I,A Gangster, Became a High School Student

December 20, 20XX

I don’t know what happened to me. I didn’t take their money, I didn’t hit them, so why is everyone talking about me and not Hong Jae-min? I didn’t do anything to them, but they’re avoiding me, not Hong Jae-min.

The whole school seems to talk about me. They look at me and gossip. I’m scared. I wish I didn’t have a heart. I don’t intend to return to school. I want to run away. I don’t want to be here. I want to stop. I’m tired. I would like to stop everything. I don’t know why I have to keep living.

December 11, 20XX.

I threw away my Chupa Chups.

December 9, 20XX

I go into the restroom and the girls come out. They said they didn’t want to share a bathroom with a gay asshole. They said I got bonier looking at their dicks. I’ve never seen them before, but they know I’m gay.

While reading his diary, Kim Deuk-pal felt his throat tighten and cleared his throat. After hovering for a moment, his finger pushed the screen aside. The pages flashed by in a blur, stopping at the first paragraph on March 14th of this year.

March 14, 20XX

Se Kyung-yi gave me candy. It was a White Day event organized by the student union, and I got it from him. It tasted like strawberries. To keep track of it, I write in my diary.

March 21, 20XX

I thought I was doomed to high school because I was in the same class as Hong Jae-min, but I can see Se-kyung’s class from my seat. It’s not until we switch seats, but if I turn my head, I can see Se-kyung sitting in the opposite window seat. He smiles with his jaw clenched.

March 30, 20XX

Pretty. Handsome. Gentle. Smiles well. Has an excellent voice. Tall. Studious. Smells good. Fair.

Se-kyung-i. Choi Se-kyung.

I want to call you.

Se Kyung…

April 9, 20XX

I wonder if Se-kyung knows I exist. I wish he called me by name. I want to apply to the same university. If it’s an unpopular course, maybe I can get into the same university as Se-kyung by doing pull-ups.

April 13, 20XX

I found my butler’s hidden mock test scores. I was scolded for my low score, but my grade was raised. Se-kyung also said that the March exam was difficult. The butler doesn’t care about me, but when he finds something to scold me about, he bites and won’t let go. I wish he would stop. I’m sick of it too. If you’re tired of my mom and me, leave.

Don’t give my mom alcohol. Please.

April 26, 20XX

I understand why my mom clings to the chairman. She likes the chairman just like I like Se-kyung. For the first time, I didn’t hate that she only looked at him. I’m only looking at Se-kyung, too. Sullenly.

May 2, 20XX

I try to pick a time when Se-kyung is alone to talk to him, but he’s never alone. He’s always surrounded by his friends. But now that I think about it, it’s better that I didn’t talk to him. Getting to know me would only make him feel awful.

May 15, 20XX

Sunday. Weekend. I want to leave this house.

June 3, 20XX

Se-kyung caught me giving a wallet to Hong Jae-min. I’m ashamed. I can’t forget his shy smile. Se-kyung stopped him, so they didn’t take the money, but they better do it. I want to cry.

June 10, 20XX

Hong Jae-min’s gang is very persistent. They usually beat me up and let me go when I give them money, but these days they don’t let me go when class starts. Do they think I should report them? No, I’m worried.

July 1, 20XX

He just hit me in a part I can’t see. My buttocks and thighs are full of speckles. It hurts just to touch it. Even though I covered my ears, I could hear Hong Jae-min’s laughter. Even at home, his laughter was heard.

July 9, 20XX

My mom asked me to buy me a drink. I brought my mother alcohol, but she asked me to bring her cigarettes too, so I said I don’t smoke. I stole cigarettes from a small store ordered by Hong Jae-min.

July 28, 20XX

Why do you have to study supplementation when it’s vacation?

August 24, 20XX

I had a parent interview. Said I smelled like cigarettes. It was impossible for anyone to believe that I hadn’t opened it. The butler came instead of my mom. If the chairman becomes my biological father, he said, “Be prepared,” adding, “I won’t leave it intact.” What else do we do here? I’m sick. I’m sick.

August 26, 20XX

I don’t know if I got hit wrong, but I can’t feel my legs.

August 29, 20XX

The butler warned that the school uniform was dirty. He said, “Don’t show off your studies and avoid disturbances.”

September 2, 20XX

Se-kyung, who moved to Canada while I was beaten, was tanned and taller. He said he wanted to eat kimchi fried rice at a snack bar in front of the school. I watched him go out to the school gate with his friends without entering the cafeteria.

September 11, 20XX

The vacation has healed. I don’t want Sekyung to see it’s right. It’s worse than being right. Without me. The locker is where I want to put my body. So that no one can see.

September 20, 20XX

Hong Jae-min understood.

November 26, 20XX

I can hear you squirming in the hallway. I’m scared Se-kyung will find out. I’m afraid he’ll be disgusted to hear that someone like me likes him.

December 9, 20XX

I go into the restroom and the boys come out. They say they don’t want to use the restroom with a gay guy. They said I got an erection looking at their penises. I had never seen them before. They’re in a different grade, but they know I’m gay.

