Chapter 167 – Iljin Rehabilitation (3)
This was the content of the phone call I received from an unexpected place.
These days, while I was organizing a current affairs program related to the increasingly frequent controversy over school violence among celebrities and athletes, I watched a video of me apologizing on stage and a video of me kneeling and being silently beaten, which suddenly became a hot topic on the Internet, and I gave interviews and filmed my day. I want to do something.
I said it didn’t matter, handed the phone over to the teacher, and came back to report this.
And as soon as they heard me, Yuri, Eunji, and Suyeon answered at the same time.
“Do it no matter what!”
“Why are you more excited?”
“Isn’t this an opportunity? You can show everyone that you have truly reflected and changed! Then at least there will be fewer kids coming to you seeking revenge like now, and we don’t have to watch that happen either. Accept it unconditionally! No, no filming. Even if you say you want to do it, you have to hold onto it and do it!”
Yuri passionately appealed to me about the necessity of filming and encouraged me to be diligent in filming.
Soo-yeon and Eun-ji were the same, and the kids in our class, who had nothing to do with each other, looked excited and asked, ‘So, am I going to be on a broadcast now?!’
And after a while.
“Seongjin, are you here?”
“Yes.”
“Come to the teacher’s office for a moment. Let’s talk with the teacher.”
I followed the teacher back to the teacher’s office, where the teacher told me the details of the phone call.
“The filming has been confirmed, and it’s this Thursday. They said they’re going to film how you live your day, so they’ll probably film our classes, and the principal and vice principal have given permission.”
“It was decided very quickly. The shooting date was also quick.”
“You have to film it that quickly, so you have time to edit it. Anyway, Seongjin, you come out clean-up on Thursday and participate in class faithfully, huh?”
“I’ll try my best.”
“You must not do anything that will harm the image of the academy.”
“Well, are you afraid I might punch you in front of the camera?”
“Well, since you’ve been quiet this year, I’ll see if the teacher trusts you for once… And the teacher also saw those videos on the Internet. Don’t ever do anything like that when there’s a camera. The teachers will tell all the students in the class. “
“Yes.”
#####
And that Thursday.
The filming team that contacted me in advance followed me in front of my house from the moment I went to school and moved with me.
During class, I attached a camera to a tripod at the back of the classroom and continued filming unmanned, and the teacher and classmates were very nervous just because there was a camera, so the class continued in a very awkward atmosphere.
I tried my best to show that I was faithfully participating in class, but…
“Han Seong-jin! I told you not to fall asleep during class!”
My nature wasn’t suited to studying, so I ended up dozing off during class even though the camera was filming me.
At lunchtime, a filming crew was attached to me while I was eating with Yuri, Eunji, and Suyeon.
“Are you guys friends like this?”
The four of us’ eyes crossed at the same time in response to the filming team’s question.
Even if I tried to hide it, there were rumors about our relationship within the academy anyway, so I couldn’t hide it even if I tried to hide it, so I just told the truth.
“They are girlfriends.”
“Girlfriends’…?”
“It’s a bit long, but it just happened to be like this… It’s a relationship that all four of us have accepted. No, I’m more embarrassed than I thought because I’m talking about this to the camera… No, I’m embarrassed… Yes, anyway… That. . This is privacy, so don’t go into too much detail…”
Although the filming team was taken aback, they quickly came to their senses and continued working again.
“Actually, I heard that it was a famous group of people. Looking at it now, it doesn’t seem like that much. Was there a change of heart or something?”
“Well, there are a lot of reasons… But first, I felt like there was nothing I could do in the future because I was living like trash like before.”
And I continued my answer while holding the hand of Yuri, who was sitting next to me.
“My girlfriend is the student council president and first in the whole school… Anyway, she’s really amazing. At least I didn’t want to become a man who would be a disgrace to my girlfriend. If my girlfriend is this amazing and her boyfriend is rude to her, it would be a disgrace to her too, right? .”
“Is it the power of love?”
“Yes, I guess you could say that.”
After lunch, Yuri was brought aside for a moment and interviewed, and after that, the film crew again filmed my life at the academy.
After afternoon class, after cleaning, I went to the convenience store.
When the filming team saw me leaving my bag at home and heading straight to the convenience store, they asked again.
“It hasn’t even been 20 minutes since school ended. Are you coming out right away? Do you have somewhere to go?”
“I work part-time at a convenience store on weekdays. I didn’t normally do this, but I started doing this early this year when I decided to change my life.”
The filming team filmed me working at the convenience store and Suyeon, whom I saw again, and also called Suyeon in for an interview.
10pm after taking pictures of myself working for 6 hours.
This time, a filming team followed me to my living room.
When the front door opened and a shabby living room suitable for just one person appeared, the filming team was clearly embarrassed.
“Do you… Live here? Alone?”
