The Blood of a Beast
“So I really do have the blood of a beast running through me, huh?”
With the downpour at his back, Seo Rin stared into the darkened shop window. Faintly, the reflection of a monster with red eyes and a raincoat pulled over its head swam into view. That that monster was him—his own face—was a bitterly ironic thing.
He clenched his left fist and swung it toward the eaves. The curtain of rainwater gathering there exploded on impact. The shattered fragments—fine droplets of water—scattered in every direction and vanished into the storm. He had no doubt that if he turned a punch like that on a person, even a non-vital blow would kill them.
Everyone, that is… except for that one guy.
Seo Rin opened his hand and studied the palm. Liquid—sweat or rainwater, he couldn’t tell—filled the hollow of his grip.
“Disgusting.”
The muttered word was aimed at the young man in the black racing suit. Since that day the guy hadn’t shown his face again. But he wouldn’t have given up on Seo Rin. What the legendary bomber wanted by leaving him alive was anyone’s guess, yet Seo Rin felt certain the man was still watching him. He had no real proof—only a raw, animal instinct.
They said that when one predator met another, beasts could sense each other’s strength and purpose by pure instinct. If that was true, then Han Se-gun was a beast of the same kind as him.
“Haa…”
Seo Rin wandered the rain-slicked streets for a while, then pulled two drinks from a vending machine and headed home. When he opened the door, Hwa-young was already curled under the blanket, asleep.
“Hmm.”
He stripped off the raincoat, stuffed it back into its box, and stretched out on the floor opposite her.
“Tomorrow’s problems can wait for tomorrow. Right now I need sleep.”
With that, he closed his eyes.
Seo Rin was thinking about humans. What, exactly, made someone human? Everyone pondered it once in a while, but for him the question cut deeper than for most—because he himself was not human. Accepting a non-human son had sent his father away to a distant foreign farm. The family had scattered, trapped in a poverty they could never escape.
“……Ugh!”
He sat up and checked the clock. Five in the morning. He’d been fired from the newspaper route, but the early-rising habit remained; he cleared his bedding.
“Haa… should I make breakfast?”
He stretched and glanced around. In the corner Hwa-young slept curled into a tight ball. Back in school she’d run with delinquents, acting like the world belonged to her; seeing her like this now only made her look pitiful.
“Well… I’m still a student too.”
The moment you threw away the shield of student status, the world bared its ugly fangs. He had no intention of nodding along with the Marxist habit of blaming every ill on capitalists, yet the truth remained: the weak were destined to be exploited. And anyone short on brains and born into nothing was weak by definition.
The so-called tough guys who’d been top dogs in school? Once they hit society they were just weaklings too. In fact, with no education and no smarts, they were the weakest of all.
“Stupid people are the weak ones. That’s all there is to it.”
Muttering, Seo Rin opened a book and studied until the rice was ready. For someone from a broken, penniless home to become a social strongman, the only real path was knowing the law and studying hard.
Some kids romanticized life in organized crime, but that was the sort of fantasy only the truly brainless entertained. Korean criminal law was merciless; simply forming a violent organization could draw a death sentence.
“…….”
He stopped twirling his pen. Even so, anger kept rising in his chest. Was it really okay to shrug and say the weak simply deserved whatever happened to them?
“Damn it.”
He closed the book and carefully peered out the window, half-expecting the men from last night to still be lurking nearby. Thankfully the street looked empty. The real problem was whether he could just leave this girl here. Handing her over to the police would be cleanest, but she clearly had reasons she would rather die than go near a station. Keeping her indefinitely wasn’t an option either.
“Men and women after seven shouldn’t share a room, after all.”
He flipped over a flyer. Plenty of the cheap uncoated ads had blank backs; he collected them as scrap paper.
In the dim light he scrawled a note with his pen.
I’m heading out first. If you leave, put the key under the second window frame. Just lock the inner window.
He even added a little diagram to make it clearer, then set out a proper breakfast.
