She’s cute even angry?

Reacting like that probably makes me a strange man, and I mean it. Han Yubin carries an air about her unlike anyone else in this school.

Features like something moulded, and clean skin with a shine on it. A face that takes the eye.

It matched the haughty, unapproachable air she wears.

And the cold eyes on top of that.

Word afterward was that she went from Cheonghwa to Seoguk’s business school, then law school, then into a large firm.

Before this stretch of time got replayed, of course, she was somebody I wouldn’t have dared look at.

The cold-blooded witch who stood at the gate every morning beside the discipline teacher.

Seeing her again, she’s quite cute when she’s angry.

“Heh.”

The thoughts got a laugh out of me before I could stop it.

My liver has definitely swollen.

“You— you……. Are you laughing at me?”

Han Yubin’s eyes open wider. The big eyes went saucer-wide.

“How about educated people showing each other a little respect?”

“Respect? I’m the head of discipline!”

Something turned her stomach and she shouts it. And what am I meant to do about that?

“What year did you start primary school?”

“……??”

Han Yubin makes a face that says what nonsense is this.

I have a clear reason for asking about primary school rather than university. Call it petty. Nothing to be done.

“I’m on a different level from you lot.”

“…….”

Han Yubin, entirely at a loss.

“I’m a returning student who lost two years in primary school. So watch how you talk.”

“……!!”

Her expression crumpled.

She seems to have caught that the situation has turned strange.

Adolescence is the one period in life where a single year serves as a very important index.

“Not you. Friend, at minimum. Failing that, use oppa.”

This is the power a billion won hands a man.

In a few days that billion swells into hundreds of billions.

And those hundreds of billions in turn——

The vague fear of the future is gone out of me. Confidence arrived and nothing frightens me.

The security money brought handed me this kind of freedom.

I think I understand the psychology of the people who used to throw it around.

I can meet them at eye level now and handle them.

The same applies right now, handling a Han Yubin who can’t swallow her own anger.

“And?”

The boy beside her stepped in. I didn’t know his name.

Around a hundred and seventy-five.

Silver-rimmed glasses that suit him, and a prickly look about the whole face. The glare he’s aiming at me is deeply irritating.

A look I saw a great many times in the life before this one.

Once they’ve judged themselves the superior party, the contempt and the mockery inside them comes straight out through the eyes.

“Didn’t you hear? You call me hyung.”

“Hyung? Puhahahahaha.”

He sneers with his even teeth showing.

Cut.

And the laugh stopped dead.

Madness runs through the contempt in his eyes.

The attitude, exactly as expected. At this level you don’t need to check their mental state. A good number of them are broken.

Any love of humanity won’t have been included in the curriculum.

As somebody living in the same era as these people, the country’s future looks bleak.

“Insolent bastard.”

Is that aimed at me? When did you and I ever deal with each other?

Steam comes off the top of my head over one boy playing the knight.

From experience, a student at this school with his head screwed on is hard to find.

“And if you end up with your mouth done the way Oh Gwangjun’s was, will that embarrass you less?”

I asked it lightly. Everything that happened today is going round the whole school regardless.

Ha Tae-ung has become a mad dog.

Touch him and he bites.

A rumour running at roughly that level would do——

“What? Being held back is something to boast about? You’ve got nothing at all. And violence is justified, is it?”

He’s steering me toward a provocation. The name on the tag——

“Yang Jihun. Who do you think you are?”

“What?”

“It’s a name I don’t know. Family of no consequence, then?”

“Th— this bastard!”

“What does your father do? Does he look after the Han family’s affairs, by any chance?”

“Sh— shut up!”

Yang Jihun broke first.

“So I’m right. Tsk.”

I clicked my tongue at him, enraged as he was.

“Do you— do you really want to die?”

“Are you able to kill?”

“This bastard……”

The moment Yang Jihun’s eyes rolled over and he moved as though he’d rush me——

“That’s enough.”

Han Yubin put an arm out and blocked him.

“…….”

Yang Jihun went docile on the instant, the way a servant settles at one word from the young mistress of the house.

The blazing look he couldn’t hide was seriously irritating.

“Ha Tae-ung.”

