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Baekjin stares down at the pamphlet Seokhyeon handed him, his face shaded by the tree's shadow. The words stare back in its rigid and clean font: “International Youth Olympiad For Global Gifted Youth.”
Baekjin scoffs, unimpressed, “An olympiad?”
His tone makes his thoughts clear to Seokhyeon. Baekjin didn’t see it as necessary, nor important to the Union. In fact, he saw it as a waste of time.
Seokhyeon, as usual, knew what he was thinking.
“It’s the best option to maintain your scholarly image. Your excellent grades alone won’t stop the possibility of investigation, even if you have the Principal under control.”
Seokyeon’s reasoning quiets Baekjin’s mind. He can’t argue with such rationale, and it would be best to have other achievements to fall back on when the Principal’s usefulness eventually diminishes. It would do well in brightening his status as a student, allowing assurance to grow with his peers and his teachers.
“...Build public trust.”
Strengthen faith. Play both sides of fear and love without solely relying on one.
Seokhyeon nods, only slightly reluctant. He recognizes the look on Baekjin’s face. It was the face he made when there was another opportunity open to the Union. It was the face he made when the Union got stronger. It was the face of someone realizing that there was another path to power.
Inwardly, Seokhyeon knows that his thoughts are dramatized, especially in relation to Baekjin. But he never stopped his idolized view of the other. Not when he found it so true. After all, Baekjin was the one person he would follow in life, the one that holds power in his hands.
“All right, then. I’ll talk to the Principal about entering.”
Not one to waste time, Baekjin cuts their meeting short, standing up from the brick of the planters. He already knows what Seokhyeon is thinking about him. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.
But sometimes, he couldn’t help this feeling…
The feeling that he despised the admiration Seokhyeon gives him.
It was genuine, yes. But Baekjin saw it as shallow. While he trusted Seokhyeon with matters he wouldn’t entrust with anyone else, it was clear that Seokhyeon admired him for his resolve, his fight for power, survival, and his achievements. Seokhyeon respected him, viewed him on a pedestal more than he saw him as a person. Even if he witnessed Baekjin at low points in the past, he’ll never truly know the darkness inside of him. The child inside from all those years ago, that scrappy, hurt, and unruly little thing would never be understood nor seen. Not by the Union, not by Seokhyeon, and especially not by himself.
And he was fine with that. He tells himself that he’s used to it. He doesn’t need the companionship of someone that knows him, and he ignores the darkness gnawing at his heart.
As usual, he regards Seokhyeon with a cool air, walking past him without a single look back.
He had other matters to focus on.
Baekjin walks to the Principal’s office with quiet resolve, his inked hands deep in the pockets of his blazer. He enters without bothering to knock, deliberately pulling his hands out from the pockets and angling the marks on his hands into the light of the room. Without a word, he tosses the pamphlet carelessly to the nervous pig of a man, watching the way the man’s eyes flicker to his repulsive tattoos and the cold glint of his rings in the light.
“...What is this?”
He doesn’t stutter. Baekjin would’ve been barely impressed, if it weren’t for such a stupid question coming from the adult’s mouth. Not deigning the other with a response, the man finally reads over the cover, saying the words out loud like it was something foreign.
“An academic olympiad…?”
Even in the face of Baekjin, the Principal barely manages to hold back a scoff, instead settling for a disbelieving laugh.
“You’re pushing it. Not anyone can compete in these things, much less someone with your track record. And pitted against the minds of top students from academic schools? You’re not gonna win, and you won’t get anything from just participating. Face it. No matter what you do, there’s no way to get awards on your record.”
Silence fills the room for mere seconds, Baekjin’s expression calm like a still lake.
“...Yi Gyubaek.”
“W-What?” The Principal jolts at that, barely managing to utter a single word out.
“That’s your son’s name, isn’t it? He’s the president of Cheongjan Trading Co.” Baekjin’s voice is as cold and sharp as the cool metal of a knife digging into warm skin. “Seems that all the money in the school goes to that place. Doesn’t help that you’re surrounded with all types of scandals and… allegations, to say the least.”
The man is already shaking, looking like he was nearly ready to piss himself. It was only now that he realized his mistake, and seeing the change of his expression from one of smugness to sheer terror, Baekjin smiles inwardly, all teeth and fang. All the while pulling out the documents he’s saved for a moment such as this one in slow, deliberate movements.
“If you become useless to me, you’ll be facing an early retirement. What I’m asking for isn’t difficult at all, and it’s only for a year. I’ll take care of winning awards on my own. You just need to worry about keeping your job. It’s that easy.”
