DMH Ch1

Sometimes, you have days that are just terribly unlucky. Like when you’re sure you turned off your alarm and got up, but you open your eyes again to find thirty minutes have flown by, or when you trust that the bus, which usually arrives at the exact same time like clockwork, will be on schedule, only to have it arrive five minutes early and be standing across the crosswalk. In those moments, you can only stare dumbly as the bus drives away. But even these examples don’t quite deserve the modifier “terrible.” Because they happen often enough.

Park Wan grew up without much, but he never thought his life was tragic, ill-fated, or full of dramatic ups and downs. His values were such that he preferred to quickly give up on what he couldn’t have, as it was easier on his mind. He stared blankly at the green local bus that had arrived and left five minutes earlier than usual. If he was late today, his perfect attendance award, which he had never missed, would fly away like a bird. The perfect attendance award was something he naturally received without much effort in elementary and middle school. He was sure to get it in high school too, which he would be graduating from in a few months. He couldn’t let a simple case of oversleeping cost him the victory so close to the finish line. He decided to take a taxi, even though it would cost him a fortune.

As expected, money didn’t betray him. Wan passed through the front gate just in the nick of time. As soon as he sat down at his desk, he heard the class president announce that the scores for the performance assessment were out, and he headed to the green bulletin board next to the blackboard. He was a meticulous model student who did his best within the given limits, thoroughly preparing and reviewing his lessons.

Wan wasn’t afraid of the upcoming midterm exams. What he feared was the national mock exam. The national mock exam was called the temporary score for the college entrance exam. Outside the window, a cicada screamed its lungs out in the large zelkova tree. The day was terribly humid. He flapped his loose school uniform in the stuffy air. Even though the last day of summer had passed, the sun in the sky beat down as if it would steal all the moisture from the earth.

Wan walked through the noisy classroom back to his seat. Wan’s seat was right next to the window. He pulled the old, light green curtains all the way shut over the window, which let in so much sunlight that his eyes ached. The curtains, which he doubted had ever been washed, released a cloud of dust whenever the wind blew from outside or when he pulled them too hard. He carelessly put his hand, which had been touching the curtains, on the windowsill, then quickly pulled it back in surprise. The old metal of the windowsill was hot.

In the mock exam last July, a minor mistake had led to a wrong answer. Park Wan’s goal for the October mock exam was to carefully read the questions and avoid making careless mistakes that led to wrong answers. He imagined the letter grade “A” stamped in red on his future mock exam report card. It hadn’t happened yet, but imagining the future that would soon come brought a smile to his face.

Sometimes, just imagining things was enough to bring comfort. Last night, he hadn’t been able to reach his target amount of studying due to the tropical night. He couldn’t let his condition be swayed by something as trivial as the weather. From now on, it was a battle of condition. Once the weather cooled down, studying would be easier than it was now.

Wan reached into his desk drawer and rummaged around. Inside the drawer, he found a small, 1,000-won portable fan he had bought at the school store. He opened the lanyard of the small fan and hung it around his neck. This old school of his wouldn’t even turn on the air conditioning properly. Until school ended, the portable fan was solely responsible for cooling the sweat on Wan’s forehead.

Time passed aimlessly, and it was finally lunchtime. A fierce rain pounded the asphalt, aggressively pouring down. The students running to the cafeteria all took off their summer uniforms and wore them over their heads like umbrellas. Wan, who ate lunch alone, leaned against the window in the hallway, resting his chin on his hand and enjoying the rainy scenery outside. He had an extra yogurt in his pocket, a service provided by the nutritionist. The dirt in the schoolyard, which had been dry and dusty, was soaked with raindrops. Watching the muddy dirt, Wan recalled the weather forecast he had heard on the taxi radio that morning. It had clearly said that the high would be 33 degrees Celsius and that there would only be bright sunshine.

“I don’t have an umbrella.”

There was no way he had a spare umbrella in his school locker. Today was definitely an unlucky day. As lunchtime was coming to an end, he watched the rain gradually subside and sucked on the opening of his yogurt. Behind him, it was as noisy as ever. It was hard to tell whether it was the hallway or the classroom. It was hard to believe that this was the space where high school seniors preparing for the college entrance exam spent their time.

Wan’s school life could be summed up in two words: “all alone.” He went to school alone, did his homework alone, gave presentations alone, ate lunch alone, studied alone in the evening, and went home alone. Once, a teacher who had been Wan’s homeroom teacher asked him,

“I’ve never heard Wan mention the name of a close friend.”

He might have thought he was fulfilling his role as a diligent homeroom teacher asking about grades in a natural way. But there was no way Wan couldn’t have noticed the faint nosiness and bewilderment in the teacher’s voice.

Wan, who was drinking his yogurt, looked with disdain at the students running around the hallway like wild horses. They were people he would naturally lose contact with after graduation anyway. He couldn’t understand why he should make friends when he wouldn’t even keep in touch with half of the people he was close to now. He could make plenty of friends in college.

There were activities at school that required him to be in pairs – for example, buddy dodgeball, where you hold hands with a close friend, or creating and presenting a skit in pairs during English class – but these inconveniences were quickly forgotten after 50 minutes. Maybe they whispered about Wan sitting alone without a partner during those times, but they wouldn’t even remember it during break time.

