The Top Student Hides Her Regression
Chapter 18
My locker, which I had been using without a lock ever since I broke it off on the first day of my regression, stood wide open.
All the notebooks and textbooks inside were torn to shreds, and a carton of strawberry milk from the snack bar had been burst open and shoved in among them.
A sickeningly sweet smell wafted from the locker, its door dented as if kicked.
The sticky pink milk was dripping down, ruining the locker beneath mine as well…
My bag.
The backpack I had worn well all the way until high school graduation lay dumped in front of the locker, wide open. Inside it was another burst carton of strawberry milk.
My reaction upon seeing this mess?
‘…What is this?’
Did she actually pay money for that milk?
Did she really spend two thousand won at the snack bar just to harass me?
Does she have money to burn?
“Gasp…”
“What do we do…?”
“Dahye, are you okay?”
Kids were swarming all the way to the front door now. Some looked genuinely sorry for me, while others watched with eyes full of curiosity.
“Kang Da, are you okay?!”
She must have caught a glimpse of the mess through the crowd. Jisu, who had sprinted over from the bathroom holding an entire roll of toilet paper, dropped to her knees and started wiping down my locker.
“I’m fine.”
Taking some toilet paper from her, I first blocked the milk dripping downward. When I pulled out the soaked notebooks, they were so thoroughly drenched that the pages wouldn’t even open.
These are beyond saving.
I looked around the classroom.
By the back door near the lockers, I saw a familiar face standing with her arms crossed, smirking.
A uniform skirt hemmed so short you’d wonder if she could even walk, and eyeliner drawn thick like it had been done with an OMR pen.
It was Song Yeoreum’s lackey, destined to appear on <Teen Parents> in about 396 days.
I glanced at the name tag pinned to the chest of the lackey, who for once was wearing her school uniform instead of a casual hoodie.
Bang Eunji.
…I didn’t even need to ask who did this.
I asked calmly.
“Bang Eunji. Did you do this?”
“Did what?”
“My locker. Did you do this?”
“Look at those fucking eyes.”
Glaring back as I looked her straight in the eye, Bang Eunji immediately let out a curse.
The classroom had fallen quiet around us. Conscious of the eyes surrounding us, Bang Eunji spat on the floor.
Opening her black circle-lens-clad eyes wide, she asked.
“Dahye-ya, why are you being such a bitch?”
It was such textbook delinquent speech that rather than being scared, it was just laughable.
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
“Are you a teacher? Do I have to answer just because you asked?”
“What are you talking about? You don’t answer the teachers’ questions either. Because you don’t know anything.”
“Ugh.”
Rearing her hand back in fury, Bang Eunji kicked the door, overcome with rage. Looking at the phone in her hand, she seemed to have gotten it fixed already.
After throwing a fit by herself for a while, Bang Eunji noticed I wasn’t flinching in the slightest and wore herself out. Fiddling with her bangs a few times, she curled the corners of her mouth up.
“So that means you did it.”
At my words, Bang Eunji asked:
“Do you have proof?”
“Ah.”
Throwing that line back at me, are we?
Bang Eunji sneered.
“Is there a CCTV in the classroom or something? Or what, do you have a witness? Even the police only move when there’s evidence. Go ahead, try reporting it.”
“…….”
“Pfft, loser bitch.”
Thinking my silence meant I was at a loss for words, Bang Eunji cursed again.
Song Yeo-reum wasn’t quite this bad, but Bang Eunji clearly lacked vocabulary—she couldn’t utter a sentence without profanity.
And yet, she talked so much.
My ears felt like they were rotting, so I decided to apply my own mental filter from here on out.
“My beloved friend Dahye, do you remember back in middle school when you wore two★star shoes to school? After I publicly announced in front of everyone that those shoes were knockoffs, you never wore them again, did you?
(Profanities omitted)
Looking at the way you act these days, I think the girl who used to walk around in Two Stars has really grown up. But why is your bag still the same? Why don’t you buy a new one from the market where your mother sells tteokbokki to make a living? Your mother works all day reeking of sundae, yet you don’t even have a hundred thousand won to buy a bag? If so, I really feel sorry for you.”
“…….”
“No, but isn’t that hilarious? I’m telling you, her shoes literally said ‘Two Star’! I thought she was filming <Introduction to Butchery>. Her mom…”
Watching Bang Eunji annoyingly drag my mom into this over and over, I shrugged.
