🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 9 …
The Wise School Life of a Fourth-Tier Outcast (3)
She came!
Her!
The three-striped Nike slippers.
The weapon of my pride.
To them, they were nothing more than cheap everyday footwear.
Still pressing my slipper against Oh Gwang-jun’s face, I turned toward the sound.
A girl had just stepped into the classroom through the back door and stopped.
The moment I saw her, she filled my entire vision.
It felt as though the whole classroom had suddenly become brighter.
Back then, merely seeing her had been enough to make me shrink in fear.
She was the daughter of an aristocratic family—someone commoners didn’t even dare look at.
“…She’s beautiful, even seeing her again.”
The words slipped out before I realized it.
She was about 170 centimeters tall.
She wore her hair in a neat bob, and her small, porcelain-white face was flawless.
Perfect features.
A body with ideal proportions.
Outside school, talent agencies constantly handed her business cards, hoping to recruit her.
Her name was Lee Hyo-joo.
Unlike the other girls, she didn’t wear makeup.
With youthful skin and pure natural beauty, she shone brightly enough on her own.
Her large eyes beneath naturally formed double eyelids stared directly at me.
They were crystal clear.
As far as I remembered, she’d gone on to Korea National University.
And now she…
“…?”
Lee Hyo-joo widened her eyes in confusion.
Her gaze demanded an explanation for my sudden remark.
No one in this school had ever said something like that to Lee Hyo-joo.
And the situation couldn’t have been stranger.
Oh Gwang-jun—the guy who had terrorized the class until now—was lying beneath my slipper.
Anyone watching would think I was insane.
“…Ha Tae-woong really has gone crazy, hasn’t he?”
“He just called Lee Hyo-joo pretty!!”
The classroom erupted into whispers.
Honestly, I understood their reaction.
Lee Hyo-joo wasn’t just rich.
She was the genuine article.
Her grandfather was the current chairman of the Ohyang Group, one of South Korea’s sixty largest conglomerates.
Like most chaebol families, her father was the CEO of one of its major subsidiaries.
But that wasn’t all.
Her great-uncle was the chairman of the Doa Daily, one of the nation’s three largest newspapers.
She belonged to the very center of the tangled web connecting politics, business, and the media.
A top predator among the elite.
Her roots were different.
She was a direct descendant of Lee Jang-soo of Sangchon, once considered the wealthiest man in Korea during the Japanese colonial era.
Just look at that faint golden aura surrounding her.
Her dignified appearance matched it perfectly, making her stand out even more.
That Lee Hyo-joo…
Smirk.
She laughed as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Ha Tae-woong.”
She called my name perfectly.
It was the first time she’d ever spoken my name since entering Cheonghwa High.
What an honor for my family.
“Yeah.”
It was also the first time our eyes had truly met.
I looked straight into hers.
“Can you handle the consequences?”
Her gaze shifted toward Oh Gwang-jun beneath my slipper.
She knew.
Among every student in Class 2-3…
I was the lowest of the low.
She was reminding me of the reality that I was stepping on someone who belonged among those I was supposed to bow before.
“I’ll manage.”
His father being a prosecutor worried me a little.
But I wasn’t afraid.
A prosecutor?
I knew ways to deal with people in that line of work.
“Don’t do this again. There’s no violence allowed in my classroom.”
My classroom.
Lee Hyo-joo was our class president.
A perfectionist.
To someone like her, who even viewed being class president as another achievement to add to her résumé, classroom violence was unacceptable.
She never even asked why I’d beaten Oh Gwang-jun.
Tap. Tap.
After saying only that, she calmly walked past.
She casually picked up a pack of wet wipes from someone’s desk…
…and dropped it in front of Oh Gwang-jun’s face.
“Clean up your own mess.”
Her clear voice carried no emotion whatsoever.
Tremble.
Still pinned beneath my foot, Oh Gwang-jun shivered.
A single sentence from someone of the Brahmin class was an absolute command.
“You heard her. Clean up the crap you made. Heh.”
I laughed the same way Oh Gwang-jun always used to.
I wasn’t going to endure it anymore.
This…
…was how you survived school.
If someone stepped on you—
You fought back.
If they showed their teeth—
You bit harder.
If I kept enduring everything like before…
I wouldn’t be Ha Tae-woong.
I’d endured all my life.
And the world hadn’t rewarded me for it.
No matter what I did, the world had kept turning the same way.
I wasn’t attached to Cheonghwa High anymore.
With my current abilities, I could simply take the high school equivalency exam instead.
But…
“This is fun.”
The replay button on my second school life had been pressed.
This was going to be one hell of an entertaining ride.
* * *
Scratch.
Lee Hyo-joo sat down and began solving the math worksheets her private tutor had prepared.
But her pen refused to move.
Her head was filled with distracting thoughts.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the horrifying scene she’d just witnessed.
It had shocked her far more than she’d let on.
She’d acted calm…
But deep down, she’d been frightened.
She’d attended prestigious private kindergartens in Gangnam before entering Cheonghwa High.
She’d seen minor bullying before.
But never anything as brutal as what she’d just witnessed.
Ha Tae-woong…
Standing on another student’s face…
Smiling.
He’d looked like a safari hunter who had just captured a wild beast.
He’s definitely gone crazy.
Until today, he’d been the quietest student in the classroom.
He had the height and looks of a professional model.
Yet he belonged to the Fourth-Tier Outcasts.
He’d always known his place and behaved accordingly.
Lee Hyo-joo had seen plenty of attractive people who became arrogant simply because of their looks.