“Well then… time to go.”
Outside, the fresh dawn air greeted him. The rain had stopped; fog or smog—he couldn’t tell which—clung to the alley. Cars somehow jammed into a lane barely wide enough for one of them sat wet with morning dew. Seo Rin stepped out and loosened up.
“Might as well head to school and finish studying.”
Of course the studying he meant had nothing to do with regular classes. It was real-estate broker exam questions and various statutes. Looking at Hwa-young only confirmed it: a person with nothing had no choice but to study like hell if they wanted to succeed. He glanced back at his house. Worry lingered, but skipping school wasn’t an option.
Seo Rin set off toward school.
In the early-morning schoolyard the sports-club kids were already out practicing. On a set of chin-up bars free of athletes, Choi Hyuk-jin hung by one arm, pulling himself up.
Seo Rin wasn’t human, so his strength made sense—but Hyuk-jin was already far beyond a normal high-schooler. His father was supposedly a strongman performer; Hyuk-jin himself excelled not only at that but at boxing and jujitsu too. He’d even taken a few prizes in middle school, yet hated the hazing culture of sports teams and refused to join any.
“Yo, Seo Rin! What’s the occasion? Nnngh—coming to school this early?”
“Lost my job. Nothing better to do.”
Seo Rin grabbed the bar next to him and started one-armed pull-ups of his own. While he worked he asked,
“You remember Shin Hwa-young?”
“That idiot? Yeah, I remember. Why the sudden interest?”
Hyuk-jin switched from right arm to left. Seo Rin didn’t understand the nickname and pressed.
“Why ‘idiot’?”
“Why? Because she’s an idiot, that’s why. Messed around, passed herself around, wrecked her body, got herself kicked out of school… walking textbook example of a total moron, right? There’s always some brainless idiot who lives like that.”
“…….”
Seo Rin stared, stunned at how casually Hyuk-jin dropped such heavy information. True or not, just hearing it painted pictures that made his face heat up.
“Ugh… ‘passed herself around’…?”
“You dirty-minded bastard. Thinking something nasty?”
“Huh? Was I wrong?”
“Course you weren’t wrong. World’s full of guys who think any female body is great. She starts flirting around saying she ‘played a little,’ and you already know the rest.”
Hyuk-jin dropped to the ground. Even a standout like him was still human; more than twenty one-armed pull-ups was apparently his limit. Seo Rin could have gone all day if he wanted, but he knew Hyuk-jin’s feelings toward him bordered on jealousy, so he dropped down too.
He was well aware that Hyuk-jin, student or not, poured more than six solid hours a day into training. Even so, as long as he remained human he would never catch up to Seo Rin.
By now most people would start getting suspicious, yet Hyuk-jin simply decided Seo Rin had been born with monstrous talent and burned with envy. Not that Seo Rin could exactly say, “Actually I’m a werewolf.”
Come to think of it, being a werewolf is basically a kind of talent too.
While Seo Rin was lost in that thought, Hyuk-jin clapped his hands.
“Oh, right… sorry, sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for now?”
“No, I just remembered something…”
“Remembered what?”
“You never knew she liked you?”
“Huh?”
Seo Rin whipped around, startled. Talk about a bolt from the blue—what was that supposed to mean?
“Uh… what are you talking about?”
“You were pretty popular at the co-ed school. Looks weren’t half bad… if people just hadn’t found out how poor your family was, you would’ve been fine.”
A man could be drop-dead handsome, but if he was poor it was all for nothing. Unless he became a celebrity, good looks alone got him nowhere. That mindset had already sunk all the way down to elementary schoolers.
“Forget that—how come I never knew and you somehow know all this?”
When Seo Rin protested, Hyuk-jin rubbed his nose and stopped in front of the faculty entrance.
“Because you’re the densest guy on the planet, that’s why.”
They climbed to their classroom on the third floor—all the second-year rooms were clustered there.
