The Regressed Chaebol Grandson Finds It Hard to Forgive - Chapter 10

Episode 10. The Wise School Life of the Underprivileged (4)

“Oh Gwang-jun, your cheek is quite a sight, huh? Hehehe.”

“A guy who did boxing got beaten up by a guy who looks like a skeleton?”

“If your mom finds out, she’s gonna flip, right?”

“Shut up! F*ck!”

Although Cheonghwa High School had strict school rules, there were definitely areas where exceptions were applied.

The gym storage room at the corner of the playground.

It wasn’t as if only geniuses were admitted to Cheonghwa High School.

When academic grades weren’t enough, they induced students to enter prestigious universities as athletic specialists.

Horse riding, golf, ice hockey, canoeing, etc.

They could freely choose from a few sports that were only possible to learn if you had the financial backing.

Naturally, these were special athletic subjects that commoners couldn’t even attempt, operated for the children of the upper class.

Even if they couldn’t be called geniuses, they steered them toward elite sports so they could maintain their social status.

First, they get them admitted to prestigious universities through arts and physical education, which are advantageous for subjects with few applicants.

After that, they transfer at the right time to launder their university and major.

In that sense, Cheonghwa High School, which is unrivaled, can be called the cradle of special athletic subjects.

It is no exaggeration to say that most special physical education departments at prestigious universities in South Korea are filled with graduates from Cheonghwa High School.

“Don’t stress. Here, smoke one. Besides, that bastard is just a Sabeja.”

“Your hyungs will stomp him for you! Hehehe.”

“Loyalty~!”

Oh Gwang-jun, who came to meet the physical education students during lunch time.

Instead of the school lunch that didn’t suit their tastes, they often soothed their insides with cigarettes.

Wiiiiiiiiing.

The air purifier fan spins furiously due to the cigarette smoke.

The gym storage room is a smoking area implicitly permitted by the school.

“F*ck. Lee Hyo-ju said not to make things troublesome.”

Oh Gwang-jun ground his teeth.

“Lee Hyo-ju did?”

“Are the Sabeja and Lee Hyo-ju having a thing?”

“What kind of bullshit is that! If her family found out, they’d flip.”

The children of families of similar standing who often hung out with Oh Gwang-jun.

They consisted of children of private clinic owners, regional savings bank owners, and representatives of small to medium-sized accounting firms.

They were children who had been cared for from A to Z by their mothers and crafted into works of art.

Even these arrogant kids had an instinctive fear of Lee Hyo-ju.

They perceived her as an existence from a different class than themselves.

They literally placed her in the heavenly realm.

She was a type of person it was best not to mess with for no reason.

“Hey, are you just going to take it and do nothing?”

Yang Cheol-gyu asked with a cigarette in his mouth.

“Me? I have a plan… A plan. Huuuuuuup.”

Oh Gwang-jun inhales the cigarette deeply.

A fishy and evil smirk spreads across his lips.

“……??”

Park Ji-woong stared blankly at the existence that naturally sat down across from him.

Ha Tae-woong?

One of the five students admitted to Cheonghwa High School as a Sabeja in the same year.

Three of them had dropped out.

And only two remained.

It would be natural for them to get close for the sake of relying on each other, but they were busy avoiding each other.

Hanging out among Sabejas only brought the counterproductive effect of drawing more attention.

It was obvious they would mock it as a “low-class private gathering”.

The kids with weaker mentalities dropped out one by one.

Park Ji-woong is from Guryong Village.

He is a unique case who truly made it from the bottom to Cheonghwa.

He is from the only remaining slum area in Gangnam that almost every South Korean knows.

Park Ji-woong gritted his teeth and dug into his books with the goal of escaping the slum area.

Park Ji-woong’s dream is grand.

His detective father, whose integrity was as tough as a tendon.

But an unfortunate fate threw Park Ji-woong out into the harsh world all alone.

His parents, who were returning from a relative’s funeral in the countryside, died in a traffic accident while driving at night.

The tyranny of debtors who rushed in before they could even hold the funeral.

Following that, the police also came.

