GBH 57

He threw down his bag and ran into the alley. The beating, which had paused briefly at his shout, didn’t wait for Song Yi-heon to jump in. Hong Jae-min, kicked in the legs, staggered and hit the wall. It seemed that Song Yi-heon’s appearance affected Hong Jae-min rather than the violent gang. Unlike before when he had been putting up some resistance, Jae-min was now helplessly taking the barrage of blows.

Hong Jae-min doubled over after being hit in the stomach. In reality, the fight was as good as over. The moment of vulnerability meant imminent defeat. Merciless kicks were about to rain down on the fallen Hong Jae-min.

“Hey-!”

Bang! A loud noise echoed in the narrow alley. Stacked liquor boxes in the alley toppled over, noisily spilling empty bottles. The gang beating Hong Jae-min stopped at the ear-piercing sound of empty bottles crashing against each other.

Where they looked with frowning faces, Song Yi-heon stood panting with fiercely wide eyes, having knocked over the liquor boxes. Thinking Hong Jae-min’s gang had arrived, they were briefly startled to see an unfamiliar young face angrily standing alone, but soon their stomachs shook with laughter.

“What’s this? This bastard’s a lackey?”

“Looking at his uniform, he must be.”

Wearing summer uniforms from a nearby high school, they recognized Song Yi-heon’s uniform. As if the school uniform was an indicator of factions, they immediately started mocking Song Yi-heon.

“Look at his eyes. He’s scared to death.”

“What year are you? Are you even a first-year?”

Hahaha, laughter erupted. Though Song Yi-heon had a sturdy build, his neatly worn school uniform made him look young and unthreatening. Rather, he looked like an overexcited puppy, making them laugh and let their guard down. All five or six members of the gang were so busy ridiculing Song Yi-heon that they took their eyes off Hong Jae-min.

Hong Jae-min, who had been curled up holding his stomach, sprang up and swung his fist.

“Leave while we’re letting you go peacefully, ugh!”

The scream that rang out in that instant like a death cry was the starting signal. Song Yi-heon also leaped over the spilled liquor boxes.

“You bastards…!”

“Hey, hit him!”

Song Yi-heon’s fist struck the cheekbone of one guy who was floundering from the sudden counterattack. After being hit by the fist he had underestimated, with his skull ringing, the guy clutched his struck cheekbone. He tried to counterattack, but no opportunity came.

“Ugh…”

Without giving a chance, Song Yi-heon kicked the guy’s shin. As he bent down to grab his shin, Song Yi-heon brought his elbow down on the guy’s back. Striking with weight on the pointed part, the impact that hit the back like a point caused pain that seemed to pierce through the body.

“Huk-!”

As he kicked away the curled-up guy, another one rushed in.

“You little pipsqueak!”

The rushing guy grabbed Song Yi-heon’s collar. Song Yi-heon also grabbed the guy’s collar. Though they both grabbed collars, there was a big difference in how they gripped. Unlike the high school student’s clumsy grip, Song Yi-heon’s method of gripping the uniform shirt in a spiral pattern was impossible to break free from.

The muscles from Song Yi-heon’s arms to his back tensed and hardened. With that, he bent his knees and raised his toes, making the soles of his sneakers trace a semicircle. An acrid burning smell spread from the rubber soles scraping the cement floor. As Song Yi-heon turned his body to shoulder the guy on his back, his back muscles bulged, tightly stretching his uniform shirt.

In an instant, the guy hoisted onto Song Yi-heon’s back widened his eyes as his feet left the ground.

“Uh, uh…?”

Before he could comprehend the rapidly changing view, he was thrown through the air and slammed into the ground.

“Uh, uh…!”

Thud-! The ground shook. The guy who had been thrown gasped at the pain shooting through his back. As the night sky spread out in his dazed vision, the heel of a sneaker stomped on his solar plexus.

“Ugh…!”

Song Yi-heon jumped, putting all his weight on the guy he was stepping on. He kicked at another guy who was recklessly charging in. As that one fell back from the kick, he threw a punch at yet another attacker coming from behind. The guy who was hit on the cheek staggered back. He wiped his split lip and charged again, but Song Yi-heon’s fist landed precisely in the same spot.

