I had never been on an airplane before.
Never had a passport, either.
I don't know what Charles did, but I was able to fly to South Korea regardless. I had thought that you needed to have a passport in order to travel to different countries. At least, that's what the classes at the orphanage had taught us.
But then I realized, that rules only applied for the weak.
If you were strong enough, if you had enough power, there were no rules that could bind you.
And Charles Choi, was strong.
He hadn't spoken a word to me after the little we had talked at the Headmistress's office. We simply got into a fancy-looking black car, and were driven by a chauffeur to what seemed to be a private jet.
That's when I had a glimpse as to how wealthy, and how powerful, this man was.
It was in the way he walked, the way he simply commanded attention, commanded respect. He was a man used to getting what he wanted, whether it was handed to him willingly, or pried from the hands of dying enemies.
And so, when I sat across from him in his fancy jet with comfortable, fur-ridden chairs, I listened very intently when he gave me a hard gaze and spoke to me.
"You might've fooled the police and the women in the orphanage, but you can't fool me."
My heart didn't change a single beat.
"You're a predator, like your father. No.."
He leaned forward in his seat, closer to me, clasping his hands together.
"You're more dangerous."
I wasn't surprised that someone as strong as him, could see through my facade. It wasn't one. It was simply me, holding the chains to what was inside of me.
What did catch my attention, however, was him mentioning my father. My voice came out raspy, from me not using it since that day.
"You know my father. Who, where is he."
He regarded me with a gaze that I couldn't quite discern, before he finally spoke.
"Your father's name is Gapryong Kim. He was a strong man, the strongest man I knew."
So he's dead.
"How did he die."
The jet went quiet for a moment, before he spoke again.
"I killed him."
I see.
He gazed at me for a while, before he seemingly found what he was looking for. Satisfied, he turned his attention outside of the jet window.
"When I finally found traces of you and your mother, I wasn't expecting much."
"Your father was a precocious man. I only knew you existed because he mentioned your mother before, an Italian woman whose beauty eclipsed any other woman he's seen before."
"I was expecting a crying, snot-nosed brat still screaming for his dead mother. I was wrong."
He turned towards me once more, his gaze still hardened.
"I will make you strong."
"In return, you will be my weapon, and kill my enemies."
I regarded his proposal that he delivered as an ultimatum.
"No."
I let out a sliver. I relaxed the chains that bound my rage, my hate, by a hair. I let a tiny piece of it course from deep within my heart, to the rest of my veins.
His eyes widened for a fraction, before his gaze regarded me with even more steel. He looked at me before, as a useful yet potentially dangerous tool. Now, he saw more of what I truly was.
"You will make me strong, faster."
"And I won't kill you."
The jet was filled with a dangerous aura, his steely eyes meeting mine, gauging me. Testing me. Looking for even a sign, a hint, of weakness.
Then he laughed.
.
.
.
Charles gave me a house in Yeongdeungpo. It was actually a penthouse in a fancy apartment complex, but it was a house to me, because I never lived in anything bigger.
The only thing he told me to do, was to go to school, and to "prove through your actions, that you're what you show yourself as."
That's how I found myself at Yeowon Elementary.
The schools in Korea were more clean than in America. The fancy Korean words graced the gated pillars, with kids all wearing the same grey overcoat giddily walking to friends from past years that they recognized on the way to class.
I wasn't impressed.
They were all sheep, weak. I could slaughter every single one of them with my bare hands, as weak as I am. They didn't have the resolve, they weren't a wolf, a predator like I was.
Before I knew it, I was where I needed to be. I read the sign after a moment of making sure I was reading it properly. I had only learned Korean a week ago, to be fair.
Class 4-3.
I walked in, and was greeted with more disappointment.
An unremarkable teacher, and unremarkable students.
The only thing that caught my eye was blonde kid in the corner. I didn't think I would come across another person with foreign blood in this district, let alone this school.
The teacher finally noticed me after he woke up from seemingly leering at his phone. He stood up, clearing his throat before addressing both me and the class.
