FBF chapter 18 part 1

“Hey. Who was that earlier? Jung? Jeong In-young? Whatever, that friend isn’t coming to the graduation ceremony even though he’s getting an award, isn’t that a bit ridiculous? If it were me, I’d rush over in just my underwear.”

Throughout the graduation ceremony, Kang Young-soo, who had been buzzing around on the second floor with a camera, said this as soon as he saw us. He used to brag about getting perfect attendance awards, but it seems he was actually envious of receiving an award in front of everyone on graduation day. According to information that Ahn Hee-yeon, who attends the same school as Kang Young-soo, subtly passed on after going to the teacher’s office, it turns out that Kang Young-soo was also scheduled to receive an award. If I revealed that information now, I wouldn’t get to see the face of that guy drop to the ground at the ceremony tomorrow, so I kept my mouth shut. Ji Seon-uk, who has a bit of a weakness for Kang Young-soo, pretended to ask him to hold the heavy award he had just received. Instead of looking tired, Kang Young-soo seemed to genuinely enjoy holding the heavy trophy.

“Where did Grandpa and Ji-hoon’s uncle go?”

“They went to get the car parked in advance. If we don’t do it now, it’ll be crazy congested,” he said. “Well, he’s right. Just look at all those cars in the playground.”

“Ah, I need to hurry up and eat jjajangmyeon so I can study….”

“Whenever I look, it seems like you never say that when you’re playing with your friends, but the moment your mom says to go somewhere, you act like this.”

“Is that the same thing?”

“Mom, Mom. Young-eun and I are still fighting at home, so take our picture. Hurry before we get caught in the crowd. Make sure the background shows their whole school, and make our legs look long too.”

It wasn’t even my graduation ceremony, yet as soon as I showed up in the morning, Young-eun, whose cheeks were puffed up, was bickering with her aunt. Kang Young-soo awkwardly held out a camera he had forced himself to grab. “Is this how you operate it?” he asked repeatedly, as if he wasn’t familiar with the camera. Eventually, Young-eun, despite her irritation, sighed and took the camera from him.

“Because of the bouquet, I can’t see Ji-hoon oppa’s face well! Lower it a bit!”

As Young-eun pressed her face close to the camera and moved her hands around, asking for adjustments, Kang Young-soo threw the bouquet I had been holding down from above. That jerk… I wanted to grab the remaining bouquet in my hand like a weapon, but I changed my mind and stood straight. I reached out and tugged at Kang Young-soo’s hair from behind while looking toward Young-eun.

“Young-eun! Now!”

As he yelled, Kang Young-soo twisted his body in pain, and the flash burst.

“Fk you! I just styled my hair!”

After pushing away Kang Young-soo, who was running toward me, I ended up being caught by Ji Seon-uk standing by my side.

“Are you guys seven years old? Is it this hard to take one picture? Stand straight.”

The one who seemed fed up, hiding Kang Young-soo behind his back, picked up the bouquet that had fallen to the ground while we were creating chaos. Watching him hold out three bouquets, taking this in stride as if it were a given, I replaced them with the ones I had originally been holding. Now the only three bouquets left in Ji Seon-uk’s grasp were: one from Dad, one from his aunt, and one from his grandfather.

“Hey, you guys, just hold one bouquet each when taking the picture. You’re hiding your handsome faces.”

His aunt, who had been watching us from the side, suggested. I let go of the bouquet I was tightly hugging. Looking over, I saw Ji Seon-uk doing the same. When I saw him pick one blue bouquet from his arms, I thought how lucky I was. Although it was from Dad, I picked it after all.

Ji Seon-uk, in an attempt to prevent Kang Young-soo from making any sudden moves, positioned him between us. Once he realized he was in the center spot, he seemed genuinely happy, shifting from side to side and glancing back and forth at us. Anyone would think it was his graduation ceremony. As he smiled brightly with his eyes closed, he pulled me and Ji Seon-uk’s waists closer to him and pretended to lean forward playfully.

“Piggy, our pose looks great now, hurry, hurry!”

“Okay, I got it!”

Even as Young-eun frowned, she brought the viewfinder closer to her eyes to focus. The aunt standing next to her raised her fingers to count down for the photo, smiling. I saw one of her three fingers fold down.

Okay, one—

“Guys, I love you!”

Kang Young-soo shouted this at the top of his lungs, and my head automatically turned. Love? Ji Seon-uk, who was looking at the back of Kang Young-soo’s head, seemed to feel something strange at the same point and was staring at him with a peculiar expression.

