Not Peter Pan, But Captain Hook
The sharp crack of a gunshot tore through the classroom, its echo ringing off the yellow safety mats that covered the floor. A moment of stunned silence. Then came the scream.
“K-kkeuaaaaaaaa!”
It was the raw, cracking yell of a boy just hitting puberty, his voice thick with adolescent roughness. Mina could hardly believe what she was seeing. She hadn’t thought he would actually pull the trigger.
The boy clutched his shoulder in agony, but with his right hand bound to the floor he couldn’t even thrash properly. He could only twitch and writhe. From beneath his squirming body, something blue rolled out, tumbling across the floor. At first glance it looked like a smooth marble, but Mina recognized it instantly.
“Rubber?”
It was a tightly compressed rubber bullet, faint scorch marks etched into its surface.
“Aaaaaah!”
“Non-lethal rounds,” Seok-jun said calmly, ignoring the boy’s shrieks as he checked the revolver’s cylinder. “No matter how often my job involves catching scum like this, shooting real bullets at a minor would create a mountain of paperwork.”
His voice had barely faded when urgent footsteps thundered down the hallway outside.
“What on earth was that noise?! Su-a, why is the door—!”
A woman appeared in the open doorway. She startled at the sight of the wooden vines sprouting from the frame, but her eyes quickly found the boy writhing on the floor.
“Gi-seok?! What happened here?!”
“U-uhhh, teacher!”
She must have been the special class instructor. The moment she rushed forward in alarm, the boy—who had been sobbing and howling with snot and tears—brightened and called out to her like a lost child finding his mother.
“Why are you crying? Are you hurt?! And why is your hand tied to the floor?!”
“H-he hit me! That mister hit me and bullied me!”
Even while bound, Gi-seok jabbed a finger at Seok-jun, appealing to the worried teacher.
“What?! You! How could you do something like that to a child… a g-gun?!”
Her gaze finally landed on the revolver in Seok-jun’s hand and her face twisted in horror.
“That was the gunshot?! What have you done to a boy who’s a little slow but completely innocent?!”
Mina watched with complicated feelings as Gi-seok buried his face against the teacher’s leg, sobbing like a child. His tantrum looked every bit the genuine article of a wronged little boy. Yet she couldn’t unsee what he had done to her only minutes earlier. The memory made her stomach turn.
She opened her mouth to explain, but someone else spoke first.
“The uncle didn’t do anything wrong.”
The green-haired girl standing beside Seok-jun had stepped forward.
“Su-a? What are you saying?”
“The uncle knew I was being controlled. He freed me. The bad one is Gi-seok.”
Su-a planted herself in front of Seok-jun like a shield. The teacher’s expression flickered between confusion and fury. She glared at Seok-jun.
“Did you make Su-a say that?”
“What are you even talking about?”
When Mina stared in disbelief, the teacher’s glare swung toward her as well.
“You people! Is it fun for you to torment and exploit children like this?!”
“Haaaa.”
Su-a let out a deep sigh as she watched the teacher. It was far too heavy, far too weary to belong to a child.
“I’m calling the police!!”
“No need. They’re already here.”
“Ha, seriously. I told you to take it easy.”
The moment Seok-jun spoke, a man in a long coat strode through the open door. Mina recognized him at once. He was the same person she had run into at the school gate before entering the building.
“You’re—”
“This is who I am,” the man said, pulling a leather wallet from inside his coat and flipping it open. A police badge gleamed beside an official ID card bearing his photograph.
“Perfect timing! Arrest these people right now!”
The teacher’s voice rose sharply, but the detective clicked his tongue in annoyance.
“I think you’re mistaken. The one I came to arrest isn’t that gentleman. It’s the boy your teacher has been protecting.”
“What?”
The teacher looked down at Gi-seok in shock. The boy flinched, his fake tears drying up as he began to tremble.
“Since this happened at school, I assume you’ve already heard the general story, Teacher?”
“Where’s your evidence? What proof do you have that Gi-seok is the culprit?! He’s not even an awakened person! His hair isn’t black!”
She was still desperately shielding him when a small voice cut through the air.
“There is evidence.”
“Su-a?!”
While the teacher recoiled in shock, the detective crouched to meet Su-a’s eyes.
“Can you show me where it is?”
“Yes.”
Su-a nodded, walked to the teacher’s desk, and opened a drawer. She pulled out an ordinary-looking smartphone.
“Why do you have Gi-seok’s phone…”
“Ciii! Let go! Let me go!!”
Gi-seok suddenly thrashed violently, trying to wrench his bound right hand free. The teacher stumbled back in fright. The detective glanced at Seok-jun.
