Chapter : 16
“What do you mean?”
“Can I be honest?”
“Of course.”
“The kids trash-talk you. They say you act all high and mighty.”
“They trash-talk me? Who?”
“Our class.”
“……”
Class 1’s personality is garbage.
Jisoo bit her lip once and continued.
“I know. The ones talking crap are the weirdos. But even so, it’s not like the other kids are actively taking your side. Even if they think you’re right, they only think it silently. It’s dirty and petty but… at this rate, even you might end up like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know… like Woo Doyeon.”
“Oh.”
Being ostracized.
From the moment you walk into school in the morning, to the moment you go home, unable to speak to anyone all day, everyone laughing and chatting, and you alone, mouth clamped shut.
Being excluded.
Just sitting still, but people giving you dirty looks, whispering and snickering behind your back as you pass.
Worrying like crazy what they might be saying.
Everyone takes turns giving presentations, but only for your turn—no reactions, just ice-cold silence.
The embarrassment and humiliation.
Jisoo probably knows it better than I do. She took the advanced class with Doyeon last year.
Jisoo’s hand reached for mine and held it.
“When you stood up in the cafeteria yesterday, I thought you were amazing. I mean it. But you don’t have to be the one in the front.”
“……”
“You can just quietly talk to her from behind, meet after school, chat on Kotalk, be friends secretly. Doyeon will understand and appreciate it. You don’t need to make a scene. If you get marked, too…”
Honestly, I’m scared that’ll happen, she whispered.
I thought back carefully to my memories of Song Yeoreum.
‘Hey friend, lend me 5,000 won.’
‘You don’t have it? Really? Then what’s that in your pocket?’
‘See? You DO have money!’
‘If you lie again I’ll—’
‘Relax, I’m kidding~ Ha, look, she got scared!’
‘OMG, she’s crying.’
‘Hey, Hey, Seo Jaegyeom. I think she likes you?’
‘Did you buy new clothes to impress Jaegyeom? Is that why you’re broke?’
It was back in 8th grade.
How do I remember every line so vividly after more than ten years?
Because humiliation you suffer from peers in your most sensitive years never fades.
The shame of not being able to say a word while your friends watch. The friends who know but pretend they don’t. The embarrassment, the crushed pride.
I rubbed the back of Jisoo’s soft hand and spoke.
“…Actually, Song Yeoreum came to my mom’s store yesterday.”
“She did?!”
“…Yeah. She came with her friends, sneering at my mom and talking trash… and now I get what it means when your blood boils backward.”
If I hadn’t come back in time, and if I’d been too scared to say a word yesterday—
I think that memory would’ve haunted me forever.
I’d be shattered, disappointed in myself for saying nothing, resentful that my mom didn’t protect me—every emotion tangled into a mental collapse.
“Luckily, yesterday’s me managed to tell her off and kick her out… but if I hadn’t, I’m sure even in my fifties or sixties I’d still be upset about it.”
“……”
“But Doyeon is going through that every single day right now.”
I met Jisoo’s eyes. She flinched when I said,
“Jisoo, I’m not some great adult… but we’re human because we can empathize with someone else’s pain.”
“……”
“I want to live in a way I’m proud of.”
I don’t want to spend my life being the twenty-nine-year-old who abandoned an eighteen-year-old kid.
“If I watch something I know is wrong and do nothing, I’ll feel like a total coward.”
I want to live cool.
Studying for a perfect CSAT and dreaming of Korea University—that’s all just to live cool. If I back off because I’m scared of being hated, what’s the point?
I didn’t come back in time to live pathetically.
You can’t save only your own life when you know exactly where the story ends.
And—
“Yes, there are kids complaining, but there are also kids who know it’s wrong and want to help.”
Kids like Kyung Se-in in our class.
“They’re scared of Song Yeoreum’s gang because of the atmosphere they create. But if nobody is scared anymore, what power do they even have?”
“……”
“We just need to swing public opinion. Let the louder opinion be the one that says this is wrong.”
You’re scared I’ll get hurt too, right? You know this is wrong. When I asked, Jisoo nodded.
Her expression showed she was deep in thought.
“Yeah… I know.”
“That’s enough.”
“…Okay.”
Good, then—
“Jisoo, and—would it bother you to eat lunch with Doyeon and me together? I was too distracted earlier to ask.”
“I’m fine, but… it’ll probably be hard for Doyeon. If I’m with her, the kids trash her even more…”
“Oh…”
“Or I could eat with my class for a while? I don’t mind.”
“That’d make me feel too bad…”
“No way. You’re trying to do the right thing.”
“…Thanks.”
“…I’m not avoiding Song Yeoreum because I’m scared, okay?”
“Of course I know.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me yesterday? That she came to the store.”
Jisoo pouted as if to say, why bring that up only now.
I jabbed a straw into the chocolate milk she bought me and finished grading the memorized test sheets.
Beside me Jisoo rifled through her class’s papers and squealed at a perfect score.
“The kids who trash-talked you all did terrible.”
“Really? I should tell them: study geography instead of bad-mouthing me.”
I don’t care that they’re talking.
Those kids will talk trash no matter what someone does.
There are way more righteous kids who know what’s happening is wrong than miserable kids who hate everything.
And soon, I’d find out my belief wasn’t wrong.
“Maybe Song Yeoreum got even madder because someone she used to shake down for 500 or 1000 won suddenly talked back?”
She sure says loudly that she got shaken down.
Eunseong, passing by, clicked his tongue.
He was heading out after talking with the homeroom teacher when he heard voices by the counseling room next to the staffroom.
The door was closed, but the upper window facing the hall was open.
Eunseong wasn’t tall, but tall enough that hearing what floated out was easy.
“She even took my danso, remember? After school, at the crosswalk.”
“Really?”
“You don’t remember? You were there. She asked me to ‘lend’ it, and obviously I’d never get it back, right? So I just pretended I didn’t care and told her to keep it.”
“Oh, right…”
“So gross. What would she even do with someone else’s saliva-covered flute? Hope she caught corona.”
“What’s corona?”
“It’s an insult.”
Peeking through the crack, Eunseong saw Kang Dahye sitting with a friend.
Her mouth was babbling nonstop while her hands flew across the paper—lightning fast.
“It’s still scary, honestly. But I don’t know why I’m scared. It’s not like she’s some chaebol heiress who can ruin my life. And I already learned that if I push back she’s got nothing. But I’m still scared?”
He was in a hurry, but his feet stopped on their own.
Stuck there, Eunseong studied Dahye’s face.
And then—
‘Isn’t she doing that punishment Jae got too?’
He remembered what happened in class earlier and frowned.
‘Where is Jae? Why’s she alone?’
Money taken.
Flute taken.
Punishment taken alone.
Total pushover.
‘Shouldn’t have listened. Waste of time.’
Shaking his head, Eunseong walked past the room, then snorted up at the ceiling.
“Ha!”
Pushover!
Just as expected, after that day Seo Jaegyeom didn’t come to school.
Weirdly, neither did Song Yeoreum.
According to Se-in, who snooped on Chacebook, she was out with some older boys.
“Why only Yeoreum? Her friends came today.”
“She probably just wants to hang out with oppas by herself.”
“No loyalty at all.”
“You expect loyalty from bullies?”
I snorted and packed up my phone and notebook.
Finally, the end of a chaotic week—club time!
So here’s the question:
Which club am I in?
(1) English Newspaper
(2) Hanbyul Scouts
(3) Peer Counseling
(4) Drama Club
(5) Detective Club