Two—

Looking ahead, I reached out my hand. When I placed my arm around Ji Seon-uk’s left shoulder, our eyes met easily. I mouthed the words, “Smile.” He managed a smile in response, albeit a beat late, looking somewhat incredulous.

I turned my head forward. Whether the other guy beside me continued to laugh or not, I’d find out when I looked at the photo anyway.

Three—

Beneath the cloudless blue winter sky, the flash resembling sunlight erupted. At the moment the picture was taken, I squeezed Ji Seon-uk’s shoulder a bit tighter. I beamed brightly as if to reminisce about this moment in the future.

* * *

Not knowing the answer is not the problem.

“Can’t you hear my words?”

The bigger problem arises when you know the answer yet can’t act on it. Even now, I tried not to look at the guy who was sprawled on the ground, holding my head high as if evading the reality. The sound of him trying to shove away the fallen guy stopped abruptly. B got back up.

“You need to answer, right?”

He was grinning, but the look in his eyes told me this was a time I couldn’t afford not to respond.

“I was thinking about how to say it. I apologize.”

I didn’t need to look around to know everyone was focused on my answer. The field, filled with more than sixty people, was eerily quiet. It was because I hadn’t been given permission to speak.

After not long since entering this place, everyone learned this rule through experience. Here, we had no right to voice our opinions. There was only obedience and defiance.

“So what’s your conclusion?”

“……”

“You’re not pretending you didn’t hear me.”

Even in February, 5 AM is still cold. The new recruits, who couldn’t sleep for more than five hours due to the training the night before and were only wearing gym clothes, often couldn’t bear it and collapsed. B, who was in charge today, was a guy who wouldn’t cut any slack. His target today was a particularly weak classmate among us. As B approached the guy who had been squatting down yawning, a chill ran through the group, where we had been standing in silence.

Everyone knew what kind of guy B was. That’s why they referred to him with an alphabet without any identifiable features, rather than a specific nickname. If they were caught using a specific nick, it would be disastrous.

“Ii Ji-hoon.”

I felt a grip on the back of my neck. B’s face came close. He casually scanned my features, which were well-structured without any flaws and had been smooth all week, like he was casually inspecting me while leaning back crossing his arms. Bang! Suddenly, I received a kick to my shin. While I could endure one hit, getting kicked repeatedly at the same spot like a soccer ball was unbearable, making me wince in pain. Only when I heard the groan that escaped between my gritted teeth did B finally stop.

“Right. This is how you should be kicked until you can’t scream anymore. Do you need a demonstration to understand?”

The smile on B’s face said he was eagerly waiting for this. This was ‘breaking in.’

It stood out that the classmate in front of me had remarkably poor stamina, and it was precisely because of that, he chose me—another same-classmate—as the target for punishment. Being remembered by my name in this place, where “hey” is used to address juniors, was tantamount to being marked. If I wanted to redeem myself now, I should just do as told. If I got caught bludgeoning juniors outside, I’d be labeled as a troublemaker and face dire consequences as punishment, so it meant to go along with those annoying kids and role along.

I looked down. A pale face met my eyes, and as our eyeglasses locked, the classmate nodded and straightened his legs to reveal his shins. His expression looked exhausted, as if he’d gotten used to the nonsensical violence and preferred this over any confrontation against me. Something stirred within me. “Hold on,” I thought, and before the rational voice in me could block my decision, my mouth opened.

“…I’ll do it instead.”

“What?”

“If it’s alright, I’d like to take over the push-ups for Kang Hyun-soo.”

“Who said that?”

“I heard Kang Hyun-soo was in the emergency room this morning due to a high fever.”

“……”

“With the heart of a comrade who always shares tough times, I’ll take up the burden of Kang Hyun-soo’s share.”

It had not been long since I joined, and I often found myself in situations where I couldn’t meet my own standards. I frequently found myself drawn into absurd actions of seniors. Sometimes, I felt like hitting myself—surely those around me wouldn’t be unaffected by it. Despite knowing this, I kept repeating the same mistakes, not because I didn’t know the answer, but for the reason that I couldn’t comply with it.

B was silent in response to my answer that was neither obedient nor defiant. His upper lip twitched slightly at first before broke into a hollow laugh. A long silence followed this short chuckle. B looked down again and then snapped his neck back and forth.

“Everyone can leave. Except for Lee Ji-hoon.”