Unlike the high school students whose punches often missed by half, Song Yi-heon’s punches were clean, precise, and aimed at vital points. He was seasoned in nighttime brawls. After countless fights, he had learned to rely on senses other than sight, which was limited at night. His extremely heightened senses keenly detected shapes hidden in the darkness.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Song Yi-heon swung his tightly clenched fist at a dark figure sneaking up from behind. His black pupils, surrounded by brown irises, dilated as if absorbing what little light there was.

Crash-!

“You fucking bastard!”

A curse rang out along with the sound of breaking glass. Everyone in the alley froze.

It was the guy whose back Song Yi-heon had elbowed earlier. He was gripping the neck of a beer bottle that he had smashed against the wall. It was an empty bottle that had rolled out from the liquor boxes Song Yi-heon had knocked over when he arrived.

“Don’t move!”

The guy shouted, aiming the broken bottle at Song Yi-heon. Madness flowed in his glistening eyes, and the sharp edge of the broken beer bottle glinted.

Song Yi-heon released the collar he was holding as if throwing it and calmly stepped back. Seeing Hong Jae-min about to rush in from behind the guy wielding the beer bottle, Song Yi-heon made eye contact with Hong Jae-min and gestured with his palm up to stay put. Then he tried to talk down the guy with the beer bottle.

“You’ll get hurt. Put it down.”

“Who are you! Why are you messing around here!”

Words weren’t getting through. Typical of teenagers who identify themselves with their group, he felt threatened as his friends were taken down one by one by Song Yi-heon alone.

“Get on your knees! I said kneel!”

The guy approached, swinging the beer bottle. Song Yi-heon also stepped back, not taking his eyes off the broken bottle. If he gets close, dodge to the side and strike his wrist. There’s a risk of getting cut in close combat, but unarmed as he was now, that was the only way to make the guy drop the bottle without getting hurt. Just as Song Yi-heon was licking his dry lips and waiting for the right moment to dodge…

A bag flew in from behind and hit the face of the guy holding the beer bottle.

“Ugh!”

Startled by the bag thrown by Choi Se-kyung, the guy swung the broken bottle in all directions, and Song Yi-heon was pulled back by the collar of his shirt. A long leg stretched out and kicked the floundering guy in the stomach.

“You, you bastard…!”

The guy who had dropped the beer bottle and rolled over groped the ground. Though the look in his eyes as he searched for the broken bottle was clouded with lost reason, Choi Se-kyung, who had kicked him, only hid Song Yi-heon behind his back. Se-kyung’s face, briefly illuminated by passing headlights, had curled lips, as if amused that all he could do was threaten by swinging a broken beer bottle.

Sometimes, a fleeting moment can be more humiliating than outright mockery. Se-kyung’s smile right now was just that.

The guy who had finally grabbed the beer bottle was seething, about to lunge at any moment. Just as his sneaker soles were scraping the ground, ready to charge at Choi Se-kyung…

“Don’t do it!”

The guy who had been stepped on in the stomach gasped, trying to stop him.

“Don’t mess with Choi Se-kyung. His dad’s a prosecutor.”

As he got up leaning against the wall, he accurately mentioned Se-kyung’s background, seemingly knowing him. Since they had all attended similar middle and high schools in the standardized education area, it was common for a couple of students in the alley to have overlapping middle school backgrounds. While they couldn’t recognize the changed Song Yi-heon, Choi Se-kyung was different.

“Ah-“

Choi Se-kyung recognized him too and was about to greet him happily, but unable to remember his name, his parted lips soon turned into a friendly smile.

“Hello.”

Choi Se-kyung was kind to everyone. More precisely, he was good at pretending to be kind. He addressed even people he disliked familiarly, and a forgotten classmate was no exception. Choi Se-kyung greeted his long-unseen classmate cheerfully.

“What kind of ‘hello’ is this in this situation, that crazy bastard…”

Hong Jae-min voiced the feelings of those who had been knocked down by Song Yi-heon. The smile that didn’t match the tense situation was enough to deflate their fighting spirit.

* * *

The fight ended as Choi Se-kyung, who was troublesome to mess with, intervened. No one had the guts to hit Choi Se-kyung and pay the settlement money. Not being young enough to cause unmanageable trouble when they couldn’t even remember why they were fighting, they spat, cursing their bad luck, and left the alley first.

“Ptui-“

Hong Jae-min, who remained in the alley, kept spitting until his mouth was dry, stalling for time. He made excuses that it didn’t seem right to leave without saying goodbye after fighting together, but in truth, Jae-min was secretly hoping Song Yi-heon would speak to him.

