Ferocious

by Paula Stokes

  “Can I have a copy of this?” I ask.

  “Of course. This is the girl you are to me,” Jesse says. He holds up a hand. “I know that you are not only this girl, but sometimes I think you like to pretend this girl doesn’t exist at all. She does, Winter. Maybe right now your world feels like this happiness-sucking black hole, but you still have the capacity for joy inside you—to feel it, to bring it to other people.”

  I remove the headset from my head. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Sorry. I guess it’s a little creepy. I just wanted to be able to relive those moments, to feel the happiness radiating off you, to hear you laugh.” He pauses. “Are you mad?”

  “No,” I say. “I was just thinking of how that’s such a positive use for the technology, capturing memories. Like photographs, only better. Like, what I wouldn’t give to have some recordings with my sister, so I could hear her voice again.” I shake my head. “I can’t believe you have all these moments of me looking so happy. I never realized how happy you made me. I guess I was always so focused on my own pain. Happiness seemed like something for normal people.”

  “You make me happy too,” Jesse says. “I hope you could feel that.”

  I blush. “I could.” The problem with ViSEs is that they’re not real, not anymore. They’re just bits of time trapped on memory cards. Maybe I should have embraced those moments back before I knew about Lily. “But what about the girl who killed someone in L.A.? The girl who threatened you and Sebastian? Where does she fit into all this happiness?”

  “That part of you exists because you needed it for protection. But you’re stronger now and slowly realizing you can protect yourself. And I can help protect you too, if you want. Maybe when you quit needing her, she’ll fade away.”

  “What if she doesn’t?”

  “I don’t know. You should talk about that with your therapist,” Jesse says. “A lot of people have dark, angry sides and still manage to live normal lives. All I know is Lily or no Lily, to me you’re Winter, and I’ll never stop loving you.”

  I remove the headset and curl up beside him. I drink in the warmth of his embrace. For a few seconds, I think that’s all it’s going to be—the two of us cuddling. But then a yearning builds within me. I focus on the heat, the desire. I nuzzle the place where Jesse’s neck meets his shoulder. “So anyway, before we were so rudely interrupted…” I run my lips across the flesh of his throat and then pull his sweatshirt to the side. I kiss his collarbone all the way out to his shoulder.

  He groans. I kiss my way back to the center of his neck. “And I’m done,” he jokes.

  I grin. “Too bad. I was just getting warmed up.”

  “You feel pretty hot to me.” He tries to roll me on top of him again. I don’t want that. I don’t want this to be about me getting to make all the moves and the decisions. If anything is going to happen between Jesse and me, I want it to be something that both of us are controlling. I settle for lying side by side with him, just kissing him softly, over and over. Part of me thinks tonight should be the night.

  I pull back from him. “Do you want to?”

  He laughs lightly. “Yes, obviously. But I messed things up last time by moving too fast, so like I said earlier, there’s no rush.”

  “I was just thinking, if things go badly tomorrow, we might not get another chance.”

  “We’ll get plenty of chances,” Jesse says. “And there’s an entire world between where we are right now and being together like that.” He runs one hand up the bare skin of my arm. “I don’t want you to miss out on anything.”

  “An entire world?”

  “A world of kissing.” His lips brush against mine. “And touching.” He drags one fingertip down the ridge of muscle in my neck. “Of getting to know each other, mentally and physically,” he finishes.

  Our faces are so close right now that I’m seeing double. Two perfect smiles. Three eyes swimming with brown and green and gold. He’s right. There’s no hurry. “Getting to know each other does sound nice,” I say. “In fact, I have an idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I know you’ve wanted to see some of the city. Let me take you somewhere special.”

  Jesse grins. “Are you asking me out on a date, Winter Kim?”

  “Yes. My very first date, in fact, so you’d better not say no.”

  “I would love to go on a date with you,” Jesse says.

  I grab our headsets and a couple of blank memory cards. “Put this under your hat. This is going to be a night you’ll want to hang on to forever.”