That was also a command I couldn’t defy. …Yes! The classmates who had been watching exchanged glances, and dutifully dashed for their dorms. I mouthed words to the last kid lingering behind, “Go on, hurry.” Once Kang Hyun-soo, who had tears in his eyes, limped away, only the two of us remained in the field. B turned around to me once he confirmed the last one had disappeared into the dormitory.

“Alright. So let’s see how you handle this.”

“……”

“Get down.”

I lay down on the floor, immediately taking a push-up position. I stiffened my legs to hide the throbbing pain in my shins. Though this too would eventually collapse, I couldn’t afford to show any weakness from the start.

“Is Kang Hyun-soo your only classmate?”

“No!”

“See? Then you should evenly share the burden amongst everyone.”

“……”

“From now on, I’m counting to a thousand. The moment your form breaks, you start again from one.”

In response, I bent my elbows instead of answering. To be honest, I had known this would happen since the moment my name was called. This was just another of the things I knew the answer to but still couldn’t do.

I had received my share of motivation during workouts repetitively. But that time, I had endured it for the sake of baseball. As I bent my arms dozens of times, I stared at B’s sturdy slippers standing firm without shaking.

I came to a place to look up at the sky but now I was only staring at the ground. I wondered what goal I was putting up with this for.

Before the entrance ceremony, my classmates had assured me that if I could just endure the few weeks of hardship, I wouldn’t have to worry afterward. They initially made jokes that leaned on the military lifestyle to scare the incoming freshers, saying something outlandish or unbelievable.

That notion might have held some value for someone, but it didn’t hold for me. Even after entering, I found myself with another B, a new C, and an irritating D waiting for me. The B, who had forced me into joining a club he led, continued to summon me with increasingly intricate methods and harassed me in all sorts of ways. There were about three or four new recruits in that group alongside me, and the only commonality between us was that we hadn’t followed B’s orders too obediently. The club room, filled with exercise equipment, was practically a torture chamber that tested who could endure the most punishment. Nestled in a room without even a clock or security cameras, I endured senseless beatings at ridiculous excuses until any energy to think drained out. Each blink felt like losing IQ points.

Whenever I finally managed to escape back to my room, I’d flop down on the bed without washing up. Weeks passed with only me left as the remaining junior in that torture chamber. The classmates who had fled realized and learned they could never escape B while attending this academy. “Leaving the academy” was thrown around as a euphemism for being expelled without permission.

It might have seemed logical to think that the string of exits was tied to B’s behavior, but he evaded scrutiny as a notable figure in the school. Only those who had witnessed it knew better. No one could miss a face that would be unrecognizable, with daily updates looking worse than signs of conditioning. A classmate who felt sorry for me visited my room in the early hours, explaining how B’s father was a notable veteran, a major from the academy, saying I should at least put on an act. Even so, I responded that hunting me down while letting everyone else off the hook meant that I had refused to bow down.

The irony made me laugh. Everyone knew B was messing with me, but no one knew the precise reason why. I smiled and said, “To lie down more flat than this, I’d have to crawl.”

In the torture chamber, I never resisted the orders from B and the seniors. When told to say I got injured in practice if anyone asked why my face was covered with bruises, I did exactly that. As soon as classes ended, when told to bow my head into the ground, I did. Sometimes, it would reach a point where nobody would show up until nightfall, as if they forgot I existed. However, until the sky finally darkened, I waited without lifting my head off the floor. They would eventually come to hit me, and if I wasn’t like that when they came, it would only worsen my situation.

Even having done this, the treatment masquerading as ‘training’ never ceased. So, I couldn’t be unaware. It wasn’t my behavior they disdained but my very existence. Regrettably, it’s something that can’t be tamed through violence. The only way to prove to them they couldn’t change me was to endure it all.

Eventually, B was the first to crack. It seemed that because of the deserted club room, he could no longer hit me under the pretense of protecting someone. The guy who had been tacitly enduring two hours of silent beatings finally gripped my shoulder and pulled me up, his expression sour.

“This stubborn bastard… are you tough, or just plain dumb?”

Because I had been properly hit near my temple yesterday, one of my eyes was swollen and barely opened. Blinking let me catch only half of B’s form, and thinking that was somewhat fortunate, I found myself unable to respond. Only groans of pain slipped out. I realized this noise came from my newly swollen lips just when my shoulder was roughly pushed back. B, casting another glare, disappeared with his remaining classmates.

“…Ugh….”