Baekjin turns away, already moving towards the door. There’s no need for him to bring back those documents. There’s already a copy in his office and digitally in multiple devices. Halfway through the door, he pauses, turning slightly.
“The choice is yours, Mr. Yi.”
–
The day of the competition finally comes and multiple students from different schools gather in the courtyard, waiting to be seated. It was a small amount; only about one or two students from every school were competing. As the students mingle around, Baekjin doesn’t bother trying to blend in. His appearance alone attracted the gazes of other people. He felt the way their eyes would linger on his unusual red irises, and then widen in shock at the many facial and ear piercings marring his features. And when they finally look at his hands, they start whispering, speculating about possible gang affiliations he might have. Even with his school uniform sharp and pristine, Baekjin sticks out as an imposing and intimidating figure. It was what he wanted, after all, and it was necessary for him to look this way. For the Union. For power. For survival.
Lost in his own musings, he brushes by a boy in the courtyard, sitting in the shade of a tree. He looked rather nervous and withdrawn, but even still, his features were unmarred by his stress. He was pretty. It was a plain and objective fact, and it was the first thing that jumped to mind when looking at a boy like that. His eyebrows were thin, framing his oddly colored magenta eyes perfectly. His nose was small and delicately curved, with shapely lips that one could spend hours fantasizing about. His silver hair was short, as if to place more emphasis on his delicate and girly features. Combined with his short stature and thin limbs, he held all the daintiness of a daisy— a picture painted of innocence, purity, and budding flowers. Even Baekjin couldn’t help but stare.
A ray of light interrupts him, and he winces at the brightness. Originally, he was going to continue loitering around until the event began, but the glaring, midday Sun interrupted those plans. Looking around, all the other shaded spots were taken, so reluctantly, he walked over to the desolate and lonely boy.
“Do you mind?”
Baekjin’s tone is casual and harmless. Polite. He knows when to be mannerful. It’s a useful tool.
The boy looks up at him, thoughts visibly elsewhere yet still manages a response.
“...Go ahead.”
Without a word, the two of them are sitting side by side with a respectable distance between them. Baekjin nearly sighs in relief, eyes no longer stinging from the bright sky and momentarily, he relaxes. He doesn’t realize that he’s dozed off. Too caught up with the stress of building the Union brick by brick, he rarely had the time to close his eyes. It felt like he could be there for hours on this warm, Spring day. The sound of the leaves overhead rustling as a gentle breeze brushes by. The feeling of the lightrays filtering through the gaps of the leaves touching his skin.
It felt like solace.
A gentle tap on his shoulder jolts him awake. He turns his head in the direction the hand came from, ready to glare a person down for interrupting him in that brief moment of peace, and for catching him in a vulnerable moment. But he pauses once he sees who it is.
Seeing Baekjin’s expression, the pretty boy explains to him in a soft voice, “It’s about to start.”
He was very curt, not one to waste time. The boy stands up to leave and Baekjin barely manages a glance at the nametag on his uniform.
Yeon Sieun.
It was a pretty name, if a bit girlish. Baekjin thought that it suited him well.
The courtyard was emptying as the students lined up to enter the test area. Not one to linger at the back, Baekjin follows suit.
With the competition being his current priority, the simple encounter with Yeon Sieun is filed at the back of his mind. But a thought lingers. Throughout the entirety of their short interaction, the boy seemed… nervous. Not the nervousness that comes with the stress of an upcoming exam, but the type that betrays a truly pressing matter. Like the split seconds before the teeth of a wolf sinks into the flesh of a fuzzy bunny.
For just a moment, Baekjin could hear the rabbiting pulse that comes with the anticipation of the inevitable.
Everyone silences and shuts down their phones, handing them over for the proctor to keep at the front of the room. Students are seated, the questions are handed out, and the proctor clears his throat to announce the start of the competition.
The room quiets down to the sound of pencil on paper, and Baekjin surrenders himself to the structure of the competition. Quiet focus and efficiency silences it all with his current priority in front of him.
Before he knows it, he finishes early. He keeps his head down, waiting patiently for the other students to finish. Finally, the papers are collected and chatter fills the air. Students line up to collect their phones, and Baekjin lingers at the back with the decision to wait until the other students leave before collecting his own. The line gets smaller and smaller, and subconsciously, Baekjin’s eyes linger on the boy who saw him earlier.
Baekjin always focused on obtaining power. Power through money, followers, strength. His appearance was a result of that. All the piercings, the cold metal rings on his fingers, and the disgusting ink all over his body— it was all done to send a message.
