Dahye reached down and picked up her jeans, which were in a crumpled heap on the floor. The denim stuck to her damp thighs as she slipped them over her feet. Her underwear was missing—Hyukjoon had thrown them somewhere in the heat of the moment—but she figured she could look for them later. “I’ll think about it.”
“Think hard, young lady. But don’t take too long. You know I don’t like to wait.”
She put her mouth close to his ear. “A thousand times yes,” she whispered. “You’re so good to me, Oppa.”
“I try,” he mumbled.
“Come on. Let’s get you home. I know you have an early day tomorrow.”
“You don’t need to make up an excuse to get rid of me,” Hyukjoon said, though he was grinning. “I get it.” He lifted his hands, his palms facing her. “You’ve had your way with me, and now you’re done.”
They drove past her apartment twice. “Stop it!” Dahye said, giving him a playful smack. “I have to get to bed, and so do you. We both have work tomorrow.”
When he finally stopped in front of the correct building, she got out and watched him drive away, the roar of the BMW’s engine still audible in the distance. The moon was a slivered almond in the cloudless sky. She could no longer see Hyukjoon’s car, but she stood there, lingering. Already she missed him. If she had the ability, she would have fused their bodies together so they would never have to be apart.
In just a few months, he had changed the trajectory of her life. She barely recognized the person she used to be—the quiet, uncertain girl who had always been in her sister’s shadow. That version of Dahye had disappeared. Now, she saw herself as someone worthy of love. Hyukjoon had made her believe it.
The lights in her apartment were off, but Dahye didn’t want to go up right away. Feeling restless, she sat on the curb.
Lost in thought, she glanced down at the street in front of her. Wet footprints glowed on the asphalt. Dahye frowned, leaning forward to take a better look, then turned her head uptoward the sky. It was clear. No clouds. No sign of rain. Outside of the footprints, the ground was dry. Who could possibly be walking around barefoot at this hour, and soaking wet at that?
The back of her neck prickled. She turned her head. The sidewalk was empty, and she was alone. So why did it feel like someone was watching her?
A few weeks back, she had seen articles about a woman who had been stabbed to death in a public restroom. The thought of it—and the wide-open space behind her—made her throat constrict. Abruptly, she got to her feet, her heart clanging in her chest, and walked briskly toward the building’s entrance, one hand shoved inside her purse. Her keys were tangled somewhere at the bottom. Dahye swore under her breath, rummaging through the sea of loose pens, lip balms, lipsticks, and hair ties. She shook the bag violently. From somewhere inside, the keys jingled. She reached toward the sound and felt something cold brush against her back. She looked up.
In the glass, she saw her pale reflection. Her wide, frightened eyes. And then she saw the woman. Standing right behind her.
Dahye screamed. Whipped around.
There was nobody there.
She pressed her hand against her chest, breathing hard, eyes darting across the sidewalk. She was alone.
“Enough,” she said to herself sternly. Even as a child, her mother had often said her imagination was “out of control.” Dahye opened her purse wide, shining her phone’s flashlight inside, and stopped. Her keys, which she had been unable to find just moments ago, were sitting neatly at the top of the clutter in her bag.
“Weird,” she mumbled.
As she picked them up, she noticed something was stuck to the bottom of the bag. Dahye carefully picked up the oblongobject and brought it close to her face. She blinked. It was a long, French-manicured press-on nail, the underside still covered in a sticky residue.
Her own nails were short and unpolished. She didn’t wear press-ons, and neither did Bora, or any of their other friends. Where had it come from? She thought back to where she had been that day. She had taken the subway to work, and then Hyukjoon had picked her up in his car, and they had gone to the restaurant together. Her pulse quickened. She shook her head.
“Work,” she said aloud. “It must have happened at work.”
Without a second look, she flung it into the bushes next to the door.
+
“You are the luckiest bitch alive!” Bora shrieked. Dahye winced, pulling the phone away from her ear. “What are you going to wear? How are you going to do your makeup? And your hair? Oh my god. What if you run into Lee Eunkyung and the two of you become best friends?” She stopped abruptly. “You wouldn’t choose Lee Eunkyung over me, would you?”
“Be realistic,” Dahye said. “Anyway, I’m going to wear that dress I bought for the work holiday party last year—”
“If you wear that dress to Namu, I will literally show up at the restaurant and kill you,” Bora said with complete sincerity. “You need something modern and stylish. Something that says, ‘I come here all the time,’ so if you get caught in any paparazzi pictures, you won’t be embarrassed. We’ll have to go shopping.”
“Bora,” Dahye protested. “There aren’t going to be any paparazzi pictures. Plus, I don’t want to go shopping. I want to wear what I have already.” She wrenched open her closet door, and a tangled mess of sweaters and shirts spilled out. On theother side, Eunhye’s clothes hung neatly, untouched. A faint, musty odor emanated from them …
They had shared this closet throughout their childhood, and it had been the subject of many arguments. On one occasion, Eunhye had dragged all of Dahye’s clothes out before throwing them to the floor.
“Your stuff is taking up all the space,” Eunhye snapped. She disappeared, leaving Dahye to stare at the pile at her feet. A few moments later, she returned with a tape measure. “See?” Eunhye measured the closet perfectly to the halfway point, then said, “Anything you put in here that passes this line”—She patted a spot on the wall—“will be thrown out.”