I waited for the door to close before letting out the held breath and easing my nerves. With my thighs buckled beneath me, I collapsed onto the floor. Pretending to mimic a judo club, they had laid thick mats down. Even on cushy ground, I couldn’t fully lie back and instead curled up on my side. This position was the best I could do in enduring the swelling and throbbing pain throughout my body. Exhaling comfortably, I habitually wiped at my wet nostrils. I realized that I had started bleeding from my nose several times in this place, an occurrence I hadn’t experienced in my life.

Every time it happened, I was reminded of the one guy I know who frequently bled from his nose.

“Wook? He seems to be doing well. Haven’t you seen the stuff that’s happening in his timeline, like the old mini-homepage stuff? He’s probably in there living like a caveman. If I could just get a visit, I’d fill him in on everything from one to ten. I’d give him the Young-soo status report instead of the entertainment news.”

I closed my good right eye while recapping the information I’d learned from my phone call with Kang Young-soo. The hopeless truth that it was only me suffering became a source of comfort when I thought about Ji Seon-uk’s well-being. At least I could tell on the phone with Young-soo that he wasn’t in any trouble, whereas Ji Seon-uk wouldn’t let me guess at all through his voice. He wouldn’t take the initiative to mention anything even if something was wrong.

Though it wasn’t evident here, I worried about how there could still be discipline in this school.

Alright then. That’s good. If he can make it without incident.

No discipline, no getting beaten…

As long as everything was okay. I was thankful he wasn’t hurting.

After making my face a mess, would I at least get some time to recover? The invisible forces persistently wore me down in hidden locations. My thighs throbbed with pain, each step threatening to make my flesh peel away. I imagined gathering untouched evidence of Kang Young-soo’s shock, still unable to speak properly when I promised not to tell Dad or Ji Seon-uk. Even as I shoved cold chicken into my mouth and chugged sweet rice drink, he seemed to have been genuinely affected.

…So why did he keep showing up even when I told him not to?

My already steady feelings took a downturn, proving troublesome to revitalize. Putting on a forced expression, I ascended the stairs. Today was also a weekend, and the first Sunday after the new recruits were told to leave for a meet up, so it seemed B wasn’t coming for me today. I figured it’d be nice to just get through tonight. I no longer even remembered when I last had a proper sleep. The moment I opened the door intending to throw myself on the bed, I paused. A classmate sharing the room stood in the middle. He was biting his nails and anxiously pacing around the small room. Upon noticing me, his face brightened immediately.

“…Yo! You’re here! I was just about to go look for you… so about that thing.”

He wasn’t someone who would welcome me just because I entered the room, and given his troubled face selecting his words, I ran my eyes around the room. Specifically, towards my bed, my closet, my desk. Unlike the neat belongings of the classmate across from me, everything was chaotic. It was as if someone had completely overturned it.

Despite my limp, I quickly moved. I swept my gaze over the bed, the desk, and all that was all over the place. If it had been a thief, it could hardly have been messier, yet my wallet and phone were still in their rightful places. I kept opening drawers to inspect for anything that might’ve fallen to the floor.

The most desperately sought items were nowhere to be found. The only photo I had, the one that lent me strength to hold on during my stay here, now vanished.

I turned my back on the disheveled desk. Without even knowing what expression was on my face, I addressed the only guy who knew what had happened here.

“…Did B come by?”

“Ji-hoon, that…”

“Did that jerk touch my stuff?”

At a loss for words, he hesitated before continuing, “They said they were conducting a possessions check…”

Overwhelmed by an intense sensation that turned my head foggy, I shut my eyes and opened them again, somehow walking down the hallway. Every step that had once brought torment now faded from my perception. It felt as if the anger swelling in my head had numbed my sense of pain altogether.

Now that I thought of it, it was dinner time. I spotted B not far from the entrance to the cafeteria. He was surrounded by classmates, laughing and chatting. That table wasn’t one where fresh recruits would dare to sit.

“Hey. Lee Ji-hoon, where are you….”

A girl carrying a meal tray caught sight of me just as she turned around and felt an unusual tension before suddenly pulling me back. But I twisted free from her grip. With every step I took, I felt eyes sticking to me from all sides. I stopped in my tracks in front of one table.

“Give it back.”

B paused momentarily, folding his arms and leaning back.

“What?”

A look of intrigue crossed B’s face, as if he had anticipated that I would snap. That photograph, one still standing out amidst my otherwise normal belongings, was the sole means to shake me up no matter how many times I got beaten, contrasting sharply the empty, dull expression he wore moments ago in the torture chamber.