Kim Deuk-pal. 47 years old. His dream is to attend college.

· * *

It’s a winter day with steady rain. In a hanok with a pond garden, a student preparing for the CSAT exam burned to study. Although he was an older student, his enthusiasm was no match for the younger ones, so he pushed his pencil harder and harder to solve math problems.

The long dragon tattoo on his forearm flickered with each math problem. Despite being winter, the dragon’s entire body was alive with movement as his muscles flexed under his short-sleeved tee. The tutor, who specializes in tutoring adolescents, broke out in a cold sweat. He tried not to make eye contact with the dragon as it glared at his biceps.

When he finished the last problem on the page with his red grading pen, he put the book away.

“…That’s it for today’s class. Good work.”

“Yes, sir, you did a great job too.”

The late student, Kim Duk-yeol, bowed and closed the problem book. CSAT Special Math 1. The problem book pages were blackened and burned where the student had made progress.

The room was large, and Kim Deuk-pal followed the instructor as he packed his bag and got up.

“I’m really worried about my math score.”

As a proud Korean, Kim was confident in his Korean language and Korean history. However, math was one of his weakest subjects, along with English, which lowered his average score.

Kim Deuk-pal just expressed his concerns about his grades from a student’s point of view, but the instructor fumbled as his face turned pale.

“Well, that’s, uh, that’s what math is all about. Active students struggle to raise their scores because the basics are critical. You took the qualification exam and followed me well. Ah…! I didn’t mean to disrespect the qualification exam……!”

Kim Deuk-pal opened the right door of the window paper, leaving the instructor who made a hasty excuse for ignoring him for passing the qualification exam. Big men in black suits lined up on both sides of the door bent 90 degrees. The instructor was more nervous than necessary.

“Here you are! Brother!”

As the big guys clapped loudly, Kim Deuk-pal stepped aside so the instructor could come out.

“The teacher is leaving. Take him there.”

“Yes! I see!”

Kim Deuk-pal told the instructor to move quickly, and the instructor hugged the bag tightly like a lifeline. Although he accepted the proposal due to the cost of tutoring in Daechi-dong, it was harsh for a lecturer who lived as a small citizen all his life to be calm in the den of gangsters who plastered their bodies with knife marks and tattoo marks.

The gangsters under Kim Deuk-pal and the so-called younger brothers disappeared with the instructor (the level of being dragged from the instructor’s point of view). Instead of returning to his room, Kim Deuk-pal moved to the open floor in the garden. With his hands in his pants pockets, Kim Duk-pal’s back was lonely as he looked out over the garden.

The garden was ruined after a December frost. The wisteria with its tiny branches and dark garden stones gave it a dreary look. However, the winter garden was at its peak on a snowy day, not on a rainy day like today.

When white snow accumulated on the branches, it was as spectacular as plum blossoms in spring. This was just as it had been a month earlier, in November, when Kim Duk-pal was taking the SAT, when a sudden cold snap caused a blanket of snow to fall.

Despite the encouragement of his younger siblings, who touted white snow as a sign of success, Kim bombed the CSAT. A 7th grade average. Lucky seven was a superstition not allowed on CSAT report cards. His younger brother, who was the provisional scorer, circled the word “snow” and flirted with cramps in his wrist. However, it was red rain that fell on the answers he wrote on the back of the test sheet. The chilling silence was something he would never forget. Kim will never forget it until he dies.

Meanwhile, the boss of the organization who heard Kim’s CSAT scores laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. No one else laughed, but the boss, who had raised Kim Duk-pal from the bottom, held his stomach and flipped him over. The organization members waiting outside were worried that Kim Deuk-pal would rip his stomach out, but fortunately, the boss got up intact.

‘That’s enough, give it up, and get ready to take over.’

The boss wasn’t the only one who thought so. Everyone in the organization didn’t understand that Kim Duk-pal was preparing for college without taking over the organization. He had been in the organization all his life, and what kind of college was it?

Kim’s hands, with calluses that resembled turtle shells on his knuckles, were no match for a pen. Kim’s heroic story of dominating a district with his fists, rising through the ranks to become the boss’s right-hand man, shines when books and education meet.

But that’s not the story he wanted to tell.

