Chapter 144 - The Fall (3)

'First, I'll calm my friends down.'

Some unidentified son of a bitch was trying to tear our group apart.

'Like hell I'll let him!'

These chickenshits had been scared out of their minds by threatening emails. I had to get them under control, and do it skillfully. It was fine. I could do this.

As soon as I returned to the classroom, I spoke to the kids in my group.

"Hey, I know why you're acting like this, but cut it out. We're friends. Why are you treating me like this? Huh? If you've got something to say, say it. If there's something you need to hear, listen. Isn't that what friends do? Huh?"

But their reaction was odd. Without answering, they kept stealing glances at my desk.

I went over to check.

Dozens of notes had been crammed into the drawer.

"..."

Every single note was an insult aimed at me.

'You practically died of happiness when I said hi to you in the hallway yesterday.'

Things anyone could tell were nothing but lies.

'I only did it because I lost at rock-paper-scissors! Please don't get the wrong idea!'

Sentences filled with nothing but malice and mockery lay scattered before me.

While I was in the faculty office, in that brief span of time, a mountain of notes had piled up.

"Y-you bastards..."

"Heh."

I heard someone snicker and immediately whipped my head toward the sound. But I couldn't tell who had laughed. There were too many students in the classroom.

"Who was it? Who did this shit to my desk, huh?"

"W-we didn't do it," one of my friends said cautiously.

"Someone from another class came by a little while ago and put them all in at once..."

"Another class?"

"Yeah. They asked us to give you a message. Never contact them again."

"..."

A customer. One of my customers had dumped those notes here. I felt like I was going insane. The unidentified [culprit] was playing not just my classmates but my customers, too.

"Eunseo, also..."

"Also? What?"

"On your back..."

On my back?

"What's on my back?"

"W-well. I mean..."

I twisted this way and that, craning my neck to look at my back, but I couldn't see it properly.

Laughter escaped from various corners of the classroom.

"Pfft...!"

"Pffh."

I bent my arm behind me and felt around my back. Something crumpled under my fingers.

Paper. Someone had taped a piece of paper to my back.

I hurriedly tore it off to see what the hell they'd written.

+

Sinseo High's Official Trash!

+

That was what it said, in cute, rounded handwriting.

"..."

When? Who had put it there? Had it already been there when my homeroom teacher called me out? Or had someone secretly stuck it on just now, after I came back into the classroom?

But I had no time to find out.

"W-we'll begin class now..."

First period had begun. It was the math teacher, the easiest teacher in the school to push around. My classmates would normally have kept chattering for ages, but this time they all sat down at once, as though they'd decided to become model students. Every last one of them.

'Damn it.'

Inwardly, I ground my teeth.

'If I make a scene now, I'll just look ridiculous. Should I storm out? No, no. Definitely not. Who knows what they'll say behind my back once I'm gone? Fuck, fuck...!'

In the end, I had no choice but to sit quietly.

Looking around, I saw bastards snickering under their breath. Kim Yul staring down at his notebook, expressionless. The class president coming in late, asking the math teacher's permission, and returning to her seat. Everyone was going about an ordinary day as if nothing had happened.

'Fuck.'

I was seething.

Of course I was angry at the culprit. Of course I was. But suddenly, anger at my friends, at the classmates in this room, boiled up as well.

'Come on, you did it too, didn't you?'

It wasn't fair.

'Don't tell me you're trying to back out now. You mocked Kim Yul and beat him up. You did it all. Did I order you to ostracize him? You shut him out all on your own.'

It wasn't fair.

'Which one of the bastards sitting here has never laughed at Kim Yul? Plenty of you pleaded and begged me to show you the videos. Why are you trying to play innocent now?'

It was so unfair.

Because I had made an 'effort.' I'd gone out of my way to work at something nobody else had done and achieved it. Was deliberately ostracizing someone easy? Could they take someone who was quietly excluded and turn him into an open outcast, then an outcast shunned by the entire school?

'Maggots—no, fucking leeches.'

At least I'd made an effort.

I'd built a platform using the student council submissions box. I'd made connections with rich kids. While my classmates here studied the way everyone else studied and tried to live the way everyone else lived, at least I had thought about my [future]. I'd planned for it!

What had these leeches done, on the other hand?

'You freeloaded off the platform I worked so hard to build!'

