Iron Fist Education · Conversa

Park Dae-seok pulled out the tattered English vocabulary book from his schoolbag and placed it right in the center of his desk. He moved very slowly, as if wrapping a gift for someone else. Outside the window was the gloomy sky of an April afternoon. From the playground downstairs came the shouts of boys playing soccer, no different from yesterday, the day before, or the past three hundred-plus days. He looked up at the clock on the wall—2:47 PM. There were still thirty-three minutes left before that gang would habitually come to corner him after school. He took a deep breath, pushed his chair under the desk, and turned to walk toward the end of the hallway. His steps were very light, as if he was afraid of alerting anyone. At the same moment, in the hallway of the Municipal Ministry of Education, Lim Han-rim was placing a cup of cold coffee on Na Hwa-jin's desk. The cup made a dull "thud" sound, finally snapping Hwa-jin out of his daze as he stared at the document. "You've been looking over your fiancée's case back and forth for two years now," Han-rim said, leaning against the edge of the desk and tilting her head to look at him. "Can you really find anything new in it?" Hwa-jin didn't reply, closing the folder. The computer screen at the corner of the desk lit up, and Bong Jin-dae's face popped up. The messy bangs on his forehead were in disarray, but the eyes behind his lenses were terrifyingly bright. "Hyung," he lowered his voice, looking as if he was holding back some major news, "a set of data just came in from Daehan High School." "Speak." "There's a kid, Park Dae-seok. He reported to the police two hours ago, saying he was beaten up by his classmates, but the report was suppressed. Then—his dad went to the school to demand an explanation and was dragged out by security. After that, his mom called to complain, and the person who picked up said they 'couldn't handle' it." Jin-dae finished in one breath, paused, and added another line. "Right now, no one knows where that kid is." When Hwa-jin stood up, the legs of his chair scraped against the floor, making a harsh, grating sound. Han-rim had already put on her coat without even having time to button it up. Before grabbing her phone and rushing out, she cast a glance back at Hwa-jin. "Minister Choi asked if we should contact the principal first—" "No need." Hwa-jin stepped around the desk, his right hand already gripping the doorknob. The fluorescent lights in the hallway cast a glow on his profile, making the old scar that stretched from the end of his eyebrow down to his cheekbone look stark white. "If we wait until he jumps to contact them, it'll be too late." The rain had already started falling outside. On the other end of the screen, Jin-dae heard the sound of the door slamming shut. Clicking his tongue, he pulled his keyboard closer and began searching for the access ports of all surveillance cameras at Daehan High School. His fingers tapped the keys twice as fast as usual. And at this very moment, the door to the rooftop of the Daehan High School academic building was being nudged open from the inside, leaving a small crack. <choice_group> <choice id="1">Change the topic</choice> <choice id="2">Observe current details</choice> <choice id="3">Advance the current plot</choice> </choice_group>