Payback

After class the next day, when I met up with the man with yellow hair and the good looking one, I realized that they didn’t know what happened yesterday.

“You’re not mad, are you?”

Looking back at the guy with a nice impression, the yellow haired smiled.

“Hey, I didn’t tell you in advance because I was just joking around. But I’m sure you would have expected it?” 

I looked at the two in turn and nodded to indicate that it was okay.

“I guess you did well seeing that there were no problems yesterday?”

The yellow haired immediately asked curiously. It was the same for the one next to him. I guess he hadn’t heard from Myeongshin yet. I thought it would be surprising to know how I got out of the situation, but I wanted to let Myeongshin hear it himself.

“Yes, it ended without any problems. It was nothing much.”

The man with a good impression who had a disgust for men narrowed his eyes slightly. On the other hand, the yellow haired smiled curiously.

“That’s fortunate. That you didn’t feel repulsed.”

“Yeah, I’m also glad. Who knows, I might become as big as Song Yoohan.”

It was the second time that the name came out of my mouth, but one of them showed a face as stiff as yesterday. As expected, it was you. After I made that boring conclusion, I turned my head. 

I had been ignoring the fierce glare since a while ago, but now ugly guy was crawling towards me. When I turned around, he came near me and spoke up as if he had been waiting.

“Don’t miss exercise class next week. Got it?!”

He gave hints with his whole body that even an idiot could tell what he had planned for that day. I nodded my head as I saw him making an effort.

“Look.” 

The boy shouted in excitement and his face turned red.

“Fuck! Come at me, you motherfucker! I’ve prepared something for you to look forward to!”

He twisted his body but just as he said, I was looking forward to it. Yes, I hope I can prepare something worthwhile to stimulate you.

It was regarding acting, but time passed very quickly, probably because it was the first time I studied in a few years. Perhaps it was peace that played a part. When I went to the bar named Alice’s Labyrinth the day after, I heard good news from the manager. He said he went on a business trip so I wouldn’t see him for a while. 

The manager who said that looked at me as if he was comforting me, but it was good news for me. Meanwhile, I had forgotten to ask him why he had helped me that day. After spending so much time peacefully like that, when the bruises on my body from that ugly guy finally faded, the day of the exercise class arrived. The manager told me that the location had suddenly changed, and he drove me by car from the office. However, before we departed, he handed me what I had asked for and looked back at me with a puzzled look.

“The camcorder you asked for is here. But what is all that?”

It must have seemed strange to pack something in the bag, rustling. He checked with his eyes to see if there was anything missing and said it was nothing. Still, I checked the bag one more time before closing it. Bands, cooling sprays, boxing shoes…

Seems like they had a lot of money. 

I had that impression as I entered the room. I don’t think the company rented out the boxing gym for today’s workout class; only four nameless rookies that aren’t worth spending that much money on. But if it was an individual who rented it, the company wouldn’t have said anything. I approached the ugly guy who kindly prepared everything and waited for me.

I wish I could pretend to be a little surprised, but in fact, all of my acting classes went to waste as I tried to hold back the laughter that came out after a long time. The first to speak was the instructor with a very troubled expression. He looked bewildered that the boxing class, which should have been passed by him simply teaching us about posture, had developed to this.

“Hmmm, Lee Taemin-ssi, so this is…”

“It’s well prepared. You must have prepared because of what I said last time about looking like a beggar.” 

When I gave him the credit, he coughed again and looked away as if he couldn’t say that the ugly fellow had rented it.

“Well, Lee Taemin-ssi doesn’t have to know, since a real ring has been prepared…”

He stopped talking and glanced at the ugly guy next to him who was staring at me.

“How about doing it properly this time?” 

All eyes were focused on me. It was said in reverse, but I had to fight the ugly guy again, and the three who were not involved would stand back and watch from a distance. Everyone seemed to be waiting for my mouth to open, but I put the bag I was carrying on the floor first.

Tap.

I looked down at the floor as if hesitating on purpose and was silent, then raised my head after a while.

“Are you forcing me?” 

The instructor looked at the ugly guy again and nodded his head vaguely.

“Well, it’s part of the class, so you have to follow but…”

“And what if I get hurt? I don’t want to.”

Then the unbearable ugly guy laughed. 

“Cowardly jerk. Are you afraid of being beaten to death like the last time?”

P lucbgfv tlw jcv rqbxf ab atf lcragemabg.

“Pa vbfrc’a wjaafg lo sbe’gf pera qgfafcvlcu ab yf mecclcu, yea lo kf’gf olutalcu ilxf atf jmaeji atlcu, atfgf lr j tlut glrx bo lcpegs, rb P mjc’a. P vbc’a kjca ab ufa xlmxfv bea bo atf mbwqjcs yfmjerf P uba tega.”

