“Hey, Jang Tae-san……, what is this?”
“What is what?”
“How did you get a perfect score…….”
“Teacher, that is a discriminatory remark against a human being~.”
“Uwoaaaaaaah!”
“What? Tae-san got a perfect score?”
“The teacher must’ve conned that bastard!”
“Did the sun rise from the west today? Is that it?”
“I demand strict verification!!!”
It was the golden mid-morning period on a Friday.
Chaos broke out.
The friends I usually hung out with as equals were even more shocked than I was that I’d gotten a perfect score.
This is why sages say: your enemy always exists right beside you.
You bastards, try living your lives too.
The world will look different.
“Jang Tae-san……, don’t you think you owe an explanation? In all my years of teaching, nothing like this has ever happened.”
My homeroom teacher, unable to believe it, demanded I explain myself.
The results of the midterms and the score sheets were just being distributed.
None of my friends believed it.
Your grades don’t rise overnight.
But the questions were easy, what could I do.
“The questions were too easy?”
“Easy?”
“Yes. I studied sincerely using only the textbook while I was in the hospital. I got a brain hemorrhage, so it feels like my head changed.”
“Wow! That bastard. Does he think he’s some fantasy protagonist?”
“Textbook study? Beat the crap out of that shameless bastard!”
“Ooooooohhhh! We demand the truth about Jang Tae-san!”
“……You. Try hitting my thigh once with your fist.”
He said it half-jokingly, but the result would’ve been the same regardless.
My friends were causing an uproar.
Honestly, I didn’t blame them for not wanting to believe it.
“Today I’m buying everyone pizza.”
“…….”
The moment the word ‘pizza’ came out, the classroom quieted down.
“Not enough? Then chicken wings too.”
I tossed in another bait.
“Tae, was Tae-san smart?”
“Yes! Our Tae-san was kind of good at studying.”
“I read online that brain hemorrhage makes your head sharpen!”
“Tae-san! I believe in you!”
“Teacher! Tae-san is a genius!!!”
“Long live Jang Tae-san! Long live! Long live!”
Hahaha.
These bastards were like fraudsters.
But I know you guys.
Once they even started shouting “long live,” all misunderstandings dissolved in a strangely(?) clean way.
It was the kind of ridiculous scene you’d only see in a boys’ high school.
Chuseok had passed, and the afterglow of the holidays still lingered.
They weren’t seniors yet, so it was the time when their hearts relaxed.
Once the chaos died down, the peaceful atmosphere returned to the classroom.
Even the cafeteria changed completely.
The awful nutritionist ajumma who always argued with the chairman disappeared the next day.
A newly assigned nutritionist noona in her mid-to-late twenties arrived.
She had just graduated from school, freshly earned her license, and was overflowing with enthusiasm.
My god! Starting that very lunch, she began stir-frying meat before serving, and today a whole roasted chicken came out at lunch.
The nutritionist noona even became the founder of a fan club.
Chubby in all the right ways and cute, she instantly became the number one popular figure in school.
Once the meals improved, the kids’ nutritional status also got better.
Not just meat—she sourced high-quality local produce and used them as side dishes.
With 1,500 students consuming huge quantities of ingredients each day, even the market vendors began praising her.
They had only changed one person, but thousands of students tasted happiness.
It was similar to the happiness people felt when the president was impeached in 2017.
“Yes! Tae-san has gotten cooler these days.”
“Tae-san, congratulations. You’re ranked number one in the entire school! Everyone, applause!”
Clapclapclapclapclap!
An enthusiastic applause echoed.
It was a loudmouth whose insides were completely visible.
Which made him even cuter.
“Huiiiiyit!”
“I’m eating two extra plates, Tae-san!”
“Your wallet is mine today! Kheukheuk.”
These were friends who showed no interest or jealousy toward the one ranked number one in the entire school.
Besides, the score of “perfect marks” was so overwhelming that it couldn’t even be compared.
