The Top Student Hides Her Regression
Chapter 36
“Gaeun, what if… seriously, what if. If you had to handle this all by yourself, what do you think you would’ve done?”
“By myself?”
Gaeun rolled her eyes at my question.
“I don’t know. Probably…… just skipped the academy behind my dad’s back. Then I would’ve gotten caught and had my head shaved. My dad always threatens to shave my head whenever I mess up.”
“Would that let you quit the academy?”
“No! My dad is the kind of person who’d wait at the school gate right when class ends, shove me in the car, and drop me off at the academy himself.”
“Like Seo Jae-gyeom’s mom?”
“She didn’t hit him, though.”
“…….”
“If it came to that, I probably would’ve offered my little shit of a brother five thousand won each time to come pick me up after class…… but that bastard would just take the money and play games at the PC cafe instead of showing up.”
“Couldn’t you tell your mom?”
“I’d be the only one getting scolded for picking fights with him.”
“…….”
“I might’ve tried walking home while on the phone with Sein or Su-a, but Sein has tutoring around that time, and Su-a’s parents are strict too. Ah, I don’t know. I really don’t know what would’ve happened. If it weren’t for you.”
“Yeah. Let’s not imagine it. Let’s not even bring it up.”
Because when I regressed, it became something that never happened.
“I probably would’ve made up all kinds of excuses and bawled my eyes out begging Mom to pick me up, or…… Ah, it’s Mom.”
Speak of the devil. Gaeun muttered sarcastically as she answered the call.
I’d noticed this before, but for all their strict control, Gaeun’s parents didn’t seem to care much about their daughter.
Look what time it is, and she’s only calling now. You’d think she might come pick her up at least once, but that never happened either.
Still, maybe she was worried today, look—
“What? Where am I supposed to buy a burger at this hour! Tell him to go out and buy it himself!”
—How can your little brother go out at this hour!
“Then he can starve! You don’t let me eat anything past seven because I’ll gain weight! Tell him to hold back too!”
—Ugh, forget it! Acting like this over a stupid hamburger when you’re his older sister…… I’ll go buy it myself, fine!
“…You don’t even know what I went through today, Mom!”
Gaeun hung up abruptly and slammed her phone onto the sidewalk.
“So annoying……”
I pretended not to notice the tears mixed in Gaeun’s furious pants.
I picked up the phone and slipped it into Gaeun’s pocket. After hesitating, I added a word.
“Want to skip school lunch tomorrow and eat tteokbokki instead?”
“…Add a hot dog.”
“Deal.”
Hurry home and take a dump. You stepped out earlier saying you had to use the bathroom, remember? When I whispered into Gaeun’s ear so Jung Eun-sung couldn’t hear, she finally cracked a smile.
“Oh my, Dahye, you haven’t left yet?”
Just in time, the academy director pulled up in her car.
Bowing once more in greeting, I got into the taxi with Jung Eun-sung. After giving the address to the patient driver who had waited all this time, a solemn silence hung between Jung Eun-sung and me until the car pulled away.
Surprisingly, Jung Eun-sung was the first to speak.
“After acting like that…… she’ll probably brag to her friends and relatives later. How her daughter grew up without causing a single bit of trouble. How she never gave them a headache.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s what my uncle does. Though my cousin noona was so sick of him that the moment she turned twenty, she moved out on her own.”
“Ah.”
Exactly. Gaeun’s parents will probably never know how hard their child struggled behind their backs just to be that trouble-free daughter. Nor would they care.
The adults who built a society where kids can’t expect protection from grown-ups are probably sleeping soundly with their legs stretched out right about now……
Can you even sleep at night! When society is a mess like this!
“Jung Eun-sung, I think I know why idols sing so many socially critical songs.”
“Why?”
“That’s teenage angst.”
Imprisoned in the jail called school for the crime of being a student, wearing prison uniforms called school uniforms……
Watching how society runs and wondering why on earth adults are like that—can’t everyone just live righteously together?
Burning with rage over how absurd this dirty society is, how unfair this and that are, vowing never to live like that when I grow up.
But once you actually become an adult, the grind of reality gradually smothers that flame.
You learn what it means to choose the lesser of two evils instead of the best option.
And before you know it, you forget you ever had those thoughts in the first place.
Looking back, I was the same.
I’m in no position to blame others.
“Sigh.”
Seeing me sigh, Jung Eun-sung cracked the window open a bit. As the fresh air drifted in, my chest felt a little lighter.
“Anyway, thank you so much for today. But Jung Eun-sung, how did you get there?”
“You gave me the address.”
“You came straight after hearing it?”
“Yeah. Felt like something happened. And.”
“And?”
“You know I don’t trust adults.”
“Right.”
That’s why you couldn’t trust the police either.
