Young master?

An unfamiliar form of address.

Ordinarily it is what a woman calls her husband’s younger brother.

In another sense it is the general term for the boys of a wealthy house.

Even among the pupils of Cheonghwa High School, the ones called young master are very few.

You have to be royal family of one of the top ten groups before you hear it at all.

And a Jo and Jang attorney had bowed his head to a charity case and plainly called him that.

“……”

Everybody with ears and eyes went into silence.

A Jo and Jang attorney would not use young master on just anybody.

Every person looking up at the charity case on the platform was wrapped in doubt.

The principal and the homeroom teacher of second year, class three, by contrast, look not much surprised.

They know something about what Ha Tae-ung is.

How interesting.

Curiosity came up bright in Lee Hyorin’s eyes.

Even her brother Lee Jeongjun, who is unbelievably full of himself, does not get called young master.

He is Hanguk Group blood right enough, but on the maternal line.

And Doa Ilbo was never at a level where young master applied.

And today a charity case she is seeing for the first time has been called it.

Neither the one called nor the one calling found anything out of place in it. It was natural.

The way he answers to the form of address is natural.

Standing up on that platform, he might be a crown prince looking over Cheonghwa’s subjects.

A great many people are gathered, and not one of them could raise an objection.

And not only because of what a Jo and Jang attorney called a charity case.

There is a force working here, invisible, that holds the whole room down.

He felt like somebody who ought, properly, to be respected.

A noble line?

There is something there of a bearing born into a person, which upstarts with nothing but money cannot imitate.

Born with an upper-class gold spoon in her mouth, she caught a force of the same kind as her own.

Upper-class society is a cold savannah.

You grow used to the presence the apex predators give off, and you take that strength into yourself.

Something like an instinct, learned and woken systematically inside the Cheonghwa system.

“Hn.”

A laugh got out of Lee Hyorin before she knew it.

Fierce curiosity filled her eyes.

A boy who has landed one on a brother who is her own blood and worse to her than a stranger.

…… He was chaebol blood.

Han Yubin, head of the discipline department, took a blow of her own.

The substance of that sense of something out of place she felt in the canteen.

It was a presence no charity case could possibly give off.

And today, on the spot, she has confirmed what it was.

Standing in the front row, she looked Ha Tae-ung over more closely than anybody.

The watch at his wrist is designer, at tens of millions.

The belt showing in glimpses, and the slippers worn lightly.

They look ordinary and they are not.

He has been deceiving all of us this whole time? Why?

She thinks she understands now why Oh Seora never made a squeak.

It amounts to confirmation that Ha Tae-ung had the power to press Oh Seora down.

Oh Seora is the daughter of an upstart Gangnam house.

No foundation to them, and in money they are not behind anybody.

If he is in a position to press a house like that down——

Top ten chaebol at the very least.

The top ten groups are the ones whose history runs along the same line as the country’s own.

The power they exercise works strongly in places nobody can see.

Their influence reaches politics and business and the whole of society besides.

If the surname is Ha…… surely not.

One group went across her head in a flash.

“Haryun……”

It got out of Han Yubin’s mouth and she could do nothing about it.

“If the surname is Ha?”

“Surely not??”

“Haryun Group?”

“Oh my!”

“Good God……”

Cheonghwa pupils are thoroughly up on politics and business as a matter of course.

Ha is exceedingly rare in the upper class.

And if Ha Tae-ung is a member of a chaebol house, there is only Haryun Group.

So at the furthest stretch, a house connected to Haryun’s collateral companies.

H— Haryun? This charity case bastard??

Lee Jangyong’s ears had opened to what was breaking out among the pupils.

Something went cold along his spine.

Haryun is not an entity he is in a position to deal with.

However good a man’s ability, get marked by one of the top ten and making a living in this country is hard.

The world has changed a great deal, and if money and power press down on you, holding on to a rice bowl is impossible.

“Is the evidence gathering finished?”

“Yes! All of it collected.”

Ha Tae-ung asked it of Attorney Kim Gyeongmin, and the answer came back with force in it.

Kim Gyeongmin had confirmed, in a text message, what Jo and Jang’s information team had turned up.

Every item of it was outside anything he had expected.

The youngest grandson of Chairman Ha Cheolgon……

There is a certain amount of legal noise about them at the moment, and Haryun Group is still solid.

Thirty years ago they completed a spin-off from the house that had been with them since the previous generation.

The ranking came down from the top five to the top ten, and the underlying strength is what it always was.

