Evidence, You Say?
Song Tan had just finished tidying up his affairs and returned home.
"Haa..."
The moment he arrived, he flopped face-first onto the sofa.
Only after stepping into his refuge did the tension finally drain from him and his muscles begin to loosen.
"What the hell is wrong with this body..."
Even breathing felt like it was wringing pain through every part of him.
It was the soreness that came from using muscles he had never used before.
"Still, at least I don't have to do laundry today."
Usually his school uniform came home soaked in blood, so washing it had become part of his daily routine.
"I need to build this body properly, and soon."
It was a desperate realization.
To think that fighting nothing more than a pack of underage punks would leave him this worn out.
It was enough to make a mockery of his status as an elite of the Murim Alliance.
"They say life is full of twists and turns... I suppose the martial arts I used to be ridiculed for are useful here."
There were only three martial arts No. 28 had learned.
Tae-hyeong Steps, one of the entry-level footwork techniques of the Murim Alliance.
Point-striking Martial Scripture, a martial art built from jeomhyeol technique.
And finally, Tae-jeong Mind Method, the epitome of colorless, odorless orthodoxy.
All three were fringe martial arts that no martial artist ever favored.
Tae-hyeong Steps emphasized rear-weighted movements, which made it seem timid and retreating, so martial artists avoided it.
Point-striking Martial Scripture existed not to kill but to subdue an opponent "cleanly," and that alone made it unpopular.
And yet, ironically, those very qualities made them a perfect fit for No. 28, who had no real talent for martial arts.
He had no taste for throwing himself into battle with his life on the line, and his internal energy had never been strong enough for drawn-out fighting anyway.
Which was why the unusual acupoint technique he had learned, one that struck at an opponent's blind spot, had become an unexpectedly sharp weapon.
"Of course, that wasn't all."
The reason the talentless No. 28 had survived while all his peers died around him.
The special ability he had never told anyone about.
It was the intuition that sensed danger.
It wasn't simply having good instincts.
When he faced a choice and an inexplicable chill crept over him, prickling up his entire body?
He had to avoid it at all costs. It meant danger lurked there, dangerous enough to take his life.
Thanks to that strange power—whether it was some kind of superpower or something else entirely—he had survived the training compound and lived through countless dangerous missions.
There he lay, sprawled on the sofa, sorting through his thoughts about himself, when—
Beep, beep, beep, beep—
Click—
The front door opened, and a human presence entered the house.
"Tan?"
A middle-aged man with a small frame stuck his head inside.
He was under 150 centimeters tall, too short to seem like an adult at all.
Song Bong-gu, Song Tan's father.
He was also a person with dwarfism and a spinal deformity, his back bent by an accident he had suffered as a child.
"You're home, Father?"
Song Tan sprang up from the sofa and swiftly took the bag from his father's hands.
Song Bong-gu, still a little dazed, handed it over and stared at his son, whose atmosphere had somehow changed in a subtle but unmistakable way.
"Didn't you go to school today?"
It was a natural question, since his son was almost never home at this hour.
"I went and came back."
Song Bong-gu paused after hearing the reply.
Was this really the same son who always looked so beaten down, who barely answered even when spoken to?
But today his voice was clear, and he wasn't avoiding eye contact.
Song Bong-gu felt a strange sense of incongruity.
Still, he didn't show it and set something down on the table.
"I stopped by Cheonan and bought some walnut pastries."
"Perfect timing. I was just getting hungry."
Watching his son grin as he sat at the table, Song Bong-gu asked carefully, "Was something going on while I was away?"
At the cautious question, Song Tan smiled brightly and nodded.
"A lot of things happened."
"What kind of things?"
"But before that, there's something I need to tell you."
"To me?"
Song Bong-gu still wasn't used to the strange new air about his son.
"What is it? What could my son possibly be saying so seriously?"
"I want to quit school."
"School?"
He was taken aback, though he didn't show it.
He merely asked calmly, "Why? Are you sick of studying?"
"It's not that. I just don't think there's any point in continuing school life in my current situation."
"What do you mean by that...?"
Song Tan calmly began to lay out everything he had gone through.
Of course, he left out the part about dying two days ago.
"Hah..."
A strangled sigh escaped him.
As his son's story continued, Song Bong-gu's eyes trembled violently.
