The Sabaeja's Clever School Life (6)
“……!!”
She had pressed her lips tightly shut and clenched her teeth, yet the laugh that burst free left the girl flustered. Her eyes went round and she hurriedly clapped a hand over her mouth.
But it was already too late.
Every student in the silent cafeteria turned their gaze on her. An inappropriate reaction to the sabaeja rebellion. Looks that sought to identify who had the nerve to laugh as if mocking the whole scene.
“Kang Ari?”
“Ari??”
She was one of Cheonghwa High’s well-known figures. A cellist who had taken the top prize at last year’s Pablo Casals Cello Competition. Her skill was outstanding, and she was a natural beauty of Cheonghwa as well. Far more students knew her as one of the school’s three great beauties. The short hair suited her, and her particularly large eyes were her charm point.
As her schoolmates’ stares converged on her all at once, her face flushed red. Surprisingly shy, Kang Ari looked every bit the ordinary high school girl.
I must be out of my mind……
Kang Ari regretted it at once. She was the sort who chose only the organic salad from the cafeteria menu. Her mistake had been letting her attention be stolen by the sudden battle that had erupted in the lunchroom. She had grown so absorbed that she failed to consider the situation at all.
It was the first time she had ever witnessed an act of violence. Raised from birth as something precious, handled like gold and jade, she had never even seen a vicious argument between students. The school forbade such things so thoroughly that it only made the sight stranger. It was a trashy drama she had heard about only in rumors—and she had watched that drama unfold, vivid and raw, right before her eyes.
Even the language they traded back and forth was startlingly fresh. Dog. Bite. Sucker. Seed. And so on.
Kang Ari knew Oh Seora reasonably well as a rotten little brat. After taking a single slap, the girl had bawled like a child. In truth, that sight had made Kang Ari crack up. Somehow her heart felt exhilarated. It delivered the catharsis of watching a villain get put in her place. A snort of laughter had slipped out, but she had held it down well enough. She tried to hold it to the very end—yet the laugh burst free after all. She could not contain it.
“What are you staring at!!”
When Kang Ari sat flustered and at a loss, An Aram, who was with her, shouted. An Aram, who styled herself Kang Ari’s personal bodyguard, glared at the students as if something was about to explode that very second. Her build was formidable—so burly that no one would casually dare mess with her. An Aram was stuck to Kang Ari like glue. The two had carried their bond from kindergarten all the way to Cheonghwa. Rumor held that An Aram was the daughter of the housekeeper who managed Kang Ari’s household. She was a judo athlete in Cheonghwa’s physical education department, and a silver medalist in the high school division of the National Sports Festival as well.
“Aram, don’t…… It’s my fault.”
Kang Ari hurriedly reined in An Aram, who looked ready to rise from her seat and keep shouting. In truth, admitting it quickly was better. The behavior had been inappropriate. For the people involved, the situation was clearly serious.
“What fault? That rude brat got smacked for running her mouth. That’s funny, and you know it.”
An Aram coldly glared at Oh Seora, who sat crying on the cafeteria floor. Because the arts and PE departments were in separate buildings, they had never collided before. But even she had heard plenty about Oh Seora’s notoriety—a kid with no manners on top of parents who were nothing but Gangnam nouveau riche. Even this whole mess was something she had brought on herself.
“……”
No one contradicted An Aram’s words.
“Hic…… You two! I won’t let this go!!”
Oh Seora wiped her tears with the back of her hand, baring her viciousness. She huffed and puffed, unable to swallow her rage. Reflection, it seemed, did not exist in her dictionary.
Then Park Jiwoong rose from his seat. He walked over and stood beside the fallen Oh Seora.
And then—
It happened in an instant. Park Jiwoong dumped the leftover food from his plate over her head.
“Huh!”
“Crazy……”
“Everyone’s lost it……”
Oh Seora had only just wiped the tears from her face. The face that had been clean a moment earlier was now a mess of food scraps.
“You—you……”
Shocked by the unbelievable situation, Oh Seora’s body trembled. She could not accept that something like this had happened to her. An ordinary morning commute. Lunchtime like any other. She had approached Park Jiwoong the way she always did, hoping to blow off a little stress. Instead she was facing the worst possible outcome.
“If you act up one more time…… you might disappear from this world. I’ll make it happen by any means necessary.”
In a deadpan voice, Park Jiwoong delivered the warning to Oh Seora.
“……”
That gaze of his, like a reaper she was seeing for the first time. When their eyes met, Oh Seora’s knees went weak and she shut her mouth. Park Jiwoong’s eyes were no empty threat. It was a warning look that said he would truly kill her if she harassed him once more.
“Se-Seora……”
“To the classroom……”
Her minions busily brushed the food scraps from Oh Seora’s head with their hands, then hurriedly hauled her up from the floor. They dragged the still-trembling, uncalmed Oh Seora out of the cafeteria at speed.
“……”
The cafeteria atmosphere was especially quiet today.
“Buddy. Let’s eat. Enjoy your meal.”
Ha Taewoong acted as if nothing at all had happened.
“Yeah, let’s eat…… Enjoy!”
Park Jiwoong’s reaction was unexpected too. He showed a smile Ha Taewoong was seeing for the first time. A transformation in a mere ten minutes. One person’s life was changing right before their eyes.
A turning point!
