“As you all know, I’m the odd man out. Wherever I went, I couldn’t make friends, which made me feel lonely always. But Mingyu treated me warmly when I went to Dreaming School. Without him, I could not have adapted myself here,” said Namsik.

His friends nodded quietly. Mingyu was a kind-hearted student. Though he was not of a cheerful disposition, he first approached his friends and warmed up to them.

“I trust Mingyu. Mingyu is a far cry from a bad student. I think he just made a mistake. Anyone can make a mistake. I wish you guys gave him another chance.”

Hyunwoo nodded at that.

“Now, how about you, Jungyop Han?”

Jungyop also said the same thing.

“Mingyu has a warm heart for his friends. If Mingyu is bad, I’m much worse. If you have to punish him, you have to punish me first. I hope you can forgive Mingyu.”

Hyunwoo didn’t comment on their opinion while listening to them.

They just focused on mentioning how much they felt thankful for what Mingyu did for them.

The more they talked about him, the more Mingyu blushed and felt sorry.

Tears he held back rained down on his cheek again.

“Boohoo…”

His friends were done with commenting on Mingyu.

And Duyoung said, “In fact, I was able to develop Super Green thanks to Mingyu. Without him, I would never have been able to discover it for the rest of my life. He is like the savior of my life. How can I punish him? I would like to give Mingyu another chance.”

Now, it was Hyunwoo’s turn.

In fact, yesterday he held a meeting with Duyoung’s assistants about whether to punish Mingyu. And they agreed to defend Mingyu warmly this time.

At that meeting, Hyunwoo told them about a short episode about ‘the trial of Babemba tribe’.

There is a tribe called Babemba in Africa. When someone commits a crime, all the tribe members gathered together.

The reason they meet is not to punish the person in question, but to express how they feel indebted to him or her.

In that case, the person who commits a crime repents his crime and becomes changed.

Of course, this kind of method can’t be applied to everyone because some can abuse such practices. But Hyunwoo was convinced that the trial style of the Babemba tribe would be of help in solving Mingyu’s problem. So, he asked the students a favor, and they gladly consented.

“Thanks, Mingyu. I wanted to say the same thing to you,” said Hyunwoo.

Mingyu was weeping silently for some time. His friends’ testimony made him cry. He just felt sorry and grateful to them.

When Hyunwoo also joined them to soothe him, Mingyu was overcome with emotion and finally began to cry.

Namsik, who was sitting beside him, stroked his shoulder gently.

A little later Hyunwoo said when Mingyu stopped crying, “It looks like everyone here helped each other up to now. So, I hope you can forget about this. But this is not just. If someone makes a mistake, he or she should be punished accordingly. How about you, Mingyu?”

“Absolutely. Please punish me. I’m ready for any punishment.”

Mingyu answered with a loud voice, something unusual. He felt he could feel less sorry to Hyunwoo, Duyoung and his friends when he was punished.

That’s what Hyunwoo expected of Mingyu. Mingyu needed some turning point in becoming a different person.

“Mingyu, clean the restroom for a month, starting today.”

But Mingyu went further, “Let me do it for a year.”

Mingyu’s commitment was not just words alone. As soon as he was done for the day, Mingyu went to the restroom to clean it, no matter how long it took for him to clean it up.

It looked like he thought it was his own wrongdoing if he noticed any little dirt in all the corners of the restroom.

While he was busy cleaning, one of his friends sneaked into the restroom.

When Mingyu turned his head, it was Namsik, who was so timid and shy.

But he was strange-clad. He put on an apron and rubber gloves.

“How come you’re here?” asked Mingyu in a peculiar tone.

“Oh, I just want to help you.”

Not only Namsik but also other friends also came into the restroom with all kinds of cleaning tools.

“Why are you guys here?”

“Don’t you see why we’re here? A friend in need is a friend indeed, as you know. It can’t be you don’t think we’re your friends, right?”

“Wow, you really did clean it very well. How can we help you?”

“Hey, you clean that window. Let me clean the floor.”

Each of the students shared their roles to clean the restroom.

Mingyu was choked up again. He bit his lip to hold back tears.

Looking at him, his friends made fun of him, laughing merrilly.

“Hahaha, Mingyu is about to cry again!”

“You’re a crybaby, dude.”

Several days later, there was a pork belly BBQ party on the empty lot in front of Haenim School. Almost 50 students gathered there plus the teachers.

The hero of the party was Mingyu Kang.

Suyoung Oh, principal of the school, held a glass of soft drink and proposed a toast.

“Mingyu will be a different person as of today. Let’s toast for Mingyu’s future!”

“Cheers!”

Mingyu also held his glass.

His friends stared at him, and some of them made fun of him.

“By now, he should have broken into tears.”

Mingyu made a smile at them but kept biting his lip to hold back tears.

I won’t let down anyone from now on. I won’t cry again. I’m determined to be a proud son to my dad.

The party for Mingyu continued until late at night. Hyunwoo had a great time with the students.

It was around 9 pm when the party was over.

After he asked the students to clean up, Hyunwoo left the school and let out a sigh.

“Whew, it’s only 9 pm. Two more hours to go before I see Yu Zuung. I can’t wait to see her.”

Yu Zuung was participating in entertainment programs, ads or sitcom instead of performing as a singer and dancer these days.

As she was swamped with requests for appearances on TV shows, she was busy.

So, Hyunwoo managed her daily schedule. He made sure she came back home at least once a week so that she could have a sound sleep.

But he could not be satisfied with seeing her just once a week, so he went to Seoul often with various excuses.

“I’ve got two hours to kill time. Let me give her a surprise party.”

Hyunwoo went into Yu Zuung’s house. Recalling his skills as an event manager in the past, he inflated balloons and hung them, and lit candles to welcome her home.

When it was 11 pm, Yu Zuung arrived.

She heard someone picking up a telephone set inside but didn’t hear Hyunwoo’s voice yet.

With a unique nasally voice, she called, “Honey, it’s me!”

Only then did he open the door and turn on the lights.

Her eyes opened wide to a pleasant surprise.

“Oh my god! What’s all this? Did you prepare it?”

“Of course. I wanted to give you a surprise party, so I took the time out to do this.”

“It’s so pretty,” she said in great satisfaction.

“I guess you should give me a gift, too.”

As if she read his mind, she sprang on him and kissed him.

That was the beginning.

In fact, Hyunwoo found it hard to wait for her even twice a week. He wanted to hug her every day if he could.

Yu Zuung felt the same thing. In the past, she insisted on taking a shower first before making love, but she didn’t anymore. She just gave herself to him without any resistance.

They took off their clothes and had sex according to their instincts.

They didn’t care how time passed or what was going on outside. What really mattered to them was that they were together in the same place.

Around the same time, the students and teachers were still chattering at the party place even though the party was over. They sat down in twos and threes to have some more fun. Some of them went back into the school to play computer games and others sat around, enjoying cookies and soft drinks.

Duyoung, Kuroda, and Taeho also had a jolly conversation, getting any burden of research off their chest. Unlike the students, they passed the glass around and got drunk.

At that moment, someone approached the container furtively. Walking on tiptoe, he looked like a stray cat, stopping and going with weariness.

It took some time for the stranger to reach the container house.

There was nobody who noticed him around.

When he controlled some device, the container house opened, and he sneaked into it silently. And after some time he came out of it and disappeared.