41. Jae
Chapter forty-one
Jae
The morning light cuts through my blinds in slanted, dusty bars, turning the hardwood floor into something that belongs in a catalogue I would never buy from.
My bed is a disaster zone—sheets kicked into a twisted pile at the footboard, pillow mashed into the shape of my skull, one sneaker lying on its side where I kicked it off last night.
The other one is MIA, probably under the bed or in the kitchen, casualties of a man who came home at two in the morning with the particular, dazed energy of someone who’d just been electrocuted by his girlfriend during what was otherwise the best sex of his life.
I sit on the edge of the mattress, bare feet planted on the cold floor, and reach for the mug on my nightstand. The coffee is still steaming—fresh enough that the first sip burns the roof of my mouth in a way that feels almost deserved. I swallow, wincing, and scroll through my phone with my thumb.
My thumb is already hitting Kiho’s contact before my brain fully catches up to what I’m doing.
The call connects through a crackle of static—the particular digital fuzz of an international line bridging Seoul and Los Angeles at eight in the morning.
I hold the phone to my ear, listening to the ring, and somewhere in the back of my skull I’m still not entirely sure what version of this story I’m about to tell.
Second ring. He picks up.
“?, ? ??,” Kiho’s voice comes through, thick with sleep and the particular affectionate annoyance he reserves for calls that wake him. “Do you know what time it is here?”
“Morning,” I say, leaning back against the headboard. “Or afternoon. Depending on how you want to count.”
“I want to count it as the middle of the night, because that’s what it feels like when you call me before my alarm.”
“You don’t set an alarm.”
“I set intentions.”
I laugh into the mug. The coffee has cooled just enough that the next sip goes down smooth, carrying the particular acidic bite of the cheap beans I keep buying because the good stuff feels like a performance. “Sorry. I needed to tell you something.”
There’s a rustle on his end—sheets, probably, the sound of him shifting in bed.
Kiho lives in a high-rise near Gangnam that his parents bought him as a graduation gift, and I can picture the exact layout: the floor-to-ceiling windows, the minimalist furniture he never uses, the gaming setup in the corner that costs more than most people’s cars.
“This better be good. I was having a dream about a beach.”
“Was I in it?”
“You were getting eaten by a shark.”
“Nice.”
“So what’s up?” His voice has lost the sleep-gravel, shifting into the easy, alert tone he uses when he’s actually paying attention. “You sound weird.”
“I do not sound weird.”
“You sound like you’re trying not to laugh.”
I am, actually. The story is already forming in my mouth, taking shape as something between a confession and a bit, and I haven’t even decided which one it is yet. “So. You remember Amiyah?”
“The law student. The one with the death stare and the highlighters.”
“That’s the one.” I take another sip. “We had dinner last night. At her place. She cooked, which was—surprising, actually. The woman can roast a chicken. I was impressed.”
“I’m thrilled for your digestive system. Get to the point.”
“We ended up on the couch.” I pause, letting the sentence hang there with the particular weighted significance it deserves. “And at some point, she pulls out this—thing. This little compact. Pink. Rhinestones. Looks like something you’d buy at a mall kiosk.”
Kiho is quiet. I can hear the soft hum of his air conditioner through the line, the distant sound of Seoul traffic fourteen hours ahead of me.
“She tased me with it,” I say, and the laugh comes out before I can stop it—a short, genuine sound that surprises me with its own lightness.
“Right in the leg. This tiny little heart-shaped thing with a bow on it, and she just—” I mime the motion with my free hand, even though he can’t see it.
“Pressed it right into my thigh and fired.”
The silence on the line lasts exactly one beat too long.
Then: “That’s not normal, man.”
The flatness of his delivery is so perfectly Kiho that I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing again.
“Neither are American women,” I say, and I can hear my own accent thickening on the deflection, the consonants rounding at the edges the way they always do when I’m trying to sound more casual than I feel. “It was light. Barely felt it.”
“She electrocuted you.”
“Lightly.”
“Jae.”
“Kiho.”
There’s a sigh on his end, the particular exhale of a man who has known me long enough to recognize a brick wall when he hears one. “Okay. Fine. Lightly. So what happened after she lightly attempted to murder you with a bedazzled stun gun?”
“We had sex,” I say, and the laugh comes back, warmer this time. “A lot of it. Good sex. Really, really good sex.”
“Of course you did.” I can hear the eye-roll in his voice. “Naturally. She tases you, and your response is to fuck her brains out. Very healthy coping mechanism.”
