Chapter 26
Chapter 26
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Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 26
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In the end, a guard who couldn’t stand it anymore came right up to his door, opened the window slot, and raised his voice.
“Hey! What the hell is your problem?”
At that, Kyungwan stopped pounding and tilted his head, replying with a single line.
“Because music is the only drug the country allows?”
Kyungwan, who made the guard automatically spit out the word ‘bullshit,’ closed his eyes again and resumed tapping on the steel door as if savoring it. To the guard, he now looked like a deranged musician studying what rhythm most effectively irritates other humans.
“Alright! Fine! Just stop it, you bastard!”
Surrender. Or more politely, the guard was trying to negotiate. Kyungwan blinked.
“Huh? Is that really okay? If you do me a favor and then other inmates in solitary start throwing tantrums like I did, won’t you have to do everything they ask too?”
You know that and you still did this, you little shit?! The guard held back the rising blood pressure and spoke through clenched teeth.
“Do you even know how long you’ve been pounding?”
“I don't know.”
“You did it all day long, you little bastard!”
After breakfast, he had belted out that shitty medley in a pig-slaughtering voice all the way until lunch. When told to stop, he spent the entire afternoon pounding out that shitty rhythm until dinner. And after dinner, he kept pounding. Thinking about it again, it wasn’t that he stopped singing because he was told to, it was obvious he stopped because his own throat hurt. How the hell do you scream like a dying pig all morning and not lose your voice?
Anyway, the guard could confidently swear he had never seen a bastard as stubborn, no, as insane, as this one. Even other guys in solitary would never dare imitate this. No wonder the guards had insulted the idiot judge, claiming he sent someone who belonged in a psych ward to a prison.
Kyungwan’s thoughts about the guard’s rant were short.
“Music really must be a drug.”
The only drug the country allowed. Otherwise, how could he have kept tapping like that all day?
But to the guard listening to such bullshit, it was simply jaw-dropping.
= = = = =
Having earned(?) free access to the library books, Kyungwan checked out as many as the regulations allowed. Going back and forth multiple times would annoy both him and the guard assigned to watch him.
Most of the books were related to technical certification exams. From the guard’s point of view, it looked like he was finally trying to get his life together and rejoin society, but the truth was simpler: novels were too fast to read and didn’t help pass the time.
The massive experience points sleeping inside Kyungwan’s head accelerated his ability to absorb information, which also meant he got bored faster.
So he rarely read novels. The themes of stories with clear beginnings, middles, and ends were far too easy to grasp, and he was too cynical and alien to empathize and enjoy them. If oversimplified, what were novels but conflicts created inevitably by the existence of humans, followed by their resolution?
But for Kyungwan, who had seen every kind of human misery, the conflicts portrayed in media were easy to predict and the events themselves weren’t stimulating. Even a film director had once said that reality was worse than movies, making scriptwriting difficult.
On the other hand, technical books related to things like electrical engineering were perfect for killing time, as long as he was interested.
Thanks to solitary confinement, Kyungwan unintentionally built a solid intellectual foundation that helped him better understand this world.
Though, considering the life path he designed for himself, he had no idea where he'd ever use it.
= = = = =
A month passed surprisingly quickly. Repetition erased time.
Returning to the cell he had lived in, Cho Piltae greeted him with great enthusiasm.
“Our Tazza! You’re back!”
“I’m not a Tazza.”
As soon as he sat down, Cho Piltae asked the question he’d been dying to ask.
“Why’d you wreck that bastard Gongbyeong? And how did you wreck him?”
“Gongbyeong? Who’s that?”
“Gong Nambyeong. The guy whose knee you shattered.”
There were more than a few guys whose knees he’d shattered, but he knew which tattooed guy Piltae meant.
Kyungwan opened his mouth.
“Oh, that’s his name? The one who told me to be his straw.”
“Yeah. After you told me that, I made sure that bastard got royally fucked over.”
A pleased smile crept onto Cho Piltae’s lips.
“Ah~. So that’s why he came to ask if I ratted on him.”
“So that’s why you fought?”
“That’s not it. I don’t remember ratting.”
“What do you mean you didn’t rat?”
“I’m not anyone’s underling. Why would I rat? I was just being honest.”
“Puhahaha! You’re something else, huh? So then what?”
“What do you mean so then? I said I never ratted, so I just left. But the next time, he came at me frothing at the mouth.”
“So he found out you ratted?”
“Seems like it.”
At Kyungwan’s words, Piltae slowly shifted his gaze to the other two men in the cell. He wouldn’t have touched scammer Bang Sanghoon, he was a big shot. Big shots were precious.
But one person was different. Kim Choonjae. A man serving time for turning his cheating lover’s boyfriend into a cripple.
The look Piltae gave Choonjae turned dangerous.
“Was it you?”
“N-no!”
“Then how the hell did that bastard find out Tazza ratted, ”
“I said I didn’t rat. And I’m not a Tazza.”
