A school, ideally, is an institution meant to guide growing adolescents into becoming adults equipped with proper character and outstanding intelligence. However…
This is not the case for some schools.
It is apt to talk about Baekhak Arts Middle School.
Baekhak Arts Middle School is not a public school dedicated to nurturing loyal workers for the nation, but merely a private school.
Moreover, it was a kind of trophy school established because a conglomerate chairman (now in a coffin) said, ‘I wish our group had a prestigious private school foundation too.’
And the purpose of this trophy?
Thus, unlike other private schools, the two schools under the Baekhak Art Foundation were not interested in making money.
The campus was so large it included a mountain at the back, and midway up this mountain was the ‘staff training center.’
But because the Baekhak Art Foundation loved its staff oh so very much, this training center was built like a luxurious mansion.
And naturally, since the chairman was also a staff member, he could enter the training center.
However, for some reason, the other staff members rarely used the training center, so it was often the case that the chairman was the only one utilizing it.
It definitely wasn’t that the chairman was using school funds to build his own luxurious residence.
“Is this the place…?”
I arrived at the chairman’s house and was about to ring the bell.
Before I could, a man in a suit who was washing a black foreign car in the yard rushed over to me, startled, and scolded me.
“Hey! You can’t come in here! This is private property!”
“Are you a student from Baekhak Arts Middle School? Go back quickly! Hurry!”
Even though it was still warm enough to wear just a dress shirt, the suit-clad man, fully dressed in an outer coat as well, seemed to be trying to kick me out half out of concern for me and half for himself.
“I’ve come all this way though.”
The standoff didn’t last long. Another suit-clad man guarding the entrance of the mansion on the first floor rushed over to us.
He pushed away the suit-clad man trying to expel me and said to me,
“Ah, are you Author Moon In-seop?”
“Oh, welcome. The chairman has been waiting for you.”
The grand iron gate opened, and I stepped into the well-maintained yard.
-Kim, didn’t I tell you I had a guest coming today…
-I’m sorry! Manager! He was too tiny…
-Even so, you should check the work orders properly…
I heard one suit-clad man scolding another behind me. They sounded like medieval servants.
However, the rigid atmosphere of the mansion didn’t make me tense. It was only around Min Chae-won at 0.4. (TL: Min Chae-won is Gu Yu-na’s mother)
I calmly followed another suit-clad man waiting for me on the first floor up to the second floor.
The man guiding me knocked carefully on a door made of white wood.
“Chairman, I have brought the guest.”
With the permission from inside, the door opened, and there stood a typical second-generation chaebol heir I had seen in dramas.
“Oh. Student Mun In-seob is here?”
Though I had thought this ‘staff training center’ was purely the chairman’s luxurious residence, the interior surprisingly had more of an office vibe.
The chairman, sitting at a large brown wooden desk, seemed to be in age between Baek Seol and Lim Yang-wook. Early thirties? Mid-thirties?
Maybe because he was of the same gender and family, he vaguely resembled the suited Baek Seol I had seen in England.
But I knew Baek Seol too well, with her disheveled hair heading to work and sipping her coffee in a sloppy manner, so no matter how many luxury suits she wore, or how thick her makeup was, or even if she wore expensive buffalo horn glasses, I never felt intimidated.
However, I did feel a slightly intimidating aura from the chairman.
It was the aura of a ‘capitalist’ who historically dominated all artists.
Since art has been dominated by the wealthy, the flexibility of my spine was also dynamically reconfigured.
“Hello. I’m Moon In-seop, but I write under the pen name Moon In.”
“Ha-ha. Don’t be so stiff, sit here. You’re a student of our school, right? Just think of it as meeting a principal. You’re too stiff.”
I glanced at the nameplate on the desk; the chairman’s name was Baek Yi-hyun. Chairman Baek Yi-hyun smiled kindly and invited me to sit on the sofa, ordering the suit-clad man who was frequently at his service to bring some tea.
As I felt the plush leather sofa, the chairman said to me,
“Nice to meet you. You might be the most famous student at our school, yet this is the first time we meet in person. How do you find school life?”
“It’s very enjoyable.”
“Ha-ha. That’s funny because you seem to skip it quite a lot?”
Damn it. Is my attendance rate that I barely managed to get over 50% going to haunt me here?
But that’s okay. I always have the ‘dropout’ card up my sleeve. Many artists who have left their mark on history completed their education by dropping out. Thus, dropping out could be seen as a necessary step towards becoming a great figure.
Meanwhile, my morbid sense of humor crafted the sentence, “It’s funny that someone who built a house inside the school and lives there is preaching proper behavior,” but my internal editor cut it out.
After a moment of silence, Chairman Baek Yi-hyun broke the ice first.
“Ha ha ha. Just kidding. Just kidding.”
I didn’t say much, but Chairman Baek Yi-hyun skillfully continued the conversation on his own.
“Our student In-seop is doing big things, so he can’t always make it to school, something I, as the chairman, am well aware of. Isn’t that our school’s flexible policy? We don’t hold back young geniuses trying to flap their wings in the world with attendance, homework, and exams. That’s the spirit of our school.”
“In-seop, you really just need to keep doing what you’re doing. Imagine how much positive and wholesome influence our students receive by seeing you? Do you know how much the competition rate for the Literature Department increased after Author Moon enrolled? Ha ha.”
“With such outstanding achievements have been made, you should have received some certificates or plaques by now, but unfortunately, there’s nothing quite appropriate to give. That’s how our country is. In academics, if someone does well, the school readily hands out awards, but if it’s for arts, they treat it like some corrupt favoritism. That’s why every time we create a significant in-house award, the Board of Education watches us like a hawk with glaring eyes. It’s tough for the arts in our country, isn’t it? That’s why what our student Moon In-seop is doing is really significant. Well done!”
As I carefully listened to the chairman’s story, my radar detected the chairman’s sinister true colors.
“So, what I was thinking is, would you be interested in representing the school in an interview?”
“It’s nothing big, but there will soon be a broadcasting station coming to our school. Maybe you could appear for a bit…”
Instinctively sensing that this would involve getting caught up in something tedious, I prepared my evasive maneuvers.
Capitalists are a scary breed, but not being able to write is even scarier.
At that moment, as I was about to show the chairman just how daunting a minor not afraid of adults could be,
An unusual noise came from outside.
-Wait a moment, you can’t go in…!
It seemed like I heard a somewhat familiar voice, and my shoulders twitched.
That ominous premonition was immediately confirmed.
The door to the chairman’s office burst open. In fact, it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say that it opened with a bang!