Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance (43 page)

JONG-SOO

We stepped out of the room, Henrietta and I not knowing exactly how we had gotten so carried away.

We stumbled out, following Bit-na’s shadow. She had not walked too far—only down the hallway, where she was still in shock, her eyes wide open, her mouth hanging.

“You guys are together,” Bit-na said. “So it’s official?”

“We couldn’t find you before,” I said.

“I’m not angry,” Bit-na said. “So don’t be so defensive. I’ve never wanted you like that. It’s okay.”

We stood there in the hallway, awkwardly staring at one another.

I’m pretty sure Bit-na could smell the scent of sex on our skins.

Embarrassing but what could we do?

“I don’t want to intrude on you guys,” Bit-na said. “I’m focused on my mission. What I have to do. If you guys want to do something else, then that’s fine.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant the mission—were we not supposed to go along anymore?—or if she was talking about the sex.

“Don’t you want us to go with you to get Oh-seong?” I said.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Bit-na said. “I don’t know if you guys really want to go through with it. I could kill him myself. And then just die in his room. I know his guards would kill me. I would get shot, and so with the other Yakuza.”

She looked crestfallen, downtrodden. As if someone had just run over her legs, broken them, and then left her to die.

Henrietta said, “I don’t think you’re going to have to walk this path alone. We’ll be with you. So please, don’t fret. I’ve got you. I said I did, and I do.”

“I…”

Bit-na slowly lowered herself to the ground. Her ass touched the floor, and she turned her head over her knees, her eyes on her kneecaps, rubbing, tears falling.

Henrietta knelt down next to her, and so did I.

What to do?

When it came to comforting people, I did not know how exactly.

Not that I didn’t feel bad for her. I did. But I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries.

“I have a mission,” Bit-na said, raising her head, her eyes puffy. “And I’m going to carry it out all the way.”

“We’ll be with you,” Henrietta said.

“I just struggle to get that concept,” she said. “Will you really walk with me?”

Henrietta and I exchanged a look. We nodded, hugging her.

“We’re going to take him down,” I said. “We’re going to take him out and end the gangs in Korea. No more will anyone have to struggle under the brutality of Oh-seong’s kingdom.”

People definitely fell on hard times. And maybe I still didn’t mind if people stole here and there—but what Oh-seong was doing, murdering people, assassinations, sexual assault…

None of that was tolerable anymore. I could not stand to see him be the number one ruler of gangs in Korea.

“I’m getting so nervous,” Bit-na said. “We’re only hours away from hitting Fukuoka. Once we get there, we have to go strong, and get everything ready and in proper order. I’ve only got so much time to contact the Yakuza. And then you guys have to prepare your game plan.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“I’m sorry I can’t let you go,” Bit-na said. “I don’t want to snitching on us, Henrietta. I know that sounds petty, and maybe that hurts you, but I can’t trust too many people.”

“I’ve been good about protecting Henrietta,” I said. “Why don’t you hire the best Yakuza you can. Use up all of your money. I think that would make Henrietta and me feel a lot more comfortable.”

Bit-na sniffed. “I’m going to use all of it. This is it! After this, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, but I want to see that man torn down. Oh-seong to struggle right before me.”

We pulled Bit-na up onto her feet, and then we walked to the main deck, where she could get some tissues for her eyes.

Once she was cleaned up, it was time to get our things from the room. I dredged them up from the closet, then came to the top deck, where the fishermen waved us off. We thanked them for taking us in and giving us a ride, then we hopped over into Japan.

“Let’s get ourselves a hotel first,” I said. “And then we can start preparing.”

PART V

HENRIETTA

Because we wanted to save our money for the Yakuza, we had to stay in one of those cheapo hotels with bedbugs.

It honestly looked scary, very run down with grime all over the walls, and sheets that seemed like they had not been washed in years.

They were yellow, crusty by the foot of the bed, and not at all comfortable to sit on.

Not that I wanted to anyway.

“Here we are,” Jong-soo said, bringing back in the luggage bag we had bought so seemingly long ago. “We’re going to be inside this beauty again. And then Bit-na only has to be the lure for us.”

Bit-na was outside in the hallway, pacing back and forth, talking. Few people wanted to stay at this hotel, so we had pretty much the run of the entire building.

No matter where we went, there were empty hallways, no one else around.

Bit-na came back in the room at around noon time, smiling. Strangely enough, she held all of her money out as if they were coming over at any moment.