“Ha! Hey, if you’re that scared, I’ll just make sure you won’t get kicked out!” 

Again, the reply came from the ugly guy. I glanced at him once and asked the instructor again.

“Does the instructor guarantee it? Even if I get hurt, I won’t be punished, right?”

The ugly guy asked the instructor to answer because he was frustrated. The instructor then frowned and eventually nodded his head.

“Alright. Do it like the real thing, and if you get hurt…” 

He glanced at me and asked back.

“You’re not going to sue the company even if you get hurt, are you?”

I pretended to think again, looked into the air for a while, then nodded my head.

“Yes. If there’s no problem, I don’t care. Still, you can never let people know.”

I bent over and took the camcorder out of my bag. 

“Leave it as evidence.”

The instructor had a startled expression on his face, but the ugly guy stepped forward saying he would do it. While he kindly turned on the camcorder, I pointed the other three to the instructor.

“Of course everyone else will do it too, right?”

——— 

Because the locker room was small, I was kicked out to the stinky and cramped bathroom. I changed my clothes, tied the laces of my borrowed boxing shoes tightly, and finally sat down on the covered toilet, bandaging my hands. As I slowly and meticulously wound the important knuckle part, the door burst open and the nice-looking man entered.

“Hey, if you’re done, hurry up and…”

Standing in the half-open doorway, he suddenly stopped talking. I looked up at him with the bandage to indicate to him to keep talking. Then he slowly frowned and then opened his mouth.

“…Did you ever learn boxing?” 

I got up from my seat with my gloves on. Then he flinched slightly and pulled his shoulder back.

“I didn’t learn.”

“But I think you are used to bandaging…”

“It’s just a bandage, even a child can wrap it.” 

I cut off his words and opened the door wide and went outside. The sound of his footsteps following me was heard a little late. Wearing the headgear prepared at the gym and entering the ring, the ugly guy followed as if he had been waiting.

“Fucking bastard, you’re really dead today.”

The guy hissed as he brushed past me, but I turned my head to the instructor in the center who was acting as the referee.

“It’s my first boxing class, so can I pick the first opponent?” 

Of course, the ugly guy jumped and protested.

“Did you come all the way here just to run away?!”

“You’ve been waiting so far, can’t you just wait a few more minutes?”

I looked into his eyes for the first time and spat out, pointing to one of the three leaning against the rope and looking inside. 

“You.”

The guy with a good impression who was pointed at hardened his body and took a step back. But realizing that my gaze was on him, he stopped and looked around him until his eyes met that of the ugly guy. The ugly guy commanded him as if it was natural.

“Hey, fucking deal with him first. In return, beat him up just a little so I can kill him later.”

He grunted as he walked out of the ring, but the sharp-looking guy seldomly stood still and wouldn’t move. When the ugly guy came out of the ropes and said something, he finally came up to me wearing headgear. He stopped at a little distance and looked at me with anxious eyes. He seemed to want to say something, but he didn’t have a chance to say anything before the instructor announced the match after grabbing our hands and bumping our gloves. No, there wouldn’t have been enough time to say anything. 

Swish.

As soon as I stepped forward quickly with the help of the boxing shoes that skidded across, my fist hit his stomach.

Puck!

“Cough!” 

He bent down like a shrimp and looked up at me with a shocked look. But soon the eyes could not be seen. I swung the rest of my right arm while forcibly grabbing his shoulder, which kept bending over again and again.

Puck! Puck! Puck! Puck!

The consecutive punches hit the mark of an easy target without resistance.

Thud. 

As soon as I let go of the hand holding his shoulder, the body that was collapsing made a loud noise and echoed from the floor of the ring. As I took a step back, the body that had been resting on my ankles completely fell to the floor.

For a moment, as if time had stopped, there was silence all around. I looked down at his immobile body for a moment, then flipped him over with my feet. Around the head mask was the white foam that flowed from his mouth. Seeing that his closed eyelids did not tremble, it was certain that he passed out. I slowly lifted my head and spit the mouthpiece out of my mouth onto the glove. I passed the frozen instructor and looked at the three standing by the ropes. I looked at the faces that only showed amazement, and then finally stopped at one person.

“Next, you.”

My voice, which was not very loud, rang like it was the only sound in the world. Silence came soon after, but it was clear that my voice which trailed changed the atmosphere. 

Flinch.

The guy was called out visibly took in a breath. Perhaps because he was flustered, the man with a good-looking face ,whose face had turned a little pale, looked around and opened his mouth after a while.

