Five Hundred Dollars
It wasn't one of those mornings, when everything around you seemed exactly the same as yesterday, or day before that, or even that morning from couple years ago. Jun-ho got up in the morning to go to school, but he had forgot to set his alarm the previous night.
BAM. He fell off his bed, wide awake; he looked at the clock.
8:43 AM. His professor lied. He had said, "Those who fall have wings." If he had wings, he wouldn't be late for school. He jumped up, got dressed in less than two minutes, skipped breakfast, and ran out the door.
He creeped slowly to the classroom. It was silent. Good, the professor isn't here yet. With a weird feeling of confidence, he slide into the classroom by the back door.
"Jun-ho! Front and center!"
The professor was on the podium glaring at him. He must have been writing his lecture outline on the board.
Mr. Kim, the professor, quickly wrote a simple mathematical formula on the board: [(number of absence + the date) X professor's endorphine production rate (which was 45% that day) X 1000]/ student number. It came out to be 5480 won
"Sir, could you please give consider my usual classroom citizenship?"
"Alright," the professor replied, "for sleeping during my lecture last week, I will give you 50% discount."
He had to give 2740 won to the professor.
"Now, sit down in the back. We'll resume the lecture."
And so, he started his morning pretty badly.
It was 6:47 PM. The school was out, and Jun-ho was walking back home. He didn't have much to do, for the mid-term was still four months away. He could go to the arcade, or go out to eat somewhere. No wait, he had his martial arts class today at 7:30 PM. He never knew why, but as he walked into the alley, a short cut home, he knew he would be late again.
Two big thugs came onto him. Jun-ho didn't flinch, but took few steps back.
"Hey, punk," one of them started, "you got money?"
"Uh," he replied, "No. I'm all out."
"Don't lie to us. We know you got something. We're gonna search you. One punch for each 100 won we find."
"Don't touch me."
"Ooh, did you hear that? He said, 'don't touch me'. You think you're so tough?" and one of the thug pushed him backwards.
As he fell, he quickly grabbed the thug's arm, twisted his elbow, and took him down with him. He used his legs to keep his body up, but the thug was down flat on the street, with the mercy of his wrist, completely up to him.
"What do you think you're doing! You're dead now!" yell the other thug.
Jun-ho came out of the alley, and dusted his pants off. They weren't a match for him. Although, he should have told them that he had 4th degree black belt in hapkido. He wasn't one of those kids who took taekwondo and thought they could beat people up. He knew how to fight. Speaking of which, he would be late for his class again. So, he decided to be absent that day, and he went to Mr. Hong's house.
He'd known Mr. Hong for few weeks now. As Jun-ho was walking home from school, he saw those two same thugs trying to take money from Mr. Hong. Jun-ho saw, and decided to help him, but he also saw that Mr. Hong, a seemingly old man, did something, and the two thugs literally, flew backwards, into the wall. When he talked to him, he said that it was called Ki, and Jun-ho had been begging Mr. Hong to teach him, for the past two weeks. He'd try again today.
"Please teach me this Ki!" he pleaded, at Mr. Hong's house.
"Wow, kid, this is like the tenth time. Don't you give up? Fine, I'll teach you. What do you want to learn?"
"You know... that thing you did to those thugs two weeks ago."
"You mean, Ki blast?"
"Yeah that! How much for the tuition?"
"Well, depends on the size of the blast. The medium one would be about five hundred dollars a month."
"You do dollars?"
"Well, the economy sucks. Better to get dollars and wait out until the exchange rate goes up."
Where is your subtlety?
