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Chapter 4: School Zone (2)
The three men shifted their gazes between the boys and Kang Chan.
“What’s that?”
“Those bastards brought it with them.”
“Who?”
Kang Chan smirked. Was that so important?
“Answer me. Who brought it?”
Kang Chan turned around and looked at the boy whose back was covered in blood.
“If he’s the one who brought it, then I’d say he got his just desserts. You shouldn’t have taken it this far, though. It’s hard for us to cover it up now that things have gotten this far.”
‘What is he saying?’
“He’s a school bully that goes around harassing other students. Serves him right for being beaten up, but right now, you’re the problem we have to deal with. In any case, these six attacked you, and they have a weapon. When the school violence prevention committee holds an investigation, we’ll take care of it, so give me the knife and go home first.”
A teacher with an angular jaw held out his pudgy hand. Kang Chan handed over the knife without saying a word.
“If you were going to do this anyway, shouldn’t you have taught him a lesson earlier?”
The teacher patted Kang Chan. He seemed to be feeling rather bitter.
“Go home and explain things to your parents. And starting tomorrow, you have to come to school no matter what. Also, I heard from Mr. Seo that you have evidence against them?”
Kang Chan finally understood what he meant.
“Bring it tomorrow so we can submit it to the violence prevention committee.”
“Yes, sir.”
The teacher kept scrutinizing Kang Chan. It seemed like there was something about his posture and the look in his eyes that was very familiar, enough to have caught the teacher’s attention. The other two teachers got the other students to bring the boys that had collapsed to the ground back into the school.
“Where did you learn how to do that?”
Kang Chan smirked and looked at the teacher.
“You must have gotten that gut of yours by training hard, right?”
“I was simply born with it.”
“We’ll have another chat next time.”
Perhaps the teacher felt that Kang Chan wouldn’t reveal the truth that easily, so he simply turned around and left.
Kang Chan wanted to smoke a cigarette. However, he couldn’t smoke on school grounds no matter what, so he slowly walked away. The students scattered across the field like a pack of dogs, and Kang Chan watched them, as though he was seeing them off.
Kang Chan went into a snack bar located next to the main gate of the school.
“Welcome.”
“I’ll have a pork cutlet please.” Kang Chan sat down and shifted his gaze to the TV.
There were ten tables and two men were sitting across from him. There was also a young lady in front of them, eating tteokbokki[1] and kimbap[2] in a neat and tidy manner.
“Here you go.”
Meanwhile, a lady wearing an apron gave him his pork cutlet.
Thin slices of meat and the smell of cheap sauce and old grease. Kang Chan looked at the pork cutlet without saying a word. It was the last thing he had eaten before leaving Seoul. He had been dying to eat some, but he had barely eaten it only a few times because he didn’t have a penny to his name back then. Even though he had eaten steak countless times, he had always thought about it.
Kang Chan used a fork and knife to cut the pork into long strips, then into squares. He found that it tasted better when he did that and then ate it with chopsticks. It wasn’t that amazing, but he ate it nonetheless. Just as he was finishing—
Buzzz— Buzzz— Buzzz—
“Hello?”
— Chan, is that you? Where are you? What happened?
Yoo Hye-Sook asked a bunch of questions, sounding flustered.
“I’m eating some pork cutlet in front of the school.”
— It’s chaotic at school right now. I heard that even the police went there. What happened?
“I’ll tell you when I get home.”
— Chan, where are you right now? I’ll go to you!
“I said I’ll tell you when I go home, didn’t I?” Kang Chan’s voice dropped a few tones, and there was a moment of silence.
Kang Chan hung up the phone. He was annoyed at the thought that Yoo Hye-Sook’s over-protectiveness might’ve played a part in making the owner of his body a weakling.
“In any case, it’s better than murdering someone or committing suicide.”
Kang Chan muttered to himself. He ate everything on the plate, including the shredded cabbage, and got up from his seat. After paying for the food, he walked for a bit before sitting down on a chair in front of a convenience store and smoking a cigarette.
“Hoo.” The cigarette hit the right spot.
A world without bullets flying at him out of the blue; a world where people wore colorful clothes and short skirts, and had slim bodies; a world that was full of luxury cars. Kang Chan breathed in that view—and slowly exhaled the cigarette smoke.
‘I’ve gotten what I wanted.’
That was the case back when he was a kid. If he were living in a world where he didn’t have to worry about making ends meet, Kang Chan felt that he would probably do very well in school.
‘Should I just go to France once I graduate, or maybe flunk out?’
There was a time for studying. How was he going to manage his academics if he suddenly became a high school senior? He had been terrible at studying in his previous life too.
