The air was thick with the stench of fear and the dusty odor of the abandoned room. I felt a heavy, crushing weight on my chest, my arms pinned, the metallic glint of a box cutter too close for comfort.
The Crash
Then, a sound split the silence: CRASH!!
From the doorway, I heard a shriek. "MR. CHOI!!" It was Ajin, her voice raw with terror.
The man on top of me-the one with the terrible, wide-eyed look of a cornered animal-froze, his attention ripped away.
The Intervention
A dark shape appeared in the doorway. It was Beanie.
He stepped into the room, his eyes instantly locked on the scene. The hand that had been holding a heavy, blunt object-a baseball bat, I realized-now hung loose. A slow, steady DRIP DRIP of liquid fell from it, marking the floor.
"HEY... YOU F**KING CREEP..." Beanie's voice was a low growl, laced with pure disgust. "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER!!!"
The man on me recoiled, startled. I felt his weight shift as he finally rolled off, scrambling back on his hands and knees.
Confrontation
Beanie didn't hesitate. He swung the bat in a devastating THWACK, connecting with the man's side. The man let out a strained UURGHKK!! and collapsed.
He looked up at Beanie, his face a mask of shock and rage. "WHAT THE FK?!! WHO THE FK ARE YOU?!!"
Beanie just stood over him, breathing heavily, his chest heaving. "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO SOMEONE... ...YOUR DAUGHTER'S AGE...?!"
The man saw the box cutter lying discarded on the floor and quickly grabbed it, his eyes narrowing. "YOU LITTLE..." he spat.
Aftermath
That's when Ajin ran in, pushing past Beanie, her concern fixed on me.
"AJIN, ARE YOU OKAY? DO YOU THINK YOU COULD GET UP?" I heard Beanie ask her, though my vision was still fuzzy.
The man was on his feet in a flash, the box cutter now a weapon in his hand. He lunged, a battle cry escaping his throat.
"...SON OF A B*TCH!!!"
The last thing I remember clearly was Beanie shoving Ajin out of the way, and the terrifying glint of the razor blade as the man attacked
The sudden push sent me stumbling back, my ankle protesting the twist. I scrambled to catch myself, my eyes wide, and saw Beanie directly in the path of the enraged man's attack.
The Fight
The man was screaming, a high-pitched, manic sound of fury and pain: "AAAAAHHHH!" He brought the box cutter down in a wild, uncontrolled arc.
Beanie reacted instantly. He let out a sharp cry of his own-"SAAHH, F**K!!!"-as the blade met the baseball bat he still held. The high-pitched CLANG of metal on metal echoed in the cramped space, and the box cutter went flying, skittering across the floor.
The man was left weaponless, momentarily stunned.
This was the window Beanie needed. With a powerful, wind-slicing WHOOOM sound, he swung the baseball bat, not stopping to think. It was a vicious THWACK, connecting solidly with the back of the man's head.
"MR. CHOI!!" I screamed, recognizing the name Ajin had used.
The man, Mr. Choi, crumpled. He didn't even have time to fall; he just slid down the wall and hit the floor in a sickening SLUMP, blood immediately blooming from the impact point on his skull.
The Aftermath
Silence descended again, heavier this time, broken only by Beanie's ragged, desperate breathing: HUFF HUFF.
I looked up from the floor, my eyes fixed on Beanie. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead, his own face splattered with tiny drops of Mr. Choi's blood. His eyes, wide with shock, were tearing up. He just stared down at the unconscious, maybe dead, man on the floor. It was a look of pure, agonizing terror-the look of a person who had just crossed an irreversible line.
I slowly brought my hands up. My lip was split and bleeding, and my own hands, which I must have used to shield myself earlier, were wrapped clumsily in a bandage that was already stained with red. I saw the fear reflected in my own eyes: the lingering trauma of the assault and the fresh horror of what Beanie had done to save me.
