Fate Is Not So Easily Denied
Someone once said that if you accept that fate is something erased from the moment of birth, then human life has no meaning. But fate is not a word so easily denied.
Fortune-teller prophecies, of course, deserve to be rejected. How nightmarish a world would it be if concrete predictions—you'll become this, you'll become that—actually came true? That kind of fate, you can deny as much as you like.
Yet there are always people who, whether they want to or not, end up shouldering fate. Some are born with a lame leg, or without sight, or without hearing.
Even without going to such extremes: a child born into grinding poverty has to work for living expenses while a rich family's son sits through private tutoring of every kind. Exhausted from that labor, trying to keep a passion for study alive in a school that cannot begin to compare with the rich boy's environment—that is no easy thing.
And when you consider that academics are still one of the fields where ability can shine with relatively less interference from circumstance… you realize that the word fate is not something to be dismissed lightly.
As the first buses of the morning began to move, the streetlights slowly winked out. A street-cleaning truck rumbled past with its strange mechanical noise, and beside it a student was running hard.
No matter how much South Korean schools had turned into little more than entrance-exam cram centers, almost no one showed up at this hour. Yet that student ran as if someone were chasing him, clutching his bag against his side.
Seeing the school gate closed, he lightly launched himself, kicked once off the gate, and vaulted clean over it. Watching him clear a main gate taller than a grown man as easily as a track athlete clearing a hurdle, one might have glimpsed a bright future for recreational sports in Korea… but that was nonsense.
The student who had jumped the gate simply possessed athletic ability far beyond ordinary people. He dusted off his hands. The name tag stitched to his chest read Seo Rin.
"Safe. This much time should be plenty."
Seo Rin checked the guardroom with his red left eye. The night watchman must have been sweeping the rear courtyard; the booth stood empty. Looking satisfied, he raked his fingers through his hair and headed for the classrooms.
Inside the main building, a security company's logo was posted in a menacing display, but Seo Rin had already confirmed that the actual systems covered only the principal's office and the teachers' room. Ordinary classrooms had no security at all.
Not that he was breaking in. The classroom key was always left on top of the doorframe, in a spot most people never looked—any student of this school could freely "use" a classroom. The school itself even preferred kids come here rather than run off somewhere dangerous and cause a real disaster.
"Huh?"
But what was this? The key that should have been on the doorframe was gone. Still on tiptoe, groping along the frame, Seo Rin finally realized the door was already open.
"Hmm. Someone's inside."
It was nowhere near the hour when a classroom door ought to be unlocked. Seo Rin himself sometimes came early to study simply because he had nothing better to do at home—but no one else ever showed up this early. So who? An uneasy premonition stirred in him. After being attacked only yesterday, a little hypersensitivity was only natural.
Seo Rin slipped a good throwing stone from inside his uniform. Choosing a rock as a weapon instead of carrying a gun was almost funny, but for something that stayed legal and still packed enough killing power, it was hard to beat. He had already felt that power firsthand in a real fight, hadn't he?
Rrrrk.
He had tried to open the door as quietly as possible, yet the moment it moved it let out a loud scrape. Startled, Seo Rin dropped low, slipped inside, and scanned the room. One person lay sprawled face-down across a desk, asleep.
"Oh? Cho Seong-chan."
The lightly dyed hair made it obvious. Cho Seong-chan, lead singer of the idol group Zen, almost never came to school. So why was he here at this hour? Turning the question over in his mind, Seo Rin tucked the stone back inside his uniform.
"Wow, this really is weird."
The pockets of his school jacket were thin and unlined, so the stone's hard shape pressed straight against his body. Who else in the world walked around with something like that stuffed in their clothes?
"Mm…"
Just then Cho Seong-chan lifted his head and woke. Seo Rin took his own seat and raised a hand toward him.
"Hey, Mr. Popular."
"Don't call me that…"
Seong-chan rubbed his eyes and shook his head. No matter how you looked at him, this guy was not cut out to be an entertainer. He was too soft-natured, too bad at refusing requests. Getting dragged out for school festivals was routine; some people even forced private photos out of him and sold them.
"What's going on? Don't tell me you ran away from your manager and the hardcore fans."
"…"
"Wait—for real?"
He had tossed the line out without thinking, and it turned out to be true. Seo Rin stared at Seong-chan in surprise.
"No. What kind of nonsense are you even thinking?"
Seong-chan shook his head as if he couldn't believe it. He leaned back in his chair and lifted his feet; the chair balanced on its two rear legs and creaked.
"Then what are you doing here at this hour? I thought you were busy."
"Busy? What's there to be busy about. It's just a short-lived tantrum of youth."
