The sound of typing reverberates through the hallway as a woman sits in her cubicle, mug of green tea latte frothing away in a corner and post-its cluttered throughout her workspace. “Why are kids so bad at English nowadays…” she sighs as she marks yet another bright pink cross onto a student’s paper. Just then, the bell rings to signal the end of a period, and she jumps up from her seat, a yelp escaping from . Her colleague from the cubicle opposite hers chuckles. “Inna, you’ve been teaching at Kahae for more than a year now, yet you still get startled by the bell every single time…”

“I was just… a little surprised, that’s all…” Miss Hwang picks her bag up, takes a big gulp of her coffee, glances at her work schedule one more time before waving goodbye to her colleague and walks off to her next class.

Along the way students with hair flying all over the place and students with not a strand of hair out of place greet her and Miss Hwang returns a polite smile. It’s when she’s just about the reach the classroom she’s supposed to be in when she spots it.

A classroom, with all its tables turned the opposite way. She stops in her tracks, and rubs her eyes for a moment. Maybe that coffee she drank wasn’t strong enough after all. A crowd of students have gathered around, curious gazes wandering about. She looks around, and steps into the classroom to check if it’s just her eyesight playing tricks on her (it wouldn’t be the first time if it was, after all) or if the poor classroom had really been subjected to such torture from the seemingly innocent but obviously guilty students.

Miss Hwang steps into the classroom. It’s empty. Of course it is, everyone knows that after you play a prank you’re not supposed to show your face or you’re busted. She shakes her head and steps back out of the classroom, and scans the corridor, before raising her voice and yelling, “Can everyone in the corridor right now please step into this classroom for a second?”

Students file into the classroom. Miss Hwang sees a few familiar faces, a few she’s taught before, a few completely new ones, but all guilty faces, all in all. She clears , and gestures to around the class. “So, who’d like to admit to the crime?” Everyone turns to each other, puzzled expressions mirroring each other. The classroom is quiet.

Miss Hwang’s phone vibrates, and she realizes she’s fifteen minutes late for the class she’s supposed to be at. She panics then – she can’t lose her job, she’s still on contract! Her mind stops working for a second – she never was quite good at multi-tasking, after all – before she settles down and shakes herself. “Alright, I have to go now, but we’ll continue this later, alright? Can everyone write down their names and phone numbers here? We’ll meet here after school at 2:00PM, thank you!” Everyone hurriedly pens down the information as Miss Hwang requests before scurrying out of the classroom, Miss Hwang following behind, a flustered expression on her face. She reaches her class twenty minutes late, and apologizes to the class and offers to make up for the lost time with some extra remedial lessons after school. A few of the guys seem more enthusiastic about the idea, but most of the students just smile at each other and tell Miss Hwang that it’s okay. ‘What understanding kids,’ Miss Hwang thinks to herself.

2PM strikes on the clock and Miss Hwang finds herself back in the classroom where she had first seen it happen. Not everyone is here yet, and for a while, Miss Hwang ponders about whether to wait for the rest or go on ahead without them. After juggling between the two options for a while, she decides to just go on ahead – lest she forgets what she’s supposed to be even going on about.

She claps her hands together and scans the classroom. “Okay, guys! You should all know why you’re here... Uh.” She stops for a moment, and takes a quick glance at her notebook where she wrote down everything she was supposed to cover during the session. “I’ve spoken to the principal about this, and she’s decided that I’ll impose the punishment on you guys instead!” A mischievous smile hides underneath the façade of seriousness Miss Hwang tries so hard to keep, but anyways she lifts up her bag and starts passing a single A5 jotter book to everyone.

“This will be your companion for the next two months! Love it, treasure it, and protect it with all your heart.” Miss Hwang throws a steely gaze at all the students. “If I ever see any of your books with a single bend or scratch on it,” Someone wanted to point out that technically the book couldn’t really be ‘scratched’, but is interrupted by Miss Hwang, “I will find you, and I will kill you.”

Everyone is silent for a while and no one knows what she’s talking about. Miss Hwang, seeing the lost faces of the students, clears with an embarrassed smile. “Uh… Sorry about that, I got a bit off-track… Anyways! This will be your diary, and you are expected to come every day after school at 2PM in this classroom, for detention. This will be your punishment for the next two months, and I don’t expect anyone to not come, alright!” Someone sitting in the front row swears she even heard Miss Hwang mutter, “Please do come and not let this flop”

The bell rings, once again, and Miss Hwang lets out a sigh. “Okay guys, let’s write our first diary entry today, and then we can go off, alright! Technically… It’s supposed to be an hour per day, but I’m tired, so let’s… Let’s not tell anyone about this, yeah?”