A Day Without You

Here And Now

My encounter with him was worse than I had expected it to be. I regretted meeting him every second after that. I had no interest in speaking of it, not even with Hongseok. He had been worried about the thing for quite a few days afterwards but I refused to talk. I kept thinking about how I did the right thing by not telling Shinwon anything.

I felt like I rescued him before something went awry.

"You're not gonna tell him anything, are you...", said Hongseok, later on when we got together for work. My answer was always gonna be a 'no'. "What good would it do if I told him", I thought to myself... over and over again. I didn't think it through much back then. I just kept seeing what was right in front me. After a week or so, Hongseok went there again by himself to visit the building, but as he predicted... they weren't there anymore. When I heard that from him, I was relieved. The further away Shinwon was from all that mess, the better.

But things took a completely different turn.This week, the detectives found an eye witness for a case we are writing on in another district, which was close by to ours. They had taken in her testimony and we were free to interview her if required. I basically jumped at the news of this. Hongseok had informed me of it quite fast and I was all ready to pack my bags up and leave. Shinwon excitedly said, "Sunbae, let's go" as soon as we got the green light to go there yesterday. He seemed as determined and excited as I was. We had been working on this for a long time. All the research and hard work was finally gonna pay off. We were both ecstatic. It was only afternoon so transportation was not a problem. We took the fifth bus from the station to get there. It took us a while and thus it was already evening until we reached the bus-stop. Our feet weren't staying on the ground... I was really happy at that moment. We both were actually. Our grins weren't leaving our faces.

But it wasn't meant to last long.

We got to the witness pretty quickly after that. We already had the address of the pub she owned. It was an area filled with pubs, small restaurants, motels and all. It was just that kind of a locality. There were lights all around, people drinking and enjoying the night - quite a familiar scene actually. We went into the bar, asking for the owner and she didn't hesitate in speaking with us. She spoke with us, telling us all that she saw and heard. I checked that it matched with her testimony and after speaking again for a few more minutes, we came out of there. There were still things waiting to be figured out but we were very close to seeing the end of the case. After we got out, Shinwon said, "Sunbae, I'm hungry. Should we eat something here?", lightly rubbing his abdomen while saying so. I started smiling, basically because of his gesture and I replied by saying, "Sure, what do you want to eat? Got something in mind?". "I'm craving for black bean noodles", he said looking in different directions. "Let me look at the stores on this side, you go check out the ones there", I replied to him, pointing to the other side. He said, "Sure, I’ll call you when if I find something” before turning around to go to the other side of the lane. I turned around to look into the stores on my side of the street right after. But then after a minute or so, Shinwon suddenly grabbed onto my shoulder with force. I got startled, wondering who it was but as I turned around, I saw a horrid expression on his face. His eyes were burning. I had never seen him like that before and it left me in shock for a few seconds. “Sunbae, take my camera”, he said in a low voice and before I could say or do anything, he shoved his bag into my hand and ran out of the store I was standing in.

And that was the last thing I heard from him.

It took me a while to grasp the situation. I was already late at catching him, so I hurried out of the store only to catch a glimpse of him entering an alley on the right. I knew it was nothing good. I left my bag and his in care of the manager of the store I was in and rushed out as fast as I could… and I froze for a second when I saw that scene. There were 6 people there, 3 of them beating the hell out of Hwitaek and Shinwon struggling with the other three. When I got back to my senses, I called the police and hurriedly told them where we were at that moment and ran into the fight after ending the call. I tried to get them off of Shinwon, barely being successful at doing so and as I caught their attention, they finally let go of Shinwon momentarily. I could see he was bleeding from different parts of his body, his clothes completely tattered and the boy was barely breathing. He had no experience in such things… but he refused to give up. It was too much for the three of us. All 6 of them were well built and this was basically how they lived life – by treating others like trash. It was punch after punch, left and right. I wasn’t even sure whose blood it was all over the street. I kept looking at Shinwon but all he could see was that guy. He wouldn’t let go of the men beating up Hwitaek. I could here him saying, "Let go of him!" while desperately struggling  to fight them off.

