#Aftermath(3)
After graduation, the fact that Song Ha-min had attempted suicide was known to all students at the school. It was impossible not to know because Song Ha-min’s mother had turned the school upside down. She even slapped the principal’s face and threatened to report to the police, causing all the parents of the accused students to be summoned. Thanks to that, Kwon Dae-woo was marked by his father and was practically exiled to study abroad in the Philippines after graduation.
“Hey, we’re not high schoolers anymore, you know?”
“That bastard can’t report us anyway. If he could, he would have done it already.”
“…True. You have a lot of lawyers, right?”
“About three?”
“Wow, amazing.”
Triumphantly, Kwon Dae-woo shrugged his shoulders. He enjoyed the envious gazes he received when showing off things that ordinary people couldn’t have. Expensive alcohol, companions who instinctively kowtowed to him, exaggerated reactions. Kwon Dae-woo finally felt satisfied, as if he had returned to his rightful place. He was washing away the humiliation and shame he had felt over the past few days in this way.
As he was coming out of the bathroom with his group, strutting proudly, his phone in his pants pocket suddenly vibrated.
“Hey, go ahead first. I’ll catch up after this call.”
His companions nodded and disappeared down the corridor. Kwon Dae-woo put a cigarette in his mouth, not caring that he was indoors. Checking the screen, it was an unknown number.
“Hello.”
Who is this? As Kwon Dae-woo answered the phone with an indifferent face, an unfamiliar yet familiar voice came through.
-Did your friends leave?
The voice had a hint of laughter in it. For some unknown reason, Kwon Dae-woo felt a chill down his spine and furrowed his brow deeply.
“What is it?”
-Well, you never know what might happen to someone.
“What?”
It wasn’t just the eerie voice. The low voice was also echoing nearby. In that moment, Kwon Dae-woo looked around warily, raising his eyebrows.
“What nonsense are you—”
-I’ve been waiting.
“Hey, who are you?!”
Ignoring the chills, he shouted back angrily, and then a low laugh came from right behind him.
“You don’t need to know.”
As the voice rang close to his ear, Kwon Dae-woo’s face turned pale, and in that moment, his hair was yanked back. Caught off guard by the unexpected attack, Kwon Dae-woo groaned and looked behind him. He saw the sleeve of a shirt worth over ten million won. And then he was dragged back into the bathroom he had just left, as if blacking out.
Thrown into a bathroom stall, Kwon Dae-woo flailed like a drowning person and confirmed the man in front of him. He recognized him as the man whose sleek shirt line had inadvertently caught his attention earlier, and Kwon Dae-woo’s expression turned hostile.
“What the hell! Who are you?!”
Kwon Dae-woo was bewildered by the fact that he had been helplessly grabbed by the hair and dragged into a bathroom stall. It was the first time he had succumbed to a force he couldn’t resist, and although he raised his voice, his fingertips trembled slightly.
The man in front of him took off the watch strapped to his wrist. Kwon Dae-woo recognized the gold-rimmed watch as a famous luxury product even in his frantic state and gulped.
“It’s really unfortunate.”
The man who suddenly spoke wrapped the watch he’d removed from his wrist around his fingers, from index to pinky. Kwon Dae-woo, still with a stupid look on his face, remained shoved against the toilet as he looked up at the man. His face showed that he couldn’t comprehend the situation that had unfolded so suddenly. But the man continued calmly.
“If I had a gun, I could just shoot you and be done with it.”
“…”
“If I had a knife, I could just stab you and be done with it.”
The voice that followed was calm but devoid of any elation or inflection.
“Now that I have a girlfriend, these things aren’t so easy anymore.”
The man smiled slightly as he mentioned his girlfriend. It was a small smile that could charm even a stranger. Kwon Dae-woo stared at him with a dumbfounded face for a moment before regaining his senses, knitting his brows and assessing the situation.
“W-what are you talking about, damn… Hey, who are you? What’s your purpose in doing this to me? Is it money?”
Is this a robbery I’ve only heard about? Or is it extortion? Kwon Dae-woo darted his eyes around, lowering his body slightly due to the man’s intimidating presence.
At the same time, there was a clicking sound as the man fastened the watch to his own finger. Strangely feeling it like a warning signal, Kwon Dae-woo realized his heart was pounding. He was instinctively aware of it. That the person in front of him was not ordinary. As Kwon Dae-woo felt the rising tension, a bead of cold sweat fell from his temple.
“If you need money, I have a wallet in my back pocket. If you need more, my account…”
Just as Kwon Dae-woo’s bold voice was trailing off, a phone vibration rang out as if it had been waiting. At that moment, color returned to Kwon Dae-woo’s frozen face. As he looked around for the ringing phone as if it were his savior, he realized the phone belonged to the man.
The man checked the screen and picked up the phone. He spoke in a casual voice.
“Turn off the CCTV.”
At the man’s brief command, Kwon Dae-woo’s pupils dilated. Convinced that something was about to happen based on that one sentence, he shouted without caring about embarrassment.
“Please spare me! Please—kugh!”
At the noisy outburst, the man, while continuing his call, unhesitatingly twisted Kwon Dae-woo’s hair backward. With a force that felt like bones would break, Kwon Dae-woo choked out groans as if his airway was blocked. Meanwhile, the man calmly continued his call.
