MTLNOVEL Ch. 5
Chapter 5: Inevitable Fate (2)
Where do so many people keep pouring out from?
At 6:30 AM.
At the bus stop, most were students in uniform, but I also saw office workers heading to their jobs.
They sure live their lives with vigor.
“The first day of the new semester—there are so many people.”
Yang Seok‑gu.
I was lucky that my neighborhood friend, who was assigned to the same school and the same class, was here.
To Single High School it took forty minutes by bus.
When I visited on orientation day, I liked the school.
The path from the gate up to the classrooms was steep, but the sports field was wide and the buildings were clean.
Compared to my experiences in my past life, everything here felt hopeless, but I had to get used to it quickly.
“Cheonmyeong, come running when I shout. If we miss it this time, we’ll be late.”
Yang Seok‑gu talked a lot.
He moved to the edge of the sidewalk and stared at the corner where the bus would come around.
I wondered what he was looking at.
“Number 96’s coming!”
At his shout, a swarm of boys sprinted forward.
I’d heard that this bus passes by girls’ high schools and vocational schools, so many boys try to catch it together.
“Cheonmyeong, hurry up!”
Yang Seok‑gu’s shout was swallowed by the crowd.
It wasn’t like zombies were lunging to bite our necks.
But still, I was stunned by the majestic spectacle of a herd rushing toward the bus.
Who was I, and where was this place?
“Kang Cheonmyeong! I told you to come quickly!”
At last, I ran with all the strength I had.
Like vegetables and fruits being sucked into a blender, students and workers poured through the front door of the bus, while the conductor at the back pushed someone.
“Get inside. Come in!”
The conductor had perilla-leaf hair and pinned it with hairpins.
Even that looked astonishing to me.
What was this woman trying to do?
“Get in through the back door!”
To me, it seemed there was no more space left inside.
Just then, the conductor blocked people with her body.
“Catch the next bus!”
At that moment,
the back door opened, and waiting students shoved their way in.
“Hey! You gotta show your ticket to ride!”
Incredible.
Surely the front of the bus was already so full it could’ve vomited people out, but more people still got in through the back.
“Aaaagh!”
“Don’t shove.”
“Oh my! Where are you touching right now?”
It was pandemonium.
The conductor shouted, blocking the entrance with both arms.
“Take the next bus! I can’t fit anymore!”
She shoved off the people hanging at the back door, and Yang Seok‑gu looked at her with a pleading expression.
“Sis, just let the two of us get on.”
“Next bus. Alrighty!”
The conductor hit the side door of the bus, and without closing the back door, the bus started moving. The conductor, hanging onto the side handle, went off into the wind.
I couldn’t help but admire her.
“My goodness!”
“Cheonmyeong, we’ll be late on the first day already. Damn it! What do we do?”
“We’ll be fine if we take the next bus.”
“But we don’t even know when it’ll come, and it might not stop here.”
Yang Seok‑gu’s words were right.
The next bus passed the stop because it was packed, and the one after arrived only ten minutes later.
I missed my past life desperately.
Having a breakfast with more than five dishes and rice, then riding in a chauffeured car to school
—I used to think that routine was tiring.
But now —
Damn it!
This place is a battlefield.
“The bus’s coming. We have to get on no matter what this time!”
This time, there was no conductor.
We ran to the front door and shoved our way on with all our might.
Behind me, Yang Seok‑gu pushed my back with everything he had.
“Cheonmyeong, push inside!”
“Okay.”
“Stop! Get off!”
The bus driver’s threatening words didn’t register.
All I could think about was my burning determination not to be late on the first day.
“We have to get to school too!”
Yang Seok-gu used his brute strength to lift me onto the front steps of the bus.
Screeeech—
As the bus door closed, it caught Yang Seok-gu around the waist.
“Ahhh! Mister! I’m stuck!”
The door opened and closed again, and Yang Seok-gu let out a sigh.
“Felt like my flesh was about to tear off.”
I could barely breathe, like my body had been put in a compactor.
Luckily, when the office workers got off at Yeongdeungpo, the sandwich-like pressure on my body eased.
I held onto the handrail in front of the seat.
“Cheon-myeong, we might actually not be late.”
Yang Seok-gu kept checking his digital watch on his wrist.
But I couldn’t hear a word he said.
The thought of having to go to school like this every day, riding a packed bus without air conditioning even in the summer, was horrifying.
As the bus turned sharply to the left, my body was thrown forward.
My bag, slung over my shoulder, shifted to the side and almost hit the head of a female student sitting in front of me.
“Give me your bag.”
Judging by her uniform, she was from Gyeongbo Girls’ Vocational High.
Neat features and straight black hair.
She was very pretty.
But why was she asking for my bag? It wasn’t even hers.
“Huh?”
“I’ll hold it for you.”
Yang Seok-gu nudged my arm and whispered into my ear.
“Cheon-myeong, she’s cute. Give her your bag and get familiar.”
“Give it here.”
The girl tugged on my bag.
On her chest was a name tag that caught my eye.
Woo Ah-mi.
Her name was as pretty as her face.
And when I noticed her prominently shaped chest, my face flushed.
Why was I like this?
In my past life, I had seen countless women’s bodies and thought I’d be numb to it by now.
I turned my gaze quickly to the left.
In that moment, my bag ended up on her lap.
“Why is your face turning red?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Man, you’re totally a guy.”
It wasn’t intentional.
But my body heated up on its own.
What was this ticklish feeling?
In my past life, every girl was a competitor.
No matter how pretty a student was, she was just someone I had to beat.
So until I left to study abroad, I’d never felt any emotion toward the opposite sex.