He sighed heavily. The low December temperatures caused the sigh to billow into white smoke and disperse. As he pulled a cigarette packet from his trousers, a subordinate waiting behind him shot out like a bullet. He lit a lighter and held it out politely.

“Dong-soo.”

“Yes, Brother.”

“Do you think I can’t do it?”

“No, big brother, you can do it!”

Kim Deuk-pal’s direct subordinate, Kim Dong-soo, was socially proficient. He didn’t undermine Kim Deuk-pal’s efforts, who organized work during the day and studying for the college entrance exam at night. However, Dong-soo came up with a plausible excuse.

“At least at your age, you don’t have to worry about sunbathers creeping up on you in college. You’ve seen the younger ones. They’re all over your feet these days, and frankly…….”

Kim Dong-soo looks at Kim Deuk-pal, and at the age of Xun, what Kim Deuk-pal should have is not a college acceptance letter with an uncertain graduation, but a boss position in an organization. The future of his career, and the future of his organization, lies in the darkness of the back streets, not in a college town.

“If not you, who will take over the organization?

Kim Dong-soo looked at Kim Deuk-pal. At the age of fifty, what Kim Deuk-pal should have is not a college entrance hall where graduation is uncertain, but a boss position in an organization. The future that will make Kim Deuk-pal’s career shine and the organization’s future prosper lies not in the college campus, but in the dark alley.

Whether it was because he could feel his men’s pain or because he was skeptical of their CSAT scores, which remained stuck in seventh grade despite studying like shit, Kim Duk-pal laughed bitterly.

“Prepare tea.”

“Yes, Brother!”

It was an evasive order, but Kim Dong-soo took it in stride. A subordinate waited in the hallway for Kim Deuk-pal and held out his Chulining jersey with both hands. As Kim slipped his arms through the jersey and entered the garage, the smell of dirt and oil mixed with humidity hit his nostrils. The henchman waiting beside the black sedan opened the driver’s door.

“Have a good time, Brother!”

When Kim Deuk-pal got into the car, the clumsy big man closed the driver’s door and stepped back and folded his back. The garage door sounded loud enough to his size.

The sedan’s headlights, which moved smoothly, lit up the rain beating the world.

* **

Contrary to the snow forecast, heavy rain fell on December streets.

The traffic lights at the intersection turned red and cars stopped to match the white line drawn on the roadway. The black sedan with Kim Deuk-pal stopped right in front of the crosswalk and watched a group of students cross the street.

They all wore black long padded jackets and looked like a bunch of gimbap. After giggling about what was so funny, two ran out of the umbrella. Kim Deuk-pal couldn’t take his eyes off the group running after the rest.

Kim Deuk-pal, who was born in Mokpo as the second son of a family famous for being poor and having children after another, was deprived of freedom. After moving to Seoul as if he were running away from a family who prevented him from returning to elementary school by asking him to take care of his eldest son, Deuk-pal Kim had never stepped inside the school gate, let alone school.

Kim Deuk-pal who came to Seoul, worked to the factory during the day and drank soju at night. In a quarrel, his teenager ended with an unusual fist-punch that caught the attention of a local gang member.

Due to gangsters who sleep during the day and work at night on illegal things, schools were unfamiliar. Kim Deuk-pal shook off his lingering feelings and focused on organizing work.

‘I thought I’d let go of all my lingering feelings then, but I didn’t expect them to come back after more than 20 years.’

He thought he could inherit the organization and live comfortably, but the desire to step through the school gates held him back. It wasn’t an ordinary regret either. He couldn’t apply to a local university because he had to work in an organization. He didn’t want to apply to a cyber university because he didn’t need an academic degree. He couldn’t tell anyone because he knew he would be laughed at, but he wanted to apply to Seoul university like a normal 20-year-old. It was a foolish and unreasonable desire.

Smiling bitterly, he pulled away from the light. The wheels rolled across the rainwater puddles on the asphalt.

His destination was a favorite cafe on Seoul’s outskirts. It was a log cabin where the owner played live guitar on rainy days. Kim loved to sit by the window and listen to the guitar sound. Although his fists were strong, his emotions were delicate.

The farther he traveled, the fewer cars there were on the road. No one dared to venture out in the weather this late at night, so the roads soon emptied out.