‘Constantly bringing up someone’s parents like that must be some kind of inferiority complex.’
Actually, I knew the one sentence that would shut Bang Eunji’s mouth right here and now.
‘Yeah. My mom sells tteokbokki at the market. But your mom sells something else at the karaoke bar right across the street.’
That’s why you refuse to ever walk down that street, terrified you might run into your mom.
But the reason I didn’t say it in the end was simple.
I didn’t want to sink to her level.
Instead:
“Yeah, you’re right. I wore them without even knowing what they were. I didn’t know brands well.”
I admitted it coolly.
“You’re also right that I didn’t think of buying brand-name shoes because I didn’t have money. But so what?”
I hadn’t committed any crime, had I? I just hadn’t known.
“Good for you having lots of money and knowing shoes so well. But even if I don’t have nice shoes, I have a lot more in my head than you do.”
“What?”
“You don’t get it? I’m saying you’re completely empty-headed. The problem isn’t that you’re bad at studying; the problem is your intellect, not even knowing that bullying and humiliating people like this is crossing the line.”
Did she think other kids held back from saying hurtful things because they didn’t know how?
They held back because they knew they shouldn’t.
“You’ve never respected the boundaries that others uphold as common sense, so one day you’ll cross a line big time, and society won’t let you off easy. Your ending? Well… if things go well, <Teen Parents>. If they don’t, Cheongju Women’s Prison?”
Go ahead and watch Jeong Eun-seong on TV from prison, spinning stories nobody will believe about how you used to be his classmate.
Thinking about that, I felt genuinely sorry for Bang Eunji.
She wasn’t even worth getting angry over. I just looked at her with pity.
“What does it matter right now whether you know shoe brands or not? What matters is what you’ll be doing ten years from now. I’m putting in the work starting now and I’ll have achieved my dream by then, but what will you be doing? Will you still be judging the shoes of kids passing by?”
“Ha…”
“I’m giving you serious advice: instead of wasting time on crap like this, go home and study geography. I heard you thought Gyeongsang-do was above Seoul.”
Remembering the shock of grading her geography pop quiz, I shook my head.
“Did you think Gyeongsang-do meant ‘Gyeong’ as in Seoul and ‘Sang’ as in above? Go try living there, then. That’s North Korea.”
If you come back after living there for ten years and write a memoir, I’ll buy a copy.
How about the title Crash Landing on Two Star?
Sounds great. Very Chun Doo-hwan-esque.
Naturally, Bang Eunji didn’t understand a word I said.
Seeming to have barely grasped ‘I will succeed’ out of everything I had said, Bang Eunji sneered at me.
“How’s a dirt spoon like you gonna succeed? What, you gonna win the lottery or something?”
“You can just wait and see from now on.”
“Crazy bitch and her mental gymnastics…”
“Yeah. At least I’ve won mentally. But what about you?”
I looked Bang Eunji up and down.
“Spending all day obsessing over what completely unrelated people are wearing and carrying just to rank them—I don’t even need to look to know your mental state must be pure hell.”
“…….”
“You lost mentally, and you lost the argument. You haven’t won a single thing, have you?”
Flushed bright red, Bang Eunji couldn’t form words.
How could someone who doesn’t read a single line of a book ever beat me in a battle of words…? Read some books.
Just then.
“Hey! What are all of you doing?!”
The teachers who had come upstairs for homeroom dismissal shouted upon seeing the students crowded outside our classroom.
The next-door homeroom teacher’s jukbi tapped sharply against the wall—thwack, thwack, thwack—and the startled kids scattered in a rush.
“What is it? Did something hap—oh my goodness.”
Our Homeroom Teacher, who had walked up with Doyeon, widened her eyes upon seeing my trashed locker and backpack.
“…Who did this?”
The Homeroom Teacher’s voice dropped low with fury.
Everyone naturally looked toward Bang Eunji, but…
‘There really is no evidence.’
Just as Bang Eunji said, it wasn’t like there was a CCTV.
Leaving the locker unlocked because I thought there was nothing worth stealing had been my mistake.
I frowned in annoyance.
It was then.
“Bang Eunji did it.”
A clear voice rang out from among the students who hadn’t fully scattered yet.
Pushing past the kids who turned to look, someone stepped forward.
It was Kyung Sein’s Friend 1. The one sitting in front of me.
“Bang Eunji opened Dahye’s locker, took out the books, stomped on them, and threw the milk. I saw her.”