“Anyway, what’s with the sudden interest? Did she show up in a wet dream or something? Morning wood?”
“……You think I’m you?”
Seo Rin shuddered as he answered. Asking if he’d used a girl he’d just seen last night as jack-off material—there were limits to bad taste. Of course, since he hadn’t explained the situation yet, Hyuk-jin had no idea of the details.
“Well la-di-da. Must be nice being so pure. Unlike refined gentlemen like you, this body of mine has to drain the pipes ten times a day or my head fills up with junk.”
“What are you, a faucet? Touch it and it just comes out?”
Mid-retort Seo Rin glanced at him. Hyuk-jin was a bit of a crude friend, but maybe—just maybe—he could talk to this guy and get a real answer.
He opened a law book on his desk and said,
“Actually… she came looking for me last night.”
“…….”
Hyuk-jin’s eyes went wide; he clapped a hand over his mouth and bit a fingernail.
“W-what? For real? So what happened?”
“Looked like she’d run out of some bar. A few guys were hunting for her. Heavy makeup—I didn’t even recognize her at first.”
As Seo Rin spoke he watched Hyuk-jin’s eyes turn weirdly shiny. He sensed things were going off the rails, but it was already too late.
“So… you… let her sleep at your place?”
“Yeah.”
“You bastard, you finally ditched your virginity. Congrats.”
Hyuk-jin draped an arm around his shoulders. Seo Rin knocked it off.
“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
“So you didn’t do it?”
“I didn’t!”
Seo Rin cursed the version of himself from five minutes ago. He’d actually believed he could open his heart man-to-man with Choi Hyuk-jin. That was the payoff? How pathetic. Hyuk-jin, however, only stared at him like he was the pathetic one.
“Your house is empty now, right? A guy and a girl alone under one roof and nothing happened? You got some kind of problem? Functional issues? Does the tent even pitch properly?”
“Absolutely not, you asshole!”
“So little sisters are more your speed? Classic sister complex. How about ditching those twisted desires that heaven, earth, and man all refuse to forgive and living in a bright, healthy society instead? It’s not too late.”
“……Forget it. My mistake for asking you anything.”
Seo Rin turned away. Realizing he’d gone too far, Hyuk-jin offered a peace gesture.
“So what’s actually going on? Can’t you just hand her over to the cops?”
“I’m not talking to a guy like you.”
“Come on—if she got into that kind of place she’s probably drowning in debt. That’s why the police would be—”
“…….”
On this subject Hyuk-jin actually knew more than he did. But asking for advice after all that left a sour taste. A guy who said every single thought that popped into his head deserved a little more sulking.
Other students were filtering into the classroom, though, so further talk became impossible. High-school boys full of hormones would go crazy over any girl story. Hyuk-jin wouldn’t blab on purpose, but gossiping about it right here risked weird rumors.
Seo Rin shut the conversation down and opened his book, but the letters refused to sink in. Until this mess was settled he simply couldn’t create an environment for studying.
He half-listened through classes until dismissal finally arrived. Academic high schools still locked students in under the name of “evening self-study,” but vocational schools didn’t keep them long.
“Yo, let’s go.”
Hyuk-jin slung his bag over one shoulder and came to prod him. Seo Rin was packing up when he suddenly remembered today was the library due date. But… was a book really the issue right now?
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
He took Hyuk-jin home with him. After last night’s rain the sunlight felt especially warm, yet the two of them, with practiced skill, stuck to the shade and moved fast.
“Damn it! She already left.”
Seo Rin opened the window and retrieved the key. Peering inside, he found the room empty and spotlessly clean.
“What, was she a fairy wife or something?”
“……Shut your mouth. You’re really pissing me off.”
Seo Rin unlocked the door and stepped in. The breakfast table he’d set had been cleaned—dishes washed and everything—and the whole room was spotless. She’d even done the laundry and hung it out on the shared drying rack in the backyard.