It seemed Ha Taewoong’s single word had awakened something in Park Jiwoong. From now on, if anyone treated him unfairly without reason—no matter who—he was ready to tear them apart. He had resolved it himself as well. His heart raced madly, as if declaring it was alive. He felt the stifling, heavy weight that had pressed on him become endlessly light. The school life that had been suffocating since before he even arrived each morning. He had crushed every day under a boulder. But today that enormous stone had shattered into pieces.
And the result of that was——
“You two!”
From one corner of the cafeteria, a male and female student stood and called to them.
“Student council officers!”
“That’s Han Yubin from the Autonomous Discipline Department……”
“Those guys…… they’re done for.”
The quiet students all began murmuring at once. Unlike ordinary high schools, Cheonghwa High School’s student council was granted tremendous authority. These were two of its representative officers.
The student council was built around the student body president, two vice presidents, and departments such as the Autonomous Discipline Department, Budget Planning Department, Culture and Arts Department, Physical Education and Health Department, Information and Communication Department, Social Service Department, Career and Learning Department, Welfare Department, and more. Its structure and roles went far beyond the level of a normal student council. It looked as though the entire student body elected the president. In reality, the work of becoming a council member began with parents’ underground maneuvering long beforehand. As most students knew, everything was decided in advance and then “elected.” Graduated council officers pulled the next generation along in a baton-pass from the front.
The title of Cheonghwa High student council officer carried enormous practical value. That resume alone was enough to secure a lifelong livelihood when starting out in society. Parents who understood that fact well began moving even before admission. Eyes ablaze, they deployed every kind of lobby to install their children as council officers. Voting by students was the form; final approval from the parent association was required before anyone could serve. If your family did not already have a name in Korea’s political or business worlds, you should not even dream of it. At minimum you needed to be from a chaebol-level household to become president. Vice-president rank was for children of quasi-chaebol families, prime ministers, multi-term assembly members, or Supreme Court justices. The department-head line was hardly easier. Children of prosecutor generals, high-court chief judges, ministers, or general-hospital directors took those seats next. Becoming a student council officer itself amounted to a guarantee of social status—a process of practicing social life before leaping into the real thing. It was a system that taught personnel command and management starting from school life.
Within that structure, the organization with the sharpest teeth was the Autonomous Discipline Department. Even accounting for the fact that Cheonghwa students themselves came from remarkable families, most still had to tuck their tails in front of the discipline department. In practice they wielded authority more prickly than the guidance teachers. The moment you were marked by their office, leaving school with a clean diploma became difficult. If an act of school violence occurred, it was the end.
The current head of that formidable Autonomous Discipline Department was second-year Han Yubin. Her grandfather had been a former Prosecutor General. Her father was presently a chief judge at the Seoul High Court. In short, a family with real clout in the legal world.
Han Yubin’s expression was icy. Known as the cold-blooded witch, she stared at the two with frightening intensity. Glossy wavy hair fell to her chest. She had inherited large eyes and refined features from her mother, a former announcer. Even at rest she radiated elegance. Stubborn lips that looked as if they would not bleed a single drop if stabbed—those she had from her father. The two eyes that glared so sharply were colder than ice, almost biting.
The act of violence by the sabaejas she had just witnessed with her own eyes. In her entire tenure as discipline department head, not a single major incident of this scale had ever erupted.
“Come to the student council room after class.”
As expected, Han Yubin’s summons landed. This was not an incident that could simply be waved away. Had they been ordinary students who entered Cheonghwa High the regular way, it might have been papered over with some discretion. But the two were sabaeja special-admission students. In cases with no guardian whatsoever to back them, the problem could grow even larger.
Han Yubin knew Oh Seora well enough. Oh Seora’s mother was pouring herself into parent-association work precisely to peel off the label of real-estate nouveau riche. Whenever a parent-association day rolled around, she always appeared in the stories Han Yubin’s mother let slip at home. Even covered head to toe in luxury brands, the woman still gave off a cheap vibe! Without anyone saying it aloud, the other parents talked behind her back that her level simply did not measure up.
There was nothing good about today’s cafeteria incident becoming known outside the school. It was obvious the campus would grow noisy for no useful reason. She had a duty to grasp the situation before the affair spread. She needed to craft an appropriate story and prepare for what came next. Many eyes had witnessed the scene in the cafeteria. Before the students even left for home, most parents would already know. Above all, as a student council officer, Han Yubin did not want to leave a stain on her school record.
“I don’t want to.”
In that moment Han Yubin doubted her ears. An arrogant answer that shattered rational judgment and drove straight into her mind. One of the two—the second-year sabaeja, Ha Taewoong. Even Han Yubin knew him: among all the male students, his height and looks stood out. And that Ha Taewoong……
“What? You don’t want to??”
Han Yubin confirmed it once more. Had they been ordinary students, they would have tucked their tails at once. This was the authority of the student council’s Autonomous Discipline Department—the kind even guidance teachers deferred to.
“Yeah. I don’t want to.”
Ha Taewoong stated his refusal again.
A tremor ran through her. Han Yubin felt a hot fireball surge from her heart up into her throat. Anger she had never felt before seized her entire body. What enraged her even more was Ha Taewoong’s insolent attitude. He had dared to meet the discipline department head’s summons with open provocation and refusal. Defiance, with so many students watching! And from a mere sabaeja at that……
“Hey! Ha Taewoong!!”
Han Yubin’s lion’s roar thundered through the cafeteria.