by Asia Olanna
He held me until I stopped moaning. So I stopped whimpering and crying. I hadn’t even realized the tears were falling—in gushes, painful gushes, streaks down my ebony skin, unto the white bed sheets below.
Blackness all around me, until he turned on the lights, and then dimmed them out of respect for my emotions.
For some reason, when there was brightness, I cried even more. As if I didn’t want to see the reality around me. The room so stark in contrast to the room before, in the house I had been subjected to.
A devil’s dungeon, I escaped.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I held onto Jong-soo’s arm—his bicep—and cradled the tip of my nose against his shoulder. So muscular, although later he would tell me he was “skinny.” He seemed larger than life to me, fit and put together. Stronger than I could ever be. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about being sorry. You have nothing to be sorry about. Those bastards have messed up an innocent woman. Fuck them. When I get to them, I’m going to—dammit. Shit.”
He put his hand against his forehead. And then he massaged my thigh.
“Look,” he said. “The best thing for both of us is to get some more sleep. Our bodies can heal that way. Fall asleep with me, or at least close your eyes again. Trust me.”
I closed them again.
Phew.
I wasn’t safe, but close to him, and that was enough for me to find peace.
♦♦♦
“You can’t trust them,” my father had said. “I don’t like the Asian culture. It’s mostly racist people.”
I woke up again, wrapped in Jong-soo’s arms. His lips were now right underneath the crook of my neck, his face settled against my ear. Breathe in. Breathe out.
“You can’t trust them one,” he had said.
I wiggled out from underneath Jong-soo. His head flopped over, then slid down my arm. He was kind of like a sticky fish, flipping here and there. Eventually, he rose up from the bed, wiping his eyes. I sat up next to him, my arms behind me. Glancing around the room, I thought about Hae-il and Bit-na. They could not be very comfortable in the truck. But maybe there sleepiness was enough to block them out.
“Did you get good sleep?” I said. “Don’t ask about mine.”
Jong-soo smiled. “I was here for you the entire night, wasn’t I? And, it was good, thank you.”
He kicked his legs out of bed, walking over to the bathroom. I heard the tap water, and then him brushing his teeth. There was free mouthwash and toothpaste to use, so I helped myself, spitting in the same sink as him, walking out when he did.
“If you want, you can take a shower here. We probably won’t be getting one for I don’t know how much longer. Getting another hotel like this might be difficult—we’ll be reliant on Bit-na financing everything. And I don’t know how much money she has left in her wallet and whatnot.”
“That’s understandable. I guess I can take one as fast as I possibly can.”
“I’ll be outside, I just have to go configure everything with Bit-na and Hae-il. See what’s up.”
He left the room. I went over to shower, drawing on the water. I stepped into the glass walls, letting the heat saturate my hair, my skin.
I heard Jong-soo walk back inside. He sat down on the bed. I shut off the water, self-conscious about my nudity.
I had taken off my clothes and left them on the countertop of the bathroom. Would he walk inside? Would he overstep his boundary here? Would this be the part where I would come to hate him?
But he waited.
He just waited for me to finish up everything and come on out.
I was using my old clothes, which made me feel kind of disgusting, although when I sat down on the bed, I noticed that there were white T-shirts out paired up with gray jeans.
“I got these from the front desk,” Jong-soo said. “They don’t have any clothes in my size. But they’ve got a couple of spares for you. I made up a situation: I told them that you had an accident.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the clothes from the bed. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Right,” he said, “I didn’t have to do lots of things for you. But I… I don’t know, I don’t pity you. I don’t want you to be pitied. I want to help you. Still do. Make everything as comfortable as possible.”
I went back into the bathroom, changing with the door closed. After I had my new shirt over my breasts, I became curious, and cracked the door open.
Jong-soo was just sitting there, his back turned to the bathroom. Facing towards the parking lot.
A real gentleman.
He was everything I expected out of the popstar vision on the album covers I had back home in Lincoln, Nebraska. On my iPhone and laptop. Here, in the hotel, Jong-soo Jeup acted as none other than the superstar himself. Exactly who I expected to meet at Higher Museum, before I realized I had been had.
“I’m ready,” I said, stepping out with my new clothes, feeling confident. “What should I do with these old ones? Are they going to be evidence?”
Complicity.
Acting alongside him.
No longer did I think about running away, but helping him. It was a slow progression, but I needed to cover my tracks as well.
I just didn’t want to have people after me, interviewing me. My face plastered all over the news.
The headlines flashed in my head: Stupid Black Woman Trapped in Korea.
Okay, so the headlines wouldn’t be so blatant. But I knew what they would say, implicitly. They would deny me my humanity.
