Hard Knocks: B-Side (Lookism-like, Original)

[Leekz01]

Here's some more original SFW content commissioned from NMR-3 over from SB.

If you find this interesting please check out A-Side over on SB which is a on-going quest. (Currently on hiatus)​

 

[Leekz01]

Sometimes you wish you didn't stand out.

In most ways you don't, really. You're taller than the average Korean boy of your age, but not by a lot, so in itself that's not so rare. You're a little thicker at the shoulders, your hair doesn't fall neatly into shape but instead is a wild tangle. You're not slender, but you're not built or fat either. In most respects, you're not that different from the norm.

No, what really sets you apart is you're half black. Mixed, multiracial, whatever you want to call it, your skin's dark enough that it's obvious from a glance.

You walk onto the Busan metro, looking straight ahead, and after finding a seat you set your bag down next to you and close your eyes for a moment. The metro lurches into motion, and you reopen your eyes to stare outside the window, thinking.

You're distracted by someone, maybe a few moments after the metro doors close, running up to the metro, trying to press the button to open the doors again. He looks about your age, so you're guessing he's another student, except he must've overslept on his first day. That's rough.

Then the metro departs, ignoring him pressing the button, and you watch him stand there, heartbroken, before he passes into the distance and you don't see him anymore.

After that, Busan passes by at an ever-varying pace. You live in the Haeun district - a name that means Sea and Clouds, given to it by a poet from roughly a thousand years ago. Sometimes the metro slows and a digital voice announces the stop, first in Korean and then in English. Then in languages less immediately relevant to you, Japanese, Mandarin.

The metro passes by Dalmaji Hill, one of the city's foremost attractions since ancient times, and the beach, famous throughout Korea. In the early morning light the sea looks calm, and there's not many people out at the moment. A few stops later, the metro also passes by Centrum City and Marine City, a complex of ludicrously expensive high-rises built a couple of years ago that stab at the sky with all the confidence money can buy. There's lights on everywhere, reflected in the water.

In short, Busan's kind of a city that's having difficulty deciding between the old and the new, the local, the national and the international. Maybe that's just your perspective talking, though. You'll admit to some bias there.

You get off at Dongnae, check the GPS app on your phone, and stretch your legs to walk to your new school. Mentally, you review what you know. The school's called Shinil High. The motto is "Excellence, Wisdom, Virtue". Exciting stuff.

The school itself, which is maybe fifteen minutes away from the station, looks... fine? It's definitely a school, is your first thought. There's a big banner hanging from the roof announcing the school's name and that today is the first day.

Your first few steps in your school are with your head held high, and you walk up to one of the adults wearing pins, who you presume is a teacher.

The teacher's a woman in her early thirties, with frizzy hair and wearing jeans. She's of normal height, which means she's a little taller than you are for the moment. She also, you note, has all the enthusiasm of someone who needs five cups of coffee to start her day off but has found herself having only two.

She's currently standing there, having handed out something to one of the other students who just passed by. Wearing an expression that identifies her as an unwilling volunteer who's been told to greet the newbies, she sees you walk up to her and raises an eyebrow.

"Hey," you say. "I'm here for orientation?"

She nods wearily, rummages around in a bag she's carrying with her, and hands you a brochure.

"I'm Ms. Yoo," she says brusquely. Her voice is low for a woman. "Gwen Yoo. Which class you're in is listed on the board set up in the front hall of the school. Classrooms for the first years are on the third floor. The rest of the info you'll need is in the brochure."

"Cool," you say, not really sure what else to say. You walk past her and hear her repeat the same spiel to the next student who walks up to her before they're out of ear shot.

You find your way to class pretty easily. There's three class groups for first year: 1-1, 1-2, and 1-3. You're in 1-2. If that means anything, you don't know.

Picking out a desk's not that hard, because there's some people already present. You pick a desk by the window near the back and settle in. No one comes up to talk to you and you catch a few glances here and there, but you're used to all that, unfortunate as that is.

Ms. Yoo walks in somewhere between five and ten minutes later and starts going through the rules and whatnot. Nothing there you didn't already know and definitely nothing exciting or anything. She looks about as enthusiastic about starting introductions as you feel.

The first guy mumbles something you didn't quite catch and then sits back down. There's a momentary stare-off as everyone waits to see how Ms. Yoo will react, but she just winds up shrugging and motioning for the next one to stand up.

When it's your turn, you stand up as well.

"My name's Lee Kyungseok," you say. "Or Ken, if you prefer."

You say it in flawless Korean, which people still don't seem to expect. There's a couple of expressions of surprise, but at least there's no outright exclamations or anything.

"I speak Korean," you say, having expected the reaction. "And, yes, I'm half American. Please don't make an issue out of it, thanks."

And, even though you say that, sometimes it's gonna be an issue anyway.

You're willing to admit your life story's kind of rare, though. Your mom was a black American who came to Korea to staff the military base nearby but wound up settling down with a civilian here. She's raised you with all the structure, discipline, and focus on physical and moral excellence that implies. Your dad runs a dojo.

You sit back down and wait for a reaction, but none seems to be forthcoming for the moment. Good.

While you ignore most of the introductions, there's a couple you do take note of.

There's a tall guy called Ethan Baek, for instance. He's got a honest sort of face and a sturdy kind of physique. He introduced himself simply by saying that he's here for the Taekwondo team, then sat down again. There's something to be said for simplicity, you suppose.

Second is a girl named Layla Moon. In a word, she's a goth. Through her long black hair you catch glimpses of big earrings dangling from her ears, she's got a couple of arm bands on, and an inverted cross dangles from her neck. You'll admit that she's not unattractive, though. Her introduction's something about Saturn being in retrograde, which might well be the case.

Third is a guy named Isaac Goh. It took him only moments to establish himself as the class clown - he's got a distinctive laugh that's audible from a mile away and seems happy enough to put it to use. Combined with a big sunny smile on his face and the fact that he looks a bit pudgy, he's almost a little too cheerful.

You shrug. You'll find out more about their personalities soon, you suppose, as well as the other classmates'. You're kinda looking forward to it, but first you've got school to get through.

The next couple of hours are taken up by a series of lectures: first history, then maths, then ethics and finally Korean. Each teacher comes in, introduces themselves shortly, and then goes into what topics they'll be covering this year and what they expect - which is mostly just that you do the homework and do the learning.

The school doesn't really seem to expect much in the way of academics from its students, you note.

When it's time for lunch, you run a hand through your hair while the teacher leaves, sagging back in your chair. Alright, you think. Now the hard part - socializing.

"Oi," someone says as you're grabbing your books, so you look up.

That someone is standing near the door. He's got a wide forehead, a shock of blonde hair and two piercings in his left ear. There's a tattoo of a dragon - you think - that's inked on his chest, the head of which pokes out near the hem of his shirt and the tail of which curls around his left arm.

"The boys here, come with me," he orders.

You see a couple of other students trade looks.

"Why?" Isaac asks, too thrown to even joke.

"Shut the fuck up," the guy barks in response. "Don't ask questions."

After exchanging more glances, Isaac finally forces a smile and shrugs his shoulders. "Let's do as the gentleman says," he jokes.

The group follows, and since you're curious what this is about, you follow as well. You don't have a good feeling about it, though, which soon pays off. The guy you're following leads you to a corridor where a shitty wooden chair's been set up. There's a bunch of people standing behind the chair - second years, you think.

Lounging on that chair is a bully. He fits the stereotype to a ridiculous T. He's got short-shaved hair at the sides, long at the top, and a lit cigarette in his hand, which he stamps out on the dirty tile at his foot when your group arrives. He's wearing the school uniform, but he's unbuttoned the top button and popped his collar for maximal douchebaggery.

When you arrive, maybe half of the male first-years in the school in the first year is there. That's about 15 people, more or less. It's not a giant crowd, but it feels like a mass of people in the narrow confines of the corridor.

"You mighta gotten a few lessons from your teachers," the guy in charge says. He was already talking before you got here, it seems, and he's got a pretty thick accent. "But this ain't that kinda lesson. My name is Quentin Choi, but you can call me your professor, because I'm in charge of teaching you what your place is in the hierarchy."

