༺Masterpiece༻

XLIV :: Fist for a Fist

Jimin exhaled slowly, his eyes never leaving Mr. Cha's as he shifted into the lead, standing tall in front of me, his back straight and poised. The calm exterior he always carried was now layered with an edge of authority, his voice low and measured as he began, "Mr. Cha, there's a reason why your wife divorced you and is now remarkably able to open her own diner." His words were deliberate, cutting through the tension with a precision that left no room for misinterpretation. "Do you understand what is wrong with you?"

The question hung in the air, heavy with implications. For a moment, the room was silent. Mr. Cha's expression twisted, the faint smirk returning to his lips, but now it was harder, more jagged. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs with a dismissive wave of his hand, clearly unbothered.

"What's wrong with me?" he spat, the disgust in his voice clear as he raised an eyebrow at Jimin. "What isn't wrong with women like her?"

Jimin's jaw tightened ever so slightly, but he held his composure, his eyes still trained on the man before him.

"Your wife-she left you, Mr. Cha, and now she's thriving on her own. That should tell you something about how much she needed you." There was no malice in Jimin's voice, only a sharp, clinical precision. His words were like a scalpel, cutting deep into the very heart of the matter.

But Mr. Cha wasn't listening. His face twisted further, his features contorting into something vile and ugly.

"Needed me? That useless woman couldn't even do what a wife is supposed to do. What good is a woman who can't even keep her man satisfied?" His voice rose, dripping with venom. He sneered, his eyes narrowing as he threw his hands up in a mocking gesture. "But, oh, look at her now-a diner. As if that's some big fucking achievement."

Jimin's expression remained calm, but I could see the tension in the set of his shoulders. He didn't react to Mr. Cha's rant, letting him expose himself further. "And you know what, Park? I didn't need her. Not then, not now. She couldn't give me what I wanted, but I've got plenty of others who can."

Jimin's gaze didn't waver, but I could feel the shift in the air, the thin thread of patience beginning to fray as Mr. Cha's words grew more repulsive.

"Oh yeah," Mr. Cha continued, his voice lowering into something more insidious, leaning in as if he were sharing a secret. "I've got plenty of women who are dying to fuck me. Not like my useless wife. No, these girls, these thots, they know how to please a man." He paused, eyes gleaming as he leaned back, relishing his own words. "You wouldn't believe it, the things they'll do. I don't need to work hard for it either-they line up for me. Always ready. And they don't complain like her."

A wave of nausea rolled through me. The way he spoke, the utter disregard for human dignity, for the woman he had discarded, the way he used people as if they were nothing more than objects to feed his ego-it made my skin crawl. The room felt stifling, suffocating with the weight of his sickening pride.

Jimin stood still for a moment, absorbing Mr. Cha's vitriol. His silence stretched longer than it should have, but when he finally spoke, his voice was colder than I had ever heard it. "Mr. Cha," he said, slow and deliberate, "What you're describing is not power. It's not control. It's pathetic. You use other people to fill the emptiness in your own life, but deep down, you know as well as I do that you're just covering up your own insecurities."

Mr. Cha let out a sharp laugh, but there was something bitter behind it, a faint crack in his bravado. "You're full of shit," he snapped, though the sneer on his face faltered slightly. "What do you know about it? You're just some kid with a clipboard, pretending you understand life. You don't know anything about what it's like to be a man in this world."