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To wear his school uniform, Kang Chan had to go home. However, doing so would mean letting Yoo Hye-Sook see his injuries. Things would’ve been simple if he bought a uniform set, but he heard that he had to wait for a few days after he ordered since the first semester had already ended.
“Try calling the Prime Minister’s office. Who knows? The Minister of Education might suddenly get rid of the orientation day.” Seok Kang-Ho commented.
Dumbfounded, a feeble laugh burst out of Kang Chan. He honestly wanted to do that, if only that were possible.
“Wait a minute! The kids in the school! Let’s pick a kid that has a similar body type as you and ask them for their school uniform.”
“Sure!” Kang Chan looked at Seok Kang-Ho in a daze. He used to be dumb, but it now felt like he was becoming smarter[1].
Kang Chan called Cha So-Yeon. Fortunately, one of the twelfth-graders that were studying at that time had an extra uniform.
- Sunbae-nim, I’ll bring it for you.
“Can you do that?”
- Yes! Where are you?
Kang Chan explained the location of the hospital. After firmly telling her not to let the other kids know that he was at the hospital when she got surprised, he hung up the phone.
“Let’s have dinner,” said Seok Kang-Ho.
It had only been an hour since they had pastries. Seok Kang-Ho was somewhat strange in his manners.
“Go home first since I have to have dinner anyway when So-Yeon gets here. It’s going to be uncomfortable for her if you’re here.”
“Phuhu, there’s actually a housewarming party in my wife’s family today.”
“You should’ve told me that earlier. Go home. I’m going to be discharged tomorrow anyway, aren’t I?”
“I’ll visit you again after it ends.”
“Just call me. Let me sleep in peace . I almost killed you when you snored in your sleep yesterday,” said Kang Chan.
Seok Kang-Ho insisted that he was going to come here no matter what, then headed home.
The TV blabbered about the spy ring incident with determination. Kang Chan watched the report about the blameless Minister of National Defense and the Capital Defense Command, then quickly turned off the TV.
Now that he was free, he suddenly wanted to see Kim Mi-Young.
The look in her eyes when she was talking in French in a poor accent came across his mind. He also recalled her out-dated hairstyle.
Am I starting to like a female high schooler the same way Seok Kang-Ho is shaking off his ignorance as he’s getting used to his new body?
‘At this rate, won’t I be clinging to her?’
The eerie feeling made Kang Chan shake his head.
They had agreed to decide if they still felt the same way even after they had become university students, which would be on her birthday next year.
“Phew!” It was better to have Seok Kang-Ho next to him.
Disliking the fact that he kept having useless thoughts, Kang Chan took out his phone and browsed the internet. He couldn’t believe that the hospital was so nice—they had even plugged in a charger in the room.
Just as dinner time had come…
Slide!
The door of the patient room opened wide and Cha So-Yeon came inside.
“So-Yeon? What’s wrong with you?”
“Sunbae-nim! Se-Ho got taken away,” Cha So-Yeon was on the verge of tears while looking like she was terrified.
“We got out of the bus in front of the hospital with the school uniform, but the hoodlums that were at the bus stop dragged Se-Ho away.”
“Hoodlums?” Kang Chan asked.
“Yes! They were wearing tight-fitting workout attire and had short hair. They had dragged Se-Ho away immediately as soon as they saw him.”
“Do you know Heo Eun-Sil’s phone number?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Call her and put me on the phone.”
Cha So-Yeon put down the plastic bag with the clothes in it, then called her.
“Here’s the phone, sunbae-nim.”
Noisy music rang out in the background. He soon heard Heo Eun-Sil saying, “Hello?”
A quick look at bit.ly/3iBfjkV will leave you more fulfilled.
“Heo Eun-Sil, It’s Kang Chan. it seems like Cho Se-Ho got dragged away by the university guys from last time.”
- Huh?
“I’m talking about the guys that we saw at the coffee shop. I heard that he got taken away at the bus stop that’s in front of Bangji hospital. I think it’s them since I was told that they were wearing tight-fitting workout clothes, so I thought I’d ask you.”
- They wear black pants and purple tops.
When Kang Chan asked Cha So-Yeon about it, she said, “That’s right, sunbae-nim!”
“Can you guess where he is?”
- Did you say that you guys are at Bangji hospital?
“Yeah! It happened at the bus stop here.”
- There’s a building with a blue sign for a bank on the opposite side of the hospital. They’re likely in the open area in the parking lot behind that building.
“Got it.”
Kang Chan changed after he hung up the phone. Cha So-Yeon followed after him while looking flustered upon seeing him wearing a black suit with a shirt.
“You stay here,” said Kang Chan.
“I want to go too.”
