I'll be your light

The weekend finally comes around. Yukwon’s phone rings and he answers.
“Hello?” he says.
“Hello Yukwon.” A man says.
Yukwon snickers because he recognizes the voice.
“Junhoo, how nice of you to call me. How is your hand recovering after I plunged my knife through it and pinned it to the ground?”
Junhoo makes a grunting noise on the other end of the phone. “You will regret that.” He says with a growl. “Meet me in that same place you injured my hand at 12:00am tonight. I think it’s time for a little payback.”
“Are you sure you want to do that? My knife might accidentally split your other hand in half too.”
“Don’t mess with me. Be there – “
“Or be square.” Yukwon jokes. He tries to hold in his laughter after hearing Junhoo’s speechless reaction. Junhoo hangs up without another word and Yukwon bursts into laughter. After his laughing session, Yukwon opens his knife case. “Which one shall I use to stab his other hand?” A thought flashes across him mind; he should tell BLOCK B about this. He shakes the thought out of his head. “I’ll be alright. I can handle myself. I don’t need help.” He sneers.

At 12:00am, Yukwon waits in the alleyway. ‘Where is he?’ he thinks to himself as he taps his foot impatiently. 10 minutes pass and Junhoo still hasn’t arrived. Yukwon turns to leave but is stopped by Junhoo’s face. Yukwon jerks back and gasps. “Your face scared me.” He says. “Enough mucking around. Let’s get down to business.” Junhoo growls. Without warning he swings his right fist at Yukwon’s face, but he ducks and punches Junhoo in the stomach. The enemy stumbles back, giving a low grunt before trying to attack again. Yukwon analyses his opponent. Junhoo is only using his right hand to attack; now that he looks closely his left hand is bandaged and stays cradled by his side. That was the hand he stabbed. Junhoo’s stance is very weak and his footing is sloppy, which means he can be easily unbalanced. Yukwon continues to dodge his opponent’s punches and kicks. Junhoo tries for a sidekick but Yukwon steps behind his balancing leg and uses both hands to punch him in the chest. Junhoo trips over Yukwon’s foot and is sent to the ground. Without a delay, Yukwon is on top of his and sends three punches to the enemy’s face. While Junhoo is unresponsive, Yukwon takes out his knife from its sheath attached to his belt, he pins Junhoo’s left hand down and holds the knife in the air. Suddenly two men come out of the shadows and disarm him. His knife goes flying into the darkness and the men attack him with no mercy. Yukwon is on the ground, gasping for air, trying to shield himself from the rain of punches. They leave Yukwon feeling numb and they help Junhoo stand up. “Thank you.” Junhoo chokes.
“Who are they?” Yukwon questions as he too stands up.
“Oh them? They’re my backup men.” Junhoo says with an evil smile.
Yukwon’s eyes widen. “This isn’t a fair fight!”
“I never said it was going to be fair.”
At once, all three men run at Yukwon. He runs out of the alleyway in fear. Three against one, this fight is not in his favor. He runs out into the park and the enemies chase after him. One of the backup men lunges at Yukwon and grab onto his ankles, making his fall on his face. “My beautiful face.” He groans. He kicks the man in the head and scrambles free, but the other backup man is catching up. Yukwon feels something slash his calf through his pants and he falls to the grass. He feels the wound and notices that blood is quickly escaping. The man picks up the weapon used to cut him. “That’s my own knife.” Yukwon says in shock. He tries to get up but the man punches him in the cheek and sends stars to his head. He punches him again, and again, and again, and again until the other man and Junhoo arrive. The man’s punches are so hard that Yukwon’s lip cracks and bleeds and his inner cheek bleeds because he accidentally bit himself. Now all he can taste is his own blood. The two backup men pin Yukwon’s arms down and he is forced to face Junhoo. “Not so tough are you now, Yukwon?” he snickers. Yukwon tries to spit blood at him but it doesn’t go high enough and splatters on his own shirt. “Pathetic!” Junhoo laughs, the other men laugh with him. Yukwon does feel like an embarrassed idiot, but now is his chance while Junhoo and his men are distracted. He rips his right arm free and grabs the knife out of the man’s hand. He leaps forward and drags the knife upward, slicing the skin of Junhoo’s face from his chin up to his forehead. Yukwon is pushed back down but he snickers has he sees the horror on Junhoo’s face. The scar runs from his chin and angles towards the right, it cuts through his lips and right nostril, his right eye is covered in blood and the wound ends at his hairline. Junhoo screams in pain and agony. The backup men attack Yukwon, punching him in the stomach, chest and face. Junhoo covers his right eye with his left hand.
“My eye…” he sobs. “Look what you did! I’m blind now!” he rages.
Junhoo looks at Yukwons bruised and bloody face and anger overtakes him. He takes the knife from the floor with his right hand and holds the blade to the moonlight. He grins menacingly.
“Have you ever heard of ‘death by 1,000 cuts’?” Junhoo asks.
He slices Yukwon’s lower arm and he grunts in pain.
“It’s a slow and horrible death where I give you 1,000 tiny cuts – “
He slices Yukwon’s chest.
“ – so you die from blood loss.”
He slices Yukwon’s quadriceps and watches all the cuts bleed out. He slashes Yukwon some more, down his left arm and watches the weakling flinch and gasp. Junhoo holds up the bloodied knife.
“This process is taking too long. Maybe I should finish with payback.” He says. The man holding his right hand forces him to open his hand. He pins down his fingers and at lightning speed Junhoo plunges the knife into Yukwon’s palm. Yukwon screams and cries in pain. The things around him start to become hazy. He realizes that no one knows he is here, no one from BLOCK B can save him.

‘Someone, save me.’ He prays.

He see’s a yellow light flash and illuminate the scene. He hears shouting but he can’t make out the words. The three men squint in the light and run. They’ve escaped, but that doesn’t matter, someone has saved him. A blurry face comes into view, a woman’s face, she shouts at him, but his cries drown out her voice. She calmly runs her hands over his forehead and through his hair to try and calm him down. She shouts more things at him and he just groans in response. She takes hold of his hand and squeezes it and she shouts something again. He just squeezes back.

Notes