Chapter 14: His Descent (1)

Chapter 14: His Descent (1)

Jeong In-Gyu stood before Kang Jin-Ho. “I heard you all went to karaoke.”

Kang Jin-Ho coolly nodded. "Yes, we did."

"You actually went without me?!"

“Mm, well...”

Jeong In-Gyu's voice went up an octave. "And you call yourself a friend?!"

Kang Jin-Ho cocked an eyebrow. "Didn't you have cram school "

"If you knew that, you should've gone another day! How could you leave me out of a karaoke session?!"

"Oh, is that so..." Kang Jin-Ho dismissively waved his hand as if this was getting on his nerves.

Jeong In-Gyu was not a bad person, but he sure loved to talk a bit too much. In a way, he was similar to a useful but noisy device. A chatterbox like him was great for gathering information on how to get used to school life, but one had to pay the cost of accumulating mental fatigue by keeping him around.

If only he could tone down his noise level by half, he would be a smash hit with the prospective punters, that was for sure.

Kang Jin-Ho dismissively replied, "We'll go together next time."

Jeong In-Gyu shot back. "Why would I go to karaoke with you?!"

“What, then?”

“Didn't you go with a bunch of girls?!”

“I did?”

Jeong In-Gyu cried out bitterly, "Dammit, you traitor! Are you really my friend? Seriously "

Kang Jin-Ho let Jeong In-Gyu's bitter complaints slip out his other ear and picked up his textbook. But its clean pages weighed heavily in his heart. He knew that he needed to study, and he needed to do that now. The next exam was about a month and a half away, and he had to re-educate himself up to the high school level before that deadline. The task sounded next to impossible, but he didn't have a choice. He had to do something, even if it was only to jolt his dormant memories awake somehow.

'Even if it's impossible...'

Kang Jin-Ho gravely glared at the English textbook in front of his eyes. Could he really master this thing in just over a month? He might recognize each alphabet, but what was the point if he couldn't read any words? It'd be similar to remembering the Korean scripts but not knowing how to read Hangul. But he had to reach high-school-level English somehow? Never mind a month, a decade might not be enough for this task.

Jeong In-Gyu tilted his head. “Are you studying for real?”

“Yeah...”

“Wow, you really lost your marbles.”

"Yes, yes." Kang Jin-Ho waved his hand again as if to chase an annoying mosquito away. He even briefly wondered whether to tap Jeong In-Gyu's vocal pressure point to shut him up or not.

'One thing is for certain: studying through this textbook is unrealistic for me right now. Perhaps I should start from the elementary school level first...'

Crash, tumble!

Kang Jin-Ho was interrupted in the middle of his planning by sudden loud noises coming from behind. He turned his head slightly to look. A kid was cowering in the corner of the class while three other students were surrounding him. Kang Jin-Ho narrowed his eyes. "What's going on "

Jeong In-Gyu smirked a little. “It's Park Yu-Min.”

“Who?”

"Pretending you don't know who that is, eh? It's Park Yu-Min, you know? Park Yu-Min the Cripple."

Kang Jin-Ho furrowed his brow a little. The 'cripple' bit got on his nerves somewhat.

'A cripple, is it '

He recalled that there was a kid like that in the class. If his memories served him correctly, that kid had to be...

One of the three students growled menacingly. “What was that? You didn't bring it?”

Park Yu-Min whimpered on the floor. “I, I'm sorry...”

"Gimme a freaking break. Hey, you dipsh*t! Do you really think that not bringing it with you will be the end of this? I told you to bring it, didn't I?!"

“I'm sorry. I really don't have any...”

“Then, you should've stolen some or gotten a goddamn job, you piece of sh*t!”

If Kang Jin-Ho's memories were correct, the one shouting right now had to be Choi Yeong-Su. He had left such a strong impression in Kang Jin-Ho's mind that the latter could still remember him pretty well. That strong impression mostly consisted of his vicious personality, though. And he was also so good at fighting that no one in school wanted to provoke him.

What was even worse was that Choi Yeong-Su was the grandson of this school's chief director—who was the head of the board of the Dongmyeong Foundation, one of the top education foundations in the country.

On the surface, you could say that Choi Yeong-Su was quite blessed—good-looking, tall, well-built, came from a wealthy stock, and boasted excellent athletic abilities. Hence, it would only be natural for him to be popular. But there was a problem with him, and that was...

“Why don't I keep hitting you until you cough up the money?”

