Chapter 143: The Fall (2)

Who is it?

I didn’t understand.

Who is out there to get me because of Kim Yul?

Kim Yul practically had no relatives. People started bullying him before he had any chance to make friends, so no one had a reason to help him. I had chosen Kim Yul as the scapegoat for a very good reason!

Anyway, I have to question him. He must know something. Anything.

I quickly ran to the back of the school. At this time of the day, Kim Yul would be taking care of those animals on the school farm. I knew his schedule like the back of my palm.

Sure enough, he was there, handing out chicken feed.

Yes, that’s where you belong.

He filled his ego by feeding animals that were weaker than him. Surely that was why Kim Yul was so obsessed with the school farm. After all, humans were beasts. Weak beasts had no choice but to serve the stronger ones.

[Your immersion level is 100%.]

The school was just like that farm, though slightly larger.

I

was a stronger beast than Kim Yul.

“Hey, Kim Yul!” I growled. “What have you done?”

He didn’t look back or react in any other way. Instead, he continued handing out the fodder as if he couldn’t hear me.

Ha, don’t tell me that he ignored me just now.

I couldn’t believe it. I walked over and harshly grabbed his shoulder. “Hey, you bastard. When someone calls, you answer—!”

The moment Kim Yul looked back, something dropped from his ears. Earbuds. I noticed too late that Kim Yul was wearing them. Classical music blared from where they were looped around his neck.

When our eyes met, I flinched in shock. Tears were welling up in Kim Yul’s pitch-black eyes.

“What...?”

It was only for a moment, but I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t tell why. Was it because this was the first time I saw Kim Yul cry? Maybe. No matter how persistently I tormented him, he never shed tears, further provoking the customers’ sadism.

But it wasn’t just that.

Who is this?

I didn’t recognize his eyes.

Who is he?

Kim Yul’s eyes were extremely unfamiliar. His gaze was distant, looking at something beyond me. He kept crying, not saying a word. Even those tears seemed like they would fall in a distant place, not on the ground next to us.

“You...”

“It’s beautiful,” Kim Yul said.

“What?”

“I’m talking about the song I’m listening to. A deaf composer made it.”

Music flowed out from the earbuds. I had heard the song many times before, but right now, I found it very suspicious that this beggar somehow got his hands on an MP3.

“I was thinking about the humiliation and curses the composer must have suffered in his life. Someone probably insulted him by calling him a deaf mute. Giggling, they probably told everyone to look at that deaf mute.”

“What the hell are you talking about...?”

“I find that sad. Wounds have long histories, and even someone from hundreds of years ago must have endured prolonged humiliation. This has been happening for thousands of years and will continue happening for thousands of years into the future too.”

Had he gone nuts?

“There is nothing in the world that is beautiful by itself. Beauty is visible only to the wounded. Only those whose lives have been ruined become fortunate enough to appreciate a life untainted by ruin. They shed tears for those who keep enduring even after they have nothing left.”

Kim Yul was still looking somewhere in the distance.

“If someone sees the world as beautiful, the world must have ruined everything they had. Only those who live in hell see the world as praiseworthy. The deaf man who composed this song must have been humiliated many times in his life.”

“Where did you learn all this nonsensical stuff...” I grabbed Kim Yul by the collar and shook him. “Whatever. That doesn’t matter. What have you done?”

He lost his grip on the bag he was holding. Yellow fodder poured out of it, spilling all over the ground.

“What have you done to my customers, you recycling good-for-nothing!”

Only then did Kim Yul look at me. “I didn’t do anything, Death King.”

“Death... What?”

“I’m just looking at what I threw away.”

He grabbed my wrist. How dared he? Dumbfounded, I tried to shake off Kim Yul’s grip, but he didn’t budge.

Huh?

In a split second, he broke away from my grip with ease. Flustered, I extended my hand again, but he struck my wrist. I couldn’t get a hold of him, so I just ended up grasping at air.

I looked at Kim Yul blankly. “

Huh

?”

