The Past, Seoul

Living in Yun Seo’s apartment allowed me to feel like I was someone else. I could pretend everything was fine for a little while – that I was fine – because I didn’t need to fit into this place. It was a temporary home. I wondered if this was how college students felt when they moved into a dormitory, like living in temporary lodgings gave them license to be someone new.

Yun Seo slept in his own room back at the mansion, but he spent time with me at the apartment almost every day as well, traveling back and forth instantaneously using his powers. I fell back into working for him and allowing my world to be consumed by his ambitions, hiding from my own worries by focusing on his. I don’t know if I was happy exactly, but I wasn’t sad all the time anymore so it seemed like an improvement to me.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” In Ho asked when he found out I was living in Yun Seo’s safe house, his gaze overshadowed by skeptical eyebrows.

“No,” I admitted honestly. “But I’ve been doing nothing but making bad decisions for a while now, so what’s one more?”

He continued to frown, but didn’t reply. Maybe he could tell I wasn’t in the mood for wisdom or advice.

We’d met up for drinks to toast Liminal’s victory in the most contentious case brought against the company. They’d settled a few other cases as well at a loss and the only ones left were less likely to leave Liminal decimated. At this point it had to be obvious to everyone, including the Gihoe Society, that the government didn’t have the will to hold Liminal accountable for what their users did. All the litigation had taken its toll, however, and even though public opinion overall was still on our side, Liminal had also gained more enemies. 

With the obstacles mounting and the recent scandal fresh in everyone’s minds, Yun Seo decided to slow down our progress for a while in the hope we might lull the Gihoe Society into a false sense of security. We continued to make plans, but we stopped acting on them, biding our time and waiting for the right moment. I worried that the reduced workload would give me too much time to think, but Yun Seo seemed determined to use the opportunity to teach me more about the Unseen. 

I dodged Yun Seo’s attempts to share his world with me and he mostly respected my reluctance although I could tell he was eager to have me understand him more fully, as if now that I knew one secret he saw no point in holding any of the related secrets back. He seemed relieved to have someone to share them with, in fact. This was a side of him he had never shown me before and I honestly found it a little jarring, his desire to be known now so at odds with his usual tendency to keep his secrets close. If I hadn’t felt so fragile, I would have been jumping at the opportunity to learn as much as I could about him, but I was barely managing to keep myself afloat day to day. I didn’t have room to take on anything new, especially when it was linked to the anchor of emotion I felt every time I thought of my father.

The memory of my last conversation with dad was still too recent and raw for me to be willing to accept this other world I’d never had reason to believe existed even though my father had clearly known about it all along. I found myself turning that conversation over and over in my mind while I was in bed at night wishing for the oblivion of sleep, replaying all the things he’d revealed without me understanding what he was trying to say. I wondered what it meant that I had seen spirits as a child. Had I been somehow more sensitive to the Unseen when I was young? Or were all children more sensitive in that way and most grew out of it as they lost their innocence? 

Regardless, it was obvious dad had been sensitive to them all his life and built his career around trying to understand them. I didn’t know what his goals were in researching the Unseen, but it was obvious he thought his knowledge might help them find a place within the modern world, a sentiment the Gihoe Society had twisted and used for their own purposes.

One lazy Saturday when I was missing Chan Wook more than usual, I decided to go for a run on our favorite trail, secretly hoping I might run into him by accident. I’d exchanged texts with Chan Wook a few times since that horrible day, but his responses were always brief, just enough to let me know he was still alive without sharing any details. I’d told him he could stay at the house if he wanted since I was no longer living there, but he replied that he’d already found a place to stay. When I asked about his expenses for school, he said he’d found a job and planned to pay his own way from now on. With his skills, I had no doubt that he could find a decent job even before graduation, but I worried about his adjustment to balancing work and school. 

“Are you going out for a run?” Yun Seo asked, looking up from the newspaper he was reading at the kitchen counter. He was the first person I’d known other than my father who still received a physical paper. For a man who owned a technology company, Yun Seo was surprisingly old fashioned in some ways. 

I swiped my text conversation with Chan Wook away, trying to forget the fact that I hadn’t heard from him in days. Pocketing my phone, I nodded. “The weather is supposed to be beautiful today.”

Folding the paper and sliding off his stool, Yun Seo said, “I think I’ll go with you.” He paused when he saw my reaction. “Unless you’d rather go alone?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Company would be nice.” Having Yun Seo with me shattered my hopes of a Chan Wook encounter, mostly because I didn’t think he and Chan Wook would get along, but at least this way I wouldn’t be alone and disappointed if the chance meeting I’d been hoping for didn’t happen.

Yun Seo was already dressed for a workout so he didn’t even need to make a trip back home to change. Even after weeks of seeing him in casual clothing around the apartment, I still had a hard time getting used to how different he looked from when he went out in public with his CEO persona. He looked younger with his hair soft and loose around his face, and even though he never looked sloppy no matter how dressed down he was, he seemed more accessible without his tailored suits, expensive shoes and ties.

The trail was packed, so we couldn’t run as fast as I could tell Yun Seo wanted to go. I was relieved by the slower pace since I was out of practice, but based on how easily Yun Seo talked while we ran, he must run a lot to be in such good shape. I wasn’t sure when he found the time, but I supposed he probably had a fitness room tucked away somewhere inside his mansion, and knowing him he wouldn’t have any problem cutting his sleep short to squeeze in a little exercise every day.

We stopped at a water fountain to refill our bottles and I found myself looking around hopefully even though I knew it was highly unlikely I would run into Chan Wook. 

But I wasn’t the one who ended up encountering someone I knew. 

“CEO Jang?”