‘Fear me,’ it said.
It demanded attention, whether it was in the form of lingering stares or averted gazes. Baekjin has grown to become used to it, but this boy… Yeon Sieun, went against his expectations, even if it was for something as little as waking up a fellow student for an upcoming competition. It was a gesture that few would extend to Baekjin:
Kindness.
Baekjin was not strongly familiar with it. The few moments he received it in the past was laced with deceit, or a front with bad intentions hiding behind it. Unbiddenly, he thinks back to moldy bread and a nauseatingly empty stomach. At that time, he mistook that teacher’s gestures as concern, but when he peeled back those layers of deceit…
He watches Yeon SIeun collect his phone and Baekjin follows suit. From the corner of his eye, he sees Yeon Sieun unlock his phone. From the corner of his eye, he sees the blank look on his face twist and become marred with pure, unadulterated shock.
Not wanting to fixate any longer on something he might regret, Baekjin walks out swiftly. He turns the corner, ready to march over to the spot where he would meet with Seokhyeon, but someone bumps into his shoulder roughly from behind. The person falls down, hard, in front of him, but he remains standing with barely a stumble. It was him again. Yeon Sieun didn’t even breathe a word of apology before scrambling back to his feet and running forward, chasing after something that Baekjin didn’t know.
But he shouldn’t linger on that. He continues walking, meeting with Seokhyeon to discuss the future of the Union.
–
The results of the competition come up, and Yeon Sieun’s name shows up too. On the certificate handed to him by the teacher says the words, ‘First Place: Na Baekjin & Yeon Sieun’.
Something in Baekjin’s mind flickers seeing it. Yeon Sieun. The boy he met before the competition, who fought past Baekjin’s thuggish appearance to extend the barest bones of kindness towards him. The same boy who seemed to have his world fall all around him when he saw whatever it was on his phone. His eyes linger on those words. First Place. Yeon Sieun.
An academic equal.
It was the first time in his life that he’s had someone that could reach his level.
That following day, Baekjin frames the certificate and hangs it on the wall opposite of his bed. It was one of the only personal items in his sparse room, barren except for a picture of his mother, chocolate on his desk, and the newly hanged certificate on his wall.
–
It’s exactly a month when Baekjin sees Yeon Sieun again.
It’s the afternoon when it happens. Baekjin was walking out of a convenience store with a certain brand of chocolate in the cheap plastic bag he was carrying. Even with all that’s happening and all that he’s doing, he still spares himself this small comfort.
As he walks into a shadowed alleyway, he nearly passes a hunched figure curled up against the wall. But he recognized the boy and his uniform.
It was Yeon Sieun, but instead of his neat, immaculate appearance, he looked haggard and worn through. His hair was longer, and his uniform dirtied. In the shadows of the alleyway, it was hard to tell whether those stains on his shirt were dirt or blood. The sound of his heavy breathing fills the space between them, and hearing Baekjin’s footsteps stop in front of him, Yeon Sieun looks up.
Those magenta eyes finally met him, and at the sight of his red-rimmed, teary eyes, something in Baekjin cracked. He reaches into the bag for one of the chocolate bars and opens the cheap plastic packaging, breaking off a small piece of chocolate.
“Here.”
He offers it to Sieun like he was a hungry stray kitten, and instead of accepting the snack, Sieun only stares with confused, bewildered eyes. Without a word, Baekjin squats down in front of him, meeting his eye level. His hand reaches out and before the boy could stop him, Baekjin pushes the chocolate between his lips.
The sweet taste spreads on Sieun’s tongue, and the fingers on his lips seem to linger. A look of bewilderment crosses his face, and instead of pushing the other away or even biting his fingers, Sieun simply froze. The tips of Baekjin’s fingers trace over the fresh split on his lip in a contemplative manner, and finally, he pulls back.
“Stay there.”
He turns and walks out of the alleyway briskly, the ring of the convenience store door announcing his quick stop. In mere moments, he’s in front of Sieun again. He drops something in front of him, and Sieun lifts his head. A bag full of bandages and disinfectant sits innocuously in front of him.
“Fix yourself up.”
Sieun doesn’t move. He doesn’t try to patch himself up, doesn’t even try to reach for the bag. Baekjin clicks his tongue as if annoyed, but inwardly, he felt gleeful for what he was going to do next.