And that’s when it all went to hell.

Shinwon became the target. It was pretty obvious that these people had things to settle with Hwitaek but that all changed the minute Shinwon started to interfere. I was almost at my limit myself, Hwitaek could barely get up from the ground and there were 3 people surrounding Shinwon. I desperately tried to free my self from the man who was holding me but all I gained from doing so was his knee hitting my gut. I could see the other guy struggling to get up and he kept saying, “No… stop” repeatedly. “It’s me you want… let go of h—” , he said before getting interrupted by the boot of the guy standing above him, the hit being straight to his jaw. And that’s when the real pain began.

We both felt brutally helpless as Shinwon got… hit innumerable times by… oh God… Even… even remembering all this again is…

Both Hwitaek and I were screaming at the top of our lungs, both of us saying the exact same thing – “Let him go”. I tried desperately to fight off the guy behind me and so did Hwitaek. No matter how many times we got hit, we tried to shove them off of us… but it was too late. Amidst all the screaming and moaning, there was suddenly a loud thud. I turned my head to look at the direction of it and it was the very same thing I feared it to be. Everything went blank in my head. I couldn’t hear a single thing and my eyes only followed Shinwon's body, as it dropped to the ground. He wasn’t moving… he wasn’t making a single sound… he just lay there, completely still. All I was thinking was “No… no… no… no…”. That was it. I couldn’t process anything else, until a blaring scream caught my attention.

“SHINWONNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

I looked at him and he had the face of a man who had just lost everything right in front of his eyes. I could see that he had lost it. He had probably broken more than a few bones in his body but nothing was going to stop him then. It was obvious… he didn’t give a damn about anything anymore. Hwitaek's sudden outbreak caught the attention of the guy who was holding me and I knew… that was the only chance I was going to get to end it. I hit the guy with my elbow with all the strength I had left and somehow it worked. Shinwon wasn’t moving even after all that time and all I could think of was to get him somewhere safe. At that very moment, I could hear the sirens from the distance. The police had arrived. I wasn’t the only one who heard it, as they all started to run away right after. I could finally go and see Shinwon's condition but the commotion in front of me caught my attention. I could see Hwitaek beating up a guy with all that he had left in him. It was the man who hit Shinwon with the wooden plank. Hwitaek’s hands were clearly bleeding, his knuckles bright red from beating the guy up. But he had no sign of stopping at just hurting him. He was already stuck to the ground for he barely had the strength to stand straight anymore. But when I saw Hwitaek take up that exact same plank in his hand, I understood what he intended to do.

His eyes said it all – “I’ll kill you”

I couldn’t let that happen… Shinwon wouldn’t have wanted it to happen. I grabbed onto him as tightly as I could to hold him back but all he said was “LET GO! LET GO OF ME! I'M GONNA KILL THIS SON OF A B**CH! I’M GOING TO F**KING SLAUGHTER YOU YOU PIECE OF S**T”. “SHINWON IS NOT WAKING UP YOU IDIOT STOP THIS!”, I screamed at him from the back, which made him finally stand still. As he turned around to look at me and then at Shinwon, I continued saying, “Go to him, let me handle this”, looking straight into his eyes. As he left to go next to Shinwon, I staggered out of the alley to get a clear view of where the police were. I could see them right up the street so I shouted in my almost broken voice saying “OVER HERE!”, trying to wave my hand in the air despite the sharp pain I was feeling. I saw that the police had noticed me and as I turned to look at Shinwon, I saw Hwitaek sitting next to him, holding Shinwon’s head up with his arm, speaking in his shaking voice saying, “Shinwonaa, open your eyes hmm? It’s… it’s your Hui-hyung… Open your eyes come on… Don’t… don’t do this to me Shinwonaa… Hyung is here right now… please… I beg of you… Shinwona—“, before breaking into tears. He kept saying the same thing over and over again, his voice slowly choking more and more from crying.

For the first time, I felt sympathy for him.

I finally understood why he acted that way that day, why he didn’t want to meet him… why he left. But I realized all of it, way too late.