Still Trash

"…."

The tires had gone cold, but no heart was beating. Jo Jaejin's hands shook uncontrollably on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wheel of the stopped car, and Kang Minseok spat a curse.

"Fuck. What the—did we hit somebody? Did we actually hit a person?"

The glass was shattered, and they couldn't see a thing through it. Jeong Suhyeok said nothing. However far they'd strayed, however rotten their luck, they still possessed something that passed for common sense.

Drunk driving, drugs, and a traffic accident. Any one of those alone was a serious crime that could put them in prison.

So they didn't get out. If they stepped outside and a CCTV camera caught their faces, there would be no talking their way free.

A double, a fall guy, whatever it took—if they were going to clean this up, the only thing that could appear on camera was the car.

"S-still. You know who we are."

It wasn't simply an attempt to dodge what had happened.

Jeong Suhyeok's father was chairman of a hospital foundation. Jo Jaejin's uncle was a senior prosecutor at the district office. Kang Minseok's father was director of a major hospital. Their names were the power behind them. Their families were pardons written in advance. The dead were unlucky accidents; their own lives were futures more precious than anything else.

"Fuck it, just floor it. Get us as far from here as—"

The front bumper was crushed and the glass was gone, but the car still moved. They were on the verge of fleeing when a voice punched through the broken window and lodged against their ears.

"Y-you're alive?"

In the same instant, all three faces went rigid. A brief silence.

The latch clunked, and Jo Jaejin opened the door. Jeong Suhyeok yanked his hood low over his face, and Kang Minseok stepped outside with his hands jammed in his pockets. What met them was quiet to the point of the grotesque.

In front of the stopped car stood a man without a single scratch. Behind him were other people. A young mother clutched a little girl to her chest, and the child, rigid with fear, swallowed her sobs. Beside them, a man was on his knees.

A family. And… no one was hurt.

"…The hell?"

Kang Minseok let out a disbelieving little laugh.

"They're actually fine?"

Jeong Suhyeok answered from behind him.

"Hey, this is seriously—holy shit!"

Jo Jaejin stretched his legs and turned his head.

"We're good. Nothing to worry about. Fuck, this is just a fender bender."

Once they'd confirmed as much, their attitude changed. The fear drained away, and arrogance and ignorance rushed in to fill the hollow.

With the ease of long practice, Kang Minseok took out his wallet. Cash and a thick sheaf of checks lay pressed flat inside, kept ready for moments exactly like this.

"Sir. Ma'am. The kid's fine, you're all fine. You must've been startled, so just take this."

"It's better if we all walk away happy. We're tired too, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and if you call the police out here, everybody loses."

The mother said nothing. The father held the child and stared at them with fury in his eyes. Jeong Suhyeok cocked his head and came closer.

"Whew. Would you look at those eyes. People make mistakes, all right? It was a mistake. A mistake. Nobody even got hurt. Just run it through insurance and let it go."

"You're not seriously trying to ruin our lives over this, are you?"

Jo Jaejin looked toward the child as he spoke.

"Hey, kid. You don't have to be scared. We're not bad people. We just… tapped you a little by accident. Right?"

When the girl flinched, Kang Minseok snorted. He tipped his head back and sneered.

"Look at her. What's she crying for? This is why kids these days whine about PTSD over nothing."

The child's shoulders trembled. As her mother quietly tried to draw her closer, Jo Jaejin stepped in and waved the sheaf of checks.

"It's really fine. Don't blow this up. Let's just finish it nicely for everyone."

Jeong Suhyeok stood at his side and piled on.

"Take it to the news and the only people who lose are you. Honestly, if we'd just driven off, that would've been the end of it. But we got out ourselves to apologize. This is what you call sincerity. Sincerity."

Kang Minseok laughed and looked down at the girl.

"Yeah, kiddo. Nothing happened. Right?"

"Nobody died. So let's just let this go. Okay?"

Then he flicked a glance at the man who stood at the center of it all—a look that raked him in an instant—and spoke without a shred of hesitation.

"Hey, you. Talk straight. Who told you to throw yourself at us? You jumped out in front of the car. That's your fault."

"This some self-inflicted shakedown? We were just sitting there, and you ran into us, didn't you?"

