If You Don't Know, You Deserve to Get Hit
As I stepped out of the storage room to draw their attention, every pair of eyes in the convenience store—including Choi Su-yeon’s—snapped toward me.
“What the hell is that?”
“That’s not the same guy who was here yesterday, is it?”
The delinquents loosened their encirclement around Choi Su-yeon at the register and turned their bodies toward me.
“Excuse me, we came to buy cigarettes, but this part-timer won’t sell them to us.”
“Really? From what I heard, she said she’d just check your ID and sell them right away. Isn’t that right?”
“Ah, fuck, these two bitches and bastards just won’t listen. This is goddamn annoying.”
“Are you talking to me right now?”
“Who the hell else would I be talking to, you fuck? There’s no other ‘bastard’ here but you.”
Even after seeing my height and build, they still kept that attitude. I had to give them credit for their guts, at least. Most students would’ve shriveled up just from my scary face and size alone.
“Hmm. Aren’t you the ones who are the ‘bastards’? You don’t exactly look like ‘bitches’ to me. Or are you all mentally ill freaks who actually believe you’re homo-romantic non-binary asexual androgynes? The psych ward is two blocks down.”
“You son of a—”
“S-Senior! What are you doing?!”
The delinquents, now completely pissed off, all rushed toward me at once. The situation was racing straight toward a full-blown fight.
Choi Su-yeon, thinking I was doing something reckless, looked shocked and tried to stop me, but the river had already been crossed.
When the delinquents heard the way she called me, they openly sneered.
“Senior? Haha, what the fuck? So this bastard’s just putting on a show in front of a girl he knows?”
“Looks like he still hasn’t learned that acting cocky without knowing your place will get your ass handed to you.”
“Hmm, that’s some harsh language. It’s obvious you’re all minors, but I’m a lofty twenty-year-old third-year. Won’t you speak to me with a little more respect?”
“Puhahahat!”
The delinquents burst into loud laughter at my words. The crew-cut guy who seemed to be their leader even shed a few tears from laughing so hard as he mocked me.
“Twenty? Fuck, so you’re not even a college student—you’re just an academy kid? Hey, you said you’re a third-year? Did you think we’d treat you like hot shit if we knew that? You don’t know our Kang Baek-san hyung-nim from Eunbong Industrial High, do you?”
“Kang Baek-san? Yeah, of course I know him. He’s the boss of the Eunbong crew.”
“Yo, we’re his direct juniors that he cherishes. If you don’t want to get fucked up, you’d better take back what you just said and get on your knees like a dog and beg.”
“Aha, so that’s why you’re so brave. You’re Eunbong Industrial High kids. But the fact that you don’t recognize me means you must be first-year freshmen, huh?”
“What the hell is this guy saying?”
The first-year Eunbong Industrial High kids, unable to understand what I meant, grew irritated and started closing the distance, looking ready to throw a punch.
“Hey kids, I just started working here yesterday, and I really don’t want to cause a scene inside the store. How about we go outside and settle this with a calm conversation? For your own sakes.”
“Ah, fuck. This bastard’s really acting all tough just because a girl’s watching. Disgusting.”
THUD!
And then the crew-cut leader of the delinquent group threw a punch straight at me. But since it landed on my cheek instead of my jaw, I only took one step back. I was still standing there just fine. Instead, I tasted something metallic in my mouth. The punch had made me bite the inside of my cheek, and it had split open and was bleeding. When I touched my mouth with my hand, blood came away on my fingers.
“Kyaaaaa! Senior! The, the emergency bell—”
“Choi Su-yeon, don’t do anything. Just stay still.”
I stopped Choi Su-yeon as she reached for the wireless emergency bell and looked down at the Eunbong Industrial High kids. They still hadn’t grasped the situation and were snickering among themselves while staring at me.
“Ooh~ You didn’t pass out after taking that? Got some confidence in your endurance, huh?”
“Thought just being tall made you hot shit? Aren’t you starting to regret it now?”
“Choi Su-yeon, you clearly saw that just now, right? These guys were the first ones to use violence even though I was trying to resolve it through conversation. It should’ve been caught on CCTV too, yeah?”
“Huh? Ah, yes…”
“Then we’re good.”
I cracked my neck from side to side and adjusted my stance.
“Hey kids, earlier you said I didn’t know that acting cocky without knowing my place would get me fucked, right?”
“?”
“But I think you should figure out who the ones who really don’t know are first.”
A short time later.
Outside the convenience store, a rather bizarre scene was unfolding for anyone passing by. Six boys were kneeling with their hands behind their backs and their heads pressed to the ground, holding that position. In front of them, a large man squatted with a lollipop in his mouth. It looked like something you’d only see in the old military, not out in normal society.
“Ughhh…”
The delinquents kept groaning and squirming because their foreheads pressed against the ground hurt. Every time they did, I pulled the lollipop out of my mouth instead of a cigarette and asked,
“Hey kids, does it hurt? You keep twitching like that.”
“N-No, sir.”
The kids, who had been beaten to a pulp, answered while trembling in fear. Not a single one of the six was without bruises around their eyes or lips, and three of them had lost their front teeth. A few were still struggling to breathe after taking heavy hits to the stomach, and the ones whose jaws had been knocked out of place hadn’t regained their balance yet even after coming back to their senses.