“Prepare yourselves,” she said, now walking around the room. “Because they’re coming, and we need to be absolutely ready for their audience.”

When the men came—there were four of them—they arrived well-dressed, well-heeled.

You would not have even expected them to be the type of men who were gang members. Running a criminal organization. With nice silk ties running down their throats, and dress shoes that shimmered in the light—I thought they might be handsome investment bankers instead.

But no, they showed us their tattoos, and they were just as striking as Jong-soo’s.

Bit-na spoke to them, in Korean, and told them the offer.

These gang members were some of the lowest level, and felt like they were being cheated. They were not getting paid their fair share, nor were they really anywhere near seniority.

They might have been even kicked out if it were not for this opportunity.

“Oh-seong is really angry about you running away,” one of the men said. “Almost everyone has heard of it by now. The Queen, the Empress leaving him. He’s so embarrassed, he wants you dead.”

Bit-na sat down on the bed, crossing her legs, counting up some cash.

“I’ve told you my deal,” she said. “I didn’t ask you to come here and tell me rumors. What will it be? Are you guys in or out?”

JONG-SOO

The men seemed nervous at first, but then they counted the money in Bit-na’s hand and they agreed.

We would commit a Trojan horse act against Oh-seong.

His entire world was about to come crumbling down onto him.

For abusing people.

For abusing women, in particular.

I wanted to see him dead and down.

“This is exciting,” I said, rubbing Henrietta’s shoulder. Hey, she might not have been a Korean gangster, but she was getting used to the world here. “Now we have our way in. And we only have to take him out.”

One of the men said, “I don’t know if it’s safe for you guys to stay here too long. Oh-seong has been searching Korea, China, and Japan for your asses. He wants all of you dead.”

“Even me?” Henrietta said.

The man stared at her. “Even you. You were supposed to make a statement, but then you were released. Now, in order to save face, he wants you dead as well.”

Henrietta shook her head. “That’s one hell of a bastard.”

“We can take you to a safe house,” one of the men said, “instead of this old dump. You’re definitely not going to last if he finds you in here.”

So we gathered ourselves up, got all of our things, and then went downstairs to the ground level of the hotel.

We piled into a black van, chic and tinted, and pulled away from the road, speeding down a highway, for the horizon and whatever else lay beyond.

“What made you guys want to talk to me?” Bit-na said, once we were all in the back, strapped in. “I’m surprised I was able to get you guys to peel away.”

“Yes,” the man driving said. “They never want to let anyone take control of situations without micromanaging our every movement. They’ve got everything down to a T—which works—if you’re the kind of person who likes to take orders from people above you. Besides, none of us wanted to become career Yakuza. We sort of fell into it.”

Like I expected anywhere.

People normally didn’t join gangs because they wanted to, but because they lacked the options for any other avenue.

Society had been unable to capture them properly, or maybe they made bad choices, or maybe it was a little bit of both.

Regardless, they had fallen into a pit that was difficult to get out.

Knowing how much money we had paid them, they would be able to restart their lives over.

So it was no surprise to me why they had agreed at all.

After about thirty minutes of driving through Fukuoka’s main business district, we landed in an area with upscale condominiums.

The men got out of the van, and then escorted us up several stories, all the way until we reached the third level.

The room we were shown was large and spaced out, with a panoramic view of the city skyline.

I walked over to the windows, drawing my hands down the length of the shades, fingering them.

Fine silk, clearly imported.

Lovely.

“This is a great place you’ve got here,” I said. “
I wish
.”

Henrietta came to my side, looking over the streets below. “If I still had my phone, I would take a picture and send it back home.”

“You haven’t mentioned them much,” I said, holding her shoulder. “When we get out of here, you’ll have to introduce me.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Henrietta said, laughing.

Bit-na came to our sides, and then the rest of the men did as well

“We will only need maybe a day or so before we go and execute our plan,” she said. “I don’t want to wait too long. Because if we hold out here, like they said, Oh-seong can get us. So we need to lay low, but act fast.”

“Twenty-four hours sounds good,” I said.

Henrietta said nothing, although she nodded. “We’ve got to do what we have to. Oh-seong’s going down.”

HENRIETTA

“I’m going to take a breather,” Bit-na said, as the men left. We would meet them tomorrow, in the dark of night. “You two can have the room to yourselves.”

