She Saw Too Much

The next morning, I-eum left the house earlier than usual.

She'd assumed the world would change once the CSAT was over, but it hadn't. She rode the same bus, walked the same road to school, and passed through the front gate alongside students in the same uniforms.

"Yeon I-eum! Is it true you couldn't take the CSAT?"

Somehow, her situation had spread through the entire class. Apparently there'd been a witness at the test site.

"What happened? You really didn't get to take it?"

Koo Sung-joon approached with a face graver than anyone's and asked. I-eum found her classmates' attention annoying, but a small calculation flickered through her mind—this rumor might actually be useful—so she answered readily enough.

"Yeah. It's true."

"How?"

"Someone stole my test voucher."

"You're kidding...!"

Since the news had reached the ears of the delinquent crowd, it was only a matter of time before it spread through the whole school. And I-eum ranked among the top students in her year, so before long, not just the students but the teachers would be hanging on her every word.

"Who stole it?"

"No idea."

"Wait, don't they issue you a temporary voucher on-site?"

"They stole my ID too."

"No way!"

At I-eum's matter-of-fact testimony, more than twenty classmates erupted into chaos.

"When did you find out? Yesterday morning?"

"It was already gone when I got to the test site."

"So someone broke into your house?"

"Who knows. I guess there are thieves who take only a test voucher and an ID."

With the CSAT behind them and their reins finally slack, the students began spinning detective novels out of I-eum's cryptic answers. And their deductions found the culprit faster than she'd expected.

"Didn't you say Yeon I-eum has a younger sister?"

"Yeah, that's right. Goes to our school, apparently."

"What was her name again?"

I-eum opened a workbook she'd already finished and waited for the name Yeon Bo-ra to leave their lips. From today on, self-study would center on essay writing anyway, so she'd decided to throw herself back into CSAT prep.

I'll help you.

Ji-hoon's voice echoed in her ears once more. Her grip tightened around her mechanical pencil.

"Are you gonna retake it?"

Amid the clamor, Sung-joon asked. I-eum gave him a brief once-over and answered flatly.

"Dunno."

"What do you mean, dunno? Someone like you not going to college would be a huge waste."

"It's not your life, so butt out."

Sung-joon scowled, clearly stung, but soon dragged a chair up in front of her desk and pressed on. "Have your parents talked about studying abroad?"

"......"

"The school I'm going to is stupidly easy to get into. They literally just take the admissions fee—no CSAT score needed. So how about you come with—"

Clack.

I-eum set her mechanical pencil down with a pointed rattle. With this many pests around, studying before first period was clearly a lost cause. She walked straight out of the classroom.

The hallway of the third-year wing, CSAT finally behind them, was a proper marketplace.

"Huh? That's Yeon I-eum."

"Isn't she the one who couldn't take the CSAT yesterday?"

Whispers drifted toward her, but she ignored them and made her way down the stairs. Ji-hoon had told her not to come by in the morning, so she'd meant to hold out—but she couldn't anymore.

She arrived at the Board Chairman's office in no time and peered about, but the frosted glass gave nothing away.

Will he be annoyed that I came in the morning after he told me not to?

Even as she worried, the desire to at least see his face won out, and she knocked carefully.

Knock, knock.

No sound came from inside. I-eum tugged the door gently—and to her surprise, it slid open without resistance, so she poked her head into the gap.

"Teacher——"

She couldn't finish the sentence.

"Oh—s-sor—sorry! I'm so sorry!"

SLAM!

Ji-hoon, who had been changing his shirt with Min-jae's help, turned his gaze belatedly to the already-closed door.

"Who was that just now?"

At Min-jae's question, Ji-hoon pulled on the shirt sliding down past his shoulders and answered, "Who knows."

Yeon I-eum. I told you not to come in the morning.

Just as he gave a small shake of his head, Min-jae spoke up. "I'd say this fitting is done."

Ji-hoon had been in the middle of a suit fitting for the family gathering this weekend. It was a routine he always went through to meet the standards of Chairman Sung Hyun-do, who was exacting about everything and placed particular weight on one's attire.

"You didn't invite Kang Ri-won, did you?"

