Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance (11 page)

It stood about 6 feet high. Made entirely of concrete, it depicted a woman shooting a bow and arrow, with a twist of moonlight bending downwards and forming a piece of her hair. She had flowers strung about her breasts, and near her feet, there were conch shells. By the seashore, she was. Peaceful.

For the first time, Latasha seemed to understand what I was doing. The importance of what was going on in my life.

“I get you,” she said. “It’s beautiful. No wonder you won.”

“I had a bunch of other pieces sent over as well.
Black Wall Street. The Craters of Venus. Centurion.
Space really inspired me. The stars. That’s what I really like to sculpt about.”

“At least,” Latasha said, turning into the highway, “when you look at the stars, we’ll see the same ones.”

“And we can talk about them. We can talk all night about them—or day, whatever the time difference ends up being.”

We stayed silent for the rest of the trip to the airport. Once we pulled up into the terminal, Latasha parked, and I got my luggage out. We stood there, staring at one another, and then hugged. Still silent, wordless. Without anything at all to speak of. What was there to say now? Anything else would just be more hurt. More pain.

We had to figure out our own world now. The outside.

Beyond Dallas-Fort Worth, beyond Lincoln, Nebraska.

Beyond the United States.

There was no wind now. We had stopped. We had stopped crying. We had stopped all of our memories. Which just stood there. Staring.

Hugging.

Whispering.

“I’ll miss you a lot,” Latasha went on. “Will you miss me? That’s what I’m really curious about. Will you miss me? Truthfully?”

I nodded immediately. “You can’t even imagine.”

And I really couldn’t. Not back then. Not when I hadn’t known about what I was getting myself into—totally ignorant—going ahead full-blast for a world that even the Internet could not educate me on…

…that I could only hope to experience.

Latasha waved at me as I went through security. I waved back at her, handing over my passport to the woman officer. As I went down the line, and onwards, she texted me one last goodbye.

But by the time I boarded the plane, I won’t lie…

I kind of forgot about my life in the United States.

Instantly.

Because just like that, all sorts of thoughts poured into my head. I had a new future ahead of me, an open ocean to dive into.

Korea.

I was going to Korea.

JONG-SOO

I coughed.

My arms hurt.

My face? Lacerations.

I turned over in my little jail cell. A bit of light poured in through a window overhead. Where was I? I still didn’t know. For several months, I had been held captive in the South Korean forests. An exact pinpoint location would be near impossible to find without GPS or map.

They gave me none.

They gave me nothing.

아무것도 아냐.

And it hurt.

To know my humanity was being stripped piece by piece by piece.

And being alone?

Brutal.

Around me were dark brick walls. Cement blocks. High ceilings where only spiders crept around, their cobwebs hanging lower and lower by day.

I could stand, but I couldn’t walk far.

There were chains keeping me low against the wall. My hands were wrapped together in bondage, a tight cuff around the wrists.

The Twin Swords had decided to abduct me.

I knew that much. I heard them talking in the halls, right outside. Languishing and bragging about their conquest.

“We’ve got him,” they said. “And we can hold him for ransom. Dirty him up. Play him nice. It doesn’t matter, we’ve got him.”

I guess it’s what I deserved, for working in the underground for so long. What can I say? Maybe this was redemption for me.

“He’s in here,” someone said, walking down the hallway. I immediately recognized who it was: Oh-seong. Their leader. Their boss come to see me personally.

He always made his rounds deep down in the bellows of the dungeon. I think he prided himself on watching me squirm. Get hurt. Have dirt on my face.

“I haven’t seen you so skinny in a long time,” he said. More like growled. He reminded me of a wolf more than anything, in shape and form. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail. At the edges of his fingers were claws—he never seemed to clip them.

And his face was angular, pointy, his nose more snout than actual nostrils. And kind of pink too. He always seemed kind of pink, as if he was perpetually blushing. He was skinny, rail thin. Maybe that’s why he enjoyed seeing me on his level. He was balding, at least I had that on him.

He had a right-hand man, a guy named Hyun-jun. He stood much shorter than Oh-seong, although he was better dressed. He groomed his nails super short. His hair was spiked up, and I could understand women finding him attractive—no signs of thinning hair, a good muscular frame. Oh-seong seemed jealous of Hyun-jun. I thought I might be able to play that dynamic between them.

But I would first have to get out of my jail cell.

