Authority
My life had been driven into a corner.
Honey... what are we going to do?
......
The money my parents had scraped together through years of hardship—the capital they had clawed into being so they could start a business—was carried off to the last won by my father's partner. In the end, both of them left this world. The debt, at least, never passed down to me. I was simply left alone, still a child.
Did you hear? That kid doesn't have parents.
No wonder the clothes he shows up in look like a beggar's.
I survived. My own road, though, was anything but smooth. How easy could life be for a child with no parents? At school the bullying never let up, and stepping out into the world changed nothing. Even now I had been thrown in front of yet another baseless accusation.
Subway Line 2. The train bound for Sillim.
"Hey. You touched my butt, didn't you?"
"Sorry? What are you—"
"You did touch it. This guy is seriously insane."
Her voice carried. Every eye in the car swung our way, and the current of it felt wrong. Sure enough, people started murmuring as they looked at me.
"Looks like a pervert."
"My god. How can someone who looks that decent do a thing like that?"
"End of days. Absolute end of days."
"......"
Pinned under the crowd's sharp stares, I opened my mouth to clear up the misunderstanding.
"There seems to be some kind of misunderstanding. I never touched you."
"What kind of bullshit is that? You grabbed my ass just like this!"
The woman worked her own backside with her hand, blatant and unashamed. I stared at her, dumbfounded. Long hair gathered up into an updo. Catlike eyes, the outer corners tilted just slightly. Slim arms and legs. A full chest, and hips to match.
Nice body. Nice enough I'd want to get my hands on it at least once.
But I had never touched this woman.
"I'm sorry, but it really wasn't me."
I answered as politely as I could. People, though, seem to grow ruder the more courteously you treat them.
"You perverted bastard! Where do you get off denying it!"
She railroaded me into the role of criminal without a moment's hesitation. Wrapping herself as the victim and pleading her case, she soon had the people around us believing her. Then some tall, lanky guy showed up and opened his mouth.
"Hey, buddy. How about we all head to the police station for now?"
"Why should I go over something I didn't even do?"
"File a report and you're the one who comes out looking bad, you know? Better to come along quietly than have the cops show up at your place. Less embarrassing in front of the neighbors, don't you think?"
"......"
And so I ended up at the police station. For something I had not done.
Worse, and just as hollow, even there no one believed I was telling the truth.
"Listen, young man. Once you're an adult, you ought to know your actions come with responsibility."
"I really didn't do it."
"This gentleman here says you did."
"Did he see it himself? He's saying he saw it?"
The officer turned toward him. Catching our eyes, the tall man nodded. I couldn't believe it.
"You know false testimony is a False Accusation Offense, right?"
He cleared his throat and looked away. Anyone could tell he was lying. He was obviously angling to score a few points with the woman. Knowing that still didn't give me a way out. The law in this country leaned far too heavily in a woman's favor, and I was learning it in real time. The victim's testimony. A witness. Alone, I had no way to overturn either of them.
"Doesn't look like you have any intention of admitting guilt and settling, does it?"
As if she knew it too, the woman who had branded me a molester curled her lip into a nasty little smirk.
This fucking frame-up. Unreal.
Why did things like this only ever happen to me? Why only me? What had I done wrong?
"Um..."
It was right then, while I was drowning in despair. Had heaven decided I was too pitiful? Had even it thought this time had gone too far? A group of schoolgirls approached. They glanced at me, then went up to the officer in charge.
"This man didn't do anything wrong. We saw it. He never touched that woman's butt."
"Hm?"
At the testimony of the three girls, the officer turned back to the man who had lied. The face that met that look went rigid. Voice shaking, he bellowed at the students.
"What kind of bullshit is that! You got proof?! You got any proof that bastard didn't touch this lady!"
Of the three, the one with the charming bob planted both hands on her hips and fired right back.
"Why are you suddenly screaming and throwing a fit?"
"Because you kids are the ones lying, aren't you? Huh?"
"What are you even saying. Officer, here. Take a look at this video."
The officer watched the footage. Then, his face set hard, he called me, the woman, and that lanky bastard over and played it in front of all of us. There we were on the screen, the woman and I. They had been filming themselves messing around, and by chance the shot had stayed fixed on us as well.
"......"
"......"
Both their faces hardened like stone. The liar's was a sight to behold. He had stepped forward hoping to win the woman's favor and spin some kind of connection out of it, and instead he had fucked himself completely.
"I can sue this guy for false accusation, right?"
"Of course."
The officer answered while looking at the man as if he were trash. Under that stare, the man dropped flat on the floor and begged for mercy.
"P-please. Just forgive me this once."
"Wow. So this guy was giving false testimony?"
Only then did the girls understand why he had screamed at them. They whispered among themselves, faces full of pure disbelief. I ignored the man and asked the officer.
"Can I sue this woman too?"
"Wait a second! I really did feel someone touching my butt from behind! That's why I suspected the person closest to me!"
But the video showed, beyond any doubt, that no one had touched her.
