PEN Vol 2 Ch. 15

As soon as the lawyer finished this formal statement, documenting the details for the record, the room erupted in chaos.

“Perpetrator? Who are you calling the perpetrator? There were over ten people who saw my son get hit first—how can you call him the perpetrator?!”

Lee Haegyun’s mother raised her voice, questioning how Kwon Sejin could be considered the victim. Then, the lawyer, Lee Younghoon, remained unfazed, calmly responding to her accusations.

“The victim, Kwon Sejin, has been subjected to ongoing bullying by Lee Haegyun and Kim Byungjun since the beginning of the semester. While it’s true that Kwon Sejin was the first to use violence against the two today, this incident is a continuation of the verbal abuse that has been taking place and Kwon Sejin could no longer tolerate it. Therefore, we asserted that the true perpetrators are Lee Haegyun and Kim Byungjun.”

“Bullying? Who’s bullying who? Listen here, don’t go making baseless claims without evidence! You’ve got it all wrong! It’s obvious who the perpetrator is—the one who swung the tray like an uneducated thug. So, who are you calling the victim?”

“We do have evidence. There was a CCTV footage showing Lee Haegyun and Kim Byungjun harassing Sejin outside the school. Our law firm has secured this footage, and we can present it in court if necessary.”

“What? Ha!”

At the mention of CCTV footage, her face turned red, and she scoffed in disbelief. She shot an accusatory look at her son, silently demanding an explanation on whether it was true, but Lee Haegyun simply shrugged his shoulders, pretending not to know. It seemed that he hadn’t thought the footage would serve as evidence.

At that moment, Cheon Sejoo, who had been quietly observing the situation, decided to join the conversation.

“How can this be considered a one-sided assault? The kid was ganged up on and beaten so badly that he couldn’t even walk. At best, this is self-defense. At worst, it’s mutual violence.”

Sejin wasn’t the only one taken aback by Cheon Sejoo’s exaggerated statement. It wasn’t entirely true, but he wasn’t hurt to the point of being unable to walk.

“Excuse me!! Your child hit my son first! So, how could this possibly be self-defense?”

Lee Haegyun’s mother asked dumbfounded, then crossed her arms and sighed in frustration, her expression clearly showing her displeasure. She glanced dismissively at Sejin before she asked Cheon Sejoo.

“You’re not even that child’s guardian, so what exactly gives you the right to be here? I’d like to speak with Sejin or whatever his name’s parents. He’s not some abandoned child, is he?”

Her disdain for Sejin was evident, and her words carried an assumption that explained her arrogance up until now.

Lee Haegyun had told her bits and pieces of information when he called her over the phone. That Sejin didn’t have a father and that even his mother wasn’t with him. So, she believed that her son had been beaten by an uneducated child with no parents.

Neither she nor Lee Haegyun had anticipated that Sejin’s supposed guardian would be someone from the Strategic Planning Department of Daegam, a large corporation. However, she still assumed that Cheon Sejoo was nothing more than Sejin’s sponsor. Since her son hadn’t mentioned anything further and their last names and appearances were different, it was clear that the two of them weren’t related by blood.

So how much would someone like him really care about a kid with nothing to his name?

He was probably just here to make himself look good.

But when questioned, Cheon Sejoo raised his eyebrows as if the question was absurd and responded firmly.

“I am his guardian. If I weren’t Sejin’s guardian, why would I take time out of my busy schedule to come all the way here with a lawyer?”

There wasn’t a hint of humor in Cheon Sejoo’s voice as he spoke. In fact, his tone was so serious that it carried a tinge of irritation as if the question itself was ridiculous.

Sejin, seated beside him, had his eyes wide open as he looked up at Cheon Sejoo’s side profile. Seeing his firm, handsome face with its determinedly closed lips, his vision blurred slightly.

Guardian.

Sejin slowly became engulfed by the weight of that one word.

“Do you know how many times I’ve seen your son bullying my child?”

As Cheon Sejoo spoke, he naturally lowered his hand, covering the back of Sejin’s hand with his own. The warmth of his touch calmed Sejin’s heated skin, and he bit his lip, lowering his head.

My child.

It was a word so unfamiliar to him.

Sejin’s face grew hot, and he found it difficult to breathe. He took slow, deep breaths, trying to compose himself. Meanwhile, Cheon Sejoo’s voice continued.

“Never mind that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, there was even a time when I ran into both of them at the supermarket across from the school. Not long ago, he tried to hit Sejin in front of the school gates, and he only stopped because I was there… Isn’t that right, Lee Haegyun?”

Cheon Sejoo’s slow, calm explanation came to a halt, and he looked at Lee Haegyun with fierce, sharp eyes as he asked the question.

Lee Haegyun seemed like he was about to argue back, but his mother gripped his thigh, signaling for him to stay silent. Unable to speak, he could only lower his head. Watching this, Cheon Sejoo scoffed and posed a relaxed question.

“Think about it. A kid who’s been bullied for ten months since the beginning of the semester, couldn’t take it anymore and hits back at that shit-filled head with a tray. Does it make sense to call this a mutual assault?”

“Sh-shit-filled head? How dare you talk like that! Watch your mouth!”

