Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance

by Asia Olanna

  “It’s my business,” I said, firmly. “My duty to you is to take you back home, to disentangle you from all of this nonsense gang stuff. I can tell that you’re not from a rough neighborhood—not like I am.”

  Henrietta giggled a little bit, shaking her head. “Why? Because I sound like I come from CNN?”

  I smirked, crossing my arms, and then pulling her in to my side. “Hey, black people aren’t a monolith. Just like Korean people aren’t. No people are. We all have our different tastes, our likes and dislikes. Our upbringings. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that you come from the suburbs—because it’s definitely apparent on your lips where you’re from.”

  I looked up with my eyes, crawling my fingers towards Henrietta’s neck line, where her graceful chin was, curvaceous cheeks were. I traced the length of her nose, feeling her soft ebony skin against my rough calloused hands. The ones that had been in danger for so long, finally getting a break here.

  “I’m not sure if I want you touching me,” Henrietta mumbled, her eyes now on mine. “It feels good. But then I still have this sense of guilt in me. A boiling need for pride. Like I want you to touch me, but I don’t want you to touch me. Like I can’t make up my mind exactly, but I should. I should.”

  “What’s there to make up your mind about? You’re here with me, and then I’m going to take you home.”

  “But that’s the thing, I’m not sure if I want to go home just yet.”

  Kyung-joon bustled inside the room, and I pulled my hand away from Henrietta’s face immediately. We glanced at Kyung-joon, who smiled at us, closing the door with a swift bang of his legs. He arched an eyebrow at both of us. “I see that you are developing relations,” he said.

  “Maybe,” I said, holding onto Henrietta’s waist now. She was pulling away from me, but then her feet stopped her from going too far. Back and forth, she teetered. “Maybe not.”

  “I’ve got everything you need in here,” Kyung-joon said, a bag slung over his shoulder. It had a Red Cross symbol on it, strapped to the side, and was made out of vinyl and leather. Henrietta scratched her nails across the zipper, opening it up slowly.

  She ducked low, trying to see what was inside. I knelt beside her, digging through. There were syringes, and I immediately thought of the North Korean drug addicts, the Chinese diplomats who used heroine.

  All of the people across Asia who wanted to get their fix—but the syringes would be used for other things, maybe in combat, to administer amphetamine or morphine. I wasn’t sure at the time about where we were headed, but I knew staring at the syringes did not make me feel very good about the future.

  Perhaps asking for a medical bag was only like asking for a bad omen over our heads. Asking for hurt from the universe.

  “I’m sure everything will go all right,” I said. “Hey, we don’t have any contacts by the docks either, right?”

  I was hoping that Kyung-joon might know someone in the underground—cheap tickets by boat, maybe. I didn’t want to get trapped in the air on a plane—everyone took planes those days, and it would be too easy for one of Oh-seong’s crew to come find us on the international databases.

  Taking a ship would be more of an undercover affair, being that many ships were still low quality.

  “I don’t know anyone in the underground,” Kyung-joon said, his arms akimbo. “But I can help you get a legal ticket. It might be really expensive though. I’m not sure how much money you have on you.”

  “We’ll have to talk it over with Bit-na,” I said, still looking at the syringes, staring at all of the medical equipment underneath, stethoscopes, gauze, and medicine. “Can you get me a discount?”

  “I might be able to swing something with a friend of mine at the counter. But we’re going to have to go together, and I’m going to have to go in alone. After my shift, I can travel with you. But that’s it. I can’t really help you outside of a phone line and a ticket out of this country.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” I said, pulling up the bag over my shoulder. I staggered to the side, and Kyung-joon caught me, as well as Henrietta, who supported my ass. Her hands were groping underneath my thighs, although I don’t think she was trying to be inappropriate.

  On purpose, at least.

  Henrietta shouldered the bag, taking the weight off my back. I said, “Are you sure you want to?”

  She nodded at me, grinning widely. “I can take it. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I’m surprised that she doesn’t have any injuries on her,” Kyung-joon said, giving Henrietta the once over. “Isn’t she hurt anywhere?”

  “I helped her. She doesn’t have any injuries because of the way I got her out from the Twin Dragons’ den.”

  “That’s quite noble of you,” Kyung-joon said. “Like lovers fighting for one another.”

  ♦♦♦

  We walked out back to the van, where we would wait for several hours around town until Kyung-joon’s shift ended.

  Meanwhile, we drove about for some cheap eating. We stopped at a sushi joint, near the shoreline, enjoying a soft breeze rolling out from the ocean.

  The sunlight draped our skins in a yellow glow. Henrietta, me, Bit-na, and Hae-il—we stuffed ourselves full, all the way as best as we could, until we could not move anymore.

  Near the end of our meal, I looked at Henrietta, who sat next to me. She ate silently, only listening in on our conversation. So I said, “You’re pretty quiet over there.”