  CHAPTER 39

  We barely make it to the subway station before Jesse starts bugging me about where we’re going. People mill past us in both directions as he fishes around in the pockets of his warm-up pants for his T-money card.

  “It’s a surprise,” I tell him as I slap my own card down on the reader. We’re both dressed warmly—sweatshirts, coats, hats—but neither of us has gloves. When he passes through the turnstile and reaches for my hand, I let him take it, glad for the feeling of warmth around my cold fingers.

  “Is it a good surprise?”

  “No, it’s terrible.” We reach the bottom of the stairs and turn toward the platform. I pull Jesse down a few car lengths from the crowded center area. He wraps an arm around me and I lean into his body, my head fitting neatly beneath his chin.

  “We’re not going to eat puffer fish, are we?” he asks. “Or little pieces of octopus that are still moving around on the plate?”

  I snicker. “Have you been watching some sort of Korean Iron Chef without me?”

  “I’ve been walking around some while you’re at work. There’s a lot of weird food here.”

  “There’s a lot of weird food in the States too,” I say. “But I’m actually not taking you out to eat, so relax.”

  “I was only kidding. You can take me anywhere you want.” Jesse bends down and kisses me on the forehead. “This is fun.”

  “More fun than back at the hotel?” I tease.

  “Um, I’m not sure how to answer that, but I like getting to have a normal night with you.” He squeezes my hand. “A date.”

  “It is fun,” I say. “Let’s make the whole night normal. No talk of anything serious or sad.”

  “Deal.” Jesse holds out his hand and I shake it, but he doesn’t let go. He twines his fingers through mine and pulls me tight against him, nuzzling the bit of bare flesh above my collar.

  Almost without thinking, I tilt my head to expose more of my skin. And then the bell chimes to alert us that a train is approaching and I remember we’re not alone. Nearby, an older man clears his throat. I pull back a little. I try to give Jesse a stern look, but I end up collapsing into giggles.

  “Sorry,” he whispers. “I felt like I’d never be able to touch you again, and now that I can, I kind of want to do it all the time.”

  The arrival of the train saves me from having to respond to that. We enter the car and find seats at the end of one of the benches. Jesse keeps his fingers wrapped tightly around mine while we’re sitting. A month ago this would’ve made me feel uncomfortable, contained. Tonight I like the feeling of being connected to him.

  We swap trains and get off at Myeong-dong Station. As soon as we duck out of the exit, we can see the mountain Namsan looming, with the observation tower perched at the top.

  “What is that?” Jesse asks. “Namsan Tower?”

  I smile. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I research stuff online.” Jesse is still looking up at the tower. “It kind of looks like a couple of doughnuts threaded onto a spike. Can you actually get up into the round areas?”

  “Only you would compare our most famous landmark to doughnuts,” I say. “But yes, you can go up inside it.”

  “So how do we get up there?”

  I glance around at the various walkways. A few flakes of snow are falling and street vendors parked up on the sidewalks are covering their ware
s with plastic and in some cases packing up to go home. “There’s supposed to be a trail we can follow painted on one of the roads.”

  “We’re walking up there?” Jesse’s voice rises in pitch.

  “Maybe,” I say coyly. “Unless you don’t think you can keep up with me.”

  “Oh, I can keep up,” he says.

  I find the painted yellow line we’re supposed to follow and the two of us start up the steeply angled streets. Jesse struggles a bit with the altitude change, so we keep a slow and steady pace. But then the snow starts to come down harder, making the concrete under our feet slippery and difficult to navigate. It’ll take too long for us to walk up the mountain in these conditions, and by the time we get there, we’ll be too frozen to really enjoy it.

  So after a few more minutes of carefully following the yellow lines painted on the roadways, I pull Jesse off to the right where a concrete building says NAMSAN CABLE CAR.

  “How do you feel about a shortcut?” I arch my eyebrows.

