Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance

by Asia Olanna

  I laughed harder now, pressing my shoulder into his chest.

  He wrapped his arms around my neck, and then placed his hands underneath my stomach.

  He rubbed, kissed my forehead. “I do like you,” I said. “I wanted always to meet you in America, even though this is definitely not how I thought everything would turn out. You know they told me way back when that I was going to have dinner with you? I was so excited and everything.”

  “You’ll be one of the few people who get to witness the downfall of an empire,” Jong-soo said, grinning. “Some dinner, huh?”

  I smiled with him, but then my smile slowly turned into a modest frown.

  Some of the people in the room were staring at us as they got food. We were the only non-Korean couple there, the only interracial pair.

  So, of course, we definitely stuck out.

  I chalked their staring off to us being an anomaly in Asia.

  But there was something strange about the way they kept glancing over. How some of them whispered to one another.

  I brought my lips close and up to Jong-soo’s ears. I said, “I’m not feeling so good about this. Is something going on?”

  “Some of them have never seen a black woman before. You just have to deal with being stared at. Sorry,” he said. “I’m going to tell them off right now.”

  I held Jong-soo’s hand, and said, “No, don’t cause a scene. It’s fine. I’m all right.”

  As we ate in the dining room, I felt another emotion rolling through my spirit.

  For some reason, it occurred to me that they weren’t looking at me because of my skin color or my interracial date.

  They were looking at us as if we owed them something.

  As if we were objects to be taken.

  JONG-SOO

  “We have to go back to our room soon,” Jong-soo said. “Some of these guys, I don’t think you should be around too much. They definitely have their eyes on you. And I’m not sure why. It’s making me worried.”

  “I’ll take some food for Bit-na,” Henrietta said.

  I helped her scoop up rice and kimchi onto another plate, and then we took the rest of our leftovers down the hall and back to our room.

  But when we went inside, Bit-na and Hae-il were not there.

  Goosebumps crawled up my forearms. I immediately held onto Henrietta, clutching her against my body.

  She felt my abs flex, turning her head up. “What’s going on?” she said.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said, putting down the plates of food onto the bed. The empty beds.

  Both of us turned around for the front door, but then it shut.

  Someone came out from the bathroom.

  No.

  No!

  A body!

  Hae-il’s body wrapped up in a body piece of cotton fabric—the bed sheets—his neck chocked off with a piece of black rope. He lay on the backside of the door, hanging off the top, wrapped up in so much red.

  Blood dripped down his face, onto the carpet.

  I walked over carefully, telling Henrietta stay back by the beds.

  “Oh my God,” I heard her say. “Jesus…”

  I surveyed the damage to Hae-il’s body.

  Now, I would never know why he hated Oh-seong so much.

  I would never know the secrets that lay within his mind.

  And in that moment, I realized how much of a stepbrother Hae-il was to me. We weren’t related, but we might as well have been, because of our line of work, because of the way we had grown up.

  What we had gone through.

  I tried to close my mouth, but it only hung low.

  “Something is definitely wrong,” I said. “We have to get out of this room right now—it’s a trap!”

  Out of nowhere, two men came from the bathroom, hustling out from the shade of the shower.

  I heard the crinkle of the curtain, their boots slamming against the floor, guns pointed at us, a pair of Glock 22s.

  I stared down the barrels, my hands up.

  From the bathroom, I heard whimpering, shrieking.

  And then a kick.

  A third man appeared from the bathroom, blood all over his hands.

  “What is going on?” I said.

  The man responded to me in Japanese and Korean. I only understood half of what they were saying. Then I noticed their tattoos sprawling across their shoulders, their arms.

  Yakuza.

  No other gangs in Asia had such intricate artwork on their skin, those of koi fish and demons and sakura flowers blossoming in the spring time across their chests and arms.

  “Come with us,” one of them said. “And no one gets hurt.”

  They were talking in a strange Korean, a basic tone. So they knew a little, enough to communicate full sentences.

  I backed up against Henrietta, her trembling hands on my shoulders. Now on the small of my back.

  I stepped forward, formulating a plan of what to do.

  Action in my head.

  The three men came forward, closer and closer. They went around me, and then when they grabbed Henrietta, I lost it—

  My arm snapped upwards, grabbing the gun from one of them, my other arm strangling another’s throat. I pressed the gun against one guy’s head, yelling in Korean. “Get back! Or I’m going to pop him.”

  The other men flinched. They began to move away.

