Sean the Gangster

Section 1: Kung Flu Tea

The next afternoon, Dave was still thinking about yesterday’s fight.

To maintain his status as the strongest man on Earth, he needed to keep his muscles healthy, he thought.

While walking down the street, Dave spotted a bubble tea shop and stopped outside. He looked up at the sign above the entrance.

KUNG FLU TEA

Dave stared at it for a second. “Hmm. Sounds like a good name.” Then he walked inside.

A few minutes later, Dave was sitting by the window with a king-size Protein Milkshake Bubble Tea. He took a long sip, grabbed one of his massive pecs, and gave it a satisfied squeeze.

“Gotta keep you guys healthy.”

A few tables away, a young man in a cap happened to notice what Dave had just done.

“Hey,” he whispered to his friend. “You see that guy over there? The one in the pink women’s underwear? He’s squeezing his own boob. I can tell already—he’s a creepy, deranged pervert.”

His friend had his head lowered over a large bubble tea, apparently taking a long sip through a straw.

He lifted his head, but there was no straw.

What had been buried inside the drink was his mouth—a long, narrow, tube-shaped mouth that protruded from his face like the snout of a seahorse. He pulled it out of the cup with a soft slurp.

“Four Eyes, quit being so nosy,” Seahorse Mouth whispered. “Keep your voice down. If that guy hears you, he’ll definitely beat the crap out of us.”

Four Eyes glanced toward Dave, then casually took off his cap and placed it on the table.

He wasn’t wearing glasses. He really had four eyes. Literally.

Four Eyes looked back down at his phone.

“Oh, did you hear the news yesterday? The mayor of Brooklyn City passed away.”

“Boring,” Seahorse Mouth said casually. “Anything more interesting?”

Four Eyes scrolled down his phone. “Oh, actually, yeah. Apparently, some guy known as the Underwear beat up three gangsters yesterday. And one of them was Sean.”

“Sean?” Seahorse Mouth looked up. “Isn’t he the local hero? What happened?”

All four of Four Eyes’s eyes suddenly lit up.

“Oh, you don’t know?” He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Sean used to be a gangster. He even did time in prison.”

Section 2: The Parking Lot

A few years ago…

Outside a supermarket, Sean, Canelo, Robinson, and Robinson’s younger brother Grayson had taken over an entire parking space and turned it into their own little hangout. Two orange traffic cones blocked the entrance while the four sat cross-legged on the asphalt, playing poker as cars passed around them.

Sean wore a half-buttoned shirt with his chest exposed, leather shoes, and two large wrenches tucked at his waist. His long, one-sided bangs swept across his forehead.

Grayson, already a police officer, sat among them in full uniform, his police cap on the ground beside him. He still had hair back then. Yesterday, it had looked perfectly ordinary. Today, his bangs swept dramatically to one side, almost exactly like Sean’s.

Grayson casually brushed his bangs aside with one hand.

“I’m going for the Emo Flamingo today.”

Robinson glanced at him. “Whatever that means.”

Sean looked up from his cards and stared at Grayson’s hair, visibly annoyed.

“Copy my hairstyle again and give it another one of those weird names nobody understands, and I’m shaving your head bald.”

Grayson ignored him and dealt the next card.

Sean had been losing hand after hand, and his mood was getting worse.

Nearby, a driver had already circled the parking lot several times without finding a space. When he finally noticed the four men sitting in one, he pulled up beside them and honked.

He rolled down his window. “What the hell are you people doing? This is a parking space! You can’t just sit here and—”

Sean looked up, already annoyed, and got to his feet.

“Come out and say it.”

The driver took one look at him and immediately rolled the window back up.

Sean walked over, pulled a wrench from his waist, and slammed it into the door lock.

BANG!

The lock burst apart. Sean yanked the door open, grabbed the driver, and dragged him out onto the asphalt.

Sean didn’t waste another word. He beat the man right there in the parking lot, punching and kicking him for the next few minutes until his face had swollen into such a mess that even his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him.

By the end, the driver was on his knees, begging Sean to stop. His pants were soaked, and a puddle of urine had spread across the asphalt beneath him.

Sean casually took all the cash from his wallet and stuffed it into his own pocket.

“Poker’s getting boring. Let’s go rob a store.”

The other three nodded. “Sounds good.”

The four of them walked away. The parking space was finally available again.

Section 3: The Hardware Store

A short while later, the four of them walked into a hardware store.

The owner looked up from behind the counter and smiled politely. “Oh, hello. Welcome! How can I help you?”

Sean stood in the middle of the store with both hands in his pockets and nodded toward the owner. “Hey, Canelo. Go rob him.”

Canelo frowned. “You ain’t the boss of me.”

Robinson sighed. “I still don’t understand why our boss only shows up in the winter. Where the hell does he go every summer?”

Sean waited, but nobody moved. “Fine. Let’s go together.”

The three of them walked toward the counter. The owner’s smile slowly disappeared. “Uh… gentlemen? Is there a problem?”

Sean walked up and slapped him twice across the face. “Give me all the money in the register.”

The owner held his burning cheeks and stared at him in disbelief. “Are you trying to rob me? I’ll call the police!”

Then he spotted Grayson standing near the entrance in full police uniform. His face immediately lit up. “Oh, thank God! There’s a police officer right there! Officer! Help!”

Grayson stared straight back at him. The owner looked at him desperately, his eyes practically begging for help.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Grayson said casually. “I have nothing to do with this.”

Then he looked back down at his phone.

With no other choice, the owner reluctantly emptied the register and handed over all the cash.