“Y-you mean me?”

I nodded lightly and turned my gaze to the ugly guy nearby. When our eyes met, he flinched and tightened his hand holding the rope. 

“Wait for one more person.”

“Wh… W-what? Ah, ah… S-sure.”

He raised his voice, averting his eyes, trying to hide his bewilderment.

“S-so cheap to strike an opponent before they have gotten prepared, I’ll knock you down so don’t get too beaten up before that!” 

Even if he raised his voice, he couldn’t hide his stiff look, but I was satisfied with that. If I saw him run away after one guy was down, it’s no fun for me either. The only obstacle was the instructor who had now ran to the guy who had collapsed.

In confusion, he shook the fainted body and called out his name. In the end, he still didn’t wake up, so he raised his head to look at me.

“T-this… Lee Taemin-ssi, what is this?”

I looked down at that limp body indifferently. 

“He’ll wake up in five minutes.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“What are you doing, hurry up and go put a cold towel on him?”

I pointed outwards with my chin and urged him, he became startled and started to pull the fainted person out of the arena. Once again, from the ring, I urged the others who had no intention of moving. 

“Can’t you see that class is about to end?”

The nice-looking man swallowed his saliva and a smile trembled on his face.

“I was very surprised. Suddenly punching like that…”

“It’s just cheap to attack by surprise before the opponent can get ready.” 

When I looked at the ugly guy as if confirming what he had said with his mouth, he tensed his hands that were gripping his rope. Just like that, I turned my gaze back to the original spot and then spat out in a low voice at the good-looking man.

“Aren’t you going to do the class?”

His body reacted to the command. With his face still pale, he hesitantly entered the ring, glancing back at the other two, but there was no one to say, ‘You don’t have to go in.’

Coming up to me at a frustratingly slow pace, he asked with suspicion in his eyes, leaving a certain distance between us. 

“Have you learned boxing before?”

“No. Wear the headgear.”

“Ah, this is…”

He gave a wry smile, looking at the headgear in his hand. 

“It’s not an official match, we’re just supposed to learn the postures lightly…”

“If you want your jaw to be broken then so be it.”

I mumbled impatiently. Probably hearing my low voice, he immediately put on the headgear with a serious face. Looking at him, I also slowly put my mouthguard back on and raised my hand.

I know they’ve all taken a boxing class together a few times before I came. Still, as actors, they were definitely accustomed to the posture, so the posture with arms raised facing each other was not clumsy. I didn’t know what his skills were, but I would find out soon. 

I started by lightly stretching out my left arm and tapping his glove. As soon as he touched it, he flinched and took a step back. Unlike the first time, I didn’t attack right away, but I didn’t want to wait long. Class time was passing by quickly as if urging the opponent. It’d be better to finish it quickly before the other guy runs away.

I took a few more steps back, stared at him, then leaned back slightly and stepped. Instead of a straight line, I stretched out my feet in a slightly oblique line, and approached the back of the guy in an instant, shaking my upper body. Surprised, he punched first. I protected my face with my left arm and attacked his side with my right arm, which was clearly open.

Slam!

I leaned my head towards his staggering body for a moment and dug closer. He stepped back, but I was faster. No, he was too slow. As soon as the point of attack entered my eyes like a clear picture, my arm was already moving first. 

I removed my fist from his trembling body. He leaned back against the ring, but kept standing with his legs bent because I didn’t let him fall. If there was a referee here, they would have separated us, but the instructor was still with the first person who was defeated, so he wasn’t here to see it.

Thanks to this, the nice-looking guy propped up on the shoulders, I was able to hit only one side intensively. Frankly, this was a rule violation, but this was the only way to beat moderately. No matter how ruthless I was, I couldn’t hit a guy who fell on the floor. I could feel his body trembling as if it were convulsing. The eyes had already loosened for a long time, and the white mouthpiece was visible, and every time the saliva that could not be swallowed flowed down from the open mouth.

“…Cough!”

Finally, a deep punch caused a groan to escape from his throat. Between the force of my punch and the rebound of the rope, his body shook violently and lost strength, his weight completely falling on me. Only then did I lower my arm and step back. 

Thud, plop.

Although he didn’t fall unconscious like the first one, he still fell to his knees, his whole body shaking like he was caught in the rain in the middle of winter and couldn’t breathe properly. I took a step back,and tapped the floor with my front foot. Then I pulled out the mouthguard, and opened my mouth to count down the remaining time.

“Four, three, two, one.”

“…” 

“Down.”

I announced the results on behalf of the referee who was not present. He must not have heard my kindness, but he was cowering like a fetus, wrapping his arms around the affected part. But it doesn’t matter. The next words he would surely hear. I looked up at the big clock hanging on the wall and said briefly.