In the end, he could no longer hold back and lowered his head.
Tears dripped onto the floorboards.
"Good heavens... good heavens, how could such a thing happen..."
Overwhelmed by guilt, Song Bong-gu couldn't even bring himself to look up.
He was furious at himself for not knowing his son had suffered something like that.
He was ashamed that his son had endured such pain and loneliness alone.
And all the other miserable feelings that rose up inside him tightened around his chest like a vise.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Tan. Dad should have... Dad should have paid more attention..."
After his wife's death, he had sworn to Heaven that he would raise his son so well no one could look down on him.
If his son said he wanted something to eat, he would go out in the dead of night to buy it.
If his son wanted something, he would cut back on sleep and take on side jobs to earn it.
He had raised his precious boy with all the care in the world, even asking acquaintances to attend school ceremonies in his place—entrance ceremonies, graduation ceremonies, any event—just in case people made fun of him because of his father.
He had thought he had done everything he could for his son. So what was this bolt from the blue?
He had noticed his son’s face growing darker and his words growing fewer at some point, but he had simply assumed it was adolescence.
Song Bong-gu hated his own complacency with a searing, almost maddening fury.
"Father."
Song Bong-gu only sniffled, unable to respond.
"Father. Please look at your son's face."
Only then did Song Bong-gu slowly lift his head.
His reddened eyes held nothing but guilt for his son.
"What do I look like right now? Do I look like someone who's given up on everything and run away?"
For someone who had been through so much, his expression and voice were almost unnervingly matter-of-fact, and that finally began to pull Song Bong-gu back to his senses.
"Quitting school doesn't mean I'm giving up. It means I want a fresh start. I want you to trust this decision of mine, Father."
Song Bong-gu wiped at the corner of his eyes with his sleeve and nodded so hard it was almost violent.
"Of course I trust you. If I don't trust my own son, who would I trust? Even if the sky splits in half, I’ll trust you. No matter what."
Only then did a faint smile appear on Song Tan's lips.
"Don't worry too much. Even if I don't go to school, I'll still get my GED."
"You don't have to do anything. Dad just wants you to find what you truly want to do."
That one sentence, thick with sincerity, warmed Song Tan's heart as well.
"Then tomorrow I'll tell the school I'm dropping out. They'll probably contact you separately too."
"No. I'll go to the school tomorrow myself. Dad will handle everything from now on, so you don't have to worry about a thing."
"But you have to work."
"Nothing is more important than my son's business. You don't need to worry about that."
He couldn't help worrying.
His father was the chauffeur for the chairman of a mid-sized company.
He wasn't in a position where he could simply take time off whenever he felt like it.
But Song Tan could no longer try to stop him.
Not after meeting those stubbornly blazing eyes.
After that, father and son didn't mention the matter again.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The next day, at Cheongsol High School.
From early in the morning, the teachers' office was as noisy as a market.
"What do you mean, my child is lying in a hospital right now!?"
"He was assaulted! Assaulted!"
"Is this something a student should do!? He's a thug, that's what he is!"
The homeroom teacher for Class 3 of the second year let out a weary sigh as he watched the parents spitting everywhere while screaming themselves hoarse.
"Everyone, please calm down. I think there may be some misunderstanding. That student is not the sort of person who would do something like this."
The teacher was dumbfounded. Song Tan, the assailant?
Quiet as a shadow, always looking cowed, that boy was the victim, not the culprit. He couldn't make sense of it at all.
"Enough with the nonsense. The bastard who did this to my precious son deserves prison food, and that's the only thing that'll satisfy me."
A middle-aged woman draped in luxury from head to toe snapped at the teacher with a venomous glare.
She was Kim Hyuk-jin's mother, and it was said she had made a fortune as a licensed real estate agent.
"Sigh. Please don't do this here. Let's move to the conference room first. There are too many eyes on us. And I'll bring the student in question, so you can hear what he has to say directly."
Only then did the parents, finally aware of the sharp looks from around them, reluctantly uncross their arms.
"Hmph. Bring him right away. I want to see the face of the bastard who did this to my kid."
"Yes, yes. Please have some tea. I'll bring him over shortly."
As the teacher went to fetch Song Tan, he could only keep releasing deep, helpless sighs.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A little later, the conference room door opened, and the homeroom teacher entered with Song Tan.