“I’ve been eating well though,” I said, nudging my head to the empty plate they gave me. They didn’t actually feed me, and I had nothing to eat. It was all a joke to them. A game to see how long I could last or “fast” in their eyes.

Oh-seong laughed. He sounded like an old car engine. “Now that your entire business is pretty much destroyed,” he said, “why don’t I just hand you to the police now?”

“Great idea,” Hyun-jun said, smirking. I sensed that he hated being his right-hand man. He had the same kind of air Hae-il did.

Hae-il.

Was he still alive?

It had been months since I last saw him.

On fire.

“We could get a good ransom for your head too,” Oh-seong added. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

There were a pair of bars separating Oh-seong and Hyun-jun from me. Since I was tied up against the wall, I couldn’t lift my legs to kick him in the jaw. I couldn’t do much but sit there.

Swirl a bit of saliva in my mouth and…

Spit!

A line of saliva struck the center of Oh-seong’s face. He rocked backwards on his heels, shaking with fury and rage.

That’s a good boy,
I thought.
How do you get someone to show their weakness? You taunt them and make them angry. And then you strike.

I wanted him to feel tantalized. But my chains weren’t good enough. So I swirled around another blend of saliva and dirt—there wasn’t much to eat, and I had to try the weeds nearby growing in the cracks—and spat once more, landing a good loogie right in the center of his forehead.

Oh-seong gripped the bars of the jail cell. He could’ve broken them in half, if Hyun-jun hadn’t been so quick on holding him back.

“I’ll deal with him,” Hyun-jun said. He picked out a couple of keys from his pocket, and stepped inside the lion’s den.

Because I was not a prisoner.

I was not a fool either.

I had a plan formulated in my mind.

Just in an instant, I only needed Hyun-jun a little bit closer.

“I’ll show you a good lesson,” Hyun-jun said, taking out his AMT Hardballer. It had a black handle, and a silver barrel. It gleamed from what little sunlight was able to get through and into my cell. I stared at the end, wondering if he would actually pull the trigger.

They had come in many times before to whip me around. To embarrass me.

But they never killed me. I had been kept for months alive.

And there was a reason for that.

Either there was a ransom deal going on or I don’t know what. But they kept me alive for a reason.

Just a little bit closer now,
I thought.
Yeah, that’s good boy.

“I will show you something,” Hyun-jun said, shoving the gun into my mouth. This was to humiliate me. They wanted to pretend that the gun was a cock. That they had power over me.

Stupid.

“Show me,” I mumbled. I edged my feet closer to Hyun-jun, little by little. Oh-seong rammed his way inside the prison cell. Now they were both together, and I thought to myself,
Got you
.

I smashed my foot against the plate they had given me. It shattered into a thousand pieces, but also left behind a clear shard in place.

I grabbed shard, swinging my hands upward, and sending the fragment straight into Hyun-jun’s arm, dislodging the gun for my mouth. I kicked my legs upwards, straight against Oh-seong’s foot—he came straight at me, full force. The shard still in my hand, I waited for his chin to come close and then—

“Jesus Christ,” he said, ducking away. He held onto Hyun-jun, who gripped his forearm. The gun lay on the ground, and I squeezed my legs and pulled my feet and underneath my ass. Now I had my very own AMT Hardballer.

I held it tight in my grip, and then clicked for a shot.

Oh-seong laughed.

“It’s empty,” I said. “You don’t keep any bullets for your prisoners?”

“I would never keep a lethal weapon near you,” Oh-seong said. He ground the rest of the plate fragments up with the sole of his boot. “What you think this is? The movies?”

It was worth a try.

I closed my eyes, waiting for them to disappear. They hung around the edge of my prison gate for a while.

And I wondered just how long I would have to wait until I could get out.

♥♥♥

In my dreams, I imagined…

A beautiful woman. And she was not Korean.

PART II

JONG-SOO

“Jong-soo?”

I opened my eyes. What day was it?

It didn’t matter too much. I was in prison. Stuck under the watch of the Twin Swords.

If anything, I could tell summer had come. Humidity slicked over the bars. In the air hung a stickiness, as if I had just woken up in the middle of a shower.

A jutting pain stabbed underneath my rib cage.

An ache sprawled across from underneath my heart, digging into my lungs, stretching down into my knees. Going across my stomach, several nicks and cuts that I had no idea about. Slashes into my skin, unknown pains had not paid attention to before.

I didn’t have the time to.