They were committing a second violence against the victims.

"Waaah—"

Unable to endure the vicious air, the child burst into tears. At the sight of her sobbing so wretchedly, her mother clutched her even tighter, and the father, no match for three grown men, had no choice but to take a step back.

Had he been alone, perhaps. But his family was with him, and in an atmosphere this ugly there was no decent way to fight back.

There was no apology. There was no responsibility. To them it was only a mistake they'd been unlucky enough to get caught committing. And at the people wounded by that mistake, they threw money, they sneered, and they threatened them instead.

A moment like magic, in which the perpetrators became the victims, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and the victims the perpetrators.

A footstep.

He moved. The three, who had gone still, turned their eyes on him at once.

And then—

Smack.

It happened in an instant. The sheaf of checks Kang Minseok had been waving caught the wind and scattered through the air. Between the fluttering scraps of paper, the man's eyes flashed.

Like lightning. A gaze that split the dark as it flared—something that did not belong to a human being. It was the Eye of Judgment, piercing straight through evil.

A footstep.

At the sound, three pairs of eyes turned toward me at once.

Kang Minseok. Jo Jaejin. Jeong Suhyeok.

In that moment, another scene laid itself over the one before my eyes. A lane that swayed. A car lurching beneath a stinging sun. And then—

That day, I lost everything. The three standing in front of me now were another shadow of that day.

Alcohol. Drugs. Violence. Backgrounds and connections swaying behind them like a written pardon. They might not remember that day. I still hadn't forgotten. Every night I saw that scene again, a nightmare behind my eyes. I didn't hate it. Through that nightmare, I could see my parents one more time.

But this was different. Past and present, perpetrator and victim—all of it was snarled together.

I faced reality again. The moment I looked at their faces, the things concealed inside them began to peel away, layer by layer.

The sins were many. Some were felonies, some misdemeanors. All of it, summed into those figures.

They were evil, without question. But they fell short of Park Geuntae and Lee Dongha, whom I had faced only a little while ago. From their own ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠point of view, it would amount to nothing more than a bit of light deviance.

Even so, they had been about to make another me. Another unfortunate. And there, among the sins laid bare—school violence—I was inside it.

The days the three of them laughed while they called my name. I remembered. The voices that spoke my name as if it were a joke. The shoes that ground my head underfoot. The hands that seized me by the nape and drove my face into the toilet water.

They would have forgotten. They would have laughed, called it a game, and moved on. A victim never forgets.

And now I had stepped out of that memory.

"Hello. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"What…?"

The confusion lasted only a moment.

My hand shot out like lightning and seized Kang Minseok by the hair.

"What—fuck, what is this!"

Jeong Suhyeok and Jo Jaejin were no different. Like prey dragged off by a hunter, they were hauled along in my grip.

"Ghk—!"

"Fuck—!"

They screamed. They swore. They swung fists and feet at random. It did nothing. Their struggling was like a feeble shadow beating against a wall. To me, their thrashing was lighter than a grain of sand.

"You don't remember, do you? The days you ground my name under your heels. I still… dream that scene every night."

"What the hell are you saying?"

"Fuck, you gonna let go or not?"

"Do you even know who we are?!"

They were still full of defiance. It didn't matter.

The surroundings were already darkening. So that no one would see, I dragged them into the dark—into a place where I would put an end to the sins that had followed me out of the past.

A dull thud as a head struck the wall. Screaming, dragged along, their heels painted a road of blood down the corridor of the abandoned school.

"Aaagh! Fuck, let go! You crazy bastard!"

"D-do you know who we are?! You're dead, you piece of shit, you're actually dead!"

"You think my dad—you think my family—is just gonna let this go?!"

Tired lines. Not one of them said what he himself would do. They only tried to frighten me with their households and their backgrounds.

"…."

I stopped. Not because of their threats. Because I had reached the destination.

The old iron door of the gym storage groaned and rattled in the wind, and I threw them through it one by one.

"Ghk!"

"Urgh!"

Their designer coats and shoes hung in tatters, their faces blotched with blood, and the sight of them was simply ridiculous.

"You… what the hell are you…!"

"Why are you doing this?! What did we even do!"

