Honbul: Flame of the Soul

Screeeech—!

A car took a sharp turn in front of the school gate. The blacked-out vehicle cut straight across the middle of the field, its tires carving a long arc through the dirt and kicking up dust. At the racket, not only the teachers in the middle of class but the students of Daeryung High as well all leaned out the windows.

“You brats, sit down!”

The teacher barked, and the students buzzed louder.

“Sir, somebody drove onto the field.”

“Huh? Isn’t that a van?”

The van came to a stop right in front of the main building. If it had gone even a little farther, it would have slammed into it. While the students murmured in confusion, the driver’s door flew open and someone stepped out.

A celebrity came leaping out of the driver’s seat with a face gone completely white.

“Hey, hey! Isn’t that— isn’t that Jeongju?”

“No way. I think it really is Jeongju.”

“I saw him on TV yesterday! He looks exactly the same!”

“Woooah—!”

In an instant, a thunderous cheer erupted across the entire school. Students in every classroom leaned half their bodies out the windows and screamed. Even the teachers were more interested in peering toward the field with twitching smiles than stopping them. Turn on a TV these days, and there was Jeongju’s face.

You’re insanely handsome, hyung! Come up here and sign something! I’m your fan! Wave just once!

A celebrity had appeared in a small provincial city, and not even at some prestigious academy—just an unremarkable boys’ high school. The reaction of the boys who recognized Jeongju on sight was explosive. Leaving behind a roar worthy of a concert hall, Jeongju hurried into the main building with his hair flying.

Whenever he was out in public, Jeongju wore sunglasses without fail.

But today he had not had time for that.

He yanked open the Faculty Office door as though he meant to rip the handle off.

The solemn air inside shattered all at once. Teachers who had been staring at monitors or flipping through textbooks all turned toward the entrance. Jeongju, having stormed in with no trace of composure, looked around the room with a strained expression. In that brief moment, a few teachers who recognized him shoved back their chairs and sprang to their feet.

“Wh-what—!?”

Mr. Choi, who sat near the door, clapped a hand over his mouth. He was famous even within the Faculty Office for being an ardent Jeongju fan. Gasping for breath, he pointed at him with a trembling finger.

It was the kind of pointing people did when they were too shocked to believe what they were seeing.

The entire office stirred. In the midst of the collective gasp and astonishment, the vice principal of Daeryung High approached Jeongju with a blank, dazed look.

“W-well, if it isn’t... What brings you here...?”

Jeongju first tried to smooth down his sweat-damp bangs and recover his composure. Then, without another word, he bowed first.

He was trying hard to control his ragged breathing. His back rose and fell before he had even straightened up. When he answered, his voice trembled very slightly.

“How do you do. I’m the uncle of Kim Jaegyeom from Class 2-3.”

Mr. Choi’s legs gave out at last, and he sank straight to the floor.

The vice principal looked thoroughly flustered as well. No one had been informed in advance that the transfer student, Kim Jaegyeom, was related to a working celebrity. After standing there stunned for a moment, the vice principal hurriedly pulled himself together and replied with forced dignity, “Ha, ha, I had no idea.”

After exchanging a few polite words with Jeongju, he led him straight toward the back of the Faculty Office. There was a small reception room there.

The first thing Jeongju saw the moment he stepped inside was Jaegyeom, sitting there with a sullen face.

“J-Jaegyeom!”

With his face drained of color, Jeongju bolted toward him like a stroke of lightning.

“Jaegyeom, what on earth—how badly did they hit you?!”

Before Jaegyeom could even answer, Jeongju cupped both of his cheeks in his hands. He lifted his face this way and that to inspect him. They had said it was a fistfight, and already there was dried blood crusted on his lip and a bluish bruise rising along his cheekbone.

And as if that were not enough—

“What happened to your hair? Don’t tell me they grabbed you by it too?”

A strange silence fell over the reception room.

Ms. Seo, who had been sitting next to Jaegyeom, stared with her mouth slightly open. But Jeongju seemed utterly incapable of seeing anything except Jaegyeom.

“Y-you came.”

Jaegyeom slipped Jeongju’s hands off his face and glanced around at the others.

“How hard did they yank at you for your hair to look like mice chewed through it, huh? Jaegyeom!”

Jeongju looked ready to burst into tears. He must have been badly shaken; even his hands were trembling. After a brief silence, Jaegyeom clenched his teeth and answered in an even voice.

“My hair... I cut it. Myself. Uncle.”

The way he said it, he already looked tired.

Breathing hard, Jeongju looked all over the top of Jaegyeom’s head. Then his face crumpled at once. At last he grabbed Jaegyeom by the shoulders and began shaking him.