The rain was thick and slippery, and the wet road glistened in the light. Kim Duk-pal drove more cautiously than usual due to dangerous road conditions. His eyes were sharp as he looked ahead.

His habit of keeping a close eye on fight scenes was no exception on the road. As he carefully scanned the road, he spotted an overpass and a man holding onto the railing.

“…Hmm?”

Due to the distance, he couldn’t see the face of the man holding on to the railing, but he had a vague idea. Despite the cold weather around Christmas, the man wore only white pajamas that looked like pajamas. However, they were soaked by the rain and stuck to his skin. He leans over the overpass railing, looking down dangerously.

Kim’s thick eyebrows wiggled as he drove, his eyes glued to the viaduct instead of the road. He squinted to make sure he wasn’t looking at the wrong thing. The distance was closing, and just when he recognized the man clinging to the viaduct railing, the man put his foot on the railing.

Under the overpass, a large truck traveled on the opposite side of the road from Kim Duk-pal.

The truck driver didn’t slow down, like he hadn’t noticed the man on the overpass. Kim sounded the clicker, but the rain drowned out the echo off the road. The truck drove toward the overpass. Meanwhile, the boy slipped in the rain and managed to climb over the railing.

Dangling from the outside of the railing, the man looked down and crouched. Standing in the narrow gap outside the railing was precarious.

“…….”

Kim Duk-pal frantically clicked his claxon as the viaduct drew nearer, but the pounding rain drowned out all sound.

The boy clinging to the railing let go of one hand and tilted his body at an angle. The rain gusts shook him. His grip on the rain-soaked, slippery railing barely held him up with one arm. He was about to fall.

There was no time to stop the car and stop the boy on the overpass. The oncoming truck drew closer, and the truck driver still hadn’t noticed the boy hanging on to the overpass. The overpass is not very high, so he might be lucky to survive if he falls, but if he is hit by a truck, He will die.

With that thought in mind, Kim Duk-pal didn’t hesitate to turn the wheel, and the black sedan swerved, splashing rainwater onto the side road. The headlights of a truck coming from the opposite direction shot out intensely, illuminating the interior of the black sedan.

Bam!

The truck driver pressed the claxon because the black sedan suddenly cut in front of him.

He planned to stop the truck, not cause an accident, so Kim Duk-pal turned the wheel without stopping. His gaze flashed sharply as he drove away. The black sedan avoided the truck by a hair’s breadth and skidded to the sidewalk. The plan seemed to succeed. However, no matter how Kim Deuk-pal tried, he could not control the torrential rain and wet roads.

The driver stepped on the brake, but the large truck slipped on the wet road as it was. The black sedan driven by Kim Deuk-pal also couldn’t stop and spun in a half circle.

Kim Deuk-pal slowed down and stepped on the brake. However, the car slipped in the rain and rushed toward the large truck.

Kim Deuk-pal’s eyes met the driver of a large truck. The frightened driver was frozen with no response. There was no friction between the two vehicles, so they went out on the road. The headlights of the two opposing vehicles flashed intensely and the heavy rain shattered them into white.

They bumped into each other. Kim Deuk-pal did not avoid the blinding light. He turned the steering wheel to find a way to live in urgency. It was time for the gear to crack, preventing the steering wheel from turning. Kim Deuk-pal opened his eyes wide.

The pigment was light brown in color. The boy who fell off the overpass is.

The boy rolled into a large truck and crashed onto the hood of a black sedan.

The moment the boy sank into the glare, it moved slowly. The hand stretched out toward the sky and looked like it was trying to grab something, so the white feet in the air stood out helplessly. The wet hair clumped together into strands and fluttered gently. As a result of intense light, the side of the boy’s face was blurred with lines spreading. The eyes looking up at the sky rolled slowly. His brown eyes rolled with water and were fixed on Kim Deuk-pal.

Kim Deuk-pal couldn’t look away from the eyes of the boy he’d tried to save without knowing his name. He forgot what he was doing and stared into those brown eyes.

The wipers cleared the car window. The moment the black bar broke their gaze, time took on its own pace, like a shackle removed. The boy fell down instantly.

Koo-boom!

A huge impact shook the black sedan. Kim Deuk-pal was thrown back and forth by the impact. Blood trickled from his head as he was thrown forward and hit the glass, then pulled back by the seatbelt. With blurry vision, he desperately searched for the boy.