To answer that curiosity, I let it go. With a crack, the technique came undone, and I returned to my original self. Han Seungwoo.

But—

"…?"

There was no recognition. Only surprise that my appearance had changed.

Of course.

A victim is tormented by the nightmare every night. A perpetrator doesn't remember. He files it away as a memory, a time that was fun. To them it had been a prank, nothing more than a childish thing they'd done when they were young.

"It's me. Han Seungwoo. It's been a while."

"…Han Seungwoo?"

They might not remember the face. The name—that name—would still be sitting in their memories.

"Ah—!"

"Oh, fuck… You're still going on about that?"

"You ending up a cripple wasn't even because we beat you. We were just… messing around."

"God, you still haven't dropped that pathetic loser mindset. What exactly are you gonna do to us?"

The moment they realized I was the toy they used to play with, the smugness came flooding back.

As expected. From the way they still couldn't grasp reality, I could see how completely they had lived on nothing but their backgrounds. So now it was time to teach them what reality was.

"Aaagh!"

Instead of an answer, I walked over, seized Kang Minseok by the hair again, dragged him into that old bathroom, and drove his face straight down into the rusted toilet.

"Ghk! Hurk! Cough—!"

"Was this a game?"

I controlled my strength, of course. Not enough to drown him. But wretchedly, humiliatingly, terrifyingly, I rationed his breath until it was on the verge of stopping.

For Jo Jaejin, I had crushed bread.

"Mmmph—!"

"Eat. This is the lunch you gave me back then. Don't remember? The one you stepped on and spit on."

"Uu… urgh!"

"If you don't eat it, I'll shove it down until your throat tears."

In the end he couldn't withstand my strength, and he swallowed that bread—the bread packed with sand and gravel.

"Huuuurgh—!"

I tore Jeong Suhyeok's clothes and laid his back bare. Then the pen. The red ballpoint they used to stab me with. I drove it into his side, his arm, his thigh, just as it was.

"Agh, aaagh!"

Every time the pen punched in, a scream tore out of him.

"What's wrong? This is all just a game. Friends messing around. What's the problem?"

It was only a fraction of what I had suffered. But they shook, and they cried. Snot tangled with their screams spattered the floor.

"Please, please, let us live…."

"We were wrong."

"It was a joke. It's all in the past. Why… why are you doing this…."

There was no sincerity in it. A forced apology, scraped together to get them out of the moment in front of them.

"Why the face? The real thing hasn't even started."

The deepest hell was only beginning.

"…Do you remember?"

"The only one who was with me. My friend."

"…."

Silence. They would have remembered, all at once, what I meant to do.

"Right. He was one of your victims too. And that day, you said you'd let just one of us go."

"Fight, starting now. And whoever wins, we won't touch him again."

"That day, I… took the hits from my friend's hands… and my leg broke."

"I was left with a permanent disability. Afterward, he couldn't bear the guilt, and he killed himself."

"I read his diary. He wrote that he'd broken me with his own hands… that he couldn't stand it."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry—written in blood."

Stillness. And… without another word, I pointed at the floor.

"You know how this goes. Now it's your turn."

Thud. A single knife drove into the floor.

"Fight. And kill. This doesn't end until one of the three is dead. I'll be generous. I'll let two of you live."

The words had barely left my mouth.

"Are you insane, you bastard!"

"I won't! I can't!"

Jeong Suhyeok was the first to stumble backward. I didn't look at him. I reached out and took hold of his head.

"You always did talk too much."

Bang. A dull crack against the wall.

Drip—

Blood and flesh fell. Jeong Suhyeok's head was crushed into the floor, and he no longer breathed. No. There was no head left that could breathe.

"…!"

Jo Jaejin and Kang Minseok went white.

"Now choose. Kill each other, or die together."

Inside the classroom, confusion and madness, killing intent and terror, snarled together. The two of them stared at the knife with trembling hands.

Creak. The window shuddered in the wind. And within that room, their humanity collapsed. Everything drained out of both pairs of eyes.

"Aaaah—"

"Fucking die!"

The two of them lunged at each other.

Screams and shouts. Blood and flesh. And… the weight of the sins they had committed began to dance.