the eightieth time. This is all Candy’s fault and I usually fall asleep fantasizing about her getting blacklisted from every network in the country.
My neck and lower back hurt from my uncomfortable sleeping position. I’m cold—spring is finally here but the temperature still dips at night. I get up, and as I am stretching, I hear an odd sound that seems to come from very far away. I stop stretching and listen. And there it is again. It is muffled screaming, mixed with some terrified crying. I open my door and step out to the living room, wondering if it is Sujin.
The lights are on in the kitchen and Sujin’s door is open but her room is dark, which means she must have come home and gone out again. The clock above the TV reads 3:22 A.M.
And there it is again. That sound. It’s definitely a woman screaming. I put my ear against the front door and I can hear it through the door. It is coming from outside. Now it is quiet again. When I peer through the eyehole, I see nothing.
I text into the group chat of the girls who live on our floor—Kyuri, Sujin, and Miho.
“Anyone up/home? Anyone else hear that screaming? I don’t think it’s our floor but it woke me up.”
I wait and stare at my phone. They must be sleeping or out. Kyuri is perhaps with Sujin. Miho might be at the studio? Do I call the police? But how would I be able to tell them the information? Do police take texts? I do not know. I am typing into my search bar “how to text the police” when my phone buzzes.
“I’m on my way home.” It’s Miho in the group chat. “Should I call the police?”
“Maybe that married couple downstairs is having a fight?” I text.
“No, I saw the husband leave today,” texts Miho. “He got into a taxi with giant suitcases.”
“How far are you, Miho?” I text.
“About 20 minutes away? I’m on the subway.”
Twenty minutes is too long. Someone might be dying.
“Can you call the police then?” I text. “I’m going to go see what it is.”
Immediately Miho starts texting furiously.
“Just wait for the police. Hold on. I’m calling now. If you’re going to go, wait for me at least!!!”
“It’s ok, don’t worry,” I text. “I’ll take a weapon.”
“NO!!!!”
It’s sweet of her, being worried about me. I’m surprised since she’s heard about all the other fights I used to get into when I was young. The problem is, we have no good weapons in the house. Not for a situation like this. I long for my grandfather’s long wooden staff, sitting useless back at the Big House. For a second, I plot ways to steal it the next time I go to Cheongju. Not that I would have any idea how to wield it, but I vow to learn.
I’m not sure if a kitchen knife would be a good idea because I have never used one before and it might just distract me in the moment. I put the electric kettle on boil and scan the house again. This is unacceptable. I make a mental note to order weapons. I snatch up a pair of scissors and put it in my pants pocket—they’re probably easier to maneuver than a knife—and once the light on the kettle goes off I take the steaming pot and quietly open my front door.
It occurs to me, as I am standing in the hallway waiting to hear a scream, that I have never been in a fight with a male before. I have witnessed them—the boy gangs would routinely have vicious fights when I was in middle school and high school—and the girls would sometimes watch from a distance. The sheer speed and strength—the sound of baseball bats hitting somebody’s head—the popping sound that a fist would make on a jaw—never failed to shock me. The first few times, most of the girls cried, even Noh Hyun-jin, who was famous for once having taken six ferocious slaps in the face in a row from our PE teacher without