Chapter 001
The Ones I Wouldn’t Regret Even If They Died Prologue
He staggered like one of those balloon men swaying in the wind.
His unfocused eyes trembled desperately, as though they were trying to cling to even the last thread of his life.
I slowly approached him.
“Seong-tae.”
“Fuck! Who the hell are you?”
“It’s me. Kang Maru.”
“What the fuck!”
“You beat me for two hours, remember? I was limping around because of you. You’ve already forgotten me?”
Hwang Seong-tae, overwhelmed by fear, wet his pants.
“How much did Maru pay you? I’ll give you double. No! Triple!”
“I’m telling you, I’m Maru. God never gave me the courage to die, so I’ve been alive all this time.”
I lightly tapped him on the cheek.
“You should’ve killed me back then. You only threatened to kill me and left me alive. Look what happened because of that.”
“Why are you doing this? Please, let me live…”
“Isn’t it pathetic to beg me for your life?”
“I was wrong! I’m really sorry! I’ll apologize to Maru.”
Hwang Seong-tae dropped to his knees and began begging so desperately that his palms seemed ready to catch fire.
“Please forgive me.”
“Kneeling and begging is too easy. I was tormented for ten years, and then I lived in hell for more than another ten.”
I wondered if he had felt this way when he tormented me.
This pathetic taste of power was sweet.
“Please… I’ll meet Maru and get on my knees and apologize.”
“Don’t apologize. Those aren’t words I want to hear. You’re only saying them because you want to live.”
“Then… what do I do?”
“Ask me to kill you.”
“Please…”
I gagged Hwang Seong-tae.
“Mmph… mmph.”
“Accept it. You told me yourself that there was a reason you deserved to be beaten. In the same way, there’s a reason you deserve to die.”
“Mmph.”
The wrinkles creasing his raised forehead, his dilated pupils, his trembling eyelashes, his quivering body.
Because he couldn’t accept that I was Kang Maru, there was confusion mixed in with the terror on his face.
“It’s going to hurt. When punishment is delayed, interest is bound to accumulate.”
I broke each of Hwang Seong-tae’s toes, starting with his big toe.
Crack. Snap. Crack—
Each sound of breaking seemed to shatter, one by one, the resentment that had been lodged deep inside my chest.
“Now, your fingers.”
Crack. Snap. Crack-crack—
As his phalanges snapped one after another, an animalistic howl continued to pour from his throat.
It sounded as though the people who had laughed at me in the classroom on that terrible day in the past were now screaming for their lives.
Hwang Seong-tae was the one who burned my textbooks, saying that an orphan had no need to study.
The way I had cried and screamed, begging him not to do it, looked just like the cowardly expression on his face now.
“Fight, Seong-tae!”
I pulled his shirt up over his face, covered his head with it, and tied a knot around his neck.
“Ugh… mmph.”
“You gave me ten years of pain, but your suffering won’t even last five minutes.”
I grabbed both of Hwang Seong-tae’s upper arms and violently pulled them apart from their sockets.
His arms hung limp, while his flesh trembled in waves from the pain.
Hwang Seong-tae went into shock and stopped moving.
“You’re this weak?”
I grabbed Hwang Seong-tae by the back of his neck and dragged him into the fuel storage room.
Then I untied the knot in his shirt, and he slowly opened his mouth, desperately sucking in the oxygen he had been deprived of.
A painful groan escaped him.
I pulled the gag deep from his throat.
“Please… save me.”
The sharp smell of fuel rushed into my nose, accompanied by the blinking sensor lights.
Hwang Seong-tae’s face was cracked like clay dried beneath the sun.
“The pain doesn’t disappear, no matter how much time passes. I think everything will be fine once you disappear.”
I poured fuel across the floor.
Every time I inhaled, the slick fumes seemed to seep deep into my lungs.
I took out a cigarette and lit it.
“Please…”
After taking a deep drag, I placed the cigarette between his lips.
“You go on ahead. The rest of them will be joining you in hell soon.”
I flicked open my Zippo lighter and tossed it onto the fuel-soaked floor.
Whoosh—
Red flames wrapped around him and shot upward, while his screams stretched on and on.
“AAAAH! Save me! Fuck! I swear I’ll hunt you down and kill you! Save me! AAAAAH!”
After confirming that his body was on fire, I walked out of the fuel storage room.
The smell of burning flesh hit me with a sudden, rancid stench.
Bang! Bang!
One by one, the drums exploded with screams of their own, sending waves of scorching heat against my back.
[Revenge successful.
Revenge Credits: 4]
My second murder.
I don’t feel even the slightest bit of guilt anymore.
