The bell rings like a knife against glass.
Sharp. Clean. Loud enough to demand attention, but not enough to enforce it.
I don't flinch. I'm already seated, back row, right side, third desk from the window. Same seat as yesterday. Same angle. Same wall pressing lightly against my shoulder blade like a reminder to stay where I belong.
The classroom fills with sound after the bell instead of before it. Chairs scrape.
Bags hit the floor. Someone laughs too loudly, on purpose. Someone else tells them to shut up, not because they care about the rule, but because they don't want competition.
The teacher walks in last.
Mr. Han. Late forties. Tie loosened. Hairline receding like it's been losing arguments for years. He carries a stack of papers under one arm and a coffee in the other. The coffee matters more.
"Settle down." He says, voice flat.
Some people do. Some people don't. I watch which ones don't.
The front row goes quiet first. They always do. They straighten, align notebooks, and stop chewing gum. Compliance is their currency.
The middle rows follow in pieces.
Conversations lower but don't stop. Jokes get muttered instead of shouted. One boy keeps his feet hooked around the legs of the desk in front of him, leaning back like gravity doesn't apply to him.
Back row stays exactly the same.
Noise lingers here. It's not loud, but it's confident. The kind that assumes it won't be challenged.
Mr. Han sets his coffee down, clears his throat, and starts talking about last week's quiz. His voice fills the room, but it doesn't command it. It's background noise. Like an announcement at a train station, you already know you're not boarding.
Someone near the center-left interrupts him.
"Hey, wasn't that question wrong?"
The boy doesn't raise his hand. Doesn't wait to be acknowledged. He leans back in his chair, arms crossed, smiling like he's doing the teacher a favor by pointing it out.
Mr. Han pauses.
For half a second, the room tilts.
This is the moment. I've seen it before, in different buildings, different classrooms. The moment where authority decides whether it exists. Mr. Han exhales. "We can talk about it after class."
The boy snorts. "That's what you said last time."
A few laughs ripple out. Not everyone. Just enough.
Mr. Han's jaw tightens. His eyes flick around the room, searching for support that isn't coming. He could push. He doesn't.
"Please. Sit properly." He says. The boy doesn't move. No consequence follows.
The lesson continues, but something has shifted. It always does. The teacher is now negotiating instead of instructing. His sentences get shorter. He avoids eye contact with the middle-left cluster. He doesn't call on anyone from that area.
I write when I'm supposed to write. I don't look up. But I'm tracking everything.
Who spoke. Who laughed. Who didn't.
The boy who interrupted him, with broad shoulders, thick neck, athletic build, doesn't even bother hiding his phone after that. He keeps it low, thumb scrolling, screen angled away from the aisle. He knows where the teacher won't look anymore.
Power announces itself quietly here.
It's not shouting. It's the absence of resistance.
Mr. Han finishes the lesson early. Ten minutes early. He assigns textbook problems and tells us to work quietly. He retreats to his desk and pretends to grade papers that don't exist.
The room decides what "quietly" means.
Low conversations resume. Someone tosses a pen across two desks. A girl near the windows turns around and starts braiding her friend's hair. The boy with the phone leans over and shows something to the guy next to him. They grin.
I stay still.
Stillness is work.
My back aches from holding the same posture too long. I don't shift. Discomfort makes you noticeable. Noticeable invites curiosity. Curiosity turns into testing.
I'm not ready to be tested.
A folded note skids across the floor near my desk. It stops short, crumpled against the leg. I don't pick it up. I don't look down. Someone snickers softly, then gets bored when nothing happens.
That's how most things die here. Not through confrontation, but through neglect.
The bell rings again.
Mr. Han startles, like he forgot it was coming. "All right. Pack up." Everyone is already packing. He doesn't say anything else. I wait.
Leaving immediately puts you in the stream. The stream has elbows, bags, and impatience. It has people who want to prove something before the day really starts.
I stay seated until half the room clears. I watch reflections in the glass cabinet at the front of the room. Who leaves together. Who waits for who. Who glances back to check if they're being followed.
The boy who challenged the teacher leaves with two others. They don't rush. They walk as if the hallway belongs to them.
I stand only when there's space.
Bag on. Zipper closed. Strap adjusted once, not twice.
In the hallway, the noise is thicker. Lockers slam. Shoes squeak against tile. Someone shouts from the far end and gets answered back.
I keep to the wall.
