Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance (27 page)

“Are you changing your mind?” I said. “Have I convinced you of anything?”

There were cracks appearing in Kyung-joon’s story. Cracks in his life becoming so apparent. So, his stable hospital job was nothing more than a ruse for his own comfort, his own self-conscious appearance. He wanted to display, as in Korean society, the idea of a man who had a job and money coming in.

All a mirage.

“I’ll think about it for now,” Kyung-joon said, handing over a box of Band-Aids and antiseptics. I stuffed them into my pockets, handed some over for Henrietta to handle as well. “I’ll give you my personal cell phone number so that you can always reach me. But if I have to destroy my cell phone—here, give me your number.”

I had not been carrying a cell phone because I did not want to get tracked down by the police.

It was too dangerous these days, in the twenty-first century, where everyone could see you no matter where you were.

Just too dangerous.

“Give me your number for now,” I said, “and I’ll call you up later when I find myself a good safe place to be in. It’s just too dangerous while I’m on the road.”

Kyung-joon nodded, and then he turned for the door. “I can give you a medicine bag for your travels. Just stay in here for a bit.”

The hairs on my forearms prickled, and I got a wave of goosebumps as he left the room. His dress shoes cracked across the tile flooring. His hospital job was a ruse, so was this getting me a hospital bag one as well?

Was he going to come back into the room with policemen ready to arrest me?

I wouldn’t have been surprised, considering he had nothing to lose. All he had to do was send me in for a ransom, and then pick up his money at the bank.

Henrietta held my arm, touching my bicep, feeling for my bruises.

She went up and down the length of my chest, and then felt for my cuts. Her soft and gentle eyes—hazel like coffee—had a sensitivity to them, a longing, a worry. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry too.”

“I thought I told you not to feel bad anymore,” I said. “Shouldn’t my body language have told you that last night?”

“I feel survivor’s guilt,” she said. “Like I shouldn’t be alive. All of those people back in the house—they died in a huge blaze. And we made out like bandits with our lives in full. Should we have? Were they really bad people? I mean, I’ve known people back in old neighborhoods where I come from in America, in Lincoln, Nebraska. That’s where I call home. And I know people who come from rough neighborhoods, who fall on rough times. There are people who have to do drugs to make a living, slinging them on the streets. Prostituting themselves as single mothers. And then they have so many kids, they have so many kids.”

She was tearing up now, staring at my wounds that would scar. At my body that was so battered up, with damage, with hate from another man—Oh-seong—who we had to track down now, or who I had to track down now, after me and Henrietta departed.

“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.”

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?”