GBH 29

 The banquet hall was filled with the melody of a violin. A chandelier hung from the high ceiling of the space that combined the first and second floors. Guests gathered in groups on the second-floor balcony, sipping champagne. Choi Se-kyung gave up looking for his parents on the first floor and raised his head.

Opposite the second-floor balcony was a white wall. The light reflected from the chandelier’s crystals scattered on the wall. With the black railing obstructing his low view, Se-kyung wiggled his toes. He wanted to stand on tiptoe. However, the stiff new child leather shoes he wore wouldn’t bend.

Ah, it’s Chopin. Choi Se-kyung, who had been fiddling along with the melody with his tiny hands, recognized this was a dream when he identified the tune. The dream recreating the accident from when he was six had taken root in Choi Se-kyung’s life, recurring persistently.

Choi Se-kyung raised his hand. His fully extended fingers looked adorably small.

It’s a dream. If this is a dream, then ‘that incident’ will happen soon.

Choi Se-kyung lowered his small chin and looked down. It was where the spiral staircase connecting to the first floor ended. A little girl was lying upside down. With her black straight hair spread out below her, a red stain spread like a halo behind the child in the white dress now dyed crimson.

Only then did he remember why he had wanted to stand on tiptoe. It wasn’t to see the light patterns on the wall from the chandelier, but to see what had happened to the girl who had rolled over the railing.

Adults rushed to the spiral staircase. This was the scene where the dream would end. Choi Se-kyung closed his eyes and took a breath.

“…!”

The scream from the dream burst silently from the lips of 19-year-old Choi Se-kyung. Drenched in cold sweat, Choi Se-kyung’s eyes wide open, and he frantically scanned his surroundings. The dawn light filtered through thin curtains into the quiet space where the violin melody had vanished. It was his room, with the silent clock hands pointing to 5 o’clock.

---

After finishing his preparations for school, Choi Se-kyung grabbed his bag and went downstairs. In the dining room, he saw the back of Choi Myung-hyun sitting at the table, reading a newspaper. Choi Se-kyung sat down at the place set with steaming rice and soup, placing his bag on the chair next to his, and asked,

“Where’s Mother?”

“She left for work early.”

As his son, whom he had been waiting for, took a seat, Choi Myung-hyun folded his newspaper. He had heard from the live-in housekeeper, who had gone out for water, that he had witnessed Choi Se-kyung coming home at dawn. He had delayed going to work and was sitting at the table to remind his son that there were eyes watching him.

However, seeing his son’s face swollen and bruised a sickly purple, his mind went blank.

“What happened to your face?”

Choi Myung-hyun stood up and reached out towards his son sitting across from him. Despite frequently encountering violent crimes due to the nature of his job, seeing his own son bearing such alarming injuries made it impossible for him to maintain an objective attitude.

Choi Se-kyung leaned back, avoiding Choi Myung-hyun’s hand. The table was wide enough that when Se-kyung dodged, Choi Myung-hyun’s hand couldn’t reach him. This made him raise his voice.

“Where did you go last night to end up looking like that!”

Choi Se-kyung’s lips curved in amusement at his father, who usually seemed to know everything, now demanding answers as if he truly didn’t know. But the raised corners of his mouth pressed against his swollen cheeks, causing pain to spread, and his expression quickly returned to normal. Seeing his son smirk without answering, Choi Myung-hyun slammed his fist on the table.

“Choi Se-kyung!”

“Prosecutor, what’s the mat-… Oh, my goodness!”

The housekeeper, who had come out at the loud noise, was startled upon seeing Choi Se-kyung’s face. She ran off, saying she would bring the first-aid kit.

You knew I went out last night but didn’t know what happened? Choi Se-kyung wanted to retort but restrained himself. He picked up a spoon and replied calmly,

“I brought this upon myself.”

“What?”

Taking a spoonful of clear soup, Choi Se-kyung winced as it stung his split lip. It was clearly too much to eat. He put down his spoon to signal he was finished.

“I went out for a walk last night. Got into an argument with someone passing by.”

These weren’t injuries from an ordinary street fight. Such wounds come from repeatedly hitting the same spot on a defenseless victim. As part of the Violent Crimes Unit, Choi Myung-hyun knew gangsters inflicted such violence to establish hierarchy under the guise of punishment. The fact that his son had suffered this infuriated him. But Choi Se-kyung ignored it and gathered his bag.

“I need to get to school, so I’ll be going now.”

“Sit down. Take the day off school. Tell me properly what happened.”

He needed to hear the truth from his son’s own mouth, to ensure he wasn’t involved in any crime. But Choi Se-kyung only slightly narrowed his eyes at Choi Myung-hyun’s order. He tilted his head a little.

“Father.”

The affectionate address carried a hint of puzzlement.

“Why are you trying so hard to hear it from me? You already know everything.”

It wasn’t defiance or stubbornness. Choi Se-kyung genuinely couldn’t understand why his father, who had long ago turned everyone around his son into his eyes and ears, was insisting on asking him directly.

---

Today wasn’t a day for the disciplinary committee to be on duty. As Choi Se-kyung calmly passed through the school gate and corridors, the students parted like the Red Sea. Despite their piercing stares, Choi Se-kyung made no attempt to hide his bruised face. His swollen temple, the colorful bruises on his skin, and especially his left cheek, repeatedly struck and swollen into an alarming lump despite the applied ointment, caused every student who knew him to react with shock and concern.

“Oh my god, Se-kyung. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Each time, Se-kyung gave the same answer as he climbed the stairs. At the top, he saw Song Yi-heon hesitating in front of Class 3-1’s door.

‘Let’s wait together.’

