Rebel Seoul

by Axie Oh

  “But I didn’t suspect. Not even then.” I close my eyes, and the memory comes back to me. “I didn’t see it coming. Not that first punch.”

  I was on the ground, surrounded by them, my hands grasping the back of my neck, my elbows blocking my ears. And even though I knew I should keep my head down, protect myself, I looked up, searching.

  I needed to make sure.

  Daeho wasn’t in the circle of gang brothers who were beating me. He and Jinwoon stood a little back, their faces turned away. But they weren’t the ones I needed to see.

  “Young-ah,” I croaked, looking up at the circle — one face after another. None of them were him. But then the circle opened, and he stepped through with his father.

  “He’s calling for you,” Park Taesung said to him, not smiling.

  Young looked down at me.

  I searched his face for something, anything to make it possible for me to understand, for me to forgive what he’d done to me. But he didn’t say anything. He just stared at me, his face empty of emotion.

  This is what I thought in that moment. What I wanted more than anything.

  I want him to say, “Forgive me,” so I can forgive him.

  I want him to say, “I didn’t mean this,” so I can believe him.

  He said nothing. He lifted his foot and brought it down hard on the center of my chest. I wondered if he could hear the bones breaking through my screams.

  Back in the present, I open my eyes. Tera’s hand comes up to wipe her warm fingers against my cold skin. “I’m sorry for your pain.”

  “It’s all right,” I say. “I got better.” It only took a month of mediTape wrapped around my ribs to heal the bones. Sleep and painkillers got rid of the rest of the pain.

  “No,” Tera says. “You didn’t. You’re not better. Not yet.”

  “The thing is, I’d have forgiven Young if he’d asked, even after he’d betrayed me. Because I knew if I couldn’t forgive him, then I’d have to leave him. What do you think of that?”

  “I think you would have rather stayed in the gang and been with him then go to the academy and lose him. He made the choice for you. You stay mad at him because he was the one who abandoned you.”

  “Is that it? I didn’t know I was so pathetic.”

  “He left you alone. There’s nothing pathetic about feeling like you’re all alone.”

  I nod slowly. She’s right. But what can I do? I feel all alone because I am all alone. I forget what it feels like to belong to someone.

  There’s a whirring sound in my head, and there are rocks in my throat, and there’s a snowstorm in my skin, and then there’s Tera holding me.

  And I think of Ama telling Alex that it will be better when he wakes, and now I get it, because I believe Tera when she promises me, over and over again, that things will be better.

  I just have to wake.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  “Jaewon-ah! Jaewon-ah!”

  Tera screams my name. Or at least I think she’s screaming my name. She sounds far away.

  But when I open my eyes, she’s gone.

  I drag my body off the floor, my movements slow and uncoordinated. I feel as if I’m carrying a heavy weight across my shoulders. There’s a thickness in my chest that makes it hard to breathe. A gust of wind breezes through the open doorway, rustling the dead leaves scattered across the temple.

  Outside, a half meter of snow covers what was once the temple’s graveled pathway. Early morning light tints the snow purple and pink. It looks like a painting. I blink back a wave of dizziness, my hands going out to hold the temple’s doorframe.

  I focus on the evidence of Tera’s movements. Her footsteps are spread far apart in the snow, spaced as if she’d been running away from me toward the lake. Why?

  I take a step into the snow.

  I hear the knife before I see it, whistling through the air. I stumble out of the way, the blade nicking my ear. The knife embeds itself to the hilt in the wooden wall behind me.

  A body drops from above, landing in the snow to my right. A fist connects with the wound in my side, and I see red. I drop to my knees. When I look up, I’m met with a gun pointed at my face.

  “Filthy traitor,” says a thickset man, his hard eyes narrowed. “You underestimated us. Didn’t think we’d put up a fight? Arrogant bastards.”

