Don't Get the Wrong Idea
"A single room? This place is a studio! There's not even a wall to divide it with!"
Having spent her entire life in nothing but the finest mansions, the young lady apparently didn't even know what a studio apartment was.
"It doesn't matter. I can put up with it being small."
While we were still facing off, trading words—
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
A noise far louder than anything we'd heard that morning slammed against the wall. Impacts so violent it seemed the semi-basement wall might collapse at any second. Our conversation was forcibly cut short, and both our gazes swung toward the wall where the sound had come from.
Ding-dong-ding-dong.
The chime announced that fourth period was over. The bell spilled out through the speaker at the front of the classroom. The instructor was brushing away the dense equations that had filled the blackboard, and in an instant the room surged with life. Students clustered into their usual groups, busily packing bags as they prepared to head for the cafeteria or the snack shop.
I propped my chin on my hand and quietly watched the world beyond the window. As if yesterday's savage downpour had been nothing but a lie, the sky was a clear, unbroken blue. It was a perfectly peaceful scene. My mind, however, was anything but.
Was it a dream?
Without meaning to, my gaze drifted sideways to the seat beside me. Straight black hair brushed neatly back. A uniform shirt and skirt pressed so sharp there wasn't a single crease. Just a few hours earlier, in my cramped semi-basement room, that same girl had been wearing a tacky floral apron, ladle in hand, tasting the stew. The disconnect was so severe I could barely believe it was the same person.
The woman who had casually cooked doenjang stew right in front of me and announced she intended to keep living there. What exactly was I supposed to do with a young lady who didn't even know what a studio apartment was?
I let out a long sigh and was about to turn back toward the window when—
"Hey. Look at that guy staring. He crawled out again today. That one."
Near the classroom's back door. Words deliberately pitched to be overheard.
"Pee-pants bastard. Thick-skinned, isn't he? If it were me, I'd be too ashamed to stay at the Academy."
"Hey. Keep it down. He'll hear you."
"I want him to hear. What's he gonna do about it? He's a pathetic loser who can't even talk back. Did we say anything wrong? He pissed himself in class and then walks around playing the victim. I don't get why he even bothers coming to school. Just being near him makes me feel like I can smell the piss."
They snickered. The ugly laughter kept rolling. I didn't need to look to know who it was—Kim Taehyeong and his worthless thug crew. They were perched crookedly on the desks, openly glancing my way, never letting up on the mockery.
Here we go again.
I turned my eyes back to the blue sky outside the window. This wasn't a one- or two-day ordeal, so it didn't even register as a blow. They had branded me Pee-pants and stamped me as the official Covert Outcast five years ago.
Back then, a kid in my class had been crushed under extreme tension and stress. After the lesson ended, on the way to the bathroom, they collided with me and had an accident on their skirt. That fragile kid stood there with welling eyes, wearing the expression of someone whose life had just ended. I couldn't stand by and watch them become the Academy's laughingstock. In the heat of the moment I lied—tying it to the water bottle I'd been carrying to water the flowers—and claimed I'd accidentally spilled water on my own pants.
Thanks to that small mercy, the kid escaped becoming a target. But because of the distinctive smell of urine and my sudden, conspicuous action, I was left with the scarlet letter of the filthy boy who'd wet himself in class, burned permanently into everyone's eyes. The chance to explain was lost forever. Making excuses would only have made me look pathetic. And so I became the Academy's Covert Outcast.
Don't let it get to you.
Once I had my diploma, I would never have to see these people's faces again for the rest of my life. In the familiar climate of disregard and scorn, the only way to protect my mind was to close my ears and refuse to feed them. There was no reason to waste precious energy reacting to provocations that low.
Rattle!
Something happened from a direction I never expected. I whipped my head around. Min Jiyeon, who had been sitting beside me, rose from her seat. Her eyes locked onto Kim Taehyeong's gang, still clustered by the back door and snickering.
"Hey."
"...Huh? Min Jiyeon?"
Kim Taehyeong stammered in panic, sliding his backside off the desk. Min Jiyeon took one step, then another, radiating an untouchable, haughty presence as she closed the distance. Arms crossed. A high-handed gaze looking down from above pressed the whole group flat. The few students still left in the classroom found their eyes drawn helplessly to her movement.
"Shut your mouth. All that garbage first thing in the morning is going to ruin my appetite before I even eat."
