That's Crossing the Line
The whole way there, Lee Eun-byul's heart had been a relentless cycle of anxiety and dread. With every step she took, the photo of Lee Se-won's flushed face kept circling through her mind.
She had no idea why that picture had been sent to her, but if that situation was still going on even now...
Just thinking about it made her heart hammer violently against her ribs.
It had already been almost twenty minutes since the photo arrived. And even that window she'd managed to shave down by sprinting the entire way after getting off the subway. It might have been a short stretch of time, but it was more than enough to plant a trauma in someone.
With every step forward, the Se-won in her imagination accumulated more wounds. Sometimes he was getting slapped across the face. Sometimes his hair was being yanked. Sometimes fists were driving into his body. By the end, she was even picturing him being groped...
"Please..."
Her mind was spiraling toward the worst possible outcomes. One way or another, she was certain Se-won would be terrified. In her view, there wasn't a man alive who could keep his wits about him surrounded by vicious thugs like that. She was sure Se-won would be trembling, unable to put up even a single fight.
...Maybe that was why.
"...Huh?"
She was even more thrown by the scene in front of her.
"What the hell is..."
It was similar to what she'd imagined, in a way. But something about it felt off. The anxious scenario she'd been running through her head was playing out — and yet something was misaligned.
Se-won was surrounded by street thugs, that much was true. His face was flushed red, so he'd clearly taken some violence. Dust covered him here and there, like he'd been rolling around on the ground. If you'd only looked at the physical situation, it wasn't far from what Eun-byul had pictured.
If it weren't for the three thugs lying collapsed on the ground.
If it weren't for Se-won, surrounded by those thugs, grinning.
Eun-byul might have flown into a rage and charged into the fray. Even if she hadn't intended to, she would have jumped in to save Se-won, just like the original scenario. But seeing the man at the center of the threat looking that relaxed... she couldn't move either way. She just froze in place for a moment.
"Whew. You got here fast."
While she stood there frozen, Se-won spoke. He let out a brief, relieved chuckle, then pointed downward with a cold look in his eyes that was nothing like usual.
"Grab that bastard for me first."
His voice had an edge it never usually carried. A voice cold enough to drop the temperature around them by a full degree. At that calm command, she found herself grabbing Han Ho-cheol — sprawled at her feet — without even thinking.
Whew. That was close.
After seeing Eun-byul grab Ho-cheol, I let out a sigh of relief inwardly. I never thought he'd actually run off and leave his own people behind. That hadn't even crossed my mind. I'd figured he'd jump into the fight — not turn tail and bolt.
Tsk.
I clicked my tongue looking at him.
He really pisses me off to the very end.
Running away without taking responsibility for the mess he'd started. Even the thugs who'd been facing off with me looked dumbfounded. I watched that for a moment, then felt a flicker of relief.
Thank god.
Honestly, I'd been hitting my limit. No matter how long I held out, there was always a ceiling, and I was starting to feel my stamina give out. To be honest, I'd taken down those first three with cheap tricks more than anything. In my current state, I clearly wouldn't have been able to drop the two women in front of me either.
Which made Eun-byul's appearance extremely welcome. She didn't even need to join the fight. Just her being here would drain the will right out of them. Like the girl in the neon pants had said, this was a fight they hadn't really wanted in the first place. And now their odds of winning had just tanked, so from their perspective there was no reason to stick around.
"Alright then. Shall we pick up where we left off?"
So I opened my mouth. I felt the same way they did, after all. I didn't want to stay here any longer either, and I had no interest in an unnecessary fight. These guys were pretty damn annoying, sure, but considering they'd been dragged into this, I could cut them some slack.
I glanced around briefly, then muttered a single line.
"I'll let you go."
I repeated the exact words the neon-pants girl had said just a moment ago. Except this time, the subject was completely reversed. I wasn't the one being let go. I was the one letting them go. I was the one in the power position here, and that meant there had to be a price. And the price I wanted had been the same from the start.
I pointed with just my finger again.
"But you leave him behind."