“Hey, if you’re going to restrain someone, do it right. What the hell is that?”
“Are the magic-suppression cuffs just for decoration?”
“Your own magic would’ve worked fine.”
“Kkeup!”
Only after fresh ropes burst from the floor and lashed his entire body did Gi-seok finally go still.
“How did you know the pattern?” the detective asked.
“I know it. It’s simple.”
Su-a powered on the phone, unlocked it, and handed it over. The detective took it, scrolled through the screen, and frowned.
“Ha, look at this little shit.”
He ruffled Su-a’s hair lightly, then angled the screen so only the teacher could see.
“Teacher, after seeing this, do you still believe the boy is innocent?”
“This… Su-a…”
The teacher’s eyes trembled as she stared at the girl. Su-a simply looked back at her in silence, then slipped behind Seok-jun as if fleeing. In the end, the teacher did not stop the detective from snapping the magic-suppression cuffs onto Gi-seok’s wrists.
Later, at the nearby police station, the teacher sat as Su-a’s temporary guardian while Mina sat beside Seok-jun as a witness. Gi-seok’s guilt was already beyond doubt, but they were waiting for his actual guardian to arrive.
Awkward.
Mina sat between Seok-jun and the teacher, reading the tense atmosphere, while Su-a quietly read a fairy tale on the tablet the teacher had lent her.
Time in the station dragged on endlessly until—
“Gi-seok is here?!”
An old woman burst through the door, shouting at the top of her lungs. She was clearly Gi-seok’s guardian.
“What did my grandchild do wrong?! Release him right now!”
“Grandmother, you can’t behave like this!”
She violently shook off the officers trying to restrain her.
“What kind of police treat a poor, unfortunate child this way?! Let our Gi-seok go! Let him go!”
She kicked chairs and swung her cane wildly. Mina watched the scene until the old woman’s cloudy eyes suddenly locked onto them with terrifying intensity. The sheer malice in that gaze made even Mina flinch.
“Th-that one! It’s you! You’re the bitch who reported our Gi-seok, aren’t you?!”
But the old woman wasn’t looking at Mina. Her glare was fixed on Su-a. Stomping across the floor with surprising speed for her age, she charged forward.
“I treated you nicely because you were Gi-seok’s little girlfriend. And now you’re trying to devour him?! You worthless bitch—I ought to grind you up and drink you!”
The officers tried to intercept her, but she was already too close. Seok-jun stepped into her path.
“Who the hell are you?! Get out of my way!”
She swung her cane at him with all her strength, but he caught it effortlessly and spoke to the teacher.
“You may take the child and leave now.”
“Y-yes! Su-a, let’s go quickly.”
The teacher bowed hastily to Seok-jun and hurried Su-a out of the station.
“Where do you think you’re going?! Come back here!”
The grandmother tried to hurl her cane after them, but Seok-jun’s grip held it fast. In that moment, Mina caught Su-a’s quiet words.
“Teacher.”
“What is it, dear?”
“The one who saved me wasn’t Peter Pan. It was Captain Hook.”
The tablet screen still displayed the Peter Pan storybook.
The old woman rampaged for a long while before exhaustion finally claimed her. She collapsed onto the station floor, sobbing.
“Aigoo! Aigoo! Give me back my Gi-seok!”
She beat the floor with her fists, wailing. Mina paid her no mind. She stepped outside with Seok-jun into the cold night air.
“Haa… I feel a little unsettled.”
“I don’t believe it’s something worth losing sleep over.”
“What exactly do you do for a living that leads to situations like this? And with the police involved, no less.”
“It’s… complicated.”
Mina realized once again how little she actually knew about him. He always seemed on the verge of explaining, only to pull back at the critical moment.
“I imagine Miss Mina has begun to get the picture by now.”
She looked up at him. Behind him, an orange streetlamp glowed, swarmed by clouds of insects. The brim of his leather hat cast deep shadows across his face, hiding any readable expression. Mina’s lips moved soundlessly.
Seok-jun continued, voice low.
“The fact that I saved you yesterday was nothing more than coincidence. There’s no need for you to feel indebted.”
“That’s—”
She already knew. He must have been hired to deal with Gu Gang-woo. Just like today’s events at the school.
“An A-grade hunter like you, Miss Mina, won’t gain anything good from being entangled with me.”
She wanted to say something—anything—but in the end, no words came.
She knew far too little about him. In the end, they were simply two people who had met by chance. Nothing more.
It was an unusually cold winter night, the wind sharp enough to cut flesh.