Chapter 10 #2
There was nothing from Hyukjoon. She closed out of the messages without responding and dialed his number.
This time, instead of going straight to voicemail, it rang once and stopped, and she was met with silence.
Confused, Dahye stared at her phone. She tried again.
The same thing happened. She got to her feet, swaying, trying to understand what it meant.
“Miss? Are you okay?”
“I’m leaving,” Dahye muttered. “As soon as my phone is charged.”
“Yes, of course. You don’t have to leave right away,” the receptionist said. He seemed apologetic. Lowering his voice, he continued, “Do you need a ride somewhere? My wife works nearby. She could come and walk you to the subway station …?”
Dahye stared at him, confused by his kindness. Then, remembering the way he had looked at her the previous night—the sympathy evident in his eyes—she unplugged her phone charger and stood up. Did he think she was some poor girl Hyukjoon had picked up at a club? Or worse?
“I’m fine,” she replied curtly. She walked out of the lobby.
It was mid-July, and it was humid outside. Dahye stood on the sidewalk, looking around. Where could she go now? Going home was out of the question. She couldn’t face her parents now, after everything that had happened.
Her phone had only charged to four percent.
She had maybe ten minutes before it died again, and she was a mess, still wearing the dress from last night.
She had no shoes besides the Louboutins.
She hadn’t brushed her teeth. Her mouth felt like it was coated in a layer of fur.
She wondered what the weather was like in New York, and when she looked at her phone to check, she saw that Bora had called again.
How much longer could she ignore her life?
Forever, if it meant she would get Hyukjoon back.
But seeing as he wasn’t answering, and she had nowhere to go, she returned her best friend’s call. Bora answered on the first ring, her voice flooded with relief. “Dahye! Where are you? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. I’m at the Park Hyatt. My phone was dead. Actually, it’s about to die again. I wasn’t able to charge it last night.”
“Stay where you are. I’m coming to get you.”
“No—” Dahye started to say. Sillim-dong, where she and Bora both lived, was far. It would take her at least thirty minutes by subway.
“Stay where you are,” Bora repeated. “Don’t do anything drastic.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Dahye said, only to realize that Bora had already hung up. She wanted to leave, but Bora wouldn’t answer the phone. Now Dahye was stuck. She watched as her screen went black.
The receptionist appeared and waved in her direction. “Miss?”
“I said I’m fine,” Dahye said hastily. “My friend is coming to get me.”
“That’s not why I came out,” he said. “We found this in the room.”
In his outstretched hand was Hyukjoon’s black monogrammed Louis Vuitton wallet. She took it. “Thank you.”
He bowed before walking back inside.
The wallet contained a single credit card, faded receipts, six fifty thousand won notes, and Hyukjoon’s driver’s license.
The picture was a few years old, and Hyukjoon looked young.
His hair was much shorter now. She felt a painful squeeze in her chest. She sat on the curb and stared at it in a daze until a little less than a half hour later, when a taxi came screeching to a stop in front of the hotel.
Bora leaped out, sprinted toward Dahye, and pulled her into a rib-crushing hug.
“Thank god,” Bora said. She let go and looked Dahye up and down. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks, Bora,” Dahye said sarcastically. “You’re a great friend.”
“Don’t talk to me about friendship right now,” Bora snapped. “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”
“That’s what my mother tells me,” Dahye said. Bora let out a loud sniffle, and Dahye looked at her. “Are you crying right now?” she asked, astounded.
“Yes, you dummy,” Bora said, wiping her eyes. “I thought you were dead.”
+
Bora lived alone in a modest officetel that contained only a built-in desk and small bed, a closet the size of a box, and a tiny, cramped bathroom.
After her mother had passed, it was all Bora could afford on her own; plus, there was the convenience of not needing her own furniture.
There was only a single chair, so they sat on the mattress, the springs squeaking under their combined weight.
It was late afternoon. They had slept uneasily around each other, tossing and turning, and in the morning, Bora had called out sick from work, against Dahye’s vehement protests.
“Stop looking at me,” Dahye said, frustrated. “If there’s something you want to say, just say it.”