He calmly picked up the bag on the ground. “What a pity. Kim Yul is angry. What he wants isn't physical violence. It’s much deeper than that. More precisely, he wants revenge. And... I think I want to make Kim Yul’s wish come true.”

“Y-yo-you. What have you done? What kind of game are you playing?”

“Kim Yul wants you to go through everything he endured. That’s what revenge is. It’s about dragging someone down the depths of hell with you. That’s how Kim Yul sees it.”

This wasn’t Kim Yul. It was someone else.

He continued talking. “And I happen to agree with him. Just you wait, Kim Yul’s killer. The day is coming to an end, and there is a long way to go. Very long. We’ll see each other again after all is said and done.”

Kim Yul walked away leisurely while holding the bag of fodder.

“Hey! Hey! You stop right there! Stop...!”

My phone vibrated in my pocket, meaning I had received a text message. Perhaps one of the customers saw my missed calls and decided to respond. Glancing in the direction Kim Yul was walking, I quickly checked my phone.

—Don’t ever contact me again. If you do, I’ll kill you.

I was dumbfounded. In disbelief, I called the customer who had sent the text. However, no matter how many times I called, they didn’t answer. I couldn’t help shaking.

What...?

Even the next day, things didn’t get any better.

What’s going on?

Things got much, much worse.

“E-Eun-Seo.”

When I got to class, one of my friends hesitantly approached me. He had messed with Kim Yul Game dozens of times and was quite popular with customers thanks to his knack for hitting people. I always thought he liked participating in the game because he was enjoying the popularity.

But, right now, my friend seemed terrified.

“What?”

“I-I have a note to give you.”

“What is it?”

“It’s... I-I’m sorry.”

My friend left a note on my desk and ran away. I frowned and opened it. Something was indeed written on it, but the handwriting was terrible.

—Hwang Eun-Seo lives in a garbage dump. All his school uniforms and indoor shoes are recycled. There is only one piece of trash that cannot be recycled, and that is Hwang Eun-Seo.

The absurdity of it made me stare blankly at the node. I scoffed and looked at my friend. “What’s this... Are you kidding me?”

My friend, who was standing behind the other students, cowered. I had already spent the whole night stressed out because my customers were treating me like shit, and seeing my friend behave like that made me feel angry.

“Did Recycle Dude tell you to do this? Hey, hey. Look at me.

Look at me!

Even though we’re friends, there are things you should and not do. Did Kim Yul tell you to give me this note?”

My friend couldn’t say anything, still terrified. I was so dumbstruck that I was about to get closer to him.

Just then, another classmate approached my desk. “Hwang Eun-Seo...”

“What?”

“Sorry. Take this.”

What my classmate practically threw on my desk was another note. I reflexively snatched it and read it.

—I feel so sorry for the juniors at my school T.T Why? Because they need to call you sunbae, Hwang Eun-Seo. Have you thought about how they feel? How do you sleep at night?

I felt dizzy. Taking advantage of that opportunity, three more classmates left notes on the desk again. Like the previous two, these guys had also actively participated in the Kim Yul Game.

—Hwang Eun-Seo... You’re really dirty. How can you be dirtier than the math teacher? LOL. I didn’t think something like that was possible.

What?

—Shocking news! There is a student who doesn’t wash his school uniform!

Why were they doing this to me?

—You smell really bad. Seriously, you’re soooo gross.

Something happened yesterday, but I was the only one who didn’t know about it. Someone had turned all my customers against me. Not only that, my friends had been threatened and forced to put on this shitshow.

My heart was pounding frantically.

Stay calm. Calm down. Did Kim Yul do this? No, that can’t be. Yesterday he was acting a little strange, but no, he couldn’t have done this. Who is it? Who did this?

The door opened, and the homeroom teacher stuck his head out. “Hwang Eun-Seo!”

The students all turned to look at him as he glanced around the classroom. When he found me, he beckoned. “Come with me for a moment.”

“Me...?”

“Are there two Hwang Eun-Seo in the class? It’s no big deal, so come over here already. Oh, yeah. Class President, collect everyone’s phones and bring them to me.”

