A Peaceful Day (5) (End of Part 2)
A Peaceful Day (5) (End of Part 2)
Choria Sharapova.
The day I first met her.
If anything made that day special, it was that gray snow, not white, covered everything around me.
Like any other day, I'd drunk myself senseless and was staggering down the street with a cigarette in my other hand.
That street in my memory. It was a gray street, caked with snow and grease.
On days when the sun refused to show its face, darkness fell fast.
I'd bought vodka and cigarettes at a shop, and as I walked along, I heard the sound of several men laughing in excitement and a young girl sobbing from an alleyway.
Hiding from the light in the alley, they were little more than dim silhouettes.
A girl who looked about sixteen was being raped by five men.
I, who had always loathed the act of rape, slowly approached them.
As I drew near, a man shoved a gun muzzle to my head and told me to fuck off.
It would've been no surprise if a hole opened in my head at any moment, but I let out a scoff.
If I had to pick a reason why I laughed in a situation like that, it was probably because, back then, I was always praying for someone to just kill me...
The man who'd shoved the gun to my head had his teeth and jaw lightly crushed by my hand.
And he didn't grasp the situation until the vodka bottle I'd been holding passed through his mouth and throat and went directly into his windpipe.
In the dizzying pain, he flailed at the air as if he'd forgotten how to use his arms.
With the gun he'd been holding, I lightly blew away two men's arms and legs.
The two men who started screaming on the ground like women...
I pulled a knife from my waist and drove it into the arm of the man with the vodka bottle lodged in his throat, severing his tendons,
and when the other two—who'd figured out what had happened in those few seconds—dropped to their knees, I drove the knife between their eyebrows without hesitation.
The man with the vodka bottle in his throat convulsed, trying to pull the bottle out, but the tendons in his arms were severed and he could only thrash uselessly.
I stomped down hard on the side of the writhing man on the ground, shattering his ribs,
and helped hasten the end for him as he writhed in agony.
The vodka bottle I'd shoved into his throat came out easily once his rigidity loosened,
and I sheathed the knife I'd drawn, uncapped the blood-soaked vodka, and started drinking.
Walking slowly toward the opposite end of the alley.
I didn't forget to pull the gun from my waist and silence the two who were screaming.
I put the cigarette I'd been holding in my left hand between my lips and lit it.
The young girl, covered in the men's saliva and so dazed that she wore no expression, looked up at me with lifeless eyes.
"Hoo... hk... ahaha, hellooo~"
Feeling the familiar dizziness of intoxication, I braced myself against the wall and tried to leave the alley.
The small girl with pale skin, who had been staring up at me with unfocused eyes, pulled herself to her feet and came toward me.
Watching that, a sudden wave of irritation surged through me.
In those days, I hated getting entangled with women to the point where even a simple greeting was too much.
"Don't follow me. I'll kill you...?"
"...Then please kill me."
"....."
Her weak voice, as though she'd given up on life... struck me unusually hard that day.
Ha... giving up on life so easily...
I couldn't do that, and watching a little kid say it so lightly, something just welled up inside me.
If I'm being honest, wasn't I the one who ought to die?
If only I hadn't been there...
But I still had things I had to do. I couldn't ruin the work with rising emotions, so I couldn't give up on life.
"How do you want me to kill you?"
"As cleanly as possible, please."
"...Close your eyes."
When I drew my gun, the blonde little kid smiled and closed her bright blue eyes...
The way she stood with her arms spread under the streetlight, smiling and accepting her own death... it looked sacred.
I watched that sight for a moment, then spat out a curse and hurled the vodka against the wall.
The fragments scattered in all directions like a shell detonating, spraying into her pure white thigh and shoulder, but she only flinched slightly and gave no reaction beyond that.
Trickle.
She merely frowned at the fresh wound.
"Cleanly, please..."
"Ha..."
Maybe it was because I let her see me hesitating...
The expression of Choria Sharapova, who had seemed sacred, purer than anything, turned cold.
"If you're not going to kill me... then raise me... so I can kill people, like you, mister."
"You think killing people is easy...?"
Cho-a walked up to me and pulled the dagger from my waist.
Then she walked over to the men I'd killed.
With hands trembling badly, she raised the dagger above her head and brought it down on a man who was already dead.
She lifted the knife as high as she could, bringing it down hard on what used to be a person.
The more she cut into what used to be a person, the more her trembling lessened.
