Date Course Rehearsal? After the Chaos
After the whole commotion with those delinquents was finally settled, I could still taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth as I started picking up the scattered items one by one. Choi Su-yeon looked shocked when I immediately went back to work without even taking a break. She rushed out from behind the counter to stop me.
"Senior! I'll clean that up, so please just rest for a bit."
"No, you should be the one resting. Those punks came in a group and threatened you. Must've been scary."
"Actually... I was more shocked watching you throw punches than I was by them..."
"Ahem. Sorry about that. But if I don't handle it like this, those bastards will just bring their whole crew back again..."
I cleared my throat awkwardly and kept cleaning the convenience store floor. Some stuff was still fine, but a few bags of snacks had burst open and spilled their contents everywhere. I swept them up with the dustpan and handed the empty wrappers to Choi Su-yeon.
"Sorry, but can you scan these at the register? Gotta account for them."
"You're going to pay for them yourself?"
"I knocked them over, so of course I have to pay. Who else would?"
"...I'll take care of this. You were the one who stopped those guys from trashing the place. It wouldn't be fair for you to take the hit for this too."
"But still, I—"
"No way. Here, hand over all the wrappers. Then just scan them like this—beep, beep. And my card. There, all paid for. I handled it, so we're done."
Choi Su-yeon scanned the barcodes herself and swiped her card without waiting for my reply. Then she grabbed the broom and dustpan and started sweeping up the snacks right beside me.
"I said I'd do it."
"While you were busy taking those guys down, I was just standing there screaming. I'm an employee here too, you know. So let me help."
After that, we cleaned the floor in silence for a while. Once we'd thrown away all the spilled snacks and finished mopping, we both returned to the counter and sat side by side. An awkward silence settled between us until I broke it.
"Those punks won't be coming back to steal cigarettes anymore."
"You think they won't show up?"
"More like they can't. I scared them shitless—told them anyone who tries to steal cigarettes here is dead. As long as I'm working here, you won't have to deal with underage delinquents causing trouble over cigarettes anymore."
"What if they report you instead? You were pretty rough with them," Choi Su-yeon asked with a worried look. My takedown had been pretty violent, after all.
"It's fine. There's evidence they threw the first punch, and I bluffed that it was self-defense. They're too scared of juvie to try anything stupid. Even if they snitch, their boss is just a third-year at their academy. And that guy already lost to me once."
The guy those first-years had mentioned—Kang Baek-san. He was the king of the delinquents at Eunbong Industrial High Education Academy—shortened to Eunbong Tech—and known around the area as the Eunbong Boss. He was a notorious thug, but even he had the memory of getting beaten by me, Han Seong-jin, burned into his brain. It was proof of just how infamous the original Han Seong-jin had been as a delinquent.
It was a pathetic achievement, but to those idiot punks who treated adults like garbage, a guy just two years older was way scarier than someone twenty years older. Once they realized their so-called god, the Eunbong Boss, had already been put in his place by me, they'd be too terrified to even come near this place.
"Senior... you're even scarier than I thought," Choi Su-yeon said, eyeing me warily.
I clicked my tongue and leaned back against the cigarette display shelf. "Tsk. I took this part-time job because I didn't want to deal with this crap anymore. I was trying to live straight. But the second I start, these bastards show up. Sorry you had to see that. I won't let it happen again if I can help it."
"......Still, thank you."
"Thank you?"
"This kind of thing happened a lot before. When the previous part-timer was here, we'd both just shake and press the emergency button whenever those kids showed up. The police were always late, and those punks would curse, scream, trash the place, then run off before the cops arrived... You have no idea how scary it was. Even when the manager was here, he couldn't do anything about it either. But when you stepped in earlier... it was scary, yeah, but it felt really satisfying inside."
"What the hell? So you wanted to beat them up yourself if you could've?"
"Who knows?" Choi Su-yeon stretched her arms up and out, trying to loosen up the tension.
"Anyway, even if your methods were a little rough, thank you for helping me. And for making sure those kids won't come back. I really owe you... Wait, huh?!"
