Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance

by Asia Olanna

  My driver asked something in Korean. I only understood bits and pieces, but I was able to piece together the meaning. “Flying somewhere far away?”

  “Not too far,” I said. “Just to Daegu.”

  Once at the airport, I made my way to the central terminal, looking for a man wearing a beret, as the email had instructed me to do.

  …he should be around five feet six in height. He’s not too tall, so you might miss him. Don’t tell him I said that, okay? Just a secret between you and me LOL…

  The man waved at me, was carrying a sign that read, HENRIETTA in bold lettering. I flagged him down, hugging him tight, feeling exuberant about my prospects. Finally, I was here in Korea and about to make headway in my journey.

  The man nodded at me, but like many of the Koreans I had met, he did not speak English very well. We did a bunch of sign language with our arms, waving in the air, jumping up and down, and pointing—he took me to an airplane hangar at the far back of the airport, alongside huge jets and smaller planes. He selected one of the smallest, helping me with my luggage. I strapped my seatbelt on, looking out the window.

  Just then, I received another email.

  Hey again, it’s Ming. Did you find the pilot? Good. I’m glad. Listen, when you land, don’t panic or anything. Daegu looks kind of remote. We’ll be waiting for you at the ground level though, you’ll see us there; we’re going to have such a great time. And we’re so excited over here. Talk to you soon?

  I typed that I was excited, and that I would talk to them soon. Only a couple of hours, and then we would be together, Jong-soo and I.

  The specifics of my stay in Korea were pretty firm. I would exhibit a lot of my sculptures during the day, and have plenty of free time at the night to work with other artists in the museum.

  It was hinted that Jong-soo Jeup would pop in frequently, that we might be able to work together. The horizon seemed to be getting brighter and brighter. Ming emailed me about my sculptures, telling me that they were already at the museum, ready to be unveiled for my final touches. We would work all day on arranging everything as they should be. And then I would get a tour around Daegu, we would have lunch…

  I folded my hands together, watching the horizon as we took off from Seoul International Airport. I glanced at the tarmac, the people below waving at us with their glow sticks, the air traffic controllers.

  I grinned at them, waving them off. Then we taxied and lifted for the air, the engine roaring behind me.

  “Do you like the country?” the pilot said, half in Korean, half in English. “It’s a very beautiful place, the countryside of Korea.”

  “I can imagine that it is. I’ve seen the pictures online. It’s beautiful.”

  “The Internet doesn’t do us justice at all. What you’re going to see, it’s going to be more than what you get.”

  “That sounds… I’m just so happy to be here.”

  My voice was trembling. I hands? Shaking. I could not be a wreck when I came to see the Higher Museum. So to put myself in a happy place, I thought about rain.

  Washing down my skin, over my eyes, and into my very flesh, gentle, unending, unyielding.

  The thought of rain eliminating all of my sorrow, my pain.

  And starting anew. In a brand new world.

  After a couple of hours of inbound flight, the plane dipped low in the air, and my heart jumped. Here it was! Daegu. The land where I would see Jong-soo. Where I would meet him, my idol.

  A popstar I had been waiting to meet for what seemed like ages now. Of course, there was still Korea to explore, and even if things didn’t work out so well with him—not that I was expecting marriage, I wasn’t crazy—the rest of the countryside would be to my advantage, my taste.

  I was going to make this an experience of a lifetime. One I would not forget ever, and one that I planned to brag about to dad and Latasha.

  “Here we go,” the pilot said, dipping lower and lower. A brush of trees stretched along rolling hills and jagged mountains. There were tall cell phone towers breaking along a mist, a fog. And brown landscaping, dirt and terraces leading downwards into a valley, skyscrapers breaking for the clouds.

  As we got closer and closer to the city, I realized we were not headed towards the airport. “Are we not going to land there?” I said, cheerily.

  “I’m taking you to a secret airport,” the pilot said. “It’s going to be a special place for you and you alone.”

  There was a sinister tone to his voice, almost like he was hiding something from me. I watched his eyes as a tinge of evil sparked light in the center of his brown irises. What was going on? Then a smirk drew across his face. Was I being too skeptical? Overly attentive? Anxious for no reason?

  There was no reason to suspect anything malicious of the sort. But my sixth sense—the way you can tell when someone is looking at you from behind—kicked in.

  We drew further and further away from the city grounds, the International Airport pulling from the sky, disappearing behind a ridge of rugged spires, sloping arms of a hill.

  “This is going to be a rough ride,” the pilot said. He laughed, as if he was finally unveiling a joke on me, blinding me with acid.

  “What are you?”

  The plane careened for the earth, speeding faster and faster, and I screamed.