I would have to get out of Korea on my own terms. Jong-soo was chalking up to be a nice guy anyway. Maybe not the American version of a “nice guy”—and who needed him anyway? Jong-soo…
Well, he was more man than I could handle. Saving my life, I had feelings of gratefulness towards him. He held me in my moment of fear. Paralysis.
He stood up, limping towards me. He grabbed my clothes. “We can just take these into the car,” he said.
“Are you hurt?” I remembered him now, grabbing me and clutching onto the windowsill. We tumbled out together, landed. And then he ran. “Oh my God.”
I walked closer to him now.
There were bruises sprawling across his skin. Down his legs, and up into his crotch. Spiraling around his neck were signs of beaten the flesh, red and purple. Punches and knife cuts along his arms.
“You’re hurt,” I said. “We should get you to a hospital or something, shouldn’t we?”
“I’ve handled worse than this. I’ve had my enemies shoot at me, bullets and guns. That kind of stuff. I’ve never actually been shot—after being so careful, you learn not to get hit. So considering all of that, I’m pretty much fine.” Jong-soo pounded his chest with a fist. “I’m like Tarzan. Indestructible.”
“I’m pretty sure Tarzan wasn’t indestructible,” I said, still worried about his wounds. “You really don’t want anyone knowing about this, do you?”
“I told you a little bit about my life already. Most of the big details. The major movements. Being in this kind of life—you learn not to deal with certain people. Although we could go to the hospital near Nam-gu…”
He trailed off. “Where is that?” I said.
“Maybe we shouldn’t. I don’t want to bother the people there.”
“Tell me more. I want to help you. You’re hurt. And that hurts me.”
It’s not like I was becoming attached to him or anything. I just didn’t like seeing blood on a man or anybody for that matter. Seeing someone in pain made me squirm.
“You and everyone—Bit-na and Hae-il—should seek treatment at that place then.”
Jong-soo shook his head. “Months ago, our gang split apart. It was a reckoning day for us. All of us went our separate ways—the Twin Swords made short work of our organization. Or at least, that’s what I’ve gathered from the situation I’ve fallen into. It used to be that I could have nurses treat me, nurses that were working for me. In select areas of the country. B
ut I don’t know what’s happened to them. I mean, they might help. But they might not.”
“Are these people the Eun-jung and Kyung-joon you were talking about before?” I said. Trying to hold onto hope, I continued, “I’ll go with you. I can pretend to be your girlfriend or something.”
“That’s cute,” Jong-soo said, “but yes. I don’t know if they’re still loyal to me anymore.”
“Well, we have to try. Look at you.”
Jong-soo waved his hands, limping around me, going to the door with my clothes balled up in his hands. “It’s nothing.”
I followed him out. Trying to stay casual, I whispered. “You can’t just walk away from me like this. Seriously, you’re really hurt. You’re limping.”
Jong-soo stiffened his back. He straightened out his arms, walking down the hall, albeit on one leg. “I’ll be fine. If you worry about me, then you won’t be worrying about yourself. And you matter more than I do. You’re not supposed to even be in any of this. We have to get you home, and I’m going to get you there as soon as possible. Like you want.”
Did I really want to go home? Even if I had encountered danger, I didn’t exactly want to return to my boring life. Not that I wanted to see heads flying. I just…
Okay, I did have new feelings about what was going on. Before, I was scared, and I didn’t receive well my surroundings.
Now?
Adventure.
Escape.
I was in Korea!
Sure, my sculptures might have been trashed. And I might have been completely deceived. But—
Staying on the positive side, which I was prone to do, I had new experiences with which to draw upon for new artwork. And I was getting to do things I would never be able to in the United States. Living in suburbia or in my tiny apartment in the Dallas-Fort Worth area? Please, girl. When would I ever have the chance to kickass? Travel across to Japan? To savor myself a journey unhinged, totally my own.
Plus, that stuff about pride was no joke. I couldn’t go home so fast and so quick. Plus, I had suspected earlier in captivity that I wouldn’t get away so easily, not with Bit-na and Hae-il around. I already felt it in the air.
So if I sound casual telling this story now, well, you know why.
“Let’s go to the hospital,” I begged Jong-soo, as we walked out of the hotel. Bit-na and Hae-il were standing outside, smoking cigarettes. They glanced at us, smiling.
“Good morning,” Bit-na said. Hae-il stepped into the truck, revving the engine. He hung his arm out, a stream of white smoke around his face.
“Jong-soo,” I said to him, pulling him aside. “Please. You saved my life. And you need a break. I’m pretty sure you do—you look so tired. Please, listen to me. Don’t try to be macho, save the day and all. You already have. Go to the hospital with me.”
“I’ll talk it over with Bit-na and Hae-il,” he said, “but if they want me to go on and bring you to safety, then that’s what we’re doing.”
