But the dashcam—this could truly work. Hanbin had installed one that records the inside of the car after he had his laptop stolen by a valet parking attendant.
The trick is to get Hanbin out of his car long enough that I can take out the SD card. After studying videos online, I am pretty sure I can do it fairly quickly, but I will fumble if I am frazzled about getting caught.
* * *
—
I FINALLY DO it on the day that we are meeting his friends for drinks in Itaewon. After he picks me up at the studio, he finds a miraculous street parking spot just a block away from the restaurant. We are walking there when I take a deep breath and say that I just realized I left my phone in his car.
“I’ll go get it,” I say.
“No, no, let me. It’ll take me two seconds.” He is already turning back when I add that I think several of my “female items” also must have spilled out of my purse. There is nothing like the mention of menstrual products to send a guy running in the other direction.
And then it is the easiest thing in the world to obtain the evidence.
* * *
—
AT HOME AFTER drinks, I go through the videos on my computer. After scrolling and scrolling, I find it: the one of him having sex with a girl in his car. It is dark and it is difficult to see because the images are blurry, but the rhythm and sounds are unmistakable. I stop the video and close my eyes. Then I crawl under my desk and curl up to see if the sharp stabs I am feeling will go away.
They don’t, of course, and my legs are shaking like a dog’s.
I wonder if I will not survive this moment, if I will combust instead. But I want to see the girl’s face, to see what it is about her that attracted him to her. I crawl back up to my seat and rewind—there must be a close shot of her in the front seat before they moved to the back. And, yes, here it is, the door opening and a girl getting in. The girl is Nami. Kyuri’s friend. The prepubescent idiot with giant breasts. The one who I am quite certain is an escort of some kind as well.
I watch as they ride in silence and then Hanbin parks and they both get out of their front seats and get into the backseat, and then the scene I was just watching unfolds again. They have not said a word to each other, so it is clear that this has happened before—probably many times. It must have started that time when I called him to come drink with us. I had gone home with Kyuri and I had not realized that they had stayed out longer.
I lie on the bed for a long time, unseeing in the dark, and then go back to my computer and watch some more. Then I have to go back to my bed again.
Over the next few days I go through every single recording on the card. My heart splinters every time I hear his voice. I learn from his phone conversations that he is being set up on seon with the daughter of the Ilsun Group, and the wedding date may as well be set.
The seon is to be next month, when she returns home from a culinary program in Paris.
* * *
—
IN A WAY, I think I am now experiencing true freedom for the first time in my life. That is the way to think of this—that this is karma, and also absolution.
* * *
—
I HAD BEEN drowning slowly in my guilt, for coveting him when he was Ruby’s, for going to him and daring to show him my heart. I had been inhabiting a world not meant for me.
* * *
—
HE WAS ALWAYS offering things. I shrank from accepting because I thought that was the way to show my love for