  “A cable car? This late?”

  There’s a dusting of snowflakes on his cheek. I reach out and touch his face, feeling the snow melt under my fingertips. “Yes. It runs until eleven, so worst-case scenario is that we have to walk down the mountain.”

  “What’s inside the tower?” he asks.

  A smile plays at my lips. “Puffer fish.”

  Jesse pokes me in the shoulder. “Funny.”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “All right. Cable car it is.” A snowflake lodges itself in Jesse’s eyelashes and he blinks it away. “After you.”

  The two of us climb up a flight of steps that leads from the street to the building’s entrance. Once inside, we get tickets and wait in a glassed-in area for the car to arrive. The area quickly starts to fill up with tourists, college kids, and the occasional family. I pull Jesse from the bench where we’ve been sitting so we stay close to the front of the line.

  “Trying to get a good seat, huh?” he asks.

  “I don’t think there are seats,” I say. “But I’ve actually never done this before.”

  “Why not?”

  “We never had money for stuff like this.”

  “So then we’re doing something new together.” Jesse wraps his arms around my waist.

  I rest my head against his chest. “We are.” Even though his coat is wet with melted snow, he still manages to feel warm next to me. And safe. Why did I fight this for so long?

  When the cable car arrives, Jesse and I are two of the first to board. We find spots at the back of the enclosure, right up against the glass. I reach out with my sleeve and wipe some smudges away. I pull my phone out and take a picture of the view. The snow is coming down heavier now, bleaching the city a ghostly silver and white.

  The operators manage to fit about sixty people into the small car, which isn’t much bigger than two elevators side by side. Jesse has apparently adjusted to the Korean standard of personal space and doesn’t seem fazed by the family of four pressing up against us, not even the little girl who is hanging on to the knee of his track pants for support.

  He makes a slight ulp sound as the car starts to move, like it’s faster than he was expecting. Then he reaches down and takes my bare fingers in his hand. He lifts them to his lips and blows on them, the heat from his mouth warming my whole body.

  Again, I am overwhelmed by the urge to touch his face, to touch all of him, to kiss him. “I’m trying to get pictures,” I say sternly, taking back my hands and turning to face the glass.

  “What for? You can barely see the city.”

  “But you can still feel it.” Beyond the snowy trees, the endless high-rises of Seoul have faded to a blurry gray shadow, but their presence hasn’t dwindled. Even in the poor visibility, there’s no denying that the city feels like the walls of a fortress, a fortress that is both protecting us and trapping us.

  “And we’ll both have ViSE recordings for that,” I add.

  The cable car shimmies a little and Jesse rests a hand on my lower back to support us both. “Sometimes it’s nice to relive something without even relying on pictures. Just embracing the actual memories, you know?”

  “You’re better at memories than I am,” I say, snapping a picture down the mountain. It’s mostly snow and trees, with a ridge of buildings at the edge of it, but it captures what I’m feeling right now.

  Jesse pulls me completely in front of him and wraps his arms around my waist, bending down to rest his chin on my shoulder. “I want to make a whole bunch of new memories with you,” he murmurs.

  “I’d like that,” I say. And then, as the car begins to slow, I add, “I’m going to make you plan our second date.”

  Jesse presses his lips to my temple. “I don’t know. This one is going to be tough to beat.”

  The cable car shudders to a halt and I press my palm against the glass to steady myself. We wait for everyone else to get out before making our way onto the exit platform. My feet feel unsteady on the slick wood and I grip Jesse’s hand tightly.

  We stand there for a few moments as everyone else hurries off in different directions. A floodlight shines down on us, flecks of snow twisting and writhing in the white light.

  “I love snow,” I say.

  “Good thing, as much of it as we’ve seen this winter.” Jesse’s face brightens. “Winter. That’s a good name for someone who loves snow.”

  I smile. Behind us, the cable car loads up to go back down the mountain. I guide Jesse toward a path leading up to the tower.