Life began to flow into her pupils, and a smile spread across her face.
On a kind face where you couldn't find a single speck of wickedness...
excitement began to rise.
'The devil who tempts people wears the face of an angel,' wasn't that the saying...
"I think I can do it...?"
Seeing her like that, I walked toward her as if bewitched.
She'd told me she could become indispensable to me...
And that was how, after I lost Amy, Cho-a became the first member to move with me for my personal revenge.
I was against the vile humans.
Cho-a was... against this rotten world...
I finished the story from the past, and Park Ji-hoon, who had been listening, looked at me.
"Figured. She was a born crazy bitch, a crazy bitch..."
I smacked Park Ji-hoon on the head.
Smack!
"Agh!"
"How the hell does that come out of a story like that?"
"Wow, I guess that's why you two clicked so well. A born crazy bitch and a made crazy bastard. Misery loves company, is that it?"
"You son of a bitch."
I chuckled and went on.
"Turns out Cho-a came from a pretty prestigious family."
"She did?!"
"Yeah. A family that fell from power when the regime changed."
"Ah..."
"Anyway, when she was young, I told her it would be so hard she'd want to die, and she said she didn't care as long as she could kill someone."
"So she was a crazy bitch after all."
I ignored Park Ji-hoon.
"So that's how Cho-a became the one who started the Tiger with me. Honestly, thanks to Cho-a, I found a direction: let's round up the world's crazy bastards."
"So you do admit she's a crazy bitch... Sorry."
Park Ji-hoon, apologizing after meeting my eyes.
As I was finishing shaving Park Ji-hoon's head, he studied my face and asked:
"If you remember the past that vividly..."
"Amy Allen?"
"Yeah..."
I looked at Park Ji-hoon and chuckled.
"Not just now, but in my former life, too... not for a single moment... have I ever forgotten the memory of that day."
"....."
"Being born into this body and becoming even more certain... I guess you could say it's a good thing... I remembered the emotions of that day right up until the moment I died."
"...Really?"
"I couldn't forget them even when I tried to drown them in alcohol, but... once I got to know Dad, I found more peace than I ever did drinking."
"The method had been wrong. Dad gave me a peace that revenge never could."
Park Ji-hoon must have decided to change the subject, because he looked at me and said:
"What about Mild, that son of a bitch?"
"Him? Well... back in those days, he was the only one who could go toe-to-toe with me in a fistfight."
".....Then why'd he betray you?"
"I kept him around so he'd betray me."
"What?"
I met Park Ji-hoon's eyes and let my regret show.
"I needed a friend who'd kill me when my guard was down, once I'd resolved everything someday. Honestly, I always wanted to die."
"...What are you talking about...?"
"That's why I told you to run, remember?"
"Wow... Liu Xuan too...?"
Mild... unlike Park Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-oh, who were among the weakest in the Tiger, he was one of my top elite members.
The only one in the Tiger who could have a real 'fight' with me.
Back then, when I wanted to finally lay everything down...
Yeah, honestly, when I saw Liu Xuan's knife coming, I could have dodged it, but I deliberately took the hit.
Still, he stabbed me, so in return I made sure Mild and Liu Xuan could go with me.
As a result, my body ended up a wreck, but...
Tae-oh and Ji-hoon, who found the scene, absolutely lost their minds...
Kim Tae-oh and Park Ji-hoon—those two weren't just Tigers... they were my only family.
So, knowing that situation was coming, I selfishly couldn't let them go.
In my weakness, I wanted my final moments... to be watched over by Kim Tae-oh and Park Ji-hoon.
My life was stubborn as hell, so I didn't die that time, but...
"What, are you sulking?"
"Wow... you're really gonna come at me like that to the end...? After indirectly killing me and Tae-oh?"
"I'm sorry."
"...?"
Park Ji-hoon, who'd never heard me apologize before, froze.
Even so, I spoke, trying to make my sincerity come through as much as possible.
"Haa... back then... honestly, I didn't want to die alone. You two were the only ones I considered family. I wanted to see you a little more before I died... so I dragged you into it. I'm truly sorry."
".....You really have turned into a chick."
I spoke in my own way, and Park Ji-hoon answered in his own way, but I'm sure my regret got through to him properly.
I sighed...
reversed my grip on the clippers, and ran them over Park Ji-hoon's head.
"Aaaaargh!!!! You crazy bitch!!!"