Emergency Exit 1

No matter how much I turn back time,

I’m left with the conclusion that there was no one I loved as much as you.

Loving you more than myself.

That was my fortune, and that was my misfortune.

* * *

In March, when the cold hadn’t quite lifted yet, Taein was walking to school breathing out white puffs of air.

It was his first day of school. There was no entrance ceremony, no proper playground—he wasn’t expecting much from this school. It was a building he’d seen often while coming and going. When he first saw it, he thought it was a cram school, but someone later told him it was actually a school. A delinquent school, at that. Throughout elementary and middle school, Taein had been certain he would end up attending that school.

Don’t people have intuition about these things? From the time he could barely walk until now, Taein’s life had been slowly falling apart. As the person living that ruined life, it just wasn’t easy to perceive.

First of all, Taein had no parents. He never had a father from the beginning, and he was separated from his mother when he was four. His mother had unilaterally left Taein at an orphanage. From then until he became a high schooler, Taein lived in facilities. When he was younger, he lived in what was openly called an orphanage, and when it came time to enter school, he lived in a family-style facility that housed fewer than ten kids his age.

They were called facilities, but many were quite unstable situations—Taein was relatively lucky.

From fifth grade in elementary school until he became a high schooler, he lived in just one residence. There were often cases where kids had to move not just buildings, but entire regions, but the “Happy Home” where Taein lived was an exception.

“The building owner is a good person. He said he’d continue with us even without receiving support.”

This was the comfort the center teacher had given him until his ears were sick of hearing it. Other kids sometimes moved facilities every six months. “You were born under a lucky star, so you’ve at least become locals in this neighborhood.”

Then the children were supposed to be happy. Taein also thought it was fortunate, deep down. There was nothing good about moving houses or regions for no reason. If you asked Taein and the other Happy Home children to name one thing that went well in their lives, they could cite that.

He took the bus to elementary and middle school. Instead of the facility staying in one place, the school locations weren’t great. Middle school especially was quite far, so just the commute took quite a while.

Around that time, the bigger problem than distance was Taein’s relationships with his classmates. Taein, who had always been clumsy at making friends, didn’t have a single friend he kept in personal contact with from elementary school graduation through middle school enrollment. He talked with everyone at school, but there wasn’t anyone who came to mind when he thought of “friends.” Taein had little desire to make friends or the kind of hierarchical consciousness that kids develop from elementary school. He simply didn’t want to bother with making friends while worrying about this and that.

With Taein becoming a loner like this, his classmates showed no interest in him. It continued that way through his first year of middle school.

Then in his second year of middle school, being placed in the same class as the bullies created cracks in his daily life.

Taein acted the same toward ordinary students and bullies alike. He only answered absolutely necessary questions, and when someone tried to act friendly, he kept his distance. This rubbed the bullies the wrong way.

The bullies tormented Taein until winter break of their third year. They would call Taein, who didn’t bat an eye, to the gymnasium to pick fights and assault him in ways that wouldn’t show. They injured his ears, shoulders, thighs, and other places. At first it wasn’t quite assault, but they started using their hands because they got heated up by Taein looking straight at them with his eyes wide open. Taein didn’t just take the beatings either. When the first punch came flying, he wouldn’t lose out and would throw his fist right into their faces. However, Taein was one person and there were multiple bullies.

It was natural that Taein got hurt. Even when he came back to the facility after getting beaten up, no one noticed.

He just showered and went to sleep early. The next day when he went to school, it was the same life again.

Having grown up with a personality that didn’t get hurt easily, he didn’t cry or get scared. He stood up to them every time.

His middle school life was long if you considered it long, short if you considered it short. Though traces remained here and there on his body, they were small or barely visible. Bruises and such would quickly fade after a few days.

Advancing to high school meant the end of middle school life, not some new beginning. He just wanted to graduate quickly and get to work. He occasionally did part-time jobs but had never worked in earnest. The facility teachers and school teachers always emphasized earning your keep. Being an adult meant doing your fair share. So you had to study hard and earn money.

His studies had already gone down the drain, and for him, the best option was to get a high school diploma and find a decent job.

“If that doesn’t work out, I’ll have to go into manual labor.”

Wouldn’t there be at least one place that would hire him? Since having a high school diploma was better than not having one, he had submitted his application to the nearest school.

Whether it was a delinquent school or a shit school, once he graduated, that would be it. For Taein, school had always been a meaningless place. Just a place you go because they tell you to go. A place you attend because you have to attend.

He hoped his high school years would pass by meaninglessly, just like they had up until now.

* * *

It really was a delinquent school, as expected. Just as elementary and middle school were different, middle school and high school were worlds apart. This school, which gathered only delinquents, went without saying. True to being a school that prioritized employment first, the atmosphere was such that teachers didn’t even mention anything college-related. It wasn’t because they were still first-years—once you passed through the school entrance, there were only job centers and high school graduate employment-related posters plastered all over.

Since that was the direction the school pursued, it was natural for the students to follow suit.

The homeroom teacher said that in the past it was a school that only accepted trash beyond description, but the atmosphere had improved somewhat, and there were many connected small and medium enterprises so it would help with employment. Hearing this, Taein took a full look around the classroom.

There were five buzz cuts and two with long hair. He could see one guy who had bleached his hair yellow. Since the school had no hair regulations, free styles were possible, but he wondered if this was really okay. It was still a school, after all. He thought everyone would fool around behind the scenes, but he hadn’t expected them to openly go for the thug style.

It wasn’t just the hair. There wasn’t a single guy wearing the uniform properly. There were just over twenty people gathered in the class. Taein was wearing his uniform most neatly among them, and since he was noticeably handsome as well, he drew unnecessary glances. There were eyes glancing at him here and there.

Since it was a school with mostly male students, the interest in Taein quickly died down within a month.

Since he wasn’t particularly a party guy or a show-off, interest naturally faded.

For Taein, this was actually a good thing. He thought there might be some troublesome incidents since it was a school full of rowdy guys, but there was nothing like that at all. For Taein, who already disliked standing out, these were optimal conditions. Even after quite some time had passed, there were plenty of guys who didn’t know his name.

The weird things his classmates did or the assault cases they committed outside and then came back from had nothing to do with his life. Looking at them one by one, they were worse than the middle school bullies, but those guys actually weren’t interested in school. They might go out and commit bigger crimes, but cases of causing major trouble at school were rare.

The trouble they caused led to juvenile detention centers and juvenile prisons. There were many cases of joining organizations and becoming gangsters outright, and the school guys seemed to treat this as typical cases.

Taein sat at his desk and was always forced to listen to stories that didn’t interest him. Their voices were so loud that he couldn’t help but hear. What gang, what gang… That bastard was unlucky and went to prison, and so on. Most of the talk was brief and moved on, but some topics continued for a long time. Of course, there were cases where one guy’s name was repeated over and over.

Among the names he heard over the course of a month, the one that recorded the highest frequency was some guy named “Gu Wanjae.”

It didn’t seem like he was a guy sitting in that classroom. When someone said “Gu Wanjae, did you see Gu Wanjae?” the guys would all perk up their ears. What this Gu Wanjae guy had done and where he was—they seemed so curious about it. Taein would sometimes fall into thought along with the guys at the repeated mentions of “Gu Wanjae.”

It seemed like a name he definitely knew.

The more he thought about it, the more someone came to mind, though at first it seemed like an idle thought.

Who is it?