I had barely walked (it was more of a suppressed run) to the subway when my phone started to ring. I glanced at it. It was Taejun. I was still angry that he had plotted to send me away, and how in his attempt to convince me had shown me such a horrific image. I ignored it. 

A few seconds after the call went to voicemail, my phone pinged with a text. Annoyed, I took it out to read it. 

[ Jaehyun, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. Please come back. ]

The last thing he had shouted at me was to never come back if I walked out that door. That was probably what he didn’t mean. But I was more frustrated at the things he said while we were in his office. My stomach still reeled at the memory of that gory image.

But despite my anger at Taejun, I somehow also felt so numb and detached. I didn’t care if I lived or died, so long as I was away from him.

Suddenly, I remembered how he had tracked me on my phone before. Well, he and this phone could go to hell. I flung the phone at the ground. I hoped it would shatter dramatically but the case protected it and it just landed and bounced with an unsatisfying thunk. I considered stomping on it but that seemed even more childish than flinging it just now, so I walked away. 

There were few people on the subway this time of night, and for some reason the relative quietness and the darkness around the train brought unbidden imagery back to my mind. The skin on the back of my neck crawled, and I felt inexplicably suspicious of the few, also quiet, people riding with me. I got off a stop early and left quickly. 

Strangely, I felt comforted as I walked the much more familiar streets of Outer Seoul where I had grown up. I wondered where I should go. My parent’s apartment was probably locked and there was almost certainly no room for me to stay at the hospital. Besides, I had promised to bring them some fruit last time, and I didn’t want to arrive empty handed. 

I suddenly realized that I was walking my usual route to work. Maybe I could stay with Mr. Do, at least for one night. The thought cheered me. It was a bit chilly at night this time of year, but I didn’t mind sleeping on the street (the playground was still always an option), but I wanted to talk to Mr. Do. 

Mr. Do’s house was above his shop. As I rang the buzzer, I realized it was pretty late now. I winced as I realized I was probably disturbing his sleep. 

The intercom crackled with sound a few minutes afterwards. “Who is it?” Mr. Do’s voice was grouchy and sleepy. Oops. He had been sleeping. The screen on the intercom lit up a moment later, and I blinked back at myself on the screen. 

“Mwo?! Jaehyun-a? What are you doing this time of night?” My face must have surprised him, because he sounded a little more awake. “Never mind, come in.” 

The door’s lock disengaged and it popped open slightly. Sheepish at having awakened him, I went in and climbed the stairs to the living quarters above. He was waiting for me in his greeting room, wearing his pajamas and a robe over it. Mr. Do grabbed me and turned me this way and that, checking even under my bangs. I realized he was searching me for any fresh injuries or bruises. 

“Good,” he said, when he finished with his rough inspection. He motioned for me to sit down. “Alright then, brat, what’s your reason for disturbing me so late?” 

I just decided to start with the most recent. “Taejun wants to send me to Beijing,” I grumbled. 

Mr. Do could tell it was going to be a long story and decided he’d rather hear it in the morning. He blinked blearily and didn’t ask me about it. “So you need a place to stay for the night?” 

I was a little disappointed that he’d rather talk later, as I didn’t want to sleep at all. But he was much older, and probably needed his sleep more than me. So I let him set me up in his guest room and thanked him. He retreated back to his bed. As I stared up into the dark ceiling, scenes from the day’s horrors kept replaying in my mind. I tried to think of something else. I recalled the way Taejun had been slumped on the couch (that didn’t belong to him) staring up at the ceiling the same way I was doing now. 

Despite the anger from before, I just felt numb as I realized he must have been thinking of similar things that night, maybe even the same image as the one he had forced me to look at tonight. My emotions felt like passing shadows now, touching so lightly they were barely felt. When I tried to close my eyes to sleep, I saw the muzzle flash of fire, and red lumps of blood or flesh. So instead I continued to stare at the ceiling until light came through the window. 

Because I had slept a little the day before, I didn’t feel too tired when the morning came. I went downstairs to the kitchen. I had been to Mr. Do’s house a few times before, so I felt comfortable enough to look into his fridge to see if I could make him breakfast as a thank you for letting me stay with him the night. 

Either the sounds or the smell of cooking roused him, because he appeared as I was almost done. “Jae-ya, who said you could make breakfast?” he grouched. But it was insincere, as before I could answer he followed up with, “What are you making?” 

“Gilgeori. I found leftover pajeon in the fridge.” I plated it up and carried over the sandwiches to the table where I had already set a couple cups of coffee (from instant mix). “Thanks for letting me stay the night.” 

Mr. Do, a long time divorcee, looked cheered to have breakfast right as he awoke. He gingerly tested the heat of the sandwich (still too hot to pick up) with a few taps, then settled for sipping the coffee while it cooled. 

We ate in silence for a few minutes before Mr. Do asked, “So why does your hyung want to send you to Beijing all of a sudden?” 

I set my gilgeori down. I hadn’t been that interested in eating it, but it would have been odd to make Mr. Do eat by himself in his own house. I told him about my visit to the local Seven Directions Gang. 

“You went by yourself?! Jae-ya, you should have asked me to go with you.” 

I didn’t like that idea at all. “It could have been dangerous. I couldn’t possibly ask you to go.” 

