Chapter 65: Choice (5)

“We’ve found it!” The PR manager shouted as he ran into the office. He had run up the stairs all the way to the third floor, where the office was located, because the building didn’t have an elevator. As soon as he had made his announcement, he crashed into the closest chair, slumping over as if he had just announced his dying wish and was now ready to pass on.

“What are you talking about?”

Everyone at the office turned to stare at the manager. They were already quite concerned about him, given how much weight he had lost due to recent events, and he was now huffing and puffing and smiling to himself. It seemed a bit like he had lost his mind, which made everyone feel even more sorry for him. The policy manager, who had been standing near the door talking to someone in his team, walked over to the PR manager to check on him.

“Are you okay? What got you so flustered?”

The PR manager, who had been trying to catch his breath for a good while, looked around the room and finally realized that everyone there was feeling some sort of pity for him. His face turned bright red in shame, but he knew that his pride wasn’t the issue here. He motioned for the policy manager to come closer and quietly relayed the information he had acquired. The policy manager’s eyes went wide, and he ran towards Jeongho, who had been watching the whole thing unfold with a frown on his face.

However, once the policy manager filled him in, he stood up immediately and left his desk, stomping over to the PR manager and grabbing him firmly by the shoulders.

“Great work, manager!” he shouted excitedly, “I knew you’d pull through.”

As Jeongho began to laugh heartily, everyone else in the room turned to look at each other, confused by the three men’s strange behavior. However, the few who had been present during meetings knew very well what this meant.

They had finally found Haejun Kang’s weakness!

****

Following the incident with Yurim and Hyejin, the classroom fell into an odd atmosphere for a while, but thankfully, nothing else happened. Hyejing and Yurim went out of their way to ignore each other, and if they happened to meet eyes, they both turned their heads the other way as quickly as they could. Eunjin and Yukyeong were in a similar situation. In fact, everyone in the two girls’ group acted in much the same way.

A quiet classroom was hardly an issue for the teachers, so they simply dismissed it as just that: a quiet classroom. It would have been more odd for a teacher to even realize that the girls were split into two warring groups, and there were few teachers who would voluntarily get involved, even if they were aware of the situation. If it didn’t lead to any big accidents, strife between girls was as common as fist fights between boys, and it was an important part of their growth and maturity. As long as they weren’t actively bullying or being violent towards each other, teachers simply chose to turn a blind eye to such small scale conflicts.

Indeed, though they didn’t resort to violence, the girls had chosen to increase their numbers instead.

“Hey, don’t you think Mi-kyeong is so annoying? She thinks she’s pretty and it’s honestly kinda sad.”

By making fun of Mi-kyeong, the girls hoped to recruit whoever agreed with them into their own group. It was quite clever and equally cruel.

“Let’s just not call Jae-yeon this Saturday. We’ll just hang out by ourselves. But don’t tell her, okay?”

And by isolating Jae-yeon and her group, they strengthened the bond within their own. Students who had stayed neutral could no longer afford to stay neutral, since it meant being isolated from both groups. They had to pick a side in order to belong.

As this went on within the girl groups, the boys went out to the field as always, every recess and lunch break. The short distance between the classroom and the main stairway leading outside was possibly the biggest contributor to their willingness to outside to play. None of the boys particularly cared that the girls seemed to be in some sort of cold war, because they simply didn’t think that much about it. They didn’t think that much about anything, for that matter.

And as always, Lucid ignored both these groups and sat at his desk to read. Given the more recent events, he had taken his hands off of physics and math, instead choosing to focus on literature and humanities.

One thing that had changed was that there was now a girl who studied Lucid’s every movement. It was Yurim. Following the fight, she found it more and more difficult to take her eyes off of him, and her interest in him only grew. She wanted nothing more than for Lucid to call her by her name again, and she stared intensely at the back of his head (she sat at the very back in the same row as Lucid), fantasizing about the moment he would turn around and ask her, “What is it, Yurim?”

But her fantasy remained a fantasy, as there was no way that Lucid would turn his attention away from his book. She wondered if she should approach him first, and part of her wanted to, but she knew that Hyejin’s posse was lurking around in every corner of the classroom. What a bunch of hyenas. So all she could do was stare and stare at the back of his head, until she became satisfied with the fact that he had a very handsome back of the head.

After classes had ended, Lucid stood at the school gates, waiting for the institute van to pick him up. Myeong-su was dancing to himself next to him. Had something good happened? But surely, Myeong-su would do this even if nothing had happened in particular.

“You seem happy. Did something good happen?” Cheol-yong asked. Apparently Lucid wasn’t the only one perplexed by the boy’s behavior.

“Classes ended!” Myeong-su answered simply.

Lucid and Cheol-yong were left to ponder over this. The end of the school day was apparently a good enough thing for Myeong-su to dance to himself without any accompanying music.

However, even without Myeong-su’s silliness, there was quite the commotion outside the school gates. There were a few adults loitering about, and they seemed to be waiting for someone. Still, they didn’t look like parents or even guardians, which was enough to raise suspicion.

“There she is!!” one of them shouted, which prompted them all to go running towards whatever the man had seen.

The children also turned around, curious to see what this was all about, and they saw the strange adults surround (or jump on) a young student. Usually, the children would have wondered who the girl was, but given her height, it was clear as day that it was Hyejin. The strange adults hurriedly took out whatever they had been hiding under their clothes. Cameras. The whole courtyard was overcome with the sound of shutters and the light from the numerous flashes, but it was nothing compared to the barrage of questions launched at Hyejin.

“Are you Hyejin?”