Some of his goons chuckle, until Quentin holds up a hand lazily. "Now, I know how this goes. There's gonna be a couple of you who think that this is bullshit, that maybe I'm just kidding. Nope. You're wrong, and this is why I've thought of a good exercise to try and make my point clear, right?"

Quentin picks at his teeth. "See, anyone who thinks they're someone can walk up and challenge me, right here, right now, to a fight. We don't go to the teachers or any of that weak-sauce shit, we don't back down and we don't pussy out."

He grins. "And when the lot of you are down and I'm still standing, we'll know who's who, and why. You feel me?"

You do not, in fact, feel him. You don't feel this motherfucker at all. No one else really seems to be itching to get started, either, and it's clear Quentin picks up on it.

"No one?" Quentin says. He tries to sound disappointed but it's betrayed by the shit-eating grin on his face. "Cowards, the lot of you? Come on. I ain't gonna be able to make the lesson stick, am I?"

He squints his eyes to look out into the crowd of silent boys.

"You," he says, pointing at one pasty nerd-looking dude, and then at a couple more people in the crowd. When he's got four people who all look about as threatening as tomato cans picked out, he looks around for a final time.

Then his eyes land on you and he brightens. Fuck.

Sometimes you really wish you didn't stand out.

"Hey, you," he says loudly, and points. A few heads turn to see if he's pointing at them, but he makes it obvious a moment later.

"Listen," Quentin says, and cracks his knuckles. "Black dude. You're gonna be the first one up. How's about I show you the law of the jungle?"

 

[Leekz01]

Main character of B-Side:

To be updated later...​

 

[Leekz01]

You sigh.

Well, if he wants it, he's gonna get it.

You step forward and bring your fists up, squaring up silently.

For a moment, you make sure to judge the distance. There's maybe ten feet between the two of you, with a bunch of students thronging to the sides of the hallway. Quentin's arms are shorter than yours despite him being a year older - he's not a big guy, despite his energy that makes him seem taller than he is.

Quentin's eyes brighten.

"That's more like it," he says, and swaggers forwards. "So, what did it? What made you move, huh? Didn't like it when I called you black?"

One of his lackeys smirks.

Quentin struts forward. You watch him step closer, and while you get tenser with every step, he doesn't. He must be confident. His mistake.

"Listen here, motherfucker," he states. His voice is loud, as he's making sure that he's heard.

You've heard enough, though. One foot shifts backwards a little bit. You lower yourself down on your hips a little, make sure that you're anchoring your centerline right so that it becomes unshakable.

Quentin's eyes flicker down and his smirk grows just a little bit more malicious, thinking you're stepping back or stepping down. He continues: "I'm going to beat you back to where you -"

The distance is right, so you twist your hips and set yourself against the floor. Your sneakers squeak a little against the dusty tile.

Your fist slams straight into the spot just below Quentin's ribs and his little speech cuts off with a sudden, wheezing gasp as he experiences the feeling of being slugged in the solar plexus without bracing for it at all.

With the breath driven out of his lungs, he bends very nearly double. Still, you regard him carefully. Not quite done, you think.

There's a sudden murmur of confusion from the audience while everyone watches Quentin's confidence get blasted out of him. He grunts like a wounded animal and tries to force himself back up.

So you hit him again, this time slamming a hammer fist into the center of his back.

Quentin gasps again, then collapses on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Anyone else?" you ask, the first time you've spoken while they're all watching.

Quentin's goons gape at you, but neither of them goes to help Quentin.

A silence falls. Just as you're thinking you've managed to break their spirit enough that it's over, one of the first-year students behind you utters a tentative whoop of joy. Unfortunately, that forces the second years into confronting the realization that they're losing control of the situation.

"Quentin, get up," one of them mutters, and tries to haul Quentin up by the arm. Quentin wheezes and forces himself back to his feet.

He tries to give you a death glare, the effect of which is destroyed by the fact that his eyes are just slightly red.

"Coward," Quentin whispers. He'd have shouted but he doesn't really have the breath for it yet. "You hit me with a sucker punch!"

That's not how you remember it. You raise your fists again and return his glare unflinchingly.

Quentin throws you a final withering glare, then hobbles away.

"Take him," he mutters to several of his year-mates. "I'm going to tell Danny."

There's a few hesitant looks, before three of them muster up the courage to charge.

You raise your fists again. Fighting three guys is a little harder than beating up one guy, but you've committed now, and there's no way you're backing down.

Breathing in deep and narrowing your eyes, you watch for the moment the first of the three crosses that boundary line. It happens to be one of the bigger boys who's brandishing a fist while he runs at you.

The instant he's close enough, you step forward and slam your fist into his chin with a ramrod straight punch. You don't block his wild haymaker; blocking is a waste of time that you could better use by counter-attacking.

Not that it seems necessary right now. You can practically see the guy's brain rattling around in his skull, and he drops a moment later, fist still hanging in mid-air. You pivot to the next guy, caught in the middle of a loud battle-cry, who tries to tackle you while you're still turning.

While he slams into you, you exhale and ensure your centerline remains steady, and when his legs slip out from underneath him in a slipshod two-leg tackle, you simply sprawl on top of him, getting your legs out of the way and pressing your chest to the top of his head so it slams into the unforgiving floor below.

There's the rushed sound of footsteps approaching as the last guy approaches you while you're still down on the floor.

Fortunately, that's what you were banking on. You roll to the side, arm slipping under the arms of the guy who just tackled you and hefting him up to essentially make him the wall to blunt the inevitable football kick that you're certain is coming.

That prediction goes slightly awry when Ethan steps out of the crowd and delivers a brutal side kick to the final second year's stomach that sends him careening away. With one leg still raised in mid-step, the second-year stands no chance of regaining his balance, and swiftly slams his head into the nearest wall instead.

You raise yourself up again, relinquishing your hold on the groaning second-year still laying on his side, and survey the scene.

There's a couple of second-years left, but they don't dare move. Everyone's eyes are glued to the three boys, each down or out, and to Quentin, whose stumbling gait has sped up a little bit and is very deliberately not looking behind him.

"Anyone else?" you ask again, making sure to stare every second-year all in the eyes one by one. Not a single one dares meet your eyes.

Yeah, that's what you thought.

You turn in the silent hallway and stride away before people remember to pick their jaws off the floor. Slowly but surely, a bunch of other first-years follow after you in stunned silence, which soon fades into excited whispering and discussions of what just happened.

"Well done," Ethan says, jogging just a little bit to catch up to you.

"Thanks. Nice kick," you say, looking at him with your head tilted.

"Thanks. Good punch," he responds.

"I've had better," you say.

Ethan raises an eyebrow. "Not sure Quentin agrees."

You grin, and so does he.

"Lunch?" you ask, taking this as an offer of friendship.

"Yeah. Let's go."

He's not much of a talker, but you can respect that. Seems like a decent dude, as far as you can judge. The both of you are men, and that means it's equally valid to have friendships based on talking as it is to have friendships based on not talking at all.

"I got my own lunch," you say. "I'll go grab it, you go get a seat."

"Sure."

You head back to the classroom, which is mostly empty. If that's normal or because the whole mess with Quentin earlier, you have no idea.

Having retrieved your lunch and stepped out of the classroom again, you realize that you're actually not sure where the cafeteria is. Fortunately, there's a bunch of other students still trickling their way down the stairs anyway and you can just follow them, which you proceed to do.

The wait line for the food's kind of clogged, so you actually have to wait on Ethan for a moment and check out the room.

You don't really know what you expected from the cafeteria, but it looks basically exactly like any school cafeteria you've ever seen. There's a long line set up near a bunch of serving stations, which you try not to think of as feeding troughs. There's tables set around the room, most of them square.

While most of those tables have people at them, they haven't really filled up with any sort of recognizable clique yet. Still, there's also a couple of empty tables, so you're just gonna head for those for now.

