“Whoa… what did you eat over vacation to shoot up again like that?”

“What’s this weird feeling? Tae-san looks even better-looking than usual today.”

“Oh! Did you get your uniform fitted? You bastard. The look is killer. Heh heh heh.”

Right, I’m a high school kid.

The moment I walked into the classroom, my friends pelted me with profanity.

Growing taller was cause for profanity.

So was being better-looking.

The bittersweet reunion with my first love shattered the moment I got to school.

I missed these bastards.

The thick, distinctly all-boys-school odor filled the classroom.

The small classroom was an arena for males competing to survive.

The friends’ rough speech brought it home for real.

Dae-seon, who always had a runny nose from his sinusitis.

Jong-seok, grades at rock bottom but always shaving his head to show he’s serious about studying.

Hyeong-cheol, whose hairline was already starting to recede.

Do-jung, who had no friends the moment food was on the table.

Bong-seok, the self-styled poet who acted like he’d already lived out his whole life.

My friends, seeing me for the first time since vacation, expressed their friendship starting with you bastard and ending with son of a bitch.

I had missed them.

We had run into each other on and off through university, but after my discharge from the army we had drifted apart one by one.

Everyone had been grinding away, living hard to survive in their own lives.

And now I was seeing them again.

“Tae-san, did your dad make you take some miracle tonic over vacation? Why the hell did you get so tall?”

Hee-cheol, the cynical one with a lot of complaints about the world, picked a fight.

“Quit the porn, man. Then you’ll shoot up like me.”

“What am I quitting? Just kill me instead, man.”

“Then go ahead and drop dead, bastard.”

“Whoa! This bastard Tae-san’s gotten cocky!”

Hee-cheol kept jabbing at me.

With my firmed-up body, I threw a hard headlock on Hee-cheol.

“Urk! Ahhhhhhh! It hurts, you bastard!”

Hee-cheol screamed but couldn’t shake me off.

The muscle in my body was completely different from a month ago.

“You’re the cocky one, man. Your big brother got some fitness tutoring over vacation.”

“I give up! I giiiive up!”

At Hee-cheol’s surrender I released the headlock.

The classroom was chaotic.

Seeing the friends for the first time in a while, everyone was busy telling their stories.

Before supplementary classes and evening study were abolished, they had been comrades who shared morning, lunch and dinner in one classroom.

I too leaped across the years and played like a kid.

I was not going to show any sign of having come from the future.

Nor was I going to live the pathetic life of the past again.

My plan was to hide behind the title of a well-earning writer.

“Whoa… why is this bastard’s muscle this solid? Did you seriously go to the gym?”

“Heading into our third year, shouldn’t I build up some stamina for the college entrance exam?”

“You going sports college?”

“Stupid bastard.”

Conversations with my friends were always a delight.

It was like playing the nostalgia dad-joke game.

The memory of my unrequited first love from the morning was forgotten for a moment.

Heh heh, haha, ho ho — laughter of every variety overflowed in the classroom and had me.

I had missed these guys badly.

“Hey, you little bastards are way too loud. This isn’t a daycare — shut your mouths.”

At that moment someone appeared through the back door of the classroom, carrying an empty bag.

“…”

The classroom went quiet as dead mice in an instant.

Haa, I had been forgetting about this one.

The one who had rained on my precious, innocent high school years.

“Hong Seong-hyeon.”

I said the son of a bitch’s name quietly.

The moment he stepped in, a strong smell of cigarettes hit me.

He had learned taekwondo and judo and had a lean body; his eyes were yellow like a beast’s.

An idle sneer was fixed at the corner of his mouth.

It was a prestigious high school, but garbage existed.

He was good at his studies too.

His older brother was in the law department at Goyeong University.

His family was rich.

His father was a well-known local lawyer.

A man of standing in the area.

He was a city councilman at present, but word was widely out that he was planning to run for the national assembly.

Hong Seong-hyeon had a record of school violence that had been quietly swept aside.

He was a member of something called the Scorpions, a third-rate gang still operating in the city.

He was the year’s top dog, and not just in our class.

It was the textbook case of how a gifted kid, when he goes wrong, turns more vicious for it.

He preyed exclusively on those weaker than himself.

Even within the class, he didn’t touch the kids who were good at studying or came from money.

He split and managed the kids with subtle cunning.

And he…

“Hmm? Jang Tae-san. You’ve grown a lot since I last saw you?”

I had been one of the managed targets he tormented too.

Without replying I watched him quietly.

A yellow murderous intent drifted off him.

He was good at a no-rules, anything-goes fight.

And cruel with it.

He was the one who had chased a third-year senior who had told him off all the way to the next classroom and brought a chair down on the back of his head.

To think that yellow viper gave me a trauma…

Even through my university years, whenever I thought of him a rage rose.

He had been one dark streak running through an otherwise enjoyable time at school.

But now was different.

He was shorter than me.

He had been frightening then, but he wasn’t now.

“Why? Jealous?”

A word came out, just like that.

“What, jealous?”

Hong Seong-hyeon was flustered — this wasn’t the me who would hang my head and deflate at his every word.

It must have been an unfamiliar reaction.

“!!!”

Every eye in the class swung to me and Hong Seong-hyeon.

Anyone watching could see this was an incident.

With his pride, there was no question he wouldn’t let it pass.

“Heh heh. This is why you have to beat kids once a day. Do I look like gum to you just because you didn’t see me over vacation?”

