Reunion (2)
Reunion (2)
Someone knocked on the door and then came inside the room.
"Oh? You're here!?"
"Yes, they said they'll arrive in ten minutes."
The moment Oh Tae-hyeon heard the man's words, he swung his legs off the desk and stepped out of the warehouse.
"Finally... I get to meet my darling~"
The group moved inside the cargo ship and received a single vehicle.
The vehicle moved inside the cargo ship according to directions, and the interior of the car showed signs of a violent struggle.
The driver, the only one still relatively intact, got out and spoke to Oh Tae-hyeon.
"Because of that girl Kim Si-yoon... one of our comrades is dead..."
"Oh... really?"
"That crazy bitch... suddenly just..."
WHAM!
No one except his close aides perceived that Oh Tae-hyeon had swung his hand.
More than anything, the people present doubted whether the sound was even something a human hand could produce by striking a human face...
The driver's words were cut off by the punch Oh Tae-hyeon had slammed into him.
The driver collapsed on the spot, his face caved in. Convulsing, he began foaming at the mouth.
"Calling my darling a crazy bitch—that crosses a line, don't you think...?"
Oh Tae-hyeon lifted his leg.
With the ensuing CRUNCH, the driver stopped convulsing altogether.
The surroundings grew quiet due to Oh Tae-hyeon's actions.
Then, of the four people getting out next, two were carefully carrying Da-yeon and Si-yoon.
"Oooooh!!!"
But Oh Tae-hyeon's face, as he received Si-yoon, began to grow grave.
"Her face... who touched it?"
At a gesture from Oh Tae-hyeon—who was carefully moving Si-yoon, her legs still bound, to a corner—a man in military uniform brought a wire saw.
"Who... was it...?"
Everyone who had gotten out of the car flinched in terror and glanced at one man. That man tried to flee immediately, but he was restrained by the man in military uniform.
"You son of a bitch!!!! You were trying to kill her! You fuck, I'm the one who stopped you, hey!!!!"
Held by the man in military uniform, the man screamed at his comrade. His comrades averted their eyes from his gaze.
Carrying the wire saw, Oh Tae-hyeon looked at the people standing with their hands behind their backs.
"It's him, right? You're sure?"
The three men nodded their heads vigorously, and Oh Tae-hyeon smiled at the man in military uniform and said,
"Hold him tight."
"Yes!"
In the silence, nothing filled the air but an agonized AAAAAAAH!!!!!
I had been awake for a while already.
Even when I slept, I had trained myself to breathe at five-minute intervals, so it seemed the sleeping agent entering my respiratory system hadn't taken effect.
Watching Oh Tae-hyeon call me darling and cut off the arm of the man who had struck my face... I was dumbfounded.
And as I watched that scene, I looked at Da-yeon, who lay asleep right beside me.
Thanks to me waking up once and raising hell, the additional dose of drugs administered seemed sufficient to push Da-yeon into a deeper sleep.
Oh Tae-hyeon approached me, his whole body covered in blood.
He was about to touch my chin when he noticed the blood on his hand, startled, and then said,
"Ah! Sorry, just a moment... don't be scared, wait a bit..."
Watching Oh Tae-hyeon wipe his hands diligently on his clothes, I gave a sly grin.
"You're... not scared of me?"
"Nope. I find it attractive, actually."
"Really?!!!"
"Yeah. But I'm seventeen, you know?"
"Even better~"
'Crazy bastard...'
I looked around, thinking to stall for time.
Right then, the man who had been trying to pull my pants off flinched when our eyes met.
I put on as upset an expression as I could manage and spoke to Oh Tae-hyeon.
"But... I wasn't going to tell you this... that second guy over there tried to take my panties off."
Oh Tae-hyeon's face had lit up at my suddenly affectionate tone, but my next words made his expression crumple severely.
When there was no reaction for a moment, I thought it hadn't worked after all, but then Oh Tae-hyeon spoke in a trembling voice.
"The one in red... right?"
"Uh... yeah."
"I'm sorry... just wait a little for me."
