Chapter 18
Chapter 18
If Slipknot is a sex offender...
Even if juvenile court records could not be opened, if it really was a sex crime, he might still show up under Megan’s Law.
(Translator’s Note: Megan’s Law — A general term for laws requiring public access to information about certain registered sex offenders. The name comes from Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old New Jersey girl murdered in 1994; federal Megan’s Law was enacted in 1996.)
Park Geon opened his laptop.
The moment the gang members around him saw that, an uproar spread through the hideout.
“Shotgun, don’t tell me you just went into work mode?”
“Look at him! The second he heard the diss track, he went straight into planning the response!”
“Ayyy, look at that crazy genius!”
“Shotgun’s in the Zone right now!”
Lil D edged closer.
He was about to peek at the screen out of curiosity when—
“...Don’t look.”
A low voice.
Because it passed through his stiff vocal cords, it landed much heavier than he intended.
The Megan’s Law site.
This was the kind of site only legal professionals would know about.
If he was careless, it could make people suspicious.
“Shit, okay. Okay.”
Lil D flinched and stepped back.
Just like a picky genius, he really was touchy.
Then Big Joe dropped a single weighty command.
“Everybody back off.”
The hideout fell silent in an instant.
Dustin, the crew’s enforcer, shoved the others away.
“You heard him! Back up, back up!”
A three-meter radius around Park Geon’s laptop was cleared out like a demilitarized zone.
The gang members kept their distance, though they still glanced over from the corners of their eyes.
Shit, to even think of opening a laptop in a situation like this. He really isn’t normal.
On God, the second those fingers start hitting keys, somebody’s career is over.
Meanwhile, Park Geon typed into the address bar with trembling fingers.
The search page opened.
He entered Slipknot’s real name.
“!”
The text that appeared on the screen:
PC 314(1) — Indecent Exposure (felony, second offense)
(Translator’s Note:PC 314(1) — A reference to California Penal Code section 314, which covers indecent exposure.)
Exhibitionism.
Repeat offense.
What “real gangster”?
What “man monitored by the government”?
...What bullshit!
He was just a flasher.
Did inspiration hit him?
Big Joe had been watching Shotgun the entire time.
Shotgun rarely showed emotion.
But right now, his eyes were wide open.
“So, do you have the outline for the response track yet?”
“...!”
The answer flew out of Park Geon’s mouth like one of Pavlov’s dogs reacting on instinct.
“...Preparation is complete.”
At that moment, the hideout exploded.
“OHHHHH!”
“Ayyyy! He says he’s done! He says it’s ready, niggas!”
“This goes crazy, bruh!”
“On my mama, he finished planning the response in five minutes after hearing the diss track!”
“Slipknot, you’re fucked now!”
Big Joe drew on his cigar and grinned.
Originally, he had intended to stop here.
He had not wanted the diss war to get any bigger.
But—
Shotgun, if you’ve been struck by inspiration so hard your eyes actually opened wide...
Maybe he needed to take that back.
Inglewood.
The Blood hideout.
Slipknot’s second diss track was playing over the speakers on repeat while the Blood gang members shouted in celebration.
“It’s a Crips funeral! Fu-ne-ral!”
“Slipknot stomped them out!”
“Ayyy, real gangster! The realest of the real!”
Then a man walked into the center of that celebration.
Slipknot.
Returning in glory.
“Yo! I’m here!”
“SLIPKNOT IN THE BUILDING!”
Gang members swarmed him from all directions.
Fist bumps, shoulder checks, and hugs rained down on him.
Slipknot accepted it all with an easy smile.
Confidence was overflowing from him.
“...”
On one side of the hideout, B.I.G was sipping from a can of beer.
When Slipknot appeared, he rose from his seat.
“Yo, Slipknot.”
Ever since getting crushed in the diss battle against Lil D, his spirit had been low.
But now that Slipknot had stepped on the Crips for him, he had finally been able to breathe a little easier.
“Feeling like you got some of your pride back?”
“...Thanks to you.”
At that moment, Leonard stood up from the sofa.
The hideout quieted down.
No matter how festive the mood was, the moment an OG moved, the air changed.
“Well done.”
“Man, that was almost too easy.”
Slipknot shrugged.
Then—
“OG.”
Marcus approached.
The lieutenant in charge of the Bloods’ music business.
“Let’s crush them completely while we’re at it. Make it so that whenever people think of Crips rappers, they automatically think of losers.”
Marcus’s eyes gleamed.
He wanted to make the diss war even bigger.
“We stop here. We’ve already paid them back more than enough. Big Joe has his pride too.”
Marcus was about to speak, but Leonard’s look shut his mouth again.
“If we go any further, the verses might turn into bullets. A cornered rat bites back. At that point it stops being a diss war and becomes a real war.”
