The Reunion of Old Rivals
Behind the man, a group of people wearing helmets and goggles leaned lazily against their motorcycles.
They were electric bikes, the kind you’d only see in tourist spots where the speed limit is capped at 30 km/h.
“You’re the one who put up the flyers?”
“Yeah. I’m the captain of the Koiso group. And who are you?”
“Are you from another region?”
“Well, I’m a free spirit, drifting here and there. What’s your name?”
I was wearing a mask and a hat, just in case this turned out to be a trap. We began a probe, testing each other with only our voices, not even knowing what the other looked like.
“Why did you ask to see me?”
“Ah, ah. No hidden agenda. I’m just the curious type. But tell me, are you any good at fighting? Coming here alone suggests you’re pretty confident, right?”
“Did Gusan send you?”
“Everyone I meet asks the same thing. Is Gusan the toughest place around here or something?”
If it wasn’t Gusan, then who the hell were these guys? Had they really just been drifting around and stumbled upon this place by chance?
I scrutinized their electric bikes. Large backpacks with sleeping bags attached were strapped to the back of the bikes. Looking at them, they certainly fit the appearance of drifters.
“You don’t look like the type to belong to any group, do you? Have you ever seen a phoenix trapped in a birdcage?”
“Have you ever seen a phoenix?”
“Ah…. Well. Anyway, you get what I mean.”
This is strange. Why does this feel so familiar?
The awkwardly mixed dialect and the high-pitched tone. It was a tone of voice I knew from somewhere, and the fact that I couldn’t place it was bothering me.
“What’s your name?”
“I am…. No, wait. I almost told you for a second. It feels like I’m the only one answering here, right? Guys, am I right?”
The goggled man turned to look behind him. His subordinates, who seemed to be his lackeys, giggled and nodded in agreement. The man looked back at me and made a clicking sound with his tongue.
“You don’t seem to have any intention of answering either, so let’s do this. Let’s have a spar, and the winner gets to ask whatever they want. How about it?”
“You’re going to try to overwhelm me with numbers?”
“Eh? Look, I’m not that kind of low-life. A spar is one-on-one. If you gang up on someone, that’s not a spar.”
“How can I trust that?”
“Wow, this guy is incredibly suspicious. Should I tie their hands and feet? Would you believe me then?”
The man raised his voice as if he were genuinely offended. He had a pistol at his waist and a large combat knife strapped to his thigh. His subordinates were armed the same way.
Should I launch a surprise attack?
The revolvers at my hips seemed to whisper to me.
“Whoa, whoa. A spar is supposed to be hand-to-hand, no weapons. You were just about to reach for your gun, weren’t you? That’s a foul.”
“…….”
What is this guy?
I hadn’t even twitched a muscle, yet he read my thoughts just from the shift in the air? Or was he just guessing?
“I’ll let it slide this once. Honestly, I’ve taken a liking to you since you showed up alone.”
“Taken a liking?”
“A man is half guts and half bluff.”
Who really is this guy? I feel like I’ve heard this line somewhere, too….
At this point, I was genuinely curious about the goggled man’s identity.
“Fine. Then the winner gets to ask everything they’re curious about. The loser has to answer, no matter what.”
“Deal!”
The moment the word left his lips, he lunged. He jumped from about five meters away and threw a punch in a straight line. I took two steps back to create distance and delivered a spinning back kick the moment he landed.
“Oh?”
The man was no pushover. He blocked it with both hands and stared at me with interest.
“I knew you wouldn’t be an ordinary guy.”
“Hahaha! Captain? You’re not getting beaten up, are you?”
“We’re not helping you, okay?”
“Shut up, you bastards.”
The man took off his helmet and began to loosen up. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the goggles, but I could tell he had become quite serious.
“Are you sure you want to take off your helmet? Why don’t you keep it on like headgear?”
“Is this some kind of sparring match? Let’s see who’s laughing at the end.”
The man closed the distance rapidly. He intended to dive inside my waist, like a takedown. I tried to counter with a knee strike, but for a moment, a strange sense of crisis made the back of my neck prickle.
“Ugh!”
It was a feint.
The man pretended to rush in, but then immediately straightened his upper body. He reached out with his left hand, palm open, to block my vision. It was too late to create distance. In the flow of the movement, he would attack with his right hand.
What is he aiming for?
The abdomen? The face?
In that split second, a thousand thoughts crossed my mind.
‘It’s the chin!’
As his left hand, which had been obstructing my view, dropped, I saw his shoulder shift. Reflexively, I tilted my upper body back, and his fist grazed my chin by a hair’s breadth. It was dizzying, but as if to say that wasn’t the end, the man used his left foot as a pivot to launch himself into the air and whipped his right foot around.
“Damn!”
His movements were flawless. He was too fast to dodge. My best bet was to raise my arms to protect my face. A heavy impact traveled through my wrists and shoulders, vibrating through my entire body.
“Whoa, he blocked that?”
“What kind of level is this? Our captain might actually lose.”
The subordinates who had been sitting lazily corrected their posture. I, too, had to change my mindset, having initially dismissed him as just another guy. It was no exaggeration to call this man my equal.
“This is a bit embarrassing. No one has ever blocked my First Form before.”
“What… what form?”
“This is the Second Form, you bastard!”
The man, bouncing on his feet, approached with an instep strike. He lifted his right foot, pretending to aim for my waist, then quickly lifted his left foot to aim for my face. When I blocked that, he pretended to aim for the other side with his right foot, then lifted his left foot again. The Second Form seemed to be inspired by Taekwondo movements. The name might have been childish, but the attacks were vicious.