“Yes.”
“What about your parents?”
“My mom had an affair and left home when I was young, and my dad grew up an alcoholic and beat me up every day. She left home when she was 11 and ended up living in a facility, and now neither of us know where they are or what they are doing.”
“You’ve been living alone since you were 11? Then, when did you start living here and how did you pay the monthly rent?”
“Ah, that’s… When I was no longer able to stay in the facility, I came out and found a cheap room. The monthly rent was… Until last year… You know how people like me usually get money. Call people who are just like me. I collected money and received tribute, and when I didn’t have enough, I had ordinary kids take advantage of it… I used that money to pay rent. Furthermore, I started a part-time job to pay off all that.”
“Are you making a living?”
“It’s hard. In the worst times, there were times when I didn’t even have 100,000 won in my bank account. During summer vacation, I worked two jobs morning and afternoon… I just lived as if I was paying for karma. Once I got used to it, I was able to live well. I even saved some money now.”
“If you look at that video going around, you can see people kneeling and getting beaten for doing something wrong. Didn’t you think it was too much for you?”
“The people who suffered because of me didn’t really do anything wrong, but they suffered. I did something wrong, so there’s a reason for getting hit. Considering that other people suffered because of me, this is actually cheap.”
“Still, since I was young, I’ve lived without my parents… Even now, I’m having a hard time. Don’t you feel unfair? You could blame it on the environment.”
“Just because I lived like I did, doesn’t mean that everyone becomes like me. Some people will live just fine in the meantime. There’s nothing to blame, it’s just my fault for living like that.”
The filming team, who were talking about me variously, selected a scene for the final comment and asked me to leave a message to others.
After thinking for a moment, I faced the camera and opened my mouth.
“The people who have suffered because of me, from middle school to now… I can’t count, and honestly, there are so many I can’t even remember. I was really wrong, and I’m sorry. Furthermore, I won’t ask you to forgive me, but I’m really trying to live like a human now.
You can treat me like trash for the rest of your life, and you can’t forgive me. Just… Please believe me that I am truly reflecting and that I am struggling to change. Please.”
#####
The footage was aired the following week.
Meanwhile, Eunji won a gold medal in the 100 m and a silver medal in the women’s 400 m at the National Sports Festival, and our academy produced a medalist at the National Sports Festival following the last broadcast team filming, so the teachers’ pride was sky-high.
While the banner celebrating Eunji’s grades was still hung at the entrance to the academy and the surrounding fence, the documentary that was filmed last time was aired late Thursday night, and most of the people at our academy seemed to have watched the broadcast.
“Hey, Han Seong-jin! Is it true that you appeared on TV?!”
“It’s so pitiful… Hey, if you’re having such a hard time, just tell me, I’ll at least provide you with a PC room…”
People other than my girlfriends didn’t know what my personal life was like, so when they saw my situation revealed through the documentary, they felt sorry for me and offered me words of comfort.
What the teacher didn’t know was the same thing, so the day after the broadcast aired, he called me out and reprimanded me with regret.
“If this guy’s family situation was like that, he should have applied for the tuition support system! There’s a teacher there to advise on such things, but you hide it until the end of the year?!”
And the boy who was the victim who first came to me and beat me with his school bag also came to see me.
“Han Seong-jin…”
“Uh.”
“No matter how much I think about it, I just can’t forgive you.”
“…”
“But I will believe you when you say that you really decided to change.”
The boy left those words and went back to his class.
After that day, other kids, including him, suddenly stopped coming to me to seek revenge for the past.
Is it the aftermath of the broadcast itself, or is it because it was revealed in that broadcast that my life was already fundamentally unstable…
And strangely enough, after that broadcast, quite a few anonymous items began to be delivered to our Jinsu Bridge.
Inside the delivery box, with the recipient’s name written as Han Seong-jin, were various kinds of daily necessities such as toilet paper rolls, towels, used clothes and shoes.
These were sent by viewers who felt sympathy for me after seeing me, a virtual orphan since I was young, struggling to be rehabilitated.
“Look at this. People are cheering you on so much to cheer you up. So you can’t do that anymore, okay?”
Yuri held my hand and patted me.
I haven’t yet heard all the words of the children who were directly harmed by me, but I wondered if it was true that people who had never harmed me freely forgave me and supported me, but since that boy said that even if he couldn’t forgive me, he would believe that things had changed…
‘Seeing as no other kids have come to visit so far… I guess this is it for now.’
Victims from middle school who came to see the video in the hallways of the academy, on the playground, and sometimes on the way home after school.
I had been beaten on my knees by so many kids, but it felt like it was finally over.
I couldn’t give a clear answer whether this was really enough, but I decided to stop doing this for the sake of my girlfriends who were having a hard time watching it.
Now there are a lot of people who believe that I have really decided to regenerate and change as a person.
