I received a call as soon as I arrived at work.
The assistant principal’s office was a place I’d never visited since starting my job at Seongjin High School. Which meant there weren’t many reasons for a contract teacher like me to be summoned there alone.
Despite the sweltering summer heat, the assistant principal’s office was quite cool. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the quietly running air conditioning system or the figure standing with his back to me, facing the window, even though some time had passed since the door closed.
Perhaps I should greet him again. I hesitated, trying to gauge the appropriate timing. Although he had immediately responded to my soft knock from outside the door, I cleared my throat, trying to push away my growing concerns.
“Teacher Song Jae-yun, have you adjusted well to our school?”
The small wrinkles between his eyebrows, which stretched upward on both sides as if in anger, and his firmly pressed, faint lips suggested a strong stubbornness.
“Yes, yes, Assistant Principal.”
I unconsciously bowed my head slightly in deference. I was sweating profusely as I tried to speak as clearly and properly as possible.
“Thanks to the help of other teachers, I’ve been doing well…”
“Are there any issues with your classes?”
“Pardon?”
“I called you here because I’m curious about how Teacher Song conducts his lessons.”
Beyond the thick glasses that his low nose bridge could barely support, even his thin gaze was reflected in miniature. The meaning behind his words also seemed distorted, and not just because of the warped view. He cut off my voice abruptly, as if there was nothing more to hear, because there was no way he could actually be curious about my teaching.
So I thought his trailing words, which seemed displeased, weren’t just due to his reportedly rigid temperament.
“Is there something wrong…”
I mentally went through my recent classes, wondering if I had made any mistakes.
Kids these days are like inspectors, they say. The moment they have even the slightest complaint, they immediately report it to the school or the education office. I recalled the drinking sessions where my senior colleagues and peers had lamented this fact.
Just then, with a dull sound, he slammed a white piece of paper onto his desk, which was dozens of times larger than the paper itself.
“Read this.”
Following his sharp voice, which no longer attempted to hide his anger, my gaze moved to the paper on the desk. I grew increasingly anxious as I could only vaguely make out the shape of the letters on it. With each step I took to get closer, it felt like tension was sticking to the soles of my shoes.
It was a simple table that filled more than half of the A4 paper. It listed grade, class, number, and name in order, but only one row was highlighted with a yellow marker. Naturally, my eyes were drawn to that spot first.
“Why is he…”
“That’s what I want to ask you, Teacher Song Jae-yun.”
3rd year, Class 5, Number 14, Woo Tae-seon. Looking up from the highlighted line, I saw the title printed at the top: First Semester Final Exam Mathematics Grade-Level List.
“How could Tae-seon be in the 8th grade level?”
“He was f-following along well in class…”
“You should have been more attentive. How can we face the Chairman with this?”
I finally understood why he hadn’t responded to my greeting, and why he hadn’t offered me a seat despite there being plenty of empty chairs.
With Woo Tae-seon’s name displayed as evidence of my crime, I stood there with my head bowed, listening to the scolding for quite some time.
“Make sure this doesn’t happen again in the second semester.”
The assistant principal repeatedly emphasized this until I closed the door behind me. As if repeating the admonishment would ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
I felt like I was crashing to the bottom. It was ridiculous that a subject teacher would be called to the assistant principal’s office because one student’s grades were low. I couldn’t understand why I was being summoned when it was Woo Tae-seon whose grades had dropped. Above all, Woo Tae-seon wasn’t the type of student who should receive such grades. No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t make sense that he would get such poor results even if he had made a mistake.
So the conclusion was that Woo Tae-seon had done this deliberately to mess with me.
* * *
At Seongjin High School, everything from participation in the vacation supplementary classes to class registration was left to the students’ discretion. Inevitably, this meant that classes were often canceled due to insufficient enrollment, and I found myself in such a situation.
Three registered students.
It was all too obvious. The class had been suddenly added when the overall supplementary schedule was being finalized. Not only was it unlikely to have many registrants since it was added late, but above all, the class aimed to strengthen basic concepts rather than cover advanced material. So, it was unlikely to be popular among students preparing for the college entrance exam just around the corner.
But the class that should have been canceled got approval to proceed. The reason they gave for this exceptional permission was that teachers should guide even the lowest-performing student without giving up, thus focusing on a small number to increase educational efficiency.