You pick out a table that seats four, figure it should do, and head over. Maybe a few seconds after you sit down with your lunch and start unpacking your sandwich, Ethan announces his arrival by setting his plate on the table and scraping the chair backwards.

While he sits, you check out his meal. There's rice, there's vegetables, there's meat, and there's some sort of sauce-looking thing that you can't readily identify.

"What's that?" you ask.

"Gochujang jjigae," Ethan explains. "Chili pepper stew. You never had any?"

"Not looking like that, no," you say, scratching the back of your neck. At your home, your mom is the supreme authority when it comes to the kitchen, and she treats deviation from Grandma's recipe book like it's heresy. As a result, you're mostly familiar with American cooking.

For example: your own lunch is a sandwich that your mother packed you. You're not complaining, she's a good cook. Also she'd beat your ass for trying to refuse her food, anyway.

"Is it good?" you ask, deciding to not dwell on those thoughts.

Ethan shrugs and helps some more food into his mouth. "I've had better."

That's not a compliment, but alright.

There's two open places left at the table and more than enough space to sit, but you see a couple of people pass you by and head to other tables after giving the seat next to you a nervous look.

When someone finally does sit at the table, next to Ethan and across from you, it's Isaac, the pudgy kid from class. He's got a plate with him also, with similarly small portions as Ethan.

"Hey," he says.

"Yo," you say, after swallowing the last bite of your sandwich. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to say, you really saved my bacon," Isaac says, lifting up his fork with some mystery meat on top.

"That's chicken," Ethan says, not looking particularly impressed.

Isaac looks dismayed for a moment. "Shit," he says. "Uh."

"Think fast," you say, grinning.

"You, uh," he says in response, and throws you a pleading look. "Yeah, I've got nothing, man. Don't do this to me."

You snort, and Isaac smiles back at you.

"Anyway, all of that's not the reason I'm here," he says. "I wanted to say thanks for, you know, beating up Quentin before he beat all of us up. Me in particular, for obvious reasons."

"No problem," you say.

"Yeah," Ethan says. "If he didn't, I would've."

"What was that about, anyway?" Isaac asks. "Either of you two got any idea?"

You shrug. "No clue. We'll probably learn more, I figure."

"Yeah," Ethan says again. "Don't worry about it."

"Well, anyway, I've got an offer for you," Isaac says. "My older brother went here too, so I know a little bit of how this school runs. The clubs, the school layout, who the teachers are that you can piss off and who you can get away with screwing around in front of."

He leans forward. "I can give you the lowdown, if you would. The skinny."

Isaac makes his tone almost conspiratorial, but you're pretty sure that there's little he can tell you that you can't just find out on your own.

You rub your chin. Still, might be interesting to learn a little bit. If nothing else, it'll keep the conversation alive.

 

[Leekz01]

"Tell me about the sports clubs," you say, leaning your chin on your hand. "Anything interesting?"

"We've got a basketball club," Isaac says. "That your thing?"

"Mostly big leagues," you tell him. "From time to time. NBA."

"Yeah, well, that's not what this is," he agrees. "I think our team is like, regional, at best. Moving on...

"There's a swimming club. Not on the premises, but they've worked out a deal with a pool nearby that they get to go for free. They're expected to swim four days out of the week before and after school."

"That's pretty intense," you say.

"Right?" Isaac says. "Definitely too intense for me, I can tell you that much. Getting up early is insane enough, but doing it to go swimming? I'd drown, and I probably wouldn't even mind drowning at that point, to be honest."

You snort.

"You'd float," Ethan says, smirking to himself.

"Hey," Isaac says, grinning along. "I'm only human. It's not my fault that the food here's too good."

He looks down at his plate, then back up. "And by here, I mean the food in the restaurants nearby. Not this mystery meat mix... thing."

"No, we got that," you respond wryly. "Fun as all this is, I was mostly wondering about martial arts clubs. I know there's apparently a Taekwondo club."

"There is," Ethan says, folding his arms. "It's why I'm here."

You blink. "Hold on. I thought there was a lottery system or something to decide who goes to which school?"

"I was joking," Ethan admits. "Yeah, it was random."

"Sometimes it works out, I guess?" you say.

"I don't feel like it worked out for me," Isaac grumbles, pushing his fork through his meat again. "But, anyway, Taekwondo, right. It's true, there's a club here, they've got one of the side halls that's basically theirs full time."

Ethan nods.

Isaac looks around twice cautiously before continuing, which you think is weird.

"But, uh, they're a little... notorious," he says. "Think infamous, not famous."

"Give me an example," you say. "How bad is it? Like, what kind of infamy are we talking about? Drinking? Doping? Points shaving? Did a coach try something?"

Ethan frowns deeper with every possibility, as if wondering what he's got himself into.

"Uh, none of those," Isaac says. "It's not that bad. I mean, as far as I know. Just tempers running high, I guess."

That causes Ethan to relax.

"That all?" he says, a little dismissively.

"Look, I don't really know the details," Isaac admits. "But I hear a judge got kicked in the mouth one time during a tournament match. That's usually not ideal, right?"

"Accident, maybe," Ethan says. He doesn't sound so sure of himself.

"Mm," you say. "I've got to admit, I'm kinda curious to hear what the story is there."

Isaac shrugs. "I don't know any more than that, so you're gonna have to ask the people from the Taekwondo club."

"Why the interest?" Ethan asks you.

"My dad runs a dojang," you say.

"That explains a lot," Isaac says. "So, your moves are from Taekwondo, huh?"

"No, not really," you say. "That was Jeet Kune Do."

"Jeet Kune Do," Isaac repeats, scrunching up his face. "Never heard of it before. Is it, like, Chinese?"

"Bruce Lee," Ethan says, thoughtfully.

Isaac stares at him, baffled. "The actor? From, like the 60s? What's he got to do with anything?"

"He was a lot more than that," you say. "Really gifted martial artist, too. What I do is based on what he practiced, which is based on a whole bunch of other martial arts."

"Cool," Isaac says. It's clear he doesn't fully understand it, but that's fine. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Based on Taekwondo?" Ethan asks.

"Yeah. My dad teaches taekwondo, actually," you say.

"And he's not disappointed that you practice a different style?"

You shrug. "As long as I hold to the Taekwondo philosophy, he doesn't mind. Besides, Jeet Kune Do is partially based on Taekwondo, anyway, so I train with him sometimes."

"And you're thinking you might do that at school too, huh?" Isaac says. "Seems to me that you've trained pretty hard already, with how easily you took down Quentin. That was his name, right? Quentin?"

"Yes to the name thing, otherwise, nah," you explain. "You can never have too much training, right?"

Ethan nods. "There's training this afternoon. You in?"

"I don't think I am, actually," Isaac says, pushing his plate away. It's empty, even if he didn't exactly look enthused to eat it all. You'll be kind and chalk that up to politeness. "If you don't mind?"

Ethan shrugs.

"Yeah, no, fair," you say. "Doesn't exactly look like your type of thing."

"No clue what you mean by that," he laughs. You're not sure if he's making his belly shake with his laughter on purpose, but it makes his sarcasm clear, in any case.

"I think I'm gonna go, actually," you say. "Might not train together with you, but I figure I might as well have a quick look around, right?"

"No problem," Ethan says. "Well, probably."

The lunch bell rings not too long after that, and after ditching your various lunch remnants in the bins nearby, you head back up to class.

In the back of your mind, you've got to admit to believing that after the excitement of your lunch break, the rest of your school day would be equally exciting. Unfortunately, your expectations are betrayed. Every teacher after the lunch follows the same routine: introduce themselves while trying hard not to show any personality traits or anything memorable, tell you all the things you'll be seeing this year, and then finish up by starting a lesson.

The only one to really deviate from that script in any meaningful way is the last one you've got that day: the English teacher.

He's a man with thinning but not greying hair, a habit of clasping his hands when he talks, and the most animated demeanor you've seen from a teacher ever since you arrived in Korea.

"My name is Mr. Goh," he says. "Korean name Goh Kwangjin, English name Grover Goh, to be clear. I'll be the one to teach you English this coming year, and if we're lucky for the next two years as well. "

So far, so good, but then it gets worse.