  They talked to one another.

  It was not uncommon for gang members to practically suicide themselves. I was afraid they would shoot at my hostage, not caring about his life, only caring about killing me.

  At the very least, he would make a good shield.

  “Step back,” I repeated, advancing forward. My legs were solid, heart pumping fast. Henrietta did not scream, her breath on my ears. She was close to me, cowering behind me, scared, I knew.

  I pointed my gun straight at one of the men, beating them backwards and further away, to the door of our room.

  “Get out of here,” I said.

  “We have a job to do,” one of the men said. “And it does not involve you!”

  He fired at me, missed, striking a window behind us.

  Henrietta shrieked, ducked behind a bed.

  I fired a shot back, nailing my blast straight into the chest of one of the men. Then I shot back at the other, knocking him over.

  They fired, but I ducked, behind the man I was holding, and the bullets struck inside of him, dug into his flesh.

  I fired a couple more rounds at them, emptying out my gun. When they no longer moved, I threw aside the man I held. He was dead.

  I went to Henrietta’s side, saying, “Are you okay? Did they get you?” I didn’t wait for her response. I simply let my fingers go over her body, seeking out any wounds.

  She was unharmed, thankfully.

  Although she shook and pointed to my shoulder.

  “One of the bullets grazed you,” she said. “That was close.”

  “Bit-na,” I said, standing, barging into the bathroom. “Bit-na, shit!”

  She had tape over her mouth, which I stripped off. She heaved, breathed heavily when I took it off.

  She said nothing.

  Just stared at me, as if I were a ghost.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  “They killed him,” she finally said. “They killed Hae-il.”

  HENRIETTA

  I was still hiding behind the bed when the shipmates came from down above. They were two in number, a man and a woman wearing double-breasted jackets and trousers with a red stripe down the center seam.

  They entered by force, knocking Hae-il’s body against the wall as they slammed the door open. They raised their weapons up, a pair of guns, but then they drew them down when they saw me.

  They saw the bodies.

  The woman came over to me, talking to me in broken English. Then she dashed away, going to the bathroom where the male officer went.

  I heard lots of chattering in Korean I could not understand.

&
nbsp; What I could break down for myself was this: there were Yakuza on board, and they were sent by someone for us.

  For some reason.

  “I don’t know,” I heard Jong-soo say. “She’s out there,” he said, walking out. He came to my side again, clutching my shoulder.

  How are we going to get out of this? The entire idea of going to Japan was to escape Korea, and not draw too much attention to us, right?

  So much for that.

  The woman went away. She came back with medical supplies to treat us. Nothing more than antiseptics and Band-Aids, strips of gauze for Jong-soo’s arm, which had been grazed by a bullet, it seemed. We still had the other medical supplies to use as well, which the woman helped him with.

  A couple of other officials guided me out of the room, told me not to look at the bodies. As if I could scrub them from my mind.

  I shook, filled with rage. What was going on?

  How could I be so helpless? Simply standing there and not doing anything?

  I stood outside, watching the woman treat Jong-soo. I felt jealous of her, of her abilities. She knew what she was doing. She knew how to wield a gun.

  I didn’t.

  I walked back inside the room, but a man stopped me from going any further than about 2 feet. It was the first official who had walked in with the woman.

  “Can’t go in,” he said.

  I stayed outside until they cleaned up the bodies and the mess.

  Eventually, everyone filed out, the officials, Bit-na, and Jong-soo. Hae-il was wrapped up and put on a gurney.

  I couldn’t look.

  We were in the truck together, talking, and then this?

  Rage and fury flew through my mind, twin eagles of desperate measures. I wanted to hook my nails deep down into Oh-seong’s face. Because he was the one who had done this. He was the one who orchestrated all of it.

  I could see on Jong-soo’s face similar thoughts, the same conclusions.

  And Bit-na.

  She seemed in shock, unable to do anything except stare at me and then Jong-soo.

  I held her, and that was the first time both of us were able to connect on a human level.

  JONG-SOO

  Henrietta was holding Bit-na, which was a first.

  The officials closed the door behind us. They said we could be relocated to a different space.

  They knew that Bit-na had bribed our way in.

  I didn’t expect the passage to Japan to be completely safe, but neither did I expect to get ambushed on day one.

  Night had not even come yet.

  “We’ll put you down in the lower decks,” one of the officials said. “Closer to the engine room, where there is lots of security.”

