Siblings Work in Business (96)
“Those damn beggars!”
I thought he would slap me again, but Jo Kwang-soo kicked my desk and said,
“Hey, if you don’t want to die, meet me at the recycling bins after school.”
“Why should I?”
“Just shut up and do as I say, you beggar.”
Jo Kwang-soo grabbed my collar, then let go.
‘Ugh.’
As usual, he hit me on the back of the head as he left.
I wasn’t planning on going.
“Hey, bring his little shit of a sister after school.”
If it weren’t for those words…
I turned around in surprise.
Jo Kwang-soo, smirking, was looking at me, as if he had said it on purpose for me to hear.
‘Damn it.’
He found my weakness.
At that point, I still didn’t know he was angry because of what Eun-ji did.
I just thought, ‘It was bound to happen eventually.’
After school, I ran to the first-year classrooms. Was I too late?
The first-year classes had already ended, and the classroom was empty.
I was wondering if I should go to the recycling area when…
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh, hello, teacher.”
“Why are the third-years always coming to the first-year classrooms today? What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Lee Eun-ji. The tall girl in this class. I’m her older brother.”
“Oh? You’re Eun-ji’s brother?”
“Yes. Do you know when her class ended?”
“A while ago. Come to think of it, Eun-ji ran off right after class, saying her brother called for her.”
“Thank you.”
I immediately turned around and ran.
Those guys weren’t even adults; they were all about Eun-ji’s size.
‘It will just tickle…’
Well, it would hurt more than a tickle, but I was confident I could take them.
At least, it wouldn’t hurt as much as when Eun-ji hit me.
After the kidnapping incident, Eun-ji learned how to fight, from childhood, from dangerous people, searching for experts and challenging them like breaking boards in a dojo.
Perhaps because they were practical fighting techniques…
They weren’t as fancy or honorable as the martial arts you learned in gym class.
Running with a brick while being chased, and then suddenly stopping and shoving the brick forward, aiming for the eyes during a fight… All sorts of dirty tricks.
Eun-ji had thrown sand in my eyes countless times.
For 10 years, I had been her test subject.
I didn’t want to learn such things, but thanks to her, or because of her…
I learned how to defend myself.
I never fought back against these annoying bullies because someone always gets hurt in a fight.
‘I don’t want to cause trouble for the teachers…’
Lee Eun-ji and I still didn’t have a legal guardian.
Although we received donations from the bakery owner through the orphanage, we couldn’t use that money for something like this.
So, if we caused trouble, who would clean it up?
The teachers at the orphanage, our current guardians, would have to deal with it.
‘I don’t want to be a burden.’
Fighting was the quickest and most satisfying way to release anger.
But it also had the biggest consequences.
I avoided fighting because I understood that.
「“Everything you receive without giving something in return can consume you one day.”」
The bakery owner’s words were like law to me.
Because what I did would come back to me like a boomerang.
That’s why I’ve always been careful, cautious even now, after everything that has happened.
There was no point in getting involved in a fight.
So I tried to avoid them.
Lee Eun-ji often called me a coward for that.
I told her it was wise, not cowardly, to avoid fights, but she didn’t agree.
Lee Eun-ji was different from me.
The first thing she did when facing an opponent was to assess if she could win.
And if she couldn’t, she would devise a strategy.
On the other hand, I always wanted to win fairly, within the boundaries of the law.
But was Lee Eun-ji right this time?
Was there a way to defeat Jo Kwang-soo fairly in this crappy school?
Unfortunately, there wasn’t.
I secretly encouraged the victims to report him, hoping to trigger a disciplinary committee meeting, but even after two reports, in 2010…
The bully was still in the same classroom as his victims.
There was no system to protect us from being dragged away like today, no mechanism to keep Jo Kwang-soo and his gang away from us.
Reports, reports, endless reports.
If reports solved everything, why were we going through this?
I had already reported him multiple times.
What were we supposed to do when those in charge wouldn’t listen?
It was like when I lost Lee Eun-ji.
Screaming desperately, but no one listening.
‘Does the world only change when we die?’
Even I found that question ridiculous.
Would the world change if I, an insignificant speck in the vast population, died?
No way.
I was angry now.
I hated the thought of starving to death, or being beaten to death, so I escaped that hell with Lee Eun-ji.
But the world kept trying to weigh our precious lives against some perceived value.
Lee Eun-ji and I had endured so much to get here.
Like bugs laying eggs and multiplying, these bullies were the same.