They said his dead father had taken bribes.

It was absolute nonsense.

They rummaged through the whole house to find evidence.

They were a family of four who lived on his father’s salary, which he received only once a month.

His father had absolutely no other income.

His father, who endured in the violent crimes unit with worn-out combat boots!

He didn’t even create situations where he would have to receive private loans or bribes.

His father’s payday was the day they got to taste meat.

That was how frugal the two of them were.

They could barely even taste common seasonal fruits when they were on sale.

All year round, kimchi, bean sprout soup, and fried eggs were the most common side dishes.

On top of that, they were taking care of his grandmother.

Still, his mom was the one who talked about happy things before the things they lacked.

She was someone who had thriftiness ingrained in her.

She even took on part-time jobs, saying she needed to at least provide a deposit for a house when their only son got married.

That was how they stubbornly saved their pocket money.

After the two of them left like that, Park Ji-woong’s house fell apart overnight.

His grandmother was from the old school and didn’t know anything about how the world worked.

He was chased into Guryong Village with a few million won in his bare hands.

Park Ji-woong, who had spent his formative years like a normal commoner, began to experience life at the bottom from then on.

The problem was that his dead father was also an only child.

He was left with his grandmother, but there were no relatives to ask for help.

A life of barely surviving day by day with the minimum living expenses supported by the district office began.

Instead, he didn’t hang out with peers from Guryong Village.

Thinking of his dead parents, he couldn’t go down the wrong path.

He clung to his studies desperately.

As Park Ji-woong grew older, he began to have doubts.

As he studied and gathered information, there were more suspicious parts.

He began to grow suspicious that perhaps someone might have been involved in his parents’ deaths.

It was around that time that things he had missed because he was in a daze back then started coming to mind one by one.

A few years after the accident, a colleague of his dead dad came to find Park Ji-woong.

Because of that person, his suspicion grew even more.

He came all the way to Guryong Village and unexpectedly said, “I’m sorry.”

That person left an envelope and returned.

Park Ji-woong, who had never missed 1st place in elementary or middle school.

Like a hidden fact that always appears in revenge movies or dramas, he became convinced that there was someone behind his parents’ death.

Solidifying that thought, he gritted his teeth even more and focused on his studies.

He needed power to solve the secret of their deaths.

His excellent middle school grades provided him with an opportunity to enter Cheonghwa High School without difficulty.

It was a result he obtained by clinging to the principal who had tried to stop him.

The principal was worried about his admission as a Sabeja.

He didn’t care.

Living without his parents, he realized that the most sorrowful thing was a life without money or connections.

Cheonghwa High School, which is like a playground for the children of the wealthy.

He wanted to enter somehow, build friendships with them, and use them as a ladder.

But reality was not easy.

It was a naive and stupid choice.

Sabeja…….

They were just the untouchable caste within Cheonghwa High School.

He was actually treated that way.

To them, who grew up without lacking anything, a Sabeja was like smelly sewage.

Academic grades were the same.

Although he was from a middle school in the Gangnam district, the actual gap was huge.

Even if he studied without rest, he couldn’t keep up.

There was something like an invisible tempered glass wall.

Park Ji-woong has been conflicted a lot lately.

Is there a need to remain at Cheonghwa until the end while being treated like this?

Is it worth the time of a few years?

He reached the point of blaming his own stupidity for trying to build connections to borrow power.

“Don’t be conflicted.”

“……??”

It was what Ha Tae-woong, who was sitting in front of him, said.

He looked at Park Ji-woong with a mouthful of bulgogi picked up with chopsticks.

“Your state is exactly like half-and-half chicken.”

“W-what did you say?”

“Why, are you going to quit school?”

“…….”

Crunch.

Ha Tae-woong, who stuffs the bulgogi into his mouth in one go and chews it so deliciously.

Park Ji-woong, who had no appetite, also ate the bulgogi deliciously, making his mouth water.

Even after stuffing a large bite in, he doesn’t look greedy at all.

Gulp.

He chewed and swallowed the food in his mouth in an instant.

