I,A Gangster, Became a High School Student

“It’s not that you don’t remember, it’s that you didn’t go through it. You’re acting like you’re not even minimally traumatized, like you’re a different person.”

Someone else. Se-kyung had this suspicion partly because Kim Deuk-pal’s behavior was awkward for a teenager, but also because of human nature’s constancy he had learned firsthand. People don’t change. Se-kyung had absolute faith in this.

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“I tried to be an honest person so I wouldn’t disappoint my father. I tried to be innocent, to be an example for others. But it didn’t work. I thought I was doing well, but I was pretending to be so.”

Despite all the indoctrination and compulsion, he never lost the cruelty that made him want to twist someone’s wrist if they touched what belonged to her. Education may have taught him that his sadistic obsession was wrong, but it didn’t eradicate it.

“People don’t change. They can be taught, and they can act the way they’re taught, but they don’t change their nature. When cornered, they lash out.”

This created an urgent and embarrassing situation to corner Song Yi-heon. For the original Song Yi-heon, being alone with Hong Jae Min was an emergency situation. Telling him he was dating Se Kyung was embarrassing. He purposely left Song Yi-heon alone with Hong Jae Min instead of grabbing him in the auditorium. He introduced him as his boyfriend to the girls. However, in both situations, Kim Deuk Pal reacted exactly the opposite of how the original Song Yi-Heon would have reacted.

He beat up Hong Jae-min’s group with gestures he hadn’t mastered in two months, and casually grabbed Se-kyung’s throat. There was no hesitation or remorse. This was something Song Yi-heon, who had been too shy to make eye contact with Se-kyung for two years, would never have done.

This convinced Se-kyung that the person claiming to be Song Yi-heon at school was a third person.

Usually, Song Yi-heon wore a mask, so his face wouldn’t be a problem, and there were plenty of people with similar physiques. He concluded that if he could find someone with a similar build and fair face, they could impersonate Song Yi-heon.

“Where’s the real Song Yi-heon?”

Somewhere in his friendly tone, there was a hint of repression. His dilated black pupils sank into the ocean’s black depths, giving Kim Deuk-pal the suffocating drowning sensation.

Shoot-. Leaves swayed in the breeze.

“…….”

Se-kyung’s eyes fluttered as Kim Deuk-pal remained silent. He wiped his tongue across his parched lips and bit down hard.

“You didn’t… kill him?”

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Se-kyung knew Song Yi-heon ran barefoot on a rainy day. He wondered if he’d been kidnapped by a bongo truck and his organs stolen, or if he’d been sold overseas, as was common urban legend. The hand that gripped both of his shoulders grew stronger.

What kind of power…. Kim Deuk-pal gritted his teeth to resist the grip on his upper arm. The difference in strength from the difference in physique was enormous.

Instead of resisting aggressively, Deuk-pal wrapped his arms around Se-kyung’s wrists. He pulled his chin in, glared at him and squeezed her with such force that her hands trembled. Se Kyung yelled and released her grip. He wrapped his free hand around her red wrist marks.

Rising to his feet, Kim Deuk-pal confirmed Se-kyung’s suspicions with a locked neck.

“…Cut the crap and start writing your novel.”

This was the second time his identity had been questioned, so his response was calmer than the first time, but Se-kyung didn’t back down.

“Tell me. Where did you put Song Yi-heon?”

“I’m Song Yi-heon. Are you saying that if I can’t change, I’ll have to be beaten up for the rest of my life?”

“That’s not what I meant. We should have at least some common ground, and you’re acting like a completely different person!”

“Stop picking on people and take a genetic test, you suspicious bit of shithead.”

With a disillusioned glare, Kim Deuk-pal grabbed him by the back of his head and threw Sr-kyung roughly. His short hair sailed through the air and landed on Se-kyung’s lap. What happened next was even more bizarre.

“Heh, isn’t this a total asshole?”

Dumbfounded, the words came out just as he thought. Choi Se-kyung bent down from his seat to pick up a strand of hair that had fallen to her knees and onto the floor. As he watched the dark head duck between his spread legs, he gasped “Heh, heh,” and walked away, leaving Se-kyung behind.

As he moved away from the bench, his barely steady strides turned into an urgent trot, and then a run.

Kim Deuk-pal pressed his palm to his left breast. His heart thumped in surprise.

Many people felt that Song Yi-heon had changed, but Choi Se-kyung was the only one who could find the ‘original Song Yiheon’.

* * *

The cafeteria was packed with students, just as he thought it would be for dinner. After pushing his way through the zombie-like throng of students at the checkout counter, Kim dusted off his shoulders and looked back at the crowd.

“Madam do you have sausage buns?”

With dinner time just around the corner, the students were impatient, waving their tightly folded cash and shouting out the names of the food items they wanted. The frenzy was almost as intense as the casino betting sessions that made my stomach turn.

“Phew, look at the people…. It’s crazy.”

Tired of the teenagers’ persistence, he shook his head and left the concession stand. He tore open the pizza bread and milk he had saved. Unaware that he could microwave it and eat it hot, he bit into the stiff crust and gulped.

The cheap tomato sauce, perhaps due to his teenage body, was flavorful and delicious. After admiring the bread and milk, he ran out of money quickly. Kim Deuk-pal regrettably folded the scab into an empty envelope.