  I reached over for him, punching his shoulder, but that would not do anything. He simply shrugged me off, pushing me against the door of the aircraft. I nearly opened it! I held onto my seat, flailing my arms against him. “What are you doing?”

  “Relax a bit, and you’ll see it.”

  I breathed in and out heavily, as if someone had gagged me. My lungs were on fire, ultimately scorched from my anxious behavior.

  I looked to the left of me, where the pilot said. I tried to see a way out, some sort of parachute vest for me to wear, a way for me to land safely. The earth sped up against the glass, and then—

  The plane shuddered and the wings rattled. I screamed for the mercy of the universe to come help me.

  I closed my eyes, not wanting to see any more of what was happening.

  A scratching noise raked across the windows. The land jolted us forward, in our seats, the plane itself.

  The wheels screeched, and a high-pitched frequency whirred in the air.

  I clamped down on my ears, rocking myself against the dashboard.

  Then we stopped.

  We stopped completely.

  I looked to the pilot. He had already gotten out and raced to the back. Something was definitely wrong, an unusual occurrence—

  The passenger door opened, and a woman with fair skin stared at me. Her eyes were blue like so many nights past.

  “Welcome to Korea,” she said.

  I couldn’t remember what language she used.

  I blacked out before I could understand completely.

  ♥♥♥

  When I woke up, my mouth was shut tight with tape. My hands were bound together. At first, I couldn’t believe where I was—on the back of a truck, a semi-automatic rifle slung over a woman’s shoulder. The woman from before.

  Before I fell into the darkness…

  “What’s going on?” I tried to say. But no words could pass the tape. Only muffled mumbles, a strained groan.

  The fast and quick talk of Korean chattered about my head. I moved my legs around, although my ankles were taped together as well.

  I had been stripped of my luggage. No longer caring my iPhone or laptop, I was brought as a prisoner towards an unknown land with no escape possible.

  Trees overhead hung low, brushing my face with leaves. Bushes covered the land, dark dirt kicking up as the truck moved along.

  Glimmers and fragments of sunlight broke through the canopy overhead, birds fluttering along with us, as if singing to one another the song of abduction.

  “She’s awake,” the woman said. To whom, I was not sure. Because there weren’t any others around.

  Maybe into a microphone attached
to her shirt? She wore a casual T-shirt, and jeans. Nothing fancy like in Seoul.

  Rugged for the terrain, ready to do anything.

  She cocked her gun into my mouth, forcing me against the back of the truck’s window. I slammed hard, my neck aching head suddenly, pain stretching and sprawling across my skin, bouncing and strumming every single one of my nerves.

  I ached in places I did not know existed—for real, my tailbone, the back of my thighs, my Adam’s apple…

  What had been done to me?

  I wasn’t bleeding or anything. Maybe they just manhandled me?

  “Yeah,” the woman said. “I’ll make sure she—”

  My Korean was still not good enough to understand every word she was saying. Frustrating, if only I had practiced more.

  The woman gripped me by the neck, pressing my face against hers. She had blue eyes, and scarlet red hair, clearly dyed, but fitting for her face all boxlike. She reminded me of a candy unwrapped.

  “Can you speak Korean?” the woman said in English. I feigned ignorance, not saying a word. “You look dumb to me.”

  I furrowed my eyebrows. So what? Was this why she abducted me? To make fun of how I look?

  “Why did you even bother coming here? I mean really, did you think you were an artist? The idea of you partaking in something so grand as art.”

  Now I really got angry. What was she talking about? Who was she speaking to? What point was she trying to make?

  The woman started speaking in Korean. She did not bother addressing me for the rest of the ride. I stared up at the sky, wondering what was going to happen to me, and if I would ever see my dad or Latasha again.

  I’m so stupid for coming here. This was a complete trap! They abducted me for… I don’t know what, maybe a ransom?

  That was common in Southeast Asia. But not Korea. At least, I never believed in abduction would happen in a major city in South Korea.

  I laughed for a moment. I remembered how Latasha had asked me if I was going to North Korea instead.

  The woman stared down at me, barking, “Shut up!”

  Her foot jammed against my rib cage, the heel of her toe slipping into a notch of my rib. I groaned, feeling a shock of pain explode across every point of my body. The nerves of my skin—they bled out pain.

  “That’s much better,” the woman said, returning to her Korean talking.

  What a bitch. Who would do this to someone? How inhumane.

  I would never even think to kidnap someone, take them away from their homeland, and then abuse them.

  What kind of depravity did you need to enter and spiral down into?

  Finally, the truck stopped. I could barely even see the sky anymore, there were so many trees, leaves covering up the clouds and the sunlight. Dark shadows splayed across my body, winding down my legs like ropes.

  I glanced around myself, looking at various tools—a wrench, a bucket, some nails— surrounding me.