Wan took out his old MP3 player from his pocket. It was a hand-me-down that the eldest son of a colleague who worked with his father used to use. He unwound the tangled earphone cord and plugged it into his ears. He turned the wheel of the old-fashioned MP3 player and selected a song. Soon, music flowed from the earphones as if he were in another world. A cool rainstorm rushed in through the open window. Rainwater collected on the old windowsill, and dirty water swirled around.

After listening to about three songs, he heard the faint sound of the school bell cutting through the music. As if to bless the class time, the rainstorm stopped. The sun, which had been asleep, reappeared and quickly dried the puddles on the ground. Wan’s nape, which had been cool and refreshed, gradually became hot again. The air conditioner, which hadn’t been turned on even once since morning, was concluded to be broken. The classroom had to share the breeze from only four rotating fans among 40 people until the end of class. The air conditioner wouldn’t be turned on until the end of class. Occasionally, teachers who were below common sense would even forbid fanning, simply because they thought the students weren’t concentrating properly in their class. In the summer, the weather made people’s nerves extremely sensitive.

Bzz. It was literature class, and a student was reciting a classical poem. Wan’s pants vibrated. He quickly bent over. Fortunately, no one seemed to have heard the vibration, as no one was looking back. Bzz. Another text message arrived. Wan pressed his palm firmly against his pants pocket. The vibration sound was muffled as it was buried in his flesh.

“That’s all for today.”

The bell rang before they could interpret the classical poem. Sighs of boredom erupted from all over. The literature teacher put down his chalk and walked out the front door. The students who had been doing stretches in preparation to run out into the hallway before the break bell rang stretched and moved. After lunchtime, many students slept after eating, so it was less noisy than the lively morning hours.

Finally, the time had come to study quietly on his own. Wan, with a frustrated look on his face, read the text message from the person who was obviously the culprit. His hunch was right. He briefly skimmed the text message from his father and closed the phone. The paint on the phone’s cover was peeling off in places, creating a pattern like a piebald dog. Like the MP3 player, it was old-fashioned. It was a luxury for Wan to film movie-like videos, take notes, and watch missed dramas or webtoons while commuting on public transportation with the latest cell phone like the other kids in his class. He slipped the phone into his pocket and stood up.

The faculty office always smelled strongly of coffee whenever he entered. The young homeroom teacher, who was experiencing his first year as a high school senior teacher, was clueless and naive. That’s why he felt sorry for deceiving him. It made him feel guilty.

“I’m just going to lie down for an hour.”

“Condition is the most important thing for a student preparing for the college entrance exam.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t overdo it in this hot weather.”

The effect was wearing off, but this was the only excuse he could make, no matter what. Wan felt rewarded for his consistent diligence whenever the teachers were fooled by his simple lies. He headed straight to the nurse’s office in the corner of the first floor. With the boisterous noise from the floor above as background music, Wan carefully opened the door to the nurse’s office. The corner of the rarely visited nurse’s office on the first floor, which was supposed to be the school’s hospital, had a unique smell of disinfectant.

“Hello.”

“Oh – hello.”

The school nurse, who was wearing a white coat, smiled warmly. Wan handed him a small piece of paper as he put the boxes he had been organizing into the shelves. The school nurse took the paper familiarly and said,

“I have a sex education class to teach in the first-grade classroom, so can you be here alone?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Close the curtains and get some rest. You look like you’ve lost some weight lately.”

As if representing Wan’s feelings, the school bell rang to signal the end of break time.

“Then I have to go.”

The school nurse hugged the materials he had prepared in advance and stuffed a few writing utensils into his pocket. Wan greeted the departing school nurse with a nonchalant greeting.

“Goodbye.”

“Okay. If you want to drink tea, you can make some green tea.”

“Yes.”

As soon as the rectangular door closed, Wan waited for about a minute and reopened the door that the school nurse had left through. He had to do what his father had asked him to do within an hour and greet the school nurse, who would come down during break time, with a blank expression on his face as he lay on the bed designated by the school nurse.

As soon as Wan got off the bus, he sprinted to his father’s workplace. The sun chased him like a shadow as he ran. Even though he wasn’t wearing anything under his school uniform shirt, he felt as hot as if he were wearing layers of clothes. Wan slowed down, flapping his summer uniform, which was soaked with sweat. He wished there was a breeze, but the fluttering wind felt hot.

There was only one house on this street. It was a huge mansion that was almost embarrassing to call a house. After passing through the first main gate, there was another gate similar to the first one, but smaller. Wan showed the text message from his father to the guards standing at the huge gate, which looked like the entrance to a theme park. They opened the entrance with familiar faces. As the huge gate opened, he saw a mansion of a scale that made his eyes widen in amazement, but it was familiar to Wan. The magnificence and majesty of this mansion were so grand that even the White House in the United States couldn’t compare.

Walking on two legs instead of driving made the time fly by. Now he had to finish everything in thirty minutes. He thought his father wasn’t doing it these days, but he was getting lazy again. His old habits were starting to show. It was dereliction of duty to leave his work to his son.

“It’s been a while.”

The central fountain of the mansion, which he hadn’t visited in a while, was full of water. There were fountains in each of the four directions, east, west, south, and north, with the central fountain as the starting point. But the fountain in the center of the garden was the most extravagant. He looked at the water shooting up into the sky and headed to his father’s workplace. Even listening to the sound of the water flowing from the fountain didn’t make him feel any cooler.