"I hear that we've got an American in the room!" he says like a bad standup comedian, pantomiming looking around. Every other head in the room swivels towards you as if magnetically drawn there. Great.

He points at you and you stand up from your seat, trying to school your face into the expression of someone eager to be called on.

"Stand up, stand up," he says. "Now, you'll have to forgive me. I don't quite know every name yet, though I'm working on it. Could you give me a short little introduction?"

"Kenneth Lee," you say, standing up from your chair. "I'm half-American."

"Well, that's a half more than the rest of us," Mr. Goh jokes. "You speak English at home?"

"Half," you say, and at his inquisitive look, you explain further: "English to my mom, Korean to my dad. Both with my sisters."

"Fascinating," he says. "You know, I've been to America myself."

It's clear that he takes an enormous pride in this, because he starts preening. You're not all that impressed for obvious reasons, but the rest of the class does seem kind of enthused by the thought of going to America.

"Where, sir?" you ask, since he's not given you permission to sit down just yet.

"A little town," he says coyly. "A couple of you may have heard of it. New York, does that ring any bells?"

He's making a big show of humility, but what he really wants is praise for this monumental achievement. There's a few impressed looks thrown his way, and he basks in them.

Mr. Goh allows you to sit back down at that point and you do so gratefully. You catch a few impressed looks, which you presume are going to lead to more questions to tutor someone in English. For whatever reason, English is considered vital to success here, and so the most common reaction to overhearing someone speak English or seeing a foreigner is either racism or asking if they can tutor someone's kids, off the books.

Your sisters have done it a few times, and you're not opposed to it. It's fairly easy money, for not much work. The job can suck sometimes, but your sisters don't really have any horror stories or anything.

The rest of the English lesson passes without further incident. You know all of this stuff already, and you're pretty sure you can speak better English than Mr. Goh himself.

When school ends, Ethan stands up and stretches. Isaac, too, stands up, and tiptoes over to the door connecting your classroom to the hallway, the motion exaggerated like he's in a cartoon, all high knees. He attracts some attention from the other classmates too, and as a result he starts exaggerating it even more, to quiet grins and some giggling. Isaac quietly tugs open the sliding door and peers outside.

"Coast is clear," he announces. "No Quentin."

You and Ethan exchange an amused look.

"We're heading to the dojang," you tell Isaac. "See you tomorrow."

"Sure," he says, and returns to his desk to grab his bag. "Have fun, or whatever."

You head down the stairs and, following the plan that you were given earlier this morning, take a left to head through a glass door, across a bit of paved garden and heading up to the PE hall.

From the moment you step inside, it's clear that this is only a part-time Taekwondo dojang. In most dojangs, including your father's, there's a Korean flag hanging up on one of the walls, for instance. Taekwondo isn't a grappling martial art, but sometimes there's mats, just to practice being able to fall right.

On the other hand, this was clearly more intended to be a basketball court. The lines are painted on the floor and there's two retractable hoops, both currently retracted at the moment to give you just a little more space. There's a cabinet set to the side of the court where the benches would be, and you can tell it's meant to display trophies, due to the glass front. It's empty of everything except what looks to be participation trophies.

You stand off to the side, roughly near the free throw line, and wonder where everyone else is. So far it's you and Ethan and you mill around for a bit, until five minutes later other people start arriving.

A few other students walk in, fellow first-years. There's maybe five of you in total, including you and Ethan. Two of them are clumped together, the other comes alone. You don't really speak to each other, though you can't really name a reason why you wouldn't.

There's three people who arrive already in their white Taekwondo uniforms. They've got various belts - two blue, one red. Normally, the blue belts are one step below the red, and the red belt is one step below the black belt. You say normally because more or less every Taekwondo federation has different rules about belts, and then there's additional intermediary belts introduced by specific dojangs in an absolute riot of colors.

The first, with the red belt, is the biggest of the three. He's got a blocky sort of physique, with wide shoulders and a certain sense of solidity to him. You wouldn't call him handsome, because he's got heavy eyebrows, small eyes, and a sizable cleft chin, all of which contribute to making his face look curiously old even though he's probably seventeen.

As a matter of fact, on first seeing him you were pretty convinced that he was going to be the sunsengnim here.

The other two have blue belts, and it's easier to tell they're fellow students. There's one boy and one girl. Twins, you think - they've both got brown hair, with the boy's being short-cropped and the girl's being tied into two pigtails. They're about the same height, too. They both have more or less the same facial features, which you suppose makes sense, even if you don't know if either would take that as a compliment.

They turn to you, arrayed in a neat little triangle - the red belt in front, the blue belts behind him, one to each side.

"Welcome," the red belt says, folding his arms behind his back in a parade rest position. "My name is Grant Choi. These are Morgan and Robin Huang."

Which is which, Grant doesn't say. With both having gender-neutral names it's not easy to guess, either.

"I'm currently the leader of the Taekwondo club," he says. "That means I'm a third year. You'll address me as hyung. Clear?"

You and the others nod, at which Grant relaxes. Not relaxed enough to smile, though.

"So," he says. "Normally we'd ease into things at this point in the training, but to make sure that I know what we're dealing with, we'll start off with some sparring. If you've never done Taekwondo before, just stand off to the side, or if you're partnered with one of us, just tell us and we'll show you some basics. That clear?"

Hmm. Not the normal call to jump straight into sparring. Normally there's stretching, or

Still, the others nod.

"Line up," Grant instructs you. "Just say who we want to spar with."

You and the other three move into a line with minimal fuss. You end up at the right end of the line, standing next to Ethan.

"Right," Grant says, and turns to you. "Pick who you want to spar with, and -"

He freezes when he catches proper sight of you, with the deer-in-headlights expression of someone who's just realized that only paying vague attention to his English classes is about to monumentally backfire.

"I, uh, am Grant Choi," he begins, in halting English. "This is, uh. Taekwondo dojang. Yes?"

"I speak Korean," you say. It's not the first time you're getting this reaction, and the humor of it's mostly worn off for you, at this point.

"Oh thank God," he mutters. "So, you got all of that?"

"Yeah," you say. "Sparring. I got it."

"Alright then," Grant says. "Who do you wanna spar with?"

You consider it for a moment.

"Morgan and Robin."

 

[Leekz01]

Grant frowns, and he's not the only one.

"Morgan and Robin?" he asks, repeating who you'd asked to spar with. "As in, both of them? We've only got time for the one sparring session, we can't do two after another. I appreciate that you're eager, but pick one."

"Not one," you say. "Both."

Grant's frown deepens. He's wondering to himself, you think, if your claim of speaking Korean was actually true, and that you're not just misunderstanding something in a way that just sounds like a normal sentence.

"I want to spar with Morgan and Robin," you emphasize. "At the same time."

There's a moment of silence as the atmosphere in the improvised dojang starts to turn sour, and Grant reddens with anger. You think back to what Isaac had said, that tempers in the Taekwondo club could run wild, and you wince. Yeah, that's looking pretty true.

"Listen here," he says, voice loud. "Maybe you heard that Taekwondo's just a sport, not a martial art, or maybe you think that just because we're officially called Taekwondo players that means you can come in here and fuck with us."

"No," you say, meeting his eyes squarely. "I don't. I've trained in Taekwondo before."

"You have, have you?" Grant asks, voice cutting. "If you get hurt, don't start crying, and don't go running to daddy, either. You hear me?"

"Loud and clear," you say. "Listen, all I want is to see how I can manage against more than one person, in a safe place. That's all."

Despite that, you hear Grant mumble something under his breath - probably something like "arrogant little shit" - and beckon Morgan and Robin forward. You're still not sure which is which, because they don't exactly have name tags on their uniforms.

Just for the sake of ease, you decide to call the dude Morgan and the girl Robin. Easier to refer to them that way, really.

"We're not holding back," Robin says, taking up a position opposite from you.

"Don't blame us," her brother adds, standing next to her.

Morgan's slightly bigger but Robin's raised herself to her toes and is bouncing up and down, making her ponytail bob up in the air behind her.

