Demon King Goes In Highschool chapter 9: Tutoring

Upon discovering that they were classmates, Jihak stared at him blankly for a moment.

‘Maybe I was the problematic student too?’

Attending school for several days without paying any attention to the other kids around him was something Jihak regretted.

Jihak had cut off his interest in others because they showed no interest in him.

Perhaps he didn’t realize that this might be isolating himself.

“Ahem… well, anyway, you should help me with my studies.”

“Alright. I’ll do my best. Thanks.”

There was no real reason to be thankful.

This was a sort of deal.

“By the way, what’s your name?”

“Oh, my name is Dojae. Ha Dojae.”

“Ha Dojae… Nice to meet you.”

When Jihak extended his hand first, Dojae cautiously took it.

Through this chance encounter, Jihak had made his first friend with whom he could talk in class.

“Don’t expect such help next time.”

“Right…”

Dojae knew it too.

Days like today were a stroke of luck.

“But when did you start getting bullied like this? Before my accident, I was the only one.”

He didn’t remember much.

But he clearly remembered that he was the only one being bullied or ostracized at school.

The other kids just watched him.

Dojae was probably one of those kids.

“That… actually started after you were hospitalized because of the accident.”

“After my accident?”

“What?”

Jihak hadn’t known.

He thought he was the only one being bullied, but now other kids were being targeted too.

“Why? Is your father also falsely accused of something?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

He couldn’t understand.

Jihak was bullied because of his father’s case.

But Dojae seemed to have no such reason.

“Just because.”

“Just because?”

“Yes. Just because… Is there really a reason? They were bored without you, so they picked on me.”

Learning why Dojae was bullied, Jihak stared at him blankly in disbelief.

“No reason at all? They just bullied you for fun?”

After experiencing the thrill of bullying someone, the kids lost that thrill when Jihak was gone.

They wanted to feel superior by trampling on someone, and without Jihak, they sought a new target, who happened to be Dojae.

Dojae was smart but small and weak, making him easy prey for Jihyun, Hyunmin, and Doogi.

“So, you just let it happen?”

“What else could I do? Their parents have money and connections. My family has nothing.”

“No matter what…”

Once you start getting trampled on, it starts feeling inevitable.

‘My family is poor.’

‘We have no connections.’

‘I can’t win against them.’

Victims use various reasons to justify the bullying they receive.

‘That’s why I’m also bullied…’

Jihak felt the same.

He thought he was bullied because of his father’s case.

He also thought no one helped him because of that reason and believed the unfair treatment was natural.

“Listen well. If you just watch those guys bully you, that’s foolish.”

“Then…”

“You have to struggle. Say it’s not right. Ask for help. If you don’t reach out first, no one else will help you.”

Jihak shared what he had felt.

The reason he had stayed silent while being bullied by Jihyun and the others.

Maybe he was looking for someone to reach out to him.

But people rarely reached out first.

So he had to reach out and grab them.

“What will you do if those guys come for you again?”

“That…”

Dojae couldn’t answer.

He couldn’t handle even one of them on his own.

“If you stay still, they’ll keep looking down on you. That’s what happened to me.”

“Then what should I do?”

“At least scream. Ask people around you for help. You never know, some fool might lend a hand.”

“Got it. I’ll do that.”

In the past, Jihak couldn’t do that.

Because he never thought anyone would help him.

But now it was different.

After a security guard had reached out to him, his thinking had changed a bit.

“Those guys weren’t from our class, right?”

“No, they were from another class.”

Jihak worried that he might have missed recognizing classmates again.

“Really? But they were extorting someone that is not in their room?”

“Those guys? They hang out with Jihyun a lot. They seem to have been laying low recently though.”

“Ah… I see.”

Jihak knew because he had overheard them talking from a distance.

They were associated with Jihyun’s group.

“A few days ago, you, Jihyun, Doogi, and Hyunmin…”

“That… right.”

“You went to get desks and only you came back.”

It seemed he was referring to the day Jihak dealt with Jihyun’s family.

“Since then, Jihyun, Hyunmin, and Doogi have been lying low. Normally, they’d be following you around, but they haven’t been lately. So those guys are doing this now.”

Recently, those three had been having a quiet school life.