At once, sharp glares rained down on him, as though they meant to devour him alive.
"That's him?"
"No way, he looks even more..."
The parents were startled by his gaunt body, so thin it looked like he might snap if you touched him. But they quickly hardened their expressions and glared at him with narrowed, hawklike eyes.
It wasn't a very important factor, after all.
The contempt in their eyes was obvious the moment they looked at Song Tan.
They had already heard he was the son of a poor household, living alone with a disabled father.
Which only made them less restrained.
Song Tan sat at the head of the table, while the parents took their seats around him as if surrounding a suspect.
Then came the one-sided barrage of condemnation.
"What kind of nonsense is this, assaulting a classmate for no reason at all!? Don't you know how serious that is?"
"Can't you tell just by looking? He has that obvious look of someone raised without proper home training."
"How are you going to take responsibility for this mess now? Do your parents even know what you've done?"
It looked as though they had no intention of hearing any of the circumstances, having already decided Song Tan was the aggressor.
The teacher beside them wiped at his sweat and tried to stop them.
"Please! Ladies! Don't press him so hard right away. At least listen to what he has to say first..."
"What's there to listen to!? My child came home sobbing his eyes out, do you know how shocked I was... Haa. My heart is still pounding."
Kim Hyuk-jin's mother bared her teeth and glared at Song Tan.
Song Tan simply rested his chin in his hand, as if listening to someone else's business.
"Look at that! Look at him! He doesn't even show a hint of remorse! That's the kind of kid who grows up to kill people later on!"
As the parents screamed themselves hoarse, Song Tan couldn't help letting out a small snort of laughter.
The whole thing felt like a farce—these people barking away without even knowing who had really killed someone.
"You! You just laughed, didn't you!? I saw that clearly!"
"Do you even know how your son behaves at school, ma'am?"
"What?"
Song Tan lifted his chin.
His gaze was calm, startlingly clear.
"At first, they shove him. They try to make him fall. Once he falls, they kick him in the stomach once, just to see if he can breathe. After that, no one bothers asking who starts it. Fists and feet start raining down. Mostly they alternate between the back and the stomach. I guess they don’t want bruises on the face because that would be inconvenient."
His voice was so composed it sounded almost like an inner monologue, and for a moment, silence fell.
"If he hurts too much and lies face-down on the floor, they shout at him to get up. If he does, they hit him again for getting up. If he covers himself with his hands, they step on the backs of his hands and say it'll hurt less that way. In reality, it hurts more. The bones ache. They smile and ask him if it hurts. If he doesn't answer, they hit him. If he says it hurts, they hit him more. On rainy days, they drag him behind the playground. They say if the dirt is wet, the blood won't splash, so it's better. They knock him down and press his face into the ground, and even if dirt gets into his mouth, they tell him not to spit it out."
Song Tan swept his expressionless eyes over the people surrounding him.
"I went through that for two years. At this point, isn't it impressive I didn't die?"
"W-what the hell are you talking about...?"
"And besides, there were several of them and only one of me. Realistically, doesn't that make it impossible for me to have done anything to them?"
As if by prior agreement, the parents all fell silent at once.
Their faces had turned into the look of people who had no rebuttal left to offer.
"T-th, that's not something we can know!"
"Exactly! Maybe he threatened them with a knife or something! What does the number of people matter then?"
"Or maybe he brought accomplices. We don't know."
Listening to the never-ending parade of idiocy, Song Tan briefly considered something.
Maybe he should just turn everyone in this room into idiots for real.
It was getting difficult to keep listening to this crap.
While reason and emotion were crashing violently against each other—
Bzzzz—
The homeroom teacher, already close to giving up, answered a phone call.
Soon enough, his face stiffened in visible confusion.
But the parents, indifferent to that, only kept raising their voices higher.
"Evidence!? Do you have evidence that my child did that!?"
At that shout, the teacher answered for him.
"Apparently, yes."
Immediately, hostile eyes turned on him.
The teacher silently picked up the remote lying in front of him.
"Teacher? What are you do—"
Soon, the TV screen came to life, and a video began to play.
An eerie abandoned factory, students in school uniforms holding clubs.
Then came the moment they charged at a thin, frail-looking boy.
The faces of the parents, who had only been opening and closing their mouths like fish thrown ashore, began to drain of color.