#134
The guy sitting across from him made an exaggerated expression as if he had been through a great ordeal.
“Anyway, it’s nice to see you again. It brings back old memories, doesn’t it?”
Ha-min hated that seemingly sincere smile to a terrible degree, but he faced him without changing his expression. He gritted his teeth and faced him.
“Since it’s been a while, want to do it again?”
The guy sitting on the table pointed to his crotch and smiled maliciously. What he had written in the comment was true. Whenever they saw his face, that’s where they always started. Starting with crawling between this guy’s legs.
Ha-min took a deep breath, trying to steady his shaking breath. Afraid he might stutter, he repeated what he needed to say in his mind over and over.
“…I’m sorry, but.”
And then, more calmly than ever, without wavering, he opened his mouth.
“That’s not why I came here.”
Facing one’s trauma was never an easy task. After all, it had caused him to have panic attacks, visit the hospital, and even get prescriptions. He suddenly remembered what the counselor had said. That someday, something that once seemed enormous might become infinitesimally small with time. Even though he understood this intellectually, it wasn’t easy. Because violence made a person weaker than a feather.
“The comment… was that you?”
Ha-min spoke with a voice he had been swallowing hard.
“Oh… look at you talking back.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t tell me you came all the way here because you were pissed about that?”
“To tell you not to do things like that… That’s why I came here.”
“Wow, look at how big your head’s gotten.”
The man let out a loud, mocking laugh and flicked Ha-min’s forehead with his finger. Despite the rudeness of flicking his finger as if dealing with someone far beneath him, Ha-min didn’t flinch.
“I hope… this doesn’t happen again in the future.”
Although his breathing quickened to the point where his nostrils flared, he tried his best to hide it and spoke each syllable clearly. He tried to, at least.
The response to his difficult words was a snort.
“What if I don’t want to?”
“That’s all I wanted to say.”
His voice trembled, but what he wanted to say was clear.
“…I didn’t come here to blame you for what you’ve done to me all this time.”
“…”
“I didn’t come here to try anything either.”
The surroundings went quiet. Even the laughter among them and the sound of clinking glasses disappeared. Feeling the heavy silence, Ha-min slowly stood up.
Their gaze, looking at Ha-min as if his articulate speech was ridiculous, was quite hostile. On the contrary, Ha-min, who had entered enemy territory, took a deep breath and tightly gripped his trembling hands to maintain his composure. Then, the guy who had brought him here broke the silence first. He brought a glass with brown liquid swirling in it to his front.
“Hey, stop being difficult and sit down. Sit and have a drink.”
“…”
“Stop acting all high and mighty.”
It was more of an order than a suggestion, but Ha-min responded with no reaction. Finding his response both interesting and irritating, the guy sitting across from him cursed, “Fuck,” under his breath and stood up.
“This is why it’s a problem when these fucking losers go to college―”
“…”
“Do you think acting like you’re something now erases your shitty past?”
Kwon Dae-woo, who had left the comment and was the first to bully him earlier, brought his face close.
“Hey, bring that over here.”
Then he gestured to one of the guys next to him. A man who had been watching carefully poured some white powder into a glass of alcohol. Ha-min couldn’t know exactly what it was, but he knew for certain that he absolutely shouldn’t drink it.
“Hey, drink this.”
Kwon Dae-woo ordered, forcefully pushing the glass towards him. Ha-min quietly stared at the white powder dissolving into the golden liquid.
“If you drink it, I’ll reduce the ten hits you’re going to get to five.”
Kwon Dae-woo smiled vilely.
“You must have been prepared for this when you came here, right?”
“…”
“You didn’t really think I called you here because I was happy to see you, did you?”
He started to show his true colors, seemingly quite irritated by Ha-min’s few words of defiance. The atmosphere was gradually becoming more vicious, but the people around only glanced nervously, showing no intention of stopping it.
But Kwon Dae-woo was right. He had anticipated all of this. That if he came here of his own accord, they wouldn’t just let him go.
“It’s harder now that we’re older.”
“…”
“We’ve developed a social face, so we can’t just play with anyone anymore.”
“…”
“High school days feel like a dream now.”
Kwon Dae-woo smiled wryly as if reminiscing.
“I miss it sometimes, Ha-min.”