"Of course not. You know better than anyone that no outsiders get invited to Seongbaekjae. And after the scene the Director made last time, we hardly need another run-in between the two of you."

Min-jae shook his head as if he couldn't bear even to recall the mess Ji-hoon had caused at the last gathering.

Kang Ri-won.

She had been Ji-hoon's longtime friend. To be precise, he'd met her as his friend's girlfriend, and since their circles had overlapped for so many years, calling them friends now wouldn't have been far off—

If only she hadn't recently broken up with that friend and come sidling toward Ji-hoon.

"I was into you from the start, Oppa. I just used your friend to get close to you."

Even lovers have lines that must not be crossed, and toying with a person's heart was, in Ji-hoon's view, the lowest of the low. That incident had cost him two friends at once.

He'd heard that Ri-won changed course the moment she learned Chairman Sung took a liking to her, but that didn't make him any more inclined to understand her. Should a beast in the animal kingdom be treated like a person? He didn't think so.

The moment the thought reached that far, an altogether human person flashed through his mind.

"I'm serious, Teacher. I think I like you."

That earnest face, confessing with eyes ablaze. The girl whose face was smeared with tears and snot, so wretchedly pitiful it carved at his chest.

"Haah..."

As a long sigh spilled from Ji-hoon's lips, Min-jae flinched but didn't ask why. Apparently unwilling to be entangled with his boss, who had grown conspicuously strange lately, he simply gathered the suits and slipped quietly out of the office.

"Director Ju."

But Ji-hoon caught him without a shred of mercy.

"Yes, yes. What now..."

"There's a student I'd like to counsel."

An entirely unexpected errand.

Back in the classroom, I-eum couldn't focus on her work even after self-study began. Ji-hoon's bare torso kept flickering above the reading passage in her Korean workbook.

All she'd seen was his shoulders, but she'd never known a man's shoulders could be that broad, that substantial—so the shock was as if she'd seen all of him.

It was like a rock face.

Wearing his jacket, she'd gotten some sense of his build, but seeing it with her own eyes, the sheer force of it was on another level.

And I threw myself into those shoulders...

Yesterday's events came flooding back all over again, and suddenly I-eum's face burned scarlet. At the time, she'd been flailing in the despair of a life seemingly over, so she hadn't registered it—but looking back, she had indeed been held against those broad shoulders and chest. And for quite a long while, at that.

I've lost my mind!

I-eum slapped her right hand over her mouth. Her heart had abruptly begun pounding faster than usual. His scent, which she hadn't even noticed at the time, now felt as though it was seeping all at once into the deepest part of her lungs.

What kind of life would unfold if I actually married Ji-hoon?

She could fall asleep in those arms and wake up in them, every single day. She could lean on those broad shoulders, rely on them whenever things got hard.

After a brief indulgence in sweet fantasy, I-eum straightened in her seat.

Study. Next year, without fail, I'll be a perfect-scorer on the CSAT.

Ji-hoon had said there'd be only one chance—but if she achieved a perfect score next year, even he might look on her with pride and change his mind. With that thought, her motivation came surging back.

She made thorough use of first period, and the instant break began, she rose from her seat to head for the Board Chairman's office.

But a kid from the next class came barging into her room. "Hey—hey! This is insane!"

She ignored him and moved to slip past, when a hand suddenly seized her shoulder.

"Yeon I-eum! This is about you!"

"What are you talking about all of a sudden—"

"Your sister got called to the Board Chairman's office!"

In that instant, it felt as though something enormous came hurtling into the center of her chest with a dull thud.

"Wait, which sister of hers?"

"Yeon Bo-ra, second-year class four!"

"Whoa, holy crap. So her sister really did steal the voucher? Why?"

"You didn't know? I-eum's dad, he remarried—"

The children's buzzing voices tangled wildly inside her ears, then were cut off by a sharp ringing.

I-eum squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her hands over her ears.

Why would Bo-ra be called to the Board Chairman's office? I never said a word to Ji-hoon—how?

Lost in thought one moment, I-eum kicked back her chair and stormed out the next.

"Hey! Let's go watch!"

The footsteps of the kids streaming out after her drummed down the hallway. I-eum ran until her breath gave out.