“After getting hit first by kids way younger than me, this big brother ended up having no choice but to do this. How do you think I feel, huh?”
“W-We’re sorry…”
“We were wrong, please forgive us just this once…”
“Whether you knew or not, if you get caught selling cigarettes to minors, the person who sold them has to take all the responsibility, you know? Because of you guys, do you think this big brother or the noona inside should have to go to the police station, pay fines, and deal with all that?”
“N-No, sir.”
“And you. Crew-cut.”
“Y-Yes!”
The kid who looked like the leader among the first-year delinquents from Eunbong Industrial High answered in a voice strained with tension.
“You guys aren’t fourteen anymore, so you don’t get the juvenile protection benefits. There are witnesses who saw you hit me first, and it’s all on CCTV. If I submit this to the police, you’re all going straight to juvenile detention. Of course, since I have proof I was hit first, it’ll be ruled as self-defense.”
When I scared them with a bit of exaggeration, the clueless kids kept their heads pressed to the ground and trembled even harder in terror.
“We were wrong! Please, just let us go this once!”
“Oh? You really think you did wrong? You want me to forgive you?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Everyone, stand up.”
The six kids shot up at the same time in perfect sync. I sat down at the outdoor table in front of the convenience store like a boss lecturing his underlings, crossed my legs, and held my phone out in front of them.
“Write down all your names, grades, classes, and phone numbers in here. I’m going to call and check later, so if anyone puts in fake info, they die on the spot. Got it? Come up one by one. You first, crew-cut.”
The kids didn’t dare make a sound. One by one they came forward and recorded everything—including their numbers—into my contacts with shaking hands.
“Hmm, no one put in fake info. I like honest kids, you know.”
“......”
“Alright, I’ve got a few things to tell you. First, from now on, make sure you tell not only yourselves but all your friends who aren’t here. Don’t even think about coming to this convenience store to get cigarettes. If I see any Eunbong Industrial High student—regardless of grade—try to get cigarettes here even once, you guys will be the first ones to die by my hand. Understand?”
“Y-Yes!”
“And you. You mentioned Kang Baek-san earlier, right?”
When I wiggled my phone and pointed at the crew-cut kid, his face turned deathly pale and he bent at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
“We were wrong! We were wrong!”
“If you’re going to tell Kang Baek-san, go ahead. Tell him that if his juniors try to come to this convenience store to get cigarettes, a friend of yours from Jinsu High will come find him personally. That should be enough for him to understand.”
“Ugh… ughhh…”
“Second, you guys have someone else you need to apologize to, don’t you?”
“We were wrong, hyung-nim! We were really wrong!”
Taking it as me telling them to beg me, the six kids groveled desperately, bowing over and over. I immediately cut their apologies short.
“Stop, stop. What you did to me has already been paid for with the beating you just took.”
“......?”
“You idiots, you can’t even understand simple words. You cursed at the noona inside, surrounded her, and acted like complete assholes. Did you or did you not?”
“W-We did…”
“Then you should apologize to the noona inside too, right? Everyone follow me.”
I led the kids in a line behind me back into the convenience store. Choi Su-yeon, who had watched me knock each one of them down with a single punch, just stared at me with a dazed expression.
“S-Senior…?”
“These kids have something they want to say to you. Alright, you punks. Apologize to noona with sincerity.”
“W-We’re sorry, noona… We won’t do it again.”
“I said with sincerity.”
When I lowered my voice slightly, the kids panicked and immediately dropped to their knees, slamming their foreheads to the floor.
“We’re sorry! We’re really sorry! Please forgive us just this once! We won’t ever do it again!”
“Uh? Uh, um…”
“Yeah, if you’re going to apologize for what you did wrong, that’s about the right level. Everyone, stand up.”
The kids stood up in perfect sync once again. Then I wrapped my arm around the crew-cut kid’s shoulders and pulled him toward me. The kid, beaten to a bloody pulp, trembled in terror and couldn’t even resist as he was dragged over.
“Alright, kids. I just started working yesterday too, so I’m pretty busy. Going back and forth to the police station to submit evidence and making this whole thing bigger is honestly a pain in the ass. So I’m going to make you one offer.”
“Y-Yes… J-Just tell us…”
“Hmm, good attitude. The offer is this: nothing happened at this convenience store today. You guys never came here, and we never saw you. The reason you all ended up looking like that is because you fought among yourselves. The reason doesn’t matter. Whether it was a hierarchy fight, over a girl, or a brawl with another school—anything works. The point is, ‘you were never hit by me.’ Ah, you can tell Kang Baek-san. Understood?”
“Yes…”
I tightened the arm I had around the crew-cut kid’s shoulders. The terrified boy was on the verge of tears, his teeth chattering. A few of his front teeth were missing.
“Kids, I’m giving you a chance right now. What should you say at a time like this?”
“Th-Thank you…”
The six kids answered in tiny, crawling voices while staring at the floor. Only then did I release the arm around the kid’s shoulders.
“You’re welcome. Now hurry up and get out of here. And remember everything I said earlier.”
“Yes…”
“Then have a good day.”
“Ah, goodbye…”
The kids, who had suddenly learned proper manners, ran off without even looking back.