She suddenly stopped mid-sentence and started panicking.
"Why are you freaking out all of a sudden... Huh?"
As I spoke, I realized why. Something warm was slipping past my control, trickling from the corner of my mouth down my chin. The metallic taste grew stronger. I wiped at the liquid running down my jaw with my hand.
When Choi Su-yeon saw the red stain on my fingers, she freaked out completely.
"Kyaa! Senior, you're bleeding! Tissue, tissue... Damn it, where are they?! Ugh, just use this for now!"
The emergency tissues had run out at the worst possible time. She pulled a handkerchief from her bag and pressed it to my mouth. I took it and wiped away the blood as best I could.
She stared at me with eyes full of worry and anxiety. Once the bleeding stopped, I pulled the handkerchief away and waved my hand like it was nothing.
"I just bit the inside of my cheek when I got hit earlier. It's no big deal, so stop looking at me like that."
"But still..."
"What, you feel bad because you couldn't do anything while I was handling that mess?"
She nodded vigorously instead of answering.
"Then make it up to me by escorting me properly on our Friday date course rehearsal."
"Ah... You're really taking me on a date?"
"Weren't you the one who said you'd plan a date course for me in exchange for pretending to be my girlfriend at the meeting the week after next?"
"Yes, I did say that. I did, but... haaa... Fine, okay."
"You sound like you don't want to. In that case, just pretend to be my girlfriend and—"
"That sigh was me worrying about how to plan the perfect course for you!"
After that whole mess, the rest of the shift thankfully passed without any more incidents. But no matter what I did, I couldn't get the image of Han Seong-jin beating down those delinquent boys out of my head. It was violent. Barbaric. Extremely primitive. I never liked that kind of typical delinquent behavior, and I'd certainly never fantasized about it.
So why did I think, even for a second, that he looked cool?
Was it because it was an extreme measure to save me from trouble? Or had I been hanging around delinquents so long on the surface that I'd picked up their tastes without realizing it?
I still couldn't figure out why his fighting form had looked even a little bit cool to me when he suddenly spoke up.
"Oh, right, Choi Su-yeon. About that handkerchief I used earlier."
"Yes?"
"I'll take it home, wash it, and give it back."
"Ah... You really don't have to return it."
"What, you don't want it back because my mouth touched it? That's cold."
"That's not what I meant...! Fine, wash it and give it back! You're really making me sound like a weirdo."
After playing along with Han Seong-jin's teasing, Choi Su-yeon pouted for a moment before her thoughts drifted elsewhere.
...But was Senior always this playful?
I'd never actually met him face-to-face before. I only knew his face from photos. Everything I'd heard about him came from rumors passed around by the friends I hung out with. And those rumors were absolutely insane.
That he'd taken three girls and had a foursome. That after winning a fight against delinquents from another school, he'd used their girls as trophies and passed them around. That he'd gotten into a fight with college students. That he'd used money his underlings extorted to go clubbing...
If the rumors were true, he was a piece of trash not even worth calling human. I thought someone like that wouldn't have even the slightest bit of basic decency or humanity.
But the Han Seong-jin I'd started working with yesterday was completely different from what I'd expected. His face was as terrifying as it looked in the photos, but his attitude toward the store manager was surprisingly polite. He was diligent while learning the job, and strangely enough, he adapted incredibly fast. By the end of his first day, there was almost nothing left to teach him.
He didn't shove all the hard work onto me just because he was strong, either. He did his share properly. When he knocked those delinquents out with single punches, I thought he really was the monster I'd imagined. But he didn't use any more violence than necessary. On top of that, he even took measures so that no more minors would come stealing cigarettes, and he apologized for scaring me.
When you thought about it, none of this was his fault in the first place.
'I really can't figure him out. What a strange person.'
It was still hard to tell what he was thinking, but Choi Su-yeon concluded that he wasn't quite the complete scum she'd imagined him to be.
'Still, he's not the kind of guy I want to get tangled up with for long... I'll just introduce him to a decent course on Friday and take what I can get.'