The more brutal Cheon Sejoo’s words became, the colder the atmosphere grew. Lee Haegyun’s mother, clutching her son’s hand tightly, yelled in frustration. However, it was far from enough to calm Cheon Sejoo, who had already lost his temper.

As if to show he wasn’t done talking, he raised his hand to silence her and continued talking with a cold smile.

“If he had cut open his stomach with a sashimi knife^[1], I’d still say it would have been well deserved. So if you’re going to keep spewing nonsense about whether it’s ‘mutual’ or ‘one-sided’, you should take your son and leave. Because I can make sure it actually happens for real.”

“……”

“S-Sir, ma’am, please, let’s all calm down….”

The principal, wiping the sweat that was pouring down his face like rain, desperately tried to calm them down, specifically directing his words at Cheon Sejoo.

Nowadays, young people only recognize the name DG, but to those over 40, Daegam is a much more familiar name. It was said that the blood spilled by the Daegam faction as they established themselves through Daegam Construction could cover the entire Yangjae Stream^[2]. Back when the Daegam faction was expanding its power, the news was filled daily with reports of gang fights.

Scenes of bloodshed that even mosaics couldn’t fully cover. Lee Haegyun’s mother, the principal, and the vice principal were all part of the generation that grew up watching such news. Thus, it was no surprise that when they received a business card bearing the DG logo on it, they immediately thought of the Daegam faction.

No one could treat the words of a man who held a high position in DG O&M, a subsidiary of Daegam, as merely a grim joke. Only Seo Bohyung, who was in his twenties, and the three high school students could afford not to take it seriously.

“If you settle now, I’ll make sure you’re well compensated for the medical expenses. But if you don’t like that, feel free to take this to court.”

In the chilling silence that followed, Cheon Sejoo added in a lazily relaxed tone, his words laced with an undeniable threat. The faint smile that accompanied it left no room for negotiation. Faced with this, Lee Haegyun’s mother bit her lip, looking troubled.

“And just so you know, there’s also the possibility that something unfortunate might happen to the perpetrator, and the case never makes it to trial, so I suggest you think carefully and make a wise decision.”

His final words, casually thrown out, landed like a bomb. Lee Haegyun’s mother turned pale and looked over at her son, then quickly turned her gaze back to Cheon Sejoo, clearing her throat.

“Wait a moment, I’d like to speak with my son…”

“As much as you like.”

When Cheon Sejoo nodded with a smile, she shot up from her seat, grabbed Lee Haegyun’s hand, and left the principal’s office.

Click.

As the door shut, the sound of her shouting at her son could be heard from the hallway. She berated Lee Haegyun, calling Sejin a “child without parents.”

Sejin gritted his teeth as he heard her words.

Like mother, like son.

The two continued arguing in the hallway for quite some time.

From the words “gangster,” “your dad,” and “business” being thrown back and forth, the people inside could predict what decision they would come to. After about ten minutes, they returned to the principal’s office. Lee Haegyun’s mother, still stiff with anger, sat down and asked Cheon Sejoo directly.

“So, how much compensation will you offer for the medical expenses?”

“Mom!”

Lee Haegyun shouted in disbelief, looking as though he couldn’t understand what was happening. His mother gripped his hand tightly as she spoke.

Cheon Sejoo watched them with mild interest before he smiled and stood up from his seat. He nodded toward Lee Younghoon, who got up after him, signaling for him to take over.

“You can discuss that with the lawyer. I have work to do, so I’ll be leaving first.”

Even though Cheon Sejoo spoke so arrogantly, no one tried to stop him. He then lifted Sejin into his arms again, who looked up at him with a dazed expression. He placed him back in the wheelchair that had been left nearby, bent down, and began pushing the chair out of the principal’s office.

Click.

The sound of the door closing was followed by a brief sigh that echoed through the hallway. Sejin glanced up at Cheon Sejoo with anxious eyes.

Cheon Sejoo stared into space for a moment, then, sensing Sejin’s gaze, looked down and smiled faintly. He patted Sejin’s head gently and spoke.

“Don’t worry. This is nothing you need to worry about.”

Sejin couldn’t understand any of what had just happened. From Cheon Sejoo’s unexpected appearance to the way he had defended him, everything was beyond his comprehension. But before he could process those thoughts, something else worried him more.

Is this really over?

Sejin, who had feared the worst, imagining he might be sent to a juvenile detention center or to the police station because of what his homeroom teacher had said, couldn’t believe that everything had been resolved with just a few words from Cheon Sejoo.

As Cheon Sejoo pushed the wheelchair back toward the counseling room, Sejin mumbled under his breath, listening to the sound of the chair’s rattling wheels.

“…But I hit them with the tray. I really hit them a lot….”

Can all of this really get resolved with just a few words?

As if understanding Sejin’s unspoken question, Cheon Sejoo nodded slightly. His cold gaze lingered on Sejin’s bruised cheek. He silently let his eyes sweep over Sejin’s face, still bearing the traces of violence.

“It was nothing. Something this simple can be dealt with easily…”

Cheon Sejoo muttered quietly, almost as if talking to himself.

Sejin met his gaze as he looked down at him.

For some reason… Cheon Sejoo looked deeply angry.