“Is it Hyejin Jang? Or Kang?”

“Is your father Candidate Kang? Do you meet him often? How often?”

“When’s the last time you’ve seen Candidate Kang?”

“What does your mother know about Candidate Kang? Is there anything you can tell us?”

It was too many people asking too many questions at once, and even a full grown adult would have been more than overwhelmed. Hyejin, being only a third grader in elementary school, was afraid beyond words. She was afraid of these strange people asking her strange questions, and she was afraid of the fact that their questions hurt her like a thousand needles stabbing into her. Too flustered to do anything, she tried to step back from the crowd, but ended up falling over. None of the adults lent her a hand, none of them asked if she was okay. Instead of helping her up, the cameras only pushed closer.

“How long have you known that your father is Candidate Kang?”

“There’s rumors that your parents met back in college. Did you know about this?”

“Do you have any siblings? Is it just you?”

The adults seemed determined to get an answer from this small child, constantly changing their questions and clicking away at their cameras. The students who had left building with Hyejin were long gone, scared by all the strangers, so Hyejin was left there alone, hugging herself in the middle of the courtyard like a scared animal, surrounded by shouting adults.

“Please, stop.”

There, standing right in front of her, was Lucid, who had made his way through the barricade of journalists.

“Can’t you see she fell over? Move out of the way,” Lucid warned again.

The journalists seemed taken aback by the sudden interruption, but their insticts kicked in as they began to ask their questions once again.

“Who are you, little boy?”

“Are you close friends with Hyejin?”

“Did you know that her father is Candidate Kang?”

“Have you ever seen her with her father?”

“That’s enough!” Lucid shouted.

There was a sudden burst of heat, and the journalists all stepped away to protect themselves from it. The sensation had been too vivid for it to have been imagined, but no matter how much they looked around, they couldn’t find a reasonable source for such intense heat. Taking advantage of their confusion, Lucid turned to Hyejin.

“Can you stand?”

But Hyejin didn’t answer, not with her words nor with her actions. She simply sat there, staring at Lucid. Judging by her cloudy gaze, she didn’t recognize him at all. Lucid turned back around to look at the adults. He was much smaller than her, but he wanted to at least cover her face. He felt it inside that that’s what he needed to do.

“You’re journalists, aren’t you?” he asked, addressing the dumbfounded adults, “How can you just stand there when she fell over right in front of you? Isn’t it common sense to help her out? At least, that’s what I learned. Did I learn wrong? And can’t you see how scared she is? Didn’t you learn that what you’re doing right now is nothing short of coercion? Is that your job? To coerce little girls to give you answers so that you can write your articles? Even if that’s your job, is that legal? Is that ethical?”

The journalists all stood there, staring at Lucid. All they could see was that he was an elementary school boy, probably in the same grade as Hyejin given how close they seemed to be. But his words didn’t belong to a third grader. They almost sounded like something a middle schooler would say.

However, no matter how mature he sounded, he was still just an elementary school brat. For these journalists, who had passed the mass communications exam and were working in news and media outlets, writing and reading were second nature, and there was no way for Lucid to win against them with words.

“Okay, little boy. Time to go home.”

“Don’t get in the way if you don’t know anything.”

Perhaps it was too obvious, but they had no reason to listen to Lucid, let alone get involved in a full conversation with him. Children were meant to listen to adults and submit to authorities. That was the way of the world, and that was what they had learned from adults before them. It was time for this child to learn this as well.

Lucid continued to stand there, his expression as calm as ever. The journalists’ words brought a sense of deja vu. The girl sitting there behind him had told him the same thing just a few days ago. How the tables had turned. Lucid sighed and carefully considered his words.

“You’ve surrounded a student and coerced her into giving you an answer, as well as restricting her movement. According to civil law, she can request for the compensation of all damage to her person caused by your use of force. Do you agree to this?”

What was this child saying?

“You have taken to action to help her even as she fell over, and continued to intimidate her, which made her feel threatened. This serves as proof that your coercion was voluntary and intentional. Please keep in mind that there are several witnesses present.”

What?

“Though most of such witnesses are children below the age of 13, I do believe that testimonies from so many children will be counted as valid in the face of the law. This leads me to also believe that, should we seek legal action in the future, you will all be at a tremendous disadvantage. So I hope that you will all step away and leave this school, unless you want to make things worse for yourselves.”

The jounalists couldn’t wrap their minds around what was happening. What had they just listened to? What had this boy said? Did they teach civil law in elementary school? Some of the journalists looked around wildly, as if to make sure they were indeed in an elementary school rather than a college.

“Plaster face!”

Lucid turned around to see Myeong-su running at full speed towards him, dragging the institute teacher along with him. She was completely confused until she saw the crowd of jounalists surrounding Lucid.

“What is going on here?” she asked, her face deathly pale.

However, none of them could give her an answer. Lucid chose to stay out of this particular matter and turned around to face Hyejin once again.

“Hyejin, you have to get up.”

Hyejin raised her head, reacting instinctively to the sound of her name. She had always looked down at him, but he suddenly seemed very big. Lucid helped Hyejin get up, letting her lean against him for support, and brought her to the institute van. It was the only choice he had to get out of there, and no one even thought of stopping him.

Only after the van left did the journalists finally snap back to reality. A few of them waved towards the car, trying to stop it from leaving, but to no avail. They turned back to join the others, and they all began to talk amongst themselves.

“What was that?”

“I feel like I’ve been possessed for a second there.”

The journalists all stared at each other, and once they realized that none of them had a good enough explanation for what happened, they all shuffled away.