  I bat his gun to the side. It fires into the snow, the sound of it somehow stifled even with the close proximity. “What did you do with her?” I grind out. “If you’ve hurt her, I’ll kill you.”

  The man pushes his gun into my cheek. “You’re just a kid. What could you do?”

  His words chill my blood. I back away, trying to get back on my feet. “Tera!” I shout weakly. “Tera!”

  The man pushes me into the snow again. This time his nozzle rests on my collarbone. When I try to stand again, he brings the gun down hard on the side of my head. The pain is almost unbearable. He raises it again, striking my shoulder. I hold my hands up to protect myself, but he’s relentless. There are other men beside him, watching. Where they’ve come from, I don’t know. At least they don’t join in. It’s just the first man, hitting me, again and again.

  “Stop this,” commands a new voice, somehow clear even through the haze of my mind.

  I feel the first man moving away, giving me space. “Sir, he came down with one of the ships. And he’s wearing a soldier’s uniform.”

  “The boy survived a brutal crash, and you beat him for it. You have disappointed me.” The second man comes to stand beside the first. My vision is so blurry, I can’t make out the features of his face, only that something about him seems to calm the group of rebels. My attacker begins to lower the hand that holds the gun.

  “Jaewon-ah!” Tera calls out.

  My attacker twirls around. This time, when he lifts his gun, he’s the one who’s not quick enough. Tera knocks his hand to the side, and he screams as it breaks. The others move to intercept her, but she’s too quick. I can’t make out the details, but I can hear a chorus of painful cries.

  The man who stopped my attacker, the leader, crouches down in the snow beside me, watching the faint breaths issuing from my lips. “Forgive me,” he says. “I did not want this.”

  I close my eyes, too weak to keep them open.

  The fight is over quickly. I hear one last cry, and then Tera’s beside me. Her hands smooth back the hair from my face. “Jaewon-ah! Please wake up. Please, please open your eyes.”

  Tera. She’s here. I want to see her. I want to see that she’s okay, but I can’t.

  My eyes won’t open.

  “Good work, Tera,” a new voice says.

  “Colonel, please, you need to help him! He’s burning up. There’s a wound in his side. He’s lost so much blood — ”

  “I’m afraid the medic died in the crash,” Colonel Woojin says. “A ship will be here soon to pick us up.”

  “It’ll be too late!” Tera screams. “He needs help now. Please. He’s dying.”

  “Let me help him.” The calm voice of the crouched man. “It’s the least I can do.” I feel a new pair of hands on my forehead, my neck. Cool, roughened hands. Then, a short intake of breath. “It can’t be,” the old rebel whispers. “Lee Hyunwoo?”

  I stop breathing.

  “Jaewon-ah?” Tera’s voice, panicked. “Jaewon-ah!” she screams.

  I hear the colonel’s voice, muffled in the background. “Stop filming,” he orders someone. “Hurry and tie up the traitors.”

  Tera’s gone from my side, and suddenly I hear the sounds of fighting.

  The colonel shouts, “Have you gone out of your mind? What do you think you’re doing? That’s Oh Kangto you’re protecting!”

  “I don’t care who he is,” Tera shouts. “As long as he saves Jaewon.”

  I feel the pr
essure of hands, Oh Kangto’s hands, at the center of my chest. He presses down, counting a rhythm, like heartbeats. One . . . two . . . three . . .

  I black out.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  I come to with a jerk, air whipping through my lungs. I cough, my eyes cracking open.

  “Jaewon-ah.” Tera’s beside me again. Behind her, Oh Kangto’s being dragged away by NSK soldiers. “I’m so sorry I left you. You had a fever, and I didn’t know what to do. I thought I could find some medicine for you. How badly did they hurt you? I saw them hitting you, and I —”

  Behind her, the colonel orders two men forward. One holds a tranquilizing gun. But she’s so focused on me she doesn’t notice.

  “Tera,” I croak. At the same time, the soldier shoots her in the back.