“Make it look like he left early to his companions. Have someone set up this bastard’s car too.”
Kwon Dae-woo glanced sideways with bloodshot eyes at the man who was conversing normally. With the pressure he’d never felt before, Kwon Dae-woo finally felt fear creeping up on him.
“I’ll give you guys a proper wedding gift.”
After finishing the call with just the essentials, the man finally released Kwon Dae-woo’s hair and faced him. Realizing this was his chance, Kwon Dae-woo began trying to appease the man again.
“W-what do you want? If it’s money… I have quite a lot. I have several accounts, and, uh, I could call my mom for more money…!”
Kwon Dae-woo, who had started groveling with an uncharacteristically low posture, smiled kindly and stammered. The man, who had been quietly observing from above, spoke in an authoritative voice.
“How does it feel?”
“Ye-yes…?”
In response to Kwon Dae-woo’s incomprehensible answer, the man exhaled briefly and struck Kwon Dae-woo’s face with his fist wearing the watch. With a groan, Kwon Dae-woo collapsed to the floor, spitting blood and coughing dryly. With pain reverberating to his brain, Kwon Dae-woo crawled, choking and unaware that he was rolling on the bathroom floor.
“I asked how it feels to be beaten.”
The man, who stomped on Kwon Dae-woo’s head as he crawled toward the exit, asked briefly.
“You, fucking bastard…!!”
Facing unprecedented violent humiliation, Kwon Dae-woo glared at the man with bloodshot eyes. Just as Kwon Dae-woo, momentarily losing his fear, tried to rise with flashing eyes regaining his senses, the foot that had been stomping on the back of his head applied pressure, pushing his raised head back to the floor. The clear sound of his forehead and nose breaking echoed through the high-ceilinged bathroom.
“ARGGGH!!!!”
At the sound of writhing in pain, the man briefly exhaled a breath of contempt and bent his knees. The man, who bent his body to meet eyes, grabbed Kwon Dae-woo’s hair again from behind, whose face looked as if the facial bones had been dislocated.
His face was a mess, with a twisted nose bridge and saliva full of blood dripping. Kwon Dae-woo was breathing heavily and crying miserably. His confident demeanor had long disappeared, and he was just a worthless sight trembling in a mess.
“I-I don’t know why you’re doing this to me… but I-I’ve done wrong…”
Kwon Dae-woo, making eye contact, apologized with slurred pronunciation, perhaps having lost a molar. Without knowing the reason, merely to avoid this moment, to avoid wanting to die at the hands of the man in front of him, he began to beg his opponent for the first time.
“I-if you need money, I’ll give you all of it. Okay? If you just spare me once…”
In response to Kwon Dae-woo’s plea, the man slightly raised the corner of his mouth and suddenly rummaged through his pants pocket. At the gesture of touching his own body, Kwon Dae-woo noticeably flinched and trembled. Then, with a domineering hand, he searched Kwon Dae-woo’s pants pocket and pulled out a cigarette pack.
“Even the cigarettes you smoke are disgusting.”
It was a brand of cigarettes famous for being smelly, expensive, and strong. The man briefly clicked his tongue and took out three cigarettes, placing them in Kwon Dae-woo’s blood-filled lips. Kwon Dae-woo looked at the man fearfully.
“Bite them.”
At the brief command, Kwon Dae-woo immediately bit down on the three cigarettes. He still looked confused. The man seemed to have no intention of explaining. He just skillfully turned the flint of the Zippo lighter that was in the cigarette pack and lit it. Then, shielding the flame from the wind, he lit the end of the cigarettes Kwon Dae-woo was holding and commanded again.
“Inhale.”
Kwon Dae-woo, without even feeling the pain in his torn lips, followed orders and inhaled the cigarette filter with all his might. All three cigarettes lit up at once, with smoke rising.
“Don’t drop the cigarettes.”
The man, tapping Kwon Dae-woo’s cheek with his hand wearing the watch with broken glass, spoke affectionately. Kwon Dae-woo, who trembled even at this simple touch, repeatedly nodded like a machine. Though he smoked these cigarettes daily, they now felt like poison gas, and Kwon Dae-woo tried his hardest to suppress the urge to cough.
“I’m currently trying to quit smoking.”
The man briefly explained and removed one of the lit cigarettes from Kwon Dae-woo’s mouth.
“My girlfriend has too many scars on her arms.”
The man’s disjointed words continued as if he didn’t care for a response.
“I can’t smoke in front of a girlfriend who has cigarette burns.”
Kwon Dae-woo couldn’t understand what the man was saying at all. His only concern was one thing: how to escape from here, how to make this man let him go. Although he had only been hit a few times, fear had filled him as if death was right in front of him.
“I really wonder what the feeling was when seeing that…”
The man furrowed his brow as if reminiscing anew and became lost in thought. At the momentary glimpse of murderous intent, Kwon Dae-woo felt a chill and subtly moved his body backward. At that moment, the man turned his gaze and directly met Kwon Dae-woo’s eyes.
“How was it?”
It was another disjointed question. Kwon Dae-woo, still with a face that showed he didn’t understand, slightly shook his head. During this, he tried not to drop the cigarettes held in his mouth.
“When you were burned with cigarettes… I’m asking how it felt.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
