Beep beep beep beep, the sound of the door lock was more tense than usual.
With Siyeon’s pale face, the front door opened.
Siyeon, who usually went straight to her room as soon as she came in from outside.
It was only after seeing that scene in the apartment playground that I faced her properly.
Then I noticed the dry tear stains on her face.
My heart felt heavy; I thought she needed time alone, but that time apart soon became neglect.
As soon as I came in, I stood with my arms crossed in front of the front door.
Siyeon seemed a bit flustered and hesitated for a moment before entering her room.
After a brief hesitation, she slowly ran away to her room as if nothing had happened…
“Lee Siyeon, don’t go into your room; sit in the living room.”
Before I approached, I called her by her full name.
I hardly ever remembered calling her this way so coercively.
Not in kindergarten, nor in elementary school.
Siyeon was the kind of kid who listened well, and once I said something, she would improve her behavior without repeat.
I just needed a different, alien atmosphere than usual.
Siyeon, who couldn’t even leave her school bag in her room, trudged over and sat on the sofa.
She slowly approached the sofa, looking down from above, facing my gaze.
For a moment, our eyes met, and then her gaze drifted to a corner.
“Roll up your sleeve.”
“…Why?”
“Hurry up.”
With my still coercive tone, Siyeon rolled up the sleeve of her right arm to her elbow.
Of course, there was nothing to be found where she willingly showed me.
I took a moment to recall.
The area she was rubbing outside had definitely been much higher, near her shoulder.
“W-What are you doing!”
Ignoring the distance that had felt so far between us until now, I quickly approached and rolled up her right arm.
Surprised, Siyeon grabbed her sleeve, trying not to show it completely, but it was natural that my strength was stronger since I had been exercising.
Siyeon’s futile struggle stopped, and I could see her skin color lingering between purplish and black.
A brief silence.
Now that I had released her sleeve, Siyeon did not try to pull it down.
Unable to find words for my anger, I uncrossed my arms and rubbed my forehead while speaking to Siyeon.
“…Who did this?”
“Ah, it’s nothing; I just bumped into a wall….”
Siyeon was trying to lie even after everything that had happened.
She probably didn’t want to make me worry unnecessarily.
While I understood that feeling, it made me feel even more complicated.
I uncrossed my arms and placed my hands on my hips, lowering my head deeply.
I stood on the tips of my toes with one foot, trembling up and down to cool my anger with meaningless actions, muttering.
“Siyeon, I’m not that foolish idiot.”
“…….”
Once again, a silence ensued.
Naturally, Siyeon wasn’t the one who was wrong, but I felt like I had to say something to make her realize the seriousness of the situation.
She must have thought she could just endure it, but that wasn’t it.
Tolerating things makes you a passive toy.
If you struggle, you become a toy that’s easy to hit.
Those who bully others think of it the same way.
They have no real thoughts; they just do this because it’s easy for them to play around.
The quieter kids are the easier targets.
Even just thinking about it made my anger boil, but in this situation, finding evidence was easier than hearing it directly.
With my head bowed deeply, I reached out with one of my hands at my waist and spoke.
“Give me your smartphone.”
“D-Don’t want to….”
In a moment of anger, I lunged at Siyeon, who was sitting on the sofa, and took the smartphone that she was weakly holding.
The screen had a crack in the transparent film, and it was a smartphone she hadn’t changed for years.
Siyeon had always refused when I suggested changing it, saying she was used to this one.
In the messenger app, various girls who looked like they would be covered in cigarettes had sent messages full of cute pretenses with all sorts of special characters.
For some reason, she was in a group chat with those girls.
With messages still actively coming through like “Not responding?” it was clear to anyone that the superior attitude was directed at Siyeon.
They were talking about how much money they should bring and engaging in money games typical of middle schoolers.
I just felt dumbfounded looking at that chat.
I pressed the side button on the smartphone to turn off the screen and sat down next to Siyeon, trying to calm myself.
Recently, there had been hardly any opportunities to talk so closely.
“Why didn’t you just transform and beat them up?”