Han Yubin says the name short.

“What is it, Han Yubin.”

I gave it back to her the same way.

“I’m reporting today’s incident formally to the officers’ council.”

“As you like.”

“……You’ve decided to throw your life away, then.”

“Yeah. The charity case’s own way, as you lot put it.”

“Madman……”

Han Yubin’s face is a sight, like somebody hit her with something.

Fine. I acknowledge you lot too.

I understood it after coming back to this point.

The world isn’t for living kindly in. Being good gets you no allowance whatsoever.

If the ability is there, you live the way these children do.

Arrogance kept thoroughly hidden inside a cultured manner.

The heavenly realm, permitted only to the upper class of this country, who work the world however they please.

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“Pff……. Kh.”

And on that timing, another laugh, badly held down.

The culprit is Kang Ari again. She still hasn’t left the canteen.

Sitting where she was, head slightly lowered, shoulders going, trying to keep it in.

“What are you looking at?”

An Aram the bodyguard barked as the eyes swung over.

“…….”

Trudge, trudge.

Unable to hide what she thinks of it, radiating cold, Han Yubin passes by me.

As head of discipline she’d carried real weight in this school until today.

And then.

“Wait.”

I called her to a stop.

“……??”

She stopped where she was. Turned back with a look full of question.

I walked slowly toward that sour face.

Shff.

And reached out a hand.

“Wh— what are you doing……”

Han Yubin cried out, thrown by it.

She seems to have remembered the moment Oh Seora took a slap from me.

Han Yubin, who had been handling me savagely up until a breath ago.

She’s trembling now like a deer standing in front of a hunter’s muzzle.

“……On your uniform. Here. Lint.”

I picked a visible bit of fluff off the right shoulder of her jacket and showed it to her.

Tap.

And touched the shoulder lightly, once.

Han Yubin at least isn’t one of the animals.

She hadn’t crossed a line, even now.

“…….”

Han Yubin staring at me with round, bewildered eyes. Some colour seemed to come up in her face, and then——

“Today……. I’ll remember this.”

“Don’t be so grateful over something small. We’re friends.”

What she meant by it was different, and I read it whichever way suited me.

The thing has grown past containing anyway.

The backlash coming? I’m not the man I used to be, so it doesn’t frighten me.

Soft steps.

Han Yubin disappeared out of the canteen. A clean, cool aquatic scent stayed behind her, faintly.

“……Ha Tae-ung. I’m looking at you differently.”

Park Jiung sent me a look with something like awe in it.

Nobody in this school, charity case or otherwise, has ever shown that kind of raw nerve against discipline.

And against Han Yubin, on top of it.

“Scared?”

“Heh heh. No.”

Confidence had filled Park Jiung’s eyes too. The laugh comes light and the energy off him is clear.

“Then what?”

“Bloody refreshing. Like choking down a dry sweet potato and then putting a cola away in one.”

Life had come into Park Jiung’s eyes.

It isn’t the fierce dark red that took half of him while Oh Seora was working on him. It’s changed to a clean, clear blue.

Park Jiung’s fate appears to have changed.

That one thing on its own is enough.

The MZ-generation gang boss who would have had the country shaking in a few years no longer exists.

And if it comes to it, I can pack school in and drop out.

There’s more than enough capital to stand on. I’m going to live freely from here.

I looked around the canteen.

“…….”

Every one of them was holding their breath, as though they’d agreed it beforehand. Even the ones running their mouths about charity cases a minute ago avoided my eyes.

“Heh.”

Looking at them, a laugh got out of me. It has been exactly half a day. In that short a time, a life changed.

I’ll make certain none of them can ever disregard me again.

The charity case Ha Tae-ung who lived taking it no longer exists.

Through Oh Gwangjun and Oh Seora I’ve proved beyond doubt that I’m here.

A presence obtained through violence, admittedly——

For animals with nothing human in them, a club is the medicine.

What the granny asked of me was one thing.

It’s a short life. Go and enjoy yourself.

And in that moment.

“Oppa……”

“……??”

An unfamiliar oppa, from somewhere behind me. I turned fast.

One person, and my eyes went straight into her.

“……??”

(End of Chapter 13)