Yun Seo turned toward the voice, a smile immediately curving his lips when he saw the woman standing behind him on the trail. “Hi Ah,” he greeted her warmly.

The woman was maybe a few years younger than me and extremely fit. She had the svelte musculature of a martial artist and carried herself like someone who could hold her own in a fight even though she was still slim. Her long ponytail brushed over her shoulders as she turned to look at me, but her bright smile tightened a fraction when we made eye contact. She’d somehow recognized me even though I had no idea who she was.

“Out enjoying the beautiful weather?” Yun Seo asked her, missing her reaction to me because he’d turned back to the fountain to finish filling his bottle.

“Yes,” she replied, attempting to smooth over her surprise. “Normally I’d be spending my off time in a dojang, but I couldn’t stay inside on such a lovely day.”

Giving her the chance to pretend she didn’t know me, I bowed my head to her and introduced myself. 

“San Hi Ah,” she replied as she mirrored my bow. “Nice to meet you.”

Yun Seo glanced at each of us briefly, and it was obvious by the way his eyes narrowed that he had made a connection. “Hi Ah is the one I assigned to follow your father,” he told me in a voice that was suddenly painfully gentle. 

“Oh.” I swallowed and unconsciously retreated a step. “Then you’re the one who…” I bit my lower lip and looked away. 

“I was.” Unlike Yun Seo, Hi Ah kept her voice firm. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

I nodded but couldn’t find my voice to reply.

Clearing his throat, Yun Seo reached out to take my bottle from my hand so that he could fill it for me. “I’d actually been planning on introducing the two of you at some point,” he said. “We’re reaching a point in our work where we’ll all need to start working more closely together. I can’t afford to keep you separated any longer.” I didn’t like the way he talked about us as if there were more than just her and me. I couldn’t help wondering how many minions Yun Seo had gathered to his side, how many people he smiled at that way with such fondness in his eyes.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Hi Ah said to me. “I know how much you’ve done for our cause.”

I couldn’t say the same. Until this moment I hadn’t even known her name. Avoiding Yun Seo’s gaze, I nodded for no reason other than to seem as if I was going along with everything just fine. 

“Hi Ah is Unseen like me,” Yun Seo said, and there was a pleading note in his voice now as if he hoped this information would help me understand why he’d kept her a secret from me for so long. “She’s a daltokki.”

I recognized the term, although it wasn’t one I’d ever thought held any truth. According to folklore, the shapes cast by craters on the moon depicted a rabbit that had been placed there by the Great Emperor because of its self-sacrifice. Hi Ah resembled nothing less than a rabbit, especially one who would sacrifice itself to be eaten. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, her smile softening, “and you’re right. I would beat up a god with my own hands before sacrificing myself to be his meal. But you can’t change how you’re born. My mother was every bit the simpering symbol of fertility and selflessness that the stories describe. That’s why I have nine siblings and we were all born dirt poor.” She shrugged. “I’m the last one who should have inherited her legacy.”

Nodding again, I tried to find some way to respond to her comments, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“Come by the house next week,” Yun Seo said to her, and it was obvious by his tone that he was dismissing her. “I’m planning to bring everyone together to discuss our next steps.”

“Sure!” she chirped in reply, the positivity coming across forced. “Just let me know when.” Backing away, she waved at me. “Nice to meet you, Sang Kyu.” She looked like she wanted to say something else, but she swallowed the words, waving again at us both as she took off at a jog.

Yun Seo held out my freshly filled water bottle, a worried expression on his face.

“Thanks,” I said as I took it. “Shall we go?” I didn’t wait for him to respond before taking off on the trail in the opposite direction from Hi Ah, running much faster than I had been before. I was leading us back the way we’d come, but that was fine. We had to turn around at some point.

This time Yun Seo was silent as he ran beside me, the sound of our sneakers against the pavement alternating with the soft pants of our breath. When we reached the point where we’d started, I slowed to a walk and crossed the nearby boardwalk toward the water, leaning against the railing as I tried to catch my breath. 

“Whatever you’re thinking, you can say it out loud,” Yun Seo said as he leaned against the railing beside me, facing the opposite direction from me with his hands jammed into his pockets. “I’m listening.”

I sighed, but remained silent.

“Sang Kyu,” he coaxed. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t have anything to say right now that’s worth saying.”

“Say it anyway. Bottling it up inside is only going to keep hurting you.”

Drawing a deep breath through my nose, I took a step back and stretched my calves one at a time as I tried to figure out where to start. “If she’d been following him around all that time,” I said, the poisonous words falling from my lips before I had consciously decided to speak them, “why didn’t she recognize something was wrong? She could have stopped him. If she had tried, then maybe he would still be alive.” I straightened and let my head fall back on my shoulders, swaying forward until my stomach hit the railing. “Why didn’t I do something? I knew he wasn’t okay. Chan Wook kept warning me and asking me for advice. I ignored all of it. I could have stopped him if I’d tried.”

Yun Seo didn’t say anything for a long time. “When someone truly wants to die, they don’t give you a chance to stop them.”

Releasing the rest of my breath in a dry sob, I emptied my lungs of air and hung my head over the railing until I felt dizzy with the lack of oxygen.

“You can’t blame yourself, Sang Kyu.”

“Yes, I can,” I said stubbornly. “Because I know I could have done better.”

“Sang Kyu yah.” His hand hovered over my shoulder. I could feel the warmth of his body heat even when he wasn’t making contact.

“I want to stay here for a while,” I said in a voice so raw that the words felt like razor blades in my throat. “Alone. I’ll find my own way home.”

He hesitated before leaving. “Okay,” he said finally, his hand landing on my shoulder with a brief squeeze before he walked away.