My mind was completely consumed with getting out. The last plan I tried did not work. What I had been aiming for, I wasn’t sure anymore, but I liked the fact that I hurt Hyun-jun. It sent a message at least.

Sleeping in prison had gotten kind of strange.

You sort of woke up and then drifted back.

There wasn’t really any time to have deep meditation, dreams. My body wouldn’t allow it. Constant adrenaline kept me alive but also awake.

Frustrating.

The entire ordeal could not be more frustrating.

I made a fist, trying to break off the chains wrapping my wrists together. But, of course, no dice. I would be stuck there for a long time more. I glanced about the prison cell, staring at the cement near the ceiling, the way the bars thinned out like a mirage and then suddenly thickened, becoming tree-trunk wide.

Hallucinations were common now.

Lights appeared at the sides of my eyes, like auroras at the northern poles, deep purples and teals swirling about my face.

Sometimes I reached out to grab the lights, but I could not touch anything physical.

Just illusions, my brain trying to give itself something to do.

I was glad at least that my brain still functioned. They had not damaged me enough to make me stupid.

Still alive, I could think about life on the outside.

And what was happening.

The news would swirl about me. Rumors sprawling across the land. I wondered what the Double Dragons were up to now. And if anyone was in control.

I figured someone had to be leading them. Maybe that’s why the Twin Swords wanted to keep me alive. I had some sort of valuable “in” that they did not. I had become a living trump card for them, possibly.

It was all speculation until I could receive some actual information though. Meditating on how to get out—much more important.

“Jong-soo.”

My eyes drifted around the room.

A voice?

Yes, there had been a voice when I woke up.

But I gave it no mind. I had no strength to do so.

Slowly, I let my eyes sink into the world. Taking in more and more of my hellish prison. My hands scrabbled underneath where the ground fragments of the plate had smashed from yesterday lay sparkling.

All those pieces into Hyun-jun’s skin. I looked at my hands, studying the veins pumping blood towards my sturdy heart.

Blood rolled down in streaks across my skin, dousing my hair in brown-red—the droplets dripped off strings of my hair, matted and stuck to my scalp.

“Who?” I mumbled. With no food in my system—or at least decent food—I did not have the power to say much else. I tried to muster up my strength though. The Double Dragons might have raised me, but I did go to college for a couple of semesters. I took up some psychology classes. Positive thinking and reframing the situation was supposed to help: so I trained myself in those moments, as I lifted my head up for the umpteenth time, to think about the future in a good and bright way. What else could I possibly do?

“I have your food,” the voice continued. A woman. But not the woman of my dreams.

She seemed familiar though. Who was she again? I wracked my brain for answers. All of my glial cells worked hard, gray matter sluicing together, putting a name to her face.

“Bit-na,” I said. I sat upright, finding more strength within me. She had a plate in her hand. Bread on the center of the ceramic. “Is it my mealtime?”

She nodded.

Standing at about five-seven in height, with auburn-brown hair and tawny eyes, dark skin, Bit-na had to be one of the prettiest jailbirds I had ever seen. She wasn’t imprisoned with me, although I did wish so.

But compared to the concrete and the steel frames? The bars holding me in? The blood dripping down my face and onto my arms?

“You’re beautiful,” I whispered, not exactly in the right mindset. “What are you doing working for someone like Oh-seong?”

Bit-na giggled. I suspected she knew who I was via my singing acts and label. What had happened to LBC Records and Boy’s Generation? Were they still active? Looking for me? All of the money being laundered…

“You ask me that all the time,” she said, kneeling low to the ground. Opening the prison cell a crack, she slid the plate filled with bread through, close enough so that my legs could curl back underneath my ass. From there, I could reach the bread with just the tips of my fingers alone.

We went through those motions, surely enough. I waited for my answer.

I had been waiting for some time.

“I think I’m going to keep asking,” I said. My voice sounded so harsh, hoarse. Like I had been drugged, beaten, and flayed. I must’ve looked like death itself. “There isn’t much of anything to do in this prison anyway. You guys don’t give me much entertainment.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said, standing up. She wore high heels, which looked incongruent with the dirty concrete of the hallways outside my prison cell. Looking up to the skylight, a wisp of dust swirled overhead like a swarm of gnats, and that too made her seem even more… desperate?

Not only was she wearing heels, but she had a tight miniskirt on and a bra.

No shirt, no halter top.

A bra.