‘Damn it, what is this feeling?’
The bus sped along pleasantly.
As students from other schools got off at intervals, the discomfort of being crushed against strangers disappeared.
“We’re gonna be late.”
I didn’t understand why Yang Seok-gu was so anxious.
“It’s not like a few minutes will change anything.”
“Haven’t you heard? If you’re late, you have to run three laps around the field.”
That was news to me.
Just a glance showed the track was over 400 meters.
To run 1,200 meters first thing in the morning?
It was hard to believe — or rather, I didn’t want to believe it.
But Yang Seok-gu’s words were accurate.
As soon as we got off the bus, we ran like crazy.
But just ten meters away, the school gate closed, and we had to do duck walks up the hill along with the other latecomers.
I thought that was the end of it.
“Three laps around the field. First five to finish!”
At the discipline teacher’s command, about a dozen students started sprinting without anyone saying a word.
Carrying heavy bags filled with lunchboxes, we ran around the track.
From behind, senior members of the discipline committee shouted intimidatingly, while the discipline teacher sat on a chair, watching with a pointer stick in hand.
“Damn! What a way to start the first day.”
As we ran the third lap, Yang Seok-gu muttered a curse under his breath.
Either way, only those in the top five would escape this brutal initiation.
I went for a final sprint.
One by one, I overtook the students ahead of me and crossed the finish line in first place.
I was certain now — my physical abilities had fully transferred into Kang Cheon-myeong’s body.
There’s no way I could perform like this just from eating grass.
“Phew.”
My breathing came out in metallic rasps.
Yang Seok-gu came in fourth.
“The first five can go to the classroom, the rest of you come here!”
Before the discipline teacher could change his mind, I ran toward the classroom building.
Yang Seok-gu came panting and stuck to my side.
“What the hell are you? Did you seriously go train at Shaolin Temple over break?”
“Why?”
“The weakling’s turned into Carl Lewis.”
“I practiced martial arts from a Bruce Lee book.”
“Really? So that’s how you beat those guys up? Lend me that book too.”
“Anytime.”
The Bruce Lee book my oldest brother showed me had come in handy.
That excuse usually worked well enough.
Class 1-8.
The classroom was halfway up on the second floor.
More than 60 students per class, with 16 classes total — that meant nearly a thousand first-year students.
When I tried to go in through the front door, Yang Seok-gu stopped me.
“Use the back door. It’s meditation time now.”
Now that he mentioned it, I thought I heard the sound of a daegeum flute. Through the glass, I could see students with their eyes closed.
Yang Seok-gu grumbled.
“Damn. Came late and only the front seats are left.”
The homeroom teacher taught chemistry.
I hadn’t gotten a good impression of him on orientation day. His square face and beady, slit-like eyes gave off a deeply unpleasant vibe.
I sat in the second seat of the second row.
63 students in Class 8.
I wondered if there were no other schools in this neighborhood, but remembering the crowds at the bus stop, it made sense.
After meditation ended, the homeroom teacher walked in.
“Think of this as entering hell. You’ll memorize up to element 100 from the periodic table within a week.”
“Sir, I’m planning to go into liberal arts.”
“You! Get out here!”
A totally unimaginable situation unfolded.
As the male student in the back sheepishly walked forward, the teacher at the podium suddenly slapped him across the face.
And it didn’t end there.
“Get down!”
The teacher completely seized control from the start.
“Looks like I get to warm up from the morning.”
He took off his watch and rolled up his sleeves. Then he pulled a wooden stick out from under the podium.
“What does your dad do?”
“He’s… taking a break right now.”
“Of course! Only the uneducated scum raise kids that become leeches on society!”
Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!
The stick struck his thighs.
Exactly five times.
With full swing, too.
The boy on the ground screamed, his back springing up like a compressed coil.
That was going too far.
No matter how angry he was, calling someone’s parent uneducated trash was crossing a line.
The teacher slammed the stick against the chalkboard, turning the classroom into a scene of terror.
“Get back in!”
The room fell as silent as a ruined city.
“Listen up! Just because you’ve grown a bit doesn’t mean you’re anything. Act up, and I’ll beat the crap out of you. Today’s just a taste.”
This was a taste?
Did that mean the real thing would be dozens of hits?
The teacher looked at a boy sitting in the middle.
“Oh Man-seok! You, come with me.”
“Yes.”
The teacher walked out, followed by a large, rough-looking male student.
It was a moment of shock and confusion.
All that violence from just one sentence about choosing liberal arts.
Come to think of it, I remembered getting hit by teachers in middle school too. But never for something so absurd.
Of course, as Kang Cheon-myeong — no, as me — I had been a top student, so there weren’t many chances to get hit.
“Shit, we got stuck with a rabid dog. Things are gonna be hell.”
Following Yang Seok-gu’s words came another voice.
“What if Oh Man-seok becomes class president? That damn gorilla used to beat the crap out of kids when he was class prez in middle school.”
“Fuck, seriously! A rabid dog and a gorilla? We’re screwed.”
I didn’t even realize how the rest of the class passed, still in shock.
From 8 a.m., we had eight periods of class.
Fifty-minute classes, ten-minute breaks.
By the time homeroom ended, it was past 5 p.m.
And starting next week, we’d have extra classes and self-study until 10:30 p.m.
Of course, that wasn’t hard for me.
At the high school I went to in my past life, we had ten periods a day, private tutoring every day, and studied until 2 a.m.
Three-hours-pass, four-hours-fail.
I firmly believed the saying that sleeping three hours gets you into college, and four hours makes you fail.
But now, extra classes right after admission?
What have we even learned yet?
Seriously, I just don’t get it.