He kneels on the ground without any care for the filth of the alley messing up his pants, scooting closer to the other student. Sieun flinches back at response but there’s nowhere to go with the wall against his back. His right arm raises between them instinctively, and he winces as Baekjin grabs it by the wrist.
Baekjin holds his arm, his grip slicked with blood and the scent of iron heavy on his senses. Only this close does he realize the extent of his injuries. Sieun’s injuries on his face didn’t compare to the deep and ugly gashes on his arm. The jagged cuts lacing on the limb looked as if Sieun punched through a window rather than a knife wound inflected by another hand or one’s own. It definitely wasn’t the worst Baekjin has seen or inflicted, but the red lines of blood welling from the cuts and drying trails down his arm made him feel oddly disturbed. It was too deep, it wasn’t clotting fast enough, and up close to the other boy, he seemed paler than what should be healthy.
He impulsively pulls his arm closer, scanning the cuts intently for any lingering pieces of glass in his skin. His eyes have long adjusted to the dimness of the alley, so he makes quick work of his assessment before impulsively ripping open the packaging of the disinfectant and bandages he bought for him. Thankfully, there weren’t any shards in his skin, but that didn’t offset the deep and still-bleeding cuts on his arm. At this part, he moves carefully with the disinfectant like it would offset the sting when it made contact with his wounds. Sieun only tenses, a wince crossing on his face as he bites his lip to keep any noise he makes muffled and small. Red eyes linger on his expression. Still, Baekjin moves quickly, dressing his wounds with an efficiency that betrays how frequently he did this. And Sieun could only stare in wonder as if stunned by Baekjin’s actions. Even then, he doesn’t stop him, struggle, or fight back. He simply lets Baekjin help him.
Eventually, the wounds are all dressed. The quiet moment between them is over, and not having anything else to do for Sieun, Baekjin stands to leave. He only makes it a couple of steps before a shaky voice as if hoarse from crying reaches his ears.
“Why are you helping me?”
At his question, Baekjin pauses as if parsing together an answer. Many seconds pass before he turns slightly towards Sieun, the corners of his lips upturning the slightest in what could only be a small smile, strained in a way that betrays its rarity. The motion felt strange on his face, like he hadn’t had anything to smile about other than the smarmy grins meant to intimidate. His sharp gaze softens, and words come out of his mouth quietly. It was as if he was saying something that he only recently came to terms with at that exact moment.
“Because….”
‘You remind me of myself.’
That was the truth. But his image, however damaged it may be from such a short encounter, couldn’t handle revealing his true self to someone he barely knew, even if the pull Baekjin felt towards this boy felt inevitable. For that reason, he settles for those words.
“You helped me. Before.”
Instead, he’ll let Sieun believe that he was repaying him back tenfold for waking him up in time for a test. It would sound ridiculous to the other boy, like a grand gesture in return for such a simple act of kindness, but maybe it would serve as a hint. Maybe, Sieun will glean from this encounter that what he did one month ago impacted Baekjin more than he would’ve expected. It would take more digging on Sieun’s part, but the truth was still there. It will only be up to Sieun to decide if he wants to delve deeper to find it.
And just like that, Baekjin leaves.
He speculates about this encounter for the rest of the day. He doesn’t really understand why he did what he did, and why he decided to help him. But something about the way that boy looked in that moment felt unbearably familiar to him. The way he looked in that alley… It was so similar to that boy back then— the poor little kid that desperately wanted someone to hold and comfort him. The small, weak and pitiful thing that Baekjin refused to acknowledge.
In that dark and shadowed alleyway, Baekjin felt an instant connection with Yeon Sieun, as if they were kindred spirits.
Something shifted inside of him since that day. A fixation, a hunger, and a desire to see that boy once again. He wanted to know more about Yeon Sieun, wanted to plunge his hands deep into the boy's trauma and uproot it all. He wanted to look at the gory mess he pulled out with his hands and put him back together. And once he knew him inside and out, he would do the same to himself. Crack open his ribcage and show the other boy the mess he was under all that composure. Show him the monster that yearned for more, and more and more.
When he gets closer to that boy– because he knows it will be inevitable– Baekjin could only hope that when he finally shows his true self to him, he won’t run away. And even if he did, he could only try. Because once Baekjin sets his sights on something he wants, he will get it no matter the blood he spills, the bones he will break, or the people he will trample underfoot to make something his.
Ultimately, this type of ruthless pursuit was the only thing he knew.
It’s all he knew.
‘So please… Please don’t run away,’ the only good part in Baekjin seems to say, ‘Please. Don’t let me do something horrible. Don’t let the monster grow stronger than it already is…’