***
Kang Chan took a taxi back to the apartment.
‘Passcode?’
It was a keyless smart lock. Kang Chan rang the doorbell; he had recently been discharged from the hospital and he couldn’t remember the passcode. From behind the door, he heard footsteps hastening over before Yoo Hye-Sook opened it. Kang Dae-Kyung was behind her, with a flustered look on his face.
Kang Chan stepped into the house in a dignified manner.
“Please sit. I have something I’d like to show you in a moment.”
Kang Dae-Kyung’s face twitched, and in spite of his will, he walked over to the dining table in the kitchen. Kang Chan wanted to take this moment to alleviate the injustice and frustrations the owner of his body had felt. He took out the math workbook where the boy had offloaded his thoughts and feelings, and placed it on the table.
“Please take a look at this.”
Kang Chan gave the workbook to Yoo Hye-Sook and showed Kang Dae-Kyung the text messages in his phone.
As they accepted it, their body language seemed to be telling him to say everything he wanted. They glanced at Kang Chan from time to time but soon, their faces began to harden.
By the time Kang Dae-Kyung put down the smartphone, Yoo Hye-Sook hadn’t even read the first half of what her son had written in the workbook. She was covering her mouth as tears rolled down her face.
Quite some time passed like this.
“Please exchange what you have with each other and take a look at it.”
“No, it’s enough.”
“Please take a look.”
Kang Dae-Kyung’s face twitched once again, but he opened up the math workbook given to him by Yoo Hye-Sook. He gazed at the last page for a while before looking up.
“I went to school today. He told me to give him the money I owed him for cigarettes and food while I was gone.”
“Hoo.”
“I went to school feeling determined to confront them. Then, another six people tried to attack me. One of them had a knife…”
“Oh my goodness…!”
“I didn’t have a choice. I handed the knife over to the teacher, and the school’s violence prevention committee will be holding an investigation.”
“Why didn’t you say anything all this time?”
“I don’t know either. As you could see written there… I just thought it would be better than committing suicide or killing those kids.”
Kang Chan was speaking so coldly, in such a matter-of-fact tone, that the two people seemed to have calmed down a lot too as a result.
“The school said that because too many students saw what happened, it would be hard for you to go to school like this. As your father, what can I do to make things better for you?”
Father? Kang Chan looked at Kang Dae-Kyung in a new light.
Has there been anybody who took my side like this when I had done something wrong? Instead of hitting me after drinking, he’s going to help me resolve the incident I’ve caused?
“I feel sorry for the students that were hurt, but as long as you’re safe and sound, that’s all that matters. I’m glad you didn’t end up dying or killing them.”
Kang Dae-Kyung looked away from Yoo Hye-Sook’s shocked gaze.
“That was how I felt back when you were at the hospital too. I just wanted you to stay alive.”
“Honey?”
Kang Dae-Kyung shot Yoo Hye-Sook a brief glance and stopped her from saying more.
“But promise me one thing.”
What is this feeling I’m experiencing?
Kang Dae-Kyung’s sincerity was making Kang Chan experience some sort of warm, fuzzy feeling.
“Promise me that if something like this happens again in the future, you’ll come to me first and tell me about it. I’ll be content if you do that.”
“There may be more fights in the future.”
“You won’t kill others or get killed, right?”
“I give you my word.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
The fact that Kang Dae-Kyung was thankful that he was alive lingered in Kang Chan's heart. It was an emotion he had never experienced before, even from the platoon leader or the company commander after an arduous battle.
“I was told to start attending school from tomorrow onwards.”
“Wouldn’t it be dangerous?”
When Kang Chan smirked, the look on Kang Dae-Kyung’s face shifted as he understood the absurdity of his own words, while Yoo Hye-Sook just looked petrified.
“Hmm. Fine. You deal with this your own way.”
“What about you?” Yoo Hye-Sook asked Kang Dae-Kyung.
“That’s enough. You still don’t know how our son feels after reading his diary? Boys might really choose death if you push them into a corner like that. Do you want our child to die? Or do you want him to go to prison for murder? Don’t compare Chan to your friends’ children. Our son is simply different.”
“Did I say anything? Still, he has to graduate from high school!” Yoo Hye-Sook replied.
She didn't want to let it go. An awkward silence ensued.
Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep.
Kang Dae-Kyung’s phone started ringing.
“Hello?”
Kang Dae-Kyung answered the call, with a puzzled expression. A terrified look appeared in his wife’s eyes, but he shook his head, as if he was telling her not to be worried.
Kang Dae-Kyung could only stutter as the tense voice continued to pour out from the other end of the line.