She did like Cho Se-Ho. Kang Chan didn’t know what could happen if they wasted time, so he went out of the hospital for now.
The blue building was on the opposite side of the hospital. Kang Chan crossed the street when there weren't many cars on the road, but Cha So-Yeon hesitated while looking at the traffic lights.
His body throbbed when he started to run, but it wasn’t to the extent of not being able to endure the pain. Turning around the corner of the building and going into the open area, he saw an area that was blocked on three sides because of the building next to it. There were boxes and different kinds of junk piled on the floor, so it was quite hard to see what was happening in there from the outside.
Cho Se-Ho was weakly sitting down at the very back, his face entirely covered in blood.
The guys that heard Kang Chan’s footsteps all looked behind them. They were all wearing the same tight-fitting workout clothes, which made them look nasty.
“Who are you?”
Kang Chan smirked. It was dumbfounding to see more than ten university students working together just to hit one high schooler.
“Are you guys really univesity students?” asked Kang Chan.
“So who are you, fucker?”
Kang Chan knew that his eyes were burning. He still hadn’t been relieved of the spite that had formed because of what happened at the golf club. If he got into a fight in this state, it would be too cruel for the kids. He breathed in deeply to repress his anger.
Cha So-Yeon came into the alley at that moment, then looked at Cho Se-Ho and the surroundings with startled eyes.
“Hmph!” A guy with an angular chin turned his head toward Kang Chan after he saw Cha So-Yeon.
“Are you idiots trying to show off in front of a high schooler?” Kang Chan asked.
The guy with the angular chin came toward Kang Chan with a swagger and stealthily pushed his shoulder backward. He was planning to sucker punch Kang Chan.
Swish! Tak!
Kang Chan hit the guy’s hand away as if he was swatting away a fly.
Flustered, the guy looked at Kang Chan—
Bam!
Kang Chan curved his index and middle finger and stabbed the guy’s eyes.
“Agh! Arghh!”
Strangely, these fuckers’ screams were loud.
Kang Chan then tightly grasped onto the ears of his target, who had short-cropped hair.
“Hey! Let go of him!”
Three or four guys pounced at Kang Chan…
Kang Chan violently kicked his current target’s face, which he had been holding between his knees.
Crack! Swish!
As the head of his current target snapped backward, another man tried to punch Kang Chan.
Tak! Ta-dak.
Kang Chan continuously hit away his two other enemies’ fists, which were being swung at him, while simultaneously pulling his very first target toward him with his left hand. Kang Chan’s first opponent seemed to have learned some hand-to-hand combat, seeing as how he tried to stab Kang Chan in the face with his left elbow even as he was being pulled forward.
Tak! Pow-pow-pow.
Kang Chan hit the guy’s elbow away with his right hand, then consecutively struck his neck, armpit, and side.
“Urgh!”
Kang Chan immediately grasped the guy’s adam's apple tightly, which made the others at the back hesitate and prevented them from pouncing at him.
“Cough! Ugh!”
If Kang Chan kept holding onto his opponent like this for another twenty seconds, then the fucker was going to die.
University students? It was an undeserved status for guys that just bullied others or imitated gangsters.
“You wanna die? Let go!” one of the guys yelled.
The two guys that were in the back tried to find a gap or a moment of weakness to attack him.
Bam!
“Cough!”
Kang Chan released his current target’s neck and violently struck the pit of his stomach. When his opponent bent forward, Kang Chan struck upward with his knee.
Pop!
The others hesitated upon seeing their two members collapse to the ground with their faces burst open.
“Whoo!”
Kang Chan was trying hard to not break their arms and was frantically trying to fight back against his immense spite, which was making his eyes try to glint.
He tightly closed his eyes and opened them to not cross the boundary. He didn’t want to release his spite while fighting with these newbies. These guys weren’t gangsters. They were just morons that wanted to show off their strength. He knew they were being violent toward the bullies, but he had never seen them doing anything to good kids.
‘Hold it in. Let’s try to hold it in.’
While Kang Chan was gritting his teeth and trying hard to suppress his anger, one of the guys at the back called someone, and another took out a knife from his bag.
“Move. I’m going to kill that fucker today,” The man walked toward Kang Chan while shouting spitefully. His long eyes looked like lines that were drawn with a thick pen.
“Cha So-Yeon,” Kang Chan called.
“Yes?”
“Stay outside.”
Trembling, Cha So-Yeon ran outside of the alley.
“Catch that bitch!”
The knife-wielding guy pounced at Kang Chan while shouting.
1. The original sentence was “it felt like Seok Kang-Ho used to be a dumb caterpillar, but he shed his ignorance and was now becoming a smart butterfly. We didn’t translate it exactly like that because that figurative description won’t match the context of this novel ☜