The man pressed the attack without giving me a moment to breathe, targeting my waist, face, abdomen, and thighs with well-timed feints. Of course, he didn’t land a single clean hit.
I grasped his pattern, and when he went for my waist, I caught his foot.
“Huh?!”
Thud!
If one leg is caught, you can easily trip the opponent by hooking their supporting leg. The man, who had fallen in an unsightly heap, gasped for air, having wasted his stamina for nothing.
“My Second Form, so easily…!”
“I guess there’s no Third Form?”
“Sh-shut up!”
The man jumped up and took a fighting stance. He threw jabs to establish distance and induce close-quarters combat. I met him head-on, strength against strength.
He threw a right-hand straight. I ducked slightly to avoid it, grabbed his shoulder and wrist along the line of his punch, and attempted a shoulder throw. As he planted his feet to minimize the impact, I tried to strike his face—which was half-exposed—with my elbow. The goggled man crossed his arms to block it, then rolled to the side to escape my range.
“?!”
The man immediately rushed in and attempted a takedown. He charged like a wild boar, grabbed my waist, and pushed with all his might.
“Raaaaah!”
He let out a strange, guttural cry. To avoid falling as he intended, I had no choice but to keep being pushed back. Pushed all the way to the wall, I braced my back foot against it to stop my momentum, and used that recoil to drive a knee into his face.
“Ugh!”
It was the first clean hit landed by either side. The impact must have been significant, but like a boxer in a clinch, he deliberately pressed his body against me to buy recovery time and negate my chance. It was a learned behavior, coming out reflexively.
I grabbed his neck and pushed him away with all my might, trying to land a clean shot to his face, but he swatted my arm away and launched a counterattack instead. To recover and counter in that split second—his endurance was truly remarkable.
‘I can’t drag this out any longer.’
His subordinates were watching with their mouths agape. But if this went on too long, they might start harboring other ideas. I grabbed the back of his neck so he couldn’t escape, pulled him toward me, and struck his chin with my other elbow. As his balance faltered, I grabbed him from behind, crossed my hands in a cross-lock, and tightened them around his throat. My intention was to knock him out while using him as a human shield, just in case his subordinates decided to start shooting.
“C-captain!”
The goggled man resisted violently, but the noose around his neck was firm. As his consciousness began to fade, the strength in his hand as he tapped out was rapidly slipping away. When his movements became completely sluggish, I released the lock and threw him to the floor.
“Ack! Ack! *Cough!*”
The goggled man crawled on the ground, struggling to regain consciousness. My gaze shifted toward his subordinates, but whether it was because I was watching them or because they were trying to respect the rules, they didn’t move rashly.
“Phew, I almost died for real. You bastard! You should have let go as soon as I tapped!”
“Didn’t you say this wasn’t a spar?”
“You son of a bitch. You’ve never let me have the last word since the old days.”
I had already half-guessed it, and it seemed this guy was the same. When I chuckled, he laughed along with me and flopped onto the ground.
“Don’t you ever age? A lot of time has passed, but I’m still no match for you.”
“Time is fair to everyone.”
The man took off his goggles. And then, I saw a face I knew.
“Lee Cheon-il, it’s been a while.”
Im Jong-chan. The fellow trainee whose mouth was as light as a fallen leaf. The guy who called the bathroom his ‘chamber of contemplation.’ If nothing else, he was a 4th Generation Hunter whose combat skills were second only to mine.
“You’ve aged quite a bit.”
“Bullshit. I’m two years older than you, you know?”
“A trainee is a trainee, why bring that up now?”
From the moment we crossed paths, I had expected he was from the school. After all, the combat style we learned was an application of Krav Maga. When he started saying things like ‘First Form’ and ‘Second Form,’ I was half-doubting, but his unique accent and tone were the deciding factors.
“Our bond is truly tenacious. Who would have thought I’d meet McGree again?”
“When did you figure it out?”
“Since my secret technique didn’t work? There’s only one guy in the world who can beat me in a spar.”
“Don’t go doing that anywhere else. It’s embarrassing.”
“When did you figure it out?”
“Since I smelled your bad breath.”
“You son of a bitch.”
I took off my mask. And so, we stared intently at the face of a long-missed comrade. Im Jong-chan, perhaps overwhelmed by emotion, wiped his eyes with his sleeve and stood up.
“Guys, hurry up and say hello. This is that annoying guy I’ve told you about a hundred times.”
“McGree…? That legendary Hunter?”
The subordinates rushed over like lightning and bowed at a 90-degree angle. The men surrounding me looked at me with sparkling eyes, which, frankly, made me uncomfortable.
“We’ve heard so much about you! It’s an honor to see such a great person in the flesh!”
“As expected! I knew you were extraordinary when you completely crushed our captain, but you were Hunter McGree!”
“No, look at the nerve of these little bastards?”
“Why? Isn’t it true that you got crushed?”
“……I could have landed one hit, you know?”
“From where I’m standing, you didn’t have a chance.”
“That’s why he’s such an annoying human being.”
After a good, hearty laugh, a moment of silence fell. Im Jong-chan approached without a word and hugged me. Even the guy who was always playful and lighthearted was serious in this moment. He patted my back a couple of times, and I nodded. It was a Hunter’s greeting, a language of men, thanking each other for being alive. In a meeting where coincidences piled upon coincidences and heaven’s luck was added, emotional lines or expressions weren’t necessary. Wouldn’t this one sentence be enough?
Im Jong-chan’s eyes were red-rimmed.