The boy had fallen into the center of the dented bonnet, crumpled like a sheet of paper. The light of a half-shattered headlight illuminated the boy’s fingertips. The limp fingers didn’t move.

Did he live?

I hope so. That pitty crab…….

Kim Deuk-pal, barely holding on to a sliver of consciousness, was now unconscious. His body slumped forward, hanging limply from his seatbelt, and red blood dripping from the driver’s seat mingled with the rain.

Only the car’s warning beeps sounded ferociously in the torrential rain.

To be Continued...

“A Gangster Became A High Schooler ”

To be honest, Kim Deuk-pal craves life after college, not college.

Normal life is like college, graduating, working for a company, getting married, having children, raising them, and getting old. However, since he was a gangster, he doubted that he could marry, join a company.

Some of his co-workers and subordinates can find reliable women, quit the organization and get married, but Kim Duk-pal is not that lucky. As an uneducated man, he can’t do much if he meets a crazy girl, so staying in the organization makes more sense.

University was only a small part of his regret, and the only part he could accomplish was at forty.

‘I wanted to return to university and live the life I had left, even though it was only a year, even if it was only a month. This was so I didn’t have to die.’

What value is a woman of if he dies?

There is no doubt in Kim Deuk-pal’s mind that he has died. It’s not uncommon for him to be stabbed or seriously injured while fighting for territory. He knows from experience that if you bleed out and are unconscious in a situation where help is uncertain, you are less likely to survive.

So, what happened to the boy who fell off the crossing bridge?

The face that looked down from the glide bridge was young, like a high school student. If she gets married and has children at the right age, she’ll be the same age as that child. If a boy of his age tried to jump off a bridge to death, he would have turned the wheel in the same situation.

What use is all this if you’re dead?

The faint murmur of the crowd was the last breath of the deceased, their strangely light bodies burdened by their souls. Despite his stoic appearance, Kim Deuk-pal is a sentimental hawk and believes in superstition.

Although he never seriously contemplated death, that comfort would not have been an undesirable thing if this was his end.

‘I don’t want to die, but I’m also looking forward to it. In the next life, I’ll return to school and live a normal, decent life.’

He thought he was heading to hell for his gangster life, but he wasn’t. Kim felt like he was lying in a white film. The brightness of what is usually depicted as heaven in dramas seeped into his eyelids.

Now I just have to wait for the stairs to descend. Kim Duk-pal waited for his turn, bathing in a strange sense of relief that his life was over. The high staircase ahead of me.

But life has never been kind.

A faint murmur grew louder, disturbing the peace in heaven.

“…Asshole! You killed a man and you didn’t even blow your nose! Come out, asshole! Come out and beg!”

“Fuck, pull him out! Don’t be pushed! We have to pull him out and drag him in front of your brother!”

He woke up surprised by a familiar voice. It was a gruff tone he’d heard many times before. He could picture the scowling, bear-like faces of the men who would push him around.

Nowadays, gangsters don’t look like gangsters by pretending to be polite. When they’re called out, they’re dressed in suits, swinging baseball bats they bought for their nephews on the way home. When the game is on the line or the police are called, they blend in with the general population and get away with it. By pretending to be elite, they are able to commit intelligent crimes without being caught.

So Kim Deuk-pal repeatedly warned. Don’t make a fuss and take care of things quietly. Organizational work is the most annoying when public power is involved. At best, he said not to draw attention without meaningless efforts disguised as ordinary people, but his easily excited subordinates used to cause disturbance.

Kim Deuk-pal, who lives and dies in loyalty, could not abandon his subordinates caught by the police. Since the captured men could not follow the boss waving his hands to rot, Kim Deuk-pal secretly took them out of the detention center. The second most he bought was tofu.

“I’m sleeping after killing someone! You punk! You’re making me sleepy! Because of you, brother……!”

“Get out of the way! Hey, get your tools out!”

Once conscious, the uproar grew out of control. Nutmeg letters came and came, and the door rattled to see if there was a physical fight. I couldn’t ignore it. Still, Kim Deuk-pal was annoyed by the stone-collar workers who had been adept at not making a big deal for the past few years and forgot to warn them to shut up before the saltiness rises.

