The Sabaeja's Clever School Life (4)
"Oh Gwangjun, that swollen cheek of yours is a real sight. Hahaha."
"A guy who claims he boxes, getting wrecked by some skeleton? Seriously?"
"Your mom finds out, she's gonna flip."
"Shut up! Fuck!"
Cheonghwa High enforced strict rules, but there were always carefully carved-out exceptions.
In one corner of the athletic field sat the sports equipment room.
Not every student who entered Cheonghwa High was a pure academic prodigy. When grades fell short, the school steered them toward elite university admissions through athletic specialties—equestrian, golf, ice hockey, canoeing, and the like. These were sports that required serious money to pursue, operated almost exclusively for the children of the upper class. Even if they never earned the title of genius, they could still protect their social standing by pivoting into high-end athletics. First they secured admission to a prestigious university through a sparsely applied arts-and-sports track, then switched majors at a convenient moment, laundering both their alma mater and their field of study. In that regard, Cheonghwa High was unmatched—a veritable cradle of specialized athletic programs. It was no exaggeration to say that the special sports departments of Korea's top universities were filled almost entirely with Cheonghwa graduates.
"Don't stress about it. Here, light one up. That bastard's just a sabaeja anyway."
"Hyungs'll stomp him for you! Heh."
"Loyalty~!"
Oh Gwangjun had come during lunch to meet the sports-track students. Instead of choking down cafeteria food that never quite suited their tastes, they soothed themselves with cigarettes.
Wiiiiiiiiing.
The air purifier's fan spun furiously against the smoke. The equipment room was an unofficially sanctioned smoking zone the school quietly tolerated.
"Fuck. Lee Hyoju told me not to make things difficult."
Oh Gwangjun ground his teeth.
"Lee Hyoju?"
"That sabaeja and Lee Hyoju are a thing?"
"What kind of bullshit is that? If her family heard, they'd lose their minds."
The boys who usually hung around Oh Gwangjun came from roughly the same tier—sons of private clinic owners, regional savings-bank presidents, mid-sized accounting firm heads. Their mothers had curated every detail of their lives, polishing them into finished products. Even these arrogant kids instinctively feared Lee Hyoju. They recognized her as belonging to an entirely different stratum, something they kept firmly in the celestial realm. Touching her would bring nothing but trouble.
"Hey, you just gonna take that lying down?"
Yang Cheolgyu asked around the cigarette clamped in his mouth.
"Me? I've got a plan… a plan. Hooo."
Oh Gwangjun took a long, deep drag. A cold, vicious smile slowly curved his lips.
"……??"
Park Jiwoong stared blankly at the figure who sat down across from him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Ha Taewoong?
Of the five students admitted that year through Cheonghwa High's sabaeja track, three had already dropped out. Only two remained. In theory they might have drawn closer for mutual support; in practice they avoided each other. When sabaeja stuck together, it only drew more eyes—an open invitation for mockery about a "low-caste gathering." The mentally weaker ones had fallen away first.
Park Jiwoong was from Guryong Village, a true bottom-rung case who had clawed his way into Cheonghwa. Anyone in Korea knew the name—the last remaining slum tucked inside Gangnam. He had gritted his teeth and buried himself in books for one reason: to escape that place. His dream was vast. His father had been a detective with a spine of steel, but cruel fate had dumped Jiwoong alone into a harsh world. His parents had died in a nighttime traffic accident while returning from a relative's funeral in the provinces. Before the funeral rites were even finished, debt collectors had stormed in. Then the police arrived, claiming the dead detective had taken bribes. It was pure nonsense. They tore the house apart looking for evidence. The four of them had lived solely on the modest monthly salary of a detective who never accepted a single extra won. His father had worn out his old combat boots surviving in the violent crimes unit; he had never created situations that required loan sharks or bribes. Paydays were the only days they tasted meat. The couple had been that frugal. Even ordinary seasonal fruit was bought only during sales. Year-round, kimchi, bean-sprout soup, and fried eggs formed the bulk of their side dishes. They had also been supporting his grandmother. Yet his mother always spoke first of things to be happy about rather than what they lacked. Thrift was woven into her bones. She had even taken part-time jobs so they could at least provide a deposit for a rented house when their only son married. That was how she had scraped together her secret savings.
After both parents died, the household collapsed overnight. His grandmother, a woman of the old generation, understood nothing of the modern world. With only a few million won in cash and the clothes on their backs, they were driven into Guryong Village. Park Jiwoong, who had grown up as an ordinary middle-class kid, suddenly tasted life at the absolute bottom. The further problem was that his father had also been an only son; once his parents were gone, there was not a single relative left to turn to. They began scraping by on the minimum living stipend from the district office. He refused to mix with the other kids from Guryong Village. For the sake of his dead parents, he could not fall into bad paths. He clung to his studies with ferocious determination.
As he grew older, doubts began to surface. The more information he accumulated through studying, the more suspicious details he noticed. Perhaps someone had been involved in his parents' deaths. Things he had been too shocked to register at the time floated back one by one. Years after the accident, one of his father's former colleagues visited him. The man's sudden appearance only deepened the suspicion. He had come all the way to Guryong Village just to say, out of nowhere, "I'm sorry," then left an envelope and departed. Park Jiwoong had never once lost first place in elementary or middle school. Like the hidden truths that always surfaced in revenge movies and dramas, he became certain that someone stood behind his parents' deaths. Clenching that conviction, he studied even harder. Uncovering the secret of their deaths would require power.