“Everyone, play moderately. Don’t cause accidents.”
The teacher smiled as he finished the homeroom period.
He really was a good teacher.
He was like that in the past too, and he hadn’t changed at all now.
“Attention! Bow!”
“We love you, teacher.”
“Yes, I love my little bastards too.”
It was our grade’s unique way of greeting.
And just like that, homeroom ended, and my classmates flooded out toward the city center like a swarm of bees.
The line was, as expected, a dogfight.
It made no sense for starving wolves to calmly stand in line in front of food.
The city center was only a ten-minute walk from the school.
Pizza Hut!
It was 4 p.m., well past lunchtime, so there were many empty seats.
At Pizza Hut, middle-school girls and high-school girls were sitting everywhere, chatting and enjoying themselves.
And the wolves began their hunt.
“Ma’am! One family-size combination! Hawaiian! Coke! Cider! Spaghetti! And just give us a lot of anything!”
“Give us ours first!”
“Ma’am. We’re starving! Please give us ours first!”
Unable to wait, the wolves rushed the counter and began ordering.
“What’s going on with my little bastards?”
The owner lady of Pizza Hut was practically a second mother to them.
Her oldest sons were alumni of our school, and she even had a son currently in the first year.
She called all Jangju High School students “my sons.”
“The kid who got a perfect score on the midterms is treating everyone today.”
“Perfect score?”
“Yes! A little while ago, he used to get beaten up by the school’s troublemakers!”
“Troublemakers? Oh! Jang Tae-san?”
“You know him, ma’am?”
“Well, my youngest said the school got a bit safer thanks to him, and he was very proud. Who is student Jang Tae-san?”
“He’s right there. Over there.”
“Oh my. Tall and handsome, isn’t he~.”
“That bastard is handsome?”
I’d somehow become a celebrity even here.
Half the guys were making a fuss, but no one openly glared.
Only students from famous local high schools enjoyed this kind of premium.
Even if we got into a fistfight with kids from other schools, the ones who’d become the victims first would be the other side, not us.
If you walked around the shops near the school in uniform, and borrowed something like a lighter, they’d comply 80–90 percent of the time.
In the city of Jangju, our school was well known.
Even now, the high-school girls sitting around were peeking at my friends.
They were full of curiosity, but since they were currently attending specialized vocational high schools for girls, they had no idea how to actually date in the real world.
They didn’t even realize my friends had been shoved into their subconscious “future dating candidate” lists.
Then some of the high-school girls noticed me and whispered.
“Ma’am. Please make their stomachs explode.”
I walked up to the counter and spoke politely.
“To make their stomachs explode…… can you handle it?”
“Even pigs don’t eat until their stomachs explode. Don’t worry.”
The owner lady behind the counter looked at me quietly.
She knew how much large teenage boys could eat.
I knew too.
“Alright. Then I’ll pull out one big round from the pizza oven.”
Adults can tell a lot just from someone’s eyes.
Especially people who’ve worked in food service—they have intuition.
She sensed I smelled like money.
And then it began.
Something that couldn’t have even happened in my previous life.
One family-size pizza costs over twenty thousand won.
The forty pigs each ate at least one full pizza for themselves and fought the pizza with full strength like it was a rival.
They really ate a lot.
Spaghetti, smoked chicken, salads—everything disappeared mercilessly.
As for drinks, they just opened their throats and poured.
But seriously, are these bastards really my friends?
Even if I said it myself, don’t friends need to act like friends?
But not a single one asked about my wallet.
Pigs who were about to explode to death……
“Ooooogh~ I feel like I’m going to burst.”
“Then drink cola, bastard. You can fit more if you burp.”
“You think so? I drank cider earlier and I think something broke inside me.”
“Jong-cheol, that bastard, threw up in the bathroom and came back to eat more.”
“Wow! That tenacious bastard…… I should honor him.”