"It's kind of cold in here..."
"Just a moment..."
Oh Tae-hyeon snapped his fingers, and the man in military uniform took off his own jacket.
When I looked at Da-yeon, Oh Tae-hyeon covered her up with the jacket as well...
This bastard was unmistakably a mark.
Sensing that things were turning ominous, the man in red tried to run, but he was blocked by the man in military uniform...
Once again, screams echoed throughout the cargo ship.
And then a soldier at Oh Tae-hyeon's side, who had been watching the mood cautiously, said there was no time.
That made Oh Tae-hyeon's sawing speed up...
Oh Tae-hyeon took six checks out of his wallet.
I couldn't tell how much they were worth from where I was, but seeing the two men's faces brighten... it was probably an amount that made whatever happened to their comrade irrelevant.
Oh Tae-hyeon walked over to me, was handed a towel, wiped his blood-soaked body, and then lifted me up.
"I've got a lot prepared, baby~"
"Yeah, I'm looking forward to it?"
"Really?!"
And just as the cargo ship was preparing to depart, a motorcycle suddenly charged into the ship from far away.
"Ah!!! What the hell is that now!!! Why do they keep interfering!!!"
"Seriously..."
"Right! You're so excited you can't wait either!"
"Yeah!"
"Really... if I'd known you'd be this happy about it, I'd have met you sooner..."
"Yeah, what a shame..."
'If we'd met even earlier than you're thinking, way back in the past, it would've been real fun...'
Unaware of my true thoughts, Oh Tae-hyeon's pupils dilated as he nodded vigorously and set me down.
"Wait just a little! We'll depart first, and my men will handle it on their own! Let's watch together."
To stall for a little more time, I said to this mark,
"Hmm... it's only two of them and you're going to leave already? Catch them and take them along."
I thought Oh Tae-hyeon was a colossal idiot.
And from Oh Tae-hyeon's reaction, I realized I shouldn't have let it show that I was trying to buy time.
"Don't cross the line..."
"Understood..."
"Hey, get us underway."
With his words, the cargo ship began to move.
The two who got off the motorcycle were Tae-oh and Park Ji-hoon.
The two took off their helmets the moment they dismounted and looked around.
And the people surrounding those two.
"What's this, they're minors?"
"Hey, that really fucking good-looking one over there—that's the little monster of HSW."
"Really? Wow... he's even younger than I thought."
As the ship departed, the surroundings began to light up brightly.
In the corner, two men without arms were mumbling as if they had nearly lost consciousness.
Park Ji-hoon spoke as he looked at that scene.
"Fuck... we're not gonna end up like that too, are we?"
"If you're scared... I told you to get off before we came."
"Bullshit, you're weaker than me."
"...Hah... even so, I'm not scared right now."
Park Ji-hoon laughed even in this situation and spoke with a shrug.
"Me neither, really? If anything, my heart's pounding."
"Bluffing..."
For some reason, the people surrounding Park Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-oh numbered only forty,
with another forty waiting on standby behind them, and yet another thirty-nine had taken their positions and were spectating.
And the final one, Oh Tae-hyeon, was seated with Kim Si-yoon and Da-yeon placed behind him.
In the distance, Da-yeon lay unconscious, and Kim Si-yoon, even in this situation, was watching with eyes sparkling as if she'd identified perfect popcorn-entertainment material.
The Kim Si-yoon that Park Ji-hoon knew...
No, Kang Han-seong had been someone devoid of the emotion known as fear even in the past.
Still, in the current situation, her eyes glinting and that faint smile on her face were fucking infuriating.
We'd come all this way to rescue her...
And right next to him, Kim Tae-oh was also watching that sight with perplexity.
Because Kim Si-yoon's current expression was the exact same anticipation-filled expression she'd worn when he and Park Ji-hoon had fought...
In the end, Kim Tae-oh asked Park Ji-hoon.
"Si-yoon... why are her eyes like that?"
"You could call her a sociopath. She's always been famous as a crazy bitch who can't feel the gravity of a situation."
"...Does that make sense...?"