At the end of that finger sat Han Ho-cheol, same as always. The guy who'd just been singled out flinched. I still hadn't worked out my anger at him. Anyone who tried to take a bite out of someone without thinking needed to be taught a lesson, and if you wanted a return on your investment, you had to accept the risk that came with it.
"H-hang on..."
My words seemed to put them in a bind. They looked glad they could leave, but reluctant to abandon him. These people were friends with Ho-cheol, after all. If they ditched him and ran in a situation like this, that relationship would obviously shatter. Whether they liked it or not, it'd be cutting him off, so of course they were struggling with it.
Yeah, and?
That was their problem. I didn't need to factor it in at all. I just stared them down in silence.
"......"
"......"
An uncomfortable silence stretched out. Nobody opened their mouth. Only their eyes gleamed. The other side just frowned, like they couldn't bring themselves to decide.
Then, after a while.
"Ugh... hey. Let's just go."
The girl in the neon hot pants, who'd been twitching on the ground the whole time, spoke up. She scowled as she continued.
"That bastard was trying to run first anyway. Fuck, he made this mess — he can clean it up."
"Oh!"
I let out a light sound of admiration at that. Hell yeah. You're someone I can actually talk to. You have to take responsibility for what you've done. I felt my fondness for Neon Pants tick up a notch.
I held my hand out toward the mouth of the alley like I was escorting them. A gesture telling them to get out that way, quickly.
"Please get the hell out this way, guests."
"...Getting mixed up with a psycho like this..."
Neon Pants looked at me with a faintly disgusted expression, then started heading out the alley I'd indicated. The two relatively unharmed ones propped up the three on the ground, and they were out in no time. I diligently guided them until they were completely gone.
Man, being able to keep my manners even in a situation like this. I could fall in love with my own character. Looking good, me! Proud of you, Lee Se-won!
"...Alright. Now."
Once I was done with that little performance, I looked back at Ho-cheol. He was thrashing around, like he knew something bad was about to happen to him. He was wriggling hard against Eun-byul, who had his arm. Luckily she wasn't letting go, so it wasn't getting him anywhere.
The interlopers were all gone now.
"Time to take responsibility, yeah?"
Now it was time to deliver punishment to the one who'd caused this whole mess. My eyes grew steadily colder.
Before I approached him, I let out a light breath. It wasn't like I was walking toward a bride or anything, but I was getting tense for no reason.
"Huuu..."
The breath from my lungs scattered into the air. With every exhale, it felt like the heat that had been building up was leaving me, and my head was cooling down.
...No. Cooling down wasn't quite right. That wasn't the right way to put it. I was just briefly solidifying something that had been boiling inside me. Reorganizing the irritation and rage swirling in my head so they wouldn't run wild. My anger still hadn't been resolved, so I was just holding onto my composure before it could break loose.
Where should I start chewing him out? Trying to dunk on me however he wanted. Slapping me out of nowhere. Spouting all kinds of bullshit when things didn't go his way. There were plenty of things that came to mind. But I could pick out the one that pissed me off the most, no question.
"Let go! Eun-byul, just let go for a second, okay?"
I looked ahead and saw him thrashing hard. Now that the situation had completely flipped, he was extremely panicked. He probably never imagined things would turn out like this. Not that his panic made me feel any sympathy.
There's a saying: if you set out to harm someone, dig two graves. He just failed to follow it. I started walking slowly, ready to dig his grave for him myself.
"Hey. I'm the type who holds in my anger a lot, you know? People have been picking fights with me since way back."
I brought up something random as I talked. A personal story that maybe didn't even have much to do with this situation. It came out of nowhere, but for some reason I wanted to say it.
"I look scrawny, but I guess having these unnecessarily fierce-looking eyes pissed people off. Anyway, I got into a weird amount of trouble."
Especially in high school and during my gap year. It wasn't like I was being bullied or anything. But a gloomy-looking kid who was always drawing, always glaring whenever you looked at him... at that age, full of testosterone, that apparently really got under people's skin. So I'd get into it with complete strangers all the time, and I couldn't help getting mixed up in trouble.
