A/N: In short: I love Choi Young Do A LOT and wish that the drama had been 100% about him. The end.
Warnings: violence & abuse mentioned here.
Once, Kim Tan's older brother—as aloof and untouchable as Young Do has ever wanted to be—tells him to treat the cut in his lip, or it will scar.
But this is the truth: Young Do knows about scars.
He has a fascination with everything that hurts.
.
There's one between his second and third knuckles, when he cracked Moon Jun-Yeong's glasses and sliced open his hand. He let his lackeys do most of the head-breaking, after that.
This was never supposed to hurt him.
.
There's one that keeps getting reopened on the corner of his lip, every time Kim Tan's fists fly. Which is often, lately. That's satisfying; it stings, but only because Kim Tan is stung more.
.
There's one on his cheek, near invisible now, from the buckle of his father's belt, a smooth triangle of indented flesh. He's used to the belt coming off, watching his father's jaw twitch as he wraps it around his hand. Usually, though, his father confines himself to blows to ribs and back, nowhere that anyone will see.
But anger is always power, rarely wisdom.
Sometimes you take it on the chin.
.
He has callouses on his hands from the bike, and aches and pains from hitting the mat again, again, again.
One on the palm of his hand, from a tumble to the gravel when he and Tan were learning to ride bikes.
One on his left eyebrow from his first fight.
Too many to count from his father; most are from their weekly matches, but some are not. (None of these, though, feel different.)
.
Once, in a moment of clarity or weakness (he knows which word his father would choose) he said something to Cha Eun Sang about the scars on his heart.
He finds them harder to count than the ones on his skin.
.
One for every time his father's eyes turn cold.
One for every day that stretches between him and the day he was too late.
One for every meal he eats alone.
.
In the end, he gives back. All the things he never had—he lets Eun Sang go, and when Tan's mother is almost lost, he races as the heart races. He finds that he is tired, that new hurts do not change old scars as much as he hoped they would. They only write over them.
.
So yes, Kim Won is right. Without treatment, his lip may scar. But the truth is this: Young Do knows about scars.
He has, after all, something of a fascination with pain.
Because pain is anger, and anger is power, and scars are the reminder that power is the only one of those three that does not last.