I let them slide the first time, then it happened again, and again.
They looked down on us and crossed the line, based on their own judgments.
Should I have spoken up earlier?
But…
If I had, the consequences might have been even worse.
That was our life.
Enduring and surviving.
Eun-ji’s homeroom teacher watched Eun-ho disappear down the hallway.
“Ugh… Agh!”
Eun-ho kept running.
As he approached the recycling area where Jo Kwang-soo told him to meet, he heard a familiar, whimpering scream.
Eun-ho slowed down, took a deep breath, and turned the corner.
“Kwang-soo, this is a bit much…”
“Oh yeah? You wanna take his place?”
“N-No. Sorry.”
Jo Kwang-soo looked around and picked up a rusty, broken wire from a pile of construction materials.
“Get her, damn it.”
As Jo Kwang-soo smirked and yelled, his gang charged towards Eun-ji, who was already there.
I knew Eun-ho was being bullied whenever he came home with a gauze pad on his cheek or complained about a toothache.
And today, when Jo Kwang-soo came to our classroom, Eun-ji had a thought.
‘Found you. You’re the one.’
When one of Jo Kwang-soo’s scrawny lackeys came to her classroom and lied, saying Eun-ho called for her, Eun-ji knew it was a lie.
She arrived at the recycling area early.
The first-years finished classes earlier than the third-years.
While waiting, Eun-ji brought a box and hid it behind a pile of trash.
Then, she grabbed a handful of dirt from a flowerbed.
“Agh!”
“Ugh! Ptoo! Damn, dirt!”
This was what she had prepared for.
She threw dirt at two of them, and shoved a handful into another’s mouth.
“Want some more?”
Eun-ji smiled sweetly at the boy whose mouth she had just filled with dirt.
“Y-You crazy…”
The boy was about to retaliate, then lost his nerve when he met Eun-ji’s gaze.
He couldn’t even be angry about being force-fed dirt. Her wide eyes and smiling lips had a crazed look.
The mentality of someone who treated fights like a game was different from someone who was fighting for survival.
Although she often played rough with Eun-ho, he was family. Hurting him would hurt her more than anyone, so he could never be the target of her pent-up anger.
That was why…
…Eun-ji wanted a fight.
“Damn it! What are you doing, you idiots?! Scared of a girl?!”
Jo Kwang-soo, dragging a rusty metal rod across the ground, pushed his hesitant lackeys forward and approached Eun-ji.
“Five guys and a weapon against one girl? Isn’t that a bit unfair?”
Eun-ji slowly backed away, her goal to reach the spot where she had hidden the box.
There was often a pile of sand used for construction near schools.
And there was a conveniently located mound of sand, covered with a tarp, not far from the school.
Before Jo Kwang-soo arrived…
Eun-ji had filled the box with sand, bringing a dustpan along as well.
“What—”
Fwoosh!
Eun-ji threw a handful of sand in a wide arc, then charged at Jo Kwang-soo, who was yelling confidently, relying on his weapon.
Jo Kwang-soo, his eyes closed from the sand, was knocked back by Eun-ji’s bull-like charge.
“Ow!”
He seemed to have cut his hand on the rusty rod as he fell, clutching his hand and groaning.
Now that he was down, he was easier to handle.
“Agh! Ow!”
“That’s right. You’re the one who asked me if I was Lee Eun-ho’s sister this morning.”
“Ow! It hurts! Damn it!”
“So what if it hurts? My brother and I play rougher than this—”
“Agh!”
“And you thought you could mess with my brother when you can’t even handle this?”
She wasn’t hurting him that much.
Just twisting his arm behind his back and pressing down on his shoulder.
“You guys…”
“…”
“One more step, and I’ll break his arm.”
“…”
“Think I’m bluffing?”
As his gang continued approaching, Eun-ji pressed down harder on Jo Kwang-soo’s shoulder, almost as if to break it, to show them she was serious.
“Aaaaagh!”
Jo Kwang-soo’s scream echoed through the area.
“I’m serious, so just stay where you are.”
His gang had no choice but to stop.
“Pl-Please… sob… please…”
Jo Kwang-soo, no longer struggling, was whimpering, drool dripping from his mouth.
‘Crying over something like this…’
Eun-ji gritted her teeth.
‘Seriously!’
Why was Eun-ho, now bigger than her, getting beaten up?!
By these pathetic excuses for bullies!
“Lee Eun-ji.”
Speak of the devil, Lee Eun-ho appeared at the recycling area.