  She collapses onto me, unconscious, and I’m no better.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  My father used to say there’s a fine line between death and sleep, and that both are ways to escape an unendurable pain.

  But he never spoke of the choice you’d have to make to wake.

  27

  My Father

  The dream, when it comes, isn’t a surprise. It seems almost natural to dream about my father now, when I’m so close to seeing him again.

  Or maybe it’s not a dream, but a memory — a memory I’ve failed to forget.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  I am eight years old, and my father has his hands on my shoulders. He’s crouching down in front of me so that I can see the steadiness in his eyes. Unlike Young’s father, my father never stands over me.

  “Jaewon-ah,” he says, “listen to your mother. When she tells you to stay, stay. And when she tells you to run . . .”

  “Run.”

  He smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Good boy.”

  I poke the lines branching from his eyes. They spider out from the corners, and I lose them in the darkness of his hair.

  The old CD player is crooning out a melody I’ve heard before. The lilting notes distract me. My eyelids flutter — I’d been sleeping before my father woke me.

  “Look, Jaewon-ah,” my father says, and I open my eyes wide. He holds something in his hands now, pulled from the pocket of his long coat. My father always keeps surprises in his pockets — pieces of chewing gum, a deck of cards, a photo of my mother.

  “A sparkler,” I say as I take one of the two thin metal wires from the palm of his hand. When we light the ends, they will burst with colored sparks, a mini fireworks display right in front of our eyes.

  My father takes my hand, the one without the sparkler, and together we climb to the rooftop of our apartment. I feel giddy with excitement. It’s past midnight, and even though my legs shake with tiredness, I push past it, blinking rapidly.

  The windows in the apartment building across from ours are open, lines of thick string bridging the gap between the buildings, articles of clothing stretched and drying in the cool air. I see a pair of Young’s boxers dangling from one of its short legs, and I grin.

  “Appa, look,” I say, pointing to the penguin-print boxers and laughing. Young is going to be embarrassed when I show him the boxers tomorrow. I’m so excited, thinking about Young’s reaction, that I don’t see the last step.

  I trip, my hands out before me to stop the fall.

  But I don’t fall.

  My father catches me.

  And even though he hasn’t picked me up for many years, he holds me in his arms like I’m a baby again. I pretend to struggle, pretend that I don’t like it because I’m a big kid, and Young would laugh if he saw. But it’s chilly outside, the middle of winter, and my father’s arms are so warm cradled around me, like a blanket of leaves.

  We reach the top of the roof. My father takes me near the edge, placing me on top of a cinder block so I can see over the railing. Together we light our sparklers. They burst into color, slowly burning to the quick. Before they go out, my father writes his name in the air, and I write mine beside his.

  Lee Hyunwoo.

  Lee Jaewon.

  I don’t understand that he’s giving me a good memory of him, so that tomorrow, when he does the unforgivable, I’ll remember that I once thought the sun rose and set on his smile.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  My father blew up a government facility, killing every single person inside, including himself.

  28

  Oh Kangto

  My fever lasts a week. I’m transported to the NSK’s military hospital in Gangnam immediately upon arrival in Neo Seoul, excused from school due to “injuries sustained in combat.” I don’t know this until after the fact. I’m mostly delirious until the fever breaks, kept on sleep-inducing drugs.

  Alex visits when I’m more lucid. “You look awful,” he says, walking around my bare hospital room.

  I don’t respond, too relieved that he’s healthy enough to insult me. The last I’d seen him, he’d been broken on the floor.

  He grimaces. “I’ve been cleaning up the colonel’s mess. Luckily, the mission ended up a success even if it began as a disaster. Oh Kangto is in custody, on his third round of interrogations. The old bastard won’t give anything up.” He walks over and crosses his arms. “Actually, that’s why I’m here. To see if you’ve recovered enough.” He glances away. “I have a favor to ask.”

  When he doesn’t elaborate, I say, “What?”