“You think you can keep visiting me here and not say how much you like me,” I said, smirking. “I know you’ve got something on me. That Oh-seong boy? A boy, just that.”

Bit-na shook her head.

We had gone like this for some time, back and forth, exchanging little fragments of ourselves, but never revealing the totality of who we were in those days: me, literally broken, her, spiritually so.

“I’ll be back later,” she said, walking away. I watched her ass shake from one side to the next. She did not look Korean at all, seeming more like a Japanese woman with a black American father—military, probably. That was my guess, although her accent betrayed nothing but nativity to the peninsula of Korea.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” I said, as she went away and locked the hallway door. I noticed a long time ago that there were no other prisoners except me in this wing. They captured me, woke me up, but left me alone in my own dungeon.

Why would they do that?

What purpose would they have for keeping me totally by myself?

If they wanted to extract information from me, then they would have done so by now. And they would’ve kept me socialized: a prisoner being tortured is not giving away good info. He’ll do whatever it takes to get the pain to stop—and that’s it.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I guess they weren’t torturing me
per se
. They were feeding me bad food, sure, but enough to sustain me, keep me going.

They changed my “bedpan,” which was more of a used jar for lard than anything else, frequently. So they didn’t let me sit in my own stench.

Nope.

“I just don’t get why they would do that,” I said to myself. I had no one to talk to for the better part of the day while I was awake. So I made sure to exercise my mouth, my vocal chords. For I would get out eventually—I expected so, and I needed to. “I could try listing out all of the reasons why they would do this all. Hmm. Maybe… I think they’ll
eventually
torture me? Or they just like looking at me. I’m that pretty.”

I laughed. You had to have a sense of humor while you are behind bars. Or else you would really go crazy, lose it all completely.

After breaking off the portions of bread that were edible—this morning’s meal was moldy and stale—I slumped over to the side, the chains digging into my skin. I got into the most comfortable position I could muster: at a 90° angle, on my ass, but not on my tailbone. The way the chains were wrapped around my ankles made it so that I couldn’t turn over fully. I was constantly sitting down on my haunches. Turning over from side to side became the only option I had for relief.

With my eyes closed, I drifted off elsewhere, thinking back to the woman I had seen in my dreams.

At first her figure appeared hazily, just like the auroras haunting me during the daytime. Then her shape materialized, her cheekbones pointed and then rounding out, hollowed with dimples.

And then her lips full, blessed and beautiful, plump and voluptuous. Her body had formed nicely. I found her insatiably attractive: curvaceous, with a lovely deep and dark tone to her skin.

Like a deep brown trending towards ebony.

Lovely, as I said.

Her hair came out in puffs, tightly coiled, natural Afro-texture. You didn’t see that around Korea at all, if ever. Quite rare to find in a woman. But the longer I stared at her, the more I wanted to know her.

Right in front of me, she leaned forward, dipping her tongue into my mouth. I opened wide, biting down on her lower lip, sending an electrical surge up and down her throat. She closed around my lips now, kissing me back. Squeezing my cheeks, she said, “I’m coming for Korea. And I’m so excited.”

“Things are definitely exciting,” I said, “but not in the way tourists expect it to be. I’m pretty sure there’s shit going on outside that no one wants to deal with. And I’m not sure how to fix it all.”

“Oh,” the woman said, “don’t worry about it. Life gets all fucked up a lot. And that’s just the way it happens. I think we can fix things in the end, don’t you? I majored in art history, and if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that movements remake themselves. There is nothing new under the sun. Nothing at all.” She kissed my cheek, draping her fingers around my chin, rubbing my chest. Her skin caused my breath to quicken, inhale, exhale.

My chest heaving.

Electric.

Fire.

“Who are you?” I said. “You can’t possibly be real. I must be dreaming again.”

She giggled. “I’m more than a figment of your imagination,” she said. “Or maybe, I'm nothing more than a flirt.”

Her voice waned. At the edges of her body, she dematerialized. Threads of her clothes pulled away from her skin. Her eyes melted out of her sockets.

The tips of her fingers dropped down to the ground, clinging against the ground like rain on dry soil. Then her hair exploded in a blast of fire, and I saw Hae-il running towards me, his face blank, no skin at all, just scars bursting forward like the crags of a mountain. Straight at me, consuming my body, digging into my skin.

I struggled against his face, wrapped in my chains, rocking from side to side, trying to stop my legs from falling asleep…

“Wake up,” Bit-na said. I had begun to get better at remembering who she was.