Sean counted the money, then gave thirty percent to Canelo and another thirty percent to Robinson. He held out a much smaller stack toward Grayson.

“Robinson’s little brother. Here’s your ten percent.”

Grayson took the money and stared at it. “What the hell? Why do they both get thirty percent and I only get ten? That ain’t fair.”

“You stood back there the whole time and didn’t do shit,” Sean said.

As he spoke, Sean noticed a pair of scissors lying on the counter. He casually picked them up, reached over, and with one quick snip, cut off Grayson’s long fringe.

Grayson froze.

“Oh, fuck! What have you done to my Emo Flamingo?!”

Sean tossed the scissors back onto the counter and pulled one of the large wrenches from his waist.

“Say that stupid name one more time. You want me to cut off your dick next? Or do you want me to use my DRAGON-TIGER FRENZY upon you?”

Grayson’s face instantly went pale. Cold sweat broke out all over his body.

“No! Please don’t!”

Sean tucked the wrench back at his waist.

After that, the four went their separate ways.

Before leaving, Sean glanced at the two wrenches tucked at his waist. They were getting old, with small cracks along the metal, so he casually swapped them for two brand-new ones from the hardware store.

With a fresh wrench tucked on each side of his waist, Sean left the store alone and started walking home.

Section 4: Dragon-Tiger Frenzy

A few blocks later, a young man in expensive clothes came walking toward him from the opposite direction. Neither of them bothered to move aside, and their shoulders slammed into each other as they passed.

Sean took another step, then stopped. The young man stopped too.

Sean turned around. “You got a death wish?”

The young man slowly turned to face him and looked Sean up and down with open disgust.

“You filthy piece of shit. Do you even know who you just bumped into?”

Sean scoffed. “I don’t give a shit who you are. Even if you were the mayor, I wouldn’t give a fuck.”

The young man gave him a dismissive smirk.

“Watch your tongue when you speak to me, you dog. Apologize, then bark for me.” He paused, still looking at Sean like he was something beneath his shoes. “Maybe I’ll spare a dog like you.”

Sean answered with a kick straight at his chest.

The young man flinched, but managed to throw up both arms and deflect the kick to the side. The movement was a little clumsy, but it was clearly something he had been taught.

He quickly straightened his clothes and gave Sean a smug look.

“You really have no idea who you’re messing with, do you? My father is the mayor of Flushing City. With one word, he can decide whether you live or die.”

He lifted his chin proudly. “And my private martial arts instructor is none other than Illidan himself. He trains me personally, one-on-one.”

Sean reached for the two brand-new wrenches at his waist.

“Illidan, Kil’jaeden, Gul’dan, whatever. I don’t give a shit.” Sean pulled both wrenches free. “But now I’m pissed.”

“Go ahead,” the young man said with a smug grin, spreading his arms wide and leaving his entire body exposed. “I dare you. I double dare you. You think you actually have the balls to—”

DRAGON-TIGER FRENZY

Sean was already in front of him.

Both wrenches erupted into a blur, hammering the young man all over his body in a rapid barrage. As the blows landed one after another, Sean began counting every hit out loud.

“TEN!”

The young man’s legs were already buckling. Bruises covered his body, and blood streamed from the corner of his mouth.

“TWENTY!”

His eyes rolled back. Both knees hit the pavement, and his body had already gone limp.

“THIRTY!”

Sean kept pounding away. The young man’s face and body were already swollen and bloodied beyond recognition.

“THIRTY-ONE! THIRTY-TWO! THIRTY-THREE! THIRTY-FOUR—”

Sean stopped mid-swing when his wrench hit nothing. The young man had already collapsed flat on the pavement, completely unconscious, his body so swollen and bloodied that he almost looked like a pile of battered flesh.

Sean looked down at him, then casually tucked the two bloodstained wrenches back into his waist.

“Oh, come on. You couldn’t even last five seconds?” He shook his head. “I didn’t even make it to thirty-five.”

Sean gave him one last glance, turned around, and casually walked away.

The mayor’s son was rushed to the hospital shortly afterward. After more than twenty hours of emergency surgery, the doctors barely managed to save his life.

Fortunately, he survived—but he never woke up. He had been left in a vegetative state.

In this absurd kung fu world, seriously injuring someone—or even killing them—usually wasn’t that big of a deal. Otherwise, people like Brian and Michael would have been executed several times over by now.

Unfortunately for Sean, he had messed with the wrong person.

If the mayor’s son had actually died, Sean might have spent the rest of his life behind bars.

Instead, Sean was sentenced to three years in prison.

During those three years, Sean spent much of his time reading books about heroes, justice, and what it—

Section 5: The Infamous Underwear

“All right, I think that’s enough,” Seahorse Mouth interrupted. “It bored me out of my mind. I was about to fall asleep. That story was pretty… boring.”

Four Eyes stared at him, wondering if there was anything in the world that Seahorse Mouth didn’t find boring.

Then he glanced over at Dave again—the massive muscles, the half-naked body, the pink women’s triangle underwear. He slowly looked back down at the photo on his phone, then back at Dave.

His four eyes widened.

The infamous Underwear had been sitting right in front of them the entire time.

“Shit…” he muttered. “Don’t tell me…”

At that exact moment, Dave finished the last of his Protein Milkshake Bubble Tea, stood up, and started walking straight toward them.

Four Eyes fell backward off his chair, threw both hands over his head, and curled up on the floor. “Please! Please don’t hurt me!”

Dave walked right past him without even looking down, reached the door, and pushed it open. Four Eyes remained curled up on the floor as Dave stepped outside and walked away.

The door swung shut behind him.