Short and not so sweet. ~Sage
5 – II: Man
-Seoul-
Whenever fighting became used for means other than winning won, things never went well.
There was something coiling within the pit of his stomach, a tightening ache in his throat and chest caused by something other than adrenaline; he hadn't felt this way since his father began beating his mother all those years ago. Hwoarang didn't know what this feeling was, but it spread as fast as synapses exploding in his brain, rotted and purpled like bruises erupting along wounded flesh, a dormant disease saved solely for dark times like these.
They waited until doors shut and lights dimmed like dying candlewicks, until windows blackened like a blindfold over the eyes. It was another cool spring evening, another birthday. He was a man now, and his first rite of passage into manhood would be to prove his strength, though in ways that made him more nervous than it should. Though he and his brood were thirsting for revenge, Hwoarang felt that something wasn't quite right.
But he couldn't let Jae Hwa down. So there the gang waited in a tiny upscale coffeehouse, of all places, as unassuming in their conversations and forced espresso smiles as they could be, waiting until the baristas kicked them out at closing time so they had an excuse to trek the streets. They were in Jung-gu territory now; the bawdy women, flavorless cuisine and pathetically rendered graffiti murals were proof of it. But they hoped the wolves by now had picked up their scent for they had planted themselves there like unwelcome weeds.
It didn't take long. When the Seoul boys finally found themselves on deserted asphalt their rivals approached, three from the left, the other half from the right, like a sloppy v-formation.
"Let's skip the posturing this time and just get on with it, shall we?" Hwoarang said with a wink to his enemies, an expression belying the terrible beating of his heart.
You've beaten these fools before, remember? When they tried to kill Baek?
Then why were his legs trembling?
"You're always ruining the fun, Doo San Hwoarang."
Yeuno, the leader, stepped forward with a smug look on his face. Though slightly shorter than Hwoarang, Yeuno boasted nearly equal speed and agility as the redhead. Nearly, Hwoarang thought, though he knew he couldn't fight Yeuno as he had Hyo from Incheon. Hyo might be trigger happy, but Yeuno was a vindictive bastard who knew where to make it hurt. Jae Hwa was only the beginning—unless, of course, Hwoarang did something about it, which he intended to.
Beside Yeuno stood a boy half his height. Hwoarang guessed he couldn't be more than eleven or twelve years old, if even that.
"The hell is a kid doin' here?" he barked.
Even if the child was as nasty as any gangster, the redhead despised his round, pudgy cheeks and scrawny limbs; he was fucking innocent, for God's sake.
Don't be like me. Go home to your mother. Good God, why are you here right now!
Yeuno smiled at Hwoarang's unease and flipped a switchblade back and forth between his fingers. His right arm was sheathed in a tiger tattoo. Its yellow eyes seemed to stare back at the redhead.
"He's my lil bro Chung Hee," Yeuno replied with pride. "I'm here to show him how things are done."
"Get lost, you little brat," Hwoarang snapped. "Go play your video games or something."
"Go to hell," the boy sneered.
Hwoarang ground his teeth. So be it.
"Come on then," he said, eyes returning to the Jung-gu gang leader. "Let's get on with it."
"What's the rush? Don't you want to know the look on Jae Hwa's face when I fucked his girl?"
"You piece of shit."
Around him, his gang exploded into a mass of seething rage, legs and fists, echoing kihap, the sound of flesh colliding with flesh rising through the quiet deserted streets.
Hwoarang lunged.
-Soul-
Usually I go into fights or tournaments knowing I'm gonna win. Arrogance keeps me alive, but it's factual arrogance, ya know? I am that good.
But when I see that Jung-gu bastard attacking Sung, his knife pointed at my best friend's jugular—that's when I get that fucking feeling again.
That…fear.
I haven't felt fear since Ummah died. But now that fear rushes through my blood, makes me slow, makes me dizzy, sloppy, distracted. I try to fight it, but fear is a relentless motherfucker. It's as if I know something bad is about to happen.
And that's when Yeuno's switchblade carves a smiley face in flesh.
Blood gushes from Sung's throat like a river.
-Seoul-
He wasn't thinking anymore.
As Kwan distracted Yeuno and Byung kept the others at bay, Hwoarang leaped to Sung's side and applied pressure to his friend's throat in a futile effort to stop the bleeding. But Sung couldn't even talk. His eyes could though, and in those black irises Hwoarang read that same fear that had been eating at him since the night of Jae Hwa's suicide.
"Hang on, man," Hwoarang crooned with a shaky smile. "You're gonna be okay."
But the bleeding wouldn't stop; he was choking on his blood. Bubbles of it spurted and popped at the corners of his mouth. Red pooled around them both, soaked through Hwoarang's jacket and jeans, stained his shirt and hands.
