Then came the trouble he didn’t anticipate: emotions.
Within a month, Kang Seok was no longer king. He was just another student. Yoon-jae, the scholarship ghost, had become the silent shadow pulling every string. Teachers found their lesson plans mysteriously altered. Rival schools’ team strategies were anonymously faxed to the soccer coach. The cafeteria food improved after the supplier’s tax evasion was conveniently leaked.
One afternoon, a sleek black sedan pulled up in front of the school. Out stepped a familiar face: Baek Doo-hwan, the lieutenant who had stabbed Dae-seong in that rainy alley. Now, Doo-hwan was the new boss. And he had a son at Hansung High.
The soul of Kim Dae-seong, the infamous "Crow" of the Busan underworld, did not depart to the afterlife with a dramatic bang. It left with a wet, pathetic gurgle in a rain-soaked alley, betrayed by his own lieutenant for a casino deal. The last thing he saw was a faded poster of a cherry blossom festival. The last thing he felt was annoyance. Annoyance that his $2,000 silk tie was getting ruined. high school return of a gangster
“What will you do now?” she asked.
He woke to the smell of cheap disinfectant, stale ramen, and teenage sweat. He was sitting at a plastic desk, the surface carved with half-hearted hearts and the words "Mr. Park sucks." A boy in a crumpled uniform was shaking him. "Yoon-jae! Dude! Wake up, Mr. Kang is gonna murder you!"
So-ri looked at Yoon-jae differently after that. Not with fear. With something Dae-seong had never experienced in his brutal life: gratitude. And maybe, just maybe, a flicker of something warmer. Then came the trouble he didn’t anticipate: emotions
Choi was gone by morning.
The old Yoon-jae would have trembled. The new Yoon-jae looked up, and for a split second, his eyes weren’t a boy’s eyes. They were the dead, flat eyes of a man who had ordered worse men than Kang Seok to be buried at sea.
Min-ho was expelled and charged as an adult for attempted murder. His father’s empire crumbled. Yoon-jae, the scholarship ghost, had become the silent
One night, Dae-seong tracked Mr. Choi to a karaoke bar in a rundown district. He didn’t go as Yoon-jae. He went as the Crow. He walked in, sat down opposite the burly loan shark, and placed a single item on the table: a small, rusty pocketknife.
One night, Min-ho and six of his thugs cornered Yoon-jae in the gymnasium. They had baseball bats.
Choi’s smile vanished.
Dae-seong felt the old fire rise in his chest. The Crow’s bloodlust. He smiled. “You think because you have a bat, you know violence?” he said, cracking his knuckles. “I’ve forgotten more ways to break a man than you’ll ever learn.”
The blade sank into her shoulder. She crumpled, blood soaking her white uniform shirt.