Toilet Paper
Kim Gwang-cheol was so stunned he lost his words. A dead silence filled the bathroom. He turned what he had just heard over in his head, half-convinced he must have misheard Han Mir.
No matter how he replayed it, though, the meaning did not change. Tear off some toilet paper and wipe the guy's ass. Kim Gwang-cheol could not accept that this was happening. Praying a different answer would come out this time, he asked in a trembling voice,
"Y-you... what did you just say...?"
"Tear off some toilet paper and wipe."
Lee Chi-myeol shrieked as if he had been stabbed.
"W-what kind of bullshit is that?! Why the hell should we wipe you?!"
"That's the friendship fee."
Lee Chi-myeol's jaw started to chatter. This crazy bastard was serious. He genuinely meant to keep them here until they cleaned him up.
"...Ha."
A short, breathless sound escaped Kim Gwang-cheol. One corner of his mouth twisted up. He rolled his tongue against his cheek and clenched his fist.
"You crazy bastard. If it needs wiping, you wipe it. Why the fuck should I? You got a death wish? Huh? You wanna get the living shit beaten out of you in a bathroom like back in middle school?"
Kim Gwang-cheol thought of the Han Mir he used to know, and the insolence standing in front of him now was something he could not swallow.
They had first met in the eighth grade. Kim Gwang-cheol had spotted a small kid hunched in the corner, voice barely a whisper, face going scarlet the instant anyone looked at him — the textbook picture of a loser — and kicked him off his chair without a word. True to form, one kick sent him sprawling, on the verge of tears. Kim Gwang-cheol understood at once that he had just found the perfect toy.
From that day on, even when they were put in different classes, even when they moved up a grade, his obsession never cooled. He carried the bullying all the way into high school. He extorted money as a "friendship fee," worked him over on the torso so the bruises would not show, filmed humiliating, ridiculous videos and used them as blackmail. Every day spent playing with the toy called Han Mir was nothing but fun. Han Mir's parents were too busy globe-trotting to notice their son was being destroyed, and if he ever told a teacher, it was shrugged off as kids being kids. Kim Gwang-cheol had even planned to keep calling him out and tormenting him after they became adults. He needed bottom-feeders like Han Mir around. That was how he stayed in the light.
Holding onto that, he found the overnight change in Han Mir's face and manner infuriating beyond endurance.
Han Mir spoke as if none of it mattered.
"You've got one minute. Or you wipe with your bare hands."
"Ha, fuck. You little worm. I've been going way too easy on you lately, haven't I?"
"Y-yeah! Gwang-cheol! Teach this asshole a lesson!"
Kim Gwang-cheol's eyes rolled with rage. He drove his fist down at Han Mir with so much force his whole arm shook.
Or rather — that was what he tried to do.
"Ghk!?"
Han Mir had his wrist. Pain lanced through Kim Gwang-cheol as if the bones were about to splinter, and his face crumpled.
"Hiiik! G-Gwang-cheol!? This crazy bastard, how dare he—!!"
Lee Chi-myeol threw a punch of his own, but Han Mir's other hand was already locked around his wrist with a grip that felt ready to tear it clean off.
Han Mir stared blankly ahead through those half-lidded eyes of his.
"Gwang-cheol. Anchovy. You know why I don't kill you?"
"W-what the hell are you saying! Let go! Ugh!"
"Trash like you was everywhere in the Other World. Cowards who only pick on the weak and fold the second they meet someone actually strong. People avoid shit like that. You step in it, it gets on your clothes, and then your whole day's ruined. That's why."
Han Mir glanced at Kim Gwang-cheol. And Kim Gwang-cheol felt, with a certainty that went straight through him, that the boy he used to look down on — the one who used to stare up at him with nothing but fear in his eyes — was not what stood in front of him now. This was something else entirely.
"But sometimes you have no choice but to get your hands dirty. When their precious pride gets wounded because people ignore them, they sell information to the enemy. Or they turn on their own side and cause catastrophic damage. That's the kind of thing I mean."
"W-what kind of bullshit are you spouting?!"
Lee Chi-myeol sobbed the words out, unable to bear the crushing pain in his wrist. They strained until their faces turned purple, trying to wrench free, but Han Mir's grip only tightened. Blood stopped reaching their hands. Their fingers went blue and began to swell.
Kim Gwang-cheol understood then. Han Mir's eyes were not looking at him. They were looking through him, into some distant memory.
"So what do you think I did? At first I let it slide. I still thought of them as human. But mercy has no bottom with people like that. After I took damage I could never take back, I finally understood. Shit like you needs to be removed."
