The first time Baek Seongho returned to the boxing gym after his fight, he found six pairs of gloves hanging from the ceiling.
Three were red. Three were black.
Beneath them stood Kang Minjun.
"You're late."
Seongho glanced at the clock.
"By two minutes."
"Three."
"My shoulder's still sore."
"Then you shouldn't have come."
Seongho stopped smiling.
Minjun crossed the gym and took his left arm, gently testing its range of motion. The doctor had ruled out a fracture, but the bruising was substantial.
"Does this hurt?"
"A little."
"And this?"
"Son of a—yes!"
Minjun released him.
"No sparring today."
Seongho looked past him at the gloves.
"Then what's all that?"
"Something I should've taught you before you fought those eight idiots."
Minjun pulled one of the red gloves down.
"Yesterday, you beat six men. That's impressive. But you also got surrounded, injured, and nearly trapped inside a repair shop."
"I won."
"You survived."
The distinction landed harder than Seongho expected.
Minjun tossed the glove onto a bench.
"You were protecting your uncle's business. Your objective wasn't to knock everyone unconscious. It was to get the attackers away from the shop without letting anyone inside get hurt."
Seongho looked toward the floor.
He remembered the metal pipe striking his shoulder. His uncle had been in the back room the entire time.
If one of the attackers had slipped past him—
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I get it."
"Good. Today, you're going to learn how to control a fight without letting it control you."
The door opened.
Taehwan entered carrying breakfast, followed by Hajun, whose red hair was still damp from the rain.
Hajun spotted the gloves.
"Are we fighting?"
"Eventually," Minjun said.
Taehwan handed Seongho a sandwich.
"Eat. You look terrible."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
Minjun waited until they finished eating before drawing a rectangle on the whiteboard.
"This is a shop. One entrance. Two customers. Three attackers."
He marked positions with the pen.
"Your objective is to protect everyone inside. How do you do it?"
Hajun answered first.
"Knock the attackers out."
"And if one slips past you?"
"Then I knock him out too."
Taehwan shook his head.
"You'd have to stop them at the entrance."
"Exactly," Minjun said.
He pointed to the narrow doorway.
"Position matters. So does knowing when not to chase someone."
For the next hour, he made them fight in a space barely wide enough for two people.
Taehwan learned to use his wrestling to block passages and restrain opponents. Hajun practiced keeping attackers at range without exposing his back. Seongho, unable to spar, watched their footwork and called out openings.
By the end, Hajun was furious.
"You're telling me I could beat someone in a fight and still lose?"
Minjun wiped the whiteboard clean.
"Of course. Ask anyone who's ever won a street fight and gone to prison afterward."
Nobody argued.
At eleven, Minjun received a call from his mother.
"Are you busy?"
"Not particularly."
A loud crash came through the phone.
Then a man's voice.
"Tell your son to come here himself!"
Minjun's expression went still.
"Mom. Put the phone down and go into the kitchen."
"Minjun—"
"Please."
He waited until he heard the kitchen door close.
Then he addressed the man on the other end.
"Who is this?"
A laugh.
"Your mother's got a nice restaurant, kid."
Minjun recognized the voice.
Kim Gwangcheol.
The gang leader whose men he'd dismantled weeks earlier.
"I thought we had an understanding," Minjun said.
"We did. Then you started making a name for yourself."
"What do you want?"
"Come alone. You've got twenty minutes."
The call ended.
Minjun slipped his phone into his pocket.
Seongho had been watching him.
"What's wrong?"
"Gwangcheol."
Taehwan stood.
"The extortion guy?"
"He's at the restaurant."
Hajun grabbed his jacket.
"Then let's go."
Minjun looked at the three of them.
For a moment, his first instinct was to tell them to stay behind.
He could settle the matter himself. Easily.
But that would teach them nothing.
And Gwangcheol had made a mistake that demanded more than another beating.
"Taehwan, take the rear entrance. Make sure my mother gets out safely. Seongho, stay across the street and watch for anyone else approaching. Hajun, you're with me."
Seongho frowned.
"What if they bring reinforcements?"
"Call me before you engage."
Minjun opened the door.
"And nobody gets to the restaurant before I do."
The restaurant's front window had been smashed.
Broken glass glittered across the pavement.
