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Chapter 9.1: Only You(1)
When Kang Chan entered the school gate, Seok Kang-Ho was standing there with a discipline stick. There was no need to acknowledge and greet one another.
Kang Chan went straight to the classroom. He received a lot of attention from the other students on the stairs and in the hallway. Wherever he went, there was silence, as though he was a monster named ‘Sound Eater.’ The same went in the classroom.
An unusual scene unfolded in the classroom––startled by his arrival, the noisy students chattering away shut their mouths and returned to their seats.
Finding his bag on his chair, Kang Chan put it away and sat down. Perhaps Seok Kang-Ho had brought it to school and placed it there.
At that moment, a group of idiots entered the front door. They formed three lines and stood in front of him.
“Welcome.”
It wasn’t a one-off greeting. They bowed their heads in order, starting from the front row. Without a doubt, they were mimicking gangsters. Kang Chan let it go the first time around because they were unaware that he didn’t like it, but he didn’t want to see something like this again.
“Who are you people?” Kang Chan demanded.
“We’re 10th and 11th graders.”
“Did someone order you to do this?”
“No,” the guy standing at the end of the line on the left answered firmly.
“Don’t ever do this again.”
“I…”
When Kang Chan got up from his seat, the boy flinched. The students sitting at their desks quickly lowered their heads.
“Get out. Never do anything like this again in the future.”
It was nauseating to see them going around in a group like that, flaunting their ‘power’.
Thinking Kang Chan would attack them at any moment, the boy tried his best to win him over, but bloodthirst filled Kang Chan’s eyes instead. The 11th grader was simply way too young to be equipped with the skills to deal with those eyes of Kang Chan’s.
The boys bade him goodbye in a strange manner and left the classroom. Looking more nervous than the day before, the homeroom teacher kept homeroom brief and then left.
It was now time for class.
Most of the teachers that entered the classroom fixated their eyes on Kang Chan’s left hand, which was resting on his desk. And as soon as the bell rang, they hurriedly left out of fear.
It was a grueling time.
‘This is bad for everyone.’
It was seriously hard on the students, who had to go to the bathroom with their heads lowered like monks, as well as Kang Chan, who was forced to sit through the classes as if he had been captured and was being tortured.
At long last, the morning classes had ended, and it was now time for lunch. Even though Kang Chan was hungry, he didn’t like the idea of dealing with the other students’ stares and the suffocating atmosphere in the cafeteria. He agonized about his next course of action.
“Kang Chan.”
At that moment, however, he heard a voice. It was Seok Kang-Ho.
“Come out.”
“Okay.”
Kang Chan happily left the classroom. The hallway and stairs were filled with students, but they automatically made way for Kang Chan to pass through, just like Moses’ miracle. After passing through the hallway and stairs, Seok Kang-Ho finally spoke.
“I did a good job, didn’t I?”
“Thanks for helping me this time around.”
“Hehehe. I went over because I thought you’d be having a hard time. I’m glad I did. What would you like for lunch?”
“Pork cutlet.”
Seok Kang-Ho looked at him without saying anything. It was lunchtime, so the restaurant was rather crowded because of the office workers that worked nearby. Seok Kang-Ho and Kang Chan sat down at a table and ordered two pork cutlets.
When Seok Kang-Ho saw how Kang Chan cut his pork cutlet like he normally did and ate it with his chopsticks, he followed suit.
“So you can eat it like this, too. Chopsticks are really great.”
Since there were a lot of people, they barely spoke to each other, save for Seok Kang-Ho mumbling to himself. The meal ended without any exchange of words.
Needless to say, Seok Kang-Ho paid for the meal. After leaving the restaurant, both of them returned to the school premises. A lot of people stared at them as they made their way to the rooftop of the school building.
Rattle.
There were quite a number of students on the rooftop, but they flinched at the sight of Seok Kang-Ho. And when they saw Kang Chan standing behind him, they quickly left.