He didn’t stop using his chopsticks.

Next, he picked up a lot of sweet and spicy stir-fried pork.

He looks like he could film a mukbang.

“There’s one year left until the CSAT. If you give up here, your parents will be sad.”

“……!!”

Ha Tae-woong, who is genuinely moved while closing his eyes and savoring the taste of the food.

What is this bastard saying?

Rumors spread widely throughout the school from the morning.

Sabeja Ha Tae-woong stomped on Oh Gwang-jun who was playing bully!

That sound was welcome.

On the other hand, he thought it was stupid.

If he could have been subdued by force, Park Ji-woong would have stepped up long ago.

He had been building basic physical strength since he was young, learning Taekwondo from his detective dad.

His father’s training, who was also a master of various martial arts, was very strict.

His well-built body is also his father’s genes.

He could easily deal with the guys from the physical education department.

But the reason he didn’t step up rashly was clear.

True power doesn’t come from fists.

It comes from pens.

Anyone with a basic brain knows that much.

As if he didn’t know that fact, the stupid Ha Tae-woong used his fists.

He had endured for a long time until this morning.

Ha Tae-woong, who must have been ignored just as much as him all this time.

Ha Tae-woong’s life is over because of today’s incident.

“Do you feel sorry for me?”

“…….”

What is this, mind reading?

Ha Tae-woong, who snatched Park Ji-woong’s inner thoughts as if he were performing mind reading.

For a moment, he lowered his eyes because of the burden.

“You should try it too. It’s f*cking satisfying.”

Ha Tae-woong acts like an elementary school student.

“Get lost.”

Park Ji-woong spat out one word while glaring with his eyes.

“Is that Ha Tae-woong?”

“Did a Sabeja throw a punch without being scared?”

“Oh Gwang-jun’s dad is a chief prosecutor at the Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office, right?”

“He didn’t know his place…….”

“Birds of a feather flock together.”

Regardless of the grade, they whispered while looking at the two people.

The rumor spread at a rapid pace in half a day to the point where hundreds of students knew about it.

It was that big of an issue.

The main culprit of the incident is sitting in front of Park Ji-woong right now.

“Scared?”

“…….”

Ha Tae-woong asks back with a smirk.

“I don’t have time to run my mouth with you, so get out of my face!”

Park Ji-woong’s eyes were burning.

If it was a joke…….

Strength also went into his fists.

At that moment.

Stomp, stomp.

Rustle, rustle.

Shadows approaching behind Park Ji-woong.

The school uniform skirt, folded at the waist band and pulled up short, stands out.

They are the three representative female students who don’t care even though the school cracks down on it.

“Even if it’s one meal a day, isn’t it too much to shovel it in just because it’s free?”

The female student who raised her eyes sharply at him sneered.

It looked like an approach to pick a fight with Park Ji-woong from the beginning.

“Seo-ra, let it go. My dad says people like this have holes in their stomachs.”

“Even if it’s school lunch that doesn’t taste good, it’s good to use it up like this, right?”

“Even so, our bear cub is eating too much. If this is left over, it goes out as animal feed, what if they get hungry because there’s less for them to eat~”

“Still, the bear cub raised at school comes first.”

“Then, shall we let it slide?”

“Kind Seo-ra, hold it in. Animal welfare. They have the right to survive on their own, right.”

“Alright, I’m being generous today. Eat up, Sabeja oink oink. Hohohohot.”

Grind.

Park Ji-woong, who clenched his fists with his head bowed.

He gritted his teeth until his jaw trembled.

It was a humiliation that was hard to endure every time, but he had to hold it in.

Oh Seo-ra, a classmate who provokes Park Ji-woong whenever it’s lunch time.

The unauthorized house in Guryong Village where he lives with his grandmother.

She is the daughter of the landowner of that house.

She is being even more hysterical ahead of the midterm exams.

Park Ji-woong, who always has better grades than Oh Seo-ra.

Oh Seo-ra’s attitude, as if treating a modern-day slave, was always the same.

But today.

“Oh~! What a bountiful harvest of bullshit you all are~”