“Jaegyeom. It’s all right to tell the truth. You’re only saying that because you don’t want me to worry, aren’t you? Right. I know exactly how you feel. But Jaegyeom, this is exactly when we have to sort out who did what properly. They grabbed you by the hair, didn’t they?”

No, they didn’t...

Jaegyeom barely managed to swallow the stream of curses rising from his core. So he was shooting a movie these days, was he? Apparently he was filming one here too.

Under Jeongju’s grip, his whole body flapped limply like a sheet of paper. Just as Jaegyeom, unable to take it anymore, secretly prepared to kick him in the shin—

“E-excuse me, but... are you really Jaegyeom’s uncle?”

Ms. Seo, who had sat frozen for a time, finally moved to get the situation under control. Only then did Jeongju look around and bow hurriedly.

There were three other people in the room besides Jaegyeom: Ms. Seo, the homeroom teacher; the dean of discipline; and a middle-aged man with a harsh, intimidating face. The man had been glaring at Jeongju with bulging eyes from the start. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

“Ah, yes. I’m sorry. My greetings are late.”

“Could you possibly be... the one from television...?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Ms. Seo looked stunned. Even while they were on the phone, she had never imagined anything like this. For a moment she had wondered whether he might simply be someone who looked unbelievably similar, but it was a pointless thought. Even at a glance, the cut of his clothes was different from an ordinary person’s. In all her years as a teacher, it was the first time she had called in a guardian and had a celebrity come running.

Having finally introduced himself, Jeongju composed himself and spoke.

“The boy who fought with my nephew...”

“You’re saying you’re that kid’s uncle?”

At that moment, the middle-aged man seated at one side of the table shot to his feet.

As a first thing to say to someone he had never met, it was both aggressive and rude. The moment he opened his mouth, the atmosphere turned cold. Ms. Seo glanced at him awkwardly.

“Listen here, teacher. I told you to bring the parents. Is this a joke?”

“Mr. Juyeol’s father, please calm down first—”

The man slammed his hand down on the table hard enough to make it bang.

It sounded like a heavy starting gun announcing the beginning of a war.

The dean of discipline, seated beside him, tried to restrain him with an air of forced civility and get him back into his seat. But the ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ man, already worked into a fury, violently shook his hand off.

“Mr. Juyeol’s father, that student’s parents are currently out of the country for unavoidable reasons, so his uncle had to come in their place—”

“Then tell them to get on a plane and get back here! What does that have to do with me?”

Jeongju had just been about to step into the conversation.

“Oh, I was wondering what kind of grand family this was! So you’re one of those people who make a living selling your face? You think because you’re famous that changes something? If anything, that means you should’ve raised the brat properly!”

“Mr. Juyeol’s father!”

At the man’s abuse, the dean of discipline raised his voice sharply to stop him. He understood the man’s feelings, but this had gone too far. At this rate all it would do was scrape both sides raw.

Unfortunately, Jeongju’s face had already hardened.

He stared at the man with fierce eyes.

“What did you just say?”

Jeongju took a step toward him.

“Who exactly are you calling a brat?”

“Ha! If the brat’s a brat, what else am I supposed to call him? The nerve on you people is unbelievable!”

The man shouted. If no one stopped him, he looked ready to grab Jeongju by the collar. Sensing the danger in the room, Ms. Seo and the dean of discipline both seized his arms and began telling him to stop.

“So this is why people say you can’t trust these powder-faced types. What a joke. Ha! You better consider your life finished. Go ahead and keep walking around with that pretty face of yours. I’ll plaster it all over the internet, just you—”

While the four adults turned red-faced and tangled together in an ugly shouting match, the boy who was both the youngest person in the room and, in another sense, the oldest watched it all with a dull expression.

“Take a look at our child’s face. Does that even look like a person’s face to you?”

Jaegyeom, who had been propping his chin on one hand and idly picking at the dried blood on his lip, lifted his eyes.

Jeongju, overcome with emotion, was pointing at him with an outstretched hand.

At the same time, the eyes of the other three swung toward him as one.

“......”

After blankly receiving all of their stares, Jaegyeom slowly turned his head away.

“If they fought hard enough to leave him hurt like that, shouldn’t you apologize first?”

His emotions surging, Jeongju began protesting in a voice that sounded almost pleading.

“I know children fight, but how could anyone leave a person looking like this? And in front of him, saying things like brat and talking about upbringing—how can you say that? Where is Juyeol, anyway? After beating him up like that?”

The man slapped the table twice and gave a sneering laugh.

“A children’s fight? A children’s fight! Oh, that’s rich.”

The laughter vanished from his face.

Then Lee Juyeol’s father choked up.

“My son got taken to the hospital from that children’s fight!”