The afternoon bell rang, and the classroom door slid open with a sharp whoosh. Mr. Park, "The Pruner," strode in, his expression severe, a thick stack of graded mock exams clutched in his hand like a judgment.
A hush fell over the room.
Into that silence, a distinct, rapid sound intruded.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
It was the sound of pages being turned with impatient speed. Every head turned, every eye tracing the noise to its source: Song Eun-woo in the back corner, utterly absorbed in Han Soo-jin's chemistry notebook. He hadn't even registered the teacher's entrance.
On the podium, Mr. Park's frown deepened, etching new lines into his forehead. With only four days until the Suneung, he was inclined to pick his battles. But this blatant disregard, on top of yesterday's insulting blank submission, was too much. He couldn't let one student's theatrics poison the focus of the entire class.
"Song Eun-woo-ssi," he called out, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Come up here. Distribute these."
The classroom held its breath.
Eun-woo didn't move. Didn't flinch. The swish-swish continued.
Holy cow, hyung is going full rebel! Is he about to get expelled? Kim Do-hyun thought, torn between horror and a twisted sense of awe. He watched Mr. Park's face darken from ruddy to a concerning purple.
Mr. Park's patience, never abundant, vaporized.
BANG!
He slammed the stack of papers onto the wooden podium. The sound echoed like a gunshot.
"SONG EUN-WOO!" he roared, the full force of his teacher's lungs channeled into the shout. "STAND UP! NOW!"
The roar finally pierced Eun-woo's concentration. He jolted, looking up with genuine, unfeigned confusion. He saw a livid Mr. Park and a sea of stunned classmates all staring at him.
Who's stupid enough to piss off The Pruner this close to finals? he wondered, before the dreadful realization dawned: the collective gaze was aimed at him.
"Your courage has grown tenfold!" Mr. Park snarled, slipping into the kind of sarcastic, slightly archaic Korean he used for maximum intimidation. "Do you think just because the Suneung is around the corner, I am michin nom (a crazy bastard) who can no longer discipline you?"
The class collectively shrank in their seats. When Mr. Park dropped into that tone, parent-teacher calls and detention hall marathons were imminent.
Before, such a tirade would have washed over Eun-woo, half-understood and wholly ignored. Now, his optimized brain parsed every word, its meaning and subtext crystal clear. The injustice of it sparked a flare of indignation.
"Mr. Park," he replied, his voice calm but clear. "I was studying. I wasn't disrupting the class."
He said it in flawless, textbook-perfect English.
A stunned silence, deeper than before, blanketed the room. Jaws went slack. Park Ji-ah's pen clattered onto her desk.
What… was that? The thought echoed in thirty minds. Song Eun-woo just spoke English. Not the broken, Konglish-infused phrases they were used to, but smooth, accent-less, proper English.
Mr. Park, riding the high of his anger, barely registered the language switch. He fired back, his own English rapid and sharp from years of teaching advanced classes.
"Studying? Do you take me for a fool? Your 'studying' has resulted in a blank paper! A zero! Shall I call your abeoji right now and let him witness his son's dedication?"
He spoke even faster, his words peppered with idioms that would have made the top students pause. Han Soo-jin, in the front row, caught most of it but missed a few phrases.
Eun-woo listened, head slightly tilted. When Mr. Park finished, Eun-woo shook his head slightly.
"Sir, there's a slight error in your phrasing. 'Do you take me for a fool?' is the more common structure. And I assure you, my father would be quite surprised."
He said this, again, in perfectly natural English.
Mr. Park opened his mouth for another retort, then froze. His eyes widened, the fury momentarily displaced by sheer, unadulterated shock. His mouth worked soundlessly for a second before he blurted out in Korean:
"Yah! You… you little… since when can you speak English like that?!"
The dam broke. A wave of incredulous murmurs swept the classroom. Kim Do-hyun's face was a masterpiece of betrayal. This is the guy who said learning English was for 'yangkkoma' (Western fools)? He's been holding out on me! The real fool was me!
Mr. Park stared at Eun-woo, his anger now tangled with profound confusion. "Your English… how…?"
Then he remembered the catalyst for this whole scene. He snatched the top paper from the stack—Eun-woo's pristine, unanswered exam.
"Fine. Very fine. You want to be clever?" He reverted to Korean, his tone shifting from pure rage to stern challenge. "Take this. Right now. Right here. Let's see these 'true abilities' of yours."
Redo it? That's a waste of time I need for physics, Eun-woo thought, irritated. But arguing was pointless. He stood and walked to the front.
To maximize efficiency, he didn't return to his seat. He stopped at the first desk in the front row—Han Soo-jin's. Without ceremony, he plucked the plain, functional pen from her frozen fingers.
"I'll borrow this."
He took the blank test from Mr. Park's outstretched hand, then simply leaned over, using Soo-jin's desk as his writing surface. He bent his head and started writing, his hand moving with shocking speed, filling in answer ovals and scribbling short sentences in the margins without pause.
Han Soo-jin sat rigidly beside him, her eyes not on the flying pen, but on its cap. It was clenched securely between Song Eun-woo's teeth as he worked, his brow furrowed in concentration.
A small, quiet pang of distress hit her. My pen cap…
[To Be Continued…]