“It worked out!”
“For you, maybe. She’s probably sitting in a law library right now wondering why her plan failed.”
“Her plan,” I repeat, and something in my chest does a slow, quiet pivot. “What plan?”
Another beat of silence. Shorter this time, but I catch it.
“Figure of speech,” Kiho says, his voice shifting back into its easy rhythm. “You know what I mean. She zaps you, you don’t go down, she has to pivot. Classic improv.”
“Right.” I take another sip. The coffee is officially lukewarm now, which is how I prefer it—the point where the bitterness settles into something almost comfortable. “Anyway. It was—I don’t know. Weird, but in a way that was kind of impressive? The woman has layers. I’m still finding new ones.”
“Layers,” Kiho repeats. “Sure. That’s one word for it.”
“What’s yours?”
“I’m still stuck on ‘electrocution during foreplay.’”
“It wasn’t foreplay. It was—I don’t know what it was.” I set the mug down on the nightstand, the ceramic clicking against the wood. “She said it was a kink thing. Taking control. New territory.”
“Uh-huh.” His tone is dry, but there’s something underneath it—a precision to the way he’s choosing his words that doesn’t match the banter. “Has she done other stuff? Like, weird stuff. Things that made you raise an eyebrow.”
I think about it. The library. Her fingers under the table, her breath catching while she pretended to read case law.
The way she drives—like every red light is a personal insult.
The particular sharpness in her eyes when someone challenges her in class, like she’s running calculations behind her retinas.
“Nothing I’d call weird,” I say finally. “She’s just—intense. Everything she does, she does at full throttle. It’s actually kind of refreshing.”
“Refreshing,” Kiho echoes. “Right.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you think it’s refreshing. I also think you have a type, and your type is ‘will probably kill me someday,’ and you find this charming instead of concerning.”
“She’s not going to kill me.”
“I didn’t say she was.”
“You implied it.”
“I implied nothing. You inferred.” There’s a faint click on his end—the soft, digital sound of an incoming notification. He doesn’t acknowledge it. Doesn’t pause. Just keeps talking. “So what’s the plan? You seeing her again?”
“Tomorrow. Study session at the library. Our usual spot.”
“The alcove.”
I smile at the ceiling.
“Romantic.”
“It’s practical. Good sightlines, quiet, and the carrel next to us is occupied by a guy who wears noise-canceling headphones and falls asleep at two in the morning. It’s perfect.”
“Sure. Perfect.” Another pause, shorter. “Just—be careful, yeah? Not because of the taser thing. Just in general. You know how you get.”
“How I get.”
“All in. No brakes. The whole Jae Kim special.”
I roll my eyes, but the warmth in my chest doesn’t budge. “I’m fine, Kiho. Seriously. It was one weird night. Everything else is—good. Really good.”
“Good.” He doesn’t sound entirely convinced, but he lets it go—the particular grace of a friend who knows when to push and when to step back.
“Anyway, I should probably get up. My girlfriend’s texting me about breakfast, and if I don’t respond within three minutes she’s going to assume I’m dead and call emergency services. ”
“Tell her I say hi.”
“I’ll tell her you got tased by a law student and thought it was hot. She’ll love that.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Too late. Already typing.” The smile is audible in his voice. “Take care of yourself, man. Call me if anything else explodes. Or electrocutes. Or whatever verb applies to your current situation.”
“Will do.” I’m smiling too, the phone balanced against my chest, the lukewarm coffee forgotten on the nightstand.
He laughs—the easy, familiar sound of it carrying across fourteen hours and six thousand miles like it’s nothing—and the line goes quiet.
I set the phone down on the mattress beside me and lean back against the headboard. The ceiling above me is smooth white plaster, entirely unremarkable, and I stare at it for a long moment while the residual warmth of the call settles into something quieter.
The smile is still on my face. It doesn’t want to leave.
I reach for the coffee, finish the last cold swallow, and set the empty mug back on the nightstand with a soft clink that echoes in the quiet apartment.
Outside, Los Angeles is fully awake now, the traffic on Westwood a distant white-noise hum, and somewhere in this city, Amiyah Lane is probably already sitting in a lecture hall with her color-coded tabs and her perfect posture, looking like she owns the entire room.
I should get dressed. I have a clinic shift in two hours, and my scrubs are somewhere in the laundry pile I’ve been ignoring since Tuesday.
Instead, I lie there for one more minute, staring at the ceiling, and let the quiet turn into whatever it’s going to be.