TSESHR 06

Chapter : 06

My Second Year of High School

There was a girl in my class named Woo Doyeon.

Woo Doyeon was pretty.

She’d gone to a different middle school than I had, but kids from my school knew of her too.

There were even boys who signed up for the same cram school just to see her.

“Dude, I’m in the same class as Woo Doyeon.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Yeah. Crazy pretty.”

Her family was rich.

Sometimes her dad—hair slicked back, driving a fancy car—would drop her off right in front of school.

Her uniform and shoes were always neat, her things always new.

She studied well too, so the teachers adored her.

“How about you read the next sentence, Doyeon? My gosh, what a lovely accent. Didn’t you say you lived in New Zealand?”
“Oh, Doyeon. Collect the handouts for the class, please.”

Our older male geography teacher openly favored her, ignoring the class president and giving all errands to her.

Boys came up with excuses to talk to her even once, and some girls hated her for it.

That resentment hit its peak when the boys ranked the girls by looks and put her in 1st place.

“Woo Doyeon is #1 and Han Jisoo is #2? Get out of here.”
“Is she even that pretty? I don’t get it.”

Why get mad at the wrong target instead of the boys ranking us by looks?

If I have to excuse it—well, it was the past.

Kids hadn’t had their ideology updated yet.

“I think Jisoo’s prettier.”
“Same. She’s got that pure, classy vibe. Doyeon is… honestly kind of.”
“Oh you have words you want to say but don’t dare~?”
“Her family’s loaded, what if she sues us.”

Yes, it was jealousy.

Doyeon was pretty, smart, rich, popular.

Same could be said of Jisoo, sure—but to knock down the girl we hated, we needed a “someone better,” and Jisoo conveniently fit that role.

But it could have ended there.

Not every girl was blinded by jealousy.

She could’ve just been bad-mouthed behind her back and that would’ve been that.

The problem was her personality—cold.

“Doyeon, are those Sunn**el shoes? They’re so cute. Can I try them on once?”
“No.”
“…Huh?”
“I said no. If you want to wear them, buy your own.”
“…God, what a bitch.”
“Hah… why would you ask to wear someone else’s shoes anyway.”
“I was just curious!”

Boys who used to defend her flipped the moment she treated them the same way.

“She doesn’t know how to appreciate anything.”
“She needs to be taken down a peg.”

And then the rumor hit.

“Hey, did you hear? Doyeon has no friends because she got caught going to Neverland alone with her friend’s boyfriend in middle school.”
“No way.”
“Knew it. She always seemed boy-crazy.”
“Still is, isn’t she? Pretends she’s not, but—”

The rumor started as “she stole her friend’s boyfriend” and kept growing.

A boy from our grade visited her house for a project, and apparently she lay on her bed and patted the space next to her.

She was dating the thirty-something history teacher who’d gotten married last year.

She supposedly screamed on Yeouido park road, “So when are you divorcing her?!”

I know.

Ridiculous.

But kids believe anything.

“At this point, maybe Doyeon seduced the geography teacher first.”
“So geography and history are fighting over her?”
“Ugh, gross.”

And from then on, she was the school villain.

People insulted her openly—loud enough to make sure she heard. Mocking. Laughing.

Every time geography favored her, every time history casually talked to her—silent stares, bitterness simmering.

The ending?

One day, after enduring every insult like nothing was happening, she opened the classroom window and jumped.

Only then did the kids who bullied her stack letters on her desk saying “We miss our pretty Doyeon,” but…

Doyeon never came back.

And now.

“Hey, Woo Doyeon, tell me your secret to seducing older men. I wanna get the geography teacher to give me test answers.”
“Look at her pretending she can’t hear.”
“She was in the nurse’s office all morning? Sick, but still came back to eat?”
“She’s not sick, she was on a date. Bet she’s hungry now.”
“Gross!”
“What are you thinking, perv?”
“Pfft!”
“Hey, Doyeon! Can’t you hear? You deaf?”
“Hey! Hey!”

Back then—I pretended not to know her.

My family was broke, I could barely afford workbooks, constantly on the edge of losing my rank to kids armed with tutors and academy classes, crushing on Seo Jaegyeom… my own problems were suffocating.

And honestly—I was scared.

I didn’t want to stand up for someone I wasn’t close to and become the next target.

Watching Doyeon get bullied made me uncomfortable, but I’d forget it the moment I turned away.

Maybe I even laughed along once or twice.

But.

“Once you’ve lived to twenty-nine, you know.”

What felt like life and death back then?

Turns out, it’s nothing.

Go to college two years later and you can happily live without talking to anyone from high school ever again.

Nobody knows who you were unless you tell them.

It’s really nothing.

But someone died over that nothing.

“Hey, Doyeon! Can’t you hear?”
“Wow, she pretended not to notice even after getting hit with a snack.”
“Throw some kimchi!”
“Ugh, then I have to pick it up!”
“Use chopsticks!”
“Genius.”

I’m overjoyed to have come back to the past.

But I didn’t earn it.

The returnee could’ve been Doyeon. Or Jung Eunsung. I only got chosen by pure chance.

I was just luckier than she was.

I get a second chance, and she doesn’t? That’s messed up.

So I’m doing what Doyeon would’ve done for herself if she were the one who came back.

Q. Weren’t you going to focus only on studying?
A. I tried! I really did.

But I’m an adult now. How do I sleep at night if I sit back and watch that?

If I lose sleep, I can’t study anyway.

You need a good environment to study.

How do you study in a class where someone’s being hunted and bullied?

Fine. I’ve got this luck—may as well share it. It’s not like it runs out.

“Jisoo.”

Jisoo stood next to me with her tray, looking nervous.

“Sorry, but I can’t eat with you today. Sit next to Seo Jaegyeom for today.”

No splash damage on her.

“Super sorry. I’ll buy you chocolate milk after math, okay?”

I didn’t wait for an answer.

I headed to Doyeon’s table.

Thud.

That one sound echoed in the quiet cafeteria as I set my tray down.

Kids at the next table froze mid-giggle, chopsticks still in the air.

I pulled out the chair and sat across from Doyeon, pretending nothing was odd.

Doyeon stopped eating, lifted her head, and stared.

“Kang Dahye, what are you doing?”

Song Yeoreum—the one holding the walnut snack she was about to throw—called out to me.

For context, she’s one of the few people I still remember from high school.

We went to the same middle school too, and she was already infamous.

She’d go around saying “Got a thousand won?” “Ten thousand?” “How much you got?” “No cash? Grab some from the ATM?”—the money she “borrowed” probably added up to over a million won.

In eighth grade we were classmates, and when I said I didn’t have cash, she poked my skirt pocket to check.

She once shoved my friend—the one who went to foreign language high school—inside a supply closet and beat her.

She asked me to help her cheat on an English test.

“I used to be terrified of you.”

Her uniform looked like always—hair ironed straight using the bathroom outlet she unplugged the hand dryer from, skirt worn so short it was barely legal.

“Hey, Kang Dahye. I asked what you’re doing.”

“…Sharing luck.”

“What?”

“Oh, maybe for you it’s misfortune.”

“What the hell are you—KYAA!”

The walnut snack I threw dropped straight into her soup bowl. Broth splashed all over her hoodie.

Doyeon’s eyes widened; I grinned.

I’m ridiculously happy thanks to this second chance.
I hope others get even a little piece of that happiness too.