"That's why she's Kim Si-yoon."
"...That makes sense."
Just then, a man spoke.
"Finished with the chit-chat? Kids?"
Park Ji-hoon loosened up his body and responded calmly to the man holding a wooden club.
"Yeah, I think we're done, right?"
"....."
Kim Tae-oh stared at Park Ji-hoon with a strange look.
Park Ji-hoon grinned back at Kim Tae-oh, then suddenly charged forward.
The weapons they were holding were incredibly vicious...
Steel pipes, baseball bats, wooden clubs—an assortment of lethal implements were being brandished, but Park Ji-hoon's eyes held no fear.
That look wasn't something you could call a seventeen-year-old kid's.
When Park Ji-hoon swung his fist, the opponent's head lurched and they collapsed straight down.
The rest of them, having seen that, raised their guards to their faces, but...
The ones who left openings got kneed by Park Ji-hoon, their bodies folding sideways as they toppled over.
And when a punch drove into a flank, sounds that shouldn't come from a human body rang out, and bodies lifted into the air.
Watching that scene from his seat, Oh Tae-hyeon...
"Whoa... is that guy really seventeen?"
"...Yes."
"We're not seeing this wrong, are we?"
"Yes..."
"I mean, Hanseong's little monster... let's say that checks out~ he's famous, after all. But... what the hell is that...?"
"...Honestly, at that level... even I think I'd struggle without a weapon."
"With all the big talk Taebaek spouts... are you really Taebaek?"
"I apologize."
Oh Tae-hyeon gave a scoffing laugh and spoke while touching his M-shaped tattoo.
"Whenever you touch this mountain range, always think about it~ who you people are."
""Yes!!!""
The tattoo written as an M was not the letter of the alphabet but a depiction of a mountain range.
And the people bearing the mountain-range tattoo, an organization within Taebaek's Korean branch that had made quite a name for itself, were watching their members collapse helplessly against those two.
The number felled by Park Ji-hoon's fists was nearly double the number Kim Tae-oh took down.
"Fucking loads of them, you shitheads."
"Huff... huff... I admit it... and like I thought... you need to come to Hanseong..."
"Ah, I said I'm not going~"
Kim Tae-oh stared at Park Ji-hoon with an expression of utter disbelief—the guy was perfectly fine after getting beaten that much.
He'd clearly taken a hard blow to the body from a steel pipe; it wouldn't have been strange for something to be broken...
Park Ji-hoon, meeting Kim Tae-oh's eyes, smiled.
"Hey, you know what people always marveled at about me when I was learning to fight?"
"Hahh... what is it."
"You probably thought my best thing was striking, but honestly, compared to that talent, it's nothing special."
The two leaned on each other as they watched the people still remaining—close to half of them.
"So huu... what is it already..."
"Truth is, maybe because I got the shit beaten out of me by Si-yoon so much since way back, I'm fucking amazing at taking hits."
"...Haha, looking at you, it reminds me of a friend I was close with in the past."
"Yeah? You remind me of the same guy."
Park Ji-hoon watched Kim Tae-oh snap one man's neck.
Kim Tae-oh, killing people as casually as breathing while holding a conversation.
It was absolutely not behavior befitting a seventeen-year-old who should be holding a pencil.
Even less so behavior a South Korean student who'd never killed anyone could carry out.
The people shrank back at that sight.
But roughly ten men in military uniform, who had been behind them, surrounded the two more tightly.
"...Fucking loads of them. Those thirty in the back, what're you doing just hanging out together. You in the back!! Don't just spectate, come on over here~!!"
Hearing that, as he watched the uniformed foreigners draw knives, Kim Tae-oh spoke.
"Haa... ah... don't pull knives... why are you tempting me... do you know how hard I've been trying not to..."
One man in military uniform among the crowd pointed at Park Ji-hoon and said,
"Hey~ I heard Hanseong had a little monster... so it's you... but honestly, the bastard next to you is even more ridiculous?"
Park Ji-hoon caught his breath and let out a scoffing laugh.