At that moment, yellow liquid poured over Kwon Dae-woo’s head. His smiling face froze coldly as the liquid wet his head and face. Everyone there froze in shock and stared at Ha-min, who had poured the drink over Kwon Dae-woo’s head. Ha-min glared at Kwon Dae-woo, breathing heavily. It made his skin crawl to hear him call his name so shamelessly. His whole body trembled at the guy’s words describing that time as something he missed.
“You crazy bastard…!”
Kwon Dae-woo finally realized that the liquid poured on his face was the drink he had offered and twisted his face viciously. Feeling the sting in his eyes, he wiped his face with his sleeve and immediately raised his hand to grab Ha-min’s hair. But as if he had been waiting for this, Ha-min pulled out his phone and showed the screen with 112 (emergency number) dialed.
“If, if you touch me, I’ll call the police right away.”
“What?”
“…I have friends who will come if I call now.”
The reason Ha-min was able to come here, more than anything, was because he was no longer alone. It was a fact he had realized again and again.
“I’m not just saying this.”
Ha-min said, holding the phone screen with 112 dialed closer to them.
“Ha, fuck, what… Hey, are you crazy? Aren’t you going to put that away?”
Kwon Dae-woo laughed hollowly and roughly pushed Ha-min’s phone away, but Ha-min ignored it and held out his phone again.
“I, I… don’t miss it at all.”
His chin trembled visibly, to an unsightly degree. It might have been a sight others would laugh at, but Ha-min was determined. He had to say what he came to say to them, here.
“It was so horrible I wanted to die.”
He continued speaking with difficulty, gripping his phone tightly.
“So from now on, wherever you see me, wherever we meet, don’t act like you know me.”
“…”
“Let’s live as if we don’t exist to each other.”
Ha-min barely swallowed his fear and stated the purpose of his visit, pretending to be calm. This is what he wanted to say. He hadn’t come for revenge or anything like that, nor for some grand reason like erasing the past.
It was simply because he didn’t want to see even a trace of them in his life, in his future.
“Who are you to give orders like this?”
“…”
“You seem to have forgotten after not getting beaten for a few years?”
Kwon Dae-woo approached as if he was about to grab Ha-min’s collar. Ha-min quickly stepped back and shouted urgently.
“I, I wasn’t just sitting quietly while you beat me for three years.”
Ha-min suddenly fiddled with his phone and held it out to them again. It showed his body covered in dark bruises and wounds, completely battered. And he played a video right in front of them of them laughing and mocking him, bullying him. In the video, he was surrounded by them, being kicked. While being kicked, he was crawling between Kwon Dae-woo’s legs, making pig noises.
These were the evidence of bullying he had kept to himself for the past few years. He had prepared the data stored on a USB hidden deep in his room when he went to organize his moving belongings recently.
“Even though it happened when we were young, it’s still possible to report it.”
“This bastard…”
“I, I don’t think you’ll go to jail or repent just because of this…”
He had collected it carefully, thinking it might be useful someday. His mother had wanted to press charges with this evidence, but Ha-min had backed down. Back then, he didn’t have the courage to face them again.
“Even if you don’t go to jail… I can at least create some gossip in your lives.”
“…”
“The schools you attend.”
“…”
“The workplaces you’ll go to in the future… and even the people you’ll meet and marry.”
“…”
“At least… at least…!”
Ha-min conveyed his message clearly, suppressing the hot emotions surging in his throat.
“…At least I can create a label that will stick to your names.”
He could at least expose their violent and vile faces here and there. He knew running away was no longer the answer. Even if he didn’t have the strength to fight back, he had promised himself that he wouldn’t act like a coward anymore.
“…So,”
“…”
“Wherever you see me, don’t act like you know me…”
“…”
“You don’t have the right… to look at me like that.”
Ha-min gritted his teeth as if resolved and spat out each word. For some reason, he felt like he might choke up. He felt like he might burst into tears from the sheer absurdity and ridiculousness of seeing them frozen in place over something so trivial. But Ha-min held back, even biting his lip.
“…From now on,”
“…”
“I hope we never see each other again.”
Ha-min left the room, leaving behind those who had frozen stupidly without saying a word. He heard Kwon Dae-woo’s voice shouting, “Fuck, catch that bastard!” but he didn’t stop out of fear. As he heard the door slam shut behind him, Ha-min felt like his legs might give out, but he barely managed to gather his strength and escape from there.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
