CHAPTER 1

Chul was rushing out of his bed in the morning as usual. He shoved open the door of his dirty and unkempt bedroom before rushing to the bathroom. He was not altogether surprised to find his drunk bitch of a mother passed out inside the bathtub. He hadn’t even heard her come in last night and Chul himself hadn’t exactly been early when he got back home. Given their past experiences, he was thankful that he hadn’t woken up to find a drunk naked guy in the bathtub with her.

Chul had long given up on trying to keep track of his mom’s boyfriends and fuck buddies. The hope of finding a halfway-decent father figure among them was a hope that he had given up a long time ago. ‘Trash will attract flies, not eagles’, Chul thought bitterly as he gazed at his mother’s sleeping form. It wasn’t that she was unattractive, but she had such a trashy nature and loose morals that he didn’t resent his father for taking off soon after he was born. But he did resent his father for leaving him alone with this drunk bitch.

Chul didn’t have a monopoly on resentment though. Since his first memories, he couldn’t remember anything other than resentment towards him oozing out of his mother. His mother had made it abundantly clear over the years that she’d had her tubes tied because she didn’t want to raise another useless needy lump like Chul ever again. Chul couldn’t hold back a snort that ended up spraying his toothpaste along with a generous amount of his saliva on the bathroom mirror in front of him.

As if, she ever bothered to spend one fricking day taking proper care of him. All the heavy lifting had been done by his poor grandma. And when she died 2 years ago, that was the last time he’d ever cried. Thinking about his grandma still brought a light stinging to his eyes which he wiped away before looking at his mother. He knew that he’d feel nothing but indifference if he were to find his mother dead in a ditch tomorrow. Who knows, he might just decide to do the deed himself once he turns 18 in a few months.

With one last hateful glare directed at his mother, Chul shut the bathroom door before going into his room and pulling on his uniform. Chul lost his appetite after seeing the state of the kitchen and left the house after slamming the front door shut. By the time he was walking to their hangout spot, he was already in an extremely bad mood. But still, he managed to plaster a smile on his face as he ran into Dong-min and Eun after a couple of blocks.

Chul wouldn’t consider these two to be his friends by any metric, but they did help him survive high school. Dong-min was once part of his high school wrestling team before he was thrown out and Eun was tall and reedy. Both were physically stronger and came from a better family situation than he was, a fact that irked Chul greatly.

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“Hey guys” Chul greeted them both.

“Hey, good morning Chul” Eun replied while Dong-min merely grunted and nodded.

“Looks like you had a rough morning huh?” Eun asked while easily throwing his hands over Chul’s shoulder. Eun was easily at least 6 feet tall while Chul hardly measured up to 5’5”.

“Oh, same old same old” Chul replied while silently cursing Eun.

‘That bastard Eun knows that it makes him look taller and me a lot shorter when we walk next to each other like this. He does this every damn time ‘. Chul thought.

“We had an interesting conversation with the Tteokbokki truck owner near our house this morning didn’t we Dong-min?” Eun asked.

Dong-min grunted in reply while a nasty smile played on his lips.

“About what?” Chul asked.

“About how he saw your mother so wasted in the street that she had her tits on full display for the public. Don’t worry though, he said it was a pretty good show.” Eun said with a nasty laugh.

Chul balled up his fists in his pocket and tried not to show the extreme hatred he felt on his face. He wanted to punch their smirking faces so bad that he was almost shaking. Most of all he hated the fact that that bitch of a mother he had still had the power to hurt him like this. What Eun said could very well not be true, but given his mother’s reputation, no one would be in disbelief.

Chul managed to force down the bile rising from his throat and smirked along with Eun and Dong-min as if it wasn’t a big deal for him. But from the mocking smile playing on Eun’s lips, he knew that Eun knew that he had managed to hurt him.

If it was just the three of them, they would never be hanging out together. But, thankfully for Chul, there was someone higher up in the hierarchy than the asshole Eun. The three of them were merely foot soldiers serving under the undisputed king of their School Park Jin. It was 10 minutes after they reached their meet-up spot that Jin showed up.

Jin was a truly frightening and awe-inspiring specimen. Towering above even Eun at a height of 6’3”, Jin was undoubtedly the strongest guy in our school. He had a body that seemed to be made of pure muscle. In all these years, Chul had yet to see anyone who could match Jin in size, speed, and more importantly ferocity.

Jin was a true inheritor of the legacy of his father and his elder brother Kwan who reigned as king before him in our school. It was common knowledge among our circles that Jin’s father was involved in organized crime and now his elder brother was working under his father. He and his family had such a fearsome reputation that not even seniors dared to mess with Jin during their freshman year.

After their greetings were done, Jin outlined what they were all to do. Jin was a man of few words, but whatever he said was clear and concise and left no doubt among his soldiers as to what role they would be playing. Jin never tolerated infighting among his subordinates, which was why Chul felt rather safe when in the presence of their leader. Chul knew that the reedy bastard Eun wouldn’t dare throw around jibes against him while Jin was keeping watch.

A few minutes later Chul saw Jin’s head turn slightly and a small smile forming on his lips. Even after all this time, that smile still gave Chul chills whenever he saw it. It meant only one thing, that their prey was near. And sure enough, as Chul followed Jin’s line of sight he saw their prey walking towards them. Without a doubt, the unluckiest person in their school today- Ju won.