I hesitantly followed my homeroom teacher out of class. Everyone was strangely quiet. It didn’t feel right. They didn’t look surprised that our homeroom teacher was looking for me specifically. My classmates seemed to know why I was being called over. Only the model students were busy looking at their notes, studying before the start of the class.

In the teachers' office, the homeroom teacher said, “Hwang Eun-Seo.”

“Yes...?”

“Have you been up to anything bad recently? You haven’t, right?” the homeroom teacher asked calmly, making it sound like whatever was going on was no big deal, really.

Students in uniforms walked around to collect the leftover printable papers. Teachers were organizing their printed materials before their first-period class.

“What?” I responded.

“Have you been going around and doing bad stuff these days? Anything?”

My heart was racing. “No... I don’t think I have.”

The homeroom teacher scratched his head. “Hey, don’t talk about what I’m about to tell you to anyone else, okay?”

“Okay...”

“Listen to this.”

The homeroom teacher handed over earbuds, so I took them. They were connected to his computer.

Click.

After he clicked on the mouse, I could hear some recorded voices.

「Hey, hey. Don’t hit him yet! Just make him kneel!」

「Now, many people have submitted their suggestions. We will draw from among the five suggestions we got and decide the theme of today’s episode.」

I felt a chill.

「Ah, today’s prompt belongs to Queen. Congratulations, Queen. What are you all doing? Clap.」

「

Whoaaaaaa!

」

The voices belonged to me and the friends, who had just given me the notes.

「As for Queen’s request, let’s see. Hey, they even gave us a donation of one hundred thousand won. They told us to not go hungry and use this money to get some food. As for our superstar, they want to give him a mix of

jjajangmyeon

[1] and

jjambbong

[2].」

Click.

The homeroom teacher stopped the recording. “Did you hear those voices just now?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I received this recording in my email yesterday. The sound quality isn’t that good, but when I listen to it, it sounds like you and some other students. So I’m asking just in case. Hwang Eun-Seo, is this you?”

“No.” I tried to put on my best shocked expression. “Who is the queen supposed to be here? Is this a play or something?”

“I’m not sure either. I also listened to it from beginning to end, and I find it strange. Very unpleasant, too. The email said to show this to Hwang Eun-Seo from Year 2 Class 5. I was wondering if this is a prank among you guys...”

Shit. This was it. This was how the kids were getting blackmailed.

Fortunately, the homeroom teacher was an idiot. He suspected this was a student’s prank even after listening to the recording. Well, that was probably why he didn’t even know what was going on in his class. How lucky for me.

A recording like this can’t do anything to me. It’s just a blank bullet.

Maybe one of my friends or the customers copied the videos and were messing with me using one of the copies. If whoever was behind this had more concrete evidence than this recording, there would be no reason not to send it to the homeroom teacher...

The problem is that the blank bullet scared my friends. Damn it.

The homeroom teacher looked up at me. “This is really not a prank you guys pulled, right?”

“No, it isn’t.

Uh

, am I not supposed to tell this to the others?”

“Don’t say a word. Anyway, that’s it. You said this isn’t you. Go back to the classroom.”

“Okay.”

I left my homeroom teacher’s desk with quiet footsteps.

Shit. Shit. Shit!

The moment I opened the door of the teachers' room, I saw the class president standing across from me. He was holding a blue plastic box, which contained the phones collected from the classroom.

“Ah, sorry,” the class president said in his usual tone, looking like his usual self. He moved slightly out of the way.

Normally I would have said thank you, but I didn’t have the time. I just nodded at him and went out into the hallway.

I don’t know which bastard leaked my videos, but I’ll definitely get that son of a bitch today! That fucking bastard is messing with me too hard... looking down on me... This is not just a harmless joke. How can they do something like this to a classmate?

The door behind me closed quietly.

1. A Korean noodle dish topped with a sauce made of chunjang, diced pork, and vegetables. It originated from Zhajiangmian, the Chinese noodle dish.

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2. A Chinese-style Korean noodle dish. It’s spicy. Pork or seafood is used for the broth. The dish is known to be similar to chaomamian, the Chinese dish, but the origin itself is unclear.

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