Kneel! (7)
Screech.
An imported luxury sedan with a sleek black sheen came to a smooth halt.
The school gate stood wide open, yet it was private property no one could simply stroll into. By now the morning rush of students had largely ended. Not a single latecomer was in sight.
Inside the vehicle idling before the empty gate…
“Attorney Ah.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why do I feel like I’m the one who got screwed?”
“Pardon?”
“…Just last week I was sure he’d be the easiest mark under me. My wife and I even cracked open an expensive bottle of wine that night to celebrate. But looking at things today… I feel like I already shit the bed.”
“…….”
Ah Yura kept her mouth shut at the words of her direct senior and senior attorney, Kim Gyeongmin.
She wasn’t sure about the “easy mark” part, but she had never once considered Ha Taewoong an easy target. He was young, yes, yet the presence he carried was anything but ordinary. It rivaled—no, surpassed—that of the firm’s usual upper-crust clientele.
Unlike her, Attorney Kim Gyeongmin had clearly written Ha Taewoong off as a soft, gullible cash cow.
“If we step wrong in there, our careers are finished. Forget Seoul—we won’t even be able to practice in the greater metropolitan area. We’ll end up defending traffic accidents and petty crooks out in the sticks until we die.”
Standing before the gate where Cheonghwa’s nameplate was visible, Kim Gyeongmin let his fear show.
Even the family of Cho & Jang’s managing partner, Jang Muyeol, was packed with Cheonghwa alumni. The children of top conglomerates, Supreme Court justices, prosecutors general, cabinet ministers, sports stars, and chaebols all passed through these halls. Get blacklisted by Cheonghwa and you lost not only access to high society but the right to so much as cross its threshold.
Kim Gyeongmin, who had clawed his way up from a middle-class home to a partnership at Cho & Jang, stared past the gate with a complicated gaze.
Just then a man in a security uniform approached. He must have watched them on the CCTV at the main entrance and come out to check their identities.
“Attorney.”
“Yeah…?”
“Don’t lose heart. You never know.”
“Know what?”
“If we get thrown out, maybe Client Ha Taewoong will take us in.”
“What??”
Kim Gyeongmin regarded Ah Yura with flat indifference as she voiced such a fantasy.
“And right now you should be earning your keep. The client called for us, didn’t he?”
Ah Yura looked far more resolute than Kim Gyeongmin. Curiosity, not worry, glittered in her eyes.
Until now Cheonghwa High had been nothing more than rumor to her. After university and into her working life she had thought of it only as a prestigious private school in Gangnam. She had heard it was the final destination on the elite education pipeline the upper class began plotting from private kindergarten onward.
But a classmate she met in law school had taught her the rumors were only the surface. Through him she had glimpsed the hidden truth. That classmate had never been particularly diligent, yet he passed the bar on the first try, joined Cho & Jang ahead of her, and was recognized as a top talent in no time—handling only high-fee cases. She later learned he was a Cheonghwa graduate and the child of a former Supreme Court justice.
The crushing sense of defeat she had felt back then still haunted her. Her parents had run a supermarket in a provincial mid-sized city, pouring everything into her education. With big-box stores and online retailers squeezing them, even covering the rent had become a struggle. Knowing she was a burden, Ah Yura had still gritted her teeth and studied through tears.
Her classmate had been a diamond spoon sitting above the gold and silver ones. Cho & Jang existed, more or less, to serve people like him. The firm even ran exclusive concierge services tailored for the highest echelons of power—enough said.
A world ordinary citizens could never imagine truly existed, reserved only for them.
Attorney Kim Gyeongmin, who normally swaggered wherever he went, was now shrinking in front of Cheonghwa. In 2022 the real power of the Republic of Korea began and ended with Cheonghwa.
And right now the two of them stood under obligation to answer their client’s summons.
Ding.
A text arrived on Attorney Kim Gyeongmin’s phone. He checked it casually—then his face went paper-white.
“Ho…ly shit!”
“What is it?”
“Attorney Ah! We’re going in!”
“Excuse me?”
Her superior’s entire demeanor flipped. Shoulders squared, eyes blazing with sudden intensity.
Knock-knock.
The guard who had drawn near rapped on the window. Kim Gyeongmin smoothly rolled it down.
“Are you a parent?”
It was an easy mistake for security to make—a middle-aged man and a young woman sitting side by side in the front seats. A classic remarried couple tableau common among Gangnam’s elite.
Kim Gyeongmin produced a business card from his case and held it out.
“Senior Attorney Kim Gyeongmin of Cho & Jang. We’re here on a client’s request.”
“Ah, yes. Please proceed that way and park in the visitor lot.”
Even the security staff of the Cheonghwa Foundation recognized the name of Korea’s top law firm by instinct alone.
“Appreciate it.”
Power had returned to Kim Gyeongmin’s voice; his eyes were nothing like they had been moments before.
“Attorney, what on earth…?”
“We have work to do. The young master is waiting impatiently~”
“Young master??”
Friend?
At the unfamiliar form of address, Lee Jeongjun’s eyes flew wide.
This son of a bitch!!