He was fed up with taking out his men with dirty tricks and stealing back money. Kim Deuk-pal woke up, pressing his throbbing temples. His foot fell without even feeling the solid cushion.

The body, which had been lying unconscious due to anesthetic energy, painless drugs, and the aftermath of the accident, was dull and unconscious. Kim Deuk-pal didn’t notice what was wrong. He pulled out the intrusive IV needle and moved on without realizing that the feel of stepping on dry tile on the soles of the feet was unfamiliar.

“The patient is out of his mind! It’s no use doing this here!”

“You thought you didn’t know your babies hidden it?! Get out of my way! I can’t leave until I check with my own eyes!”

“Call the police!”

“Did we hold a knife? Did you punch him? He’s the only one I’m dragging!”

“The patient inside is absolutely stable!”

Drool-. After a dragging walk, Kim Deuk-pal opened the sliding door. A person suddenly appeared, stopping the commotion. Hospital officials who blocked the gangsters were surprised if the gangsters hardened.

A hospital official who found Kim Deuk-pal leaning against the door frame looked happy.

“Mind the patient……!”

Kim Deuk-pal scolded his subordinates for touching a powerless ordinary person. In particular, he was disappointed by Kim Dong-soo, who leads the gang. When the guy who should be responsible for his subordinates if he was not confident instigated the disturbance, disappointment caused displeasure.

Kim Deuk-pal lifted his chin after subduing an opponent. He looked down at Kim Dong-soo and tried to scold him, but all he could see was the underside of Kim Dong-soo’s collar. Something was wrong.

Move!”

To make matters worse, Kim Dong-soo grabbed him by the throat. Kim Deuk-pal panicked, wondering if this guy was crazy, and couldn’t shake his hand. He was dragged helplessly. Flailing like a paper doll, his bare feet hit the floor, breaking his thumb nail.

“Patient!”

Hospital officials tried to stop him, but other gang members barricaded him on their shoulders. Soldiers in white uniforms shouted over big men in black suits.

Kim Deuk-pal tried to free himself. He stumbled, unable to walk properly due to the force. However, he held on to Kim Dong-soo’s arm, and finally realized something strange.

His fingers were thin.

They weren’t calloused, scarred fingers with thick knuckles and joints. The hands that gripped and scratched Kim’s forearms at his will were white and thin. On the back of his hand, where the thin skin showed blood, the bones stood out as his fingers moved. With no calluses anywhere, the hand’s shape alone suggested the kind of life its owner led. At least it wasn’t a gangster.

“Fuck.”

An abrupt curse snapped Kim Duk-pal out of his reverie. The hand resting on Kim’s forearm dropped limply.

Kim Dong-soo stopped in front of the elevator, and as he nervously pressed the button, Kim Deuk-pal could see his reflection in the dull stainless steel.

A strange boy was standing there. A boy whose frail, sickly appearance didn’t connect with him, but he knew this boy.

He reached for the elevator. The boy in the stainless steel case reached out to him as well.

“Come here.”

The elevator in the lobby was slow to come up. Kim Dong-soo pulled the boy by the scruff of his neck down the emergency exit next to the elevator.

Kim’s grip on the boy’s arm kept him from falling. The boy was skeletal and thin, with flimsy muscles. He had just recovered from surgery and had no strength in his limbs. As his knees buckled, Kim continued down the stairs.

His bare feet, dressed in patient clothes, were covered in dust as he descended the stairs. His heels slipped on the corners when he didn’t step properly, and his insteps were stained with blood from the stairs corners. The pain, however, was only a sensation that validated Kim’s body.

Vivid aches and pains, gasping breaths, and blurred vision. It was something he had never experienced before, when all he had was a strong body, but this was where he was now.

Why was the boy’s reflection hanging from the railing of the overpass at the elevator door?

Why was he so out of breath?

Could it be that Kim Dong-soo had gotten the better of him because my current form was that of the boy?

‘Then… who is the real me and who is Kim Deuk-pal?’

Kim Deuk-pal knew he shouldn’t follow him, so he grabbed the railing. He clutched the thin railing connecting the handrail to the stairs, stopping himself from being dragged by Kim Dong-soo.

Blood flared in Kim’s eyes as he stared at the boy’s rounded crown. He kicked the boy’s wrists, forcing him to let go of the grate. He grabbed him by the throat and shoved him against the wall.

