Show Him Hell, Yeong Kim

When my hands were coated with blood for the first time since I left, I knew he couldn’t be forgiven.

The beautiful girl I made a promise to marry laid lifeless on our living room floor. Her long black hair spread beneath her like ink spilled on paper . Onyx eyes that you could get lost in for hours stared blankly at the ceiling, forever looking at nothing. The ocean blue dress she’d just bought that day for our dinner reservation was soaked in her own blood. The gold necklace holding a charm of her birth flower – a daffodil for March – was discarded in a pool of blood.

The last time I cried that hard was when I was a kid losing my mother. She had meant the world to me, was everything I knew, and so is Mei. Was Mei. Her name means “life”, and her personality is the same. Was the same. You would never catch her without a big smile, without bubbling out a laugh every few seconds. When I met her, something inside of me shifted. I found it easy to smile and laugh, found happiness and comfort.

I didn’t leave my house for days. I didn’t tell anyone what happened, and when my friends found out and called me endlessly, I had simply shut off my phone and hid under the covers of the bed.

One day, the door opened and in came barging two known faces. I was sitting not on the couch of the living room, instead sitting on the floor, the same spot I was in four days ago. Ryuji, the first friend I made in Japan, was the first to confront me.

“Yeong, come on, off the floor,” he said. Ryuji grabbed my hand in an attempt to lift me off the floor, and yet my body felt like hundreds of kilograms, and I refused to move. “Please, this isn’t good for you. Why don’t we go out for dinner? Get some food in you.”

Xiao, the second friend I made in Japan, nodded in agreement. He’s a foreigner like me, however he came from China, whereas I came from Korea. He moved to Japan a few years before I had and is a handful of years older than both Ryuji and myself, and we are the same age. “Drinks, too. On me, bud.”

My mind was like a snowstorm and I couldn’t make out a single thing around me. The world spun and bent while colors blurred together to create new ones I couldn’t name. I tried to look at the hands that didn’t feel like they were a part of me anymore. One of them spoke again, their voice a low hum echoing in my head. If I sit here long enough, they’ll go away. Then I could be at peace with. . .

I needed to get up.

Blinking hard to try and correct my vision, I placed my hands on the floor and pushed myself to my feet. I swayed, my legs like jelly and my balance off, and I grabbed onto the couch to stop the world from spinning and throwing me to the ground. A hand found my shoulder that I thought was mine at first. When realizing both of my hands were on the couch, I saw that it was Ryuji’s. His face was contorted with concern, one he solely bares when I’ve done something horrendous to myself. Emotions fill up his entire being, yet he hardly shows them, believing as though if he showed one emotion then he was weak and childish.

It took a few minutes, or perhaps a few hours. Time didn’t exist to me. When we climbed into the car, we were immediately in the bar with that habitual buzz of slurred talk and drunken laughter, and a glass of whiskey in my hand. I scanned around me, heart racing. When did we get to the bar? Ryuji, long vermillion-dyed hair in its usual ponytail swaying, and Xiao, running his silver-ringed fingers through his messy black hair, were laughing to their heart’s content, cheeks a little red. The bar wasn’t full, though a mere few seats remained open.

Condensation rolled down from the glass and onto my fingers. I turned my attention to it, moving the glass around from the rim in a circular motion as if it were a tube of chemicals and I was a mad scientist. The single sphere ice cube clinked and spun as if to say it knew what I didn’t. The golden brown liquid swished and sloshed as I fidgeted. Whiskey has been in my life longer than most people. Mei made it a hobby to fuss at me everytime I picked up a bottle. She knew I could down the entire thing in one sitting.

Mei. My heart stilled for a moment as my mind settled on imagining her with my heart in protest. Or longing, wishing for my life companion to be by my side again. I imagined how our night would have gone at that fancy restaurant, the one where it took months to get a seating for. Imagined the gorgeous blue dress she wore, how I picked a similar tie to match. The blue dress that was stained and ruined because of my past. Of ties I had left behind years ago, yet still managing to find me after all this time.

My fingers tightened around the glass and I forced myself to lighten or else I would’ve smashed the glass. Flashing images of her body, sprawled on the floor, the crimson liquid beneath her glimmering from the light above, came to me full force. Rage bubbled in my chest, my lungs screaming and begging for more air. By pure instinct, I crashed my fist on the table. And as the bar fell quiet, I lifted the glass to my lips. The ice burned my upper lip from the cold, and the liquid brought the familiar warmth and burning sensation down my throat. I slammed the empty glass, save the ice cube, down and even my friends’s conversation came to a halt.

