Life, Once Again!

* * *“You brought the money?”“Yeah.”Maru watched his two friends talk to each other. The two of them always got together here to chat during break times.“What money?” Maru asked.“The money for the instructor.”Each of them took out 3 ten thousand won bills. Sixty thousand won total. Maru was confused. He’d never heard of this. “When did you guys decide on this?”“Saturday.”“Aha.”“You don’t have to pay. It’s just an us thing.”“Really?”Good thing he doesn’t have to spend any money.“But...” Daemyung butted in, “why do the teachers talk so formally with each other? And this money, if the advisor told instructor Miso about it, I’m sure she would understand.”Dojin clicked his tongue.“These people have their own pride, you know. Think about it, appearing weak to your own student from years back? Man, I’d go crazy if I had to do that. It’s no wonder the advisor used his own salary.”“Is it?”“It is.”“So why are they so polite with each other?”“Maybe they aren’t great friends. I mean, he didn’t even tell us that she was our senior.”Dojin sounded pretty confident, but Maru shook his head quietly.“What, you disagree?”“It can’t be that.”“Then why would the advisor treat her like that? I thought they didn’t even know each other?”“I can bet that they’re like that even in private. Want to go?”Dojin and Daemyung shook their heads when Maru took out a thousand won.“The advisor’s just letting the instructor save face. What do you think would’ve happened if he treated her like a kid or a student in front of us?”“Well...”Daemyung nodded in understanding.“You know how the advisor’s like. I’ve noticed that he treats students who graduated a few years back the same way. My guess is that he’s trying to treat them like real adults. I think that’s really admirable of him. That’s probably why he tried to handle the money problem as quietly as possible. He doesn’t want any trouble, especially because he knows the instructor so well. You said so as well, didn’t you, Dojin? The more you know someone, the more you should treat them with respect.”“Yeah. The advisor’s a really cool guy.”The two of them agreed. “So how are you trying to give him the money? I don’t think he’d take it.”“We’re planning on giving it to the instructor.”“Oh, there’s, that, huh.”“But you know what’s funny?”“What?”“The advisor buys us dinner every time. Every day. She doesn’t like hiding things much, so she told us that she gets paid 40000 won an hour.”Maru couldn’t help but laugh in surprise. The woman really didn’t hide anything. Then again, that explained their conversation on the rooftop. But hold on.If she’s working as much as now… “But she comes every weekday. Doesn’t she also stay for the entire day on weekends?”“Yeah. It’d be ridiculous if she were to get paid for all of that. So we asked.”“You asked exactly how much she gets paid?”“Yeah.”“Hah.”Dojin was quite something as well, to have the balls to ask a question like that.“She was supposed to be paid just 800 thousand won in total, with her coming only on the weekends. But she comes every day. She probably spent more than half of that on our food already, too.”Maru recalled seeing Miso give out cash to buy the students dinner.“She’s losing money doing this.”“Right?”“Work hard, you guys.”“That’s the plan.”The two of them grinned.