Bora shook her head. “I’m not looking at you. Stop being paranoid. You haven’t eaten anything since yesterday, have you?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Bora let out an exasperated sigh. “You have to eat something,” she said. She spotted Hyukjoon’s wallet in Dahye’s hands and took it, opening it up. When she saw his picture, she closed it with a snap. “Are you going to file a police report?”
“What for?”
“You know what.”
“I haven’t got the slightest clue.”
They fell silent again. Dahye stared at the little room. It was barely half the size of the suite at the Park Hyatt.
“Is Hyukjoon going to do anything about this? Where is he right now?” Bora blurted out at the exact moment Dahye was about to speak. “What kind of man is he, leaving you behind in the middle of this shitstorm?”
“So you saw it.”
“Of course I saw it, Dahye. It’s all over the news right now.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No!” Bora spluttered. “What am I supposed to do, pretend like I didn’t know? I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to—to piece it together.”
“Well, it’s not what you think,” Dahye said sullenly. “He didn’t leave me because he wanted to. His father made him go. He had no choice.”
“Go where?” Bora threw up her hands. “Why didn’t he take you with him?”
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand!” Dahye cried, her face suddenly hot. “You can’t seriously be blaming Hyukjoon for this. It was … it was bad luck, Bora.”
Bora’s jaw was clenched. She put her hand on Dahye’s knee. Dahye waited a moment, then pushed it off. She couldn’t stand the thought of someone touching her. Not now.
“I’m sorry. I’m just … I’m upset that something like this can even happen in the first place,” Bora said, letting out a sharp breath.
“Haven’t you been keeping up with the news?
It’s everywhere, and all the government is doing is shrugging their shoulders.
They say they can’t track these sick fuckers down.
But even when they get lucky and find one of them, they do nothing but give him a slap on the wrist.”
The image of the dead woman’s shoes swam into Dahye’s mind. She stared at her hands and saw that they were trembling. “What do you expect Hyukjoon to do?” she asked. “How would they even find the people who did this? It seems impossible.”
“If anybody can do it, his family could,” Bora said grimly.
“It’s not like you have any money.” She stopped, chewing the inside of her lip.
“You and I, we’re just normal people. Hyukjoon’s family, on the other hand …
They have power. If they really wanted to, I bet they could find the bastards who did this. ”
They have power.
Dahye closed her eyes, remembering a night with Hyukjoon from weeks ago. The two of them were sitting in the car, Dahye’s naked back sticking to the leather seat. Hyukjoon was staring at her, his eyelids fluttering. He reached over to stroke her arm.
“You have no idea of your power, do you?” he asked.
Thinking it was a joke, Dahye had giggled. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
“You could ruin me if you wanted to.”
“I would never.”
Hyukjoon’s eyes were dark, inscrutable. “I wish you would,” he said, so softly she almost missed it.
Dahye stood abruptly. Bora’s words were too much for her to bear.
“I need to pee,” she announced, hurrying into the bathroom.
She shut the door. There was no lock. She sank to her knees.
Bora’s bathroom was so small that, in this position, her shins touched the toilet bowl.
She looked around. The shower was leaking, and the floor was wet.
She listened to the steady dripping of the water and tried to calculate what time it was in New York. One or two in the morning, she thought.
Hyukjoon had mentioned his New York penthouse to her in passing. Floor-to-ceiling windows. High ceilings. Wood floors. “It’s spectacular during the winter, especially when it snows,” he had said. “You’d like it. I’ll take you sometime.”
“Hey, your phone is ringing,” Bora called.
Dahye scrambled to get up, her knees banging against the toilet seat.
She hurried out, snatching the phone from where it was charging on the bed.
The call was from a blocked number. She pressed the phone to her ear.
“Hyukjoon—is that you?” There was a faint crackle of static, then silence.
“Oppa,” Dahye said again, hysteria creeping into her voice.
The line went dead.
It was him. It had to be him. There was no other explanation.
She dialed his number, but the phone did that same strange thing it had done earlier, ringing just once before going dead.
She tried again. And again. Bora was saying something, trying to rip the phone from Dahye’s hands.
Then Dahye heard a strange rumbling coming from the direction of the bathroom. She looked.
A long shadow loomed over the damp tiles.