They were all the same. They laughed because everyone else laughed. They ostracized him because everyone else did. These bastards, these assholes, had only one line of reasoning.

[Because everyone else does it.]

'Disgusting bastards.'

After all that, they'd play innocent. [Because everyone else did it.], [I didn't really think about it.], [That wasn't what I intended.] They'd spout excuses like that and forget they'd enjoyed Playing with Kim Yul, too.

'No, they won't be playing innocent. They really won't know.'

They were just dim. Stupid. They couldn't even remember what they said or did. If that wasn't a problem with their intelligence, what else could it be? Idiots blindly following the crowd. And yet they acted like they were human, like human beings who'd done nothing wrong...

'It's not fair.'

It wasn't fair.

'Why should I, why should I alone, have to suffer at the hands of inferior bastards like these?'

It wasn't fair!

If there were someone genuinely righteous, like a hero in a story, someone who'd lived an upright life from birth until now, and he stabbed me, at least I could accept that.

But that wasn't what this was.

'Even now, not a single one of you has apologized to Kim Yul, have you?'

Not one.

There probably wouldn't be one, either.

That was why it was unfair. These bastards were just being used by the [culprit], being stirred up, stabbing me without giving it any deep thought. It was so unfair.

I didn't want to die by [a blade like that]! Inferior bastards!

I was greater than that!

BZZZZ

My phone vibrated in my pants pocket.

The text was from my girlfriend.

+

Hwang Eunseo, what have you done?

Don't come near me again.

We're over.

+

"..."

Time slipped helplessly away.

There was no time to react. I couldn't think of a way to respond, either. The [culprit] kept pushing, giving me no breathing room. I contacted my girlfriend, but she didn't answer. When I went to see her during break, all she did was glare coldly at me.

Just yesterday, she'd smiled and said she had fun with me.

'Why are you doing this... I'm just a fun guy...!'

After that, I couldn't even go to the bathroom properly during breaks. I was scared. What if someone came by while I was gone and stuffed more notes into my desk drawer?

'Fuck.'

Even at lunchtime, I just lay facedown on my desk and pretended to sleep. I wasn't an idiot. In this atmosphere, there was no way my classmates would eat lunch with me.

Better to slump over and pretend to sleep than go down to the cafeteria and stuff my face alone.

'Still, at least one of them will ask me to eat with them, right?'

I thought with my head pressed against the desk.

'Then I'll say it right away. My stomach's upset today. If I turn them down like that, they'll all understand. Hwang Eunseo hasn't been hurt at all. He's fine. No, he just seems to be sulking. We should cheer him up. They'll all see it that way.'

They would.

'After everything I've done for you. I paid for your meals every time, let you appear in the videos. When friends fought, I helped them make up. And, and...'

But nobody did.

Nobody asked me to go to the cafeteria.

"..."

The classroom was quiet at lunchtime, with all the students gone. A bleak silence at 12:45. Not a single person was wandering the hallway.

Wind blew in through the windows, making the white curtains billow.

"Sons of bitches..."

Muttering, I got up.

"You could at least say something. Huh? At least say something..."

Suddenly, a bottomless sense of shame washed over me. Walking around without knowing there was a note stuck to my back. Being laughed at by those leeches. Getting dumped by text. All of it, every last thing, was humiliating.

"Evil bastards. You're not even human..."

I searched my classmates' desk drawers one by one.

Rummaged through them.

Maybe there would be evidence of the culprit. Maybe there were specific instructions hidden inside, telling them when to send me notes and what to write.

'Please let there be something. Please!'

That was when it happened.

"... Hwang Eunseo, what are you doing?"

Startled, I turned around. I was in the middle of rummaging through a drawer, leaving me awkwardly half-bent over. Four classmates stood at the back door.

"Uh..."

I stammered.

"I just, for a second..."

"For a second? What?"

"I just needed to check something..."

"What are you checking that you need to search someone else's desk? Are you crazy?"

No.

"Hey, Hwang Eunseo went through our desks!"

"What?"

That's not it.

"Why would he go through someone else's desk...?"

"Have you done this before, too?"

Listen to me.

"Wow, that feels fucking gross..."

That's not what this is.

Please listen to me.