  “Well,” she said, “I don’t want to be too pushy. Especially since everyone thinks I’m so privileged.”

  Bit-na twirled her sashimi between her chopsticks. She looked over to Hae-il, who simply shrugged. “If I sounded so harsh before,” Bit-na said, “it’s because I’m crabby about my life. It hasn’t been easy. It’s easy to find a couple of targets to knock down quick. And you’re the closest one. You’re just someone here who is traveling in Korea—but you’ll never really know what it’s like to be in this underground world. Scrounging for meager amounts of money. Sure, Korea likes to make its image seem like everyone is rich. Like everyone in Korea has tons of money. But the vast majority of Koreans are not making tons of money. Most of us are hustling in the underground, were struggling to do well in school, or trying to go someplace else where there’s less stress, because we can’t compete here. How’s that sound? Not so pleasant, right?”

  Henrietta only looked at her plate of sushi, fumbling with her chopsticks. “I normally know how to use these,” she mumbled.

  “Don’t pick on her,” I said, putting my hands up in the air, as if Bit-na was coming after me. “You’ve got to cut her some slack already. Just because she was born in America doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have pains or hurt in her. You’ve got to give her some credit for lasting so long: a lot of those other Americans wouldn’t.”

  “Why’s she even traveling with us?” Bit-na said. “I think she’s deadweight. Don’t you think so, Hae-il?” She didn’t sound very serious. This was only another way to pick on Henrietta.

  Hae-il looked like a wolf, being so hungry that he didn’t even have time to pay attention to our discussion. So he spent all of his effort into digging at his meal.

  Eventually, he said, “I think she’s fine enough. If she wants to stay, whatever. We’ll just drop her off in Japan. If she doesn’t want to come along, we can drop her off anywhere. And if she causes too much of a mess, then I guess we can just kill her.”

  “Hey!” I shouted loud enough for other tables to turn their faces to us. I glanced over at the other people, waving them off, telling them to mind their own business. With a whisper, I said, “I don’t want anyone talking those kinds of things anymore. Stop trying to make this into a mutiny.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Bit-na said. “The entire underworld is in upheaval. You don’t have more power than any of us. If we decide to go our separate ways, then we will. Besides, remember, I’m the one with money at the table. I’m the one who’s got bills.”
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br />   Apparently Bit-na and Hae-il were not cognizant about my record label. Maybe Hae-il was, but I still had royalties pouring into my offshore accounts.

  Had he forgotten? I glanced at him, but he made no movement to acknowledge me. He only stuffed his face into his plate, chowing down on his sushi.

  For some reason, it had never dawned on me to access those offshore accounts. I never thought about using the money. Subconsciously, I think, I didn’t want to see if the government had seized them. If they had, then my actual name and reputation would’ve meant nothing.

  That was the fear I had deep down inside myself. Of becoming nothing and getting swallowed up in a life where I didn’t have any music or power. What then would I do?

  After we finished, Hae-il said to me, as we walked back to the truck, “I know what you’re thinking. You want to use the record label money, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I was thinking. You haven’t said anything about it. So I’m suspecting that something has gone wrong?”

  “The government hasn’t touched it or anything. I know that was one of my worries after you got kidnapped. Most of the Double Dragons took as much they could out of the banks and offshore accounts. But Oh-seong managed to nab some of the most important security details— he essentially stole all of what we earned. That’s how his gang got so powerful so quickly. They took everything from us. Not only did they manage to grow faster than ever before with our record label, they covered up all of their bad shit. So no one was the wiser.”

  A sense of rage and anger boiled down inside of me. Not only did he abduct a poor woman from America, but he took all of my money, and stole from me. Literally, financially. He was grabbing pieces and left nothing but a husk.

  “Then we have all the more reason to go after him,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind killing him.”

  “Easy there,” Hae-il said. “We still have a long road ahead of us before we can exact revenge.”

  “Why exactly are you after him?”

  “I may have a small vendetta against him. He… I don’t really want to talk about it. I was close to your parents, and I’ve never really felt extremely close to you in the same vein. I could tell everything to them. But you? Honestly, I always suspected that someone would take you out, and that I would be able to be the next in line.”

  “I suspected that from you,” I said. “Now that the power lines are all down, why don’t you just tell me everything out in the open?”

  As we got into the truck, and as Hae-il got into the driver’s seat, he said, “I’ll tell you later.”

  I wondered what he had to say, but I didn’t have time to think about that anymore: because as soon as we got back onto the road, we were sailing across the highway, across the different streets, focused on meeting Kyung-joon.

  In my head, I went over how we would go to Japan.

  Act naturally.

  Talk normally.

  Say nothing more than what was necessary.

  I needed to get Henrietta back to the United States, needed to get her back home, so that I could exact revenge on Oh-seong.