You take a deep breath, then assume a right lead stance. Your feet are a natural step apart, your rear heel tilted. Your left hand is open, and hovering over your collarbone, your right hand in a fist.

"Right," Grant says, looking at both of you. He looks quizzical at your stance, which is fine. "You know the rules."

You nod, as do the twins.

Grant raises a hand, high in the air, and then lets it drop.

"Go!"

The twins exchange a final look, and then Morgan walks forward while Robin stays back a little. From that, you presume their strategy, hastily conferred as it may be, is going to be that Morgan is going to come in closer to take your attempts at hits, while Robin is going to use the fact that she's got the longest reach to stay out of yours and bombard you with side kicks.

You inhale, then exhale, eyes fixed on both of them. Your strategy is equally simple: try to force them to get into each others' way. If that fails, you're going to have to try and compartmentalize to beat one of them while trying to duck the other, and then switch to take the other one down as well, but that's way harder to achieve.

The easiest way to have them trip over themselves is to go on an unrelenting offensive.

You step forward, into Morgan's range and turning to the side to hide yourself behind Morgan. Robin gives a short look of frustration to find her path to you blocked off by her brother, which is what you're aiming for. Morgan, though, doesn't hesitate to throw out a snap front kick to get you out of your melee range.

He's expecting you to block, but you don't. Instead you counter, and your fist flies out in a jab that slams into Morgan's chest. You don't go full blast because you don't want to injure him too much, but it has the desired effect anyway - pushing him off balance enough that his kick is abruptly turned into a struggle for balance.

Your fist returns, and you set on Morgan in a rush of punches. Jeet Kune Do descends partially from Wing Chun, so you're aiming for machine-gunning strikes, sacrificing power and some precision in return for pure speed.

Your first jab hammers Morgan's chest, slipping past his hasty block, and then you bend your knees to leverage yourself forward and hit him again, and again. He groans, oddly rhythmical from the sound of your fists beating into his chest like a drum. He's focused mostly on trying to guard his vital areas, and succeeds at that - the solar plexus, the liver, the heart.

Then, catching something from the corner of your eye, you abruptly move aside, juking to the right - but too late to avoid the kick rocketing at you. A foot slams into your hips even so, and you hiss in surprise. Robin, it seems, saw her opportunity to join in again.

Morgan takes the moment to take a long breath and you frown. Shit. If they just trade off, swapping in and out like a WWE death match, they're just going to exhaust you without you being able to get much damage in, unless you start trying to hit hard enough to put one of them down for the count.

You block Robin's next kick and frown, concentrating on the fight itself instead of what-ifs.

Robin's hips twist, preparing herself for a side kick, and you step forward, into her range. You use the momentum of the big step to wind your fist back and try to hit her with a punch to the solar plexus. Then Morgan jumps back in with a high front kick from your side, and you're forced to think fast.

You step forward again, to Robin's side and positioning yourself in between them, avoiding Morgan's front kick. Robin has to pivot more than she'd planned for to try and land her side kick and overbalances slightly, so you grab hold of her pants sleeve with one hand and sweep her foot out from under her with one of your own feet, then let her fall.

She falls with a surprised "oof", which gives you a little bit of time to try and deal with Morgan.

He pulls his foot back and you lunge forwards as he's already pivoting to hit out with a back kick, and then you try to repeat the same trick while his heel screams past your left arm.

Morgan's wiser to that than his sister is, though, or maybe he's just learned from her example, and instead he manages to keep his foot on the ground even as you try to sweep him, too.

You take a step back but find that Robin's foot tangles itself in your own feet, which you don't think is planned but costs you a little bit of concentration that Morgan uses to set up a side kick that slams into your quick block and sends you staggering to the side.

"That's enough," Grant announces.

The three of you freeze, and Morgan nearly tips over as he tries to recover his balance from his foot being high in the air for another kick that would've probably landed. Robin, already scrambling up to her feet, rolls her eyes and yanks her brother upright again.

Grant lets the silence hang, sighs, struggles with himself for a moment, then reaches a decision.

"You're trained," he finally says to you. "Trained pretty well, too. But that's not Taekwondo."

"Taekwondo is one of the things I've trained in," you explain. "But not the only thing."

"Yeah," he says. "That's clear."

He hesitates again, then extends a hand.

"I was a little harsh," he says, faint spots of red on his cheeks. "You do have what it takes, and you're not just underestimating us."

You nod, take his hand, and shake it.

"Train with us again," Grant asks, and as you nod in response he lets his arm fall.

"Sure."

Then, as if remembering that there's others also present, he turns away as if to hide the momentary break in the facade of tough, no-nonsense mentor he's putting on.

"Next!" he says, clearing his throat.

Ethan steps up next and spars with Grant. They put their best feet forward - pun not intended - and show off a little bit in a short scuffle.

In the meantime, you walk over the twins.

"Yo," Morgan says. "You doing alright?"

"Yeah," you say. "Just wondering. Which of you is Morgan, and which of you is Robin? Because I really can't tell."

They look at each other, and turn back to you.

"Isn't it obvious?" Morgan - the one who you think is Morgan - says, smiling.

Right. If they don't feel like telling you, you're not prying.

Grant wins the scuffle with a pretty hefty-looking back kick that thumps against Ethan's breastplate, and then smiles, tells Ethan he's pretty good, and moves on to the other two.

Their names, it turns out, are Theo and Franky. Theo is in a Taekwondo dojang for the first time, claiming that his parents never allowed him to do martial arts before and hoping now is his moment. Franky, on the other hand, has had more experience with Taekwondo, though he says that with him going to a cram school now this is more of a way to try and sneak in practice before heading over.

Neither of them seem exactly prospective black belts or anything, but each of them spars with one of the siblings and then Grant announces some other stuff - trainings are twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday after school, other administrative stuff, and then announces the training is done.

"That went well," Ethan says, as you're all heading outside afterwards.

"Yeah," you say. "See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," he says, hefting his bag over his shoulder. "Bye."

The both of walk off in separate directions after that, neither of you keen on experiencing the awkwardness that comes with lingering after goodbyes.

The way home is basically just taking the train again, trying to get a head start on some homework or some reading. You don't really get anywhere with either of those, winding up surfing on your phone and stuffing it down a pocket when it's your stop.

You head home and announce you're back with a quick, "Yo."

Your mom isn't home yet, but your older sister Maya answers with a "Yo," of her own, then walks out of the bathroom.

"Shower's free," she says, and then to demonstrate how interested she is in how your first day of high school went she heads back to her room and shuts the door behind her. You raise an eyebrow but shrug and take that shower.

You're interrupted by your mom entering the house and asking if you're home, but you tell her you're in the shower. That just means that whatever she's asking is going to wait for dinner.

As a matter of fact, it does.

"So," your mom asks, serving you a giant pile of potatoes and meat. "How was your first day at school, Ken?"

"Fine," you say. "Could you pass me the sauce, please?"

Your mother smiles one of her special smiles, and you realize that you may have fucked up. There's this little mental bell, which almost every child has, carefully tuned to start ringing a desperate alarm when you realize you've done something that your mother doesn't quite approve of.

You gulp. "No sauce?" you say, trying to sound light and unconcerned.

"I'm going to need a little more detail than just 'fine', sweetheart," she says.

"I, uh... I got into a fight," you confess.

Maya just sighs.

"Already?" she asks, throwing you a tired look. "It's been one day, Ken."

"I didn't ask for it," you protest. "Well, not the first one, at least."

Your younger sister Angie chokes on her potato, and your mother slaps her on the back without even looking to dislodge the potato chunk.

"You've fought twice in one day?" Angie manages, grabbing herself a glass of water.

"Did you win?" your father asks, serving himself some food like nothing's going on.

"Yes to the first," you say. "The second one, no."

"You lost?" he asks, leaning forward, intrigued. "Really?"

"Yes, really," you say, feeling a pink flush creep up your cheeks. "Maybe I got a little overconfident."

"Typical," Maya mutters, and huffs when you throw her a dirty look.