“If I had to make a guess, it would be my father.” The words flooded out of my mouth and caught me by surprise. My hand felt cold. I looked down to see that it was full, the sphere ice cube floating at the top.

“Look, Yeong, it’s your father,” said Ryuji, forever the rational one. His hair sprawled across his back, hair tie wrapped around his wrist. He never took it out unless he was going to bed or getting drunk. “You have to forgive him. He’s your own flesh and blood. Your mother would want that.”

A pang shot through my heart at the mention of my mother. “I don’t want to forgive, I want to forget. Now. . . I can’t do either.” Whose voice was that? I checked Ryuji and Xiao’s faces, though neither had moved. I scratched at my throat, unsure if it was the one being put to use.

Xiao’s mouth opened, and then I was sure it’s him talking. At least he was talking at that moment. “Maybe it’s time to pay Min-Jun a visit. I mean, it’s been years since you left Busan and that crazy gang your father ran. Clearly they didn’t take your departure respectfully, so. . . you don’t have to be respectful, either.”

I tilted my head to the side. My neck began to burn the same as my throat. I lowered my hand to stop the damage. “The fuck you mean by that?” I asked him, my voice rougher than the last time I remembered.

“Show him hell, Yeong Kim.”

***

The flight from Tokyo, Japan to Busan, South Korea was two and a half hours long. I hardly remembered the flight let alone booking it. I stood in the center of Busan, the recognizable streets welcomed me back home. Busan was forever evolving, although the streets never strayed.

My legs knew exactly where to go without me thinking about it. I knew the route home from any street, any location, no matter how far away I was. I ran through these streets a thousand times for 16 years. I know them like the back of my hand and not by choice. That’s thanks to this stupid gang.

My grandfather started this whole gang thing, but I can’t blame a dead guy, now can I? When he was 20, he formed a gang by the name of the Purple Dragons. At that point it was a handful of people, his friends and colleagues. Whereas as they grew in numbers, they also lost their minds.

Before I realize it, a dark brown door stands in front of me. Three scratches dig into the wood in the middle, revealing a lighter brown color. As my hand finds its way to the black door knob, it stops and hovers above it.

Would Mom want this? Jeong? Mei?

I have to walk away. I left violence behind the moment I boarded the flight to Japan. I left each bit of this here for a reason. My hands have taken too many lives, have lost too many lives in them. I’d be no better than the man behind this door. No better than the man who sought joy in torturing me day in and day out. A day was never the same with him. I was never the same person. Always had to become someone I wasn’t, though in my blood maybe I was. Maybe I am.

I take a long, deep breath and shut my eyes. Stop thinking. Do what your instincts tell you to do. The cold metal pressed into my back serves as a reminder why I’m here in the first place. What my job is. My hand turns the knob before I got to talk myself out of it.

Home hasn’t changed hardly at all. The kitchen, cluttered with dirty dishes and empty beer bottles, sits to my immediate left. The smell of old alcohol shoves its way into my nose, though I don’t bother to cover it. The smell is a familiar one, one that I can still smell in my dreams.

In front of me to the right is the living room. That same damned cracked television rests on an old brown table that tilts slightly to the left due to a missing leg and instead rests on a pile of newspapers. The black couch has more wear to it, new scratches and missing pieces. On the opposite wall of me stands three similar brown doors to the front one – the far left for Mom and Father’s room, the middle leading down to the basement, and the far right Jeong’s and my old bedroom we shared for 16 years.

Jeong would be in his bed shoving his face into a book every night before sleeping. He’d use an irritatingly bright flashlight and I’d have to cover my head with a pillow to block it. He was the smart one, whereas I was the strong one. The plan maker and the plan follower. I looked up to him with him knowing seemingly everything. I wanted to be like Jeong one day, someone who knew everything and could answer every question in the blink of an eye and be correct.

The far left door creaks open, a face with scars and wrinkles in early stages peers through. A dark brown eye widens and the door flings open fully. Father still remains a smudge bigger than me, and I’m a big man, spending the majority of my free time in a gym. The white tank top he wears shows off the hundreds of scars etched into his very soul. The black pants he has hides more. His eyebrows knit together, brown eyes searching me and taking me in.