The hideout fell silent.
When the OG drew a line, that line was law.
“This is enough. No—this is more than enough. Now go back to enjoying yourselves.”
“OHHHHH!”
Just as the party was about to resume—
“Wait, wait!”
Marcus’s eyes flew wide open.
“...Lil D just dropped a diss track.”
The music in the hideout was cut.
Marcus turned his phone screen toward Leonard.
The title on the screen read:
[SHOTGUN TO YOUR DICK]
—The Crips are completely finished now.
—Slipknot dropped a second round and they still didn’t respond.
—Looks like this diss war is ending here. Kind of disappointing.
—Did Shotgun tuck his tail and run too?
—Of course. Slipknot isn’t on B.I.G’s level.
—Maybe they got scared because he’s an actual real gangster? LMAO.
At the exact moment public opinion had tilted completely toward the Bloods, a new track appeared on Lil D’s SoundCloud.
[SHOTGUN TO YOUR DICK]
The title alone grabbed everyone’s attention.
—What the hell is that title?
—Holy shit LMAOOO.
The earlier diss track had been [SHOTGUN TO YOUR FACE], but this time the aim had shifted lower.
—Lil D just dropped a diss in real time.
—SHOTGUN TO YOUR DICK LMAOOOO.
—The title alone is already insane.
—Shotgun wrote the lyrics?
└ Damn, he even produced it too.
—Just hit play.
They pressed play.
Boom... boom-boom...
The beat came in.
It felt different from the previous diss tracks.
Slow.
Deliberately slow.
The tempo crawled along the ground, and the 808s lay under it like heavy mud.
Then Lil D’s voice came in over the top.
“You said you report every year — yeah, sex offender registry.”
You said you report to the state every year—yeah, because you’re on the sex offender registry.
—???
—Sex offender?
“Sixteen with a felony, the hood gave you respect.”
Sixteen years old with a felony, and the hood gave you respect.
“But it was whipping out your pecker at a park.”
But it wasn’t that you pulled your fists—it was that you pulled your dick out in a park, you filthy exhibitionist bastard.
—Holy shit.
—What???????
—Exhibitionism?
—Is that real?
The lyrics only got harsher from there.
“Armed robbery gone wrong? More like your zipper gone wrong.”
An armed robbery went wrong? More like your zipper went wrong.
“Real gangster? Nah. Real registered.”
Real gangster? No. Real registered offender.
“Government don’t track killers yearly — they track YOUR DICK.”
The government doesn’t track you every year—they track your dick.
The internet exploded.
—LMAOOOOOOOO.
—Holy fuck LMAOOOO.
—A flasher LMAOOO. That “real gangster” was actually a flasher? LMAOOOO.
—He even comes up on Megan’s Law.
└ LMAOOO, he really does.
└ PC 314(1) Indecent Exposure, Second Offense.
└ No fucking way this is real LMAOOOO.
—Real gangster? Nah. Real flasher, yeah.
Then the hook hit.
“SHOTGUN TO YOUR DICK!”
“SHOTGUN TO YOUR DICK!”
—Damn.
—This hook won’t leave my ears.
—The addictiveness is insane.
It was brutal enough to rank among the cruelest diss tracks in the history of the genre.
It was built on public records embedded directly into the lyrics, making rebuttal practically impossible.
—This is really over.
—Career ended.
—Death confirmed.
—This is a funeral LMAOOO.
—This goes beyond a diss. This is social execution.
—Shotgun is one terrifying bastard.
└ The second somebody dissed him, he killed them like this immediately.
└ He’s scary as hell.
Naturally, the image people had of Shotgun began to harden even further.
—So everyone who messes with Shotgun gets fucked.
└ Never fuck with SHOTGUN.
└ Look at him jumping into the diss war the second someone touches him. This is what a real gangster is.
└ I heard Shotgun’s Asian. Is he with the Crips?
└ Maybe. There are Asians in the Crips too.
—With B.I.G, he ended a career. With Slipknot, he ended a life.
└ Everyone he touches gets taken to the end.
└ Shotgun is the kind of guy who always pays it back completely.
└ Rappers are going to be too scared to work at all.
At that very same time.
Inglewood, Blood hideout.
The space that had been a party just moments ago had turned into a funeral hall.
“...What? A flasher?”
Slipknot, who had been swaggering around up until now, had gone gray in the face.
“Ah, that was...”
“You dropped your pants in a park?”
“It was a misunderstanding—”
“Then what the fuck is this site saying? They even plastered it all over the diss cover!”
After the diss track dropped, the cover image had soon been changed to a screenshot of the Megan’s Law page.
There was no escaping it now.
...So much for getting my pride back.
B.I.G leaned against the wall and looked at Slipknot.
He swallowed the words that had almost come out.
