The Court of Truth

I kicked the door in.

Bang!

The iron door burst open as if it had been hurled, and the air inside the courtroom split clean in two. Every head in the room turned toward me.

A silence fell, as if breath itself had stopped. I took that silence as it was and stepped forward, Kim Taehyup's collar still clenched in my fist.

"Ghh—urk—!"

He was dragged along, unable even to hold his own body up. His clothes hung in shreds, and his knees scraped the floor, spilling drops of blood as they went.

"Wh-who is that?!"

"Security! Right now—!"

The courtroom guards surged out as one. Radios crackled and dress shoes tangled together in the rush. I watched them.

Flash!

I moved. No—by the time I even registered the motion, my body was already in front of the first guard.

Bang!

The first one slammed into the wall as if he'd been launched. I didn't kill him. A rib or two, and his consciousness. That was enough.

Thud!

The second took my fist full-on and dropped where he stood.

Thump!

The third and fourth rushed me together. I dropped low and drove a knee into a gut. The sound of breath dying. Confusion, terror, shock—and then silence.

"Wh-what—?! How dare you, in a sacred courtroom!"

The judge shot to his feet. His face had gone red, his throat trembling as his hand rose to slam the bench—the fury of a man whose authority, whose territory, had been trespassed upon. I looked at him once, and opened my mouth.

"...Sacred?"

"You desecrate a sacred court, and still you—"

"This place is sacred?"

I let go of Kim Taehyup's collar and threw him to the floor.

"Sacred where? Is this a court that judges the truth? When a victim screams, the defense disappears and the judge looks away. And you call that a trial."

"How dare you—!"

I let the judge's rage wash past me and stared straight at him.

His wickedness lay bare as a number: negative two thousand. "With the same hand that lifts the gavel in the name of justice—how many lives did you sell?"

"What—?!"

I could see it. Because of him, dozens—no, hundreds—of innocent victims had been made. His own eyes would see nothing. They had spent far too long looking only into the pockets of the guilty.

"Then what about you?"

I turned to the other staff of the law. The prosecutor.

Where a gavel should have been, a bloodstained envelope hung from the prosecutor's hand.

"You knew too. What was done to this child. But you delayed the indictment, and you bought all the time you could to tamper with the evidence. Why? Because you were afraid of the glare coming down from above. Because you coveted the money and the power they dangled in front of you. And so you killed a person. You killed a victim. Literally. Without ever laying a hand on them."

One of the jurors lurched to his feet and tried to run. But—

Shhhk!

I was faster. I cut across him, though he had been far closer to the door.

Bang!

I shut the courtroom doors.

"Urk—"

He stumbled backward at the sight of me standing in front of him.

"Jurors? Don't make me laugh. Every last one of you sitting here handed your verdict over to the perpetrator's envelopes. Trash."

I walked slowly to the center of the court. Kim Taehyup was there, groaning, writhing on the floor.

"And Kim Taehyup."

I spoke his name. He looked up at me. A distant fear clung to his pupils.

"...What you gave up wasn't a defense. You gave up being human. The ten-year-old sitting in that courtroom ten years ago. The child whose father was dead, whose mother was crying, whose little sibling was gone..."

I stopped. For a moment the feeling surged up, hot behind my eyes. My lips didn't tremble.

"...You left a single sheet of paper that said personal circumstances, and you disappeared. And today you were laughing in a Japanese restaurant, the same as then. Mocking poor victims. Worshipping perpetrators who had power and money."

I looked around at all of them. Faces holding their breath—stained not with guilt, but with fear. I passed them one by one and finally stopped in the very middle of the court, the place where, until now, no one had ever put the truth in their mouth.

"...A real court, at the very least, cannot be made of lies. That's the minimum. That's where it has to start."

Then, last of all, I slowly lifted my head and looked toward the judge's bench.

And in this trial, the only ones who would walk out alive were those who had committed no sin.

"What kind of bullshit is that?! How dare you—the likes of you!"

The voice that rose, full of bluster, came from the perpetrator's side of the gallery. He had to be a middle schooler, the same age as the victim. A baby face in a luxury suit that didn't match his years, arrogance soaked into every line of it. His fingertip shook as it pointed at me. Not from fear. The displeasure of failing to understand, the anxiety of having his authority ignored—all of it twisted together across his expression.

