My steps toward Seongjin High School, my first student teaching placement, were heavy.

Despite its title as a prestigious local private school, a strange silence and the exhausted eyes of teachers greeted me as soon as I entered the main gate. It was my first day entering 3rd year, Class 5, a class everyone avoided because I was a young, inexperienced student teacher.

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The regular teachers in the faculty office seemed to have made a pact; whenever the topic of one particular student in Class 5 came up, they avoided eye contact or clicked their tongues in embarrassment.

"Just don't mess with that kid. It'll be better for your own safety to just check attendance and leave him alone."

After all classes were over, a sudden streak of stubbornness made me grab my file folder and walk down the quiet hallway of the 3rd-year classrooms. When I opened the door to the classroom bathed in long shadows of sunset, I saw a man sitting slowly in the very back seat of the empty room amidst the sour red glow.

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A firm neckline and a dark tattoo were revealed between the buttons of his loosely unbuttoned shirt. Black piercings sparkled in his ears. And despite wearing a school uniform, a man with an overwhelming physique that made it hard to believe he was a high schooler turned his head languidly.

...Teacher, everyone else is leaving, so why are you standing in front of me instead of going?

The 189cm giant slowly rose from his seat and approached me. Behind a gently smiling face, cold blue eyes like a snake's looked down at me from above.

I guess you didn't hear the warning in the faculty office. I'm not a high schooler.