Munyeong threw his arms around Yeon Haejeong and screamed, pouring every last ounce of strength into his right arm, which felt like the bone had come loose. The men kept beating him relentlessly for refusing to let go, and moments later the iron bat swung again — but Munyeong curled his whole body around Yeon Haejeong like a shield, desperate not to let him take the blow.
Tenacious little shit.
One of the men muttered under his breath with a grunt. The grip on the weapon in his hand tightened, and Munyeong begged instinctively, frantically.
P-pl-please. Please let us live. I’m, I’m fine, but… he, he’s really… really im-important. He’s, he’s really ri-rich. He has money, lots of money, and he has parents….
Shut the fuck up.
The man re-gripped the bat and brought it down hard on Munyeong’s arm — the arm locked around Yeon Haejeong. A sickening crack rang out, and pain like shattering bone came crashing through him. Munyeong collapsed forward onto the unconscious Yeon Haejeong, choking out ragged, broken sounds.
God, what a stubborn piece of work. Hey, drag him off.
If that were possible we’d have done it already, he won’t let go, he’s insane.
We don’t have time!
As time dragged on, the men were growing increasingly frantic. Munyeong held on to his fading consciousness with everything he had. He steeled his resolve — even if it meant losing the use of his arm, he would not let go — and the veins around his eyes stood out with the strain. Even after several more strikes brought no reaction from him, one of the men — notably larger than the rest — crouched down to bring himself level with Munyeong, who lay there using every inch of his body to shield Yeon Haejeong.
Hey. Keep this up and you die too.
……P-please…. Please let us live…. Please, I’m begging you….
Crimson blood dripped steadily from Munyeong’s lips as he pleaded desperately. His beaten face had swollen beyond recognition, bruised and distorted. At the sight of him begging in that wrecked state, the man let out a cold sigh, his expression twisting with contempt at how pathetic Munyeong looked.
What’s so great about him anyway… so what if he’s rich. Parents who would do this to their own child——
Hey, are you out of your mind? Shut it.
The man beside him cut him off sharply before he could finish.
No, I mean, he’s being so desperate about this——
Is that your problem? Hey, just knock him out.
Munyeong couldn’t make sense of the exchange, but he only held on to Yeon Haejeong more stubbornly with trembling hands and a trembling body. Anticipating that the order to knock him out meant another brutal round was coming, Munyeong screwed his eyes shut with everything he had, ready to take whatever came. Clutching Yeon Haejeong’s sleeping face tightly against him.
Deciding there was no more time to waste, one of the men raised the bat toward Munyeong’s head. As the sound of air splitting above him reached his ears and the tips of Munyeong’s fingers convulsed even harder — TWEET! A sharp blast of a whistle cut through the air.
Hey — what’s going on over there?
Patrol officers who happened to be nearby swept their flashlights forward and began approaching. Munyeong — beaten to a state where his insides felt wrung out and twisted — snapped his eyes open, seizing the moment.
P-please help us! Help… please help us!
Ha— shit, seriously……
Sensing the situation had turned, the men exchanged quick glances, threw down what they were carrying, and piled rapidly into the vehicle. The officers, grasping the severity of it, blew their whistles and came running — but the men were faster. They peeled out without even shutting the doors, blowing through every signal and tearing away. The officers who rushed up asked about his condition, but Munyeong — as if he’d forgotten he’d ever screamed — couldn’t get his mouth to open. It was only then that all the tension left him at once. The strength drained from his entire body and he gasped for breath.
Student, are you alright?
What in the world happened here. Student, try to stay with me.
They called out to the dazed Munyeong in concern, but Munyeong was checking on Yeon Haejeong — still gripped with desperate urgency — to see how he was.
Oh lord, what happened here. Student, student. The state of you……
The officers reacted with shock at the sight of his face — so covered in wounds it was barely recognizable. But Munyeong set aside even the wave of relief washing over him and shook the still-unresponsive Yeon Haejeong gently, pleading with the officers.
P-please call an ambulance, he’s my friend…. My friend, those men earlier… they knocked him out… and he hasn’t come back around….
He was crying as he spoke, the words coming out jumbled — the officers glanced at each other with alarm, then quickly assessed the situation and sent out a signal on their radios. Another officer brought his face close to the fallen Yeon Haejeong’s mouth to check his breathing. Whatever he read there, he gave a reassuring nod.
Your friend is okay, student. Looks like he fainted for a bit. The ambulance has been called, don’t worry. Actually, you seem to be in worse shape than your friend — are you alright? What exactly happened here?
