“Wow…… what the hell did you eat over break that you grew again?”
“What’s with this intimidation factor? Tae-san looks even more handsome today for some reason.”
“Oho! Did you tailor your uniform? You little punk. I’m gonna beat you to death. Kekeke.”
Yeah, I’m the pretty one.
The moment I walked into the classroom, my friends showered me with curses.
Tall my ass.
Handsome my ass.
The bittersweet reunion with my first love shattered the moment I arrived at school.
‘I missed these bastards.’
The thick smell of sweat only adolescent boys can produce filled the classroom.
This cramped classroom was the survival battleground of scumbags.
Thanks to my friends’ barrage of crude comments, my sense of reality snapped back in place.
Tae-sun, who always had allergic rhinitis and blew his nose nonstop.
Jong-seok, whose grades were rock bottom but who always shaved his head and went around saying he was “trying to study.”
Hyeong-cheol, whose hairline had already started receding.
Do-jong, who had no friends when it came to food and would even steal your snacks.
Bong-seok, the self-proclaimed poet of life who acted like he had already lived three lifetimes.
My friends, just returned from vacation, began by greeting my changes with shock and then expressing their affection by cursing me out like stray dogs.
They were precious bastards.
We met occasionally until university, but after military service, we drifted one by one.
Each of us had to survive our own harsh life, and we all lived desperately to manage it.
I ended up seeing those friends again.
“Tae-san, did you eat your dad’s medicinal supplements during break or something? Why did you grow so damn tall?”
Hyeong-cheol, eternally dissatisfied with the world, picked a fight with sharp sarcasm.
“Shut up, baldy. Then maybe you should grow some hair like me.”
“What hair? Kill me instead, bastard.”
“Then go and die. Punk.”
“Wow! Tae-san even got insults down to perfection~.”
Tap tap. Hyeong-cheol grabbed me in a jab-style hold.
With my now solid body, I locked him into a firm headlock.
“Ugh! Uwaaaah! It hurts, you bastard!”
Hyeong-cheol screamed, but he couldn’t break free from me.
My body’s muscle mass was completely different from a month ago.
“You’re the one whose liver swelled up, baldy. My older brother said you overdid weight training during break.”
“Liver! Haaahaha!”
I released the headlock after Hyeong-cheol tapped out.
The classroom was chaotic.
Seeing their friends after so long, everyone busied themselves unloading their stories.
Before supplementary classes and night study were abolished, these were the brothers who spent morning, lunch, and dinner in the same classroom with me.
I, too, who had crossed time and returned, was as stunned as a newborn chick.
But I would never reveal that I came from the future.
Still, I would never live the pathetic life I had before.
I considered hiding behind the title of “a writer who makes good money.”
“Wow…… why are this bastard’s muscles so solid? Did you seriously go to the gym?”
“We’re seniors soon. Shouldn’t you build stamina for the CSAT physical exam?”
“You’re taking the police academy exam?”
“A dumbass punk.”
Conversations with my friends were always chaotic.
It felt like playing dumb jokes from old memories.
The memory of my cringeworthy first-love encounter earlier that morning evaporated entirely.
Hehe, haha, hoho—laughter of every kind filled the classroom and took over my heart.
I missed these friends so much.
“Hey~ you bastards sure are noisy.
This isn’t a daycare center, you know. Keep it down, toddlers~.”
At that moment, someone appeared carrying an empty bag.
“…….”
The classroom instantly fell silent, as if swallowed whole.
Damn. I forgot about this bastard.
The one who had ruined my precious, innocent high school years by splashing rainwater onto my parade of memories.
“Hong Seong-hyun.”
I quietly hissed the bastard’s name.
The moment he walked in, the strong smell of cigarettes clung to him.
He had learned both taekwondo and judo, and his body—refined and sharp—looked ready to thrash someone.
A smirk tugged at his lips.
Our school was a prestigious local high school, but even prestigious schools had their trash.
This bastard also did well in his studies.
His older brother attended the law department at Goyoung University.
Their family was rich.
His father was a well-known local attorney.
Local power.
Currently a city council member, but rumors spread that he would run for a seat in the National Assembly.
Hong Seong-hyun had a history of school violence, but it all got swept under the rug.
He belonged to a third-rate local gang called “Scorpion,” still lingering in the area.
That bastard wasn’t just the boss of our class—he was the boss of the entire grade.
A textbook example of “smart kids gone rotten becoming even worse.”
He tormented only the weak with meticulous cruelty.
Among the students, he never touched kids who were rich or did well in their studies.
He sorted kids with precision and preyed on them.
And that bastard……
“Oh? Jang Tae-san. You grew a lot since I last saw you?”
I was one of the many designated punching bags he used to bully.
Without reacting, I quietly looked at him.
The man reeked of the yellow stench of cigarettes.
He was good at unpredictable, rule-less street fighting.
He was also vicious.
In our first year, he had once knocked down a third-year senior named Nam-mu with a single body slam and nearly sent him to the hospital.
‘Because of that yellow-toothed bastard, I ended up with trauma…….’
Even in college, whenever I thought about him, anger surged through me.
He was the prime villain of my chaotic school years.
But things were different now.
He was shorter than me.
Back then, I was scared of him, but now? Not at all.
“Why? You jealous?”
The words slipped out with a light tap of my tongue.
“What, jealous?”
He was stunned.
He had always been used to me shrinking, stuttering, and curling up at his words.
Seeing me act differently caught Hong Seong-hyun completely off guard.
A delayed reaction.
“!!!”
All the kids’ gazes shot toward me and Hong Seong-hyun.
Anyone could tell this was becoming an incident.
Knowing his oversized pride, he wouldn’t let it slide.
