Killing the Possessor - Chapter 50
Disclaimer: This chapter contains depictions of racism and bullying. We do not intend to endorse or condone such behavior. Viewer discretion is advised.
As soon as I thought that, a voice from a child echoed. Judging by the voice, it seemed to be a young boy, probably in the early years of elementary school.
The strange thing was, this time the language wasn’t Korean.
“<Monkey! Over here. Are your eyes too narrow to see anything?>”
The derogatory tone made my brow furrow even before I opened my eyes. Blinking a few times, my vision slowly cleared, and the surrounding objects became clear. I sat up and looked around, trying to track the voice I had just heard.
“<Monkey! Answer me. Can’t you speak anymore?>”
Unexpectedly, I found myself in a field. Unlike the previous place, this was an entirely unfamiliar location. There were no high-rise buildings, just a vast sky and fields that made up the majority of my view—a pastoral scene.
It felt vaguely familiar, like an old school I had briefly attended when I was younger.
The breeze carried a scent that made me momentarily forget my purpose of finding the owner of the voice, as I reminisced about the past.
When I was in third grade, I went on a short overseas study trip with relatives. There, I made my first friends who weren’t of Korean descent. Since most of the kids were still quite young and immature, there were a few who were a bit mischievous.
I had attended an English-language kindergarten, and my language skills allowed me to make friends easily, but a classmate who had also moved from Korea at around the same time struggled with it.
He had barely mastered the basics of phonics, and since communication was difficult for him, he became a target for bullying and was often teased. To make matters worse, the area itself was not very diverse, so racial discrimination occurred frequently.
I don’t remember his name since we were so young, but I can clearly recall his face, always downcast and disheartened. I wonder how he’s doing now.
“<Monkey! Answer me!>”
I turned my gaze to the young boy who seemed no different from the bullies who used to pick on my classmate. He was squinting his eyes with his fingers, doing all the things that made me uneasy.
I sighed and slowly walked towards the kids. It wasn’t until I grew older that I learned how to deal with kids like this.
“Hey.”
When I was younger, I was too afraid to step in and defend my friend because I feared I would be targeted for bullying too. Even though I’d managed to gain the favor of my classmates with my fluent language skills and the snacks my relatives had given me when I transferred, I knew that even the slightest misstep would make me just as much a target.
This memory stayed with me all the way into university. Having travelled between Korea and abroad from a young age, I graduated high school in Korea and then went abroad for my studies, where I managed to fit into a group of friends who weren’t Asian.
And there, I did something.
“Why aren’t you stopping this crazy kid?”
Ignoring the boy who was squinting his eyes, I quietly turned to the Asian girl standing next to him and spoke to her in Korean. She jumped back, wide-eyed when she realized I was speaking to her.
Okay, she understood, so she must be Korean.
“Do you think you look cool by doing this? To them, you’re just another monkey.”
“…That’s not…”
“Don’t do stuff like this. You’ll just become one of them.”
I muttered the words I had wanted to say to my younger self and let out a bitter laugh.
Back then, I believed that if I sided with the racists, I wouldn’t be a victim. I followed my foreign friends’ lead, wearing heavy makeup, denying my roots with fluent language, and completely ignoring the bullying of other Asians by my friends.
At the time, I thought it was the only way to survive and the ‘cool’ thing to do.
“Don’t forget my words. Never again.”
I hoped that the girl I spoke to wouldn’t make the same mistake I did when she grew up. I hoped she wouldn’t leave behind any regrets.
“<And you.>”
I turned my attention to the most annoying boy, the one who was still squinting his eyes.
“<I don’t know if you’ve looked in a mirror recently.>”
I pointed at the Asian boy, who was shrinking, and said, shaking my head in disbelief,
“<Your eyes are way smaller than his.>”
