He felt humiliated. He wouldn’t be this embarrassed if this happened just between him and Maru, the problem was that their junior was standing behind him. Thinking of how he was humiliated in front of something he was actively looking down on angered him to no end. He kicked a trashcan next to the bus station, looking at the trash spill out made him feel a little bit better.

“Hey, you bastard!”

Just before he could leave, he heard a deep voice from behind him. It was a scary-looking old man, Geunseok glanced a few times before picking the trash up.

“It was a mistake. Just a mistake.”

“Really?”

Geunseok smiled awkwardly as the man scanned him. He was swearing as much as he could inside, but he couldn’t show this on the outside; today was an unlucky day. Once he came back home, Geunseok opened the door with a frown, he kicked his shoes off and tried to get in. Once he saw his father reading the newspaper in the living room, he straightened his shoes carefully.

“You came back early.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Studying?”

“I was going to pick up a notebook from home.”

His father gave him a nod, the man was still looking at the newspaper.

“Geunseok.”

“Yes.”

“I enrolled you in an academy. Go there.”

“What?”

“It’s a Chinese language academy, English isn’t enough nowadays. You need English as a base and Chinese as a secondary language.”

“...Um, father.”

Geunseok was about to say self-study was enough, his father slowly closed his newspaper and looked straight forward....