“Heh. This is why you brats need a good beating once a day. A whole break without seeing me and you think I’m easy, huh?”
He let out that signature sneer of his.
Pathetic bastard. So cute.
“Not easy…… just pathetic.”
I shrugged my shoulder.
It was starting for real.
“Huh…….”
“Yo, has Tae-san lost his mind?”
“What’s wrong with him?”
The kids whispered anxiously.
Hong Seong-hyun’s face turned red like it was boiling.
Yeah, get mad.
“You little bastard……”
He stomped toward me.
He was the type who believed continuous violence equaled authority.
He used to hit first without hesitation.
This time, I would cut off our bad history and his rotten hand.
Sssk.
At that moment, the front door of the classroom opened.
And the familiar face that entered—
I saw it.
A homeroom teacher with a perfectly ordinary height and a zealously shiny bald head.
He was known for resembling a “Metal Robot Knockoff,” a nickname passed down from previous seniors.
“Oh my~ were my little bastards studying? Why is our class so quiet?”
The classroom went silent, and the teacher walked in smiling brightly.
Then, sensing the odd tension in the air, he looked at me and the bastard.
“Tae-san and Seong-hyun, what’s going on? Are you two about to start a staring contest or something?”
“No, sir. It’s been a while, so we were just pretending to greet each other.”
I answered first.
“Really? But is that really Tae-san? He looks like Tae-san, but weirdly he doesn’t look like Tae-san.”
“Sir~. It really is Tae-san. I’m Seo Woon-ham.”
“Is that so? Hey! You’ve gotten fit. Did you get cosmetic surgery too? Your jawline looks like some celebrity’s.”
“Sir, your complexion looks better than before break as well. Since you’re not newlywed yet, I assume your wife still loves you very much.”
“Really? Haha. Tae-san’s becoming quite something.”
His laugh deepened.
In the past, I had been introverted and shy to the point of barely speaking.
But not anymore.
“Seong-hyun. Let’s talk at lunch.”
I waved first, offering the truce.
Crunch.
I heard the bastard grinding his teeth.
I calmly ignored him and sat in the front-row empty seat.
“Alright. Break is over now. You all know, right? In just one more year, it’s the CSAT. Until then, don’t slack off and run straight ahead. You little bastards.”
“Yes, sir!!”
The kids responded with strained voices.
They were still innocent troublemakers at heart.
“Alright! Repeat after me today too! If your CSAT score goes up!”
The teacher began the chant.
“If your CSAT score goes up!”
The kids followed.
“Your face changes!”
The teacher’s voice sounded like he was venting some personal grudge.
“Your face changes!!!”
“Let’sgolet’sgolet’sgo! Everyone fighting!”
* * *
“Tae-san. You’re seriously screwed. Looks like Seong-hyun, that bastard, is gathering his little cronies.”
“Hey. Do you avoid shit because you’re scared of it, or because it’s dirty? Why’d you even provoke him today!”
“Whew. Did this bastard eat only testosterone boosters during break or something?”
My crew crowded around me during every break.
Since it was the first day of the semester, most classes ended with simple syllabus introductions.
Then lunchtime came around.
Everyone but my close crew ran straight to the cafeteria.
“Are you nervous?”
“What do you mean, bastard! Because of you, I feel like I might not die peacefully!”
“Hah, you bastard. What the hell did you eat during break that made your liver swell like this? Hey! Don’t you know how scary Seong-hyun’s family is? Those bastards beat the shit out of people for real!”
“Yeesh…… I guess I’m going to get caught up in your mess today.”
At my words, my friends let out exasperated sighs.
“Just go eat.”
“What the hell, bastard! Your friend’s getting beat up and you’re telling us to go eat?”
“Damn, shut up, you toddler idiot.”
One verbal jab and they all kicked my desk in unison.
‘Yeah. These dickheads are my friends.’
Every single one of them was a lovable, annoying idiot.
They were the guys who would pool together a few hundred won and buy skewers at the night stall for snacks.
The guys who, when I brought my dad’s liquor during a rainstorm, would drink it like it was a battlefield offering.
The guys who biked around in autumn enjoying the scenery like wandering poets.
The guys who could eat nothing but cup noodles for lunch and still act like they had everything in the world.
Forgotten memories resurfaced and warmed my heart.
“Cluck cluck. You little brats~ gather up for a strategy meeting.”
A voice came from behind.
“Couldn’t even go a day after the semester started without trouble. Kekeke.”
A group of about five kids appeared with Seong-hyun walking in front.
Just because a school is prestigious doesn’t mean all personalities are.
There were more brats here than expected.
The stench of cigarettes and cheap cologne wafted toward us.
They all looked pathetic.
The perfect definition of sleazy.
“These shitheads are really annoying.”
“What! Again, shitheads?”
“What? Did that pathetic bastard just call us shitheads?”
“Wow! You’re dead today! You bastard!”
Seong-hyun’s crew exploded in anger.
School’s underbelly types never realized how revolting their existence was.
“Shut up and follow me, you bastards. Don’t make this nice clean classroom all filthy.”
I stood up and walked ahead.
Our school was nestled halfway up a low hill.
Once you left campus grounds, even the teachers couldn’t intervene easily.
“Ta— Tae-san!”
“Ah…… shit.”
My friends called out anxiously.
“Relax. When school ends, I’m buying pizza.”
I winked at them.
“Relax what, you bastard!”
“Ugh…… so today, for the first time in my life, I’m going to fight properly and get punched once!”
“Eat nosebleed instead of pizza, bastard!”
Six of my friends stood up to follow me.
“This— these bastards…… hey, call the younger ones!”
The bastard swore and put on his trademark sneer.
Fine. Call them all.
It was a day in August when the heat hadn’t yet fully settled down.
A perfect day for cleaning house.