The capacity of a group that has lasted a hundred years reaches the whole base of the country’s economy.

And a mere schoolteacher poured words at a member of a house like that which cannot be washed off.

A situation that can never be forgiven.

Insubordination, against a young master, of all people.

He means to let the man taste how hot the world is.

“Teacher Lee Jangyong.”

Ha Tae-ung called him again.

The manner stayed courteous, and the voice alone was cold as ice.

“……”

Lee Jangyong bit his lip until the blood came up in it, and glared at him.

“I’ll give you a last chance.”

“Wh— what!”

“Go down on your knees and apologise, as you said you would.”

“…… Shut up! You wretched charity case bastard!”

So he’s Haryun Group family. What of it. I’m a man of consequence too, on my way to being this country’s number one maths tutor.

Lee Jangyong had not read his position accurately, and he wrung the last of a courage that had gone to the floor and hauled it up.

“Young mas— no. Ha Tae-ung-gun! I will deal with that creature at my own level!”

Principal An Jongwuk squared his shoulders and came a step forward.

Ha Tae-ung, grandson of Haryun Group’s chairman, and with a Jo and Jang attorney assisting him besides.

By whatever means, An Jongwuk has to be well thought of.

Only then can he retire without incident.

Son of a bitch. Throwing filth over my road?

By temperament he would like to grind the man into the floor here and now.

But there are a great many eyes watching.

“Teacher Lee Jangyong! Acknowledge your error and apologise to him!”

“Kikikikikiki……. Talking fucking bullshit, and falling over yourself doing it.”

His reason looked paralysed and his eyes had gone right round, and he seemed to have decided to go all the way.

Rolled up, and more than half of each eye was white.

I’ll kill the lot of you! You bastards!!

He passed a wretched adolescence, and the Cheonghwa pupils have almost all grown up in comfortable, happy households.

That even a thing no better than a charity case turns out to have enormous backing brought a self-loathing up in him.

“I’ll take myself off first, so all of you eat well and live well~ You who are nothing~”

Acting cool about it, Lee Jangyong turned his back and started down off the platform.

Nobody stopped him going.

Violence is forbidden, and avoiding a quarrel was the natural thing.

“Lee Jangyong!!”

And in that moment a voice full of anger called him to a halt.

It came loudly from right beside him, and Lee Jangyong turned his head.

CRAAACK!

A heat like something taken out of a fire went through his left cheek.

His neck snapped round to the right.

He nearly went over, and took the whole of the shock into the cheek.

THUD!

That was not the end of it.

A boot went into Lee Jangyong’s stomach.

“Kuh!”

The impact bent him at the waist and folded him in half.

Thump!

He could not hold it, and went down on his knees on the floor.

That he was being beaten one-sidedly like this, Lee Jangyong could not begin to believe.

It is not the principal.

And Ha Tae-ung, the charity case, is at some distance from him.

Then who——

“Haa. A grown teacher, and this is what you look like……”

A voice with an edge honed right up on it.

“Kyaaaah!”

“L— Lee Jeongjun!”

“Good God……”

Violence against a teacher, and the girls screamed.

Lee Jeongjun, who had been present for the whole course of how it came to this, had put himself in.

At a thing nobody saw coming, everybody watching was thrown into confusion.

Why Lee Jeongjun?

“It’s a poor look.”

Lee Jeongjun, first in the second year, and the son of the president of the parents’ association.

His eyes on Lee Jangyong might be on a single repulsive insect.

And then Lee Jangyong looked up at Ha Tae-ung.

“Satisfied?”

Lee Jeongjun holds Ha Tae-ung’s eyes and asks it.

It is a question about having put the man on his knees, exactly as he promised.

Snap.

Sparks jumped between the two lines of sight.

“……”

Every pupil’s eyes fixed on the two of them.

Lee Jeongjun, who as recently as yesterday was first in the whole second year.

And Ha Tae-ung, who has taken first place back today with a perfect score.

Against Lee Jeongjun, with Hanguk Group and Doa Ilbo behind him, Ha Tae-ung did not give an inch.

The presence of a man who is certainly Haryun Group’s grandson.

A slow grin.

Ha Tae-ung smiles at the question.

“From now on…… stay out of my business.”

A warning that sounded like a joke.

“And if I don’t?”

Lee Jeongjun put his pride up and asked it back.

A fierce contest of force, carried on in a handful of words.

Ha Tae-ung held a long, settled look on him.

And.

“You’ll get hurt.”

“……??”

(End of Chapter 60)