Find x. 

The most standard question on any Math quiz out there. Also perhaps the most annoying line ever. 

X is both mysterious and fascinating. There can be various ways for you to deduce x. It appears not only in algebra chapters, but in any Mathematical question possible. 

Find the answer. That's what x means. 

Yet your teachers don't only mark you on your final answer. They need the solutions and steps in between. The workings are what make Mathematics beautiful as a subject. You brainstorm and find the best way to attain the answer. 

That was the feeling Sunggyu had. 

I found x. 

Just think out of the box.

Sunggyu let his head rest against his seat as he finished uploading the last document. 

The war begins tomorrow. 

-∞-

"Please take one and spread the message." Janelle handed the 67th flyer of the day while Howon handed his 54th. The two of them had been giving out flyers to their schoolmates for the third day in a row. Each piece of paper had the words 'Kim seonsaeng-nim is innocent' emblazened on them in large print, followed by paragraphs of his good deeds.

The two friends had busied themselves with clearing their beloved teacher's name. It happened one morning when Howon woke up to the same mundane routine of going to school, feeling lifeless as he thought about the empty seat beside him and the less-than-satisfying substitute for Sunggyu. He read the text that came in at the wee hours that day, "I'll be back. Ask the class to get ready." Howon immediately flopped out of bed to call the first person he had in mind - Janelle. 

Janelle sprang into action by coming up with the flyer design over two periods in class.The two printed them and started spreading the message. Of course, all these were after getting permission from the Nam brothers themselves. 

"Once we start this war, there is no turning back. It's between your parents and Kim seonsaeng-nim." 

"You know my answer." 

"You might get hurt too."

"I don't care. We're all in this together."

And that was how the three of them started their fight. 

The school was obligated to stop these students from revolting a school decision, let alone a controversial complaint involving a parent. All that old Jungyeop could do was to extend teacher meeting hours, so that the overly enthusiastic discipline mistress wouldn't catch the two troublemakers in time. 3D-1 had done everything to cover up their tracks (after finishing their homework, of course). 

An eye for an eye. A flyer for every single poster you posted about my students, and for every time you forgot about Sungjong's lunch, or Myungsoo being at school, or that Woohyun needed love.

Next step, Sunggyu sent out a tinyurl first to his class, then his class spread to the school, and then the neighbourhood, and soon someone was reporting it on the news. 

Courtesy of Daeyeol's IT-savvy friend, the amazing tinyurl was a detailed account of Woohyun's mum's various run-ins with debtors, her fake photos with her sons (faces of the siblings blurred out of course), accounts from the siblings, interviews with the younger brothers' teachers who testified that she frequently left her children forgotten in school while Howon or Janelle picked them up. Using his free time (since he was temporarily put on leave), Sunggyu "returned the favors" by stalking her back and taking photographs of her unsightly gambling habits. The most impactful blow would be Woohyun's secret recordings of arguments with her, in which she spilled everything in her frequent raging episodes towards the boys. 

Reputation. That's all it takes to destroy a person in this society. 

Sunggyu already lost his, and so he had nothing else to lose. 

What the mum forgot was that Woohyun had people who genuinely loved him and would go all out for him. She thought that their affiliations meant the boy would not dare to split with her at all costs, for the sake of his brothers. Yet the boys were resolute in their decision against their mother, because Myungsoo and Sungjong just wanted to see their brother smile again. 

The reaction was pretty predictable - true friends stay on your side from the beginning, while others sway either way according to what majority thinks. So when the website spread, people started sympathising with Woohyun for once in school. Suddenly he had every reason to be a delinquent. 3D-1 was no longer a class of failures but rather a class of resilience. Woohyun was no longer a symbol of hopelessness but of hope. He was fighting a lone war all this while, not just fighting like a gangster. 

It's really disgusting how cheap yet important opinions are. 

The news spread like wildfire and soon netizens caught on. His mum was suddenly Korea's most hated mother in history, and all her applications for aids were obviously rejected. The kids' custody were taken over by social services (again, Daeyeol and his network) and said woman was forced to run away again, this time from the media as well. The media caught her trying to make "amends" with her younger children at their school gates, but their teachers were quick to protect them from their own mums. 

All these happened while Woohyun and his siblings continued to endure gossips behind their backs and taunts by insensitive classmates. Even when he resumed work at Taeyeon's kitchens, customers started whispering his stories to one another while they cooked. No fight was easy, but it depends on who's with you. 

The day Woohyun returned to school was the day Sunggyu resumed work as well. 

3D-1 had planned a surprise party for them, and as they returned to class, Sunggyu could only smile upon them as the class greeted him with gusto, reporting to him that they had finished all their Math assignments and did well on the previous midterms. They pasted all sorts of little cards on Woohyun's seat so it almost looked like a makeshift throne, but on closer look they were all congratulatory notes and well wishes for him and his brothers. 

So he gladly let them smash a cake into his face for celebrations. 

Clap clap. "Alright, kids. I have an announcement to make." Sunggyu said after Woohyun finally came back from the restroom, his face visible again. The teens turned their attention to the teacher standing in front, himself with a speck of cream on his face. 

"Today is the first day I resume teaching..." more cheers and claps, "and it's also my last day. For reasons that we all