That characteristic sour laugh of his.

Cute, this one.

“Not gum exactly… Less than gum.”

I squared my shoulders.

From here on it was beginning for real.

“What the…”

“Hey, is Tae-san losing his mind?”

“What’s gotten into that bastard?”

The kids whispered.

The color in his face rose red.

Good, get worked up.

“You bastard…”

He came toward me.

The kind of person who, because the violence had never stopped, thought it was his right.

It was time to set things straight.

My past, and this guy’s bad habits.

Rumble.

At that moment the front door of the classroom opened.

And a welcome face appeared.

A homeroom teacher of average height with a broad, bright forehead.

The man with the nickname passed down generation to generation by seniors, that he looked like a tin-can robot from a cartoon.

“Oh my, were my kids studying? How come our class is so quiet?”

He walked in smiling brightly at the silence.

And then he felt the charged atmosphere and looked at me and Hong Seong-hyeon.

“What are Tae-san and Seong-hyeon doing? You two having a staring contest?”

“No, sir. It’s been a while — we were just recognizing each other.”

I told him it was nothing.

“That so? But is this Tae-san? Looks like him, but strangely it doesn’t.”

“Teacher. It’s me. That hurts.”

“Right? Hey! You’ve filled out. Did you get your face done? You’ve got more presence than a celebrity.”

“Sir, you look better than before vacation too. You’re no newlywed, so your wife must still love you.”

“That right? Ha ha. Tae-san knows his stuff.”

My nerve had grown.

Back then I had been introverted, barely able to speak.

But now I had changed.

“Seong-hyeon. See you at lunch.”

I sent the first strike, waving my hand at him.

Grnnch.

The sound of the guy grinding his teeth reached my ears.

I ignored him cleanly and sat down at the empty desk at the very front.

“All right, all right. Vacation is over. You all know, right? One more year and it’s the college entrance exam. Don’t slack off till then — let’s run hard all the way. My kids.”

“Yes sir!”

The class answered energetically to the homeroom teacher’s words.

Still some innocence left in these high school kids.

“All right! Repeat after me today too! When the entrance exam score is high!”

The teacher’s call.

“When the entrance exam score is high!”

The class’s response.

“The wife’s face changes!”

The teacher’s voice, as if he had some deep personal grievance.

“The wife’s face changes!!!”

“Let’s go go go go go! Everyone, fighting!”

“Tae-san. You’re in for it. Looks like that son of a bitch Seong-hyeon is rounding up his lackeys.”

“Hey. You don’t avoid shit because you’re scared of it, you avoid it because it’s filthy. What were you thinking today?”

“Hoo. This bastard isn’t on glue, right?”

My close friends swarmed in every break.

Being the first day back, classes ran through simple lesson introductions and light sessions.

And then came lunch.

My close friends stayed behind while everyone else sprinted to the cafeteria.

“Someone die?”

“What do you mean, man! I feel like I can’t die a natural death because of you!”

“Haa, this bastard. What did you eat over vacation that you got this cocky? Hey! Don’t you know how scary Seong-hyeon’s family is? Those bastards beat people nasty!”

“Hoo. Looks like today, for the crime of knowing a friend like you, I’m going to take a beating alongside you.”

My friends shouted back as one at my words.

“It’s fine. Go eat, all of you.”

“What do you mean it’s fine, bastard! Your friend’s about to get hit and you’re telling us to go eat?”

“Oh for—. Idiot bastard.”

Say one word and the whole lot of them piled on.

That’s right. These guys are my friends.

All of them came from similar backgrounds.

The ones who’d chip in a few hundred won each during evening study to buy sundae as a snack.

The comrades who’d brought their fathers’ whiskey and drunk it on the school trip.

The men of taste who’d ridden bikes in the fall to enjoy the foliage.

The humble ones who could feel truly grateful over nothing but cup noodles for lunch.

Forgotten memories came back and my heart warmed.

“Heh heh. Little rats, are you having a strategy meeting?”

“Sucks for you, right on the first day back. Heh heh heh.”

Hong Seong-hyeon appeared through the back door with five people behind him.

A prestigious high school, but that didn’t mean all the characters were prestigious.

There were more bad seeds among them than you’d think.

The smell of cigarettes and something rank came together.

Their faces all looked mean.

Exactly birds of a feather.

“Damn mutts are real loud.”

“What! Mutts again?”

“What? That little loser bastard called us mutts?”

“You’re dead today! Son of a bitch!”

Hong Seong-hyeon’s crew flaring up.

The cancerous presences of the school had no awareness of the harm they caused.

“Shut your mouths and follow me, bastards. Don’t make a mess of the sacred classroom.”

I rose from my seat and took the lead.

The school was half-surrounded by a low mountain.

Once over the wall, even the teachers couldn’t do anything.

“T-Tae-san!”

“Oh… damn.”

My friends, tense, called out to me.

“Stay here. When school’s out I’ll treat everyone to pizza.”

I threw them a wink.

“Stay, my ass, bastard!”

“Well… all right, today for the first time in my life I’m having a proper one-on-one with a delinquent!”

“Eat your pizza with a busted nose, bastard!”

All six of my friends rose and followed me.

“Th-these bastards… hey. Call the underclassmen!”

Hong Seong-hyeon scowled and shouted.

Fine — call them all.

A day in August when the summer heat had not yet faded.

A good day for a deep clean, all right.

(End of Chapter 13)