It was a fifteen-minute walk from the park to my home. The dented baseball felt heavy in my pocket. Though my palm was now completely healed, a question still lingered in a corner of my mind. Why hadn't the liquid appeared when I hit the pull-up bar? Lost in these thoughts, I found myself already in front of my house.

  Our home, visible beyond the old fence, was a modest but cozy detached house. When my mother was looking for a place to live, she had insisted on a detached house despite the higher rent for one reason only: in apartments, there had been too many noise complaints because of me. After all, since elementary school, my hobby had been imitating martial arts movies.

  When I opened the front door, a familiar smell hit my nose. The house was quiet. My mother wasn't home from work yet, it seemed. She worked in insurance sales and was an insurance queen who achieved outstanding results with her unique persistence and determination. A strong woman who had raised me alone since I was young, and sometimes a frightening mother.

  I entered my room and turned on the light. My room was the kind of ordinary(?) room you'd expect for someone my age. Just a desk, bed, and wardrobe, but the walls revealed my unique taste. One wall was covered with photos of martial arts movie protagonists. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Yuen Biao, and Sammo Hung. The posters were too old and wrinkled to be called a collection, but they were like treasures to me.

  I turned my gaze to the bookshelf. I noticed the densely packed books. Not textbooks or liberal arts books, but martial arts novels and comics. My mother often threatened to throw them away, saying they wouldn't help with job hunting, but they were treasures I'd collected since childhood. I'd endured by never refusing her errands, determined to protect them. In the furthest corner of the bookshelf, only "Chronicles of Elina," a fantasy novel thickly covered in dust, stood alone as the only non-martial arts book.

  I flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The day's events flashed through my mind like a spinning lantern. My head that remained intact after being hit by a baseball, my injured hand that healed on its own, and the existence of the liquid inside me.

  "How should I... use this power?"

  I muttered as I got up again. Life was truly ironic. I had dreamed of becoming strong all my life, but now that I actually had this power, I was worried about how to use it.

  'Should I box? Or learn mixed martial arts...'

  Remembering what happened at the boxing gym sent a chill down my spine. If I hit someone with that kind of power... they wouldn't survive intact.

  Shaking my head, I looked around the room again. Suddenly, a poster on the wall caught my eye. His sharp gaze and focused expression seemed to speak to me.

  As if possessed by something, I approached the wardrobe. I flung the doors open and after rummaging around for a while, found a yellow tracksuit. I hadn't worn it for years, but I had bought it in high school to imitate Bruce Lee.

  "I still have this..."

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  Without hesitation, I began to change. As I put on the tracksuit pants and top, I felt different somehow. I approached the mirror to check myself. The yellow tracksuit suited me better than I expected. Whether my body had changed or the clothes had changed, I looked much cooler than before.

  A satisfied smile spread across my face.

  Then suddenly I struck a pose. Imitating Bruce Lee's signature yell, I threw a kick.

  "Wataaa~! Wataaa~! Ajaja~!"

  It was a movement I must have imitated thousands of times since childhood, but today my body felt particularly light. I happily threw consecutive kicks as if I had really become Bruce Lee. Front kicks, side kicks, roundhouse kicks. I moved around the room executing them in succession.

  At that moment, the door to my room burst open loudly.

  "Kang Chul, do you want dinner? I finished early today..."

  My mother's voice trailed off. Her eyes grew wider and wider as she saw me frozen with one leg raised in the air, wearing a yellow tracksuit. The bag in her hand dropped to the floor with a thud.

  Silence fell. I lowered my leg first and cleared my throat.

  "Mom, uh... you're home early."

  My mother's expression gradually hardened. Then suddenly she collapsed on the floor. Startled by the unexpected reaction, I quickly approached her.

  "Mom! Are you okay?"

  But her shoulders began to shake. And then sobs erupted. She was wailing.

  "Um, Mom, what's wrong?"

  My mother wiped her tears with a handkerchief and sobbed.

  "Kang Chul... you... you couldn't find a job... and now... you've completely lost your mind..."

  "What? No, Mom! I was just reminded of when I used to imitate Bruce Lee..."

  But my mother's crying only grew louder. This was the first time I had seen my mother wail like this since she heard the news that my father had left us.

  I had to reassure her somehow. Suddenly an idea came to mind.

  "Mom! Check if I'm sane. Look!"

  And I started shouting loudly.

  "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10!"

  My mother's crying momentarily stopped. Continuing to speak to my mother, who was looking at me with a puzzled expression:

  "A, B, C, D, E, F, G! Aja! Aja! Aja! Aja! Wataaa~ No~ No~ H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P! See, I'm totally fine. I'm perfectly sane!"

  But this action seemed to have the opposite effect, as my mother began to sob even more loudly. Not knowing what to do, I put my arms around her shoulders.

  "Mom, I'm really okay. I was just wearing the tracksuit and playing around because I was reminded of the old days. I haven't lost my mind."

  After comforting her for a while, my mother's sobs gradually subsided. Now she began to look at me suspiciously. Then suddenly she grabbed my face with both hands and pulled back my eyelids to look inside.

  "Are you really okay? Your pupils don't look strange..."

  Then she placed her hand on my forehead to check my temperature.

  "No fever either... Just indulging in your weird hobby again?"

  I nodded with a sigh of relief.

  "Yes, I'm really fine. I was just imitating Bruce Lee after a long time."

  Hearing that, my mother's expression changed instantly. Her face, which had been full of worry and anxiety, now blazed with anger.

  "You crazy idiot... scaring me like this! I guess you have nothing better to do, huh?"

  It was a familiar reaction. My mother's profanity was like a signal that I was okay. I smiled with relief as I helped her up by her arm.

  "No, it's not that, I just suddenly thought about it..."

  I comforted my mother and guided her out of the room. At the door, I gently gripped her shoulders and said sincerely:

  "I'm sorry for worrying you. I'll change clothes now and come out."

  My mother sighed and shook her head.

  "Seriously... Just hurry up and get a job..."

  It was the moment I was about to close the door, seeing my mother off. A sudden rush of air was felt behind my unsuspecting back.

  "SMACK!"

  With a sound that could split my eardrums, a sharp pain spread across my back. Holding back tears that threatened to spill, I turned around to see my mother's hand still hovering in the air.

  The back slap.

  It was my mother's deadly technique that I had feared most since childhood. It was a proven fact that no matter how fast you could run, or how sharp your reflexes were, no one could dodge my mother's smack.

  "Ow..."

  I groaned softly, clutching my back. My mother left with a satisfied expression, snorting as she slammed the door shut. A tingling pain remained on my back, but strangely, my mind felt at peace. In a situation where everything had changed from normal, my mother's back slap remained as powerful as ever.

  Oddly enough, the strange sensation I had felt when the coach went flying at the gym or when the baseball was dented wasn't felt at all when I received the back slap. Does the liquid only respond to dangerous situations? Or...

  I closed my eyes slowly and thought again.

  Lying on the bed, I stared at the ceiling. A chuckle escaped me.

  'Right, even Bruce Lee couldn't have dodged Mom's back slap.'