Kuung-!

Kim Deuk-pal opened his mouth at the pain that shot through his upper body from his back. Kim Dong-soo pressed his forearm against the boy’s collarbone, forcing his head closer. When he got closer, he could see dried tears in the boy’s eyes.

Suddenly, Kim Deuk-pal saw things he hadn’t seen before. Kim Dong-soo’s complexion, with its blackened circles under his eyes, and his dishevelled black tie and black suit. He wondered why Kim Dong-soo had gathered his men and caused a ruckus.

“Kuck……..”

“Bastard.”

Not to be outdone, Kim crushed the boy’s throat without a word.

“You said you jumped, that’s why it was an accident. A man died because of you, and you don’t have any idea what’s going on? Are you a man? Let’s save this fucking asshole, you, you…….”

The hand gripping his fist shook. Bloodshot eyes narrowed, and Kim pulled back his fisted arm. Filled with injustice, bitterness, and anger, Kim Dong-soo threw his fist at the boyish Kim Duk-pal.

But the punch aimed at his cheek grazed the boy’s hair below his ears and slammed him into the wall. Kim’s skinned fist slipped and he collapsed.

“Thwack, thwack, suck…….”

As he knelt on the floor, his back arched, then he began to sob. Looking down at Kim Dong-soo, who sobbed like a child, Kim Duk-pal, who looked like a boy, also slumped against the wall.

“Brother… KKKKKKK…….”

Cries echoed up and down the tall building’s stairwell. Sitting with his skinny legs folded in the narrow gap between the wall and Kim Dong-soo, Kim Duk-pal raised his hand. His skinny wrists trembled slightly, but he forced himself to make a fist.

No matter how many times he repeated it, reality didn’t change. The skinny, weak hand, like a poker hand, was now Kim Deuk-pal’s hand.

To be Continued...

“A Gangster Became A High Schooler”

The funeral home was located in the basement of the hospital building. Wreaths of chrysanthemums filled the empty room, spilling out into the hallway. There were many mourners without relatives to attend the funeral. This was because they had been cut off from the family since Kim Deuk-pal was immersed in the organization, but they were not living in poverty.

Every one of them was a gangster. There were mourners from rival gangs, and even rival gangs that were difficult to bring together. Whenever they meet, they fight or have a nervous breakdown, but today, they quietly sipped their drinks and mourned Kim Deuk-pal.

On the second day of the funeral, the mood at the funeral home was as subdued as on the first day. However, the somber mood was quickly overturned when a boy in patient clothes was brought in.

“That bastard! That bastard! That bastard!”

An organization member as big as a bear ran out while hitting the table. Another organization member grabbed the man as he ran out. However, not for the boy’s sake, the eyes that followed him were not good. This is because they wanted to prevent the funeral from being a scene.

The organization members gathered and surrounded the boy Kim Deuk-pal was trying to save. The boy was hideous and unattractive. Thin body, hunched posture, shoulders that hardened so much they were curled and dried. Long bangs that stuck to the floor covering most of the face.

He was to the left of Kim Deuk-pal, who was very strong. When Kim Deuk-pal thought he was dead to save such a boy, organization members reached out.

Kim Dong-soo pushed the boy to the front of the portrait. A boy standing awkwardly in front of the memorial altar stared at Kim Deuk-pal’s portrait and Kim Dong-soo hit the boy with his foot. The boy who swallowed his breath knelt down and made the floor tremble. Kim Dong-soo coldly grumbled.

“Begging!”

The kneeling boy raised his head and looked at Kim Deuk-pal’s portrait as if it had been nailed down. Perhaps he was still unconscious, so he stared at the portrait with a dazed face, and harsh words poured out all around him.

“For God’s sake, my brother crashed to save your face!”

“I’m begging you, asshole. My brother got into an accident to save your ass, and you can’t even see him, his parents, or his nose?”

But the boy couldn’t take his eyes off the scene to see if he heard anything. Stunned, he jerked to his feet just in time to see saliva trickle from his newly opened mouth.

“The body, I have to see it… with my own eyes…….”

Muttering in a low voice, the boy charged to the altar with its flowers. His skinny body leapt to its feet in an instant, and the organization members shouted in panic.

“Get him!”