Jong-soo turned away from me, limping to the truck. He rested on the passenger window, talking with Hae-il at length. I walked over to Bit-na, waving at her. “Jong-soo’s hurt. I think we need to go to the hospital.”
She smiled at me, shrugging her shoulders. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. Besides, aren’t you the one who wants to go home?”
“I do, but he’s hurt, and I think he needs treatment immediately. Don’t you?”
“Our life is totally different than your privileged one,” Bit-na said, dropping her cigarette, stamping it out. “You Americans don’t have any perspective, do you?”
I backed away from her. Jeeze, she was so aggressive now. Before? She teetered between friend and enemy. Now?
“I’m not trying to start anything with you,” I said. “I’m looking out for your guy.”
“He’s not mine. He’s already taken to you.”
Bit-na walked to the passenger door. In Korean, they spoke to one another, her, Hae-il, and Jong-soo. And then it was settled: we would go to the hospital, and I would go with him.
“If she wants,” Hae-il said, turning the key to the car. I went around the back, helping Jong-soo inside. Bit-na sneered at me.
“Whatever,” she said.
In the back of the truck, I returned the favor, massaging Jong-soo’s legs. I smiled at him, soothing his skin with strokes of my hand down his neck. “Is there a reason why she’s so angry at me now?” I whispered to him. Outside, the featureless land became green again with trees, the rolling waves of leaves in the wind. I blinked, staring at the beauty of flowers growing out of the soil, the perfectly paved asphalt. A climbing sun, the wind in my hair as Hae-il sped up the vehicle. “I feel like she’s nice to me, and then sometimes she’s indifferent, and then sometimes she… I think she hates me?”
Jong-soo smiled. “I think she hates me too.”
“She’s not part of your crew, is she?”
“No, she’s not. She’s actually from the opposing team: the Twin Swords. She used to play for them, but she’s gotten bored of them, I guess. Or maybe something bad happened. I'm predicting the latter.”
“She hates me for some reason. And I don’t know why.”
“It’s probably because she’s just gotten out of a… relationship.”
“Was she abused?”
Jong-soo shrugs. “So she says. But in the underground, you can never be too sure.”
“What you mean?”
“I wouldn’t even trust Hae-il. He saved my life once, but that doesn’t mean that I feel for him the same way I might if he was a civilian.”
“A civilian?” I was confused about his sudden military injection. “What you mean by that?”
“A ‘regular’ person. He’s been with me for a long time. And he’s done lots of things I wouldn’t have approved of if I had been in control from the beginning. My parents were okay with him killing here and there. But I’m not sure if he ever felt bad about it. Not in the end. But at the same time, I still feel like he’s someone who’s fallen into a hard world. He doesn’t have any parents. He never did. He grew close to mine for support.”
It seemed like Jong-soo was thinking about something deeply now. Internally, the gears of his head were cranking away at a point in his life, a memory of sorts.
“I’ve never thought about it in that way,” he said. “I’ve always thought of him as the type of person to be opportunistic. But I think he really loved my parents like family. Which is why he came to save us—there was infighting within the Double Dragons. And he tried to save them.”
“Your parents died at the Twin Swords’ hands.”
“And a lot more going to die if I don’t stop Oh-seong and his league of bandits. Even if my gang has collapsed, his gang has to be ended. Rear-ended, if it can be helped. Already, defectors like Bit-na dismantle him, but someone needs to stop the head honcho straight on.”
My eyes widened. “You’re not thinking about going after him?”
I’m not sure if I really cared about Jong-soo on a personal level, if I feared him, or if I was becoming a house gossip. Maybe I liked the lurid details he was giving me because they were racier than my average everyday life back in the United States. I hated myself for being so… wanting for juicy info. But I couldn’t stop asking questions, couldn’t stop feeling a flutter in the center of my stomach—if he went to go take this Oh-seong out, well, it sounded exciting.
Not that I thought about going with him.
Not at all, not at that instant in time.
I just wanted… more info.
Besides, Jong-soo was easy to talk to.
“I don’t know if I want to go after him,” he continued. “But it might have to be something that’s done. After all, someone has to stop him. If it’s not me, it’s going to be this person or that person. And I’m not sure if I want that person to be a civilian. A regular, average everyday soul. Someone like you. I wouldn’t want someone like you to get involved. Or even the innocent officials. They shouldn’t have to put
up with nasty men like him.”
I relaxed my fingers around the crook of his elbow. With my hands, I rolled my palms against his skin. Feeling his muscles, all the way down to his thighs.
He flinched.
Imperceptibly, but I noticed.
“I’m glad you gave in,” I said. “You can get real treatment.”
“It’s not going to be easy. We’re going to be dealing with Eun-jung and Kyung-joon. And they may not be even there anymore.”
