Parting

Kwon Juhan. 22 years old at the time.

He was enrolled in the Western Painting department of a fairly reputable art university — not quite elite, but well-regarded. Yet after falling hard and late for the Sex Pistols, he began neglecting his studies, clung to his guitar, and eventually joined an underground punk band. He had left home and was now living and sleeping in the band's rehearsal studio.

The reason he left home was not because his parents opposed his band activities. They had already changed course early on — when it became clear that Juhan had no interest in studying, they pivoted in middle school, enrolling him in a well-known art cram school, tracking down skilled instructors, and pushing him through private lessons until he achieved their goal of getting him into a four-year university in Seoul.

His father had once smashed two guitars, and his mother had cut off his allowance — so it wasn't as though they had never pushed back against his band life. But none of that was the decisive reason why Juhan, who had once had everything handed to him, ended up sleeping on a rehearsal room sofa.

As long as he graduated from college, his parents would have been more or less satisfied, no matter whether he played guitar or did anything else. But even parents who had nearly given up on their uncooperative son could not accept one thing — that their son was gay with what they saw as perverted tastes.

During his time at the art cram school, a teacher he had dated for about a year continued stalking him for several years, even through his mandatory military service. When Juhan repeatedly rejected proposals to get back together, that person retaliated by setting out to destroy his life.

They sent his parents everything they had painstakingly accumulated through years of stalking.

From Juhan's perspective, it was evidence of stalking. From his parents' perspective, it was proof that their son was gay — and not just that, but gay with disturbing sexual preferences that most people would find unacceptable.

It included photos from when they were dating, pictures of him in intimate physical contact with one-night partners at clubs, and even screenshots of extremely private dirty talk exchanged during their relationship.

"Your son is a perverted homosexual who enjoys penetrating men nearly twice his age and taunting them with obscene words until they cry. I am a person whose life was ruined because of your son. Please ensure proper guidance at home so that there will be no more victims."

Along with that note.

It was true that Juhan was drawn to listless, timid men in their late thirties, and that he found excitement in watching them come apart — weeping uncontrollably at pleasures that crossed every line they'd ever known, triggered by the provocation of their own sexual shame. But who exactly was claiming whose life had been ruined?

Was he not the one who had given that person release and salvation by fulfilling desires they had suppressed for years without any outlet?

It was rich, coming from someone who had once been more enthusiastic about that dynamic than anyone.

Formally, Juhan had walked out of the house on his own two feet. In reality, it amounted to being disowned.

His mother vomited without even making it to the bathroom, collapsing right there on the sofa. His father — who had never once laid a hand on him despite having smashed his guitars twice — lost his reason and beat Juhan indiscriminately.

Juhan shouted that consensual sex between people with the same sexual preferences was not wrong, that even parents had no right to interfere in their children's sex lives. But in the end, he stopped. In truth, he understood their shock.

Even if they had seen photos and dirty talk of their son with an opposite-sex partner, it would have been shocking. But seeing photos of their son with an older man of the same sex — it wasn't unreasonable for any parent to feel as if the sky had collapsed.

Even when he said, "I'm still the same son you raised," their eyes were filled with contempt and fury. Being in the same house felt like hell. It was better to put distance between them until they could collect themselves and look at the situation with clearer eyes.

To afford a place to live, he was working three part-time jobs a day, but since they were all hastily found positions, the pay was poor relative to the intensity of the labor.

Every night, stretched out in discomfort on a sofa with torn cushions — something someone had thrown out during a move — Juhan thought to himself.

Right. It's not exactly easy to find another guy who'd look down at someone nearly twice his age and say "why is my man so naughty? Still can't hold it at your age?" — and mean it. Who'd work him over so completely he didn't know whether to cry from shame or pleasure. Of course the want built up with nowhere to go. Of course he was furious when it got cut off.

But understanding why someone does a thing and forgiving them for it are two different matters entirely. And if that bastard thought Kwon Juhan was the forgiving type — he had badly misjudged his audience.

Juhan had changed his number several times to escape the stalking. The last time he changed it, the stalker sent him a masturbation video as a "congratulations on your new phone" gift via messenger. Juhan simply deleted the message and blocked the account.

The man had shown up at every band performance. He had also waited in front of Juhan's place on multiple occasions, kneeling down and crying, begging to get back together. But it wasn't love. From the beginning, it had simply been mutual indulgence — and that person had only failed to find another partner who could satisfy him the way Juhan did.

He'll get over it eventually. Leaving it alone had been a mistake. Juhan had assumed that someone so timid and introverted couldn't possibly escalate things too far — but that had been his miscalculation.

A timid person would never swing a blade at someone else's life like that. That man had simply been a gloomy, cowardly bastard. Being dark and twisted on his own could be forgiven — but cowardice was not something Juhan could overlook.