“Get out. If you don’t want to be forced to play the second round.”

My prediction was correct. He, who was panting and trembling, flinched and moved like a surprised rabbit. His one arm still wrapped around the area he was hit with, but he moved out of the ring with the other arm, crawling on the floor. 

I glanced back at the time I had checked a while ago and turned my eyes to the other two. Their faces turned pale, like plaster. If it wasn’t for their shaking eyes, they were so stiff that I could almost believe they were statues.

However, when our eyes met, they trembled at the same time as if they were twins. Why is everyone getting beaten up? As I approached, the ugly guy, who was still stiff in astonishment, asked a question first.

“You, you… o-obviously had been taught. right? You learned boxing, but you deliberately lied to deceive us…”

“I said I hadn’t been taught.” 

“B-but why…”

Gulping, he looked sideways at the good-looking guy who had fallen beside the ring and was moaning.

“D-don’t joke. How can you knock out two or two if you haven’t even tried boxing?”

“Who hasn’t?” 

“What? You obviously said you’d never learned boxing…”

“I said I’ve never been taught, never said I’d never been in the ring.”

I cut off his words and turned around. I could feel the blank eyes following me, who still couldn’t understand the meaning of what I was saying. The ugly guy, holding the rope with both hands, won’t believe the reality that is different from what he thought.

What surprised me, though slightly, was that he did not run away from the fear of a reality that was different from his expectations. Maybe it’s because he hadn’t come to his senses yet. And I definitely had to nail into the other one that he shouldn’t even think of escaping. 

“It would be better not to run away.”

Unlike the ugly guy, the one with yellow hair must have been thinking of running away. His entire face, which had been stiff enough to notice, twitched. Taking a few more steps, he tried to step back.

“Don’t run away, you punk.”

He grabbed the pole of the rope with one hand, and then he properly looked at me. Seeing the horror in his eyes, I brought a smile to my lips for the first time that day. He stiffened, more startled than when he heard the warning not to run away. It must have been strange, why I was smiling. I told him why. 

“I tend to leave the delicious ones last.”

A moment of shock spread across his face, his mouth half-opened as if he was about to say something, but no words came out. He turned to look at his tightly closed lips. He must have remembered why he was trying to ask why he was the last. No, he couldn’t ask because there was a problem. He must have remembered what he did to me at Myungshin’s orders.

In the past, Myeongshin had been urging me to watch a horror movie together at the theater. In the movie, suddenly there was a loud sound effect, a torn scream, and a rush of blood. But it wasn’t real, so there was no reason for me to flinch like everyone else, or to cover my eyes to the brutal scenes. Naturally, it was a boring 2 hours for me. What I remember is what Myeongshin said after the movie was over.

Living to the end is not a happy ending. What’s the point of living? You would have been staying in fear for the longest time so much so that your insides are decaying. 

Although not exactly like the last survivor of a horror movie, the yellow-haired one is probably the most stressed out of the four.

Also, he would be concerned about how much I had realized. As I turned around, I noticed that the ugly guy had moved to the center of the ring. Did he move on his own without urging? It was more surprising than that he didn’t run away. It was surprising enough that I had to re-evaluate him.

“Fuck, what’s your identity?”

Putting on headgear, the guy spat out slowly. He messed with it a few times to fully lock the headgear in place.

“An acting trainee.” 

“Who asked that? This…”

I heard the swear word “Fuck” again, and the voice that became small like a whisper could barely be heard.

“Boxing… what about that?”

To be honest, I half-expected the ugly guy to run away. But now the guy in front of me looked terrified, but he hasn’t given up on the malice of wanting to knock me down yet. He was a tougher guy than I expected. 

But I didn’t feel sympathetic. Of the fact that he was going to get hurt in a completely different way from the other two. I was really thinking of swinging my fists so hard that the only remaining onlooker would shiver. I was about to put on the mouthpiece, but I heard a question again.

“What did you mean by standing in the ring?”

Just as he whispered, I also mumbled so that it was barely audible.

“Just as I said. I had some sparring partners.” 

“… How much?”

I put a mouthpiece in his mouth and let him know.

“Five years.”

Along with the answer, I threw my fist at the area that I had never attacked the previous two guys at. The guy who was hit in the face staggered and took a big step back. He must be feeling dizzy. I approached him slowly, deliberately waiting for him to come to his senses. And before reaching out to reach his head again, I deliberately glanced at the yellow haired. As I made eye contact with him, I confirmed that he was engulfed in fear and smiled. It would be good for him to watch closely. 

You’re the one who’s going to get your face crushed the next time.