Your mother brandishes a spoon at you like it's a baton and asks, "Am I the only one wondering why he fought twice in one day?"

"Oh, no," your father says, grabbing himself some extra sauce. "But you've got to ask the more important questions first, surely. Could I have the sauce, please?"

This gets him a glare from mom that sends his hands creeping back across the table.

"Or not," he says quietly, chastised. "So, er, why did you fight twice in one day, son?"

"Some guy came and got us from the classroom," you begin. "And -"

"'Us'?" Angie asks quickly.

"Everyone in the class, don't interrupt, I'm telling a story here -"

"Alright, alright," she says, and swiftly prevents herself from any more interjections by starting in on her food.

"So," you say, picking up the thread of your story again. "The first guy came and got us, and brought us to this second year called Quentin. Quentin was going to beat some people up, and I put a stop to that."

"Right," Angie says, promise to not interject forgotten already. "That's good. Right, mom?"

"You forgot the second fight," Maya points out.

"There's a Taekwondo club at school," you explain. "So I went for a look, and they invited me for sparring. So I sparred with two of them. Twins, actually."

"Huh," your dad says, sinking into thought. "Twins. Interesting idea, I wonder if - "

"I'm sorry," your mother says, interrupting your father. "Am I the only one who cares how he did at school? Which, need I remind you, John, is where he went to learn, not to fight?"

"No," your dad says, backtracking rapidly. "No, I mean, I do care, I just -"

"You just?" your mother asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Never mind."

She nods like she's just won a victory and then, unfortunately, turns her attention back to you.

"Now eat," she says, hands on her hips. "The food's growing cold, and don't forget that you've got acting school after."

 

[Leekz01]

"Yeah," you say. "I've got acting school. I know, mom. You don't have to remind me."

"Then eat," she says. "Your dinner's getting cold."

Only because all of you kept asking questions, you want to say, but you don't.

Dinner's good, warm, and filling. That's basically all you can ask for, really. Mary's university hasn't started back up yet, and Angie's first day in the last year of middle school seems to have started off pretty well.

You listen with half an ear as she blabbers on about the friends she hasn't seen for a while, mostly.

A while later, you scoot your chair back, put your plate in the dishwasher, and grab your jacket from the rack.

"I'm heading out," you say loudly as you put your shoes on.

"Don't be too late," your mother says equally loudly back.

"Sure," you say.

You head out the door and out to the nearest metro stop, which whisks you away a minute or two later.

Three stops later you get where you want to be - a smaller theater, relatively far inland as far as Busan goes. There are plenty big theaters in Busan, all with names like the Busan Something Center, but this one is where your ambitions are starting out.

The theater, which has the official name of the 39 Steps Culture Center, isn't a small building. It's made of red brick and looks not at all like a building dedicated to the arts. It could've been a bomb shelter or something, is what it looks like. There's a parking lot to the side which can hold maybe twenty cars, habitually filled with the cars of people living nearby.

The acting lessons are held once per week on Thursdays, at seven in the evening. They're meant for students of your age, both amateurs and people hoping to become professionals.

It's an open question if they'll manage, honestly. Leaving aside the question on how kind the industry is to newcomers who haven't gone to one of the premier schools in the nation, which cost a shitload of money, there's also the fact that... well, to be honest, some of them are more here because they love acting than because they're any good at it.

You're different, obviously. You stuff the thought that everyone here probably thinks that way into a mental closet and move on.

"Evening," you say politely, walking up past the parking lot to Elena Jang, the director of the acting program.

In your mind, people running acting lessons fit into two categories physically and two categories mentally. By the physical categories you mean that they're either men of middle age who don't fit the traditional masculine mold, or they're women of slightly more advanced age. By the mental categories you mean they're either literal saints who would give you the shirts off their backs or the cattiest bitches alive.

Elena Jang fits into both categorizations neatly, in that she's a kind older woman who can't seem to get a bad word about anyone to cross her mind. You feel fairly comfortable in assuming that she's adopted more cats in her lifetime than she's cussed. She's never mentioned a husband but she has mentioned, on occasion, having a son, who is apparently a "rapscallion".

She's also got some connections in the industry, you've heard other students claim. Enough pull to get someone an audition for a relatively minor production, especially in theater, but definitely not enough to have her be your foot in the door when it comes to the big TV shows.

"Evening," she responds, putting out her cigarette and stomping out the butt with the toe of her heels. "Ready for tonight's lesson?"

"Always," you say, trying out your best smile. "What are we working with tonight?"

The lessons are pretty simple, in terms of structure. You start by warming up with improv exercises. The second part is where Elena picks out a script of the month that you'll perform, or sometimes there's monologues that students are working on individually that Elena gives feedback on. Twice per year, you all get to head out of this dingy little place and play on a far bigger stage in the Busan Theatrical Center. You weren't kidding about everything here having the same name pattern.

Elena gives you a bright smile. "I've got something new. I think you'll like it."

"Now you've got me curious, Elena," you say. "What's it about?"

"Not telling," she says. "You'll find out at the same time the rest does, dear. Now let's get inside, hmm?"

"Ladies first," you tell her, pushing open the backstage door.

She snorts in a distinctly unladylike fashion, then her heels click-clack through the door, fading into the muted small thumps of footwear dragging across the shaggy carpeting of the backroom.

You follow her in, then let the back door fall closed behind you.

"I'll be off for a minute more," Elena decides, and walks away down a flight of stairs that leads into the bowels of the theatre.

Shrugging your shoulders, you walk down the hall instead. It's dark here, with no lights. There's a certain feeling to being backstage, to being able to see behind the mask that a theatre presents to its other visitors, that nothing else quite manages to capture.

As you open the door that leads to the stage itself, you hear a couple of voices already talking, discussing, and bantering back and forth. Your fellow students are already here, it seems.

"Yo," you say as you walk through the door.

A chorus of replies greets you - a few go "hey," others go "how you doing, Ken?". You raise a hand in greeting, which serves as your response to the entire thing.

"Doing fine," you say. "First day of school, wasn't too bad. You guys?"

"Same as always," George says. He's a year older than you, and he's on the slimmer side, as well as being kind of short. Nice guy, though, and he's got a real talent for seeming dumber than he is, which can be surprisingly useful in acting.

"It was nice to see my friends again," Becky says. She's got long hair, a slim face, and something of a complex about how big her nose is. You've heard rumors from George that she's been begging her dad for a nosejob. In terms of personality, she's unfortunately got something of a bitchy streak that she hides under a veil of politeness.

"Laura not here yet?" you ask.

George shrugs. "You know as much as we do," he says.

Elena returns, chatting away with the last member of your little quartet, Laura Kim. She's kind of short, and her hair is cut into a bob cut that hides her eyes. The odd thing is that she's kind of shy, despite having chosen to do acting, which requires you to put a version of yourself out there. She might be pretty - with her hair hanging in front of her eyes it's hard to tell.

"There we are," Elena says. "Let's get started, shall we?"

And so you do. You do a couple of quick improv exercises and one that lasts a bit longer, where you have to start off telling a story and, when Elena claps, the next person in line has to take over and continue the story as seamlessly as they can.

It's fun, in its own way, but what everyone's looking forward to is the new play, and Elena doesn't disappoint. When you're all gathered on top of the stage again, she claps her hands.

"Have you ever heard," she asks, drawing out the suspense, "of the musical Jump!, I wonder?"

You have, actually. One of the most enduring stage plays in the Korean theatre scene, it combines musical numbers with physical comedy in what is sometimes called a "comic martial art performance". It's been performed all across the world.

"We're doing Jump?" Laura asks, looking very surprised. "But that's a musical..."

"That's right, dear," Elena says. "Well remembered! But this isn't Jump itself, this is something like it. The script isn't as polished, but there's no musical segments in it and the plot is entirely different. I'll adapt it a little bit for our group and you'll love it, don't you worry."

"Is it as physical?" you ask.

"Why, yes," Elena says, whirling around to face you. "That's exactly right. That's why I said you'd love it, Kenneth. You know martial arts, so I thought this would be a fantastic fit for you."

