Jae-min came back.
The one who disappeared—the tall one, the cruel one. The one whose absence was the only sliver of relief I'd been granted.
He returned to school one morning as if nothing had happened. Except everything about him was different.
His skin was pale, his eyes sunken and burning with something wild. He stood taller, his body humming with power that radiated like heat. His presence alone was enough to make the hall go silent, even the strongest students flinching when he walked past.
The teachers didn't question it. They welcomed him back as if he had just missed a week. As if he hadn't vanished for months.
At lunch, he stood on a table and told his story.
How he had been dragged to another world. A world called Xianxia.
My heart froze at the word.
He described mountains taller than the sky, rivers of qi, people who called themselves cultivators. They had treated him like a worm, broken him, tortured him. For 9,999 years he was nothing but a plaything to their cruelty. He screamed, begged, endured horrors I couldn't imagine.
But in that final year, he found something. A loophole. He got his hands on pills—qi pills, he called them. He swallowed them raw, forcing power into his veins. He didn't learn their ways, but the pills changed him. Strengthened him.
Now he was five times stronger than he had been. Stronger than almost anyone here.
He looked around with a smile that wasn't human.
And then his eyes landed on me.
It didn't take him long to find out. About my mother. About her weakness. Her scoliosis.
He gathered Min-ho and the others, whispering things that made them grin. Grins that made my stomach twist.
I didn't know what they planned. I didn't want to.
I went home that evening, clutching groceries, trying to believe maybe I could endure another day. Maybe the teachers would still send a healer, maybe—
My phone rang.
"Hello? Is this the son of—" A doctor's voice. Calm. Too calm.
"Yes?" My hands shook.
"I'm sorry. Your mother… she was struck by multiple cars. There were also… burn injuries. She didn't make it."
The groceries spilled from my hands.
"No… no, no, no…"
I ran. I don't even remember how. My lungs tore open, my legs barely worked, but I made it to the hospital.
And there she was.
My mother. Lying on the bed. Bald. Her hair burned away, her eyebrows gone. Her skin blackened, clothes torn, her body broken in ways I can't describe. Her face was wet, streaked with dried tears.
She cried before she died.
She cried, and I wasn't there.
The world shattered.
Everything went silent.
She was all I had. The only reason I kept breathing.
And now she was gone.
I walked home, numb.
Except there was no home.
The building had collapsed inwards, walls broken, cars smashed through the foundation. The apartment was rubble. Everything destroyed.
The police were there. The builders. And they ignored me. Completely. As if I didn't exist.
I walked past them, into the ruins, climbed over shattered bricks, and found the remains of my room. My bed, still half-intact.
I lay down on it.
And I cried until my throat bled.
"My mom… is dead…"
Over and over, the words tore out of me. My chest hurt so much it felt like knives twisting inside. I wanted to vomit, wanted to claw my skin off, wanted to vanish.
She was dead.
She was dead.
And without her, there was nothing left.
The next morning, I went to school anyway.
I don't know why. Habit, maybe. Or maybe I wanted to see how long it would take before someone finally noticed that I was already gone inside.
The bullying came instantly. Harder, meaner, louder. They shoved me, spat on me, beat me. Laughed at me.
I didn't fight back. I couldn't.
I just sat there on the ground, eyes blank, watching them like they were actors in a play I'd already memorized.
And then Jae-min appeared.
The crowd went silent as he walked toward me. His power radiated like a furnace. His eyes burned with madness.
He knelt down, close enough that I could feel his breath. His lips curled into a grin.
"I killed her," he whispered.
My body froze.
"I planned it. The cars, the fireball. I wanted you to watch her die in your head over and over. That was only a fraction of what I went through. You'll never understand my pain, but I'll make you taste it."
He stood up and raised his voice so everyone could hear.
"I killed his mother! Do you hear me? I killed her! And this—" He pointed at me, broken on the ground. "—this is what despair looks like!"
Laughter. Smirks. Even the teachers just watched. Observed me like I was an animal in a cage.
The rage inside me snapped.
I roared and launched a punch at his face.
For a moment, it felt real. It felt like maybe I could land it, maybe I could make him bleed.
But he caught my fist. Effortlessly.
His other hand slammed into my stomach, and all the air left my body. I fell to my knees, gasping, eyes bulging.
Then came the fire.
It burned across my scalp, searing, ripping my hair away until nothing was left. Bald. Humiliated. Screaming.
The crowd laughed. Some clapped.
They tortured me until I blacked out.
When I woke, the pain was still there. The bald patches, the burns, the bruises. The laughter echoing in my skull.
And the truth.
My mother was dead.
My home was gone.
My world was over.
I had nothing left to live for.
I wanted to die.
But beneath that despair, something darker boiled.
It started as a spark. Then a flicker. Then a roar.
Hatred.
For Jae-min. For Min-ho. For the teachers. For the students. For the whole rotten world.
Hatred so sharp it felt like it would tear me apart.
I wanted to see it all burn.
I wanted them all to suffer.
And as the hunger for revenge grew, I realized—
I wasn't going to die.
Not yet.
Because the only thing keeping me alive now… was the promise of their screams.