  We looked at one another, Henrietta, me, and Bit-na.

  What could we do?

  They relocated us in about five or so minutes, guiding us through various hallways, people staring at us, glancing our way.

  Gossip spread through the ship like wildfire.

  In a matter of minutes, people were speculating that we had been boarded by North Korean spies.

  We were under assault by Chinese military.

  Or that an underground rebel group from South East Asia was commandeering the ship, bringing it over to Malaysia, sinking it into the ocean.

  “I just,” Henrietta said, “I can’t believe this.”

  Henrietta did not look at all fazed. She walked with her shoulders held high, holding Bit-na the entire time.

  Her hands, her arms.

  “He has to pay for this,” Henrietta said. “He’s got to. There’s no way he can go on terrorizing people like this.”

  Bit-na spoke up. She said, “I know he’s after me. He wants me. He’s angry at me. And you, Jong-soo. You were able to escape out of his prison. That’s the ultimate spite.”

  We walked to the bottom level of the ship, where the engine purred, a soft, delicate sound.

  We were guided into a room. I saw a pair of guards who stood outside in the hallway, where the engine lay.

  “We don’t normally have people here,” the official said. “But considering the threat to your life, we feel obliged.”

  “You didn’t keep security before,” I said. “You better keep it now.”

  I still had the Glock 22 in my hands. At the very least, I could sleep with it at night. The officials didn’t seem to care that I had it, leaving us to our own devices, saying that they would be “back later.”

  And that there was nothing else they could do for us.

  What more could they?

  “I think they’re working with them,” Henrietta said. “The Yakuza and the Twin Swords.”

  “They won’t stop until we’re all dead,” I said. “It’s really not safe for you to be here anymore,” I told Henrietta.

  “I—I know it’s not, but where am I supposed to go?”

  “When we get to Japan, you and Bit-na need to take safety someplace else.”

  Bit-na shook her head. “I don’t want to. I need to have revenge on Oh-seong… I can’t believe he killed Hae-il. I know he’s the one behind this.”

  “As much as you two have feelings for Oh-seong, you can’t be in danger like this anymore. We have to stay low when we get to Japan. And when we get there, I have to go look for him by myself.”

  Henrietta reached out with her hand, shaking her head as well. “I don’t want you to be in more danger than me,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to be hurt. Especially you.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” I said. “I know who he wants. More than anything, he wants Bit-na, and then me. You’re just going to get hurt! That’s the truth.”

  Henrietta settled down into the bed, still holding onto Bit-na. “Okay,” Henrietta said. “It’s the truth. Fine.”

  She seemed hurt. I didn’t want her to be—but then again, she was much stronger than I thought she would be.

  Considering how most other women would have fled.

  “We can’t let Henrietta go anywhere,” Bit-na said, suddenly angry. “I want my revenge against him. And if it means sacrificing her, then that’s what it’s going to take.”

  HENRIETTA

  I wanted to hate Bit-na. I should’ve hated her in that instant she called me a “sacrifice.”

  I did hate her.

  But I felt compassion and empathy for her situation and mine.

  “I’m not going to be a sacrifice,” I said. “Bit-na, look, I get that you’re in a bad situation. I’m not going to say we all are, because it’s true that you are the focus of attention here. You and Jong-soo. But I want to help you guys out somehow. If I can’t be trusted in the outside world, then let me help!”

  Bit-na tilted her head from side to side. As if she was thinking deeply about what to do, how to phrase her words.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said. And those words, they were like a fresh ocean breeze washing over my mind. I closed my eyes, savoring the syllables. She was sorry, sorry.

  I held onto her, rocking her back and forth. She did not say anything until it was late at night, not anything else but her apologies.

  Jong-soo and I waited and then it was dinner time. He went to go fetch us some plates. The officials had the entire ship on lockdown.

  We were apparently going to make an emergency stop in Tsushima.

  “They want us to talk with some of the people there,” Jong-soo said. “We have to act naturally. Act and play as victims.”

  “You can’t tell anybody about what’s truly going on,” Bit-na said to me, as we ate dinner, kimchi and rice and squid again. “You really can’t tell people what’s going on here. Because if you do, then I’ll never be able to have what I really want. To get back at that man who hurt me so much. Who continues to hurt me. Please,” she said, banging the fold-out table by our beds, “I need you to stay quiet.”

  As much as I wanted to spite her for her bad behavior—and I did so by not talking to her for a long while, pretending to think about my answer—I could not
do so.