His outstanding middle-school grades opened the door to Cheonghwa High without difficulty. He had practically begged the principal who tried so hard to stop him. The principal had worried about the stigma of the sabaeja admission track. Jiwoong had not cared. Living without parents had taught him that the most painful thing was a life without money or connections. Cheonghwa High was a playground for the children of the wealthy. He had wanted, somehow, to enter, build friendships with them, and use those relationships as a ladder. Reality, however, was not so kind. It had been a naive, stupid choice. Sabaeja… inside Cheonghwa High they were nothing more than an untouchable caste, and they were treated exactly as such. To kids who had grown up wanting for nothing, a sabaeja was little better than a reeking pile of filth. Academic performance was no different. Even as a graduate of a Gangnam middle school, the gap was enormous. No matter how relentlessly he studied, he could not catch up. An invisible wall of reinforced glass stood in the way.
These days Park Jiwoong was wrestling hard with himself. Was it worth enduring this treatment just to remain at Cheonghwa until the end? Was it worth mortgaging years of his life? He had reached the point of cursing his own foolishness for thinking he could borrow power by building connections here.
"Don't overthink it."
"……??"
The words came from Ha Taewoong sitting across from him. Chopsticks loaded with a generous heap of bulgogi, he looked straight at Jiwoong.
"You're half-and-half chicken right now."
"Wh-what?"
"What, thinking of quitting school?"
"……."
Crunch.
Ha Taewoong stuffed the bulgogi into his mouth and chewed with pure, unfiltered pleasure. Even Park Jiwoong, who had lost his appetite, found his mouth watering at the sight. Shoving in a huge bite somehow did not look greedy on him at all.
Gulp.
He swallowed almost immediately and never stopped moving his chopsticks. Next came a massive helping of the sweet-spicy jeyuk bokkeum. He looked ready to film a mukbang.
"One year left until the CSAT. If you give up here, your parents will be sad."
"……!!"
Eyes closed, savoring every flavor as if genuinely moved, Ha Taewoong kept eating.
What the hell is this bastard saying?
Rumors had flooded the school since morning. The sabaeja Ha Taewoong had stomped the delinquent Oh Gwangjun! The news had been welcome. At the same time, Jiwoong had thought him an idiot. If pure force could solve the problem, he himself would have stepped in long ago. His detective father had taught him taekwondo from childhood, building solid fundamentals. His father, a high-ranker in multiple martial arts, had been a strict instructor. Jiwoong's sturdy frame was also his father's genes. He could more than hold his own against the sports-track brats. He had never acted recklessly for one clear reason: real power did not come from fists. It came from the pen. Anyone with half a brain understood that. Yet Ha Taewoong had swung his fists as if he had never heard of the concept. He had endured until this morning, ignored just as badly as Jiwoong himself. With today's incident, Ha Taewoong's life at this school was finished.
"You feel sorry for me?"
"……."
What, mind-reading?
As if performing actual mind-reading, Ha Taewoong had plucked the exact thought from Jiwoong's head. Jiwoong dropped his gaze under the sudden pressure.
"You should try it once. Feels fucking great."
Ha Taewoong was acting like an elementary schooler.
"Get lost."
Park Jiwoong lifted only his eyes and spat the words.
"That's Ha Taewoong, right?"
"A sabaeja threw punches without any sense of fear?"
"Oh Gwangjun's dad is a chief prosecutor at the Eastern District Prosecutors' Office."
"He just doesn't know his place…"
"Birds of a feather, huh."
Students from every year gathered, whispering as they stared at the two of them. Within half a day the rumor had spread so thoroughly that hundreds of students already knew. It was that big an issue. And the main culprit of the incident was sitting right in front of Park Jiwoong.
"Scared?"
"……."
Ha Taewoong smirked and asked again.
"I don't have time to flap my mouth with you, so get the hell out of my face!"
Park Jiwoong's eyes blazed. If this was a joke… strength gathered in his fist.
Just then—
Clomp. Clomp.
Soft footsteps approached from behind Park Jiwoong. The first thing that caught the eye was the uniform skirt hem hiked up short by a folded waistband. They were three of the notorious girls the school occasionally tried—and failed—to crack down on.
"Even if it's only one free meal a day, aren't you packing it away a little too hard?"
A girl with her eyes sharply upturned sneered. From the start it looked like they had approached solely to pick a fight with Park Jiwoong.
"Go easy on him, Seora. My dad says kids like this have holes in their stomachs."
"That tasteless cafeteria food—if he finishes it off like this, isn't that a good thing?"
"Even so, our little bear cub is really stuffing himself. Leftovers go to animal feed, you know. If the animals go hungry because of him, what'll we do~?"
"Still, the bear cub the school is raising comes first."
"So, should we let it slide?"
"Kind Seora is holding back. Animal welfare. He has the right to survive on his own, right?"
"Fine, I'll be generous today. Eat lots, sabaeja piggy. Hohohohot."
Crack.
Head bowed, Park Jiwoong clenched his fists so hard his jaw trembled. It was the same humiliation he endured every lunch period, and he had to endure it again. The moment lunch began, Oh Seora—his own classmate—always came to provoke him. She was the daughter of the landowner whose property sat under the illegal house in Guryong Village where he lived with his grandmother. With midterms approaching she was growing even more hysterical. Park Jiwoong always outscored her. Oh Seora's attitude never changed: she treated him like a modern-day slave.
But today—
"Ohhh~! Looks like bullshit is having a bumper harvest today~"