Instruments

EP4

"Brother, thank you so much, you're not hurt, are you?"

"Where did you meet a guy like that?"

"He asked for my number on the street when I was in high school, he seemed like a nice guy."

"We dated for about 100 days after we became adults, he was so clingy and sold me on the idea of being in a relationship with me, so I said no and broke up with him."

"What a perverted bastard."

My heart ached.

To make such an offer to a 20 year old girl, a girl who lives for the light. I felt misanthropic again.

Deeply, deeply.

"But I'm sorry. Dahae, let me know if you have any problems, and did you see me knock that bastard out earlier?"

"Thanks."

I'm sure I'll get some flak from the café owner, but it's been a great experience.

The sport has given me confidence and a belligerent personality, and this feeling of being able to defend someone is so refreshing.

The pleasure and self-esteem you get from crushing someone is quite an accomplishment for me.

When I returned to the café, the boss and another part-time student were busy taking orders and making drinks.

I leaned over and said hello to the boss, but he responded with a glare.

A look of understanding,

that a few revisions to a rant on the internet and a morning's worth of uproar wouldn't change the customers who loved us.

Sometimes a single glance and nod sends a bigger message than a lot of words and gestures.

Because that's the kind of man he is,

A man who cries when you're sick, smiles when you're happy, and heals when you're injured.

He hates freebies, has a full head of hair and a fiery temper, has been divorced once, but he's cool and straightforward.

So he hired me.

After the morning hustle and bustle, I step into the kickboxing room, which is now filled with the sound of punching bags.

In my mind, I thought, if I could have squeezed that bastard for two more minutes, he'd be out of this world.

I say to Hwang Chul-woo.

"Thank you so much."

"Why all of a sudden, is something wrong?"

"You've been saying strange things since you arrived. Do you need to borrow money?"

"What would I be without you?"

"Well. I'd be a guest. You know, when you're down in the dumps, you need someone to hold your hand."

"I'm too heavy to pull myself up and I'm falling down."

"Thanks to you, I've found my motivation in life, something other than a bigger body, a better looking face, and wads of cash."

"I thought that was your original motivation."

"That's what dreams are for, look at me, it's a competition with no money, but you go and get beaten up and challenge yourself."

"Jung Min, life is a short time to do what you love, you know?"

Hwang Chul-woo A grateful man. I've been homeless since I was over 20.

I hadn't had a part-time job since I was a teenager, so I could afford at least a room in Seoul, but I had lost my motivation.

All the thoughts of prolonging my life by living in a cramped one-room apartment without any purpose or meaning were painful.

I can't do anything with the scars on my wrists and the traumas in my head.

Retreat, retreat, retreat. No one is looking for me, and I don't care if I die here and now.

Somewhere in Seoul, near Topgol Park.

I lived like that for months, on a futon made of newspaper under a subway station.

I used churches and soup kitchens for food, and I was willing to give up my seat to the occasional homeless person who tried to steal it. One day, a tight-knit family walked in front of me.

A husband, wife, and their little girl, who was walking along, holding her hand sleepily, were heading to an amusement park.

I couldn't help but burst into tears as I watched the little girl jump up and down with excitement. I was crying so hard and so passionately that I could hear the words, What is my sin, what is your blessing.

I threw my bottle of soju at them and spent the night in jail.

Fortunately, given my circumstances and clean criminal record, the charges were suspended, but it was unfair.

Some people are blessed, praised, and celebrated for their birth, but I was mocked, despised, and ultimately discarded for my birth.

After leaving the police station, I couldn't hold back my tears and sat on the pavement, sobbing uncontrollably.

The feeling of helplessness and defeat, of being unable to do anything about it, was infuriating and agonising.

After what must have been two hours of this, I was sitting in the middle of the road with a blank look on my face when someone said to me.

"Hey, mate, have you eaten?"

I was about to kill him with the shattered remains of a bottle of soju on the ground if he tried to argue with me.

I had nothing to lose and no purpose anymore.

"Friend, people won't pity you if you're prostrate like that. If you're going to beg, do it right."

He was a big man, about six feet tall, with short yellow hair. Scratchy hair and tight-fitting sleeveless shirt and shorts. I said.

"I haven't eaten in two days."

That was our first meeting. From then on, I stayed at his gym, working out and creating goals and motivation in my life.

Chul Woo-hyung had many athletic acquaintances around him, and he made sure to introduce me to them.

And naturally, I got to know dealers of steroids and other drugs.

I didn't have much resistance to such drugs because I had experienced self-harm and suicide attempts and inhalation of bonds in my childhood. Then I met Jung Myung-heon.