I pass the stairwell without looking down it. Stairwells are blind spots. Blind spots are where accidents happen. My second period is civics. Different teacher. Same structure.
Ms. Kwon is younger. Early thirties, maybe. Hair pulled tight. Glasses with thin frames. She speaks clearly and loudly, like volume can substitute for authority. It doesn't.
She tries harder than Mr. Han. Calls out names. Makes people stand when they answer. Threatens to call parents. It works on the same people it always does. Front row. Side rows. The ones with something to lose.
The middle-left cluster ignores her.
Not openly. They're smarter than that. They whisper. They laugh under their breath. They push chairs back just a little too far. They test her timing.
When she tells them to quiet down, they do, just long enough to prove they can. She keeps teaching anyway. The room hums with a low, constant tension. Not anger. Not chaos. Expectation.
I realize something halfway through the period, when Ms. Kwon calls on a girl near the windows, and the class president speaks before she can. "Se-yeon. Please answer." Ms. Kwon says.
Yoon Se-yeon stands.
She doesn't rush. She doesn't adjust her skirt or fuss with her hair. She stands straight, hands at her sides, eyes forward.
She answers the question perfectly. Clear. Concise. No extra words. When she sits back down, the room shifts. Not loudly. Not visibly. But conversations near her stop. Chairs scrape back into place. A boy two desks behind her straightens without being told.
Someone near the back mutters something. I don't catch the words. I catch the reaction.
Yoon Se-yeon turns her head just enough to look in that direction. She doesn't glare. She doesn't frown. She says, calmly, "If you're done talking, I'd like to hear the rest of the lesson."
That's it.
No teacher involvement. No raised voice.
The boy goes quiet. So does everyone around him. I feel it ripple outward. Like pressure redistributing. The room settles into a new shape, one where her presence matters more than the teacher's.
Ms. Kwon blinks, then continues as if nothing happened.
I don't look at Yoon Se-yeon directly. I don't need to. I watch the effect she has instead. She doesn't enforce rules. She enforces expectations.
People comply because they don't want to be singled out by her, not because she's loud or threatening, but because being corrected by her carries weight. Social weight. That's when it clicks.
This school isn't violent in bursts.
It's violent in structure. The rules exist. They're written down.
They're announced every morning over the intercom. But enforcement is selective. Authority isn't evenly distributed. It pools around certain people, certain families, certain reputations. Violence here isn't fists and blood, not yet. It's positioning.
Who can speak out of turn.
Who can interrupt a teacher.
Who can shut someone down with one sentence.
Who gets consequences.
Who doesn't.
I stop thinking about right and wrong somewhere between the third and fourth period. I start thinking about the position. Lunch passes quietly. I eat alone again, same empty classroom, same window view. I keep my back to the wall. I listen to footsteps outside. Non-stop.
In the afternoon, my body starts to feel the strain of constant alertness. My neck is stiff. My eyes ache from tracking too many details.
I don't let it show.
In history class, someone drops their pen and doesn't pick it up. Another kid kicks it under his desk. Small things. Territorial things.
I file them away. By the end of the day, the pattern is clear. Teachers talk. Students decide.
The bell releases us again, and this time I don't wait as long. Leaving too late can be just as dangerous. The hallway is less crowded now, but the energy is sharper. People are tired. They want release.
I keep moving.
Near the lockers, I see the boy from the middle-left cluster shove someone lightly into a metal door. Not hard enough to draw blood. Hard enough to remind him where he stands. No teacher intervenes. No one records it.
The shoved boy laughs it off, rubbing his shoulder, but he doesn't look back.
I walk past without changing pace. Outside, the air is cold enough to sting my lungs. I welcome it. It clears my head. On the bus ride home, I sit in the same seat as yesterday. Back. Window. Wall to one side. I replay the day in pieces.
Mr. Han backing down.
Ms. Kwon trying harder and failing anyway.
Yoon Se-yeon speaking once and changing the room.
It isn't about strength. It isn't about volume. It's about who the structure bends around. At home, the apartment is quiet. I eat leftovers again, standing. I don't turn on the TV this time. Silence helps me think.
In my room, I sit on the bed and stare at the wall.
Force isn't chaotic here. It's curated. Chosen. Distributed carefully, like a resource. If I want to survive here, not just avoid attention, but avoid being crushed when attention finds me, I need to understand that structure.
And not challenge it.
Not appeal to it.
Learn it.
I lie back and close my eyes. Tomorrow, I'll watch again. Not for who's loud. But for those who are untouchable.