"Who the hell do you think you are—how dare you! My lawyer's here, the judge is here, they're all my people! How dare you, how dare you, huh?!"

My spilled out of his mouth in a string. A boy who spoke of even a courtroom as if it were property. Yes. Of course he did. This place had been a stage dressed for him alone: people who bowed their heads to him, a prosecutor who buried the evidence, a judge ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who adjusted the sentence, jurors who had mocked a weeping victim. It was a copy of ten years ago.

I had cried. The me of the past had struggled in a courtroom to speak my family's injustice. But in the corridor, once the silence had passed, the perpetrator walking out of court poured his irritation over me instead of tears.

Those words had been crueler than the judge's suspended sentence. And now—that same voice, that same face—I felt them again, coming off him.

"That child."

I opened my mouth with all of that revulsion held in it.

"Hyejin. The girl you raped. She still can't walk."

His face twisted. For an instant the courtroom stirred, and even the presiding judge started to say something, then faltered.

"That child had a future. But you called her out drunk and high on drugs, and in an underground parking garage you did something unspeakable."

That was not the only sin he had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠committed. Above his head, the keywords of his crimes marked a fifteen-year-old standing closer to crime than his age had any right to allow. And yet—

"You, and the backing behind you..."

The lawyer at his side. The judge. The prosecutor. Even the jury.

"...buried every piece of that truth. Now the truth you buried will be brought to light. Here."

Was it because the past they had covered was showing through? Or the unease of knowing that someone existed who knew their shame? Unlike the triumphant look he had worn at first, he shook his head and backed away.

"Th-that's a lie. All of that is—!"

"A lie?"

I laughed at the ugly performance, the one meant to deceive even himself.

"Right. This court the lot of you built was nothing but lies. From here on, it's different."

My hand cut the empty air. It was a declaration, and it was a verdict.

"On the one who stole a victim's future, I pass judgment in the same manner."

He realized, then, that the verdict was against him.

"This—this isn't fair! I'm still young! I'm a minor! A child the law can't touch!"

This time he leaned on feeling, on his young age, on the shield of being beneath the age of criminal responsibility. But—

"That's why you've gone ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠unpunished until now. You're fifteen. You know there are sins you can no longer dodge by saying you're a child."

I closed my eyes, opened them again, and delivered the last sentence.

At my declaration, the courtroom froze. It was the judge who broke that cold.

The judge, gone quiet until then, finally exploded. Eyes that looked as if they held blood. Vocal cords shaking with rage. His fingertips trembled as he slammed the bench.

"How dare you! The likes of you, pronouncing a sentence?! That—that is an authority only I, the judge, can exercise! This is the authority of justice granted by the state!"

Bang!

The instant his fist came down, a crack ran through the aged wood, and papers scattered into the air. He bared his teeth and shouted.

"I am a judge of the Republic of Korea! I am the god of this courtroom! No one—"

"A god?"

I lifted my head at the word. My eyes met his. Bloodshot pupils, a flushed face—but what lived inside them was not justice.

"If you had not kept silent, if you had not turned victims into perpetrators, if you had not looked away from the truth, a person like me would never have had to stand here."

At those words the whole courtroom sank into silence.

"Justice isn't born from authority. It comes from action. From responsibility. The moment you turned from the truth and sat in that seat and said nothing, you had already thrown your qualification away."

I walked, slowly. Past Kim Taehyup collapsed on the floor, until I stood before the middle-school perpetrator, still hugging himself with that young face.

"So, in this false court, I carry out the sentence passed for the sake of the truth."

And then—

Crack!

"Gyaaaaaah!"

Without warning, indifferently, I broke his arm. It bent in a grotesque direction, and a scream tore out of him like the howl of a beast. But it wasn't over. My verdict on him was a sentence of maiming. Not one arm.

Crack. Crrrack!

Both arms and both legs fell under it.

"Aaaaaaah! Please—I was wrong. So please, stop—stop!"

The scream rode the courtroom ceiling and spread, and in no time the reek of blood covered the cold chamber. I did not look away from that scream, or from his pain. He had trampled someone's life. More than once. Over and over. Without a shred of guilt.

