“Aaaaaaagh!”

“M-my arm won’t move.”

“My leg! My leeeeeeeg!!!”

Wee-woo, wee-woo!

A hospital.

Outside, the ambulances at the emergency room were making a racket.

It was chaos, as if every 119 rig in the city had been called out.

The kids I’d beaten screamed to their hearts’ content now that the fear was gone.

The emergency room was a madhouse.

The bastards had a fine set of lungs.

“You hurting anywhere, kid?”

“M-my chest hurts. They hit me in the stomach too and it’s gurgling and it doesn’t feel right. My head’s dizzy. Blergh…”

The show had started a while back.

The moment 112 and 119 showed up, I lay down on the ground.

My friends and the delinquent family, staring at me in disbelief.

Manufacturing plenty of symptoms up front made the diagnosis easier to expand later.

“Is that so? You took a lot of hits.”

“They… they took my money, and all of them at once… hic.”

Tears and snot ran down my face in streams.

“Whew. All right. Let’s start with an MRI and an X-ray.”

“Yes… Doctor.”

The doctor wiped the blood off my mouth with gauze and sighed.

And he did not forget to shoot the punks a glare.

Anybody could tell which side was good and which was evil.

My acting had reached its peak.

Students in Jangju High School uniforms had occupied the emergency room in broad daylight.

The school’s honor was obviously going into the dirt as of today.

“So who’s the one who hit you?”

“Th-that second-year sunbae over there…”

“Him? He hit you?”

The beaten juniors pointed at me.

Heh heh. We shot a whole movie at school today.

No — the scene wasn’t over yet.

It was a long, long take that wasn’t over until it was over.

Exactly five minutes after the call to 112, three police cars and a string of ambulances came swarming in from every direction.

The school was turned upside down.

The teachers, who had eaten a good lunch and were dozing or browsing the internet, all came bursting outside.

And then they froze where they stood.

The kids got into the police cars one after another.

The ones who couldn’t walk or had a broken arm took the ambulances.

Every resident of the neighborhood came out to watch. It was a rare sight for a country township, and they were busy filming it on their cell phones.

The teachers rushed over, but there was nothing they could do.

The incident had gone in as a report through the official 112 line.

One look said it was a major assault case, so the police couldn’t wrap it up easily either.

I’d told the guys ahead of time.

To tell it exactly as it happened.

Only, all they had to state was that I and the punks led by Hong Seong-hyeon had fought as a group.

My friends nodded.

Every one of them was quick enough on the uptake.

“Name… Jang Tae-san. Jangju High School, second year, class four, correct?”

A rough-faced detective from Violent Crimes came over and started in on me.

Irritation clung to his voice, and he glared at me the moment he arrived.

“Yes.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“Sorry?”

“I said why did you beat those kids!”

Huh. This mister is laying it on thick.

With no lead-in and no follow-up, he asked only why I had beaten them.

My breathing settled and went calm.

This was the moment I’d been waiting for anyway.

“I’m the victim. The assailants are the students of the school’s delinquent circle, over there.”

“They’re the ones who got hit!”

“I’m a patient too.”

“A split lip is the same thing? You’re a black belt, aren’t you, punk? What’d you get it in. Spit it out. It all comes out once we look, so spit it out fast.”

A cop with a single notebook in his hand, talking like his nerves were shot — one look and you knew… a dirty detective.

Sorry, mister.

I’ll be cutting that meal ticket of yours.

The detective didn’t know the recorder on my cell phone was running.

“Detective. This is too much. Anybody can see I’m the victim. They took my money and they attacked first, and… why am I the only one you’re going after! Khh.”

This time I squeezed out a few tears too, and my voice shook, full of indignation.

I figured this year’s Grand Prize in acting was mine to take.

“Hey! Enough of the nonsense, let’s get this over with. Why did you beat those kids? You called them out on purpose, didn’t you? And you beat up juniors you didn’t like, right?”

“What are you talking about! Those kids took money from students at this school! And they beat kids who can’t fight back, and they threaten them! Those bastards are the school’s delinquents, I’m telling you!”

“Delinquents, my foot! Friends can borrow money from each other. It’s cold to turn around and call that taking. Back in my day, when friends fought we finished it nicely over a glass of soju.”

The detective mister was doing a fine job of spouting absolute nonsense.

“By the way, who are you, Detective?”

“Inspector Park Dong-seok, Violent Crimes Team Two.”

“…Detective, did you take money?”

“Wh-what did you say. Punk!”

Inspector Park Dong-seok, flushing red and flustered at the hook I’d thrown.

He took it, all right, he took it!