  “More stairs,” he says.

  Ahead of us, two high school girls are holding on to each other tightly as they try to climb the icy steps in high-heeled boots. They pause halfway up to take selfies with the tower in the background.

  “It’ll be worth it,” I promise.

  We take the stairs together slowly, Jesse gripping the railing and me gripping Jesse. My face feels like ice by the time we reach the paved area at the top of the hill. There’s a raised platform here with benches and a big circular display where people have locked tiny locks everywhere.

  “Love locks, huh?” Jesse says. “Wow, thousands of them.”

  The locks are all kinds of vibrant colors—reds and greens and teals. The snow is just starting to cover them. I take my phone out and snap a picture. “Rose and I used to talk about coming up here when we were little, leaving a lock for the two of us. But we never got the chance.”

  Jesse sits on a bench and I sit next to him. “They do this in the US too, on bridges mostly. In some places there are so many that they’re weakening the structural integrity. Local governments have had to start cutting them off.”

  “Well, that’s romantic.”

  “It’s a cool gesture, but I never really understood,” he says. “I feel like love is the kind of thing you have to nurture and care for. You can’t just lock it up in some faraway place if you want it to last.”

  I look over at him. “So then you’ve been in love before?”

  Jesse smiles. “You mean besides you?”

  My cheeks, already flushed from the cold, go even redder. “Besides me.”

  He thinks for a moment before speaking. “I’m not sure,” he says. “There was a girl in high school. Amy. We dated for a year and a half. I thought I loved her. But what I feel for you is different.”

  I pull my feet up on the bench and hug my arms around my knees for warmth. A family of four stops to take pictures of the love locks. The older daughter leans in close to read the inscriptions some people have written in marker.

  “Different how?” I ask.

  Jesse exhales a cloudy breath into the cold air. “Caring about her was stressful. I was always trying to keep her from leaving.”

  “And me?” I’m almost afraid to ask.

  “You’re always leaving, but you’re never gone, you know?” He slouches down on the bench and rests his head on my shoulder. “I think everything that’s happened recently has helped me be less selfish when it come
s to love. I’ll be okay if we don’t end up together the way I want. I’m just glad to be part of your life right now. I’m glad for the moments we’ve had.”

  “Really?” I wish I felt like that about Gideon and my sister, like it’s all right that they’re gone, like I’m lucky just to have known them.

  “Really,” Jesse says. And I can tell by his voice that whether or not it’s actually true, he believes it.

  I hop up from the bench and turn to face him. His black coat and hat are lightly dusted with snow, his face red from the cold. I pull my phone out of my pocket. “Say chijeu.”

  “What is that? Cheese?” He strikes a pose as I take a picture of him.

  I laugh as an unfamiliar feeling envelops me. It reminds me of how I felt when I was playing Jesse’s ViSE. I think it might be happiness. I spin a slow circle and then open my mouth to catch a snowflake on my tongue.

  Jesse rises up from the bench. He grins wickedly as he approaches me.

  “What?” I say. “What are you doing?”

  “I was just thinking that I want that snowflake.”

  My grin matches his. “Come and get it.”

  He leans in and kisses me, sweet at first, our faces cold against each other. Then his tongue tastes my bottom lip and my bones go a little wobbly. I grip the fabric of his heavy coat as our kisses grow more intense, the heat of our breath warming our cheeks.

  “All right. I’ve seen enough,” he says between kisses. “Time to go home and do this for the rest of the night.”

  I punch him in the arm. “We’re not finished yet.” Shaking my head, I pull him toward the actual tower, where we buy tickets to the observatory deck.

  We take an elevator to the top and step out into a small observatory area. Below us, the mountainside is rapidly being covered by the snow. Off in the distance, the entire city has disappeared. It’s almost like the tower is in the clouds. Still, there’s something so beautiful about the way the giant flakes of snow take refuge in the feathery green trees, about the way our breath fogs the smudgy glass.