Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance (14 page)

Not that I had much to lose in those days anyway.

“It’s really kind of a personal thing,” she said. “But I’m in a storytelling mood right now. A very chatty mood.

“So, I was sitting down one day. And I noticed a man down in Gangnam. You know that district right? They’ve made music videos about it. So much fabulousness, so much glamour and Hollywood allure. Plastic surgery and the grandeur of life itself. Tourists come from all over Asia to get work done, and not just on their cheeks. But businessmen, sexy ones, the ones with money. You know so many men around Korea just don’t have what it takes to pay for what I want in life.”

She turned her eyes aside to some of the other men in the room. They adjusted their ties some more, glancing over at Bit-na, as if they had a chance. Even if some of them were muscular to boot, they did not possess what she had in mind as success.

“I spent a lot of days studying at a local university for cosmetology. It doesn’t pay, let me tell you that. And then after I graduated, I thought to myself, what can I do? So I went into retail. What else could I possibly have that would be valuable to society. Customer service is a dime a dozen. Everyone can smile and pretend to like you. It’s meeting someone genuine that’s difficult and hard.”

“Yeah,” I said, edging closer along the couch. I felt like I was making a good connection with her. An “in” if you will. With her on my side, I could do nearly anything I wanted. I just had to convince her. “Tell me more. This is interesting.”

Bit-na smirked. She drew hair between her lips, spitting it out and sputtering her mouth like a child. “Listen,” she said, “I spent a lot of time getting yelled at by random people. People with all sorts of ridiculous problems, like not knowing how to turn on their own computers, and then blaming me for it. Or yelling at me over the phone because of a late shipment from a third party dealer. Like I’m supposed to know anything about that.

“It’s too bad. Society could be so much more.” With a sigh, Bit-na tilted her head, glancing over at the sandwiches. “Here, have another bite. There you go. Like I was saying, I would get yelled at all day long, in the mornings, in the afternoons. People hated me for my very existence as a sales associate at the store. Did I tell you I had multiple jobs? That’s what drove me insane the most. I had so many jobs. Two, sometimes three just to stay afloat. The living standards can be so harsh here in Korea. Or really anywhere, if you don’t have a job that takes you far away and makes you a lot of money.”

“Why far away?”

“I like to travel. I’m used to having novelty. I like having different people in my life. It makes everything that more exciting.”

I nodded. “Being with the same old same old can get harrowing and boring, can’t it?”

“It can.” Bit-na pressed the sandwich against my lips again, opening my mouth and then closing it around the center. “You’re not going to survive what they’re going to do to you.”

“So why don’t you let me go?” I whispered. I wanted to keep at this, continuously pleading. “You could run away with me. You know where my networks are. Where everything is.”

“Hae-il? And the rest of your crew?”

“Yes,” I said. “You know where they are. You know—”

Someone banged on the door, a hard fist slamming against wood. I turned my head to see who it was. The men in suits and the women in skirts ran over, lining up as if to greet a king.

“See who it is,” Bit-na said, casually.

Yet another man in the suit and tie walked on through. But he was different than the rest. You could see muscles rippling underneath his shirt. He had a streak of blonde like a lightning bolt through his hair. And his shoes, they were large, his feet oversized. He would be difficult to take down alone, standing at over 6 feet in height. Right around my own head.

“Our informant is here,” Bit-na said. “Kyung-min, it’s good to see you again.”

“I’m happy to be here,” Kyung-min said, kissing her on the cheek. “I take it this is our little prisoner?”

“This is him,” she said. “You will be a hero, Kyung-min.”

I saw what was going on. They did indeed have moles in the Korean government. Moreover, with this Kyung-min man, they would be able to have the accolades of capturing me, a suspected criminal, but without revealing themselves as Twin Swords. Kyung-min would be an unassuming regular guy, a normal citizen doing his duty for the country.

Fairly ingenious. I had to hand it to Oh-seong and the Twin Swords.

“Let’s get him in cuffs,” Kyung-min said. I realized then that the men and women around us weren’t there for the meeting, but scouting out the premises for any sort of backup from the government.

Everything very clandestine. Secretive.

Very ingenious.

“I’ll get them from upstairs,” Bit-na said. “You arrived so early, we didn’t even need to put him up there.” Her heels clanged on upstairs. Some of the men and women went outside to prepare the van to take me back to the capital. And then from there…

I would be part of a real prison complex. Jailed for life. Possibly. I don’t know. There would be lots of questions, journalists asking me on and on and on about who I was, and who I knew.

It would never end.

Kyung-min lifted me from the couch, putting me right against his shoulder. I had a spurt of adrenaline running through my veins.

Now.

Soon.

I would have to make my getaway.

I couldn’t wait much longer.

Because once I reached the capital, that would be it. I couldn’t make a fuss out in public where everyone could see me. Here in the countryside, no one cared. I could run as far as I wanted, get a boat across for Japan.