"…Calling it a tantrum is a bit much. Your fans would be heartbroken."
"Fans? Hah! Fans, he says."
Seong-chan's whole body trembled with disbelief. Being an idol really did look exhausting in every direction. The public tore you apart; the girls who called themselves fans were basically stalkers; you couldn't keep doing it into old age, and the future was anything but secure.
That was why so many idol singers had families that could catch them if they fell. Even if they quit singing, a solid home meant no real problem, right?
But Seong-chan—scouted out of the Little Angels children's choir and church choirs, the kind of "talentless" filler they threw into an album when they needed someone for the melody lines because they couldn't keep hiring session players forever—did not have that kind of family. No wonder the whole atmosphere around him wore him down.
"Hey, hey. If anyone overheard you they'd go nuts."
At Seo Rin's warning, Seong-chan shook his head again.
"Ah, sorry. That was pointless."
"Yeah. Still—coming all the way to school at this hour. You must really have nowhere else to go, huh?"
"I like places without people."
"Ah. So me showing up must've been a disappointment."
"No. You're fine."
"Oh? That so?"
Seo Rin sat at his desk and opened a book. It was the licensed real-estate agent exam workbook he had been studying with real dedication—yet ever since Han Se-gun's warning, he couldn't find the will to study at all.
Han Se-gun had been right: the real-estate broker exam had gotten easier. With so many people passing, brokerages kept multiplying while profits only got worse. In a long recession like this, that was only natural.
"Ah, whatever."
Grumbling, Seo Rin stood and walked toward the window. That was when it happened.
Thwack!
Something slammed into his chest and he staggered back. The pain barely registered—then blood began to pour from his chest.
"…Damn it!"
The soft whistle of something cutting the air reached him. Someone had opened fire on the school.
The window happened to be open, so even though Seo Rin had been sniped, the glass remained intact. But Seong-chan heard the bullet that had punched through Seo Rin's body hit the floor and leapt to his feet in shock.
"Seo Rin?"
"Get down!"
Seo Rin bit his lip and stumbled backward. He tried to look calm, but blood spilled through his clenched teeth and his breath suddenly locked in his throat. The instant the bullet punched a hole through him had hardly hurt at all—only after it passed did the pain come flooding in.
Crash!
Seo Rin collapsed, sending desks and chairs flying. Seong-chan spun toward the windows in panic. Outside stood only a jungle of concrete; he had no idea who had done this to Seo Rin or how.
"J-just hang on, Seo Rin. I'm calling an ambulance right now!"
But Seong-chan was so rattled that when he pulled out his phone he dropped it. Hands shaking violently, he dropped to the floor to pick it up.
"Khak!"
Blood sprayed from Seo Rin's mouth. With every cough, clotted blood heaved up and mixed with saliva into sticky red strings. Watching, Seong-chan went pale with horror. Injuries this severe—it was a miracle he wasn't dead already.
"Ghk!"
Seo Rin rolled away from the windows. Movies had taught him that if someone was sniping through a window, getting clear of it was the first priority. As if mocking that effort, a second round came in. This time the bullet tore through Seo Rin's thigh.
"Ugh!"
His body jerked as if he had been electrocuted. The sensation of a bullet boring through the meat of his thigh was so intense it felt like lightning frying the inside of his skull.
Without even registering that Seong-chan was watching, Seo Rin slammed a palm against the floor, launched himself, and vaulted out of the classroom. The shooter was already at a high vantage point, knew exactly which room was his, and was sniping from there. If they could still hit him after he had moved well clear of the window, the possible positions were limited.
But Seo Rin, who had never received proper combat training, could not pinpoint the enemy. The shooter was cleverly concealed, and by the time Seo Rin heard the shot, the bullet was already in him.
"These crazy bastards… What the hell is this first thing in the morning!"
Feeling his sense of reality crack, Seo Rin ground his teeth. Gunfire in the middle of the city. This wasn't America—who would ever have imagined something like this?
"What on earth is going on?! Seo Rin, are you okay?"
Seong-chan was terrified. Blood pumped from the chest wound in heavy gouts; the blood he had coughed up had soaked the white shirt under his uniform until it was a mess of red—and still Seo Rin was alive. Seong-chan had never been hurt this badly himself, but even so, surviving this was wrong. On top of that, despite all the blood he had lost, Seo Rin had not lost consciousness for a second. And that wasn't all: little by little, the bloodstains on his clothes were shrinking.
"…Seo Rin?"
"Hah… hah… Damn it! What do I do?"
"Seo Rin?"
"Get out of here, Seong-chan!"