The boy stomped up the incense burner, shoved into the mortuary, ripped through the chrysanthemums, and dug his nails into the planks. The body was in the morgue, but he was too desperate to think about it. However, the gang members grabbed him and dragged him down.

“Son of a bitch, you have no grace. You disrespect the deceased!”

The gang members pressed down on the boy’s back as they pinned him to the ground. Despite the weight of several large men on him, he struggled frantically to crawl toward the altar where the body would be. He lied and stopped struggling when a sob came from his back.

“He’s dead, he’s dead, my brother.”

These are Kim Deuk-pal’s own men. They weren’t the ones to play with, and they weren’t the ones to cry easily.

Kim Deuk-pal, who was in the boy’s body, made eye contact with the portrait picture thrown on the floor. There was no denying it.

His intuition was right. Kim Deuk-pal is dead. He was driving on the road to stop the boy from committing suicide on a rainy day. However, he had excessive bleeding from a traffic accident.

The surviving soul finally accepted the body’s death.

***

Name: Song Yi-heon

Gender: Male

Age: 18 years old

Blood type is A.

That’s all he knew about the boy, at least from the bio hanging on the hospital bed.

Song Yi-heon was strange. He had a comfortable single room, and when he’d been brought to Kim Duk-pal’s ward a few days earlier, hospital security looked for him with batons. The doctors had been unusually kind to him, so it wasn’t like he didn’t have a guardian. However, no one had actually come looking for him. Thanks to this, Kim Duk-pal was never suspected.

“Ugh…….”

A numbing pain exploded in his back as he rolled over. He bit his lip as he pressed a button for the painless injection.

Song suffered a lacerated back and broken ribs after falling from an overpass and was placed in a cast after surgery. When he regained consciousness, he was unaware. However, as he was escorted to the elevator by security, the after-effects of surgery hit him and he fainted. When he woke up with a ring around his neck, he was still in Song’s body.

When the pain eased, he reached out and grabbed a hand mirror within reach. Kim Duk-pal clicked his tongue and studied his face in the round mirror. It was still a face he couldn’t get used to.

“Tsk, tsk, boy.”

He pulled up the long bangs covering his eyes to reveal his bare face. Judging by the pale brown color of his eyes and brownish hair, his white skin was due to a lack of pigment in his body. However, it was Kim Duk-pal’s business.

A Jagoro man is handsome when he has copper-colored skin, an angular lower jaw, and thick muscles, not when he has ticklishly shallow features like Song Yiheon.

“I think I’ll feed my wife and children.”

Not yet aware of his own body, Kim Duk-pal turned his slender jaw from side to side and clicked his tongue like a man.

Kim Duk-pal examined Song Yi-heon’s appearance, but his mind was on the clock. Kim Duk-pal’s body was cremated at the ceremony.

Despite confirming his death, Kim Duk-pal refused to accept burnt body. Not knowing what happened to Song Yiheon’s soul, he would be in trouble if Song Yiheon’s soul returned in the future without a body to return to.

His conscience did not allow him to take Song Yi-heon’s body shamelessly. If he had to return his body to Song Yi-heon’s soul, would his own soul be allowed to wander through the Nine Heavens, unable to die?

Kim Deuk-pal was too busy holding his head to hear the hospital room door open. When she looked up, she saw a middle-aged woman with her arms crossed, unable to hide her sick expression. Kim Duk-pal, who had been met with a contemptuous look with a straight face, shrivelled his brow out of displeasure when the woman’s lips were opened.

“You don’t even say hello to me anymore.”

Kim Duk-pal stood up from his cast, eager to heal. Unexpected pain sprang from his broken ribs, but he ignored it and folded his back into a ninety-degree angle.

“Good morning.”

The last thing he wanted to do was deal with a woman, especially a woman of his age. As if it wasn’t hard enough, she was Song Yi-heon’s mother, and Kim Duk-pal was tense.

He is polite according to the strict hierarchy in the gangster world, but the problem is that it is Song Yi-heon’s body. In the form of Song Yi-heon, even the strict decency of the gangster world will only cause a backlash. Middle-aged women’s eyebrows move.

“Are you protesting?”

Kim Duk-pal flinched at the sarcasm like a dagger to the head. The woman didn’t like Song Yiheon overexerting himself.