"If you stole someone's future, then yours has to be stolen too. That is the law. That is justice."

A horrific, brutal sight.

"Aaaah!"

"R-run!"

Seized by terror, the people in the courtroom stampeded for the entrance all at once.

I watched them. Then I took the fountain pen lying on the perpetrator's side of the gallery.

Flash!

Carrying my monstrous strength, the pen shot forward at a tremendous speed, faster than the eye could follow.

Thuk!

It punched through the chest of the one whose sins ran deepest—a juror dressed in an immaculate suit.

"Guh—urk—!"

His body swayed, and he folded where he stood. For a moment, silence flowed through the court because of that death. It was only the signal that the executions had begun.

Thud!

The next one buried itself dead between the eyes of a man who had started to run and then faltered. A bead of blood spread. The silence deepened. The sight of dozens rushing at once vanished, and what remained was only this: feet trembling, breath stopped, people sunk to the floor, eyes shut, trousers soaked. And in front of them I was already standing, blocking the door.

"Be seated."

One sentence.

"And in this sacred courtroom, every one of you will be silent."

Someone sobbed with their breath held in. Someone dropped their head. To live. Only to survive. I passed those cowardly breaths and made for the center of the court again.

Along the way, there was a girl. The victim. The only one in this slaughter who could survive. I looked at her and spoke.

"From here on, the sentences will be carried out. It won't be an easy thing to watch, so if you want, you may leave. You're the only person here who can walk out."

A brief silence. Then she lifted her head. Both eyes were bloodshot, but they didn't waver.

"...I want to see it."

"..."

"Justice. Even once in my life, I want to see it turn a blade on someone. I want to believe it really exists. I think that's the only way I'll be able to live."

She said it through bitten lips. I nodded. She was still young. But she was far more solid than the perpetrator who had just been maimed—far more solid than that thing. At that single sentence, the weight of this long revenge seemed to lighten.

And so I turned. I came back to the center of the courtroom. In everyone's silence, I was the only one who could break it.

"Park Changgi."

My gaze went up, to the judge. He did not come down from his seat. Shaking his head, he opened his mouth in order to live.

"I—what did I even—I didn't do it myself! It was all custom, and practice, and inertia—!"

He felt it by instinct. That the next target, the next sentence to be carried out, was him.

"You turned your face from the truth. From that moment, what you sold wasn't a person. It was a life."

A judge ought to be more just than anyone. Ought to listen to the truth more carefully than anyone. Ought to keep to principle and conviction more firmly than anyone. But he had been more despicable than anyone, had ignored the truth more thoroughly than anyone, and had given his loyalty to money and power.

"Park Changgi. Death."

"Th-that's absur—"

He never finished.

Thwack!

The gavel in his own hand came down on the crown of his head. The gavel that should have carried out justice shattered his hypocrisy and his appetite.

Thud!

His skull caved in, and he toppled as he was. Breath and pupils both stopped.

Step.

The walk toward the next verdict began again.

"No. No, not me. I—I only did what I was told. From above, they ordered it from above! I'm a victim!"

Prosecutor Park Juho. His face had gone the color of a corpse. Before he could even open his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mouth, fingertips flew in.

Thud!

Fingers went into his mouth, seized his tongue, and tore it free.

"False statements. Fabricated evidence. How many lives did you ruin with that mouth?"

The prosecutor's eyes rolled back.

"In this courtroom you must have thought you were gods. But no. You weren't gods. You were only devils who had offered up even your souls to power."

Crash!

The head dashed against the floor burst apart, scattering its wreckage in every direction. Next, my gaze turned to the jury. They were shoving one another and shouting.

"I—I only did what I was told!"

"I really didn't know! The signature on those papers back then—!"

"It wasn't a bribe, it was just advice... it was. I—I swear it...!"

No. All of it was a lie. They were the ones who should have lifted a hand for the weak, for justice, for the truth, and before money and power they had chosen the lie. Of course, the gravity of their guilt was not the same as a judge's or a prosecutor's, whose responsibility weighed as heavily as their authority.

"Did I ask? For your excuses. Your circumstances. That position of yours."