My personality was pretty nasty back then too. I was on edge because of the college entrance exams, so I fought a lot. Fists flew regularly, and I used to walk around with my eyes wide open just to look tougher. There were plenty of times I felt wronged, thinking, fuck, I never asked to look like this.
But that only lasted so long. Eventually, I learned to hold it in.
Violence was a pretty annoying kind of thing. Win or lose, the aftermath was a huge pain. Healing wounds cost money, and if things got big, third parties who weren't even involved would start sticking their noses in. Society is a pretty complicated structure. You can't just shank someone because you're pissed, like in the Middle Ages.
There's no need to make enemies if you don't have to. If you can avoid a fight, you should. At some point that became my motto in life, and thanks to it I managed to dodge a lot of trouble. Maybe my personality came from that too — the weird habit of being endlessly careful around people I don't know well, and only pulling mean pranks on people I'm a little close with or who seem easy.
"But living like that, you run into another problem. Every now and then, someone comes along who crosses the line. Someone like you."
As I said that, I crouched down into a sitting position. Before I knew it, my steps had brought me right in front of him. I looked at the tense bastard for a moment.
Then I slapped him across the face.
SMACK!!!
A crisp sound rang out right next to us. A stinging pain spread through my palm, but I ignored it and kept talking.
"When that happens, there's no other way. You just have to teach them with your actions."
So they never cross the line again. You teach them thoroughly. When I muttered that, he started trembling as he spoke.
"W-wait. I'm sorry..."
The impact must have been pretty strong. Both his eyes were shaking. He couldn't meet my gaze and just stared downward. I looked at that in silence.
Then I slapped him again.
SMACK!!!
"Then you shouldn't have done something you needed to be sorry for."
My voice as I said that sounded cold even to me. When I get angry, I tend to go quiet rather than yell. Hearing my voice sink this low... I must have been pretty pissed without even realizing it.
"Honestly, I could've let the slap and the insults slide."
SMACK! SMACK!
I kept talking as I slapped his face over and over. Once, twice — every time the sound rang out, my palm picked up speed.
"I could've even let it go once when you dismissed all my effort and called me a loser."
SMACK! SMACK!!
The hand I was using to slap him had calluses on it. Traces I'd built up over years of holding a pen. Hundreds of studies. Thousands of sketches. My desperate past, when I'd run myself into the ground only to fail. I was proud of how hard I'd worked, but the fact that I'd failed was still true. I could understand a third party denying that. It felt like shit, but I could tolerate it.
"But."
SMACK!!!!!
"Ugh!"
This time the slap rang out especially loud. Because I'd put extra force into my hand. I paused the barrage of slaps and continued.
"You don't get to talk shit about someone's parents."
If you're going to curse someone out, you curse them. Just them. Even if you hit them and get angry, you don't drag a third party into it. That wasn't just insulting me. It was insulting the people who'd sacrificed to support me. That wasn't something I could tolerate. It was something I shouldn't tolerate.
SMACK!! SMACK!! SMACK!!!
The sound of slaps echoed for a while. I didn't say anything. I just mechanically repeated the work. Every now and then he'd try to raise his hands to block, but those weakly trembling hands were easy to knock aside. Eun-byul, startled, tried to intervene now and then, but I ignored her for now. This was the time to focus on the work.
SMACK!!! SMACK!!!!
With every repetition of the motion, his cheeks gradually changed. Cheeks that had just been red started bursting with capillaries and turning crimson, and the crimson cheeks started to swell. After a few more hits.
"Hic... I'm sorry. N-no... I'm sorry, sir..."
He trembled as he offered me an apology. His casual speech had somehow shifted into formal language.
"Please... I won't do it again, so please just forgive me now..."
"......"
The arrogant look he'd shown at the start was completely gone. He'd finally submitted under the continuous violence. Maybe this was the attitude he'd originally wanted from me. I looked at that and let out a short laugh.
"Alright. Just the other cheek, then."
And for a while after that, only the sharp, meaty sound of slaps echoed through the alley.