Yeah, you’re really done for.
Still, one part of him felt relieved.
Because of this diss, Slipknot had now been branded as a flasher rapper.
At least B.I.G still had a chance to recover someday, but this...
He shook his head.
As he shuddered at Shotgun’s cruelty, one thought suddenly crossed his mind.
Come to think of it... my bare face is already out there anyway, so do I even have anything left to be scared of?
He was just starting to wonder whether he could use this diss war as an opportunity when—
“So in the end, Big Joe, you really did it.”
Leonard’s deep voice crushed the hideout.
He roughly grabbed his phone and made a call.
“Yeah, Leonard.”
Big Joe’s voice on the other end sounded completely relaxed.
“What exactly are you trying to do right now? Are you seriously saying we should turn this into a full Bloods-versus-Crips diss war? Huh? Want to make the whole thing bigger?”
“Not Bloods versus Crips.”
Over the speaker came the sound of a cigar being drawn on.
“Crips versus Bloods.”
Leonard’s eyebrow twitched.
“Looks like you still don’t understand the situation, Lorenzo.”
Leonard called him by his real name.
“If this diss war really starts getting bigger from here, can you handle it?”
Even now, Blood-affiliated major rappers were waiting with fire in their eyes.
He had already received several messages from them.
They were all volunteering to jump in immediately on Slipknot’s behalf.
“Hey, Leonard. Could you switch it to speaker for a second?”
“I already did. Go ahead.”
Then came the sound of something rustling, followed by a familiar voice.
A low, dry voice devoid of emotion.
“...I can do this all day.”
Shotgun?!
At that moment, the Blood gang members recoiled in shock.
The last trace of color vanished from Slipknot’s face.
Shit! He says he can do this all day?
Is he saying bring it on if you want?
That bastard Shotgun really is...
The Crips’ monster.
That gave me chills. That cruel mad-scientist psycho bastard.
“KHAAHAHAHAHA!”
Big Joe’s hearty laughter eventually faded.
“You heard him, Leonard?”
The call ended.
“...Get ready right now.”
Leonard’s order.
The Blood-affiliated rappers began preparing to enter the diss war in earnest.
Slipknot was effectively useless now.
Even if he dropped another diss track at this point, people would only mock him as a flasher.
Damn it.
I’m not going to end up like Slipknot too, right?
Shotgun... that bastard is terrifying. But this came from the OG. We can’t disobey.
The Blood rappers clenched their teeth.
They were fighting with their names on the line, their careers on the line, and the Bloods’ pride on the line.
...But on the other side—
Fuuuuuuck!
This side was fighting with its life on the line.
I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
The fear of death broke the limiter on Park Geon’s brain.
Survival instinct kicked every synapse into motion.
Adrenaline exploded.
His right hand flew wildly over the keyboard while his left hand sent a pen skittering across the paper.
The moment one song ended, the next began.
Project files opened, closed, and opened again without even a second to breathe.
The other composers watching from behind him were left speechless.
“L-l-look at that speed. I can’t even see his fingers.”
“On my mama, his eyes are gone.”
One composer unconsciously took a step backward.
“That isn’t human. H-he’s seriously a monster.”
“No, wait. Look at that. He’s laying down a beat and revising lyrics at the same time!”
“He can multitask too?!”
He struck the arm of the person next to him.
“...Thank God Shotgun isn’t our enemy. On God.”
At that same moment—
Shhhhhhh—
Park Seung-ho was taking a shower.
He had just come home after finishing the dinner rush at Gohyangmi.
Music was playing from the phone he had set on a shelf...
“Shotgun to your dick! Shotgun to your dick!”
He scrubbed his hair vigorously while humming along.
He was even keeping the beat.
Then—
“You crazy bastard!!”
The bathroom door flew open.
“Yul is in her room right now, what the hell are you singing?! What? Dick?”
“!”
Park Seung-ho’s hand moved like lightning.
With his soap-covered hand, he fumbled for the screen and jabbed the stop button.
“I-I turned it off! I turned it off!”
“I’ll deal with you in your room later. Seriously.”
“...”
...Park Seung-ho deliberately stayed in the shower for a long time.
When he finally came out and checked the time, an hour had passed.
He was rubbing his hair dry with a towel as he picked up his phone, but before long, his eyes widened.
“...?”
[Lil Dunk — BLOOD MONEY (Prod. SHOTGUN)]
[Kayno — REDLINE (Prod. SHOTGUN)]
[Smokey — DEAD ROSES (Prod. SHOTGUN)]
The rappers were all different.
But the last name on every track was the same.
Holy shit, it’s Shotgun on all of them?
He checked the time again.
He had been in the shower for almost one hour.
Three songs in one hour meant...
“...What the hell kind of kid is he?”