She’d never had the slightest personal interest in Ha Tae-woong.
His grades were quite good…
But he’d never managed to overcome the wall of his social status.
Oh Gwang-jun occasionally crossed the line in class.
But never enough to bother her.
After all…
The world she’d grown up in had always been like this.
Only the strong had the right to hold their heads high.
Power.
Wealth.
Connections.
Lack even one…
And you became weak.
Then you lowered your head.
That was simply how the world worked.
She had learned that lesson through experience.
Yet today…
Ha Tae-woong had shaken that unwavering belief.
He had rebelled.
He had changed.
Why?
He’d even looked at her and said,
“You’re beautiful, even seeing you again.”
An impossible provocation.
Other than her family…
No one around her would ever dare say something like that.
And strangely…
She hadn’t disliked hearing it.
When their eyes met…
Unlike before…
Ha Tae-woong hadn’t looked away.
“Heh.”
A faint laugh escaped her lips.
The punishment for today’s assault wouldn’t be light.
By now, the rumors had probably spread throughout the school.
First of all…
Oh Gwang-jun, whose father was a chief prosecutor, would never let this go.
And there were several other vicious boys who always hung around him.
“…Just don’t make my life harder.”
Lee Hyo-joo muttered quietly to herself.
Ever since entering Cheonghwa High, her position among her cousins had become rather delicate.
That was a common stage in the lives of children born into chaebol families.
It carried many implications.
Soon…
It would be decided how much of the family’s fortune each heir would eventually receive.
When she’d been younger, she’d dreamed of living freely like an ordinary person.
Not anymore.
After all…
Didn’t the Talmud say that nothing was worse than an empty wallet?
As someone born into a chaebol family…
Lee Hyo-joo had already learned how the world truly worked.
* * *
♪ Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-da-la-ring~ ♪
Fourth period ended.
“Your midterm exam next week covers everything we learned up to today. I don’t need to remind you how important Korean Language and Composition is, right?”
Ms. Han Yu-ra smiled brightly.
“You’ll make the test easy, right?”
“Teacher! Give us some hints!”
No matter how rich they were…
Inside a high school classroom, everyone was still just a bunch of teenagers.
When it came to exams, which judged everyone objectively…
Chaebol heirs and Fourth-Tier Outcasts stood on equal footing.
“I wish I could. But you know what the other teachers are like.”
Second-year Korean.
The exam questions were jointly written by three teachers.
“They’re way too hard…”
“The teachers make impossible exams!!”
As expected of an elite private school…
The tests were on another level entirely.
Even famous star instructors in Gangnam considered Cheonghwa High’s exams among the hardest.
“Enjoy your lunch.”
The adorable teacher hurried out of the classroom.
I stood up.
I’d secretly been waiting for this moment ever since returning to school.
Lunchtime!
Cheonghwa High’s cafeteria was on an entirely different level from any other school.
Just thinking about it made me swallow.
As I was about to leave the classroom—
“You bastard…”
A curse came from behind me.
I casually raised my right hand.
“Go eat this.”
I proudly flipped him the middle finger.
Then I cheerfully headed toward the cafeteria.
Right now…
Nothing mattered more than lunch.
I walked with confidence.
A few years ago, they’d built a brand-new cafeteria beside the main building.
Unlike ordinary schools, students weren’t divided by grade levels.
The passionate parents and school board hated wasting even a single minute.
The cafeteria was large enough to accommodate every student in the school.
Although…
The third-years had their own separate cafeteria in the new building.
Everyone else could eat lunch at the same time.
The place had excellent air purification…
And full heating and air-conditioning.
As a private autonomous high school…
Cheonghwa freely accepted massive donations from outside sponsors.
Not just anyone could donate, though.
Only people with enough wealth…
And enough influence…
Could even become school board members or officers of the parents’ association.
Those were the real donors.
If you’ve ever seen one of those dramas set in a luxurious school full of privileged bullies…
Cheonghwa High was basically the real-life version.
Whoosh.
Even the reinforced glass entrance doors were automatic.
The cafeteria spread out before my eyes.
“Oh…”
I couldn’t help admiring it before grabbing a plate.
This wasn’t one of those ordinary stainless-steel lunch trays.
Cheonghwa High served…
“A buffet.”
Heh.
The cafeteria was run by a former head chef from a luxury hotel together with a nutritionist holding a doctoral degree.
Organic salads.
Premium Jeju black pork.
Top-grade Korean beef.
Large fried tilefish and king cutlassfish.
Countless delicious side dishes.
Pizza.
Spaghetti.
Seasonal fruits from around the world.
Even slices of cake.
For someone like me…
These were foods I’d probably never be able to afford in my entire life.
And there were two full serving lines packed with them.
“With food this good…
Why doesn’t everyone eat here?”
Only about half the students actually used the cafeteria each day.
The huge space and relatively small crowd created a peaceful atmosphere.
After graduating from Cheonghwa…
This was one thing I’d genuinely missed.
Even after becoming a working adult…
I still felt that this cafeteria rivaled famous luxury hotel buffets.
Cheonghwa High took its school lunches seriously.
I absolutely loved this place!!
“Korean beef bulgogi! Japchae! Young radish kimchi!”
I happily filled my plate.
Unlimited free food…
For a Fourth-Tier Outcast.
I piled on a generous serving of premium Koshihikari rice as well.
Then I looked around.
Groups of friends were scattered throughout the cafeteria.
Among them…
One student sat alone at a table for four.
The moment I saw him…
The corners of my lips naturally curled upward.
“It’s been a while…
…you scary bear.”
