It's been one year since I came to this place called Cheongrim, and it still feels like I'm a foreigner in my own country. A different country inside Korea. It is a part of the nation, but it generates more than half of Korea's GDP, a fact they love to remind us of. It's guarded by big gates and tight security. Inside, there are factories, tech companies, and schools—everything you'd find in a small, self-contained nation. My father, a high school teacher, got a job here. And here, education is also different. Unlike the rest of Korea, where schools are separate, here, grade one to twelve are all in the same school. A single, unified building. It's…weird.
I thought my life would be somewhat different here. But it got worse. My father is a manic; he treats my mother badly. He's always been like that. He would come home from work, angry at the world, and take it out on my mother. I don't know why she doesn't fight back, but she always keeps her silence, and he uses it as an excuse to scold her and beat me. In Cheongrim, his rage found a new, more public stage. He got into an affair with a teacher at Cheongrim High School. To show off to her, to prove how tough he was, he started a sick game.
He would target kids from the Mudang Strip, a slum just outside Cheongrim. These kids are tough. They are offered twenty percent of the seats in Cheongrim's high school and university, a quota put in place by the city's founder. They don't have the pristine uniforms or the comfortable homes of the Cheongrim kids. Their parents are the daily laborers in the factories here, the ones who build and maintain this city. And they get by on their wits and their fists. They're smart, and they're tough, and they don't take anything from anyone.
My father's reckless behavior had consequences. He might have been a teacher, but he was no match for them. So, in retaliation, the kids from the Mudang Strip started to beat me up. It was payback. An eye for an eye, but on the weakest target. I was the one who paid for my father's reckless behavior. I endured everything because my mom told me I must not get into any fight.
Tonight, something in me snapped.
It started the same way as always. My father sneered at my mother's cooking, chopsticks clattering against the bowl like gunfire in a silent room.
My father watched my mother's shoulders drop, a small, defeated flinch. The familiar, simmering rage that I had suppressed for so long finally boiled over. I don't know what I was thinking. My body moved on its own. I lunged at him, a howl tearing from my throat, my small fists clenched. But before I could even touch him, my mother was a blur of motion. She was there, her arm swinging out, blocking my path.
"Don't you dare," my father snarled. "Don't you ever get in my way." He shoved my mother hard. She stumbled, but her eyes never left me. They were a shield, protecting me from a future she knew was worse than any beating.
I couldn't stay. I ran out of the apartment, the weight of my shame and anger a physical burden. My feet pounded the pavement, carrying me to my spot by the river where the city's lights reflected on the water. I had been sitting there for a long time when a soft warmth settled beside me. It was my mother.
She didn't say anything, just sat there, her body a silent, aching presence.
I looked at her, and that's when I saw it. On the side of her arm, where she had blocked my reckless charge, a deep, ugly bruise was already blossoming, a wound far bigger and darker than any I'd ever seen on her before. The sight of it made my breath catch in my throat. I had caused that.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, the words choked with a shame I'd never known.
She turned to me and smiled a gentle, sad smile. "Jin," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "You are not a normal kid. Do wounds pain you a lot?"
I shook my head, my eyes fixed on the bruise. "No."
"And the wounds your father gives you? Don't they heal so fast? You've never broken a bone, no matter how hard they hit you."
My heart hammered in my chest. I had never thought about it, but she was right.
"You are special," she said, and a new weight entered her voice. "Just like my father."
"Who is he?" I asked, a dozen questions fighting for space in my mind. "And if you can fight back, why are you not fighting back, Mom?"
A shadow passed over her face. "Your father, Jin, is just a manic. But the people in this world, they're far more cruel than he is. He's just a man with a sickness, but they are not manic. They are far more dangerous." She took my hand in hers, her grip surprisingly strong. "Promise me. Until the day I am with you, you won't fight anyone. Your mother is going to do her best to keep you safe and alive."
I nodded slowly. "Okay."
"And don't ever discuss this with anyone."
"What if I'm in a situation that I must fight, Mom?"
She squeezed my hand. "Then you can. But live just like you are living, Jin. Your mom is here. She is here for you, and she is going to protect you."