Inside, three tables lay overturned. A framed photograph of Minjun's father had fallen from the wall.
Kim Gwangcheol sat behind the counter.
He wasn't alone.
Eight men stood around the room, but they were different from the neighborhood thugs Minjun had beaten previously.
Older.
Heavier.
Several wore boxing hand wraps.
One had cauliflower ears and the unmistakable posture of an experienced grappler.
Gwangcheol smiled when Minjun entered.
"You came."
Minjun's gaze passed over the broken furniture.
Then settled on the photograph.
Its glass had shattered.
The frame was cracked.
He picked it up.
His father stood in the picture with one arm around Hyejin, both laughing at something outside the camera.
Minjun placed it carefully on an undamaged table.
"Who broke this?"
Gwangcheol leaned back.
"What?"
"The photograph."
A large man near the counter laughed.
"Who gives a shit about a picture?"
Minjun turned toward him.
"You?"
The man grinned.
"Yeah. Me."
Minjun crossed the room.
The man raised his fists.
He never threw a punch.
Minjun struck him in the chest with an open palm.
The impact launched him backward through the restaurant's swinging kitchen door. The hinges tore free, and the man crashed into a steel preparation table.
He didn't get up.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Minjun looked at Gwangcheol.
"Continue."
Gwangcheol's smile had vanished.
"You think you're untouchable because you beat a few kids?"
"No."
Minjun stepped over a broken chair.
"I think you made a very poor decision."
The grappler moved first.
He shot low, arms wrapping around Minjun's waist.
His technique was competent.
Minjun caught him by the back of his shirt and lifted him clear off the floor.
The man struggled.
Minjun turned and threw him into two approaching attackers.
All three crashed through a table.
Another man swung a steel baton.
Minjun caught it between two fingers.
The attacker froze.
Minjun twisted his wrist.
The baton bent.
Then he drove his elbow into the man's stomach.
The attacker dropped to his knees, vomiting.
Hajun entered through the front door.
He stopped at the sight of the wreckage.
"Damn. You started without me."
"Take the two by the windows."
Hajun grinned.
"Gladly."
The first man rushed him.
Hajun slipped the punch and countered with a sharp right cross. The attacker staggered, and a low kick swept his leg out from beneath him.
The second tried to grab Hajun's collar.
Hajun remembered Taehwan's wrestling drills.
He framed against the man's shoulder, created distance, and drove a knee into his abdomen.
The man collapsed.
Hajun glanced toward Minjun.
"Two."
Minjun was holding the final attacker by his collar.
"Congratulations."
He knocked the man unconscious with a short punch.
Gwangcheol rose from his chair.
His hands trembled.
"Wait."
Minjun approached.
"Who sent you?"
"Nobody."
Minjun seized his wrist.
Gwangcheol cried out.
"I'm telling the truth!"
"Then why return after what happened last time?"
"Because—"
Minjun tightened his grip.
"Because what?"
Gwangcheol's face twisted.
"Someone offered me money!"
Minjun stopped.
"Who?"
"I don't know his name."
"What did he look like?"
"Tall. Black suit. Glasses."
Minjun released him.
A tall man in a black suit.
Glasses.
There were countless people who fit that description.
But the timing was interesting.
"Did he tell you to hurt anyone?"
Gwangcheol shook his head frantically.
"He said to make trouble. See how you'd react."
Minjun studied him.
Then looked around the destroyed restaurant.
A test.
Someone had wanted to observe his response.
And Gwangcheol had been foolish enough to accept.
Minjun took out his phone and photographed the damage.
"Listen carefully. You're going to pay for everything you've broken. You're also going to tell me where I can find the person who approached you."
"I told you, I don't—"
"You met him somewhere."
Gwangcheol swallowed.
"A parking garage in Gangnam."
"Good. Start there."
By the time Hyejin returned, the attackers were gone.
Taehwan stood beside her, carrying a bag of groceries he'd purchased to give her an excuse to stay away from the restaurant.
She stopped in the doorway.
Her eyes moved across the broken tables.
The shattered window.
The damaged kitchen door.
Then she saw the photograph resting on the counter.
She picked it up.
Her fingers brushed the cracked frame.
Minjun approached.
"Mom."
She didn't look at him.
"Your father bought this place when we got married."