We just stared at each other, two victims of a sudden, brutal violence, now alone in the wreckage.
The sound of Mr. Choi's body hitting the floor with a SLUMP brought Beanie back to the horrifying reality of what he'd done. He was trembling, sweat pouring from his face, eyes wide and filling with tears of fear.
"HEY! HEY!!" Beanie knelt, shaking the unconscious man, but Mr. Choi remained motionless, the dark stain spreading on the floor beneath his head. Beanie fumbled for his phone, his mind racing.
"I need to call the police-no, I should call the ambulance first...!"
He brought the phone up to dial, but I moved, my voice cracking through my own shock. My mouth was bruised and my bandaged hand throbbed.
"DON'T DO IT."
Beanie stared at me, dumbfounded. "What are you talking about? The stalker is bleeding out... We have to call an ambulance or at least the police...!"
The Terrible Truth
I looked at Beanie, then back at the prone figure of the man he'd just struck down. The words tore out of me, a confession I never thought I'd have to make.
"YOU CAN'T, MR. CHOI."
Beanie stared at me with pure confusion and panic.
"THAT'S NOT THE STALKER! THAT'S MY DAD!"
The shock on Beanie's face was total. His eyes, already wide with trauma, seemed to bulge out of his skull. The full gravity of the situation-the violent attack, the life-and-death struggle, the devastating blow-all twisted into something far more complicated, far more terrible, in that single moment. He had just brutally assaulted my own father.
Beanie's eyes were wide, panicked, and tear-filled, staring at me as the words sank in. "W-WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY...? HER DAD?"
I kept my voice low, desperate for him to understand the impossible situation. "You must have been mistaken. That's my dad."
He still couldn't process it. "BUT HE WAS STOMPING ON HER LIKE SOME KIND OF THUG...! WAIT, I DON'T... I DON'T UNDERSTAND..."
"If you call the police," I pressed, my voice flat with bitter truth, "they'll think that you got involved in our family matter and assaulted him! Please don't make this an even bigger problem than it already is. I can call the police. Please... go home."
I knew the stakes. "Please go home. I'll take care of this. Once my dad wakes up, he's going to look for you and he won't leave you alone." I repeated, emphasizing the danger.
Beanie hesitated for one long, agonizing moment, staring down at the man he had struck. Then, defeated, he stood up and turned away, leaving the bat on the floor.
Outside, the rain had started. I heard his car start up and speed away with a rushing VROOOOOOOM, disappearing into the downpour.
Taking Care of This
I was finally alone with him. I went into the bathroom and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, the familiar scent of cleaning chemicals mixing with the metallic smell of blood.
The first thing I did was attend to the "evidence." I found the beanie he had been wearing, stained with blood from the fight. Taking a pair of scissors, I began cutting it into small pieces: SNIP SNIP SNIP. I dropped the pieces into the toilet and flushed repeatedly: FLUSH SNIP FLUSH SNIP. I had to erase every trace of the person who had tried to help me.
Once the room was clean, I turned back to my father. He was still unconscious, a bloody gash visible above his brow.
Mmm... A low groan escaped his lips. He was stirring.
I knelt beside him, picking up the baseball bat. His eyes fluttered open. He looked directly at me, a flicker of awareness returning.
"I knew you'd wake up." I said, my voice eerily calm, the bat now resting in my gloved hands. I leaned closer to his injured face, the words leaving my mouth like a curse. "It would have been better if you never woke up again."
My father, Mr. Choi, was awake now, staring up at me with a mixture of pain and dawning terror. I still held the baseball bat.
"You dying on the spot would have been the best outcome to my plan," I said, my voice betraying none of the chaos inside me. "I really didn't plan on you living through this... unless you became paralyzed or fell into a coma..."
I leaned over him, forcing him to meet my gaze. "You know how I feel, right?"
He tried to look away, but I held his chin firmly. "Well, I guess there's nothing you can do about it, even if you don't quite get it."
