The Cop Is Too Strong [EN]: Chapter 38

Sitting in the dimly lit living room, illuminated only by the dining table lamp, were Shin Hae-soo and Kyung-joon’s father.

“It’s all my fault. Raising him without his mother… rationalizing it by saying ‘I trust my son’ and not paying attention… It’s all my fault.”

Kyung-joon’s father severely blamed himself, but I couldn’t offer any comfort. In cases of bullying leading to suicide attempts, the child usually asks their parents for help at least three times. Whether the parents have a close enough relationship to notice is another matter.

“…He used to have a bright personality, but thinking about it, he became drastically darker from middle school. He was always dispirited and walked around with his shoulders slumped…”

The phrase ‘thinking about it’ implied that he had never deeply considered it before, even though he had seen it. It was a result of indifference.

Hae-soo placed Lee Kyung-joon’s broken phone on the table. It had been recovered through forensics.

“This is a group chat room with Kyung-joon and his friends, or rather, the perpetrators.”

Originally, there was no group chat when the phone was first checked. The perpetrators had kicked Kyung-joon out and left, deleting the room.

Baek King: Lee Kyung-joon, come here.

Baek King: Lee Kyung-joon, get 80 [80,000 won, approximately $60 USD] by tomorrow.

Baek King: Lee Kyung-joon, crawl here.

Sung-shik: Look at this, fucking disgusting

Sung-shik: [Video]

The video showed Kyung-joon being forced to eat grasshoppers, earthworms, and frogs. Kyung-joon couldn’t hold it in and vomited, and the surrounding students looked at him with disgust.

The students who led the bullying kicked him relentlessly.

-Hey, hey, don’t hit his face, focus on his stomach or thighs, you idiot, is this your first time?

-Oh, sorry.

There were dozens of videos of him being forced to eat inedible things, being beaten, and being bullied. Kyung-joon’s father’s face became increasingly distorted as he watched the videos.

-In movies, they pull out fingernails and torture people, right? Does it really hurt that much?

-I don’t know, probably?

-Really? Kyung-joon?

-Huh, huh? I don’t… Aaaagh!!!

Kyung-joon’s face filled the screen as he clutched his finger, blood gushing out, in shock.

“Ugh, uhuk.”

Kyung-joon’s father covered his mouth with his hand, unable to control the rising emotions.

‘I got hurt playing basketball with my friends…’

His weak voice from that time seemed to echo in his ears. He should have noticed. He was filled with regret.

Kyung-joon’s father grabbed the phone with both hands, buried his face in the table, and sobbed.

“…The evidence is sufficient. I will make sure these perpetrators pay the price, thoroughly, no, excessively.”

Kyung-joon’s father didn’t say anything; he just trembled greatly.

***

Swishhhhh-

On a night with heavy rain, a middle-aged man in a black raincoat stood still in front of a red brick row house, getting soaked. The rain plastered his hair to his forehead, and water streamed down his face.

His eyes were blank and unfocused, like the eyes of a dead man.

Thud-

A tall male student in a school uniform bumped into the middle-aged man.

“Ah, fuck…”

The male student glared at him, cursed, shook off his umbrella, and went inside the building.

Swish

The middle-aged man’s unfocused eyes finally moved. He stared at the student’s back for a moment before moving his feet.

Step, step, step

The male student, Baek Jung-pil, lived on the top floor, the 4th floor. As he climbed, he kept hearing footsteps following him besides his own, he turned around. It was the middle-aged man in the raincoat from earlier.

“Mister, what is it?”

The middle-aged man stood still for a long time, then lifted his head and made eye contact with Baek Jung-pil.

“Student, apologize.”

“What? Ha, seriously, that’s ridiculous. You were blocking the way, weren’t you?”

“Apologize… to our Kyung-joon.”

“Wh-what?”

Baek Jung-pil went down a step and looked closely at the middle-aged man’s face. It was Kyung-joon’s father, whom he had seen at the police station during the assault case.

Baek Jung-pil gave a bitter smile.

“Ha, what if I don’t want to? What are you going to do? How did you find out where I live?”

“You… deserve to die.”

“What?”

Stab-

Kyung-joon’s father took out a knife from his coat and stabbed Baek Jung-pil in the stomach.

“Uh, uh…?”

Baek Jung-pil looked down at his stomach, feeling a stinging sensation, and his eyes widened when he saw the knife stuck in him.

“Uh, ah, fuck, fuck.”

Stab, stab, stab!

“Die, die, die!!”

Kyung-joon’s father, filled with rage, stabbed Baek Jung-pil’s stomach repeatedly.

Jung-pil twisted his body and grabbed the knife in his side.

“Ah, eugh, ah, fuck, fu…”

Thump, thump-

Jung-pil tried to run away, but his body wouldn’t move, and he fell down the stairs.

Kyung-joon’s father didn’t care that his thumb was cut by the knife and was dangling, and went down the stairs with murderous eyes.

Step, step, step

“Ah, mister, save, save me. I, I was wro-wrong…”

Jung-pil, instead of trying to contain his protruding intestines, put his blood-red hands together and begged Kyung-joon’s father. But the murderous intent in the father’s eyes did not disappear.

“Ah, please save me…”

Jung-pil crawled down the stairs with his hands, driven by his survival instinct.

But he was soon caught by Kyung-joon’s father, who was slowly coming down.

“I’ll follow you… to hell.”

“Sh…it-”

Stab!

Kyung-joon’s father’s knife pierced Jung-pil’s neck. Jung-pil stuck out his tongue, trembled, and then slumped.

“Ha, ha…”

Kyung-joon’s father sat down on Jung-pil’s corpse. Tears welled up in his empty eyes. His hand, holding the knife upside down, trembled madly.