"They say people get talkative when they get old... just come on, you dipshits."
"".....""
As the melee broke out again, Park Ji-hoon felt that the uniformed men's level was entirely different from those before.
The previous men who couldn't even react to his punches,
and even if some did react, most couldn't dodge them—
whereas the uniformed men had begun using hit-and-run tactics, steadily wearing down Park Ji-hoon's and Kim Tae-oh's stamina.
Every man in uniform visible to Park Ji-hoon's eyes bore the M—the mountain-range tattoo.
"So you bastards are Taebaek, huh?"
As time passed, as if proving just how markedly different the uniformed men were, the two's wounds began multiplying rapidly.
Park Ji-hoon grabbed one uniformed man's arm and shattered his jawbone with an elbow strike.
As the foreigner collapsed straight down, Park Ji-hoon drove a knee kick into his face.
"These bastards are fucking dirty, sons of bitches..."
"Huff... I admit it..."
Not satisfied with just the knee kick, Park Ji-hoon started stomping on the face.
CRUNCH! CRUNCH!!
Two people had already rendered over seventy incapable of fighting...
Especially at the sight of Ji-hoon, the twenty men nearby couldn't bring themselves to approach any further and shrank back.
Park Ji-hoon, his face reddening, looked at his own body slashed by knives and let out a deep sigh.
"Haaaaaa... the fuck... I learned something once, a long time ago..."
"....."
"'A dumbass with bare hands, you beat the living shit out of them. A dumbass with a weapon, you beat the living shit out of them just the same.'"
Hearing those words, Kim Tae-oh stiffened for an instant and stared at Park Ji-hoon.
Park Ji-hoon's whole body was covered in wounds as he drove his fists into people one by one,
but even so, with that monstrous grip strength, he grabbed them one at a time, drove his fist into their faces, and put them down fast.
When Park Ji-hoon, who had been fighting as if in a martial-arts match, suddenly began to switch fighting styles,
those surrounding Kim Tae-oh and Park Ji-hoon couldn't bring themselves to step forward rashly, and only silence hung in the air.
Whoever he got his hands on, uniformed or not...
regardless of whether they bore the M tattoo denoting Taebaek.
Park Ji-hoon's brutish fighting style, smashing them all equally into farewell from this life, crushing them down with sheer physicality—
it was more than enough to dye the faces of everyone around him with sheer horror.
A fight that looked far too cruel—no, thuggery incarnate, perhaps something beyond even that.
The man who had tried to counterattack Ji-hoon at first, only to take a single hit and then slump, hanging limp as if all strength had drained from his body.
Every time a fist or elbow struck that man's face, his features caved in, transforming until the original form became unrecognizable.
The man dangling from Park Ji-hoon's grip merely twitched and spasmed, doing nothing else.
"".....""
Kim Tae-oh shuddered for a moment as if a chill had run through him.
Then he gave a scoffing laugh, looked at the person being reduced to pulp in Ji-hoon's grasp, and picked up the dagger that had been in the man's hand.
"I also learned something once, a long time ago..."
And then Kim Tae-oh grabbed the arm of an approaching uniformed foreigner and swiftly sliced it open.
Immediately he seized the dagger the foreigner had been holding, so now he had a dagger in each hand.
And then, a blender-like movement began.
This time... seeing that, Park Ji-hoon's pupils shook.
"'A dumbass with bare hands, you stab the living shit out of them. A dumbass with a weapon, you stab the living shit out of them just the same...'"
The moment he held the daggers, Tae-oh's movements changed unmistakably.
Even though his opponents held edged weapons too, he pressed in without fear,
and Kim Tae-oh, having begun cutting down every opponent with overwhelming speed, looked at Park Ji-hoon.
"I learned one more thing... 'Once you've felt something cold slide inside your body, you come to understand that numbers don't mean anything against an opponent'..."
Seeing that, Park Ji-hoon burst out laughing.
"Bwahahahaha!!! You fucking bastard... I knew you weren't ordinary from the very first time I saw you. Park Gi, you son of a bitch!!!!"