Chapter 24
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 to jail? 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.”
+
Oh Jihoon was thirty-one years old and already a mid-level manager at Samsung.
He wore tailored suits, drove a 2019 Hyundai, and owned the apartment he lived in.
He was unmarried. He left for work early in the morning and didn’t usually return until after midnight.
He was dating a woman in his office, someone in his chain of command—a fresh-faced recent college graduate who doted on his every word.
It seemed Eunhye’s death had affected him little.
“He looks the same,” Eunhye said in wonder, her gaze clinging to him.
Before Dahye could stop her, she darted over to where Jihoon was standing on the sidewalk and stared into his face.
She pressed her palm against his parted mouth.
He shivered, swatting the empty air, and Eunhye’s features grew cloudy.
“You said you would help me,” Eunhye said, coming back to Dahye. “It’s the right time. He’s alone. Nobody else is around.”
“It’s not. Look.” Dahye pointed, just as Jihoon’s girlfriend turned the corner. Eunhye let out an impatient hiss. “Anyway, we had a plan. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Eunhye responded with a mournful look. Since Hyukjoon’s death, she had grown impatient. Dahye didn’t blame her.
“Don’t be mad,” Dahye said under her breath.
Her mind wandered back to the night of Hyukjoon’s death.
His blood had been so warm. It had taken her nearly an entire day to cut his body apart.
A long time ago, she had seen someone doing something similar in a television show.
Afterward, the murderers had dissolved the victim’s body with acid, bones and all.
Dahye had had no idea where to get said acid, so instead she had traveled across Seoul with Eunhye by her side, each time dumping bits of Hyukjoon’s body into the trash cans or the river.
Nobody seemed to suspect them. The eyes on the subway and in the streets had glossed over Dahye as she passed.
It was as though she had become a ghost herself.
She had thrown away the stained mattress and purchased a new one.
She’d also dumped Hyukjoon’s wallet, his clothes, his belt, and scrubbed away any sign he had ever been to her place.
The one thing she hadn’t been able to toss was his severed dick.
Whenever Dahye looked at it or held it in her hand, she was reminded of her power.
She remembered the way she had torn it from Hyukjoon’s body, the triumph she had felt.
Eunhye didn’t reappear until they had nearly made it back to the apartment.
Dahye was so preoccupied that when Eunhye let out a sharp hiss, she didn’t understand what was happening.
Then she saw the man at her door. He was wearing a low cap and a mask, which partly covered his face; the little she could see of it was flushed.
His clothing was wrinkled. He was wrestling with her doorknob, trying, it seemed, to force it open.
“Hey!” Dahye shouted. The man looked at her, his eyes wide with surprise. She began chasing him. He evaded her, running through the building’s musty hallways, dashing out the door and onto the sidewalk, breaking into a sprint. There was no way she could catch up. She stopped.
Nothing was out of place inside. “Maybe it was a mistake,” Dahye said, but Eunhye’s face contorted.
“You’re too trusting,” she said. “You always have been. It doesn’t seem like it was a coincidence.”
“What are you saying?”
“Maybe he’s a police officer. Or a private investigator.”
“That wasn’t the impression I got,” Dahye said, frowning. “And why would they be investigating me?”
“You’re na?ve if you don’t think they are.”
“And you’re an annoying know-it-all.”
Eunhye, irritated again, vanished into the bathroom.
It was obvious the man had been caught off guard, but even so, his running had been ungraceful and uncoordinated. Dahye had seen the police recruits running in packs before, moving in unison, their legs pounding against the pavement. This stranger would have looked out of place.
No. She was certain he wasn’t an officer.
But something about him was … familiar. Dahye squinted, concentrating hard. His eyes. She had seen them somewhere before.