  She, Henrietta, seemed…sprightly though? Like she wasn’t fazed at all anymore. Sitting there in the back of the truck with me, her legs crossed, her eyes darting from left to right, her neck craning this way and that. Taken by the nature, taken away by Korea’s natural beauty. Not scared at all, this Henrietta. She wanted to be here, but I couldn’t keep her around…

  Could I?

  Having her was a liability.

  I didn’t want to say it out loud, because I didn’t want to deflate Henrietta’s spirit. But she was indeed someone who could cause a lot of trouble if we didn’t watch her closely enough. She was unexperienced traveling in this shadow world—I could tell by the way she carried herself, unassuming, modest.

  She had no idea how to front or be aggressive.

  The picture of femininity, Henrietta had no mindset that could lead her through dangerous streets, would take her across channels bleak with trouble.

  “Is something the matter?” Henrietta said, turning her head to me. “I love this part of Korea already. It’s so peaceful and relaxed. It’s not like when I was in Seoul, with all of the people surrounding me, bustling everywhere, such in a rush and in a hurry to get to where they needed to. Even I was caught up in the craziness. People were well-dressed and everything. And the city itself is beautifully constructed. But I don’t think I could live there in the long term.”

  Bit-na snickered in the passenger seat. She tilted her head towards the side view mirror. Bit-na and Henrietta’s eyes met together there, staring angrily, viciously.

  This was the only time I ever saw Henrietta become antagonistic: when Bit-na gave her push.

  And rightly so for Henrietta to defend herself.

  But should she have to stand being around Bit-na? I barely knew who Bit-na even was. Keeping them both around…

  Liabilities, liabilities everywhere.

  “Seoul is a wonderful city,” I said. “My family used to take me to the border all the time. To North Korea. We would stand in the demilitarized zone, watching the guards. We didn’t have money to go to actual sites, to go see the beaches or anything. So much of it was funneled back into our business—or rather, our gang. Building a house in the countryside. Trying to corral everyone together and make everyone listen. Sometimes, people, they just don’t listen.”

  “I know what you mean,” Henrietta said, dreamily. “I know what you mean.”

  I sat closer to Henrietta now, unbuckled my seatbelt. I didn’t care what the others thought, I wanted to tell her something.

  “I’m warning you right now,” I said, “that Bit-na and Hae-il have probably done worse than just killed people with their bare hands several times before. This isn’t a schoolyard trip. You need to keep your wits about you, stay close to me and so we get you back home.”

  “I get you,” Henrietta said, whispering softer. “I understand. I know what’s going on.”

  “Maybe we should just bring you back to the police station.”

  Henrietta glanced over at Bit-na in the side view mirror. “I’ve been thinking about that, but I don’t think your friends would let me go. Like you said. We can’t keep going back and forth like this. The best way for me to go home is to have a plane ticket or a safe out.”

  “I’m just saying is all, if they give you any trouble, you need to tell me. Because things are about to get dicey.”

  I pulled away from Henrietta now, and Bit-na gave me a nasty smirk. “I guess you’re already falling in love with her, aren’t you?”

  “I’m the one who saved her. It’s fine that she has special attachment to me.” Henrietta gave me a smile, and then she blushed. Maybe she was still starstruck. Maybe the illusions of who I was were coming down.

  Maybe she had so many thoughts storming in her mind that she didn’t know what to feel anymore. I could feed her as much information as I wanted to, but really, her intentions were only for herself. “Keep to yourself, Bit-na. We don’t need any trouble on this expedition.”

  “I have my goals,” Bit-na said, putting up her feet onto the dashboard. “And I promise you they don’t involve her in any way.”

  Anger boiled underneath my skin. Henrietta was nothing more than a civilian woman, an innocent bystander. If Bit-na was going to be like this, then maybe we were better off without her—we could all pursue our personal vendettas separately against Oh-seong then.

  As I boiled there in the truck, I clenched my hands, making two fists.

  God!

  She could be infuriating.

  I went to say something back to Bit-na, but then Henrietta crept her fingers over my knuckles, squeezing tight my palms.

  She pumped once and then twice, watching me from the corner of her eye.

  She mouthed the words, “Don’t.”

  And I didn’t move anymore. I didn’t make any quick actions or rash decisions. My anger simmered away, and then we rode onward down a hig
hway, passing several trees, going to where we needed to.

  Refocusing myself, I thought about Kyung-joon.

  But Henrietta appeared in my head several times over.

  I would protect her in the end. If not for her own sake, then to spite Bit-na and Oh-seong for sabotaging her trip over here, endangering her, and making her nothing more than their play toys.

  God, they made me angry.

  When we got to the hospital, Eun-jung was standing at the front door, Kyung-joon next to her.

  She did not even look at me, not even to acknowledge us.