The two of them sat down and leaned against the rooftop door, smoking the cigarettes Seok Kang-Ho brought with him.
“Can’t the school keep the rooftop door locked?”
“Of course we’ve tried locking it. Why wouldn’t we after a student fell from here? But no matter how many times we lock it, it keeps reopening as if there’s a ghost at work.”
Seok Kang-Ho slowly exhaled cigarette smoke.
“And if we lock the door to this place, the toilets in school would all be clogged up on the day itself, so we just let it slide.”
That could happen.
“I have a favor to ask you.”
“What is it?” Kang Chan asked.
Seok Kang-Ho threw the cigarette butt on the floor and put it out. He spoke with much difficulty.
“There are four students being bullied here in school. Their situation’s pretty bad. I want you to watch over them.”
Kang Chan held out his hand. Seok Kang-Ho gave him another cigarette.
“Hoo, it’ll become more difficult for them to fend for themselves once I leave in a month and a half’s time. Let’s not overdo it.”
“I’ll help you cut class.”
Seok Kang-Ho gave a very attractive offer that tempted even ‘the great’ Kang Chan.
“I’m thinking of training you to be a school athlete. If you go to college using your practical skills, the teachers would be more than happy to have you, so wouldn’t it be good for everyone?”
Why is this guy going to such great lengths?
“You need to start working out too. Considering you got wounded so easily by a mere knife, you wouldn’t be able to survive in Africa anyway,” Seok Kang-Ho continued.
When Kang Chan looked suspiciously at him, Kang-Ho licked his lips.
“After spending my life as a loner, the first person I relied on was you, captain. When I saw blood gushing out of your neck, I thought the world had turned its back on me. But I was reincarnated. I kept thinking about this the entire time you were at the hospital.”
“Thinking about what? Saving those students from being bullied?”
“There’s clearly a reason why I’ve been brought back to life, right? I don’t think I was given this baffling opportunity just to simply live paycheck to paycheck and be with a wife, who’s content with the little things in life, and a daughter, to whom I haven’t developed much of an attachment yet.”
Kang Chan smirked. “Seems like the owner of your body’s thoughts still remain, huh?”
“That seems to be the case. Especially since when I come to school, I remember a list of things to do.”
“Not for me. I have no recollection at all. Neither do I know why I was reincarnated like that. More importantly, I’m taking all these classes, but I know nothing.” Kang Chan flicked off the remaining embers on the cigarette.
“Could the student that got bullied desperately wanted to take revenge?”
“Stop watching so many dramas,” Kang Chan spoke as he scoffed at him.
Seok Kang-Ho grinned in response. At times like these, he was definitely Dayeru.
“Let’s say you and I were reincarnated. A lot of people were killed that day, including troops from the other units. In any case, it was ‘kill or be killed’ for all of us there during that combat, but it would be a different story if somebody had made us walk into that trap. I have to find out who it was.”
Kang Chan looked up at the sky full of white clouds. Even though it hadn’t been long, it was a view he had gotten used to.
“Let’s go. Classes are about to start.”
“Tsk!”
“What’s wrong?”
“How many people did you say are being bullied?”
“Four.”
Kang Chan sighed heavily, while Seok Kang-Hoo looked satisfied.
***
Keeping Seok Kang-Ho’s promise to let him cut classes from next week onwards in mind, Kang Chan made his way back to the classroom. Lunch wasn’t over yet, so there were still empty seats around.
After entering the classroom, Kang Chan looked strangely at Lee Ho-Jun, whose face had been thoroughly beaten up. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t at his desk this morning. Startled upon noticing Kang Chan, the guy lowered his head.
‘Oh my, what a pathetic fella.’
Kang Chan went to his seat.
“What did you eat?”
“Pork cutlet.”
Snow White nodded, looking disappointed. Since she was still a young girl, it was possible for her to be momentarily infatuated with Kang Chan’s ‘bad boy’ exterior. Kang Chan felt he should distance himself from her whenever an opportunity presented itself.