Huh. Sounds like it. That's pretty cool of her. You might've been willing to give the singing a go, though.

"It's not that I don't like the script," Becky says, without even having glanced at it twice. "And no offense to you, Ken, but I just don't know if martial arts are really for me, you know?"

"There's parts also for people who don't want to do the more physical stuff," Elena says. "Really, now, give the script a second look before you decide to cast judgment on whether you like. And let me know which role you want! We'll start off tonight with just doing random roles, so try to see which fits you."

The plot, from your quick read, is a comedy about a master of martial arts living in an unnamed city with his wife, practicing an unnamed martial art, which he's teaching his two disciples. He announces that he's mortally ill, and each of the disciples tries to convince him that they're the one who must inherit his secret ultimate technique. It's a comedy, so each of them has harebrained schemes to try and secure the succession, and all while trying to interfere with the others.

It's definitely no Shakespeare, you can say that much. It's not bad, but it doesn't have any impressive monologues that you can do that really show off your acting chops.

That said, you only get through the first two pages of the script before it's time to head back home. You take the script with you, leafing through the pages as you make your way home, solidifying your grasp on the characters and their arcs. They're not exactly subtle, mind you.

You drop your shoes off near the entrance and walk into the living room. Your dad's nowhere to be seen, but your mom and sisters are watching a TV show. A drama of some kind, you think. There's two actors on screen in some sort of historical getup, a man and a woman, with the woman sitting on some sort of throne while the man is bending the knee. There's subtitles, but you don't bother reading them.

"Yo," you say.

Mom glances back, then reaches over for the remote. The two people onscreen freeze in the middle of speaking as your mom presses the pause button.

"Welcome back," she says.

"Mom," Angie whines. "Come on, unpause it. It's getting good."

Your mother fixes her with a stare, then turns back to you. "How was acting school?"

"Pretty good," you state. "Got a new script."

"Didn't fight anyone?" Angie asks, grinning.

"Funny you should ask, actually," you say. "We're doing a script about martial arts."

"Very relevant to you," your mother says, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," you say. "Elena more or less said that this one was partially meant for me."

She nods. "Best to put your best foot forward, then. Don't repay her effort by half-assing it."

"Right," you say, stretching. "Anyway, I'm getting a shower and I'm heading to bed, alright?"

"Crack open your books first," your mother says.

"Mom, it's the first day," you say. "There isn't even anything to learn yet, we've just been going through what we'll be learning this year."

"Then get a head start," she says. Angie grabs for the remote to try and unpause the remote while your mother's distracted, but she's effortlessly fended off by your mom. "No son of mine is going to be an unthinking thug, martial arts or not."

"You know I'm not like that," you plead. "And you're letting Mary and Angie watch TV."

"They didn't get into fights on their first day," she states. "Maybe try hitting the books instead, Ken."

You hold in a sigh, nod, and walk away to get started on that shower.

Fifteen minutes later, clad in your pajamas, you walk into your room, sit yourself down at your desk, and start going through your books. You read through history again and stare at the maps of pre-modern Korea, trying to remember where anything is. You know Busan, near the coastline, and you know Seoul, which is a little below the middle of unified Korea, but other than that references to Gwangju or Kaesong are lost on you. Somewhere in North Korea, you think blearily.

When it becomes impossible to ignore how your eyes keep glazing over the text and inching over to your bed instead, you sigh again, and force yourself to focus for a little while longer.

Because it's the time to study the lessons you encountered today, and you don't mean in the classroom.

Setting yourself into a meditation pose on your bed, you consider what you learned today.

 

[Leekz01]

As always, when you need inspiration and focus, you pull out your phone and your earplugs, look up a speech by Bruce Lee, and get to thinking.

The fight against Quentin - well, honestly, that wasn't particularly instructive, as far as fighting techniques go. You've learned that if you punch people they tend to go down, but you already knew that. The other lesson it teaches you is the efficacy of punching people when they don't expect it, and again: fairly self-evident.

No, the more interesting lesson was the fight against the twins. Maybe you could've beaten one. You don't feel like you could've beaten both, not without sustaining an injury that'd make it a Pyrrhic victory.

So what lessons can you pull from that, then?

You have to work on your kicks, you decide. If you'd been better at kicking, or faster, or hit harder, you might have been able to take one of them out of the fight for longer, and that means that you could've stood a better chance with the other one.

Also, maybe it'd have helped you to not trip over Robin's feet, because that was just embarrassing.

The rest of what you could do if you were in that situation again is better moment-to-moment strategizing, but while it's easy to say how you'd have done things differently, it's harder to instill in yourself an ability to take the right decision every single time.

You yawn, disrupting your concentration.

Blearily you change into your pajamas, wash your face with some water, and climb into bed, still thinking about what you should've done. Maybe if you'd thrown a side kick there, you'd have done better? Maybe, yeah, but...

The next morning, you wake up with the sound of horrifying sounds resounding in your ear and a feeling that something's weird. You snap awake and look around you for what the hell's going on but see nothing, and then -

"Oh," you say softly to yourself, resisting the urge to facepalm. You know what's up. You never took the earphones out.

You do so, check the clock to find you've got maybe fifteen minutes before you don't have a choice but to start your morning routine, and decide to just get started early so you can eat breakfast in peace.

Still, driven by a curious impulse, you check your phone to see what, or who, autoplay had whisper in your ear while you were sleeping, scrolling down the history. A few more Bruce Lee videos? That's probably decent and fodder for a decent dream if nothing else. Then it goes onto a general philosophy tangent and wound up landing on ASMR maybe an hour before you woke up.

The last video played, as it turns out, is a mukbang - a video where a streamer just eats food.

Wow. That's a lot of food. And she - wow. No gag reflex on choking down that chicken, huh? That explains the noises.

Feeling a little queasy, you pause the video, plug your phone in, get breakfast and a shower before one of your sisters gets in and takes up the bathroom for the rest of the morning.

Then you head out. Your dad's still sleeping, but your mother's already left, as per usual.

The train is the way you left it, and otherwise you don't really have much to add to what you saw yesterday, really. The weather's fine, in the sense that it isn't bad in a noteworthy sort of way.

You walk up to school, finding yourself slipping into a throng of several other people, a mix of students ranging from first to third year. None you recognize, though you do catch a few glances from them. You do your best not to notice.

To give your eyes something to do instead you look over the rest, noting brands of bags, shoes, and watches. You've got uniforms, after all, so people find other ways of personalizing their stuff - and, of course, to show off their wealth.

Around the fourth or fifth time you see a conspicuous patch of green or yellow, you realize that there's clearly something up with that and make a mental note.

People are in the classroom already, but not people you know. You get a couple of nods and a couple of cold shoulders, and you note those, too. Cliques are forming already and it pays to know who's standing with who.

The biggest clique is around a girl who you hadn't taken too much note of yesterday - someone with long, straight, blonde hair that's obviously not her real hair color. She's pretty, in a bitchy sort of way. You listen in on her conversation with her friends on accident due to sitting a few seats away, and learn that her name's Elaine. Her dad, it seems, is a big wig of some kind who buys her expensive stuff but doesn't appear to actually have gotten any respect in return.

A few more people trickle in while you listen in, a parade that's closed out by the teacher of the first lessons of the morning. History, as it happens.

The rest of the day goes like that - quiet, things settling into what's obviously going to be the normal for the next couple of years. You eat lunch with Ethan, with Isaac apparently trying to do lunch with a different clique. Not quite the popular kids, but he's trying to slip into the edge of the popularity whirlpool, to put it with a metaphor.

When school ends and as you're packing your stuff up, someone strolls into class. No, you'll have to rephrase that: he slouches into class, feet dragging over the tile as he pulls himself forward.

He looks, in a word, tired. His eyes are permanently half-lidded, his hair mussed in what can only be some bad bed-head, and his expression is bleary. To draw your class' attention, he yawns loudly.

Eyes snap to him - and, a moment later, to you. Some of them have pleading expressions, and others look eager to see more violence.

For your part, though, you remain sitting. You're not doing anything until something needs to be done, and so far nothing needs to be done. Still, you tense a little bit.