Silence.

"None of it means anything in front of a victim."

"I—I'm sorry..."

"Sorry? You must have believed an apology would let you live. But this isn't a place that asks who ought to beg forgiveness. It's a place that decides who pays for their sins."

I swept the jury once. Every time my gaze touched them, they shook, or stood a breath away from bursting into tears.

"How is what you look like now any different from the victims who waited on a verdict? But you chose money and power without mercy. So I pass judgment."

Bang! Thud! Crack!

Starting with those whose sin ran highest, one by one.

"Guhk!"

"Kgh!"

"Kuheok!"

I broke an arm and a leg on each of them. It was not a killing offense. Their negative Karma was not that high, either. But their words and their judgments had gathered together and ruined a person's life, so I left a permanent ruin on their arms, their legs, their bodies. Just as those pieces, once gathered, became one person's complete destruction, I returned to them a portion of the pain—the words they had spoken, the judgments they had made.

With that, every sentence passed for the sake of truth alone had been carried out. But all of it had been for the victim of the present: the middle-school child.

"Urgh—"

I looked at Kim Taehyup, trembling amid the corpses, the screams, and the groans that filled the room.

"Ten years ago, and now. You haven't changed."

And for that, I was grateful. Grateful he had stayed an evil man. Grateful he had made it possible to judge him without a shred of guilt.

I drew it from inside my coat. A pink magic wand. Dust had faded its color, and one of the buttons had already fallen off. A crack marked the plastic at the head, and the heart ornament sat crooked.

The toy my little sister had wanted so badly that day. I had hesitated for a moment, because even five thousand won—hardly a few dollars—had felt like too much. The face of the child who took it and lit up was still clear to me. But that smile had gone out on a floor soaked in blood.

I lifted the wand slowly. Before my eyes was the man who had defended the perpetrators. The human who had turned his face from my family and kept his silence stood in front of me. This was no longer a keepsake. It was a fragment of memory rotted through with lies and silence. And now it was a tool, for the sin that had to be cut out in the name of justice.

I seized the blood-soaked Kim Taehyup by the collar and hauled him upright. I slammed that body into the wall and drove it there. A trembling torso. A cracked breath.

"Ten years ago, you didn't look at the victim's face. You turned away from the people screaming in that courtroom."

Thuk!

The heart-tip of the wand dug into his right eye.

"Gyaaaaaah!!"

The scream burst. Blood welled from the eyeball, and the shriek shook the air.

"That eye, the one that refused the truth, has no right to see the world anymore."

Thud!

This time, the left.

"Aaaaaaaah! S-stop!"

I didn't stop. I gripped his blood-drenched face and set the wand against his ear.

"That day, whose voice did you hear? You couldn't hear a victim's sincerity shaking through tears. You only listened closely to the lies whispered by an envelope of cash."

The earlobe burst. One ear tore all the way through the eardrum, and then the other side followed.

Squelch.

The red blood running from his ears spread down beneath his jaw. Next, the nose. I seized the face of the man thrashing in pain and crushed it down.

"And what was the smell you took in that day?"

Crack!

The nasal bone shattered. Blood erupted from the ruptured vessels as if it meant to explode, and his face lost its shape.

"Not a court—a man who sorted justice by smell. You, who chased nothing but the scent of power and money soaked into expensive perfume, no longer have the right to breathe."

And last—

I forced his jaw open and looked into the mouth. A mouth smeared over with lies. I gripped the wand in both hands.

Riiip!

I tore that mouth apart to either side.

"Guhgyaaaaah!"

Flesh split. The tip of his tongue trembled, and even the scream broke apart into sobs and scattered.

"In a courtroom, that mouth of yours never once spoke the truth. You weren't a lawyer. You were only a lackey of money and power."

Kim Taehyup collapsed into a shape it was hard to call human. The eyes were gone. The mouth was torn open. The ears were cut away. The nose was crushed. He had become blood and despair itself. I slowly laid the magic wand on his chest. Onto that childish pink toy, sticky blood fell, drop by drop.

And to him, already losing consciousness from the shock, I spoke as if handing down a sentence.

And this was my justice. By right, it was a weight of judgment that society—that the state—ought to have carried.