“Mother!” Junyoung exploded. She cowered.
“It smelled disgusting,” she whispered. “And it was dripping wet and covered in dirt. I didn’t think you would be so upset. I’ll buy you a new suitcase.”
“It wasn’t about the fucking suitcase. It was about what was inside!”
“It didn’t look like your things,” she cajoled. “I wouldn’t have thrown it out if I’d known it was important …”
“This is why Abeoji left you.” She stared at him, a choked sob escaping her throat. Junyoung continued. “He left you because you’re stupid. Worthless. You can’t do anything right.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond. Hobbling to his closet, he found a worn pair of jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt, changing into them before limping to the door. His mother was crying. It gave him pleasure to know he could still cut her down. Make her feel small. On the counter next to the door, he spotted his phone peeking out from a bowl of uncooked rice. His mother. Perhaps this gesture should have touched him, but it only made his irritation grow.
Outside, the breeze brushed past him, chilling his sweat-soaked skin. The weather was growing milder. Soon, summer would turn to fall. If he played his cards right, he could be living with Dahye by the end of the year.
He realized he didn’t need the suitcase. He knew what was inside. And if he needed more proof, all he had to do was break into her apartment. Easy.
He gave his phone a little shake and watched as the screen lit up. At least his mother had managed to do one thing right. He called a taxi, inputting Dahye’s address. A few minutes later, the taxi appeared, slowing to a stop in front of him. Junyoung climbed into the back seat, listening absentmindedly to the radio. A woman’s voice crackled through the speakers.
Authorities are requesting anyone with information about the whereabouts of Jang Hyukjoon, 29, son of YS Media Group CEO Jang Insu, to come forward. Jang Hyukjoon went missing on the night of August 14th and was last seen by his fiancée, Lee Seoyeon. In a press conference earlier this morning, the elder Jang stated, “If anybody has any information about Hyukjoon’s whereabouts, I beg them to comeforward. Hyukjoon is our loved and cherished son. We miss him very much and are praying for his safe return.”
The driver lowered the volume, muttering just loudly enough for Junyoung to hear. “These rich assholes. Wasting everybody’s time and money. I bet the bastard went on a bender. He’s probably naked in some club with a bunch of hookers and drugs.” He slammed his fist against the dashboard and glared at Junyoung in the rearview mirror as though daring him to disagree. Junyoung looked away.
The name was familiar to him. He remembered, vaguely, that this Jang Hyukjoon had come up while he was searching for something else. What had it been? He closed his eyes, trying to visualize the memory. His unexpected dunk in the river had made his brain cloudy. Then it came to him: Dahye’s screaming voice on the phone. She had been under the impression that he, Junyoung, was this Hyukjoon person.
Was it possible that she had been talking about the same Hyukjoon as the one in the news? Had she killedtheJang Hyukjoon?
It didn’t make sense, but the timing matched. There had been an initial news story involving Jang Hyukjoon around the time Dahye had stopped coming to work. And August 14th—Junyoung counted on his fingers—had been the day he had seen her with the strange man.
Junyoung pulled up Hyukjoon’s picture on his phone. The man’s face seemed familiar, but Junyoung wasn’t completely certain he recognized him. He scrolled to the news articles at the bottom of the page. The most recent were about Hyukjoon’s disappearance; the others were about his engagement. Junyoung had to go several pages back before finding the ones about hismolka scandal. He tapped on the first link, and a screenshot appeared. It had been taken from one of the leaked videos. The woman was blurred entirely, but the background was still visible, and in the corner of the grainy image, Junyoung saw what appeared to be a pink pair of panties.
Dumbstruck, Junyoung paused, his thumb hovering over the screen. Over the past few weeks, he had been rewatching the old bathroom footage he had of Dahye, and he recognized the panties instantly.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the nosy taxi driver said, watching him from the rearview mirror.
You’re back,” Lisa said, smiling, though it didn’t quite meet her eyes. “After the last time, we weren’t sure if we would see you again.”
“Sorry,” Dahye mumbled, suddenly embarrassed. She looked around. Today, it was just Lisa, Jin, and Haneul. Without Hara’s loud voice filling the room, it seemed oddly empty. “It’s just that—”
Jin gave her a nonchalant wave. “You don’t owe us any explanation. We’re just glad to see you again.”
Dahye took a seat. “Where’s Hara?” she asked, looking at each of them in turn. The women’s faces darkened, and Dahye’s heart sank. “Did … did something happen to her?” she asked weakly.
Lisa cleared her throat. “She posted a fake warning online claiming she had planted cameras in all the men’s restrooms at her university,” she finally said. “Someone saw it and notified the police, and a search was conducted. It wasn’t real, of course,but they tracked her down anyway.” She looked down at her lap. “Hara is in jail now, awaiting trial.”
“What?” Dahye spluttered. “They sent her tojail? For what? If there were no cameras—”
“It doesn’t matter. Do you think they care?” Jin said quietly, interrupting her. “When men do things to hurt us—post our naked bodies online without our consent, rape us, whatever—they shrug their shoulders and look the other way.”
Lisa and Haneul nodded. Dahye stared at them dumbly. Hara, a nineteen-year-old university student who, despite the sadness in her eyes, had joked about her life being ruined. She thought about Eunhye at seventeen, so young that she couldn’t yet drink, smoke, or drive, all alone on the bridge. Suddenly, a white-hot rage overtook Dahye, and she stood abruptly, pushing her chair back from the table. The legs scraped loudly against the floor.
“Then what’s the point of all this? The protests, meeting here every week, these fucking kits—” Dahye snatched one of the pencil cases from the table, giving it a hard shake. The top popped off. Everything inside went flying. She blinked, and the dizzying smell of Hyukjoon’s blood returned to her. His moans. Eunhye’s eerie laughter.
Please let me go. Please. I won’t say anything.
“What else are we supposed to do?” Lisa asked, her voice low. “Are we supposed to do nothing? We do what we can. We help each other. We give each other hope. We move forward, no matter how small the step.”
“Fuck that,” Dahye said. A fire was blazing in her chest. “Fuck having hope. Fuck waiting for the government to do the right thing. What Hara did was right. When they make the rules, we have to beat them at their own game.”
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