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She’s short. 165cm, give or take. Something about her strikes him wrong at first glance — maybe its the eerie way she tilts her head, or the way her eyes linger on him, less predator more observer. Divine judgement, if he believed in the divine.
“I’m Lee Seonghae,” she says. “I’ll be your instructor for today.” Her tone is professional, her body language is open and friendly, and yet Choi can only smile back fakely. Something about her is wrong.
“Looking forward to it,” he says. He towers over her by a good 20cm, so he slouches a bit: not enough to seem disrespectful, just enough to seem lazy, relaxed. The mat is soft under his feet, and as he shifts he notes the imprints that have been left behind. “Please look after me, instructor-nim.” He bows, a neat 30 degrees and watches her carefully. When he looks back up to meet her eyes, she’s still smiling brightly.
“Hey,” she says. “Why did you come here?”
Yesterday:
“The dojo is a front?” Jaekwan asked. He looked at the pictures Choi had taken over the weeks he’d been spying on the place. On the table, a wide range of pictures are spread of. Some of Ho Yuwon, the owner, in his house, clearly taken through the window. Others are of the various employees that rotate shifts — Lee Seonghae, Jin Nasol, Kim Soleum — Choi’s satisfied at the evidence he’s gathered.
“They’re a front for an illegal drug operation.” He nudges a picture of Kim Soleum forward. This one’s good. He’d taken it with the camera he’d taken from Eun Haje while she was out. In it, Kim Soleum sits watching Pororo the Little Penguin while talking to a bunny.
“Isn’t this an invasion of privacy? Also, how does this prove anything?”
“This is Kim Soleum. Role is a ‘manager’, but ever since he started working at Daydream, he’s been looking more haggard. Talking to stuffed toys, looking at his blank phone screen. He’s having hallucinations all the time. He’s stopped sleeping in favour of watching the television all the time. Tremors, weight loss, bloodshot eyes — all typical symptoms of drug use.” He slams his hands down for dramatic effect. “Daydream is a front.”
Jaekwan looked back at him, eyes bloodshot. “…Let’s revisit this tomorrow.”
So tomorrow had come, and here Choi was, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I’m here to learn hapkido,” he says.
Lee Seonghae hums, still smiling calmly. It’s eerie, really, the way she carries herself: unnerving confidence, untouchable, more machine than human. While he’d been stalking her for evidence, he’d watched her dislocate an arm and wrench it back in place without hesitation.
“Lee Kangheon, was it?”
“At your service.”
“I noticed you following me around.”
“Huh —” Then she moves. His breath is knocked out of his chest, and he’s on the floor in an instant, bewildered. Lee Seonghae stands above him, smiling. His arm is wrenched high, the shirt gripped tightly. It was an unexpected display of strength from someone so physically unassuming, and Choi was struck with the knowledge that he had greviously fucked up.
“That was a body throw,” Lee Seonghae says.
“What?”
“A body throw. I thought you said you had prior experience.”
“…I do.”
A hum. “I don’t like liars, Lee Kangheon-ssi,” she says.
“Haha. I don’t either.” A pause. Her eyes, Choi notes, glint unnaturally, much like a cat’s in the dark. He smiles despite the strain his arms have been placed in, and the way his shoulder feels like it’s about to be wrenched out of place. It’s not often he regrets his actions, but he’s thinking he really should have stayed to confer with Jaekwan before coming here. “Another round?”
The man who had the name Lee Kangheon was a bad fighter, that much was obvious. Even more obvious: the way he’d followed everyone home over the past few weeks, to the extent where Kim Soleum had come up to her and said, quietly, “I think I have a stalker.”
That was unacceptable.
Kim Soleum, a good person, was being harrassed by the liar in front of her. He smiled a lot like Lee Seonghae herself did. “Another round?” he asked. Maybe he was stupid?
“Sure!”
Back on the balls of his feet. His smile was practiced, his slouch was pronounced in that it wasn’t. Everything was calculated, carefully so. If there wasn’t a rule against homicide in the dojo, Lee Seonghae would probably gut him. This time, she didn’t hold back.
Always a pleasure, slamming her fist into the solar plexus of a bad person, especially an irredeemable one, like this creep. She had two things: her wit, her strength. She made full use of the second as she watched Lee Kangheon double over, and idly stretched her wrists as she waited for him to recover.
“Another?”
“…Yeah.”
This time, he lay on the ground, teeth gritted as he fought not to make a sound. The look in his eyes directed at her wasn’t anything new, and she ignored him easily as she stretched, bones popping. “Why do you keep following me home?”
He rose slowly, casual, light. Then he smiled.
“You must be mistaken,” he said. Ah, breathing really was a waste of oxygen for him. Once, Nasol had ground her heel into the eye of a man who’d followed them home. Some people, she’d said, shouldn’t be using up all the oxygen. Lee Seonghae had agreed then, and she still agreed now as she stared down at the liar.
She didn’t wait for him to ask for another round. She rushed forward, and to her surprise he managed to deflect her first blow. So he could learn, no matter. A leg sweep, low, fast, and he toppled. Lee Seonghae was on him in seconds, elbow pressed against his neck. She watched as his face turned pale and breathing quickened. Then she pressed in harder, leaning until her ponytail fell onto his face, the strands brushing his skin. There was no way he could breathe now.
She waited for a precious few seconds. Idly, she wondered if it was worth the trouble of the scolding she’d get if he just died here.
Then she let go.
He wasn’t smiling now. He laid there, fake curved eyes gone entirely. The tension was obvious, even to those not as observant as Lee Seonghae.
Lee Seonghae tilted her head and clapped once. His eyes snapped down to her hands before looking back up. Her face found its way to a smile, as was natural. “Lee Kangheon-ssi,” she said. “I think you’re a bad person.”
He didn’t reply, a stark contrast from his chattiness mere moments earlier.
It really wasn’t worth the effort of killing him. What to do, then…
“You should kill yourself,” she told him.