You're being manipulated right now. You didn't know, did you? You're being used without even realizing it. You need to understand that. You—you've done wrong, too, so I'm on your side!

The same team!

One team!

We're one team!

If you attack me, you're in serious trouble. Seriously. Who else is going to look out for you if not me? I developed Playing with Kim Yul for you. I made you happy. I provided you with entertainment. Who did? I did!

Protect me, you fucking morons!

Don't be idiots and let yourselves get stirred up. Figure out who's on your side! This is a conspiracy. A smear campaign. I'm being wronged. You pieces of shit! However stupid you are, can't you even tell friend from foe?

Don't you have any loyalty?

We've had fun together all this time. You enjoyed tormenting Kim Yul, too. You laughed all you wanted at that moron Kim Yul and his single father, living in a garbage dump and going around collecting trash! You trash! Why are you trying to tear apart your 'leader' now?

'It's not fair...'

Word that I'd searched the drawers during lunch spread among the kids in an instant. Fine, I'd searched them. What was the big fucking deal about that? But my classmates seemed to think [Hwang Eunseo searched the classroom desks] was a far more serious offense than [they had bullied Kim Yul].

'I'm being wronged...'

These were the same assholes who'd always grinned at me, calling me [Director, Director]. To betray me just because the culprit had threatened them a little. After all the work I'd done to make the classroom a fun place.

'It's so unfair I could die...'

Nothing had changed by the time school ended.

This morning, at least my friends had said they were sorry. At least they'd pretended to be. But after what happened at lunch, the look in their eyes changed. They stared at me coldly, as though I deserved to die.

'Crazy bastards.'

What crime had I committed?

It wasn't fair.

Not fair.

...

"Hwang Eunseo."

The classroom was empty, all the students gone.

"Sorry, but could I talk to you for a moment?"

It was the class president.

Today, she alone had remained expressionless from start to finish.

"What is it...?"

"I was going to stay out of it if I could. But our homeroom teacher and the other kids have been telling me all sorts of things. I am the class president, after all, so I suppose I should at least act like I care."

"Ha..."

I couldn't even sneer, 'This bitch is sticking her nose in again.' She was the first classmate to speak to me since lunch.

To put it nicely, the class president was a model student. To put it badly, she was a loner by choice. That was probably why she could ignore the mood around her.

"Is something wrong?"

"..."

In that instant, I saw a way out of this hellish situation.

'That's right. The class president.'

She had good grades. The teachers doted on her, whether they showed it or not. Our classmates generally left her alone, too. Perhaps she'd been born that way, but she carried herself with a slightly aloof air that made her difficult to approach.

I'd persuade her first, then turn the situation around step by step.

"Uh, actually..."

And I told her how unfairly I'd been treated.

Maybe I'd looked down on Kim Yul just a tiny bit all this time. But someone must have resented me for dating a rich girl, because they were spreading absurd rumors. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, but the other kids wouldn't even listen to me.

Please help me.

"..."

The class president listened impassively to my complaints for about thirty minutes. She didn't interrupt me. She didn't argue. She simply listened attentively, with the same manner as always, and I was grateful for it.

"I see. So that's what happened."

She nodded.

"I understand that you feel wronged, Eunseo. It must feel terribly unfair. Kids can be cold sometimes, saying it's none of their business."

"That's exactly what they're doing."

"But there's not much I can do to help. What should we do...?"

She thought it over. For a long time. Even I, who wasn't particularly close to her, could tell she was thinking deeply. We both fell silent. After a while, she lifted her head.

"Oh."

She tapped the desk.

"Eunseo, how about this? The way I see it, ultimately, a problem like this is bound to be resolved if Kim Yul forgives you."

"Kim Yul...?"

"Yes. Frankly, everyone else is an outsider, aren't they? If Kim Yul, the person directly involved, forgives you, the other kids won't have anything to say."

"..."

It was a solution I'd never even considered. But now that she'd said it, she was right. Whatever shit the others talked, if Kim Yul would just say one thing—[I forgive Hwang Eunseo now.]—my classmates would have nothing left to say.

"Uh... but..."

There was a problem.

"Would Kim Yul accept my apology? I don't think he would..."

"Don't worry. It's a bother, but I'll try talking to him."

The class president smiled softly.

"I'll help you out, Hwang Eunseo."

It was an exceedingly kind smile.