"Afternoon," the guy says. He raises a hand as if in greeting, then it flies to his mouth as he yawns again. "Name's Dylan. I'm a third year."

More furtive glances.

"Why are you here?" someone asks.

"Came here to teach you guys some facts," Dylan says. He scratches the back of his neck. "Don't want anyone getting their shit kicked in because of an easily preventable mistake or anything."

"What's that supposed to mean?" someone mutters, but Dylan just peers at him through half-lidded eyes and shrugs.

"How come you're here now instead of yesterday?" someone asks.

"I forgot yesterday," Dylan says.

"Did you oversleep?" Isaac jokes.

"Kinda," Dylan responds.

"Know any good nap spots?" Isaac tries, throwing another joke.

"The first aid room's a little too busy for my taste," Dylan states. "But, if you can beg off a sicky, worth. Otherwise, the library's not half bad."

"I was joking," Isaac clarifies.

"Oh. Yeah, whatever," Dylan says, hiding another yawn behind his hand. He seems so sleepy that it's surprising that he's not bringing a pillow around wherever he goes. "Anyway, you guys noticed the colors, right?"

There's a couple of looks of incomprehension, though you lean forward.

"The yellow and the green?" Dylan asks. "Those are gang colors. Don't wear them unless you know what you're doing. The teachers know too but they don't care."

"What gangs?" someone asks.

"Green is the 40 Steppers," Dylan says. "Yellow is the Haeundae Surfers. There's other gangs, like the Peak Boyz or the Fishers, but they're mostly not around this district. Pay attention to the two big ones before you start worrying about the others."

Huh. Most active you've seen him yet, talking about the gangs.

"Is there any difference between them?"

"Location," Dylan says. "That's all. Other differences aren't important."

"Uh," Isaac says, and raises his hand. "What happens if we do wear the colors?"

"Best case, nothing," Dylan says. "Worst case..."

He raises a hand and draws a line across his neck with his thumb, and Isaac pales.

"You're kidding," he says. "Right?"

"Am I?" Dylan asks, rubbing at his eyes. "I don't recommend finding out."

"Is that why we got pulled out before lunch yesterday?" one of the other guys asks. You think his name was Rob? Ron? Bob, maybe? Something three letters long and an o in there.

"Who did what now?" Dylan asks, looking a lot more focused all of a sudden. You'd even call him halfway awake.

"Some guy came into our class yesterday," Ron says, trying to be helpful. "He took us to a hallway where a guy named Quentin was waiting."

"Quentin," Dylan says, clearly mentally noting the name down. "Alright. Couple of questions there. Was he wearing colors, who'd he hurt, and how bad is it?"

"Uh..." Ron says, looking around. "Was he wearing any colors?"

"I think he had a green bracelet," someone else offers.

"So some second year is probably a 40 Stepper," Dylan mutters. "Thought we'd gotten most of them out of the school."

"Are you in a gang?" one student asks.

"No," Dylan says curtly, eyes narrowing into a glare.

Frankly, he looks bothered enough by the question that you assume there's some history there. You're not curious enough to want to pry, but not everyone shares in that, it seems.

"Is there a history there?" one of the girls asks.

"No," he states curtly, in a tone which tells you that yes, there is some history there. "Move on. Who did this Quentin hurt?"

"No one," Ron says. "Kenneth - or Ken, I guess - stopped him before he could."

Dylan sighs. "And who's he?"

You don't say anything as the eyes of almost every student in class swivel towards you, but you do raise a hand a moment later.

Your eyes meet Dylan's, and while you don't know what he sees in your gaze, you learn a lot from the way he holds eye contact even through his half-lidded eyes. Doesn't flinch, but doesn't prolong it any longer than he has to, either.

"Ethan helped," you say casually.

"Who - no, never mind," Dylan says. "Good work, both of you."

"Is that going to happen again?" you press the question.

"We'll try to have it not," Dylan says, which is a promise that sort of rings hollow with how he follows it up with another big yawn.

"Different question," you say. "You said 'we' earlier - "

"Pretty perceptive," Dylan says, scratching the back of his neck. "Yeah, we're, uh. The Council, is what we've been called."

"I think I've heard of you," Isaac says. "You're third years, right? I heard you got into a lot of fights."

"Mm," Dylan says. "Those were from last year. It's just a couple of people left now, though. All we really want is no gang shit in school. Made things a hassle in all sorts of ways."

Probably made it hard to get some naptime in, you decide. You don't really think anything else would really get Dylan moving, the way he's presenting himself at the moment.

"No fighting for peace, or justice, or love?" Isaac jokes.

Dylan shakes his head. "Not for me. Could do with a little peace, though. Yeah."

"So who else are in the Council?" you ask.

"Used to be a couple of third-years," Dylan says. "Captain of the Taekwondo team. Other guys. Now they all graduated so it's me, and the new captain of the Taekwondo team, who's a dude named Grant, and... well, there's others too, I guess."

"Excuse me," one of the girls says - Elaine, from this morning. "I fail to see how any of this is relevant to me. Can I go home?"

Dylan stares at her blearily. If he's grumpy for being dismissed, he doesn't show it.

"Yeah," he finally says. "Whatever."

"Thank you," Elaine says, clearly insincerely. She takes her bag and her purse and walks out of the classroom, a gaggle of other girls following behind her a moment later.

"I think that's everything," Dylan says, taking this opportunity to end the conversation.

"What if we've got other questions?" Ron asks. You really should find out his name, you decide.

"Then come to the council room," Dylan says. "I'll probably be there, and so will, uh, others. Bye."

And, without another word, he leaves the classroom the way he entered: sleepily slouching his way to parts unknown.

"So, uh, what I was coming to ask," Isaac says, deciding to change topics. "Before all of that. You guys got any plans for tonight, or maybe the weekend?"

Ethan slouches in his seat and yawns, apparently caught in the same sleepy mood as Dylan.

"Nah," he says. "Tonight I'll game until my eyes are on fire, then tomorrow I'll do the same as every weekend. Sleep in, train a bit, game, eat, and sleep."

"Sounds great," you say. "How about you, Isaac?"

"Basically the same for me," he says. "Gonna help my dad out with some stuff, I think."

"What's he do?"

"Plumber," Isaac says, rubbing the back of his head. "I mean, I'm aware it's not as cool as running a dojang, but -"

"Hey," you say, raising your hands. "I didn't say that."

"In junior high they bullied me over it," he says. "They called me Baby Mario."

You fight not to laugh at that.

"Wahoo," Ethan says, apparently not under the same restrictions as you, and laughs at the dirty look Isaac throws him. "Sorry, man. I couldn't resist."

"I got called all sorts of names too," you say.

"Why?" Isaac asks, and then realizes that's a stupid question. It's because you're half-black, that's why.

"Decent money, plumbing," Ethan suggests.

"I guess so, but busy, though," Isaac says. "He's asked me to come along and learn the trade, but I dunno. Not exactly enthusiastic about it."

Isaac sighs.

Well, anyway, it's not a bad question. What are your plans?

 

[Sat7166]

My God. This fic has come here? Yeahhhh
This is one of my favorite fics ever. I have searched for countless fics with this premise but with a bit more romance so to speak. Just look at my early posts on Recommended reading lol

But are you the author of Hard Knocks or is NMR3 the author? Also, I'm too happy to check properly but is this the same fic as Hard Knocks on SB?

 

[Leekz01]

My God. This fic has come here? Yeahhhh
This is one of my favorite fics ever. I have searched for countless fics with this premise but with a bit more romance so to speak. Just look at my early posts on Recommended reading lol

But are you the author of Hard Knocks or is NMR3 the author? Also, I'm too happy to check properly but is this the same fic as Hard Knocks on SB?

Click to shrink...

NMR3 is the writer, I just commissioned said chapters every once in a while.

 

[Sat7166]

NMR3 is the writer, I just commissioned said chapters every once in a while.

Click to shrink...

Nice, thanks for your service haha

I wish there was more korean drama fics (or shows for that matter) that catered towards men.