  The woman gripped my arm, yanking me upwards onto my feet. Which hurt, everywhere. Her hands. Explosive pain. My feet? Like acid across my toes.

  “Come with me,” the woman said, as if I had a choice. I followed her down the truck back, although it was more like us jumping five feet into the air and painfully landing on your seemingly broken heels. She even lost balance. She held onto my shoulders, guiding me to the right, towards a black cave.

  The trees became more impressive, grander, stretching all the way up into the sky, like skyscrapers almost. Rocks formed small little hills, pressed up against the cave, bounding upwards along a mountainside. This appeared more like a bear’s cavern than anything else. Not a place where you would put human beings in. “You’re not a person here,” she said. “You need to remember that if you’re going to live with us. You are now officially a ransom.”

  So I was right. And they seemed confident enough to be telling me their activities.

  Or maybe they were more dangerous than I could even imagine.

  “Don’t make too much noise,” she said, throwing me against the cave’s entrance. “I’ll be right back.”

  I watched the woman walk off, her boots trailing into the distance. Tears welled up in my eyes. For the first time, I was in so much anxiety, that I thought I might blackout again.

  When she came back, she came back with a man wearing nothing but a pair of cargo pants and some sandals. His muscular top half made him seem scary to me: he had tattoos stretching down from his neck all the way to the lowest portions of his back.

  Twin swords.

  I had never seen such a design before in my life. Maybe I might have passed pictures of Japanese gangsters—that’s what those swords reminded me of—but never had I noticed anything of the sort this man had on his skin.

  And then I realized the woman also had a set of the same tattoos. Down her neck, and stretching across her shoulders. It was only now side-by-side that they looked similar, almost like blood relations.

  The woman turned to the man and said something to him in Korean. Then he grunted and walked back to the truck. The woman came to me, tilting up my chin. With a large towel, she wiped my face. When she pulled back her hand, I saw blood.

  “You’re a mess,” she said. “If you didn’t scream so much, we wouldn’t have had to hurt you.”

  I mumbled incoherence.

  Trying to make her see my way.

  Futile and useless.

  “I don’t know why you Americans even bother coming here,” she said. “Do you think this place is even for people like you? We don’t want your nationality here. There’s been an anti-American sentiment arising in this country for a long, long time. Maybe not in the mainstream, but boiling underneath.”

  Her English was impeccable. She sounded as if she had grown up in a local school—back home in Lincoln, Nebraska. Miles away now, but so familiar. As if she went to the same districts as me, even.

  Impeccable English.

  “I’m not going to give you any pity though,” she said. “Bit-na’s already got that on lockdown. Disgusting little bitch.”

  I had no idea who she was talking about. Bit-na?

  I heard the voice of the man from far away. More Korean. The woman nodded to herself, plucking at her shirt. She said something into a mouthpiece somewhere attached to the fabric of her T-shirt, and then she stood up, walking into the cave.

  I fell backwards, and tilted my head to see where she was going. The cave, being shallow, held nothing more than a couple of rocks and moss and wood.

  The woman knelt down, peeling aside a rock. She dug in the ground, pulling out a first-aid kit.

  She came to my side, pressing onto my cheeks medicine and a bandage.

  “But she’ll kill me if you see her like this,” the woman said. “She takes pity on the stupidest things. Always trying to play the hand of the diplomats. When we could just bomb them. Terrorize them. There’s no need to play with the guys in power. When they fear us.”

  She sounded like a raving lunatic. I had no idea what she was foaming at the mouth about.

  “No matter,” she said, pressing a bandage against my cheek. It stung, it hurt, but it felt good to have relief. She applied aloe and then closed up the first-aid kit.

  More shouting in Korean now. From the man. I might not have understood the most intricate aspects of the language, but I could tell from the trauma of his voice that he was getting impatient.

  He wanted something now, needed her to come by his side immediately.

  So she yanked me, and we stumble-walked our way back to the truck. She forced me into the backside, leaves crunching underneath my feet, my shoulder digging into the truck’s metal window. I looked at the man, who was at the driver’s wheel already, holding a cell phone to his ear.

  “We’re going to get a pretty penny off your head,” the woman said, taking me to the side. Then she sat her ass down on my chest, and glanced back at my head. “Don’t worry, this won’t be long.”

  And with that, she sat her ass even furt
her backwards, suffocating my face with her jeans.

  I had never been more insulted. Degraded!

  We rocked back and forth together, left and right with the weight of rocks underneath the tires of the truck. Bouncing midair sometimes, and then collapsing all as one—the metal tools and the bucket jangling together.

  I stayed conscious for the rest of the trip. I think she kept me alive so I could suffer more. Cruel and unusual, but not unlike someone so sociopathic. No empathy at all.