"Everybody, it's almost the end of the semester but we have another transfer student. Introduce yourself, kid."
The sheep woke from their stupor and looked at me, the blonde kid's red eyes were the only ones that I looked back at with interest before I scanned the rest of them, and found them worthless to me.
"Romeo Antonio Giovanni."
They all beamed at me, and the notion of having a foreigner with a different, fancy-sounding name. The teacher cleared his throat again.
"Romeo, go ahead and sit wherever you'd like. Class President, show him around the campus after class."
"Sure thing, teach."
A pudgy-faced kid responded back, a gleaming look in his eye.
I wasted no time, walking right up to the blonde kid and sitting beside him before pulling out my materials for the class. He glanced at me in the corner of his eye throughout the class, thinking I didn't notice. When break finally came, I was flocked by everyone around me, most notably the same kid that the teacher had called Class President.
"Hey new kid, where are you from? Your name sounds cool, and you look like one of those American actors on TV."
The rest seemingly quieted down, and that gave me information.
This kid was the top of the hierarchy in the class.
"I'm from America, and just came to South Korea last week."
I answered some more of his mundane questions as he showed me around the campus, before more of his flock gathered around him. They looked as much as delinquents as elementary students could, which wasn't much.
"My mom owns this school, come under me and I'll give you smooth sailing. Your parents must be rich too, huh? What do they do?"
"My parents are dead."
I answered automatically, barely registering his existence. I would give him a lesson and change the hierarchy of this class first, and then the school if there was any bigger fish.
Then, I would look outward.
They all stopped. After a moment, one of the kids in his flock, a fat boy with a belly that protruded in his grey shirt, laughed and spoke loudly.
"This whole time we thought you were hot shit, but you're just a fucking orphan loser like -"
He didn't get to finish his sentence before my fist slammed into his jaw, blood splattering over the concrete of the rooftop. His obese body fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Seungjae."
The wide-eyed kid snapped at me, flinching from the sudden and unexpected violence.
The rest of the kids, not used to seeing so much blood spilling out of a human, were silent as well, their vocal cords seemingly not functioning properly.
"There seems to be a misunderstanding here."
I walked up to him, my skinny but taller-than-average frame towering over the Class President of the elementary class I was in. I almost laughed at how insignificant he was.
"You belong to me."
I smacked him across the face, his head turning like a chicken, before I grabbed the front of his uniform to keep him from falling.
"You bark when I say bark, and you shit when I say shit."
I smacked the other cheek, his face red like a baboon's ass and tears welling up in his eyes.
Anger grew over his shock and fear, and he attempted to push me off of him, about to say something to berate me.
I hit him harder this time, and his cheek started to show a hint of purple, with blood coming out of his skin. I let him fall to the ground, the other kids of his band of misfits tensing and closing their eyes at the impact.
"Do you understand, or do I have to smack the fuck out of you a couple more times."
The kid on the ground, I forgot his name already, terrifyingly looked up at me with tears in his eyes before he recoiled back, covering his face with his hands.
"I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY!! I BELONG TO YOU, I'M YOUR DOG, PLEASE STOP HITTING ME"
I glanced at the rest of them.
"You two, beat him up some more."
They looked at each other then at me, like a deer in headlights.
"Too slow."
I grabbed the nearest one to me and smacked him in the face while looking at the other one.
"Fuck him up, or I'll hit you more than one time."
The kid fearfully looked at me before he ran towards his former 'friend', still on the ground.
"I'm sorry, Seungjae."
The other kid joined him after he gained his bearings, and after 5 minutes of stomping him, I told them to stop before I walked up and smacked the other kid out of the duo that hesitated following my orders.
"The next time you're too slow, you get a punch instead of a slap."
I looked down at the sorry form of the Class President.
"The fat kid did this to you, and you and your friends here helped you fend him off."
I said nothing for a moment, letting the silence and the wind speak for me for a moment.
"If I hear a different story, I'm going to find you, and break every one of your fingers before smashing your teeth in. You understand."
A crying whimper was all I received back.
"Good."