Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance (37 page)

HENRIETTA

My trip to Korea was getting wild. Having gone from a suburbanite to a world-traveler vagabond was a complete 180.

But what could I do anyway?

Trapped on a boat with Jong-soo, Hae-il, and Bit-na—the latter of whom I began to feel significant pity and sorrow for—I had nowhere to go.

“I want to try talking with her again,” I said. “I’m the only other girl here. She may not want to actually talk to me, but I think I can reach her somehow. Eventually.”

“Well, you can think about it over lunch. I’m super hungry. They should be too.”

We walked downstairs, back to the dining room.

It was like night and day: there were now maids servicing the table, placing trays of food across the mahogany color, bananas and oranges and apples and kimchi and rice and octopus and squid and pancakes made from shrimp and crunchy tempura.

Mm!

God, this was something I had not had a long time. I think the last time I tasted kimchi was when I was with Latasha!

Me and Jong-soo immediately grabbed ourselves a couple of seats, sitting down at the opposite end, watching the other people pile on in. Together, we took a plate for Bit-na and Hae-il, pouring on soy sauce and filling up with rice.

“It’ll be a nice gesture for her,” Jong-soo said. “But don’t expect any miracles. What she’s gone through—it’s probably destroyed her from the inside out. I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up hospitalized down the road.”

I glanced at Jong-soo and glared at him. “Don’t say that. I don’t think she’ll end up that bad.”

“I’m just saying,” Jong-soo said, “life on the streets is rough.”

“I may be from America, but I’m not naïve. The United States has really horrible neighborhoods as well. And I’ve been around some of them.”

“You should try telling me a couple of stories later,” Jong-soo said, spanking my thigh when no one was looking. I had to laugh. He fed me a couple of scoops of rice, and then cut me some kimchi to eat. I dunked down so much of my rice and soy sauce, you wouldn’t have believed it.

“I can tell you something right now,” I said. “I can give you a short story.”

“I’d love to hear more about you,” he said. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Well…”

I told Jong-soo all about my days at university. And, unlike other men back in the United States, he wasn’t at all surprised about my college days. In fact, he lauded me for studying art history. “Too many people these days denigrate the arts,” he said.

“That’s how I feel about it too,” I said. “I haven’t had the capacity to make any of my own art in a long while. I wish I had some supplies and materials or something. I could show you so much about my world that way. That’s how I really express myself, through artistic mediums. Mainly by sculpting, although when I was younger, I really liked to paint.”

“In the same way about music,” Jong-soo said. “It really lets you connect with your inner self. To feel like you’re part of a bigger world. I write all the lyrics myself too. Some people are skeptical of that, but man, isn’t there something about communing with your inner self?”

And Latasha thought otherwise.

“Maybe you could write me something?”

He said, “You’re the apple of my eye // Sometimes you get on the wrong track // Not a day goes by // I won’t have your back.”

I laughed. “A little cheesy, but that’s some good rhyme.” Then I said, “You’re right though. When I’m sculpting, I feel something intrinsic within me. Like I’m channeling a spirit out there. Hey, I don’t think I’ve heard you really sing yet. Like a full song.”

“And that’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”

“Pretty much,” Henrietta said. “I guess you do look different after all. When you’re wearing your hair gel, a nice suit, or those high-end clothes, you come across as very sophisticated. I’m not surprised that no one has noticed you like this…”

I looked up and down at his raggedy T-shirt, torn jeans. He was still sexy, and had a muscular frame, but now I could see why he was so confident about walking around in public. And how he had been able to avoid people prying.

“All you have to do is just change the way you talk as well,” he said. “Have you noticed that when I’m on camera, I change my pitch a little bit? I say things in a higher tone. But when I’m with you, I’m natural. I’m myself. When I’m walking on stage, I have to have a swagger, a pretty-boy beauty. But out here—” he flourished his hands around us, to the food, to me “— I’m just as natural as could be. This is my element.”

“Rougher. Gruff. Sexy no matter what.” I laughed. “There must be some sort of alcohol in this drink I’m holding, because I can’t believe I just
said
that.”

Jong-soo shrugged his shoulders, and gave me a boyish smile. “Well, the cat’s out of the bag. You like me!”

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.”