Seeing them flinch and avoid eye contact with Jihak was somewhat amusing.

‘I think it was good not to erase their memories. No one would believe them anyway.’

Jihak had used the Shadow Curtain and didn’t erase their memories.

He had erased Youngsik’s memory but left those three with their memories intact as a silent warning.

Since talking about it elsewhere would only result in being treated like a lunatic, there was nothing to worry about.

If a problem did arise… he’d handle it when the time came.

“So, what brings you here?”

“Me? Oh, right. I came to make copies.”

“Then shouldn’t you do that before the shop closes?”

For the first time in ages, he found himself having a long conversation with someone other than his mom.

Jihak went straight into the stationery store and finished copying and organizing the notes Hyemin had given him earlier that day.

“See you tomorrow, then.”

“Yeah. Be careful. And don’t let anyone shake you down again.”

The chance connection with Hyemin seemed like it would be a significant help to Jihak.

And that feeling turned out to be as accurate as his grandmother’s aching knees predicting the weather.

From the next day, Dojae’s one-on-one tutoring began, and it was an enormous help to Jihak.

“Okay. This is like this because of that…”

Jihak found Dojae’s teaching much easier to understand than the regular school lessons.

In school, he had to follow the pace of the class, whether he understood it or not.

But Dojae would explain the parts Jihak didn’t understand and wait until he got it, allowing Jihak to catch up on his schoolwork more and more.

“But why are you here?”

The issue was that another student started attending Dojae’s tutoring sessions.

“Why? Can’t I be here?”

It was Park Hyemin, who had lent Jihak her notes before, now sitting between Dojae and Jihak.

“Well, it’s not that…”

Jihak looked around nervously.

Since returning, he hadn’t been concerned about what others thought.

But now, for some reason, he felt self-conscious.

“Am I making you uncomfortable? Dojae, what about you?”

“No, I’m fine…”

Dojae glanced nervously at Jihak.

While Jihak had been away recovering from his accident, the school’s atmosphere had changed significantly.

Initially, the students who had blamed Jihak didn’t know about the near-fatal accident he had suffered and felt an unconscious sense of guilt.

At least the students in this room had a vague idea of who was responsible for Jihak’s accident.

Now that Jihak was back, the students found it hard to approach him due to their awkwardness, guilt, and regret.

Some students still criticized and despised Jihak because of his father’s incident, but there were fewer of them than before.

“I don’t know. If Dojae is okay with it, I don’t mind since I’m the one teaching.”

“Then it’s settled?”

“…”

Hyemin smiled and looked back and forth between Dojae and Jihak.

Eventually, the three of them—Dojae, Jihak, and the unplanned addition Hyemin—started reviewing and discussing schoolwork together during their spare time.

“Jihak, you need to memorize all of this first.”

“What is this?”

“It’s just basic math formulas, the periodic table, and essential English grammar. You need to know at least this much.”

Dojae had quickly identified Jihak’s lack of basic knowledge and brought materials for him to memorize.

“All of this?”

“It’s the basics. I’ve only included the minimum you need to know.”

“…”

As Jihak sighed, realizing how difficult studying was, he felt a strange sense of familiarity.

‘Is this another kind of hell?’

It felt like he’d entered another kind of hell on earth.

“If you memorize this, you’ll have a good foundation.”

“Alright… I’ll memorize it.”

Determined to study, Jihak sighed, knowing that a difficult path lay ahead.

He couldn’t see the future, but he could almost visualize the challenges ahead.

‘Hmm… what’s this prickly feeling on the back of my head?’

Jihak felt a piercing gaze from somewhere.

Slowly scanning the area, he spotted Kim Jihyun, Kang Hyunmin, and Park Doogi glaring at him from a corner.

“How long are we going to keep doing this?”

“I don’t know. Damn it… just thinking about that time still makes my hands shake.”

Jihyun, who had been quiet for the past few days, was frustrated by the situation.

But every time they faced Jihak, the memory of their experience resurfaced, making them feel small.

“I can’t take this anymore. We need to confirm if what we experienced was real or if that guy is a monster.”

Unable to hold back, Jihyun stood up.

After a moment of hesitation, the anxious Hyunmin and Doogi followed Jihyun.