Chapter 14
The Broken Dog
The next few days blurred into a haze of pain.
Sung Ho dragged himself to school each morning, his body aching from bruises that never had time to heal. Every step up the stairs felt like climbing a mountain. Every hour in class was spent hiding behind raised collars and long sleeves, praying no one noticed the purple marks blooming across his skin.
But everyone noticed.
They just chose silence.
Classmates averted their eyes when Xin Min passed. Teachers pretended not to see Sung Ho limping, not to hear the muffled laughter when a chair was kicked out from under him. In a school where power spoke louder than justice, silence was survival.
And so, Sung Ho was left alone.
Alone with them.
It started small—shoves in the hallway, whispered insults when no one else was close enough to hear. Then Xin Min grew bolder.
He dragged Sung Ho out to the basketball court after class, forcing him to kneel in the dirt while the goons jeered. He shoved Sung Ho's face into a puddle until he choked, sputtering muddy water.
"Look at him," Xin Min laughed, wiping his hands on his expensive blazer. "Doesn't he look like a dog?"
The goons barked, howling in cruel imitation.
Sung Ho said nothing. His throat was raw from screaming the day before. He had learned silence earned fewer blows, though not mercy.
By the third day, it wasn't just about money anymore. Xin Min had grown bored with simple extortion. Now it was a game.
At lunch, Sung Ho was ordered to fetch their food, carrying trays heavy with dishes he could barely afford himself. If he walked too slowly, they tripped him. If he spilled a drop, they beat him behind the gym.
One afternoon, Xin Min tossed a half-eaten rice ball at his feet.
"Eat it," he said.
Sung Ho stared at the dirt-stained food, shame burning through his chest.
"Eat it," Xin Min repeated, his voice soft but sharp, like a knife at his throat.
Hands trembling, Sung Ho picked it up. The taste of grit filled his mouth as laughter roared around him.
At night, Sung Ho lay in bed staring at the cracked ceiling of his tiny apartment. His mother worked late shifts and never asked about the bruises. Maybe she didn't want to know. Maybe she already knew and chose to stay silent, just like everyone else.
The darkness pressed down on him, heavy, suffocating. He thought of the rooftop, the punches, the laughter. He thought of Xin Min's eyes—cold, amused, certain that no one would ever stop him.
Sometimes, Sung Ho imagined stepping into the street and letting the headlights take him. Sometimes he pictured the river, black and deep, swallowing him whole.
Anything would be better than this.
And yet, some stubborn ember of life clung to him. Not hope—hope had long since been extinguished—but something rawer, more desperate. The instinct of an animal cornered too many times.
The breaking point came on a rainy Thursday.
Sung Ho was leaving the library late, clutching borrowed books to his chest, when Xin Min and his goons appeared out of the shadows.
"Well, well. Our little dog found a bone," Xin Min said, plucking the books from Sung Ho's arms and tossing them into a puddle.
Sung Ho bent to retrieve them, but a kick to his ribs sent him sprawling. The goons dragged him up by his collar, forcing him to his knees in the rain.
"Beg," Xin Min said, crouching so their eyes met. His grin was sharp, cruel. "Bark for me."
Sung Ho's lips trembled. His whole body shook from the cold and the pain.
"Bark," Xin Min repeated, his voice low and dangerous.
The goons chuckled, waiting.
For a long moment, Sung Ho stared at the ground. The rain drummed against his back, washed mud into his hair. His throat closed around words he couldn't say, pride and despair warring inside him.
And then, softly, brokenly, he barked.
The laughter that followed was deafening.
Xin Min clapped his hands like a man rewarding a performing animal. "Good dog. That's what you are."
He shoved Sung Ho back into the mud and stood, his figure outlined by the glow of the streetlamp.
"Don't forget it."
They left him there, shivering, covered in mud, his books ruined.
Sung Ho didn't move for a long time. Rainwater pooled around him, soaking through his clothes, chilling him to the bone. His breath came in ragged gasps, his chest hollow.
He had been broken.
He knew it. They knew it.
But deep inside that brokenness, beneath the despair and humiliation, something else stirred. A raw, festering hatred that burned hotter with each beating, each laugh, each command.
It whispered to him in the dark, in the silence after their footsteps faded.
This can't go on.
Something has to end