Kang Chan’s ears pricked up—it was Arabic. It was a slightly softer tone of Arabic, common among French speakers. The speaker on the other end of the line was most likely an Algerian living in France.
“Pass me the phone.”
“Huh?”
Kang Chan took the phone from the perplexed Kang Dae-Kyung.
“Hello. Mr. Kang Dae-Kyung is busy, so I’ll take the call for him instead. Please repeat what you said slowly.”
Fluent French? Kang Dae-Kyung and Yoo Hye-Sook looked at each other, eyes wide. They had sent Kang Chan to an expensive English academy, but now he was suddenly fluent in French for some reason.
— It’s urgent. The price and quantity of this shipment of cars don’t match, so they can’t get through customs.
It was evident the person on the other end of the line was looking down on them.
“Please hold on for a second.”
— Hurry up.
Kang Chan figured out his interlocutor was the kind to get agitated very easily and start spouting nonsense when he got angry, and the most effective way to deal with such people was to be firm.
“Oy, cut the verbal vomiting. I told you to wait, didn’t I?”
As Kang Chan sounded very fluent, he was taking the lead in this conversation. Perhaps the person on the other end of the line was startled because all he could hear was just breathing sounds.
“He said that the shipment of cars cannot get through customs because the price and quantity don’t match. What is he talking about? What should I tell him?”
“What?”
“He said it’s urgent and everything’s a mess.”
Kang Dae-Kyung darted his eyes around for a moment
“Tell him that fifty cars will be arriving today. And perhaps the documents we had sent and the items don’t match, so we’ll check it out right away and inform the customs and their office.”
Kang Chan repeated his father’s words to his interlocutor.
— It’s a mess over here. What should we do? If we don’t move the items by the end of today, the shipping and labor costs incurred will be very high.
“Hang on.”
The other party wasn’t intimidated by his harsh tone. After Kang Chan conveyed what he had said to Kang Dae-Kyung, the latter responded that they would take responsibility for any losses incurred due to discrepancies in the documents.
“We will take responsibility for it, so verify the total amount of damages incurred, and we will personally call the customs office, so give me the name and phone number of the person in charge.”
— What?
“I’m asking for the name and phone number of the person in charge.”
Kang Chan suddenly became suspicious. He had a gut feeling. They couldn’t drag things out in situations like this.
“Or I can send a mercenary friend over to resolve the matter first.”
Are these bastards trying to pull a fast one?
“If need be, we can kick up a big fuss at the customs office, so tell me what exactly the issue is. Where are you? Tell me your location. I’ll send three of my Algerian men over.”
— Well, uhm, do we really have to take it that far? Ah! It’s fine. I found the right documents.
Kang Chan sniggered so loudly that the other person could hear him.
“Oy, next time organize your documents properly. Okay?”
— Yeah.
As soon as his interlocutor hung up, Kang Chan placed the phone down in front of Kang Dae-Kyung.
“He found the right papers, so the matter has now been resolved.”
A strange tension filled the air around the table.
“I learned French on the internet every night. Chat sites are well-developed these days, and French sites are easily accessible, so it wasn’t that hard.”
Who would believe that? Kang Dae-Kyung’s eyes were strongly expressing his doubt, but there was nothing he could do about it. His son had never been taught French in school, and they had never sent him to private classes either, and yet he sounded like a native speaker.
“I didn’t know that. And I’ve been so troubled because I thought you were looking at terrible things on the computer at night.”
Yoo Hye-Sook’s eyes sparkled, still full of tears. It kind of gave Kang Chan goosebumps, but he simply remained silent.
“Look into other companies to do business with. It seems like they were trying to shift the blame to you because of the language barrier,” he said after a moment.
Kang Dae-Kyung nodded and licked his lips.
“Three people from the France office will come over next month. We were planning to sell their cars. It’s a very good deal, but we’ll change to a different company once everything’s been settled.
“Please do that. I’ll be in my room.”
“Alright.”
Without meaning to, Kang Dae-Kyung gave his permission, so Kang Chan headed for his room.
“Honey! Our son is actually a genius, isn’t he?”
“People can only get to his level if they live abroad among the locals for at least ten years. Are kids picking up skills that fast these days?”
“How else would they have learned it? Should we take this opportunity to upgrade the computer? Oh, right! I should go to a French restaurant for brunch with Seong-Hee. She’s the one whose son goes to an international school. I hate it when she brags about him. This is great!”
Looking at Yoo Hye-Sook clapping her hands, Kang Dae-Kyung was so tempted to say, ‘I wish I were as simple-minded as you,’ but he held himself back.
1. Korean rice cakes ☜
2. Korean seaweed rice rolls ☜