Once everyone was out, Jong-soo and I were left to our own devices. But we did not want to have sex, not with what we had to do soon enough.

“If I had only lost my laptop, then I would still be able to call people. But I never realized how having everything stripped from you—your passport, your phone, your near damn identity—really can change things. They’re stuff that I take for granted every single day of my life back home.”

“See, you’re learning already.” He rubbed my back, sending down waves of pleasure across my spine. “How about we go take our own walk?”

We walked out together, down the sleek and white hallways, for the ground level, where we joined the rest of the foot traffic.

In only a couple of moments, we were swallowed up by hurried businessmen, women in with long flowing dresses, tons of people moving this way and that.

Officials in cars, jaywalkers, birds eating food that old ladies gave them.

It was so strange, living normal life like this, with Jong-soo next to my side, knowing what we knew.

“You see why I’ve never gone and bothered with the police?” Jong-soo said. “I’ve always been able to deal with things with my own hands. It may not always be the legal way, but once you learn the ropes, there’s nothing to be scared of. You only defend yourself if need be, and that’s it.”

“That’s how my friend did as well,” I said. “Latasha. I miss her a lot.”

But having Jong-soo by me had become a necessity.

He was my anchor in the world of Asia, the guy who had shown me everything, and who had defended me.

What kinds of other guys had I met in the United States?

Lots of fuckboys who didn’t know their ass from their nose.

I was tired of having to deal.

With Jong-soo, I had a real man by my side, who would defend me through thick and thin.

All of those stereotypes about Eastern men in the West? So wrong.

“Are you nervous?” I said.

And like clockwork, Jong-soo said, “I’m not at all. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for all of my life.”

“I’ll admit that I’m scared,” I said. Hell, I was about to go back to the man who abducted me. To the people who wielded guns like nothing. Who could’ve easily killed me—if it were not for my Superman of a guy, Jong-soo. “I know you have my back,” I added. “With you guys by my side, I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”

“You just keep your eyes closed. If you ever have to open them, just remember to look at me. I’ll be right by your side, always.”

“I can handle myself, I think. To an extent, from what I’ve learned in America. But you’re right, if I ever get too scared, I’ll always have my eye candy.”

Jong-soo looked around, waiting for a moment to slap my ass.

Then he said, “I don’t want you to be too distracted, now.”

He slowly pushed me into the direction of a large park, with green grass, verdant trees, and a beautiful canopy filled with sunshine pouring through the leaves.

For a moment, everything felt so normal.

Like we were really a couple back home in Nebraska, and then we ran, ran and laughed.

Our arms wrapped around each other, Jong-soo quickly lifting me up into the air.

I threw my hands above me, remembering what it was like to be next to Latasha in her car, listening to music. God, I even missed my father. My dad, whose voice I needed to hear again.

Just for normality’s sake.

“Not anything to worry about at all,” Jong-soo said, popping me down onto a bench. Sure, many people were staring at us—it was because of our race, I could tell by the way they looked—but they were polite to glance away afterwards. The typical Japanese courtesies at play.

“Could you imagine living here?” Jong-soo said. “Around all these beautiful trees, the sea nearby. Fukuoka does not get as many earthquakes as Tokyo does. Other parts of the country are pretty dangerous—you can get smushed—but here? Lots of families live out their lives in retirement, health, in their 30s and beyond.”

“It’s sure beautiful,” I said. “Hey, what about that Kyung-joon fellow? Weren’t you supposed to call him back?”

“It might be too dangerous now to buy a cell phone,” Jong-soo said. “We’ve been keeping a good underground track record. I think we should keep it that way, unless we need to really get out of the country. He’ll be our getaway card, if anything. I imagine that he can get us more fake passports, and then good deals on airliners.”

“Keeping your ace in the hole,” I said. “Got you.”

Jong-soo leaned his head against me, brandishing his arm to the sky. “Fuck yeah,” he said, “look at this all. It’s all for us, babe. All of it, once we take out Oh-seong, once he goes down.”

“I wonder how someone can become so cruel,” I said. “Can you imagine growing up with that kind of lifestyle? It’s just so hard. Hurt people hurt people.”

“I know what you mean,” Jong-soo said, rubbing my stomach. “Future generations need to get more peaceful. If we’re ever going to advance as a society.”

“Definitely,” I said.

We sat there in the park for what seemed like hours, watching the sky change colors, slowly over time, before we had to head home, back to Bit-na.