“Tsk! Hey, you. Stay quiet.”
Piltae shut Kyungwan up and grabbed Choonjae by the collar.
“You gonna say it properly or not?”
“I’ll tell! I’ll tell!”
Kyungwan watched Piltae interrogate Choonjae, but there wasn’t anything impressive. Just violence and intimidation to force a confession.
Once Piltae released him, Choonjae confessed everything. As Piltae expected, he had been Gong Nambyeong’s straw long before Kyungwan even arrived, and he had confirmed to the tattooed man that Kyungwan had ratted.
Even with such obedient confession, Piltae smashed his fist into Choonjae’s solar plexus. What drove Piltae over the edge was the fact that Choonjae had been a straw long before Kyungwan arrived.
“You little shit!”
“Ah, ! Calm down.”
It was Kyungwan who grabbed Piltae’s arm and calmed him down.
“Choonjae ahjussi didn’t do it because he wanted to. The guy, Gong whatever, must’ve threatened him.”
“Y-yeah! Exactly!”
Choonjae brightened immediately, nodding rapidly.
But Piltae still fumed.
“Damn it! A man’s got balls, doesn’t he? Should’ve had some backbone!”
“Choonjae ahjussi isn’t a thug. He’s just a normal guy who made a mistake. How can a regular person stand firm when an actual thug threatens him?”
“Hmm, !”
At the undeniable point, Piltae dropped it and let go of his collar.
Choonjae looked at Kyungwan silently. His tightly pressed lips were overflowing with gratitude. Kyungwan nodded back as if saying he understood.
For a few days, the atmosphere remained awkward, but after a visit, Piltae returned saying Gong Nambyeong had become a knee-cripple and Choonjae wouldn’t be threatened again. The mood relaxed afterward.
A month later, scammer Bang Sanghoon was released. In winter, Kim Choonjae was released, and in spring, Piltae was released.
“Contact me when you get out.”
“I still have a long way to go.”
Only one year had passed. Piltae chuckled.
“I’m not the kind of guy without loyalty.”
Kyungwan didn’t believe him. Loyalty among thugs was always something that could be betrayed. It was just lip service because Kyungwan seemed useful.
Still, he gave lip service back. He was good at that.
“Then please don’t change your number until I get out.”
“Puhaha! Alright. I’ll even put some money in your prison account now and then.”
And so, Piltae left, and the original cell lineup was completely replaced. The newcomers were ordinary inmates desperate for release, so as long as he kept the peace, there was no problem.
But perhaps peace had lasted too long. Kyungwan soon faced a very irritating situation.
“Hey.”
“···.”
“Hey!”
“What!”
“Why do I get only this much?”
It was the day they served pork belly gochujang stir-fry. But the inmate in charge of distribution gave Kyungwan barely even a quarter of what others got, practically leftovers.
Yet the inmate had the nerve to yell at him.
“Get lost! I gotta keep serving!”
The prisoner behind Kyungwan also chimed in.
“Hurry up and move.”
Kyungwan’s mouth fell open in disbelief. But his hand moved swiftly.
“You son of a bitch!”
He snatched the ladle with a sharp tak! The serving inmate exploded in curses.
“You little shit! Give that back!”
But Kyungwan ignored the crap spewing from his mouth, restored the rightful portion of meat to his tray, and tossed the ladle back at the hypocrite.
“Hey. Don’t mess with someone’s food.”
With that warning, he walked to the table. Someone cursed behind him, “That fucking bastard!”, but he ignored it. Guards who had been tense, ready to charge in case something broke out, eased slightly. But their watchful eyes only intensified. Minor conflicts often escalated into violence.
Finding a seat, he sat down and began eating. But peace was still far away. Someone hit him on the back of the head, making rice spill from his mouth.
He turned his head and saw the prisoner who had been in line behind him. He hadn’t cared about whatever that guy said earlier, but now that he saw him again, the guy looked vicious.
The man sat beside him and spoke provocatively.
“Hey, asshole. Didn’t you hear me tell you to move faster?”
From Kyungwan’s perspective, it was pure bullshit. He ignored the man’s nonsense and calmly put a spoonful of meat into his mouth.
“Heh? Look at this bastard.”
It was as if he had never been ignored like this before. His smile twisted.
Then Kyungwan’s arm moved like lightning. His tightly clenched hammer fist smashed into the man’s eye socket. Kyungwan hadn’t even looked at him, he simply visualized exactly where the eyeball would be and struck, making it a perfect ambush.
“Keuak!”
As the man grabbed his face, screaming like his eyeball had burst, Kyungwan’s elbow shot toward his throat.
Twisting his waist to draw out full power, his straight punch struck the man’s Adam’s apple. Crack! The sensation of the cartilage breaking was exquisite.
“Kkeureuk!”
The man stuck out his tongue, gasping in pain and struggling to breathe, as guards ran toward them.