What he had said yesterday was an admission that he wasn’t really Song Yi-heon. But Choi Se-kyung wanted to follow his words. He had said Song Yi-heon was safe and that he’d be back after resting. So wouldn’t it be okay to wait? Together with this person of unknown identity standing before him.

There was a world of difference between pretending to be Song Yi-heon while hiding one’s identity and admitting not being Song Yi-heon while waiting together.

Choi Se-kyung, who had been lost in thought while staring blankly, moved. He approached first and greeted him.

“Hi.”

“Oh, you’re here.”

Kim Deuk-pal, preoccupied with last night’s events, returned the greeting half-heartedly. Seeing Choi Se-kyung cry yesterday made him think he must have been struggling too, and he worried if he had hit him too hard or said unnecessary things in the heat of the moment.

As Kim Deuk-pal turned his head to avoid eye contact out of embarrassment, his loosely tied necktie caused his shirt collar to open. Noticing something, Se-kyung grabbed and opened the shirt collar. Along the neckline of the white undershirt was a strip of peach-colored medical tape.

It was where Choi Se-kyung had pressed on his neck last night. Given the slenderness of the neck compared to Choi Se-kyung’s large hands, the tape covered quite a wide area to hide the bruising.

Choi Se-kyung rubbed his fingertip over the area. He felt the characteristic tingling of the ointment.

“Are you hurt badly?”

“Don’t you have a mirror at home?”

Annoyed that Choi Se-kyung was worrying about others when his own face was clearly in worse shape, Kim Deuk-pal asked sarcastically. Choi Se-kyung laughed out of habit, then winced at the pain in his left cheek.

“Did you go to the hospital?”

“I should.”

Making this trivial conversation, they pushed open the classroom door. The students, quietly doing their morning self-study with midterms approaching, looked up.

Yesterday, after declaring he had stolen the money, Kim Deuk-pal had left school without attending the final homeroom. At the time, he had left to avoid potentially hitting Choi Se-kyung, not considering how the other students might react. However, his worries proved unnecessary as the students were too shocked by Choi Se-kyung’s appearance to create any awkwardness.

“Se-kyung, what happened to your face?”

“Who did you fight with?”

One of the students fussing over Choi Se-kyung looked back and forth between him and Song Yi-heon.

“Wait, did you two fight each other…?”

They had noticed the reddish mark on Song Yi-heon’s cheek. Both of them coming to school with facial injuries on the same day raised suspicions. But Choi Se-kyung immediately denied it.

“No. I met a crazy guy while walking last night. He suddenly started hitting me.”

He said it so firmly that there was no room for doubt. While Kim Deuk-pal, the actual culprit though not exactly crazy, was inwardly squirming, the other students were shocked by the idea of a psycho who had assaulted Choi Se-kyung in a random attack and disappeared.

“Oh no, did you report it? They didn’t catch him?”

“I haven’t reported it yet. He ran away when I fought back.”

“Wow, that’s scary. How can we go out now?”

“Yeah, you guys should avoid going out late for a while.”

Choi Se-kyung calmly fabricated a non-existent psycho, instilling fear in his classmates. It was such convincing acting that even Kim Deuk-pal might have believed it if he hadn’t been the one who actually hit Choi Se-kyung. That bastard could be an actor, he thought. With his good looks and acting skills, he’d be a shoo-in for leading roles. Kim Deuk-pal was staring incredulously at the back of Choi Se-kyung’s head, pushed aside by the other students, when Choi Se-kyung suddenly glanced back.

Their eyes met briefly before Choi Se-kyung turned back, but his next words were clearly meant for Kim Deuk-pal.

“It was at the spring water station, but the CCTV there was broken.”

The implication was clear: don’t worry. Kim Deuk-pal rubbed his arms, feeling goosebumps.

That frightening bastard. While Kim Deuk-pal, as a former gangster, was used to checking for and avoiding CCTV, Choi Se-kyung was just an ordinary high school student. Unlike Kim Deuk-pal, who had chosen the spring water station knowing it was secluded and had broken cameras, Choi Se-kyung had merely been summoned there but had managed to check the CCTV situation in that short time.

Kim Deuk-pal revised his earlier thoughts. This guy doesn’t just have the option to become an actor – he absolutely must become one. If someone with that face and silver tongue went into politics or became a con artist, they could sell the entire country.

That mix of fox and snake. As Kim Deuk-pal was about to return to his seat, Kim Yeon-ji, who had been hovering nearby, grabbed his sleeve.

“Um, Yi-heon?”

“What?”

Kim Deuk-pal raised his eyebrows questioningly. He had been wondering why the usual chatterbox hadn’t said a word among the students worrying about Choi Se-kyung, but Kim Yeon-ji’s glistening eyes were full of concern for Song Yi-heon rather than Choi Se-kyung. Pointing at his reddened cheek from yesterday’s hit by Choi Se-kyung, Kim Yeon-ji asked:

“Did you fight with Hong Jae-min…?”

As soon as Kim Yeon-ji asked this, the students who had been worrying about Choi Se-kyung all turned their attention to Song Yi-heon, as if they had been waiting for this moment. Their eyes were unusually moist. Feeling uncomfortable with the students’ sudden emotional state, Kim Deuk-pal stepped back, but the students approached, firing their teary gazes at him.

“Uh… yeah.”

The straightforward Kim Deuk-pal was good at throwing punches but not at lying. Unlike Choi Se-kyung, who could lie smoothly, he froze like a paused video before managing a grunt of affirmation. He figured Hong Jae-min was an easy target, so even if the lie was discovered, it would be manageable. Only then did Kim Deuk-pal look around the classroom, curious about what had happened to Hong Jae-min after he had left yesterday.