If I stayed quiet.

If I found Hae-il.

Bit-na came back down, carrying a heavy set of cuffs. She wrapped them around my hands, but as she put them by my wrists, she slipped a rectangular object in my palm. She pressed my hands closed, quickly.

A pocket knife? That’s what it felt like. The kind you might get at Boy Scouts. I closed my eyes, and then glanced at her.

“We’ll need to move quickly,” Bit-na said. “Everyone, secure the building.”

The women and men went to standard positions north, south, west, and the east, right by the house itself, and then 5 m out, and then 10 m out. They formed concentric circles, wrapping around the clearing in their formal attire, looking so prim and proper, but ready to kill all the same.

Bit-na and Kyung-min walked down with me along the dirt road again. It was like we had just passed a checkpoint, making our way through points A, point B, heading towards point C.

I got why she didn’t want to take out Kyung-min himself. Because if I did it, then I would succeed and free her. But if I failed, no one would suspect her of betraying the Twin Swords. She had a lot to gain by joining me—or else she would not have given me the knife. There was something she knew that I didn’t, that something inspiring hope in me.

An escape plot. A way out of the misery I had been jailed in.

That she too was trapped in.

I just knew it: no girl would be happy like that.

“Can you take me back?” Bit-na said to Kyung-min. “Just drop me off halfway and I can walk the rest or something.”

He turned around to face her. He wiped sweat off his eyebrows, and then grinned. “I’d love to take you back.”

Deadly.

She knew what she was doing.

“Lovely,” she said. “I’ll just go sit in the van for a moment, it’s really hot.”

She ran ahead of us, although she turned around to catch a pair of keys Kyung-min threw at her. She started up the van, turning on the air conditioning, presumably.

Kyung-min tugged me along, just as Oh-seong had done. He did not have the same kind of cruelty in his act though. His hands were gentle, soft. Like he didn’t want to have to do what he was doing.

But at the end of the day, like I said, people get caught up in bad situations.

A man like Kyung-min? No different than any other in my own organization of the Double Dragons.

Once we walked up to the new van, Kyung-min slid me into the back. Bit-na came out from the passenger’s seat, saying, “It’s so hot out.”

Casual.

Like nothing was going on.

Then Bit-na pulled me into the back of the van. They shut the door, and I rested on my side.

The pocketknife still in my hands.

I flipped it open, and felt the blade’s end.

Enough to puncture a throat. To cut skin. To wrangle down and kill.

If only I could get out of my cuffs. But how?

Kyung-min went around the van, going to the driver seat. Bit-na quickly got back into the passenger seat, tossing me a key.

Extremely quickly. Like a flash of fire flickering on a candle wick.

“Do what you want,” she mumbled. When Kyung-min stepped in, she said, “I’m ready for this ride. It’s going to be a good one.”

With the engine growling, we lurched off the dirt road. The Twin Swords had taken every precaution, but they had trusted Bit-na too much. She had some sort of sway over Oh-seong, maybe she poisoned him into too much trust, maybe she tricked Hyun-jun and he was in cahoots. No matter, I would figure out all of the details much later. But those were my guesses.

Twisting over slightly in the back of the van, I wrangled with the key in my free palm. Using my fingers, I managed to slip the key in. Of course, I couldn’t really see anything. And it felt like hours had passed before the key actually went through the hole.

When it did, I groped around for the cuff latch, and thought about what to do next. I couldn’t just free myself and not have a plan.

As the van roved on, thoughts percolated in my mind about what to do. I could jump him. I could swing the knife right into the back of his neck. I could signal Bit-na with my eyes. She kept looking at me, glancing over for some sign that I had gotten free.

Sly, like a fox.

This Bit-na chick was much more than I thought.

“Oh really?” she said. She had been busying Kyung-min with conversation. I did not know what they were talking about. It did not interest me. “That’s really funny…”

I slipped the latch down, pulling my first wrist free. I barely made any moves to alert Kyung-min. He too was watching me, but had distractions flying all over his brain. Every facet of him consumed by Bit-na.

She looked at me again, and I flashed my free hand. Then I turned over to my side, the cuff slouching off my body.

I faced Bit-na now. Time slowed down. To a crawl, the world came.

The trees outside, nothing more than a blur.

What I could do now was kill Kyung-min. And get us out of here.

The pocketknife came out easily enough. I practically slit my wrist on the edge of the blade.

Bit-na glanced at me one last time, her eyes looking at the wheel.

Someone would have to stop the car while I handled Kyung-min.

And all in one motion, I jumped forward, taking the dagger in my hands, and driving it down into Kyung-min’s back. He screamed, swerving off the road, but Bit-na gripped the wheel before it could drive us all into a tree. She corrected the trajectory, not at all making a sound, like a ninja, working in tandem with what she knew best.