TW 7

Chapter 7

Danbi’s father worked for a telecommunications company, while her mother was a home-study workbook teacher. On the surface, they were an utterly ordinary middle-class family.

There was, however, one unmistakable characteristic.

Her parents had an unusually intense passion for education.

As Danbi approached high school age, her parents practically put the proverb “A wise mother moves her home three times for the sake of her child” into practice, forcibly relocating the family to the center of Korea’s college-entrance education scene.

They left behind the decent new apartment in their old neighborhood and moved into an extremely old, cramped apartment where cockroaches occasionally made appearances.

The price of land in the new neighborhood was so absurdly high that even that run-down apartment cost far more than their previous home, forcing them to take on debt as well.

The weight of the word debt pressed down on young Danbi’s shoulders.

She hated saying goodbye to her friends and was terrified of the unfamiliar environment, but her mother’s conviction was unwavering.

“Stop whining. We’re doing all this for your own good. You need to swim in different waters if you want to study better and make ‘good’ friends.”

The “good friends” her mother spoke of did not simply mean friends whose personalities matched hers.

They were connections for the future.

An investment, essentially.

Her mother believed Danbi needed to associate with children who had received good educations under good parents—children who would one day become doctors, lawyers, or prosecutors.

Those connections would become wealth in themselves, and someday they would be of great help in life.

“That’s right, Danbi. Don’t live like a ‘frog in a well.’ Mom and Dad will lift you up, so you can go out into the wider world without worrying.”

Her father simply wanted to give his daughter more opportunities in life.

But although they claimed everything was for her sake, Danbi was already exhausted by the suffocating expectations and enthusiasm before she had even begun.

Everything in the new neighborhood was strange and foreign.

Even Danbi, whose entire knowledge of cars amounted to metal boxes with four wheels, instinctively knew that the vehicles gliding along the roads were something else entirely.

Shiny black, silver, and sometimes intensely colored foreign cars dominated the asphalt, their heavy engines humming with a deep rumble.

She didn’t know the logos, but their sleek bodies and luxurious polish made one thing obvious to anyone.

Expensive cars.

Would one of those cars be enough to pay off all the debt on our house?

If one of them got into an accident, the owner would probably worry about the car before worrying about themselves.

The road to school was always crowded with foreign cars dropping children off.

Beyond the ordinary-looking school gate, the grounds were landscaped with immaculate lawns and ornamental trees, making the school resemble a park.

The classroom was not much different.

The ordinary desks and chairs and the noisy chatter of students looked no different from any other school.

But the subjects of the conversations filtering into Danbi’s ears were different.

Overseas trips they had taken over the weekend.

Horseback-riding lessons.

Golf lessons.

They talked about such things as casually as if they were discussing what they had eaten for lunch.

Danbi wore the same school uniform as everyone else, but their belongings—shoes, bags, wristwatches—drew invisible lines between them.

No matter how hard her parents tried, it was a gap they could never completely bridge.

The waters really are different, just as her mother had said.

The children here were certainly the embodiment of the “good friends” who had grown up in affluent circumstances.

But then, if Danbi looked at it from the opposite direction…

Would I be a “good friend” to them?

“So, did you manage to get private math lessons with Oh Yeongseok?”

“Yeah. My mom had been begging him since last semester. She finally managed to get me in.”

“No way. I heard that if you get private lessons from Teacher Yeongseok, you’re guaranteed a Grade 1.”

“Grade 1 isn’t even the point. The questions he points out literally show up on the exams. It’s not about whether you get Grade 1. It’s about whether you get a perfect score.”

They’re getting private lessons from a famous star instructor everyone knows.

The more Danbi listened to their conversations, the more at a loss she was about what she could possibly talk to them about.

Perhaps they sensed the subtle difference too, because they seemed almost completely unaware of her.

Even when their eyes happened to meet, they quickly looked elsewhere.

As though she didn’t exist.

“My pencil case is missing.”

That was when it happened.

The chaotic classroom suddenly fell silent for a brief moment, as though an invisible force had instantly brought everything under control.

Then a boy’s voice cut through the silence.

It was low and calm, yet carried a peculiar weight.

Danbi instinctively turned toward the sound.

A boy wearing glasses was standing in front of the teacher’s desk.

At a glance, he was noticeably larger than the other students his age.

He had a sharp jawline and a prominent nose, but what drew the most attention were his mismatched eyes.

One eye was narrower than the other, giving him a peculiar dual impression—neat and composed, yet somehow sharp.

His school uniform was immaculate, but his straight shoulders and sturdy posture radiated strength.

His calmness, completely unaffected by the commotion around him, even seemed somewhat arrogant.

His appearance was so striking that Danbi found herself wondering what combination of a man and woman could possibly have produced someone like him.

“I’ll give 50 to whoever finds it.”