“Kyung-joon… I’m sorry, Dad is sorry.”

Stab-!

The knife, stabbed with all his might, pierced Kyung-joon’s father’s neck in one go.

He thought it would hurt a lot, but there was no such feeling at all. It was as if he had been anesthetized, and he only felt something entering his neck.

He was just surprised that his eyes could still see. Even that was gradually blurring, and darkness slowly filled the world.

“…Father, Kyung-joon’s father!”

A voice that he would never hear now was heard, and he fell into a pitch-black world.

.

.

.

-Thud

“Ah, fuck…”

The tall male student, Baek Jung-pil, glared at him, cursed, and went inside the building.

Kyung-joon’s father opened his eyes wide as if they would pop out and stroked his neck. There was no blood on his hands. The heavy knife in his coat clearly showed its presence, and the back in front of him was definitely Baek Jung-pil.

His surprised eyes were only for a moment, and Kyung-joon’s father’s eyes soon turned cold, and he entered the building. Just before going up the stairs…

Thud-

He frowned and turned around at the tremendous grip on his arm.

“Father.”

It was the detective, Shin Hae-soo, who was in charge of Kyung-joon’s case. Kyung-joon’s father’s eyes shook madly as if there was an earthquake.

What if they search my body now? What if they ask how I knew Baek Jung-pil’s house? I have to kill Baek Jung-pil?

Then, the detective looked at him with a subtle look, as if overlooking all of that, and opened his mouth.

“Father, Kyung-joon has woken up.”

“…Yes?”

“You should be next to Kyung-joon.”

Thud.

Kyung-joon’s father knelt down on the floor on both knees.

As the detective said, he had to be next to Kyung-joon no matter what if Kyung-joon woke up. But, Kyung-joon didn’t give up, but he was trying to give up on life.

He raised his trembling hands and looked at them. There was no blood on them. It was very vivid, but he was confused about what happened, but he was just relieved that this moment was real.

He grabbed Hae-soo’s pants and bowed his head.

“I’m sorry, detective. Thank you, detective…”

Water, whether it was rain or tears, dripped onto the floor.

*

Daesung Hospital.

Kyung-joon’s father forgot that he had a knife in his coat and ran to the hospital room.

“Kyung-joon, Kyung-joon!”

“D…ad…”

The father ran to Kyung-joon, spread out his hands, stopped, and grabbed Kyung-joon’s hand tightly.

“Kyung-joon, my son, son, I’m sorry, Dad is sorry, I’m really sorry. Dad… committed a sin worthy of death, Dad…”

Kyung-joon lay still, only slightly turning his head to look at his father. He frowned and struggled to move his other hand to put it on top of his father’s hand.

“I’m sorry… Dad.”

“No, no, our son didn’t do anything wrong, not at all. No, it’s all your useless Dad’s fault.”

Kyung-joon’s father’s shoulders did not stop trembling. Kyung-joon was also lying on the bed, shedding tears.

In the moment of touching reunion, Hae-soo’s dry voice separated the two.

“Now there are many things to do. Kyung-joon, do you remember what I said?”

Kyung-joon nodded slightly.

“Okay, now we’re going to break them down one by one, and I need Kyung-joon’s help. It will be difficult, but to make things even more difficult for them, tell me in detail who was bullied where and how.”

Kyung-joon made eye contact with his father, and when his father nodded, he made eye contact with Hae-soo again.

“It was in the first grade of middle school, at the entrance ceremony…”

Kyung-joon had been suffering from terrible bullying for over a year. As Kyung-joon spoke in a calm voice, his father felt like his heart was breaking.

After listening to all the stories for several hours, carefully matching them with videos and conversations, Hae-soo got up and said.

“Now we have to wait.”

“…Yes? Wait?”

“For an even bigger punishment.”

***

Youngsoo Middle School, 2nd grade, class 3.

A month had passed since Lee Kyung-joon attempted suicide. But there was no investigation, the police didn’t even show their faces, and Baek Jung-pil, who had been cautious, was now even more emboldened and acted even more violently.

“Giddy up! Giddy up! Why are you so slow? Is it because you’re a pig?”

Baek Jung-pil was riding on top of a fat student and hitting his butt. The other students were awkwardly laughing at the sight, and the fat student made pig noises every time he was hit.

Baek Jung-pil suddenly frowned, got off, and kicked the fat student.

Thwack!

“Oink!”

“Ah, fuck, this is so boring. Lee Kyung-joon was fun to bully, he even showed a glimmer of resistance. Is there no one like that… Ddong-shik [derogatory term for ‘shit eater,’ a common insult], cigarette.”

“Yessir!”

Baek Jung-pil put the cigarette that his lackey gave him in his mouth and sat on the window.

At that time, the classroom door opened roughly.

Bang!

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you…”

Shin Hae-soo came in singing, with candles lit on a birthday cake. The pitch was constant, and the voice was very dry.

Jung-pil quickly threw the cigarette out the window and frowned at Hae-soo.

Hae-soo fixed his gaze on Jung-pil from the beginning and approached him. Then he stopped in front of Jung-pil and looked him straight in the eye.

“Happy birthday, you shitty Baek Jung-pil.”

He held out the cake to Baek Jung-pil. It was a gesture to blow out the candles.

“What is this? Who are you?”

Hae-soo frowned and blew out the candles himself.

“Happy birthday. Teenager.”

Thwack!

Hae-soo slammed the cake he was holding into Baek Jung-pil’s face.

“What the fuck!!”

Baek Jung-pil brushed off the cake and swung his fist at Hae-soo.

Pow!

His fist landed squarely on Hae-soo’s face.

< #38. Happy birthday. Teenager. > End