Words that came out in anger, I scratched my head and directed them at Siyeon.
That was truly my thought.
Siyeon, being too kind-hearted, must have never thought that way.
“Because you can’t.”
“Huh….”
A sigh deeply flowed out of me, deeper than usual.
That response was exactly what I expected, which worried me, but at the same time, it put my mind at ease.
I just hugged her tightly while patting her back, feeling that she had held on well.
You did well; you did well.
As I repeated those same words like a broken radio, I felt the dampness seeping in from the fabric of my clothing over my heart along with her sobs.
How long did she cry like that?
I told Siyeon to take off her school uniform and lie down on her bed, and without another word, she walked to the bed with her swollen face.
To comfort her immediately was important, so I left her with the words she needed most right now.
“Let’s not go to school tomorrow; let’s rest well, okay?”
Nodding with her face buried in the pillow.
I turned off the room light and, after closing the door, walked out.
Siyeon, who had cried her heart out, seemed to fall asleep immediately, exhausted.
In my hand as I left the room was Siyeon’s smartphone.
‘How can I kill those bastards…’
The chat room still had messages pouring out with harsh words calling out Siyeon.
It was the third time I felt murderous intent towards humans since the memories of redevelopment in the apartment.
The cat lady who disturbed my sleep at night with ceiling noise, and the uncle whose cigarette smell wafted in whenever I opened the window.
Thinking about it again was maddening, but the anger I felt now was far beyond the combination of these two.
From the room, the sea serpent, Siyeon’s mascot, sneaked out as Siyeon fell asleep.
“Hey, sea serpent.”
“…Did you call for me?”
Maybe it knew a bit of its wrongdoing as it slowly approached, looking quite intimidated.
I expected the answer but asked anyway to get to the bottom of it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Siyeon asked me not to tell….”
The expected answer from the terrified sea serpent was entirely reasonable.
It wouldn’t have let me know about the things happening to Siyeon, which it clearly witnessed from the side.
If it had just muttered something stupid like “I forgot” like at one time when it was Gomtaengi, I could have blamed it.
“Tch, I figured as much….”
I clicked my tongue loudly, biting my lip while looking at the message containing no good intentions saying ‘See you tomorrow.’
Why hadn’t Siyeon informed me of the bullying she was facing?
Even a brief search on the internet about ‘school violence’ would reveal the obvious.
It simply didn’t exist.
A certainty that the problems facing her would be solved neatly.
The bullies thrive while bullying others, and no matter how much the victims cry out for help, they still have to go to school, with secondary victimization following behind.
‘Only in such shitholes is reality exaggerated….’
With that thought, I frowned while looking at the smartphone.
My fist is closer than the law.
The students who bully her are fists, while the adults are slow, outdated laws.
Typically, victims hide being bullied even from their parents….
No matter how well I had been taking care of her, it would have been even harder for her to talk to someone like me.
It’s okay; Siyeon has me.
If the law and procedures are unreliable, I will be the fist that beats those bastards to dust on a rainy day.
I had a few ideas floating in my mind, but the more methods there were to deal with the bad ones, the better, so I decided to ask Gomtaengi, who was soaked in the internet.
“Hey, Gomtaengi.”
“Yeah?”
“Recommend me some creative ways to beat up school violence bullies.”
“Hmmm, how about this method?”
As soon as I heard Gomtaengi’s whisper, I thought.
This is it; there’s nothing else.
It was a great method to open the door to school violence in a different way, so I quickly adopted that opinion.
The materials for that creative method were almost all at home, but there was one thing lacking.
That was, short hair.
With a burst of motivation from Gomtaengi’s suggestion, I immediately tore off the largest hygienic rollback plastic, grabbed some big scissors, and ran to the bathroom.
Carefully, or perhaps not, I began to snip at my long black locks.
After cutting my hair, I turned around to the bathroom mirror, examining the back of my head and asked Gomtaengi for an objective judgment.
“Is this enough to make the back look similar?”
“Yeah, just take out the chest… Kyuuh!”
“Stop, shut that cocky mouth of yours.”