Minjun remained silent.
"He didn't know anything about restaurants. He thought buying eight tables and a stove meant we were ready to open."
A small, painful laugh escaped her.
"The first week, we had four customers."
Minjun watched her carefully.
"He wanted to close," she continued. "I told him we should give it another month."
She looked around.
"We've been giving it another month ever since."
Minjun felt something tighten in his chest.
He had spent his previous life acquiring buildings without ever wondering who had saved to buy them.
Now he understood what these walls meant to her.
"I'll repair everything," he said.
Hyejin looked at him.
"That's not what I'm worried about."
"I know."
"Do you?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Then he nodded.
"Yes."
She reached up and touched his cheek.
"You've changed, Minjun."
He held her gaze.
"I know."
For a moment, he wondered whether she could see the stranger behind her son's eyes.
Then she pulled him into an embrace.
He stood still before wrapping his arms around her.
Whatever empire he built, this restaurant would never become collateral damage again.
That evening, the four boys gathered at the gym.
Minjun placed a photograph of Gwangcheol's contact on the table.
It had been recovered from a security camera near the Gangnam parking garage.
The image was grainy, but the figure was recognizable.
A tall man in a black suit.
Dark glasses.
A cigarette between his fingers.
Seongho leaned forward.
"Who is that?"
Taehwan's expression tightened.
Hajun stopped chewing his gum.
Minjun studied the photograph.
He knew that face.
Gun Park.
The man responsible for much of the Four Major Crews' existence.
One of the strongest fighters in Korea.
And someone who apparently believed Kang Minjun could be evaluated by sending criminals to threaten his mother.
Minjun stared at the image for several seconds.
Then he laughed.
Not loudly.
Not happily.
The sound made Seongho look up.
"What's funny?"
Minjun placed the photograph down.
"Someone wants to meet me."
Hajun leaned forward.
"Then let's go meet him."
"No."
The answer was immediate.
Hajun frowned.
"Why?"
"Because we're not going to run wherever he points us."
Minjun looked at the three young men.
"You've been training for a month. You're stronger than you were, but you're not ready to face the people around him."
Taehwan folded his arms.
"And you?"
Minjun smiled faintly.
"That's a different matter."
He stood and walked toward the whiteboard.
The words he'd written weeks earlier remained there.
THREE MONTHS — FIRST GENERATION KING LEVEL
He erased them.
Seongho watched.
"Changing the goal?"
"Changing the method."
Minjun wrote three words beneath their names.
POWER. DISCIPLINE. TRUST.
Then he turned.
"Tomorrow, we start fighting opponents outside this gym. Not random street thugs. Experienced fighters. People who can punish your mistakes."
Hajun's grin returned.
"Finally."
"Taehwan, you'll be responsible for close-range combat training. Seongho, you'll handle conditioning and defensive drills. Hajun, you're taking charge of striking combinations."
Seongho blinked.
"You're putting us in charge?"
"Of each other."
Minjun set the marker down.
"If one of you falls behind, the others help him catch up. If someone gets reckless, you stop him. And if you're going to wear my name, you learn to protect people without waiting for me to arrive."
The room fell quiet.
Taehwan was the first to nod.
"Understood."
Hajun looked toward Seongho.
"Guess that means I'm teaching you how to kick."
Seongho grinned.
"And I'm teaching you how not to get punched in the face."
"Try it."
"Gladly."
Minjun let them argue.
For once, he didn't interrupt.
His attention had returned to the photograph.
Gun Park had made the first move.
Now Minjun understood the game.
And he intended to change its rules.
Across Seoul, Gun sat inside a parked car, studying his phone.
A message had arrived.
Gwangcheol failed.
Goo Kim leaned across the passenger seat.
"So? Did our mysterious kid lose his temper?"
Gun watched a security recording of the restaurant fight.
The footage showed Minjun dismantling eight experienced men without hesitation.
Then it showed him picking up a broken photograph.
Gun replayed that part.
Goo noticed.
"What's that?"
"His weakness."
Goo watched the screen.
Then his smile faded slightly.
"Family?"
Gun nodded.
"Interesting."
Goo leaned back.
"Or maybe you just made him angry."
Gun put the phone away.
Outside, rain began tapping against the windshield.
He smiled.
"Then I'll find out."