As they asked him carefully, watching him with concern, Munyeong came back to himself at last and explained everything to the officers. His words kept breaking off, his voice cutting out — but while he persisted in recounting the situation, the red light of a siren turned into the alley.
The paramedics rushed Yeon Haejeong — knocked out by whatever drug had been used — to the hospital with urgency. The patrol officers, worried about Munyeong’s condition too, bundled him into the ambulance despite his protests that he was fine.
Forced in against his will, Munyeong lay on the narrow cot being transported — face marked all over with bruising and wounds — and watched Yeon Haejeong sleeping as he was carried beside him, holding back the tears that kept threatening to fall. The moment the tension broke, a sudden, aching pity for Yeon Haejeong washed over him. There was no telling what would have happened if he’d been taken by those men — and at the thought that it might have ended with his death, the tears came, dropping one by one.
When they reached the emergency room, doctors who had been notified in advance came rushing toward Yeon Haejeong several at a time. Munyeong stood there in a daze, watching Yeon Haejeong disappear into the emergency treatment room, and then quietly waited outside for him. He sat blankly in the waiting area in front of the treatment room and stared at nothing but the closed door.
As time passed, the pain he’d been too numb to feel began surging back in. Along with it, as the tension that had been straining his nerves and all his senses finally released, even the act of breathing began to take effort. If he could have had his way, he would have lain down right there and fallen asleep. But he couldn’t leave — not when he was afraid something might go wrong with Yeon Haejeong.
It was then that a strikingly beautiful woman came hurrying toward him, coat clutched around her. She must have rushed out in a panic — under the coat was thin indoor clothing, and her hair was undone and disheveled. On top of that, she kept looking around in all directions, unable to conceal a visible unease. The moment Munyeong saw her face, he knew vaguely — even without being told. The person whose striking features carried an exotic quality that time had only refined. She looked unmistakably, undeniably like the person he had fallen for.
Do you want to handle this so sloppily?
The woman whispered into her phone in a low, anxious voice.
Who got in the way? A student?
Munyeong found himself absently overhearing the call and stared at the woman with an uncomprehending expression.
Some kid got in the way, and you——!
She had inadvertently raised her voice and stopped herself, glancing around. In that moment, her eyes landed directly on Munyeong. But not knowing who he was, she let her gaze pass over him and continued.
……This was our last chance.
She pressed a hand over her face, stricken with despair.
How am I supposed to look at that child’s face for the rest of my life?
Dense as he was, Munyeong was sharper than anyone when it counted — and from that conversation, the implications assembled themselves in his mind without effort.
That child is my one and only mistake.
The woman was Yeon Haejeong’s mother.
A stain that needs to be erased.
All at once, the clumsy words of comfort he had once offered Yeon Haejeong came back to him. He had thought it was the only comfort he could give — and now he understood just how naive and arrogant that had been. If Yeon Haejeong were to learn that the one who had orchestrated his kidnapping was his own mother — he would probably laugh at Munyeong’s comfort with nothing but scorn.
Some hardships are more than enough to break a person.
**
The school worked desperately to keep the kidnapping incident quiet. The atmosphere among Yeon Haejeong’s family and the school’s upper administration was one of unanimous desire to hush it all up. But they needed a justification — a pretext for brushing the matter aside. What they needed was a scapegoat and a false story that would let the incident be swept under the rug.
A few days later, Yeon Haejeong’s mother appeared at the school. The sound of her heels clicking down the hallway felt out of place, jarring. Munyeong had been summoned to the principal’s office on the grounds of having been present — and sat there like a man awaiting sentencing. The chairman of the school board, the principal, the vice principal. And the homeroom teacher. Only the minimum number of people present — and then the door swung open with a clunk. As her secretaries pulled the doors open from either side, Madam Chu Yeonan made her entrance. The moment she appeared, every person in the room bowed their head without exception. Munyeong sat there with sweaty palms, rigid with tension.
You were the one there?
Madam Chu Yeonan ignored every greeting and walked straight up to Munyeong. At the question stripped of both subject and predicate, Munyeong could only stare back with a face gone stiff — and then smack! His cheek was wrenched to the other side. His ears rang, his vision swam — but she gave no quarter. His cheek was snapped back to the other side immediately. In an instant, the taste of blood flooded his mouth. Munyeong was so shocked he barely registered the pain — he looked up at her with a face drained of all color, the hand clutching his cheek trembling violently.