“Well, well. . . look who’s come crawlin’ back to Korea,” my father growls at me as he steps out of the room, shutting the door behind him with crooked fingers from being broken far too many times. A cruel smile spreads across his pink cheeks. From across the room I can smell the beer clinging to him. “That girl was nothin’ but a distraction to ya. Can’t be gettin’ too soft on me, now can you? Work needs to be done, boy.”

When my grandfather passed, and my father was fourteen, he passed on the legacy. He was too young to be in this mess, and so were we. And when my brother, Jeong, and myself were brought to the world, we were raised to expect to take over the organization at any minute. The exact reason why we both left, merely in different ways.

My fists clench as his voice sounds like nails scratching a blackboard. My heart pounds so hard against my chest I’m afraid it’ll burst out and run away.

“You know this is no life,” I say followed by a deep breath. Don’t let him get in your head. That’s how he’ll win. “This is no way of living.”

A low chuckle erupts from Father’s mouth. “And here I thought you were gonna thank me. I did you a favor. And this is how you treat me, huh? What an ill-mannered boy you are. Always been such a pompous ass. No, a weak boy.”

A faint ringing echoes throughout my skull. Every nerve begs for violence – I’m itching to pummel him, but not yet. Wait it out a little. “If you don’t shut your fucking mouth, then I’ll shut it for you,” I mutter through gritted teeth.

Father pops an eyebrow, curling his fingers in and out to loosen them. “There he is. My twitchy little mutt. Still barking, no biting,” he says, drawing out the last word. “Y’know, Yeong, you’re soundin’ a whole lot like your brother. What, you gonna find a pretty barrel of a gun to shove down your throat, too?”

When Mom was in that car crash and didn’t make it out, Father cried for days. I remember being alarmed, scared, seeing him cry and hearing his sobs for the first time. The next day he turned into a monster, and that was when I stopped calling him “dad”, because that felt too personal and too full of love. When Jeong passed away, Father didn’t shed a single tear. I did the crying for him.

Hearing Father talk like that about Jeong, about the only family member I truly had left, snapped something inside of me. A crack. I dashed straight to the man, fists clenched.

My bare knuckle drives into his cheek and knocks him to the wooden floor. He sputters out a cough, blood splattering on the floor. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and stains it red. A faded tattoo of a dragon bleeds into his neck. The one identical on my left rib cage. A proof of membership to the Purple Dragons.

Then there I am. A young boy laying on the floor, covering his eyes with the crook of his elbow to shield himself from the horrors that claims is his dad. He shakes and shivers, as pale as can be, with sweat and dirt covering his skin that is littered with bruises and scratches. He’s crying and yelling and begging for the world to come to an end so he can finally be free.

I should stop and turn around. Go home and pretend none of this happened. I can walk away and drown myself in whiskey when I get back. I can almost see me stepping into the house in Japan, and seeing Mei on the couch, curled up watching some soap opera on television.

Except Mei is not waiting for me at home. She will never be waiting for me to come home after a long day at work again. And that little boy in front of me screams again, this time clearer. I wish you’d die, Dad! I hate you!

I am here to grant him that very wish.

I pummel the tip of my boot into his hip and send him tumbling until he stops on his back. His chest rises and falls quickly, his hand clutching his waist. I walk over to sit on his stomach. I snatch his jaw and lean in close so our eyes are mere inches apart. I see nothing aside from genuine fear, and this is a first for me as it is a first for him, to see such genuine anger from his son toward him instead of fear.

“I refuse to be anything like you, Min-Jun. Mom hated you. Jeong hated you. I hated you. And now, you’ll feel their hatred in Hell. It’ll consume you until you lose who you are. Even then you’ll never be free from all of the sins you have committed during your lowly life. Rot in Hell, Min-Jun Kim.”

I toss his head and slam it against the floor. He says not a word, and that boils my blood more. My fist connects with his face four more times before my knuckles tear and bleed. Father’s head bobbles from side to side, eyes blinking slowly. I reach behind me to grab the gun and suddenly it feels so heavy. Is this what Jeong felt? Suddenly weak when holding a weapon we used in our daily lives?

I shove the barrel into his mouth. I want him to taste the same metal he forced his son to. His eyes widen and he scratches at my hands to try to pry them off the gun. With a loud bang, his hands lose their grip on mine and fall to his sides. His eyes stare at me, forever looking at nothing.