Chapter 01 I Made a Wish
February.
The harsh winter had passed, and the season when seedlings sleeping underground began to stretch their limbs had arrived. Depending on the person, some considered February the true start of the new year.
People moved from their beloved homes to new ones, and they visited various places they couldn’t go to during the cold winter.
“February already, huh.”
I, too, was one of those who accepted February as the beginning of a new year.
This wasn’t just a matter of sentiment. In reality, the end and beginning of everything in my life were determined starting from February.
The short spring break after the graduation ceremony on the 14th, before the new freshmen arrived. Except for those preparing for the new year’s work in advance, the school was surprisingly quiet.
How many Februaries has this been now? 5 years? 10 years? Honestly, I don’t remember. I don’t particularly see the need to remember, either.
Being a teacher is fundamentally a very boring job. You always stand in the same place, at the same position, and just repeat the same things.
I vaguely recall hearing on the news a while ago about something called AI classes being pushed forward. I remember the government briefing about it being a revolutionary technology that would replace inefficient school classes, allowing students to freely choose and receive education.
If it were the old me, I would have been dead set against it.
That wasn’t a flimsy self-justification to protect my job as a teacher. It was because I believed that there was something in the space called ‘school’ that could never be conveyed through remote classes.
“Should I quit teaching?”
Everyone who welcomes the new year makes at least one resolution. Chain-smokers resolve to quit cigarettes, or they vow to diet this year and find a spouse. In my case, it was this damned job. This year, I will definitely quit.
But, like all New Year’s resolutions, the probability of achieving that goal is never high. You can see that from the fact that I’m still trapped in the prison called ‘school,’ even though I’ve resolved to quit countless times.
Once the short spring break of February ends and March arrives, my teaching life will start up again, like a squirrel running on a wheel.
So that’s why I came to this distant school during the remaining time. During the semester, the parents who raise hell every day via phone or KakaoTalk also leave me alone during break.
Should I call it a small deviation to relieve the pent-up frustrations, coming to the school of all places?
“Oh, ow.”
Lost in thought, the burning cigarette ember had shrunk all the way down to my fingers. Thinking it was a waste, I pulled out the pack from my pocket to check, but it seemed that was the last one.
Ah, crap. It’s out.
Just as I was about to leave the spot, someone opened the door to the rooftop where I was and came in.
“Oh.”
It was a girl in a school uniform.
What was peculiar was that she was wearing a school uniform different from the one at this school. Which meant she was a student from another school.
She noticed me too, furrowing her brow and showing clear displeasure. This is trivial, but this was the seventh time I had met her.
“Are you a stalker?”
“Did you come to where I am, or did I?”
“You were already where I was heading.”
“They say if a coincidence happens three times, it’s fate. I guess that’s how it is.”
When I retorted, she let out an exasperated sigh, as if she found it absurd. For reference, this was the fifth time we’d had this conversation.
“Give up for today and go home, get some sleep.”
What reason would someone who isn’t even a student here have to visit another school’s rooftop, and not even during the semester? To meet a close friend? To scope out a school they might transfer to later? If that were the case, there’d be no need to come in uniform during the break.
To get straight to the point, the girl in front of me is a suicide hopeful.
I still vividly remember it when I close my eyes. The sight of a girl standing precariously on the railing of the rooftop I happened to look up at.
Reaching the rooftop after bounding up the stairs, I found a pair of neatly placed shoes and a single suicide note. I ran desperately and stopped her as she was about to fall, giving me a faint smile upon noticing me.
I expected to be resented. For not letting her die. But contrary to my expectations, the girl showed no reaction.
Thinking back now, she probably just thought her luck was bad that time, and she could try again next time. I still don’t know why she wanted to die. I only have a vague guess, based on my years of intuition as a teacher.
“How do you actually do it?”
“Do what?”
“How can you be at the place I’m going to find every single time?”
“I’m not some prophet, it’s just intuition.”
A dubious glare immediately shot back at me. But it’s the truth.
It’s like my intuition got drastically sharper. Wherever I feel like something big is about to happen, an accident inevitably occurs.
This started shortly after I became a teacher, right after I lost a precious student.
It was truly a common sight anywhere. A child bullied in class, a school eager to downplay the incident, police who didn’t want to work.
The only thing a child who has lost all places to turn can do is make an extreme choice to appeal until the very end. But even this didn’t have much effect against the monster called money.
Amidst that turmoil, all a rookie teacher who had just been newly assigned could do was conduct classes as if nothing had happened.
Well, it’s something any teacher in South Korea has probably experienced at least once.
Yet I still remember it because I was just a little more sincere about the dream of being a teacher than others, and because I had been somewhat close to that student who committed suicide.
“ā¦Which is also why I can’t quit this damn teaching job.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, never mind.”
I shook my head. The nameless girl who had come to stand beside me was looking up at the sky, just like me. It seems she’s decided not to commit suicide today.
“And you?”
“You’re a teacher. Students should address teachers properly.”
“Who cares.”
“Well, I didn’t expect much anyway.”
As I shrugged lightly, the girl chuckled, covering her mouth with her hand.
It was a sight nice enough that if I took a picture, titled it “A Girl’s Smile,” and entered it in a contest, I might get an honorable mention.
This girl, for a suicide hopeful, she sure has a decent presence. Well, I suppose that’s why she was driven to contemplate suicide in the first place.