This, too, was affected by his changed body, and he felt hungry when he turned around. He felt like a beggar in his stomach, and even after clearing his plate of high-priced rice for dinner, he was still hungry for bread and milk.

He would have to buy more during his palm break. Soothing his disappointment with the promise of the future, he packed his bag and headed for the study hall.

Third-graders who signed up for nighttime self-study gathered in the visitation room, a classroom large enough to hold an entire grade.

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In keeping with the purpose of the school providing the space for third-year students, whose SATs are less than a year away, the room was quiet with students studying from the evening hours. In particular, until yesterday, the second day of the semester, it was quiet after three days of studying. However, for some reason today, the hallway was noisy from the beginning.

He could hear the voices of the girls he ate dinner with, and he listened closely. When he entered the study hall, the first girls greeted him.

“Yi-heon, are you home?”

“What it is?”

Kim Deuk-pal set his bag down on his seat and jerked his chin. Surrounded by girls from his class, Se-kyung couldn’t help but smile despite his cold, wind-blown demeanor. She gathered Song Yiheon’s hair and folded it into a handkerchief, pretending she hadn’t forgotten about the lunchtime incident.

“Se-kyung is also doing palm from today.”

“Se-kyung, your work, you didn’t do palms in this grade.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to try it under supervision.

Without looking at Se-kyung, who was acting docile, Kim Deuk-pal observed the girls who had changed. They were all wearing light makeup, which was a departure from dinner. It was different from yesterday, when they casually took out their gym clothes and changed. The only thing different was Choi Se-kyung’s presence, but the girls seemed excited.

“But you’re going to study, so why are your lips chapped?”

Kim Deuk-pal asked his long-term best friend, Kim Yeon-ji, and while the other girls stifled their laughter, Kim Yeon-ji opened her axe eyes and stepped on Song Yi-heon’s foot. She apologized, tears welling up in her eyes from the pain of her slipper-clad feet being stomped on. She wasn’t sure, but it looks like she’d made a mistake.

“Uh…, I don’t know what, but I’m sorry.”

But Kim Yeon-ji’s throat was still red, she added.

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“I just thought you looked prettiest without it.”

“…Really?”

“Uh, you’re pretty.”

“…Really?”

“You look so happy and gorgeous with your thick nostrils.”

It was a compliment to Kim Deuk-pal, but the girls quickly shut their mouths. Kim Yeon-ji stomped on the ground again with a grunt and walked away to her seat. She was lucky that the palm bell rang then, and she sat down. In the old days, only women of a similar age were difficult, but now, regardless of age, a woman’s inner life is a labyrinth.

“Sit somewhere else.”

But this fox cub wasn’t a woman, so why couldn’t he understand her? Unlike the girls, who scattered to their own seats, Kim Duk-pal shot at Choi Se-kyung, who sat next to him, wondering why the girls were gathered around his seat.

“The homeroom teacher told me to sit here.”

Se-kyung unzipped his bag and took out the test book, even as Deuk-pal awkwardly watched him. When the teacher entered the room, Kim Deuk-pal could no longer shoo him away, and he opened the question book uncomfortably.

Part 1 of Yaja, 80 minutes of silence are over. Kim’s exercise book was clean, but he hadn’t solved a problem. The math was so difficult that he wondered if he had lost to numbers and enemies in a previous life.

At least Kim Deuk-pal had the excuse that he had been hit so many times in fights that his brain cells had died. However, it burned inside him so intensely that even Song Yi-heon’s brain couldn’t solve it.

When the recess bell rang, Se-kyung stretched out next to him, spying on the math problem Song Yi-heon had been working on all night and sneakily spilling the solution.

“You can solve that one using intercepts.”

“Shut up and move.”

But Se-kyung didn’t listen to Kim Deuk-pal. He grabbed the exercise book and pressed the sharp cap to solve the math problems in earnest. Of all the solutions, the easiest one came out at the sharpener end. Deuk-pal raised his eyebrows.

“Are you kidding me?”

Shrugging off the deadly warning, Se-kyung explained the solution with a bass note. The sweet bass solved the problem whether the other person heard it or not, and Kim Duk-pal heard it even if he didn’t want to.

“If we divide the range of alpha into cases greater than zero and cases less than or equal to…….”

Choi Se-kyung solved the math problem she had been struggling with for 80 minutes in three minutes, and it was easier to understand than the answer sheet. When the problem was solved, she felt like a tooth had fallen out. She wanted to ask about another problem, but couldn’t find the words.

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However, Choi Se-kyung, who is very perceptive, saw his tightly closed mouth in Korean and solved the following problem. The more she wrote down in her exercise book, the more the gap between them narrowed. Before long, Deuk-pal was so engrossed that he leaned his upper body toward Se-kyung and listened to the solution shoulder to shoulder.

Suddenly, Sharp stopped moving, and Kim turned his head. As he concentrated, their lips almost touched due to their close proximity. His playful eyes curved into a crescent to tease him.

His lips, which always formed an arc, grazed her fluffy cheek and touched her ear. She whispered in his ear. In a low, sultry voice.

“What’s your real name?”

Kim Deuk-pal, you adorable fox.

“Song Yi-heon.”

For a moment, he was stunned, but Kim Deuk-pal said the name of the body owner, not the spirit’s name.