16. Chapter Sixteen
Ryowoon
My lungs are on fire.
I tear down the hill so fast my feet barely touch the ground, dodging between Mrs. Yoo’s laundry poles, vaulting a stack of crates outside the fish shop, ignoring the old man on the corner who shouts about where’s the fire. Don’t care. Can’t stop.
One hour. I left him alone for one hour.
Mom needed help carrying groceries up from the market, and I went because she asked, because she looked tired and her arms were full and I’m not the kind of son who says no to that even when every instinct in me says don’t leave Seyeon by himself today.
I had a feeling. A bad one, sitting low in my gut since morning when I spotted Deukho and his crew hanging around the harbor wall before school, shooting looks in our direction during assembly.
I should’ve listened to that feeling. Should’ve told my mom I’d come back for the damn groceries later.
We’d just reached the main street, my mom handing me the last bag, when Jinwon came flying around the corner looking like he’d swallowed his own tongue. Bent over, hands on his knees, gasping so hard I thought he was going to puke on my shoes.
His sister, Jinwon wheezed between gulps of air. Saw Deukho. His friends. They’ve got Seyeon. Down by the harbor.
I didn’t hear the rest. My feet were already moving, the grocery bag hitting the pavement behind me, my mom’s voice calling my name fading as I rounded the first corner and ran.
Deukho. That punk. He’s been circling Seyeon since the start of the school year, this kid who’s built like he got held back twice and eats rocks for breakfast. Too much of a coward to try anything when I’m standing next to Seyeon, of course.
He’s smart enough to know I’ll knock him on his butt.
But naturally, naturally, the second I’m not there.
The harbor opens up and I spot them. Deukho and four of his buddies, they’ve got Seyeon backed up against the wall by the old ice house.
One of them has a fistful of Seyeon’s shirt collar, yanking it, stretching the fabric.
Another one’s tugging at the hem, laughing.
I can hear Deukho’s voice from here, a nasally whine that makes me want to grind his face into the concrete.
“Look at this, look at this stitching, you see that? His mommy sewed this herself. Everyone knows the Parks give your family their garbage, beggar boy. What, she can’t even afford to buy you real clothes?”
My blood boils. So hot my vision sharpens and the world shrinks down to just them, that wall, and Seyeon pinned against it.
But Seyeon. I slow for half a second because despite the five boys crowding him and the hand twisted in his collar, Seyeon’s not crying. He’s not cowering. His fists are balled up at his sides and his face is flushed dark and he’s yelling back at them.
“Let go of me, you rock-brained idiots! You think I care what you say? At least my mom didn’t drop me on my head as a baby, Deukho, that’s the only explanation for how stupid you are!”
A fierce pride swells in my chest. That’s my boy. That’s Seyeon, skinny and outnumbered and running his mouth. It almost makes me smile.
Then Deukho hits him.
An open palm right across the side of Seyeon’s face. It cracks through the air and Seyeon’s head snaps sideways and before he can recover they’re on him, all of them converging, shoving him down, and I see a sneaker connect with Seyeon’s ribs as he curls on the ground and something inside me snaps.
I don’t remember closing the distance. One second I’m twenty feet away and the next I’m airborne, launching myself into the middle of the group with my fists already swinging.
I catch the first one in the ear and he yelps, stumbling sideways.
The second one I grab by the shirt and yank toward me, bringing my forehead into his nose.
Pain spikes across my skull but his nose makes a satisfying crunch and he howls, hands flying to his face.
I don’t fight fair. Never have, never saw the point.
When you’re small and your opponents are bigger, fair is just a word people use to make losing feel noble.
I kick, I punch, I grab the wrist of the third kid who tries to grab me from behind and sink my teeth into it until he screams and rips himself free.
Seyeon uses the chaos to scramble up off the ground, and then he’s in it too, jumping onto the back of one of the bigger boys and whaling on the top of his head with both fists, hanging on like a furious monkey while the kid spins trying to shake him.
Two of them are on the ground now. I’ve got one in a headlock, squeezing until he gurgles, and I spin to drive my fist into the stomach of the fourth one rushing me.
He folds, wheezing. Over his hunched back I see Deukho lunge for Seyeon and I let go of everything, cross the space in two strides and tackle him full force.