Suddenly, the content of the suicide note she had written came to mind.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Your suicide note.”
There was no reason to hide it, so I answered honestly.
“I told you to forget about that!”
“Hmm, yeah, it was pretty embarrassing content.”
The girl shouted, her face instantly flushing red. I nodded, watching her.
“Ugh, I was trying to set a mood, and it totally backfired.”
She even sat down on the spot and started pulling her hair in frustration. The more I look at her, the more interesting she is.
“Anyway, about you.”
“ā¦”
“Hey?”
“ā¦”
“Oh, come on, Teacher! Are you listening?”
“What is it?”
When I turned my head, I met her incredulous face.
“If one day, a mysterious being appeared and offered to grant you one wish, what would you wish for?”
Her face was serious, not something to be brushed off as a joke. I had a feeling this wasn’t something I could just joke my way out of, like before.
A wish.
A wish, huh.
Wishing for something for the new year of February wouldn’t be bad. A wish is different from a resolution.
Resolutions can be achieved through one’s own effort, but a wish is impossible without a miraculous, unrealistic force at work.
So.
Sometimes, muttering to oneself like a child wishing for a miracle is okay.
Being too realistic is boring, after all.
“I want to become a teacher.”
“Teacher?”
“Yeah, a teacher. Not just a teacher in name like I am now, but a teacher who can do something for struggling students. That’s my wish.”
After hearing my words, the girl fell silent. Well, of course. It would be stranger if she understood a wish like that right away. She probably thought it was just lip service for my own sake.
“Is that your wish?”
“Well, for now, yeah.”
Now that I’ve said it out loud, it’s more embarrassing than I thought. I was starting to regret not just brushing it off vaguelyā¦
“That’s enough, then.”
“Enough for what?”
“As a reason for me to risk my life.”
Immediately after, a brilliant white light engulfed the world.
ā¦In a hazy world where consciousness was fading.
I saw the girl waving her hand at me one last time.
What kind of face was she making? Unfortunately, I couldn’t see that much.
—
“And so, when I opened my eyes, I was here.”
I let out a small sigh. The place I found myself in after opening my eyes was, amusingly, the teachers’ office. For a moment, I thought I had been dreaming for a long time, but the scenery was quite different from the teachers’ office I used to be in.
“How can you handle work like this, Teacher Eun-hye?”
“I-I’m sorry!”
First, a female teacher over there was being scolded by someone who looked like the head of the teachers’ office. She had a small sunflower pin in her hair and was apologizing desperately with a face half-crying. It was a face I had never seen before.
It seemed unlikely that she had been newly assigned without my knowledge. Sitting in my seat, I pondered for a moment. The last memory I had was my conversation with the girl on the rooftop.
I had said I wanted to become a teacher when asked what my wish was. As a result, I had opened my eyes in this unfamiliar teachers’ office of some unknown school.
“What the hell is going on?”
I walked over to a large mirror placed in a corner of the teachers’ office. It reflected the image of an ordinary adult male in his mid-to-late twenties. Of course, I don’t know this person.
‘Is this what they call possession?’
Having been in the teaching profession for a long time, you become sensitive to the latest trends whether you want to or not. Possession stories involve entering a character from a comic book or game you usually enjoy. Upon reflection, it matched my current situation exactly.
‘The problem is what kind of world this is.’
I needed more clues. I returned to my seat and started searching through whatever materials I could find. Math textbooks, reference books, workbooks.
Workbooks?
These still exist?
These were textbooks that had been abolished under the pretext of reducing students’ excessive study burden and promoting more efficient math learning. In reality, they disappeared due to protests from parents who said it was better to have their kids do advanced learning at academies instead of wasting time on such useless things.
As I kept searching through the materials, I found a single sheet of paper.
“ā¦A list for midterm supplementary classes?”
Only one name was listed on the sheet. I frowned at the name, which felt both unfamiliar and familiar.
Where have I seen this?
Just as I was lost in thought.
“E-Excuse me.”
A nervous-looking girl opened the door to the teachers’ office and entered.
She was about 150cm tall, a middle school girl who didn’t seem particularly special except for her long hair tied back. That is, except for the bizarre creature flying around behind her.
– Univel! I told you a monster appeared! There’s no time!
“But… I can’t just ignore it when the teacher called me…”
The creature, which resembled a cat but with red eyes, spoke, and the girl answered in a small voice. I couldn’t say for sure it was a cat because, unlike a cat’s thin, long tail, its tail was puffed up big like a squirrel’s.
Well, whether it’s a cat or a squirrel, neither can fly anyway.
“I came because I heard there was supplementary class…”
After looking around for a moment, the girl quickly approached my desk.
I know this girl’s name.
Shin Gayeon.
She is the target of the supplementary class I was just looking at, and at the same time, the protagonist of a magical girl series called “Magical Girl Happy Life.”
‘ā¦You’ve got to be kidding.’
With the girl tilting her head in front of me, I felt like screaming. Because the ending of this manga was the worst, hopeless bad ending where the protagonist murders all the magical girls.
Furthermore, the school she attends gets completely destroyed midway through the story, caught in a battle between magical girls. Students, teachers, everything ā wiped out cleanly.
‘More importantly, why can I see that thing?’
Anyway, what I’m trying to say isā¦
“I really have shitty luck.”
I let out a deep sigh.
