My locker, which I had been using without a lock since I broke it on the first day of my regression, was wide open.

All the notebooks and textbooks inside were torn, and a carton of strawberry milk from the snack bar had been burst and thrown in.

A sweet smell filled the air from the locker, its door damaged as if kicked.

Sticky pink milk had dripped down, damaging the locker below mine as well…

My bag.

My bag, which I had used until I graduated high school, was also wide open and thrown in front of the locker. Another carton of burst strawberry milk was inside.

My reaction to this scene was.

‘…What is this.’

Did she seriously buy that milk with money?

Did she just spend two thousand won at the snack bar to bully me?

Is she rich?

“Gasp…”

“What do we do…”

“Da-hye, are you okay?”

Now the front door was also crowded with students. Some were genuinely concerned, while others were watching with great interest.

“Kang Da-hye, are you okay?!”

Somehow, she must have seen the mess through the crowd. Ji-soo, who had run from the bathroom with a whole roll of toilet paper, knelt down and started wiping my locker.

“It’s okay.”

I took the toilet paper from her and first stopped the milk from dripping down. When I took out a drenched notebook, it was so soaked it wouldn’t even open.

This is beyond saving.

I looked around the classroom.

At the back door, close to the lockers, I saw a familiar face standing with her arms crossed, smiling.

A school skirt shortened to the point where it looked difficult to walk in, and eyeliner that looked like it had been drawn with a computer-marking pen.

It was Song Yeo-reum’s minion, who, in about 396 days, would appear on <Teenage Parents>.

For some reason, she was wearing her school uniform instead of her usual hoodie. I looked at the name tag on her chest.

Bang Eun-ji.

…It’s obvious who did this without even asking.

I asked quietly.

“Bang Eun-ji. Did you do this?”

“Do what.”

“My locker, did you do this?”

“Look at her eyes.”

Bang Eun-ji glared at me as I stared at her and suddenly cursed.

The surroundings had become quiet. Conscious of the students surrounding us, Bang Eun-ji spat on the classroom floor.

Her eyes, with black contact lenses, widened as she asked.

“Da-hye, why are you being so bitchy?”

Her typical bully tone was more comical than scary.

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

“Are you a teacher? Do I have to answer you just because you ask?”

“What are you talking about? You don’t answer the teacher’s questions either. Because you don’t know anything.”

“Ugh.”

Bang Eun-ji raised her hand as if to strike, then kicked the door in frustration. Looking at the phone in her hand, it seemed she had gotten it fixed.

After throwing a tantrum for a while, Bang Eun-ji stopped, exhausted, when she saw that I wasn’t intimidated. She ran her hand through her bangs a few times and then smirked.

“So you’re saying you did it, then.”

At my words, Bang Eun-ji asked.

“Do you have proof?”

“Ah.”

So she’s throwing that back at me.

Bang Eun-ji snickered.

“Is there CCTV in the classroom or something? Or what, do you have a witness? Even the police need evidence to act. Go ahead and report it, try it once.”

“…”

“Pfft, you pathetic loser.”

Thinking I was at a loss for words, Bang Eun-ji cursed again.

Song Yeo-reum isn’t that bad, but Bang Eun-ji’s vocabulary is clearly lacking; she can’t speak without swearing.

And on top of that, she talks a lot.

My ears are starting to hurt, so I’ll apply my own filter from now on.

“My dear friend Da-hye, do you remember when you came to school in our middle school days wearing those two-star shoes? When I publicly announced to everyone that those shoes were fakes, you never wore them again, did you?

(Cursing omitted)

Looking at you these days, I think the girl who used to wear two-stars has grown up a lot. But why is your bag still the same? Why don’t you buy a new one at the market where your mother makes a living selling tteokbokki? Your mother works all day smelling of sundae, and you don’t even have a hundred thousand won for a bag? That’s truly pathetic.”

“…”

“Isn’t it hilarious? It said ‘two-star’ on her shoes! I thought we were filming <An Introduction to Butchery>. Her mom…”

I shrugged at Bang Eun-ji, who kept annoyingly bringing up my mom.