"Jiyeon... we were talking about that bastard... not you. Don't get the wrong idea."
Kim Taehyeong tried to offer a pitiful excuse, wearing an aggrieved look.
"Who said you could call my name whenever you feel like it? Disgusting."
Min Jiyeon's eyebrow twitched. Under that force, Kim Taehyeong visibly shrank. Even thugs who swaggered around school because they had a little money were nothing but dust in front of the direct daughter of the Min Ga Group, one of the nation's foremost chaebol families. A single word from her could destroy the companies their parents worked for—or their entire family businesses—overnight. That was the weight the three syllables Min Jiyeon carried at the Academy.
"You're being too loud. Stop barking in the middle of the classroom like some lowlife. If you've got nothing more to say, get out of my sight right now. You're disgusting."
Her eyes held the contempt and revulsion reserved for filth dumped by the roadside. Kim Taehyeong's face flushed red as he glanced at the guys around him. He seemed to grasp exactly what kind of retaliation would hit his family if he pushed his pride any further. The others quietly lowered their heads and tugged at his uniform sleeve.
"Uh. Uh... sorry. Hey. Let's just go to the snack shop."
They didn't dare spit out a single proper retort. They vanished out of the classroom in a hurry, as if fleeing. Min Jiyeon swept back the jet-black hair that had slipped forward, turned, and walked back toward her seat. As she did, she casually directed her gaze at me.
Why is she doing this?
In her eyes there was none of last night's weakness—when she had buried herself under the blankets and cried in my room—and none of this morning's fluster either. Only a warmth that I alone could recognize flickered past for an instant. Min Jiyeon calmly reached into her bag and took something out.
"Come on. Let's go eat."
She tossed the words out, tilting her chin slightly toward the door. In a daze, I had no choice but to stand.
On the Academy rooftop, a cool breeze swept in beneath the wide-open blue sky. Ordinarily this was a lonely corner where I sat alone on a secluded bench and made do with cheap convenience-store bread. Today, I had company sitting across from me.
Min Jiyeon gently laid her white handkerchief on the wooden bench and perched on it with perfect posture.
Click.
The lid of the plastic side-dish container she had pressed into my hand opened. Inside the container that had been buried deep in my studio sink, neatly prepared food was arranged with surprising care—Vienna sausages sliced with tidy cuts and stir-fried, two sunny-side-up eggs with soft-boiled yolks, and white rice packed down firmly. This morning she had raided my meager fridge and taken on the housework herself, and somehow she had even made a packed lunch for me.
I fiddled with the disposable wooden chopsticks and casually opened my mouth toward the girl sitting opposite me.
"About earlier. In the classroom."
"What about it…"
Min Jiyeon elegantly held her chopsticks, picked up a sausage, and answered curtly.
"What you said to Kim Taehyeong and those guys. Were you helping me out?"
The moment the question landed, Min Jiyeon's hand stiffened slightly. She didn't put the sausage straight into her mouth. She stopped the wrist holding the chopsticks and cast her gaze slantwise downward. A faint flush of red slowly colored her bare face—I could see it clearly. Trying to hide her embarrassment, her words came out even sharper than her usual haughty tone.
"Don't get the wrong idea. My ears were just annoyed, that's all. I simply didn't want to look at the spectacle of people making those low-class noises right next to me."
"Is that so? You didn't really need to walk all the way over there and get that serious about it. They're the type you can just ignore like always."
"…You."
Min Jiyeon finally set the chopsticks down beside the side-dish container and looked me straight in the face. A complicated emotion crossed her deep eyes; she steadied her breath and went on.
"Why do you just sit there and take that kind of ridiculous insult without saying a word? It's obvious you didn't wet yourself—you lied and took the fall for someone else."
"How would you know that? I could've actually had an accident in class."
When I asked back in surprise, Min Jiyeon shook her head from side to side.
"Your behavior tells the whole story. At school you act like a Covert Outcast who doesn't care what anyone thinks and does whatever he wants. But last night you couldn't just walk past a runaway girl like me in an alley—you hid me. You tilted your umbrella for me even while you were getting soaked in the rain…"
"There's no way a busybody soft enough to let me wash in warm water, feed me, and even give up his own room would do something like that in class. I know you're a kind, deep-hearted person, because I experienced it myself."