“That academy director earlier is the only grown-up acting like a real adult I’ve seen since starting high school.”
Seeing Jung Eun-sung speak so earnestly brought a smile to my face.
“You’re right, she really is a rare kind of adult…….”
“Sir, please keep the meter running and wait here. I’ll just walk her to her door and come right back.”
“I’m fine, really.”
“I’m fine too.”
Even though I’d told Seo Jae-gyeom to leave first because it would be hard to catch a cab, I chose to walk up the alley toward my house with Jung Eun-sung.
Part of it was that Jung Eun-sung had beaten me to the punch, but strangely enough, I didn’t feel embarrassed at all.
Not about the narrow, dirty alley. Nor the run-down villa waiting at the end of it.
As we walked, I spoke up.
“I didn’t realize it, but I guess I had some trauma.”
“Trauma?”
The trauma of getting grabbed by the hair by some random old man on the day of the CSAT and ruining the exam.
“When I saw that man grab Gaeun and shake her earlier, everything went red…… Before I knew it, my body just lunged forward. Composure or whatever, I couldn’t think of anything in that moment.”
“Makes sense. It’d be weirder to stay calm in that situation.”
The dark alleyway, the yellow streetlights, the steep, slippery, cracked stairs here and there.
An alley that usually scared me and made me keep looking back felt like nothing today.
“Kang Da-hye. I figured out why warm air is lighter.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. But apparently, the air down below is actually warmer.”
“Why?”
“Not tellin’.”
“How old is that meme?”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
Was it thanks to Jung Eun-sung’s nonsense cutting in just when I least expected it?
“Come to think of it, Jung Eun-sung, there’s something I’m curious about.”
“Yeah.”
“By any chance…… the mint chocolate on my desk, was that you?”
Freeze.
“Jung Eun-sung?”
“Not tellin’.”
“It was you.”
And here I wondered which coward it was…… Muttering to myself, I casually turned around to look at him.
“…….”
Jung Eun-sung was standing there, his ears bright crimson.
Jung Eun-sung’s ears, neck, cheeks, forehead—his entire face flushed red, plain to see even in the dark. Covering his mouth with the back of his hand, he rambled incoherently.
“Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, that was purely comradeship from getting trapped in school together the day before.”
“I know. I’m your second least favorite person.”
Didn’t you even jump off the second floor just to avoid spending more time with me?
I definitely won’t misunderstand…….
I’m totally not crying…….
“We’re here.”
“Yeah.”
Even so, bringing him right in front of my house made me nervous.
In front of the villa, where cars were packed tightly throughout the alleys and dog poop was scattered about, I stole a glance at Jung Eun-sung. Whether he was good at managing his expression or genuinely empty-headed, he looked completely unbothered.
“Oh right, let me give you back your clothes.”
Leaving behind Jung Eun-sung, who looked beyond unbothered to the point of being bored, I dashed inside the house and brought out the clothes.
The school uniform Jung Eun-sung had lent me.
Taking it nonchalantly, Jung Eun-sung turned right around.
“I’m off.”
“Jung Eun-sung.”
“What.”
“I won’t become the kind of adult you hate.”
I didn’t know when or at what moment the flame teenage Kang Da-hye once harbored had died out.
But I turned back time, didn’t I? So I’m going to let my mindset regress back to a teenager’s too.
Back to the days when I believed I could change the world.
“If we grow up to be trustworthy adults…… If you, me, and our friends become those kinds of grown-ups first. If we do it one by one, a day will come when there are more adults you can trust.”
“…….”
“Let’s become wonderful adults together. The kind of adults who change the world.”
Especially you—you can do it. Because you’ll become someone immensely famous, deeply loved, and wildly influential.
“Even if you forget me after growing up, you have to remember we had this talk today, okay?”
You’ll be so busy and popular that you probably won’t even remember my existence until we meet again at twenty-nine, but……
No. In this life, I won’t live the same way as before, so we probably won’t ever cross paths again after graduation.
“Promise me you’ll become a wonderful adult.”
Just remember this fleeting promise we shared as we brushed past each other.
Smiling, I held out my hand.
Jung Eun-sung, who had been staring down at my outstretched hand, soon held out his own.
“…Fine. Let’s do that.”
We hooked our pinkies in a promise.
Real childishly, just like kids.
“Stamp it with our thumbs.”
“Sure.”
“Copy it too.”
“…Yeah.”
“Sign it.”
“Give it a rest…….”
It was then.
“Kang Da-hye!”
Holding a watering can as she came down the stairs, the landlady called out my name.
With a hair roller pinned to the back of her head, the landlady looked back and forth between Jung Eun-sung and me, holding hands, with wide eyes.
Her eyes slowly narrowed.
“Oh my, Dahye…… Is that your boyfriend?”
“…….”
I’m doomed.
That woman has the biggest mouth in the world.