We go down together and I land on top. His head bounces off the packed dirt and I nail him with my knuckles square on the jaw.
His face twists sideways and I hit him again, knuckles cracking against the side of his skull.
“Take that, you pig-nosed jerk!”
Two of his friends grab my arms and haul me off him before I can land a third.
I thrash, kicking, but one of them has me around the chest from behind and the other is cocking back a fist. Seyeon slams into the one in front of me like a battering ram, all bony elbows and fury, and the kid goes sprawling.
I stomp on the foot of the one holding me, twist free when his grip slips, and drive my elbow back into his ribs.
I’m breathing hard, my knuckles throbbing, my lip split and leaking blood down my chin.
I look around. Five of them, two of us. Two of them are still on the ground.
Deukho’s sits up, holding his jaw, glaring murder at me.
The other two are regrouping, panting, and I can see them deciding if they want another round.
I grab Seyeon by the collar and shove him forward.
“Seyeon, run.”
We bolt. Behind us I hear them scrambling, cursing, shoes slapping dirt as they give chase.
But Seyeon and I know these streets the way we know each other’s faces.
We cut left through the gap between the ice house and the old boat shed, vault the low stone wall behind Mrs. Choi’s yard, land in the alley on the other side and keep going.
I can hear them falling behind already, too big to squeeze through the gaps we slip through, too slow on the corners.
Seyeon ducks under a clothesline and I follow, we cut through someone’s garden, scale the fence at the back and drop into the next street over.
I look back over my shoulder. Nothing. No one behind us. The sound of their shouting has faded to a distant echo somewhere a few streets back.
I look forward and Seyeon’s looking back at me.
One side of his face is swelling up, angry red where Deukho hit him, the skin beneath his eye already purpling.
His shirt collar is stretched and torn where they grabbed it.
There’s dirt in his hair and a scrape on his chin and his knees are scuffed bloody.
And he’s grinning. A wild, bright, reckless grin that splits his busted face, his eyes shining with adrenaline and defiance, Letting out a laugh that’s breathless and giddy and contagious.
I laugh too. Can’t help it. My split lip stings as it stretches but I don’t care.
My ribs are twinging where someone kicked me and my knuckles are cracked open and bleeding and I’m pretty sure I bit my own tongue at some point because the inside of my mouth tastes like pennies, and none of it matters.
I shove his shoulder, pushing him to move faster even though we’ve lost them, and he stumbles forward still laughing, catching himself and picking up speed as we round the next corner.
The wind hits our faces and the sun’s warm on the backs of our necks and I can hear both of us gasping and cackling like maniacs as we run.
My heart is pounding from this feeling in my chest. This ferocious, burning feeling that floods through me every time I put myself between Seyeon and anything trying to hurt him.
I’d do it again. I’d bust my hands bloody a thousand times over, break every bone I’ve got if it meant keeping him safe, keeping that grin on his face.
I push him again, lighter this time, and Seyeon looks back at me one more time with that bruised, beaming face, and I think there is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for you, Heo Seyeon. Nothing.
In the years that follow I think it over and over.
Every time I drag myself up that hill with my ribs throbbing and my eye puffed shut and my head buzzing with static hum that never quite goes away, I round the corner to the crossroads and there he is.
Standing on the curb with his hands in his pockets or crouched down poking at a beetle or leaning against the wall reading a book he found in the Parks’ garbage.
He sees me coming and his smile is like a beam of light cutting through the fog I walked out of, and it’s like someone peels a grey film off a window.
Colors come back. Sound comes back. The ache in my side dulls.
The hours I spend running the streets beside him undo everything. Bruises stop throbbing. The cuts on my knees scab over and I forget they’re there. The noise in my head quiets when Seyeon is talking. And Seyeon is always talking.
Then night comes and I go home and it starts again.
I lie in my bed with the covers pulled over my head, knees tucked to my chest, and listen to my mother scream.
The walls in our house are thin. Paper and plaster, nothing more.
I can hear everything from my room. The heavy shuffle of my father’s feet as he moves through the living room, the clink of a bottle being set down, the low rumble of his voice building.
It always starts with a low grumble. A complaint.
Something about dinner, about money, about the way my mother looked at him or didn’t look at him or breathed too loud.