Eun Mei stared at the group of plump giant tomatoes bunched together in a cute basket presented on her desk by the overly eager kid in front of her. “What the hell am I gonna do with that?” she asked bluntly.

Kim Jung Hee was unperturbed as usual. “Almost every dish I can think of has tomatoes in its ingredients. Or you can use it on a salad, or just eat it as it is! It came directly from my family’s garden with no added pesticide or insecticide, and it grew only with the help of my guiding hand and love. Try it. You’ll love it.”

She snorted. The boy is cringeworthy, but she couldn’t help smiling. “Fine, and thank you,” she said reluctantly. “Now go away! We still have classes.”

****

Lee Bon Won entered the school hallway and glared at the kids milling around it. The hall parted like the red sea when they noticed him, and everyone gave him a wide birth and would not meet his eyes. And for some reason, this annoyed him even more.

His gang didn’t go to school today and decided to hang out in the playground and harass the little kids or something. He didn’t really care. For some reason, he felt compelled to go to school this year. He just realized that being good at fighting wasn’t going to be enough. There are things that he needs to learn, like math, if he is going to manage big money in the future.

One female nerd failed to see him in time and almost too late to stop. She went red as she found herself face-to-face with the dreaded delinquent. “Eeeep!” she said, then turned and ran in the other direction. No one around laughed at the girl’s action. Hell, everyone else felt the girl made the right choice, and they wished they had done the same thing right at that moment.

He sighed. He worked really hard to get this kind of fear-inducing level of reaction from everyone, and yet, in this school, instead of enlarging his ego, the other kids' reactions to him started to annoy him. He continued walking, pretending not to see the reactions of his schoolmates.

Then another boy walked out of a classroom and almost bumped into him. Kim Jung hee walked out of a classroom, and stop before hitting him. Bon Won was sure the room he came from was not Jung’s classroom, and both of them were startled for a moment. Jung was the first to relax and notice his leather jacket.

"Bon Won! Can I borrow that pen in your jacket?" Jung said to him out of nowhere. Before he could say anything, Jung grabbed the pen and said, "Would you mind?"

He was so startled when Jung turned him around and a notebook was placed on his back, and then Jung proceeded to write some notes in his worn-out notebook. It took only a few seconds, and then the little shit gave him back his pen, smiled at him brightly, thanked him with a pat on the shoulder, and then skipped away.

Bon Won just stared at the little twerp’s back as Jung started whistling. Everyone else was doing the same. And then they turned to him. When he felt their gazes, he glared back at them. All the students suddenly turned and left the area. He glared a moment longer, then turned and slowly walked away. Ever so slowly, he hid a silent sigh.

And then a minuscule smile formed on his lips.

Encounters like that started happening in the months he returned to school. The rest of the kids in school got used to it and dismissed the unusual interaction between Jung the nerd, and Bon Won the delinquent. Rumor has it that it was possible because of some sort of familiarity between the two during their younger years. They figured that it was just a lucky combination between a naive boy and an indulgent delinquent. And Bon Won encourages such a narrative. Because it was far better than the truth.

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The truth was that Jung was not afraid of him.

It was the other way around.

Bon Won remembered the time when those cold brown eyes were staring at him, and he gulped down the bile in his throat. He wouldn’t mess with that boy, even if it was the last thing he could do in this world.

Unfortunately, this is causing a rift between him and the rest of his “gang.” The rest of the kids in school might accept such a stupid explanation, but his own friends are not so understanding. They just couldn’t understand why he was letting some kid disrespect them like that. Especially his erstwhile second in command, Rim Chung Ho, a tall gangly youth with a weird fascination for the pain of another person. Chung Ho started questioning and undermining him with the rest of his gang. The bastard was circling around half jokes and innuendos of him being soft but not outright saying it, because he knew that if he did, Bon Won would beat the crap out of him.

But he could tell it was gaining traction with the others. Either way, Bon Won didn’t care. In his world, might makes right. If they do stage a coup, he’ll just beat them down. What they don’t know is that he is protecting them from Jung himself. Bon Won shuddered when he remembered the cold stare he gave Jae Kyung’s group in the gym. He didn’t want his own gang destroyed because of that boy.

He sighed when Jung’s back turned left to his own classroom and disappeared from his sight. He sighed again and walked towards his own room. I might as well study for the next class, even if it is boring as fuck.

Again, the crowd parted for him.

****

The day went on with Jung spending his lunch break in the school library and researching more about plants, then pivoting to the current subject topic in science and math. Jung pulled out his notebook for the hundredth time and wrote another mini project he plans to do sometime in the future.

Ever since Jung had access to Hyung-ki's junkyard, he started to bring electrical items to the barn and fix them. Jung smiled, remembering that first day when the old man screamed at him in horror. Jung started lifting an old refrigerator back home. They argued for some time until they agreed on a different item, and Jung carried home an old generator instead. Jung went back the following day to the junkyard and attempted to make a deal with the old man again. This time, he wanted to work for the man for free if he could bring home more parts that he wanted.

He is able to use his "Negotiate" skill again and ends up working for free at Hyungki's Jungyard for 4 hours a day, 3 times a week. In return, he can get all the parts he wants, provided that they aren't over a kilo of weight. If it is a single part, then it can be more than a kilo, but not over 5. It was a hard negotiation because, even though the old man can see the benefits of hiring the talented boy, he just doesn't like changes in his life. And Jung represented a big change in his routine.

But Jung got the job in the end, and within 3 days, Jung is able to make the old generator work again with the parts he brought in from the junkyard. He installed it in the house, and then three more days later, the Kim household had a working electric fan for the first time they lived there. Unfortunately, they only use it for a week. His parents enjoyed the novelty for some time, but his mother decided not to continue to use the fan because the gas maintenance for the generator is something that they cannot afford to do continuously. His mother's decision had always been the final judgment in their household, and that was that.

But the generator and fan ignited Jung's interest in electrical items, and he is now studying them intensely to get the most out of them. For now, Jung brought in complicated devices from the junkyard, and he disassembled them to study them back home. His skills in "Mechanic," "Repair, "Jury-rigging," and "Disassemble" are giving him lots of XP bubbles, and all four skills increased by at least a level just months after he started working for old man Hyun-ki.

Jung was still writing something in his spare notebook about ideas for the new items he wanted to build when he almost hit another guy. Jung scratched his head. This is the second time today that he almost ran over someone. He needed to be more aware of his surroundings.

“Ooops! Sorry about that!” Jung said automatically.

The boy he almost hit stared at him in surprise. "Oh, hey! It’s you!”

Jung blinked, and he remembered the boy he met in town whose family owns the new bike store. His memory searched his brain, and he automatically remembered the guy’s name. “Oh! Hey, Cho Garam! So you made it to school after all.”

“I did,” the boy said with a wry smile. With a perfect set of teeth. “I just finished talking to the principal, and all my papers are finally done. I’ll start going to school tomorrow.”

“So how do you find the school so far?”

The boy gave an embarrassed smile. “Honestly, I don’t know yet. Some are familiar in my old school, but there are also some that are new here."

“Well, if you have any questions, then you can just give me a holler, and I promise that I’ll answer any question that you might have,” Jung said.

They talked about other inconsequential things, like how is the bike business, and how is school in the province. Then Jung informed him about his class number, and Garam did the same. “Listen, my lunch break is over for now, so I have to go back to my next class. But don't be a stranger."

They both waved at each other, and then Jung had to jog back to his classroom.

Only when his next class was halfway finished did it occur to Kim Jung Hee that the class Garam mentioned was also Eun Mei’s class.