“Then why are you cornering me like this? My guardian, who is my legal representative, hasn’t even gotten here yet. And I’m a minor. You shouldn’t be pushing me like you’re interrogating a criminal, should you?”

“…”

As I said it word by clear word, Inspector Park Dong-seok’s face went stiff.

And his expression got filthier.

“Where does this punk get off running his mouth! You think you’re the first one like you I’ve ever seen! Little gangster shit!”

Inspector Park Dong-seok raised the hand holding the notebook and set himself to strike.

Wow. This mister is an Amen and an Amitabha too.

If he knew it was being recorded he wouldn’t run his mouth like that.

And that violent gesture!

I took it in clearly, with my own eyes.

“Detective, you’re being mean. Please call a different detective. Doctor! Doctor!”

Talking like a little kid, I called for the doctor in a hurry.

“What? What’s going on?”

The emergency room doctor came running.

I put on the face of someone startled into tears, and I was so deep in the acting that real tears came out.

“Th-the detective is calling me a gangster and treating me like a criminal… My heart hurts so much… my head is d-dizzy too…”

“What’s this!”

The doc fell for my acting completely.

I let my internal energy run backward, just slightly.

My color went bad fast.

With the blood running the wrong way, it was only natural.

“What do you think you’re doing! Did you just question a patient without my permission! And if something happens because of it, will you take responsibility, Detective!”

The young doc blew up.

The supporting role suited him very well.

“N-no, that is…”

Mister Dong-seok, with a stunned look on his face.

Farewell. You’ll probably be a star soon, without even knowing it.

“Aaagh!”

I gave them a good solid scream.

And I grabbed my head with both hands.

“Nurse! Prep an antihypertensive! Get this patient an X-ray and an MRI, fast. Put it through as a rush! It looks like early concussion symptoms, so be careful with his head!”

“Yes, Doctor.”

My bed was moved right away.

The detective watched me go, blankly.

Mister. You shouldn’t live your life like that.

If you shut your eyes to injustice, is that a detective? That’s a gangster by tacit consent.

I let myself be carried along on the bed, comfortable.

My face was pale and the sweat poured off me like rain.

It was a physical change only internal energy could give.

There. Burn. Blaze away.

When a three-room thatched hut catches fire, there’s only one way to go.

It was a thatched hut that would be useless anyway if it only half burned.

There was one choice and one only.

You throw away your attachment and feed the fire, so that a new house can go up.

“It’s likely to come to about sixteen weeks of prescribed recovery. The fingers and joints of the right hand are broken into dozens of pieces. The surgery went well, but for the rest of his life… he’ll be living with a disability.” (TL Note: Korean assault cases turn on a 전치 figure — a doctor’s certified estimate of the weeks a victim needs to heal. It sets how seriously the case is charged, so the number is quoted the way an American report would quote a charge.)

“Khh.”

Hong Seong-hyeon had not come out of the anesthesia and lay in a private room.

His right hand was wound around and around with bandages and strapped into a brace.

Beside him his father, Hong Jang-hyeok — potbellied, round-faced, gold-rimmed glasses — clenched his teeth and held his fury in.

When he heard the attending physician’s explanation, the fury filled him to the top of his head.

This was his youngest son, the apple of his eye.

The boy took after him closely, and he had doted on him.

School had gotten noisy now and then, but he had thought of it as a phase that would pass.

And that was what he had always taught at home.

Never get friendly with people from the bottom.

“That bastard… where is he now! I said where is the gangster shit who did this to my son!”

“H-he’s been admitted.”

The aide answered, trembling.

For all that his face suggested otherwise, Hong Jang-hyeok was a cruel man.

From his days as a lawyer he had sold his soul for anything that paid.

Even after becoming a city councilman he had colluded with power and raked the money in.

“Have him detained!”

“…Inspector Park moved on it, but he says it looks impossible. The boy is still a minor, and they say he’s at eight weeks of prescribed recovery himself.”

“A student? What kind of student is that gangster!”

“I’m sorry, Councilman.”

“And it can’t be done? What can’t be done! My own precious boy has to live the rest of his life disabled, and that punk can’t be detained! Get in touch with the branch chief at the district prosecutors’ office. Tell him I want to see him!”

“Yes, understood.”

Hong Jang-hyeok was truly furious.

Violence against his son was a provocation aimed at himself.

There was exactly one reason he had lived until now behaving like a dog: he wanted to live like a king in the world of the men who had it all.

Cracks went splitting through Hong Jang-hyeok’s pride.

“I’ll break that bastard. And sweep out his whole family with him!”

Hong Jang-hyeok made up his mind.

Not knowing how dangerous a web he was surrounded by at that moment.

(End of Chapter 15)