Brrrring!
The cranky, bald math teacher, Mr. Lee, was still screaming from his spot behind the podium when the bell rang.
“I only made the test harder by a tiny, weeny bit, and everyone fails! The lowest mark was nine! NINE! Is this even possible for a student your level?! Huh?! Even a blindfolded pig would score higher than this! You think you’re still in kindergarten? You’ll be taking the junior high entrance exam this year! You won’t get into a good senior high if you don’t get into a good junior high, and if you don’t get into a good senior high, you won’t get into a good university! And if you don’t get into a good university? Hah! I’ll be frank with you, your life will be O-V-E-R, over!”
Jimin raised his right hand.
“WHAT?!” Mr. Lee yelled.
“The bell rang, Mr. Lee,” Jimin stood up and said.
The classroom went silent and the entire class turned their eyes to the boy.
Lee Jungsik slapped the podium. “Are you implying I’m deaf?! So what if the bell rang? You all have to sit there in your seats until I dismiss you!”
Jimin replied very calmly, “But, sir, I can’t sit down, my butt hurts. I have to go home and take a shit.”
The class burst out in laughter.
Lee Jungsik was so angry his lips were shivering. He flipped through the papers on the desk, planning to pick on Jimin next. But, when he found the boy’s examination, he saw that Jimin had scored seventy-six, a high score in the class. There were only maybe four or five kids who had higher scores than he did. Unable to express his rage, he became even more furious.
Then, someone sneered. “Take a shit? You mean go looking for that retard in the outhouse?”
The laughter soon died down as everyone sneaked nervous glances towards Jimin.
It was then that Lee Jungsik recalled this class’s homeroom teacher telling him about a student whose brother had gone missing. The family was going through a tough time and she had asked him to look out for the student.
Jimin turned around and answered indifferently, “That’s right, everybody knows! My brother’s a retard who was kicked out of school. He can barely remember the way home. My mom died and my dad has a tough job, so I have to go looking for my brother as soon as school ends. We don’t have any other family. He might be a retard but I can’t just leave him, can I?”
The classroom fell silent. Every student’s face burned with a strange sense of shame that made them uncomfortable in their own seats.
Even Mr. Lee started to feel bad. He tidied the papers and his books while spitting, “Just you wait till tomorrow.” Then, he left out the door.
After Jimin packed his own bag, he looked up to find quite a few eyes on him. He cracked a smile at them and they all whipped their faces around as though burned by his gaze. No one dared look him straight in the eyes.
Almost every single student in this class had badmouthed Jimin’s retard brother. Now that his brother was missing, the gossip became evil curses and Jimin’s smile became spiked with judgement.
As he was leaving, Jaehyuk was coming back in from the bathroom with a bucket of water since he was on cleaning duty. The two met in a standoff at the stairwell.
Jimin stuck his right hand into his pant pocket where he had the folding knife that he used to sharpen his pencils.
He looked at Jaehyuk from the corner of his eye with an indifferent expression as though waiting for the other boy to react first.