A mere Sabaeja dared to meet his gaze head-on and spout nonsense. After that irritating smile, the bastard had the gall to single him out—and, of all things, to call him “friend” in a warm, familiar tone.
“Friend? Lee Jeongjun?”
“Isn’t that Senior Jeongjun?”
“That Sabaeja bastard’s completely lost it. Does he even know what family Jeongjun comes from?”
The clash between Sukkang and Ha Taewoong was growing more and more entertaining.
Out of nowhere the Sabaeja Ha Taewoong had dragged in Lee Jeongjun—the student who had never once surrendered the overall top rank in the entire second year. He was royalty spanning both the Doa Ilbo and the Hankook Group. Students and teachers alike walked on eggshells around him. The current Parent Association president, Ju Miju, was his mother—the very woman who had become a national spectacle after the Hankook Air beef-jerky scandal. Her temper was legendary. Even now people still called her the National Bitch.
Raised by a woman like that, Lee Jeongjun’s character was never going to be admirable. He was the type who believed that under the heavens, only he himself was truly excellent. Even among Cheonghwa’s most prominent heirs, the number of people Lee Jeongjun considered his equals could be counted on one hand.
And today a Sabaeja had fearlessly pointed at that very Lee Jeongjun and called him friend.
“Why me?”
Lee Jeongjun asked, eyes full of contempt. He was curious why the Sabaeja had chosen him.
“Because you also suspect me of cheating. After all, a worthless Sabaeja could never score perfect marks in every subject, right?”
“…….”
Having his private thoughts read aloud, Lee Jeongjun shut his mouth. The Sabaeja’s instincts were sharp. No one gathered here could accept the results.
What the hell is this bastard?
Lee Jeongjun locked eyes with Ha Taewoong. Just that contact alone made his mood plummet. An unknown entity. That instinctive flinch he felt whenever he faced someone of a higher tier whose methods he could not yet gauge.
There was only one such person in the entire school—among the third-years who would never appear in this auditorium.
Grind.
As the faces overlapped, Lee Jeongjun clenched his teeth. The overwhelming sense of powerlessness he had felt before that senior still lingered as trauma. Top of the third-year class and a member of Korea’s number-one chaebol family. Officially he was the current student council president and the pride of Cheonghwa.
Because of him, Lee Jeongjun had been treated as second-best ever since private kindergarten, through elementary, middle, and high school. Until that senior graduated and left, Lee Jeongjun would remain nothing but a shadow. The only consolation was that he was already slotted to become the whole-school student council president in the second semester of second year.
Cheonghwa High’s system was stratified more ruthlessly than society itself. A Sabaeja was not a being who could casually call him “friend.” And on top of that, the bastard had made an outrageous demand.
“I’ll do it.”
A quiet voice cut through the mix of murmurs and silence filling the auditorium.
“Teacher Jeonghye?”
It was Oh Jeonghye, one of the second-year mathematics teachers.
“I’m curious too.”
Click-clack.
Silver-rimmed glasses that suited her short hair glinted as she walked. She wore a polo shirt and neatly tailored checkered trousers. Though she trailed Sukkang in reputation, she too was a talented graduate of Seoguk University’s mathematics department.
She had always loathed the perverted Lee Jangyong. He treated mathematics not as education for students but as a tool to satisfy his twisted desires. Behind the façade he was also a notorious womanizer. That was the impression Lee Jangyong left on Oh Jeonghye.
This was her small, timid revenge against the man who constantly made passes under the pretext of math instruction. Emboldened by the backing of the head of academic affairs, he had grown even more arrogant.
To Oh Jeonghye, who was not a Cheonghwa alumna, the repulsive hierarchy that played out inside the school made her skin crawl. Most of the students and faculty had been raised from childhood to regard ordinary people as servants. Moral education meant nothing to them. This place was merely a training ground for those who sought only the fastest route to the summit of the pyramid of desire.
And today, at last, a rebellion had broken out.
The Sabaeja Ha Taewoong she had been watching with interest. In any ordinary high school he would have been recognized as outstanding in every way—academics, looks, everything. But this was Cheonghwa High. Labeled a Sabaeja, Ha Taewoong was nothing more than an emotional trash can for these students.
She had felt endless pity, yet she could not casually offer a helping hand. Most Sabaeja students failed to survive second year and dropped out. Oh Jeonghye herself was not in a position secure enough to embrace them all out of mere sympathy.
Even so, she wanted to step forward this time. Her guilt toward Ha Taewoong was heavy. And more than anything, she desperately wanted to see Lee Jangyong get punched in the face—Lee Jangyong, who looked down on the world with his slightly superior mathematical mind, and the Cheonghwa students living in their superiority complex.
“Haha. If Teacher Oh Jeonghye is willing to step up, that certainly ensures fairness.”
Lee Jangyong looked at Oh Jeonghye with a satisfied expression.
She did not answer. Her gaze shifted to Lee Jeongjun standing below the podium—the student who, during regular classes, had openly ignored her as his teacher.
“Lee Jeongjun. Want to solve it with us?”
The unexpected invitation slipped from Oh Jeonghye’s lips—a bait cast without warning.
Strength flooded into Lee Jeongjun’s clenched fists.
And then…