
The hand holding Seol-a’s water glass paused for a beat.
She didn’t answer immediately. Her brows only drew together slightly. She lingered for the briefest moment between the expression of someone groping for a missed card and someone casually brushing off a story they were hearing for the first time. Then she returned to her original expression.
“I thought the matter we discussed last time was already settled.”
She was saying that after leaving the counseling room with the promise to consider it, she hadn’t done anything else on her end…
Just as I had expected.
I almost laughed at how absurd it was. She was running wild without even understanding her own father’s situation. She really was a reckless fool.
In fact, this had become an even better situation for pressuring Seol-a.
“You touched first.”
The smile that had been hanging at the corner of Seol-a’s mouth faded.
“…Just a moment.”
It looked like her real face was starting to show.
“Could you please explain exactly what you’re talking about?”
“Why should I?”
I lifted the glass and took a sip. The ice clinked against the side of the glass.
“I don’t have any obligation to explain things to you. Do I really need to explain myself in this situation?”
Seol-a’s gaze dropped to the edge of the table before rising again. I could see calculations running behind her eyes. She had already read that I had nothing to lose.
“Five minutes.”
A short sentence.
“Could you give me five minutes?”
She sat up straight and took out her phone. She tilted the screen so I could see it. It was her way of saying she wouldn’t hide who she was calling. She must have judged that hiding that much calculation was pointless since I had already figured everything out. She was a quick-witted woman.
The call connected. Seol-a turned her head slightly and brushed back the hair that had fallen beside her ear with her fingertips. It looked like a signal that she was about to deal with an unexpected cleanup job.
“You.”
One dry syllable.
“What did you do?”
An irritated tone came through the phone.
“Ha.”
A short breath escaped Seol-a’s lips. The fingers holding the phone tapped the edge of the table.
Click.
Tae-uk hung up first. Seol-a looked like she was about to curse but stopped when she noticed my gaze.
She swallowed it down. From across the table, I watched her rearrange her face. The sharp edge at the corner of her eyes softened, and the corners of her mouth rose degree by degree until they returned to their original position. It was faster than when she had reset her expression after I tore up her business card in the counseling room. Had the phone call thickened her mask even more?
She was a woman who had accumulated a lot of training in hiding her emotions.
Seol-a placed her phone face-down and gave me a slight bow.
“I’m sorry. This was my oversight.”
“Ha.”
The sound of me setting the cup down rang against the glass.
“Just with words?”
Seol-a’s shoulders flinched for a moment. It was an angle I hadn’t seen in the counseling room. The burden of having to take responsibility for what her brother had done was now sitting on top of the stakes at this table. She was already sitting here fully aware of how disadvantageous her position was.
The answer came immediately.
“If there’s something you want…”
She left the end of her sentence open and looked at me.
It was my turn to speak.
“Let’s proceed with the previous contract.”
One line.
Seol-a’s eyes met mine directly. I had just announced that I was closing the door she had left open with her “I’ll consider it,” all because of her brother’s actions. She understood the meaning in the same breath.
A brief silence settled inside the private room.
Seol-a let out a long breath. Her face didn’t tilt completely in any direction. It wasn’t her mask, nor was it the bare face she had shown in the counseling room. It stopped somewhere in between.
“…Yes.”
It was short.
After a beat, she added one more sentence.
“I accept.”
There wasn’t a single tremor in her voice. Her eyes didn’t waver. It was as dry as if she were simply approving a single agenda item in a meeting.
A smile rose to my lips.
“Then take it off.”
Take it off.