"Sung! Goddamn you, Il-Sung, don't you fucking die on me!"
But, within seconds, the redhead watched as the life oozed from his friend's flesh, as those eyes dimmed and became unseeing, unknowing. Years of friendship sliced into nothing.
Inside Hwoarang, a light sputtered out.
Breathing heavily, his head spinning, he dipped his hands into Sung's blood and raked the trembling, bloody fingers through his fiery hair. Red on red on red.
"Yeuno!"
He wasn't thinking anymore.
Yeuno and Kwan paused mid-fight, angry tears brimming in Kwan's eyes; Yeuno, however, was smiling. His switchblade yet dripped with Sung's blood. Too fresh. Too fresh.
Hwoarang was right; he was faster than Yeuno.
With a single tornado kick the redhead broke the Jung-gu gang leader's jaw, sending Yeuno sprawling into concrete. Blood spouted from between his lips as he moaned in agony, but Hwoarang continued to advance.
"Get up!" he cried, lashing out with a ruthless, perfect kick to Yeuno's ribcage.
In the distance, somewhere behind the red wrath ringing in his ears, he thought he heard the high-pitched voice of a boy pleading for him to stop. Hwoarang ignored it. There could be no mercy this time.
"You'll pay for this," Hwoarang growled as he forced his enemy to his feet and delivered a series of devastating kicks to every sensitive, excruciating pressure point. Crack of bone and tear of muscle, blood like the kind that still trickled from Sung's throat; he was God tonight. Tonight he would take back all that was lost. Yeuno howled in pain, the smile long gone from his face.
He kept kicking until Yeuno lied still on the pavement, until he too was swimming in a blood pool as large as the one Sung laid in. Hwoarang never once picked up the switchblade; that would have been cheating, would have been unfair to Sung. Besides, he needed to release this angry fear somehow, needed to feed the tiger suddenly awakened within him, and no piece of sharp silver could do the job like Tae Kwon Do could.
When he finally tired, Hwoarang staggered backward and stumbled to the ground. His heart felt like it would burst from his chest. Trickles of his best friend's blood slithered down his hair and into his face.
"Get…up…" he rasped, nudging Yeuno with a boot.
But his Jung-gu rival didn't move—didn't breathe.
He finally started hearing Chung Hee then. He was wailing something…something…
"He's dead! You killed my brother!"
What? He couldn't have. Not when he'd told the gang specifically not to take a life.
But when Yeuno remained motionless, his eyes like stones, Hwoarang felt cold fear suffocating him once more.
"Anyio," he moaned. "It was an accident. I didn't mean—"
"Come on, Hwo, we need to get the fuck outta here."
"Wait. Sung—"
"Come on!"
Still dazed, he allowed Byung and Kwan to lift him up and drag him away. His gaze lingered long enough to see Chung Hee and the other Jung-gu gangsters gather around their dead leader. The boy cradled his brother's body in his skinny arms, blood and tears streaking his cheeks.
"I'll find you!" Chung Hee screamed after Hwoarang. "You'll pay for this!"
It was an accident. He'd just been so angry. So afraid. He couldn't take much more, and of course he'd known Yeuno would try such a thing, so his death was justified, right? It was going to be okay. Sung was avenged.
But that look in Chung Hee's eyes, the heartbreak in his shrill little voice, haunted him yet. Rage was even more potent at that age. Even so, the threat of a boy wasn't what kept him awake at night.
Murderer.
The looks on Kwan and Byung's faces told him the truth; it was a mixture of fear and respect, but for reasons he wished didn't exist. He wanted Sung by his side more than ever. Now he was stuck with these two bloodthirsty morons who knew nothing of what it meant to be alive.
"Kwan. Byung," Hwoarang mumbled through chapped lips. "I need to go away for awhile. Don't tell Baek."
"You can stay at my place if you want," Byung offered.
"No. It's too dangerous. From now on, we're on our own. I'm sorry this happened."
"It's not your fault, Hwoarang."
"Yes it is. We should never have been there in the first place."
"Where will you go?"
Hwoarang hung his head, knowing he shouldn't involve her, or anyone innocent for that matter. He should really just bunk with Byung and wait this war out. It wasn't like him to hide...but he hadn't thought it like him to kill either.
"I know a place," he finally answered. She won't like it, but then again maybe he didn't have to tell her why he was there.
"When the time comes, I'll call on you again. But for now...disappear."
-Soul-
Thank you, sah bum nim. That's what I've been trying to say all along.
You gave me everything when I was nothing.
I...I killed a man last night.
Please don't try to look for me. I'll be close, that's all I can tell you.
I'm sorry for everything.