  “Oh Kangto won’t respond to any of the standard methods of torture. They want to use the Helm on Ama, but you saw how that went last time.” He hesitates, obviously not used to asking favors. “She doesn’t want to do it. She’s afraid. I thought maybe you . . .”

  “I’ll do it,” I say, “but just so you know, I scored poorly in interrogative methods.” It was one of the few classes at the academy that I almost failed in. Apparently I’m bad at dissembling, which is ironic, because my whole identity is a lie.

  “I think out of all of us — you, me, Koga, Tsuko, whatever — you’ll be the one the rebel talks to.”

  “Really?” I ask, genuinely surprised. “What makes you think that?”

  Alex looks at me hesitantly, as if anticipating a negative reaction. Immediately, I know why he’s asked me. I scowl. “Alex, just because I’m from Old Seoul doesn’t mean I speak a different language than you.”

  “Whatever,” Alex says, cracking his knuckles. “The rebel won’t talk to anyone. He hasn’t spoken a word since we brought him in. He just sits there and takes it all, the beatings, the hot iron, the fast-acting poisons, the electrocution. The old man’s a stone wall. I need you to breach it. I’ll be back to pick you up at 2000 tonight.” Alex walks to the door. “Get dressed. Take a shower. You may look better than Oh Kangto, but that’s nothing to be proud of.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  Alex isn’t late to pick me up. He brings us straight from the hospital to the Tower. My fever might have broken, but I’m not fully recovered yet. I keep my movements slow, close to my body, careful not to open up any sealed wounds.

  I follow Alex to a basement room of the Tower guarded by two soldiers. The guard on the right nods at Alex and scans his wrist across a panel to open the doors, revealing a small viewing room that looks through a glass window into another — an interrogation room.

  I’m not surprised to see Tsuko by the window, watching Oh Kangto through the glass. Beside him stands Colonel Go Woojin. The third person in the room I am surprised to see.

  “Are you feeling better?” Sela walks over to me with a look of concern in her violet eyes. She blinks, and her irises turn sky blue.

  “I am.”

  “Congratulations on your capture of Oh Kangto. I saw the footage. You were very brave.”

  I grimace. I saw the footage as well, when I’d been lucid enough to work
the tablet attached to the hospital bed. The footage aired to the public included a clip of me getting beaten into the ground by the UKL rebel, complete with a voiceover explaining my existence as a “young, brave soldier of the NSK.” It then proceeded to show my rescue by Tera, another “soldier of the NSK.” It hadn’t released her association with the project.

  The footage cut off right at the moment when Tera turned on the NSK soldiers, protecting Oh Kangto so that he could save my life.

  I look past Sela and through the window. The old rebel sits in a metal chair behind the glass, a black bag over his head. His wrists are cuffed to the metal table in front of him with silver bands.

  “How long has he been sitting like that?” Alex asks.

  “Two hours,” Sela answers. “He hasn’t moved.”

  I frown. “Who was the last person to speak with him?”

  “I was,” Colonel Go says.

  “The colonel asked questions” — Sela nods at the older soldier — “but the rebel didn’t respond to any of them.”

  “Which is why we should use the weapon,” Colonel Go demands, “Bring it in and use the Helm.”

  Alex grits his teeth. “Her name is Ama, and she wouldn’t be able to read him after the torture you put him through. Ama’s a mind reader, and you’ve ensured the rebel hasn’t a mind to read.”

  The colonel growls. “You insolent bastard. I don’t care if you’re the Director’s son. You can’t speak to me like that. We’ll bring in this Ama and put it to actual use.”

  He signals for the guards, but before they can approach, Tsuko raises a hand, stopping them. Slowly, he turns his head to stare at the colonel. He doesn’t say a word. After a drawn-out pause, the colonel lowers his eyes — a strange sight, consider­ing the colonel’s advanced age compared to Tsuko’s youth.