Mr. Do grunted. “I can handle a few small-time gangsters,” he said, so confidently I almost believed it. “They never would have tried to pull a fast one like that on you with me there.” I didn’t tell him that they knew I worked for him.

When I told him about Taejun’s foolhardy solo push of the gang headquarters, his eyes widened. He chewed up and swallowed his bite of sandwich quickly, then he spat, “Is he insane?” 

“Probably,” I agreed. 

Mr. Do sat there, chewing on his thoughts now instead of gilgeon. “He was probably trying to protect you in the moment, but he’s definitely made it much worse for both you and himself. Han Jungho’s going to be on the warpath now. Though I doubt the NIS’s happy with what he’s gone and done, they’ll keep their own safe. But he probably has the right idea in sending you away out of Korea. This country is too small.”

I was disappointed that he agreed. “I thought you said they were small-time gangsters. Besides, what about my parents?” 

“It’s because he’s a small-time gangster that he has time to pursue grudges like this!” I didn’t think his little eyes could get any larger, but somehow they did. “Jae-ya. We’d better check on your parents.” 

Before yesterday, I would have been spiked with panic, and probably rushed out the door that minute, less Mr. Do’s company. But numbed, I stayed obediently when Mr. Do commanded me to wait while he got dressed. I stared into my cup of coffee as I sat and waited. Mr. Do returned, struggling into a jacket. He seemed a little surprised to see me still sitting there instead of fled, but relieved, he said, “I’ve closed the shop for the morning. Let’s go.” 

Mr. Do must have been concerned by my lack of visible reaction, because he kept glancing over at me the whole way over to the hospital. I just kept looking ahead. If I didn’t focus on moving forward, I felt like my world would shatter. 

“I’ll wait here,” Mr. Do said, just outside the ward. He peeked in to make sure there were no gangsters lurking in ambush in the ward, then settled himself outside the door like a guard post. “Make sure your parents are ok.” 

I obeyed. Something must have happened, because the moment my mother caught sight of me, she leaped on me like a cat on a mouse, and clutched me, trembling. I was glad it seemed she had run out of tears from the last few days. I let her hold me until my dad got impatient. 

“Saemin, let him go already!” She released me like I had just suddenly burned her. 

We three stared at each other, not sure who should speak first. Finally I broke the silence. “Did Han Jungho come?” 

My mother shivered like leaves in a tree. My father looked pained. “Yes,” he answered. “He didn’t do anything to us because we were here but…” But he had almost certainly promised to. 

“Why didn’t you tell us Taejun-a was in Seoul?” my mother choked out.

“He didn’t want you to know,” I answered simply. Even I felt a faint surprise at how callously I answered. Before yesterday I would have aspired not to hurt my mother’s fragile feelings. Tears welled up in her eyes. I found I was annoyed at her constant state of teary-ness lately. He’s been gone seven years, I thought sardonically. And you were the one who kept him from me for years. “I thought you had his number. You never asked where he was?” 

My mother was so surprised, a tear escaped and slid down her face. “I never had his number.” 

I was exasperated but unsurprised. For a moment I could only look away, feeling numbly annoyed. Everyone in my family was a liar, and I could no longer tell who was lying to me anymore. Nor did I care. 

But I did care about one other lie. “Why did you do it?” I asked my mother. “You took out a loan for my university tuition, but I had never planned on going. Why?” 

“Jaehyun,” my father said, as threateningly as a bedridden man with two ridiculously thick casted legs could. 

“Where did the money go?” I interrogated, unfazed by my father’s attempt at sternness. 

“Jae-ya, please,” my mother begged. 

I had enough. Everyone around me was lying to me constantly to keep me in line. I was a puppet to my family, and they were all fighting over the strings tugging me back and forth. “Tell me.” 

The menace in my voice finally cracked my mother. “If I didn’t pay off the bank,” she said in a strained whisper. “They would have taken your aunt’s house.” 

What did my aunt have to do with all this? I hadn’t seen her in years. When my father’s debt had gotten bad, she had distanced herself and her family, probably to keep away from our ruined reputation and bad influence. I didn’t get it. “We have enough debt ourselves. Why hers too?” 

My mother was unable to speak, so my father started to speak for her. “It was never Auntie’s debt. We took out a loan from the bank with her house as collateral. We… I.. had your mother steal her RRN and documents.”

They looked at me as though they expected me to be angry or disappointed. Well, I was, but those emotions never made it from my heart to my mind, and I just sat there with a blank, unfeeling expression. 

“I’ll never understand what you do with all the money you take. Where does it all go?” I felt so tired. My father–no, my parents’-debt was a never ending abyss, eternally needing more. More. More. 

“Watch your tone, Jaehyun-a. Your mother was scammed! She thought she was making an investment-” 

I was done. I was done with it all. All their idiotic mismanagement of money. My parents were in debt for more money than they had probably ever earned in all their life, and yet somehow kept finding new ways to accumulate more. There was truly something admirable about how clueless they were. I stood up and walked away. 

I walked past Mr. Do, who was slacking in his guard duties and was now on his phone, speaking with someone. He saw me just before I went into the elevator, but by then he was too late. “Jae-ya! Wait, one second!” 

The elevator doors closed.