Of the three who gathered, one was nodding off, and another was resting his chin on one hand while busily writing something in his book with the other. Actually, “drawing” might be a more accurate description than “writing.”
“Teacher.”
It was Woo Tae-seon who raised his hand to call me.
This class had come down specifically targeting me. The head of academic affairs had repeatedly urged me to take this class, standing next to the assistant principal who made no effort to hide his displeasure. Of course, there wasn’t much to persuade me about.
I nodded. There was no way I could refuse an order that had likely come down from above. So I was certain this class had been created under someone’s influence.
“I don’t understand this problem.”
With each movement of his beckoning finger, it seemed as if transparent spider webs glistened in the sunlight between his long fingers. Even knowing that invisible but sticky threads would bind me tightly if I approached, I was drawn to him like a moth to a flame, blinded by artificial light.
The fear of imagining what would happen if I ignored the expectation in his eyes pushed me forward more than the fear of facing those eyes full of interest.
‘You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?’
‘What am I doing?’
‘You deliberately scored low only in my class.’
Woo Tae-seon sat in the seat closest to the back row among the three occupied seats.
‘The stress was making it hard for me to study.’
The closer I got to him, the more I felt a chill run down my spine with each student I passed. This was true even though it was clear that the other two, besides Woo Tae-seon and me, weren’t interested in either the class or the current situation.
I stopped about a hand’s width away from Woo Tae-seon, avoiding his long legs that extended beyond the desk.
‘I think it’s because I lacked proper care from you, teacher.’
The voice that had mockingly undressed me was vivid in my memory. But the Woo Tae-seon before me didn’t grab my buttocks or spread them apart.
Instead, he slowly moved the pen he was holding. With each slight movement of his neat fingers to the right, one by one, the letters that had been hidden by his hand became visible.
[Will you suck me off under the desk? I’m hard.]
The neat handwriting, like printed font, was unlike his natural demeanor. It was obscene without a single explicit word, and despite its polite tone, it plummeted my mood.
“…You should solve this much by yourself.”
“You want me to solve it alone?”
“…”
“You told us earlier to call you if we couldn’t solve it ourselves.”
When filtered through Woo Tae-seon, even ordinary words always sounded strange. He enjoyed seeing me flustered by his words and took pleasure in distorting the meaning of what I said.
“I didn’t see you that way. How irresponsible of you, teacher.”
I could now somewhat recognize the bait he had cleverly laid out. It was obvious that if I continued this exchange, I would be the one getting entangled.
While partly relieved that his voice still carried a playful tone, I chose to keep my mouth firmly shut. I might have been able to return to the podium if it weren’t for the tiny whisper, barely audible even to me.
“And I solved yours so diligently.”
When I turned around without realizing it, my eyes met Woo Tae-seon’s as he waved his empty fist near his mouth.
The moment Woo Tae-seon realized that my eyes had rolled toward where his lips should be, his mouth corners spread widely beyond the fist covering his mouth. A deep dimple formed about two joints away.
The seated Woo Tae-seon and me standing overlapped with the image of me leaning against the gymnasium railing and Woo Tae-seon kneeling, looking up at me.
I hated how Woo Tae-seon’s appraising gaze was both familiar and shudderingly unpleasant. I hated how I focused on everything about him, from the slightest glance to the smallest breath. I hated how I had become so accustomed and conditioned…
Just then, the class bell rang. Woo Tae-seon’s disappointment and my relief mixed. While I was organizing the podium in a tense state, Woo Tae-seon tucked a book under his arm and quickly disappeared out of the classroom.
It was the worst. That I had to do this at least twenty more times.
* * *
The vacation supplementary schedule was quite flexible compared to the schedule during the regular semester. Of course, that didn’t mean it was comfortable. Because there were classes that made my heart heavy just thinking about them, like stumbling blocks firmly embedded in the middle of the path.
The class where Woo Tae-seon would be sitting was one of them.
I wondered if it felt like this was happening so frequently just because meeting him was such an ordeal. But it wasn’t just my imagination. I realized this when I counted off the days I had to see him: Woo Tae-seon had registered for all the classes I was teaching that he could take.
