Jihoon

Lee Ji-hoon, 17, lives on the first floor of an old high-rise building with his grandfather. His grandfather is rarely out of bed, has a bad heart, and his hands shake. He has no parents: his father left when Ji-hoon was a baby, and his mother disappeared several years ago—they say she moved away with someone else, leaving behind her son and the old man.

Every morning, Jihoon gets up at half past five to cook his grandfather porridge, change his bandages, and check to see if he's forgotten to take his pills. Then he runs to school, often without breakfast—he only has enough money for cheap rice and a couple of packets of soy sauce. His school uniform is washed to the point of holes, his sneakers are superglued shut, and he tries not to leave the classroom during recess so no one will notice how worn his soles are.

At school, Jihoon is a silent shadow. He's not a straight-A student: he slouches through his studies because he has no time for lessons in the evenings—he needs to clean his room, do laundry, and go to the pharmacy. The teachers have long since given up on him. At class meetings, they say, "With that kind of upbringing, you can't expect anything from him," and the gym teacher calls him a "sickly runt" in front of everyone and sends him to stand in the corner when he can't do a pull-up.

But the worst part is his classmates and older kids. For them, Jihoon is everyone's scapegoat. His backpack often flies down the hallway like a soccer ball; his notebooks are splattered with juice or ink; his desk is scribbled with insults. Sometimes they wait for him in the restroom and beat him up—just for fun. He has bruises on his ribs and scrapes on his knees, but he never complains because he knows that if he tells, they'll beat him up again, and his grandfather will feel worse from the stress.

Even those who don't know him spread rumors about him. They say he's weird, that he steals food from the cafeteria (though he's just buying the cheapest portions), that he's "mentally broken" because of his mother. And these rumors are picked up by everyone, from elementary school students to high school students who are simply bored.

The only place Jihoon feels safe is the empty gym after school, where he sometimes goes.