December 14, 20XX.

I threw away my Chupa Chups.

December 20, 20XX

I don’t know what happened to me. I didn’t take their money, I didn’t hit them, so why is everyone doing this to me and not to Hong Jae-min? I didn’t do anything to them, but they avoided me, not Hong Jae-min.

The whole school seems to talk about me. They look at me and gossip. I’m scared. I wish I didn’t have a heart. I don’t intend to return to school. I want to run away. I don’t want to be here. I want to stop. I’m tired. I want to stop everything. I don’t know why I have to live.

“You sons of bitches…….”

Rereading the last page, he gritted his teeth. His bony hands trembled as he gripped the tablet. Song Yiheon’s body lacked muscle strength, so the liquid crystal was fine, but in Kim Duk-pal’s body, it would have cracked.

The days he kept a diary were few and far between. He didn’t write everything down, but the short entries were enough to get the picture.

School violence and outings. Song Yi-heon suffered from both when he climbed the overpass.

He stopped his car on the sidewalk to save a man in need. A gangster, but a righteous one, he couldn’t ignore a man in need. The people who were crying on the ground in Kim Duk-pal’s empty house were people who had been helped by Kim Duk-pal at one time or another, showing how wide his reach was in life.

Naturally, Song Yiheon couldn’t pass either.

“Hey.”

Kim Deuk-pal called out to Song Yiheon’s reflection on the black screen. After reading the diary, he hadn’t sagged, but his depressed eyes and frightened, tightly closed mouth looked uncomfortable. If I had pushed him, he would have died at an age when he should have flown like a thunderbird. Kim Duk-pal opened his mouth indignantly, as if I had bullied him.

“Take care of this body until I get you back. It’s bitter. I can’t attend to school, so I want to walk through the school gates. I’ll study, enjoy my youth, fulfill my wish, and ascend when you return. Instead-“

Kim Duk-pal raised his eyes like a criminal about to hunt. His gloomy eyes were sharpened beyond belief.

“Revenge for your bullies is a great deal.”

· * *

The new year dawned. Kim Duk-pal celebrated his 19th birthday in Song Yi-heon’s body. Ever since he’d decided to live as Song Yiheon, albeit with the restriction that he couldn’t return until Song Yi-heon’s soul returned, he’d been slowly adjusting.

It was frustrating that his body burned up. However, to be honest, it was better to be young with tight cell membranes than an old man who could sense a rainy day through his aching joints.

“Ageing is a disorder.”

When he left the doctor’s office, he turned his upper body side to side. The doctor said the bones fused well, so he didn’t feel much pain. In Kim’s body, he would have had to eat a bunch of skeletons to get his broken ribs to reattach. However, the young teenager’s body shows remarkable resilience.

Embraced with pride, Kim Duk-pal wore the long black padding over his shoulders. It was a similar design to the ones he’d seen in the car the day of the overpass accident, the ones the students were wearing. He borrowed the coat from a nurse and bought it. He was so proud of himself that he pressed the corners of his mouth down.

He lived as Song Yi-heon, and he enjoyed his life as Song Yi-heon, doing whatever he wanted.

As he checked his pass at the lobby counter and stepped through the revolving door, the wind blew his thin hair into scattered strands. Gently pushing the ringer off the protruding sidewalk block, he headed to the salon he’d seen in his hospital room.

“Welcome!”

As the cheerful voice greeted the customer, Kim Duk-pal flinched at the reflexive rejection. I was used to visit to barbershops where a blunt barber would give me a haircut and a shave. This kindness made my skin crawl. But I have the gao of an ex-gangster, and I didn’t let this get me down.

The barber walked over to Song Yi-heon, a young man, a teenager, and smiled cheerfully.

“First time here, what do you want?”

“Oh, yeah, that haircut..”

“Ah~ the haircut. What style do you want? Are you, uh, a student? Are you a trainee at a local agency? You look so handsome.”

“No, that’s…….”

In the wake of the death of the former gangster and everything else, Kim Deuk-pal stuttered. At his regular barbershop, he could just walk in and a barber of the same age would pretend to look at him and take care of his haircut, shampoo, and shave, but at the high-end hair salon in the downtown area, the staff would sit him in a chair and talk to him about this and that, driving him out of his mind.

Meanwhile, for good measure the staff sat him down and pulled his sideburns.

“Look at your hair.” That’s a gorgeous perm. Did you dye your hair? They have no rules these days, do they? A little perm like this would be perfect. It’s too wasteful to cut it off.”

When he pulled back his bangs to inspect his hairstyle, he admired him for a moment, and then he started to talk.

“Wow, dude, you look really pretty. If you post a picture of your perm in my shop, my brother can give you a huge discount on your promotional fee, so why don’t you get a perm?”

The boy talked too much, Kim thought, regaining his composure and glaring at the mirror.

“A haircut.”

“…Huh?”

The bold order changed both men’s demeanors. The frozen hairdresser, Kim Deuk-pal nail it.

“I’m a senior in high school, so I have to study. I want a haircut.”