Park Yu-Min pitifully whimpered, "But, but... I really don't have any."

“Then I'll just keep hitting you.” Choi Yeong-Su cackled insidiously and kicked Park Yu-Min.

Choi Yeong-Min maintained the smile. “But if you don't drink that, I'll kill you right here.”

Park Yu-Min's trembling hands grasped the bucket but didn't bring it any closer to him.

What he had done seemed to have wiped the smile off Choi Yeong-Min's face. "You're actually thinking twice about this? Are you insane? Maybe you need to get hurt some more so you can finally wise up "

Park Yu-Min's eyes darted urgently between the bucket and Choi Yeong-Su. He could see all the dirt floating on the surface of the dark water.

Choi Yeong-Su roared, “I said, drink it!”

Park Yu-Min on his knees brought his face closer to the bucket with some difficulty, then slowly tipped it toward him. But he just couldn't place his lips against it in the end.

His hesitancy only stoked Choi Yeong-Su's anger even further, however. The latter furrowed his brow and roared. "Argh, you f*cking c*nt!"

He suddenly kicked the bucket, causing the dirty black water to splash on Park Yu-Min's face.

"Cough! Bleurgh!" He inadvertently swallowed some of the dirty water and began coughing and wheezing urgently. But that only riled up Choi Yeong-Su even more.

"You really wanna die today, huh?!" Choi Yeong-Su roughly kicked Park Yu-Min’s side while the latter was toppling over and coughing laboriously. But that failed to lessen his anger, so he grabbed a nearby chair and slammed it down on Park Yu-Min's back.

Bang!

Choi Yeong-Su roared. “A f*cking cripple wants to be defiant, eh? Is it because only one leg is f*cked up? Huh?! In that case, breaking your other leg will probably solve things, right? At least, you'll be more balanced from now on!”

“Does that mean he'll be crippled in both legs?”

“Wait, isn't that whatchamacallit, paraplegic? He’ll be a real disabled person, then?”

Choi Yeong-Min's goons cackled and grabbed Park Yu-Min's hair to pull the latter up.? "You f*cking c*nt, wanna die "

Park Yu-Min whimpered, "I, I'm sorry..."

“Aren't you gonna drink it?”

"...B-but, it has spilled, though "

“Oh. So, you can't drink something on the floor, is that it?” Choi Yeong-Su smirked like a snake before stepping several times on the dirty water on the floor. He cackled insidiously. “You still can't drink it?”

"N-no, I..."

"Well, lick it off the floor."

“...”

Choi Yeong-Su growled angrily, "Didn't you hear me? Lick the f*cking water off the floor and drink it!"

Park Yu-Min's figure began shuddering as his bullies yelled at him.

“Huh? This b*tch's crying now.”

“Wow, how embarrassing.”

“Hey, dude. Isn't this like, we're the bad guys here?”

Choi Yeong-Su and his two goons cackled once more and began smacking Park Yu-Min in the back of his head.

Smack, smack!

The smacks echoed throughout the classroom, and the other students began realizing that things might have gotten a bit too serious now. Wasn't this bullying crossing the line in some way

Park Yu-Min's head faltered and his body was still trembling. Choi Yeong-Su leaned in closer and snidely muttered into Park Yu-Min's ear, “You crying, boy?”

“N-no...”

“Then, what the hell are you doing? Lick the f*cking water already.”

Park Yu-Min brought his face closer to the floor. Even if he did this, this trio would probably continue to torment him in the future. But there was no other choice if he wanted to end this miserable situation to end as soon as possible.

Park Yu-Min's trembling hands pressed down on the floor.

Splash...

The floor stained by dirty water loomed large in his view. Park Yu-Min wiped the tears off his face, then brought his lips closer to the water pooling on the floor.

Choi Yeong-Su nodded in satisfaction at the sight of this. "That's right, a f*cking cripple should act like a crippled b*tch!"

Park Yu-Min began shuddering. Did he really have to drink this? Really? Was there anyone willing to help

He knew better than anyone that such thoughts were utterly useless. After all, no one in this class was brave enough to help Park Yu-Min and make an enemy out of Choi Yeong-Su. The bully and the bullied in this school were just too far apart in status, and that was why it would be better for him to just stop hoping for a miracle at this stage.

But then, Park Yu-Min's teary view caught the sight of something rather strange—a person's foot. A foot clad in a white shoe stepped on the puddle of water in front of his face.

“...?” Park Yu-Min raised his head in confusion.

'Kang Jin-Ho '