“Tae-san, you bastard, your wallet better open wide! You study well, you fight well, and now you’re rich too—how is our life supposed to compete!?”
“Right! Let’s fight harder! Until the baseball field collapses!”
Cheering erupted from every corner.
Wow…… I really love them. These bastards!
Just watching my tear-filled friends stuffing themselves made me feel full.
Still, if not now, when would I ever be able to treat my friends like this?
Today alone, my profit was over tens of billions.
A man who fusses over saving even one million won is not a man.
I watched my crazy friends and sat alone on the chair next to the hall counter, drinking cola.
It felt strange that it wasn’t beer, but what could I do—my body was like this now.
I only ate one slice of pizza.
Back when I had no money, pizza was the thing I craved the most, but now all I could think about was Mom’s soybean paste stew.
I guess age is something you can’t fight.
“Um…….”
Just then, a shy high-school girl walked up to me and called out.
“Yes?”
She was a pretty decent girl.
No—looking closer, she was actually really good-looking.
Her overall appearance…… was different from other girls.
Her figure felt familiar somehow, like I’d seen it somewhere before.
What is this familiar face?
She was also a first-year student from Jangju Girls’ High School.
“You’re a second-year, right? Oppa, do you have a phone number?”
Oppa.
Hearing it from a girl felt completely different from when little kids whined it.
Huh? Wait, am I getting my number asked for right now?
A historical moment.
Ah! So this is what it feels like to be hit on.
Honestly, the situation wasn’t bad at all.
“Oh! My god!”
“Oppa? Wow, Jang Tae-san, you shameless bastard……”
“Receive the curse of a third-rate pervert who doesn’t know his place!”
The cries of my pizza-stuffed friends came rolling in from the corner.
These bastards—even after eating that much, they had the energy to talk trash.
I didn’t even make the first move; the girl approached me, yet they were treating me like the enemy.
The girl flinched.
She had the typical look of someone who’d seen a lot.
Even so, she had the polished vibe of someone who’d trained to be an idol.
I coolly declined her request.
“I have someone I like.”
“What?”
What’s that expression? Shock?
It wasn’t an expression I expected.
In this neighborhood, that kind of reaction was extremely unusual.
It was the kind of sparkle you’d only see from celebrities.
“Are you two dating?”
The girl was persistent.
But there was no way a girl would approach me like this if I were actually dating someone—not in a place full of rowdy male students like this.
“No.”
“Then why?”
“It doesn’t seem polite to the person I like. Unrequited love is still love, so I should be sincere.”
“Pfft, that’s a lie, right?”
Wow, I could dig my heart out and show it and she still wouldn’t believe me.
But why was my heart pounding so much at the sight of her smile?
Is this what they call thump-thump?
Her uniform nametag came into view.
Kim Seo-ryeon……
Seo-ryeon? Could it be that Seo-ryeon?
Thud!
A shockwave slammed into my head like a hammer.
I finally understood the source of the familiarity.
Kim Seo-ryeon.
In the near future, she becomes one of Korea’s representative top idols!
Seo-ryeon, who would receive the honor of being the greatest star ever to come out of our city.
She later became the central visual of the group FOB.
Once called the best among girl-group members of her era.
Her popularity dropped a bit with age, but the Chinese drama she starred in during 2019 became a mega hit, and she remained one of the hottest Hallyu actresses until the day I died.
That girl—that future actress—was asking for my number right now.
Holy crap…… is this a dream or real life?
Clatter.
At that moment, the Pizza Hut door opened, and three more high-school girls walked in.
Since it was quiet inside, all attention shifted to them.
“Gasp!”
“Wooooow……”
“We’re dead.”
My friends, who had been cursing me a moment ago, looked at the girls entering and choked on their admiration.
What? Who is it?
Someone who stole the attention of the kids who had been mesmerized by Seo-ryeon!
I also looked toward the entrance.
And there, a girl whose eyes met mine.
“Jang Tae-san?”