I gripped the bat tighter. "You shouldn't have touched me. You're the one that cornered me and forced my hand. Did you really think I'd take it lying down? I AM your daughter, after all."
I stood, towering over him, the bat resting on my shoulder. "You're not going to make it out of here in one piece. The minute I see you try anything, I'm going to bash your head in with this bat. Or maybe I'll stomp on your bloody head... just like you did to me countless times."
His face twisted in horror, a single tear cutting a clean path through the blood and grime on his cheek. "YOU... MONSTER..."
I gave him a thin, chilling smile. "Listen... If you really can't accept what's happening and you feel like you're being wronged... then just think of it as compensation for ruining my childhood. Compensate me... with your life... Daddy."
A Different Path
Outside, the rain had calmed, leaving a gentle, wet sheen on the world, and the CHIRP CHIRP of birds returned.
A delivery man approached the door, the bell jingling as he announced, "I have a package... for Yusik Jo."
The man who had tried to help me, Beanie, walked over to accept the delivery. "Oh, that's me. Thank you!"
He took the small box. "What did I order again?" he mumbled to himself, opening the package.
Inside, he found a small pink canister. "OH." It was PEPPER SPRAY.
He frowned, then remembered. "Could you help me order some pepper spray? Boss asked me to get this for Ajin..." He thought, correcting himself. "But I don't think she'll need this anymore. I should let him know that I caught the stalker."
He was satisfied, completely unaware of the bloody tragedy and the terrible truth he had barely escaped. He believed he had saved a stranger from a stalker and ended the danger.
The reality was, I was left alone with my father, fully committing to the dark path of his own making. The pepper spray-a simple defense against an outside threat-would have done nothing to stop the monster already inside my house.
Beanie, still reeling from the encounter the night before, walked into Cafe Xanadu. The bell on the door announced his arrival with a weary JINGLE JINGLE. The boss, who was already there, looked him over.
"WHOA... What happened to you? Did you spend the whole night up or something?" the boss asked.
Beanie's mind was still on the girl he'd saved and the unsettling memory of the blood. "Is Ajin at work yet...?"
"Not yet. Hmmm, looks like she's running late today. That's rather unusual!"
Beanie nodded, distracted. He hadn't heard from her. "She hasn't called me or texted me all night. Did something go wrong? I should go check on her..."
Justice Finds its Target
The moment he stepped away from the counter, two men walked in, dressed in plain clothes. The bell JINGLED again.
"Welcome to Cafe Xanadu!" the boss greeted.
One of the men stepped forward. "Oh, hello. Is there a Jeongho Choi here?"
Beanie froze. Jeongho Choi. That was the man he had attacked, the man I had called my father.
Beanie stepped forward, a shaky confusion in his eyes. He pointed to his chest. "Yes? That's me."
The two men were police. They held up their badges. "We're from the precinct." The one who had spoken stepped closer. "Jeongho Choi... you are under arrest for the aggravated assault of Seongyu Baek."
Strong hands gripped Beanie's wrist. The cold metal of handcuffs snapped shut around him. He stared, wide-eyed, his heroic act twisted into a crime, all because I had lied, all because my father had been the monster. He had been so focused on saving me, he'd given me the opening to protect himself, and now he was paying the price.
The True Toll
Meanwhile, I was far away, safe-for now-from my father's hands, but not from the grim reality of my choices.
The narrative of my life had been utterly consumed by this violence. A final thought ran through the darkness of my mind:
"She has never killed, but she has the blood of... two people (Seongyu Baek and ***** Heo) on her hands."
I had escaped one monster, but in doing so, I had crushed the life of an innocent man-Seongyu Baek (Beanie's real name, revealed by the police)-who had tried to save me, and was now entangled in the fate of another, whose name was kept hidden. The truth of my life was that I was surrounded by blood, and it was now seeping into the lives of those around me.