Han Mir yanked them both forward. Kim Gwang-cheol and Lee Chi-myeol lurched toward him until they were close enough to feel his breath on their faces.
For a moment they forgot the pain in their wrists. Because what lived in his eyes was not boiling rage. It was killing intent, honed cold and sharp as a naked blade. The certainty that he could kill them whenever he felt like it would not leave their heads. Just meeting his gaze felt like a razor sliding into their hearts.
"The only reason I don't give a shit about you right now is because you're nothing but filthy lumps of shit. But if you keep splashing that filth around—"
Han Mir whispered it, very softly, but every syllable was precise.
Kim Gwang-cheol and Lee Chi-myeol's faces went deathly pale. Their teeth chattered. Their bodies shook as if a fever had taken them and would not let go. The fear crawling up their spines felt like it was peeling the skin off their backs. Ragged breaths tore from their mouths without end.
When Han Mir released their hands, Lee Chi-myeol and Kim Gwang-cheol's eyes drifted, slowly, toward the toilet paper dispenser.
"Ten seconds left."
At those words, they tore off the paper.
The classroom door slid open with a rattle and a click, and every eye in the room locked onto them. Han Mir walked to his seat looking thoroughly refreshed. Kim Gwang-cheol and Lee Chi-myeol trailed behind him, rubbing their hands over and over. Their faces were stained with disgust and terror.
"Huh? What, did you guys collect the friendship fee properly?"
Shin Ji-yoon asked with a bright, open smile. They just kept rubbing their hands, trembling.
"What? Did something happen?"
Kim Gwang-cheol and Lee Chi-myeol hung their heads and said nothing.
"What is it? Come on, what happened? Hey, Worm. You actually paid up, right?"
Shin Ji-yoon crossed her arms, puffed out her chest, and shouted at Han Mir. Then Kim Gwang-cheol, who had been standing still, caught her by the shoulder. His face was ashen. He shook his head hard.
"D-don't."
"Huh? What's with you all of a sudden? Something really did happen, didn't it? Hey. Hey, Worm. Say something."
Shin Ji-yoon shook off his hand and planted herself in front of Han Mir's desk. A nasty little smile spread across her face. Then, with the ease of long practice, she lifted her leg and aimed it at Han Mir's face.
"Oh? Not answering? Look at the worm squirming after getting stepped on for the first time in a while..."
SMACK!
A dull crack rang through the classroom. Shin Ji-yoon could not understand why she was sprawled on the floor. She lifted her head, and a massive shadow fell over her.
Kim Gwang-cheol was staring down at her with bloodshot eyes.
"I fucking told you not to."
"W-wait, Gwang-cheol, why are you— Lee Chi-myeol! You say something too!"
Lee Chi-myeol, who had been standing still, twisted his face into a look of pure hostility and turned it on Shin Ji-yoon.
"You fucking bitch, y-you weren't even there. You should've come to the bathroom too! Sitting pretty by yourself and running your mouth?!"
Shin Ji-yoon shrank back at the sudden change in both of them.
"Hic."
She was so startled a hiccup slipped out.
"Shut the fuck up and listen, you bitch. From now on, nobody touches Han Mir. Anyone who does — I'll kill them."
Silence settled over the classroom. Lee Si-a, confronted with a situation that had flipped one hundred and eighty degrees, stepped up beside Han Mir and whispered,
"What on earth did you do?"
"Just offered a few kind words."
"You didn't... you didn't use your power on innocent civilians, d-did you?"
"Innocent civilians?"
Han Mir glanced around the room, then said it like it was nothing.
"Where do you see an innocent person in here?"
"What?"
Lee Si-a was more than a little thrown by the ice in his voice. Something about him felt sharply, uncomfortably different from before.
"You..."
BEEP!
Lee Si-a jumped at the sudden alert and looked down. The screen of her wristwatch had flushed a deep, angry red, and the numbers were climbing without end.
"W-what!? Why all of a sudden!?"
Lee Si-a shot to her feet. And then she realized. The silence in the classroom had gone on far too long.
Reflected in her eyes was a room full of students, every last one of them passed out, eyes rolled back to white.
Han Mir noticed the anomaly too and looked around. Every single one of them was unconscious. He knew this symptom.
It was the reaction ordinary humans had when they came face to face with something they could not endure.
"No! No, no, nooo!! I don't want this!!!"
A piercing scream suddenly tore through the center of the classroom. Han Mir and Lee Si-a were not the only ones still conscious.
Park A-yeong was screaming herself hoarse, clawing at her own hair as if in a seizure.