Novelist Running Through Time - Chapter 98

TL: KSD

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?

Naturally, to shine.

Thus, unlike other private schools, the two schools under the Baekhak Art Foundation were not interested in making money.

Why bother attracting small change from kids when there are benefactors ready to pour in huge sums just to elevate the school’s reputation?

Although they weren’t interested in making money, they did have an interest in tax evasion, and the Baekhak Group’s ‘donations’ would occasionally ‘evaporate’ within the intricate administrative system of the Baekhak Art Foundation.

But if even the liquor stored in oak barrels cannot escape evaporation, why would donations be any different? If we compare it to the practice of the liquor industry, It could be seen as a ‘the angels’ share‘.

Thus, the chairman of the Baekhak Art Foundation had a crucial role in enhancing the foundation and schools’ reputation and securing a ‘share’ for the Baek clan’s angels.

The person charged with this significant task is Baek Yi-hyun.

Surprisingly, he is the direct descendant of the Baekhak Group.

Lately, Chairman Baek Yi-hyun has been quite troubled.

“Sigh…”

This is because the National Tax Service has been probing them more frequently these days.

It wasn’t because the employees of the Investigation Bureau of the National Tax Service couldn’t suppress their righteous indignation towards establishing a correct taxation system.

It’s merely the cold blade of the regime that comes periodically as an annual event.

After all, politicians have a disease that makes them uneasy unless they periodically beat up (so-called) honest businessmen, right?

Nevertheless, being threatened with a knife to pay taxes was somewhat familiar, but this time it seemed a bit more dangerous.

After all, the current president had won the election despite being battered with all sorts of negative campaigns by the Baekhak Media Group during his candidacy.

This was all because of the misdeeds of the former chairman in trying to support the opposing candidate. How could he mess up a 50-50 chance?

“Ah, Grandpa, why did you do that…”

Baek Yi-hyun, the chairman with a profound filial piety, lamented over his deceased grandfather’s gacha failure, but the dead had no words.

“Damn it…”

There’s no more room to back down now!

Given the circumstances, Baek Yi-hyun devised a plan to survive the terrifying tax officials from the National Tax Service, who were essentially holding a knife to his throat demanding taxes, by promoting how harmless, remarkable, and ‘kawaii’ the Baekhak Art Foundation was.

The reason why Moon In-seop was summoned to the chairman’s office right after school started had to do with this.

EP 7-Isomer

The long summer break had ended.

As the scorching heat of summer gradually cooled, the school looked quite pretty upon arrival.

But the prettiness was less of natural beauty and more about the well-maintained garden; it felt as though a lot of money had been splurged.

However, that fleeting sense of beauty was soon overwhelmed as soon as the classroom doors opened and the vibrant energy of youth began to sap my strength.

“Hey! In-seop! I saw you on the variety show!”

“I was really surprised!”

“Why did you lie about not being close to Kim Byul noona?”

“I read your new work. It was fun.”

“Phew… Did you hit the bestseller list again? Stop it already. Everyone’s gonna want to come to our school’s literature department…”

“Hahaha! Stop bothering In-seop!”

“I like it though. Hey, In-seop, why didn’t you contact me during the vacation? There was So-hee’s birthday party.”

“In-seop~ do you remember my name? Tell me!”

“Ah, stop bothering In-seop-chan! I’ll protect In-seop! Everyone, back off!”

“Bullshit. Moron.”

“Hey, did you get an autograph from actor Bae Seong-won?”

“Oh right! This guy – he’s really good at fishing! How did you do that?”

“Hi In-seop! Did you have a good vacation?”

“Uh, umm…”

Upon entering the second year classroom of the Literature Department, I exchanged greetings with classmates whose faces had become familiar, and even with Gu Yu-na, who was glaring at me with the eyes of a raptor eyeing its prey. Just then, the homeroom teacher urgently called me.

It was something unexpected.

“The chairman is looking for me?”

“Y-yes!”

As evident from the homeroom teacher’s appearance, who couldn’t escape from the oppressive aura of the terrifying modernized hanbok-wearing madman Park Chang-woon and volunteered to be his faithful subordinate, the order at Baekhak Arts Middle School was a bit different from the school order I knew.

To others, the peculiarities of Baekhak Arts Middle School, a private school, might not be apparent, but as someone experiencing my second stint at school, its unique private school traits were blatantly obvious.

First, the teachers possessed a corporate rather than a civil servant mindset. While public school teachers would smile outwardly but bury issues behind the scenes, private school teachers openly said, ‘So what,’ ‘That’s usual,’ and ‘Not my business.’

Unlike public teachers constrained by complex educational administrative laws, private school teachers only had to look good to those who paid their salaries.

And the priority was on ‘performance’ rather than ‘stability.’

Unlike public schools that strive to prevent conflicts among students and maintain a peaceful classroom, here it was not unusual to single out one and harshly discipline them to keep the others in line.

Rather than endlessly shouting “Stop school violence! Follow the school rules! Be a well-behaved child!” it was about controlling the kids through draconian measures, like making an example by metaphorically ‘hanging one’s head on a pike.’

Of course, the more moderate teachers didn’t literally bloody their hands, but they didn’t go out of their way to look after students who were poor or unable to concentrate either.

Naturally, the scapegoat would always be a rebellious but poor and underperforming student.

It had to be someone who wouldn’t cause backlash.

As you might guess, the opposite was also true. Clear favoritism was shown to those who ‘performed’ well.

That was me.

“Seeing how talented our In-seop is, the chairman himself asked for you. I’ll excuse you from morning classes, so why don’t you go see him?”

Of course, I wasn’t thrilled that a teacher, only a few years older than me, favored me.

What good would doing well in school do for me? Go to a prestigious university? Such things no longer meant anything to me.

I attended this school because it was okay to skip studying to write.

In short, minimize academics. Maximize writing time. That was the purpose of my school life.

So I asked.

“You’re excusing me from all morning classes? Will it take that long?”

“Um… it might…”

Such an exception from morning classes wouldn’t be possible in a public school, but here it was.

In the Literature Department, Park Chang-woon might as well be king, but in private schools, the chairman is a god. His solemn power could twist the curriculum.

His authority did not end with manipulating time; it extended to space as well.

I sighed and asked the teacher,

“…So I should go to the chairman’s house?”

“No, it’s not his residence…”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll go to the training center.”

The chairman lives within the school.

* * *

Thanks to the Baekhak Group’s lavish spending to catch up with tier 1 art schools renowned for their long-standing honor and tradition…

The campuses of Baekhak Arts Middle School and Baekhak Arts High School together were as vast as those of a significant university.

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!”

“What?”

“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.”

“What?”

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?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, welcome. The chairman has been waiting for you.”

“Thank 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.

Knock. Knock.

“Chairman, I have brought the guest.”

“Come in.”

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.”

“Ah, yes.”

“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.”

“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?”

“What?”

“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…!

-Move aside.

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!

“Hey, Yi-hyun!”

“Professor Park?!”

“Why are you taking our department’s kids without a word?!”

Park Chang-woon, the madman in a brown modernized Hanbok, stormed into the chairman’s office.

*****

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