"Listen, Miss Hong Soo-ah. You don't pin a crime on an innocent person. Do you have any idea how humiliated I was on that subway today because of you?"
"I'm telling you, I was wronged too!"
"Wronged, my ass. I'm done listening. Let's never see each other again."
With that, I decided to charge her with False Accusation Offense and walked out.
My heart felt as if it had dropped straight through the floor. For a moment I had been dragged all the way down to hell, and the next I was back in the world I knew. It was still hammering, but there was something I had to do before I calmed it. I turned around.
"Did you see her? That woman is insane."
"I'm more shocked by the guy who was with her."
"Seriously. The world really does have every kind of person in it."
Behind me, the students were coming out of the police station. I went over to them and thanked them from the heart.
"Thank you. If it weren't for you, I would've had that crime dumped on me with no way out."
Was gratitude all I felt? A darker impulse might have stirred too. My life really had been shoved to its limit.
"Oh, come on. It was nothing."
"We just couldn't stand how ridiculous the whole thing was."
"......"
Funny, how it works. Some people will lie just to destroy your life. Others will put up with the hassle just to save it. I pulled a hundred thousand won from my wallet and held it out to them.
"Ah, wait. We didn't do it so we'd get something like this..."
"Take it. I'm that grateful. If anything, I'm sorry this is all I've got."
I pressed the money into the hand of the bob-haired student who had stepped up so boldly. The girls looked at one another for a moment, then broke into bright smiles and bowed.
That was how we parted. And I thought everything would be settled after that.
"I'm sorry? What are you saying?"
But that was my mistake. The woman who had branded me a molester insisted she was truly innocent, appealed through tears, and managed to slip free of any punishment. What was even more absurd was public opinion.
What had happened on the subway that day climbed up and down every social feed and community board, got screenshotted, and turned into a joke. Victim and perpetrator had swapped places entirely. Fake news spread, then got taken down. Rumor fed on rumor, and word that it was me raced through the neighborhood in no time. People wouldn't hear my innocence. They wouldn't come near me either.
"......"
And so I shut myself inside the house, malice toward people packed into me until there was no room left.
This is such bullshit. If I'd at least grabbed that fucking bitch's ass until my hands went numb, I wouldn't even feel wronged. All this over something I never did.
A bullshit frame-up. The kind of frame-up that had shadowed me like a second skin since I was a child. Cruel things that arrived whether I willed them or not. All of it came through people, and all it ever left me was a thicker crust of distrust. The only reason I still managed to keep anything like a human dignity was that, now and then, someone helped me. The schoolgirls who had helped me that day, for instance.
"......"
But I was tired now. Honestly, I wished this rotten world would just collapse. No—before it collapsed, I wished I could fuck that bitch until she broke.
"Fucking bitch. If I just fucked her like a dog, I wouldn't have a wish left."
The instant I spat it out and poured the grudge from my mouth, the air answered.
What?
From this moment on, you can fulfill anything you desire.
"......"
I stared blankly at the letters floating in empty air. What the hell was this? Had I finally cracked, unable to bear the world's frame-ups any longer? An Authority? It sounded like something out of a novel.
Be warned. Your Authority is like the heat haze of a spring day. The changes you bring about will lose their power after one week, and vanish.
And yet the words kept appearing before my eyes, as if this were reality. And they were asking.
I want to fuck the woman named Hong Soo-ah as much as I please.
Do you truly wish to fulfill this desire?
CONFIRM
Asking, in all seriousness, whether I was really going to fuck that woman from that day.
What kind of grotesque...
I really had lost my mind. Things like this were showing up in front of my eyes.
Well. I've been through so much I must be half asleep, dreaming with my eyes open.
It had been a long time since I'd last stepped outside, hadn't it? Honestly, I could barely tell whether it was day or night right now. So, as if it hardly mattered, I pressed the Confirm button.
A soft shimmer. The hologram that had appeared before my eyes vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed in the first place.
Hah. Looks like I'm finally back in my right mind.
I got up. Seeing something that strange meant I was in rough shape—still half asleep, probably. I figured I'd drink some cold water and pull myself together.
"Fucking bitch."
I gulped it down, one swallow after another, and even after that I kept cursing Hong Soo-ah, that fucking bitch, while I poured out my rage on the posts drifting through the communities. Rebuttals. Keyboard wars.
I was wasting time on nothing of the sort when it happened.
Ding-dong.
"?"
The doorbell, out of nowhere. Strange. After that bitch branded me, there wasn't a soul left who would knock on my door. Who had come looking?
I went out to the entryway and opened the door.
Huh?
A familiar face was standing there. Catlike eyes. Slender arms and legs, and a lush, full chest. And the ass at the center of all of it. Arms crossed, expression prickly, that loose swagger—she was identical to the bitch who had acted like pure shit on the subway and at the police station that day.
Why is this bitch here...
The woman I had seen on the boards more times than I could count. The woman I had looked at so often I had memorized her face and her figure. The woman who had branded me a molester was planted squarely in front of my house.