“Are your mother and you both mean to me? Why are you both so desperate to bully me? Why did you spend time there at night? Ha, did your mother make you do it? Do you think that if this reaches the chairman’s ears, the chairman will come to see you? Are you making all this fuss because you want attention?”

The middle-aged woman is not Song Yi-heon’s mother. She’s probably someone hired by the chairman, since she’s so dismissive of Song Yi-heon’s mother, while showing a lot of respect for the chairman.

At that point, Kim Duk-pal straightened up. He didn’t know the story, so he couldn’t say anything, but he judged it wasn’t worth going under.

“I’m disillusioned with your mother, but what’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with you? You really don’t know how to do things right.”

The woman, who had poured her heart out, stiffened as Song Yiheon straightened her back. He usually walked with his back slouched so that he was at eye level with her. However, Song Yiheon was taller than her, so when he stood up straight, he could look down at her.

“You, you…….”

The woman was amazed when the person begging for a fierce shot looked down. However, Song Yi-heon, who turned his long bangs, which gave the impression of being gloomy and pathetic, to the side and stared coolly with princely features, could not make the same loud noise as before.

Kim Deuk-pal, who had been in the organization for 30 years, emerged from Song Yi-heon.

“How dare you look at an adult like that? You’re so rude.

However, the woman who made Song Yi-heon big did not easily step down. He stared at Song Song as if to kill her. He chewed his lips because he felt ashamed of his trembling voice like a goat’s cry.

“I’ll send you a driver to get you out of Park, so do as you please.”

The woman handed over the shoulder bag she had carried to Song Song-heon’s chest as if throwing it. When Song Song-heon frowned at the shock of touching the cast, she stepped back without showing her back. As soon as she turned around, she stepped up and left the hospital room. It might have been the last pride, but the door that closed with a bang shook the sky.

“…Her temper is so bad.”

Kim Deuk-pal, who was left, scratched his head and murmured. He was the only person who visited Song Yi-heon a few days after the accident, but he didn’t want to catch up. Rather, if he had suffered from such a woman for the rest of his life, Song Yi-heon was understood to jump off the overpass.

Kim Deuk-pal frowned at his ribs, which caused minor pain, and turned the shoulder bag the woman gave him onto the bed. He thought the bag was heavy, but in addition to underwear and toiletries, several CSAT workbook books and tablet PCs were poured out of the shoulder bag.

“Oh-.”

Kim Deuk-pal found a tablet PC and picked it up first because his smartphone was damaged in an accident. Although he was tutored by a professional instructor in Daechi-dong, he knew how to handle a tablet by listening to Internet lectures on a tablet PC because of the times.

Although it was difficult to acquire newspapers at 47, Kim Deuk-pal confidently opened the tablet case cover thanks to his subordinates who taught him the same content over and over again with patience that they would not have given to his parents. When he opened the cover that looked like a cover, the screen turned on.

“Well.”

He thought it would be handled easily because it was made by the same company as the tablet he used. However, the lock screen difficulty was endured. Kim Deuk-pal hesitated and pressed any number, but failed to touch it hastily after warning he was wrong. He confronted the lock screen without any promise because he was afraid he might not be able to turn it on at all after touching it incorrectly.

In a frustrating moment, Kim Deuk-pal retracted his bangs. The long bangs rose and sank. Half of the face is covered with bangs.

“…What?”

At a moment, Kim Deuk-pal rolled up his bangs and blinked as if he was trying to count whether he saw it properly.

“What is this?”

The LCD lock screen was unlocked. While I looked at the liquid crystal stupidly, the screen was dark again. When the lock screen appeared, Kim Deuk-pal covered his face with bangs just in case. Face ID was released and wallpaper appeared.

“This isn’t even a two-faced man.”

When Kim Deuk-pal grasped the unlocked mechanism, he grumbled and pushed the liquid crystal.

The tablet was neat. The few apps were boring for online lectures, flash games, and webtoons that only children could download. Among them, the diary app stood out.

“That’s why he locked it…….”

He took out an all-in-one table on the hospital bed, leaned his elbow, and opened the diary app. He sat down comfortably and read it in earnest.

Today, a few days after the overpass accident, was December 27, and a recent December 20 page was opened to make the diary easier to write.

To be Continued...

“A Gangster Became A High Schooler”