‘Is this constant talk about parents some kind of complex?’

Actually, I know a single sentence that would shut Bang Eun-ji up right here.

‘Yeah. My mom sells tteokbokki at the market. But your mom sells something else at the karaoke bar across the street.’

That’s why you never, ever walk down that street. Because you’re afraid of running into your mom.

But the reason I don’t say it is.

I don’t want to become like her.

Instead.

“Oh, you’re right. I wore them without knowing what they were. I don’t know much about brands.”

I admitted it coolly.

“It’s also true that I didn’t think about buying brand-name shoes because I didn’t have the money. But so what?”

I didn’t commit a crime. I just didn’t know.

“Good for you for having money and knowing a lot about shoes. But even if I don’t have shoes, I have more in my head than you do.”

“What?”

“You don’t get it? You’re empty-headed. The problem isn’t that you’re bad at studying, it’s your intelligence that doesn’t know that bullying and humiliating others like this is crossing the line.”

Do you think other people don’t say hurtful things because they don’t know how?

They’re holding back because they know they shouldn’t.

“You’ve never respected the lines that others naturally respect, so one day you’ll cross a major boundary, and society won’t be so forgiving. The outcome? Well… if things go well, <Teenage Parents>, if not, Cheongju Women’s Prison?”

You can watch Jeong Eun-seong on TV from prison and tell everyone you were his classmate, a story no one will believe.

Thinking about it, I genuinely felt sorry for Bang Eun-ji.

It’s not even worth getting angry. I just looked at her with pity.

“What’s important about knowing or not knowing shoe brands right now? What’s important is what you’ll be doing in ten years. I’m going to work hard from now on and achieve my dream then, but what will you be doing? Will you still be evaluating the shoes of a passing kid?”

“Ha…”

“I’m giving you some sincere advice, go home and study geography instead of doing this crap. You thought Gyeongsang-do was above Seoul.”

I shook my head, saying I was shocked after grading her geography pop quiz.

“Did you think it was Gyeongsang-do because it has the character for ‘capital’ and ‘upper’? Go and live there once. It’s North Korea.”

If you live there for about ten years and come back and write a memoir, I’ll buy a copy.

How about ‘Crash Landing of the Two-Star’ for the title?

Sounds good. Very Chun Doo-hwan-like.

Of course, Bang Eun-ji didn’t understand what I was saying.

She seemed to have barely understood the ‘I’m going to succeed’ part of my speech and scoffed at me.

“How is a dirt spoon like you going to succeed? Are you going to win the lottery or something?”

“We’ll see about that from now on.”

“Crazy mental victory…”

“Yeah. At least I have a mental victory. But what about you?”

I looked Bang Eun-ji up and down.

“You spend all day staring at what a complete stranger is wearing and carrying and ranking them, so I can tell your mental state is already hell without even looking.”

“…”

“You lost the mental battle, and you lost the argument. You haven’t won anything, have you?”

Bang Eun-ji, her face flushed red, couldn’t continue.

How are you, who’s never read a book, going to win an argument against me… Read a book.

It was then.

“Hey! What are you all doing!”

The teachers who had come up for homeroom shouted when they saw the students gathered in front of our classroom.

I heard the sound of the teacher from the next class hitting the wall with a bamboo stick, and the startled students scattered.

“What’s going on? Is there… oh my.”

The homeroom teacher, who had come up with Do-yeon, saw my trashed locker and bag and her eyes widened.

“…Who did this?”

The homeroom teacher’s voice dropped, filled with anger.

Everyone naturally looked at Bang Eun-ji, but.

‘There’s no evidence.’

As Bang Eun-ji said, there was no CCTV.

It was my mistake for leaving my locker open, thinking there was nothing to steal.

I frowned in annoyance.

It was then.

“Bang Eun-ji did it.”

A clear voice came from among the students who hadn’t completely scattered yet.

Someone pushed through the crowd of onlookers and stepped forward.

It was Gyeong Se-in’s friend 1. My deskmate in front.

“Bang Eun-ji opened Da-hye’s locker, took out her books, stepped on them, and threw milk at them. I saw it.”