His low, dry tone made Danbi unconsciously swallow.

What is he talking about?

Fifty? Fifty won? Is he joking?

But no one laughed.

Then…

Fifty thousand won?

That would be enough to buy not only the pencil case but also an entire set of the finest stationery to put inside it.

Yet to that boy, it seemed like nothing more than the minimum amount necessary to resolve a minor inconvenience.

Perhaps even less than that.

His words caused a stir throughout the classroom, but no one immediately stepped forward or hurried around looking for it.

Several hours passed.

After class ended, Danbi had briefly rested her head on her desk when she suddenly noticed something unfamiliar near her feet.

A sturdy-looking black pencil case.

Could this be the one that boy said he lost earlier?

Without hesitation, Danbi picked it up and looked around the classroom.

What did he look like again?

Tall, pale, handsome…

Her gaze naturally settled on the center of the largest group of students.

And there he was.

Danbi cautiously approached and called out to him in a small voice.

The lively group immediately fell silent, and everyone’s attention turned toward her.

Awkwardly, Danbi squeezed her way into the group.

Behind his glasses, the boy’s sharp gaze landed first on the pencil case in her hand rather than on her face.

Danbi placed it on his desk and carefully spoke.

“Is this… your pencil case? The one you mentioned earlier in front of the teacher’s desk. It was lying next to my desk.”

Three characters were embroidered on the left side of his chest.

Han Hae-il.

Hae-il.

The name evoked an image of a cold, enormous gray wave surging toward the shore.

Danbi thought it suited his face almost eerily well.

Hae-il silently opened the pencil case.

It was sparse.

A three-color ballpoint pen, a mechanical pencil, and a few highlighters.

That was all.

After confirming the contents, he immediately took out his wallet and casually pulled out several yellow banknotes.

Then he held them out to Danbi.

“Here.”

His voice was dry, devoid of emotion.

There was no doubt about it.

He was holding a stack of 50,000-won bills.

Even at a glance, it was quite thick.

Danbi instinctively recoiled and waved both hands.

“Hey… I just found my classmate’s pencil case and brought it back. Why would I take money for that?”

A slightly incredulous laugh escaped at the end of her sentence.

She simply couldn’t understand the situation.

Returning something that belonged to a classmate was the obvious thing to do.

It wasn’t something you got paid for.

In the world Danbi lived in, a transaction like this made absolutely no sense.

Then Hae-il raised his head and looked directly at Danbi for the first time.

His brows drew together ever so slightly, and an inexplicable glimmer passed through his mismatched eyes.

He didn’t withdraw the hand holding the money.

Instead, he slowly looked Danbi up and down.

Then he quietly added,

“Take it and buy yourself new shoes.”

Danbi instinctively looked down at her feet.

They were the new sneakers her mother had gone out of her way to buy as an admission present.

The shoes hadn’t even lost their shine yet.

“These are new.”

It wasn’t exactly a difficult answer.

Yet Hae-il tilted his head slightly.

His already-sharp eyes narrowed further as he gave the hand holding the money a small shake.

“It’s annoying to put it away. Just take it.”

Seriously, what is wrong with him?

Danbi let out a disbelieving laugh and took the money.

Then she reached toward the wallet in Hae-il’s other hand.

“Ha… I’ll put it away for you.”

She deliberately stuffed the bills back into his wallet.

What exactly is so annoying about putting money away…?

Muttering under her breath, she shook her head at Hae-il and his friends, who had been watching the whole exchange with interest over his shoulder, before turning away.

It was a world she simply couldn’t understand.

She needed to adapt as quickly as possible, but the more she learned about this place, the stronger her sense of alienation became.

People actually give money for returning a classmate’s pencil case?

And no one thinks that’s strange?

It was a kind of cultural shock.

No—

It felt more like a psychological blow.

The world her father had wanted to pull her out into, away from her “well,” felt to Danbi like an enormous, freezing deep sea.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Could I really survive here?

No.

What did surviving even mean?

For a moment, a fundamental question like that surfaced in her mind.

The kids here really are all fucking crazy.

Some boy lost his pencil case, so I found it and returned it to him.

And he tried to give me money.

500,000 won.

But you know what’s even funnier?

I’m the only one freaking out.

They’re all fucking insane.

Danbi poured out this unbelievable experience to her friends from her old neighborhood.

But all she received in return was disbelief and ridicule.

Hey, you’ve been watching way too many chaebol dramas lol

Even if it’s that neighborhood, isn’t 50 a lot of money?

You can’t prove it, so you’re making up stories now

LOL Come back with a more believable plot next time

If it was real, you should’ve taken it

You could become rich by stealing pencil cases and returning them over and over lol

Danbi was so frustrated she could have screamed.

What a fucking neighborhood.

And what a fucking kid.