and, by extension, us. He likes her, it is clear. We are all holding our breath.
“How many times do I have to fucking tell you to call the madam? She has a phone, doesn’t she? In fact, I have her number myself. I’ll call her now.”
To our horror, he fishes his phone out of his pocket and scrolls and dials.
Kyuri mutters “shit” under her breath. Sujin stands and pulls me up by the wrist, and we slowly make our way toward the door.
This is it. Taein did not even talk to me. I did not get to type anything to him. I glance desperately back at him as I walk out the door, and he is joking with his friends, not even noticing me leave.
As the door closes, I hear the friend yelling on the phone. “What’s up with the quality control! I thought this was a ten percent! Not a house of amateurs and freaks! How much money have I spent here over the years to be treated like this!”
I am walking fast in spite of my heels, trying to keep up with Sujin and Kyuri. “You both better go,” Kyuri says softly as she stops abruptly in front of another door. “I’ll see you at home.” She opens the door and slips inside. Sujin takes my hand, and we both start walking fast again. I know how she feels and she knows how I feel and soon we are both running.
* * *
—
THE DAY THAT I lost my voice, it was like this too. I was running with Sujin and she was holding my hand leading me out. She was the one who had brought me there in the first place—under the arch by the dirt road after dark, where she said we were going to get initiated into the bad kids’ gang, so that we would be the leaders of the school the following year. I had not wanted to go because I was not sure I wanted to be labeled a bad kid, since that meant all of the teachers would hate us and single us out and beat us if they ever saw anything out of line. An iljin boy in the year above us had had one of his eardrums burst after he was hit by the vice principal.
We did not know that the other schools had all heard about our initiation night and had come for vengeance for past years of lost fights. They brought wooden boards and some of them had beer bottles that they smashed on the pavement to turn them into weapons. They surrounded us and we did not know they were actually going to use the broken bottles on us until one of the sunbaes screamed “Run!” and then all the world collapsed into chaos. I never saw the face of the girl who hit me, but Sujin later told me that the girl had a bat.
When we were back on the grounds of the Big House, Sujin woke up my parents before calling an ambulance. I do not remember much from that night, but I do remember Sujin’s fingernails, blood and skin under them from where she had scratched the face of the girl who attacked me. When the shouts of “Police!” began, the girl had become distracted, and that was when Sujin slashed her before frantically pulling me away. I could not see straight because of the pain exploding in my head.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she was screaming. That is the memory that is the most difficult to bear from that night. The sound of her choking with anguish for me.
Kyuri
It is the first time in three long and subdued weeks that I’ve actually felt like going out after work, so when Sujin texted earlier that she would be done around the same time as me today, I told her to come meet me at my favorite samgyeopsal place. She’s been in the bathroom for twenty minutes now and I have been grilling and eating and drinking by myself. I can feel people at the other tables feeling sorry for me.
It’s 1 A.M. on a Thursday night, so of course the place is packed and the staff are charging around