“You can’t even fight, why did you butt in instead of just hiding behind me?”

“Well, because I knew you’d protect me?”

“Hey, ha… forget it. Just stay quiet from now on.”

However, Song Yi-heon was only worried about Choi Se-kyung, who had joined the fight late. To Hong Jae-min, all Se-kyung had done was cowardly hide and then step in at the end to stop the fight. And that too, using his parents’ influence.

Feeling that Song Yi-heon wasn’t worried about him because he didn’t have impressive parents, Hong Jae-min pouted and left the alley without even saying thanks. Yeah, you two can starve together. Hong Jae-min sneered to the end.

As they reached the main road, a street lined with sodium-vapor lamps emitting orange light opened up. Jae-min looked for his bike that he had hastily parked when the fight broke out. However, the bike wasn’t where he had left it, but was lying fallen over quite a distance away on the roadside.

“Ah-! Shit, which bastard-!”

As a car passed dangerously close to the sports bike he had bought with money saved from months of part-time work and cherished, Hong Jae-min rushed over and pulled the bike up onto the sidewalk. Whether it had fallen from an external impact, there was a large scratch on the bike’s body, and the side mirror that had hit the ground was broken.

“Wow, shit…! Do you know how much this costs…!”

Hong Jae-min, who would wax his beloved ride even if it meant starving himself, looked around frantically as if to catch the tail of the vanished culprit. As he suspiciously eyed innocent pedestrians as if about to shoot beams from his eyes, he spotted Song Yi-heon and Choi Se-kyung coming out of the alley.

Their eyes met, but as Hong Jae-min stiffly turned his head pretending not to see them, Song Yi-heon approached and imitated the school president.

“What’s a high school student doing with a motorcycle?”

“…I have a license. For a motorized bicycle.”

Se-kyung’s lips parted slightly.

“It’s surprising that you have a license.”

His genuinely surprised expression seemed truly unexpected. Song Yi-heon agreed with a similar face.

“Yeah, you look like someone who’d ride without a license.”

“Did you follow me to pick a fight?”

Hong Jae-min growled, furrowing his brow fiercely, but neither Choi Se-kyung, who was checking his phone as if bored, nor Song Yi-heon, who had his hands in his pockets looking indifferent, seemed intimidated. Hong Jae-min was dumbfounded, feeling like cold rice left out for too long.

Finding his dumbstruck face amusing, Song Yi-heon smirked and stated his purpose.

“No. I’m telling you to come to school.”

“…”

“Why aren’t you coming to school?”

Hong Jae-min skipping school was a common occurrence. He might have acted tough when his heart was pounding during his first unexcused absence in middle school, but now skipping school on a whim was no big deal. Although he often didn’t go to school without any special reason, the reason he hadn’t attended for the past two days was because of Song Yi-heon.

Song Yi-heon’s warning and Choi Se-kyung’s mockery had stopped Hong Jae-min’s feet at the school gate. He felt uncomfortable facing those two in the classroom. It was shameful to be unable to refute and just take it whenever he was criticized for his past actions. And at the same time, he felt ashamed because everything they said was true.

In the end, Hong Jae-min chose to run away.

He had been wandering outside school because Song Yi-heon made him uncomfortable, but ironically, it was Song Yi-heon who had helped him in the fight. And it was also Song Yi-heon who had been looking for Hong Jae-min to tell him to come to school. He had thought Song Yi-heon had completely turned his back on him, but when he reached out first, a wave of emotion swept over him.

Unaware that his moist eyes glistening in the streetlight reflected his welling emotions, Hong Jae-min listened as Song Yi-heon advised again.

“Come to school. I don’t care what you do, but get your high school diploma. You’ll regret it later.”

However, Hong Jae-min was clumsy with expressing emotions. His tired mind and body from wandering the streets easily became numb, and not wanting to reveal his choked-up feelings, Hong Jae-min responded irritably.

“…Don’t bother. Mind your own business. Who asked you to care?”

“What?”

Song Yi-heon’s fists clenched and his thin eyebrows twitched. After going to the trouble of finding him, Hong Jae-min’s response was disappointing. He had intended to let it slide, but unable to do so, Song Yi-heon pointed at Hong Jae-min’s motorcycle.