For about a month, staring at the mold stains on the rehearsal room ceiling, Juhan spent every night thinking about how to get revenge in a way that would truly satisfy his anger.

Right. Nothing else matters. I just need relief. I need to burn through my rage completely — pour all of that intensity onto that bastard until I can finally sleep at night. And to do that, Juhan — who had once had everything handed to him — was prepared to live the rest of his life branded as a criminal. That, to him, was the spirit of punk.

The day his first paycheck arrived in his account, Juhan went straight to his usual vintage shop.

It was a store that sold rare punk-style items not commonly found in the country. He had finally come to pick up the pair of combat boots he had been eyeing. He intended to wear them when he carried out his revenge.

"Hyung, what are you talking about? I told you I was going to buy those!"

"Sorry... but you know we're not exactly running a business with plenty of spare cash. You reserved them and didn't show up for a whole month. When someone else came wanting to buy them, I couldn't just turn them away — who knows when another buyer would show up. I had no choice. Try to understand."

Hearing that the boots he had specifically told them not to sell to anyone else — because he would buy them as soon as his paycheck came in — had been sold just five minutes earlier, Juhan felt crushed. It even made him restless, as if his revenge had been put on hold.

"I seriously survived for a whole month on cup noodles and onigiri just thinking about those boots!"

"We've got other great boots in stock. It doesn't have to be those, right?"

"To me, those aren't just shoes! Hyung, do you know who bought them? Could you at least tell me?"

"Uh... well..."

The shop owner scratched his uneven stubble with his index finger, eyes darting around. Juhan leaned forward over the counter as if he might climb over it.

"What is it? You know, don't you? Please tell me! I'll pay extra — no, I'll beg if I have to, just to get them back!"

Someone tapped his shoulder from behind. A light, gentle touch — almost ticklish, like a playful tease.

"How much extra are you willing to pay?"

"......"

When he turned around, a small-framed woman was looking up at him. Her jet-black bob, cut sharply as if with a blade, and the sunglasses she wore indoors in the middle of winter were striking. She wasn't particularly tall, but the heels of her lace-up boots brought her lips level with the tip of Juhan's nose.

From head to toe — from the piercings running through her eyebrows and cheeks to her tartan-check coat — she was punk itself.

Her style's killer. Even in that situation, Juhan couldn't help but admire her.

"You're the one who bought them?"

The woman nodded.

"What? They won't even fit you! Just hand them over to me, yeah?"

"Do people only buy shoes to wear them? Don't act like a beginner."

As Juhan pushed forward, she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Nuna — hyungnim — please. I'm begging you, sell them to me. I've endured an extreme month just thinking about getting those boots. To me right now, they aren't just shoes. They're a symbol of a promise I made to myself."

Her gaze, as if measuring the sincerity of his desperation, studied him slowly and carefully from behind her sunglasses.

"Why? What happened?"

"My life got completely ruined because of some son of a bitch. I made a promise to myself that I'd go deal with that bastard once I got these boots."

She lowered her sunglasses to the tip of her nose and looked at him directly. Her large eyes, lined with heavy smoky makeup, were unusually sharp.

"I want to study aesthetics — art theory — and become a curator in Europe. But my parents want me to go to an education college and become a teacher — dress how they say, go to the academies they choose, hang out with the friends they pick. Like my well-behaved younger sibling who does exactly what they're told. But I secretly applied to the Department of Aesthetics at XX University and got in. Then they said they wouldn't pay my tuition unless I enrolled in education. After everything I went through to get into that university, I couldn't even attend. I moved out and I'm stuck in a shoebox goshiwon. Even so, I tried to build experience in something I love — but at the gallery I work more than fifteen hours a day and still only get passion pay. There are people lining up to work for that little, and I could get fired at any moment."

Unable to grasp the intent behind the sudden flood of personal disclosure, Juhan narrowed his eyes. Is this a misery competition? Winner gets the boots?

"So? You had it worse than me?"

Without missing a beat, Juhan answered.

"Outing."

"......"

She stared at him in silence for a moment. Then she crossed her arms and asked the next question.

"......The target?"

"My parents."

"......The perpetrator?"

"My ex. The art cram school instructor I dated in high school. 37 at the time. 41 now."

Her entire face twisted into a frown.

"What kind of taste is that?"

"I know my taste is trash. But that bastard is the one who exposed it to my parents."

"Yeah. He really is a son of a bitch."

"Right? I'm going to put these on and drag him straight into the gutter. I'll make sure he can never pull that shit again — even if I end up getting dragged to the police myself. I can't stand being in debt to anyone. So just give me the boots."

"Let's go."

She fixed her sunglasses and walked past him toward the exit.

"Where? What about the boots? You just said he's a son of a bitch!"

Juhan shouted as he followed. When she opened the door, the cold winter air rushed in as if it had been waiting.

"Do you think that counts as revenge? An eye for an eye. If you're going to be socially destroyed, you repay it with social destruction."