by Asia Olanna
“That’s how my friend did as well,” I said. “Latasha. I miss her a lot.”
But having Jong-soo by me had become a necessity.
He was my anchor in the world of Asia, the guy who had shown me everything, and who had defended me.
What kinds of other guys had I met in the United States?
Lots of fuckboys who didn’t know their ass from their nose.
I was tired of having to deal.
With Jong-soo, I had a real man by my side, who would defend me through thick and thin.
All of those stereotypes about Eastern men in the West? So wrong.
“Are you nervous?” I said.
And like clockwork, Jong-soo said, “I’m not at all. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for all of my life.”
“I’ll admit that I’m scared,” I said. Hell, I was about to go back to the man who abducted me. To the people who wielded guns like nothing. Who could’ve easily killed me—if it were not for my Superman of a guy, Jong-soo. “I know you have my back,” I added. “With you guys by my side, I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”
“You just keep your eyes closed. If you ever have to open them, just remember to look at me. I’ll be right by your side, always.”
“I can handle myself, I think. To an extent, from what I’ve learned in America. But you’re right, if I ever get too scared, I’ll always have my eye candy.”
Jong-soo looked around, waiting for a moment to slap my ass.
Then he said, “I don’t want you to be too distracted, now.”
He slowly pushed me into the direction of a large park, with green grass, verdant trees, and a beautiful canopy filled with sunshine pouring through the leaves.
For a moment, everything felt so normal.
Like we were really a couple back home in Nebraska, and then we ran, ran and laughed.
Our arms wrapped around each other, Jong-soo quickly lifting me up into the air.
I threw my hands above me, remembering what it was like to be next to Latasha in her car, listening to music. God, I even missed my father. My dad, whose voice I needed to hear again.
Just for normality’s sake.
“Not anything to worry about at all,” Jong-soo said, popping me down onto a bench. Sure, many people were staring at us—it was because of our race, I could tell by the way they looked—but they were polite to glance away afterwards. The typical Japanese courtesies at play.
“Could you imagine living here?” Jong-soo said. “Around all these beautiful trees, the sea nearby. Fukuoka does not get as many earthquakes as Tokyo does. Other parts of the country are pretty dangerous—you can get smushed—but here? Lots of families live out their lives in retirement, health, in their 30s and beyond.”
“It’s sure beautiful,” I said. “Hey, what about that Kyung-joon fellow? Weren’t you supposed to call him back?”
“It might be too dangerous now to buy a cell phone,” Jong-soo said. “We’ve been keeping a good underground track record. I think we should keep it that way, unless we need to really get out of the country. He’ll be our getaway card, if anything. I imagine that he can get us more fake passports, and then good deals on airliners.”
“Keeping your ace in the hole,” I said. “Got you.”
Jong-soo leaned his head against me, brandishing his arm to the sky. “Fuck yeah,” he said, “look at this all. It’s all for us, babe. All of it, once we take out Oh-seong, once he goes down.”
“I wonder how someone can become so cruel,” I said. “Can you imagine growing up with that kind of lifestyle? It’s just so hard. Hurt people hurt people.”
“I know what you mean,” Jong-soo said, rubbing my stomach. “Future generations need to get more peaceful. If we’re ever going to advance as a society.”
“Definitely,” I said.
We sat there in the park for what seemed like hours, watching the sky change colors, slowly over time, before we had to head home, back to Bit-na.
JONG-SOO
Bit-na had food in the room already. “Eat up,” she said. “This was the last bit of money I could save for us. The Yakuza guys also chipped in.”
“You’re crafty,” I said. “Good thinking. Tell them I said thanks.”
“Already did. No backing out now,” Bit-na said, offering her seat to Henrietta. They sat down together, almost like sisters.
It was incredible, the transformation between them.
They had become close allies, confidantes almost. You needed these kinds of people in your life when you lived in the hood.
When you had difficulties with gangs nearby.
Because if you didn’t have a good family, who could you trust besides your crew, your gang mates?
“In only a couple of hours,” Bit-na said, stirring a pot of Ramen noodles before us, “we’ll be right at Oh-seong’s feet. And he’ll have so much to answer for.”
Bit-na was pleasant, placid. No sign of rage in her voice.
Calm before the storm.
“I hope everyone sleeps all right,” she said. “I want everyone to be as rested as possible for the events. Because if we’re going to take him out, then we need to make sure he goes down in flames.”
“It’s been coming,” I said. “A long time coming.”
I no longer suspected Bit-na of having ulterior motives.
Her motives were instead clear, precise, and open to us in plain sight.
We understood her pain, the travesties casted against her, the reasons why she hated Oh-seong so much.
We shared her hatred, wanted him to fall so badly.
I fed a couple of slices of baked ham to Henrietta, and then went to the bathroom. We brushed up together, fell asleep, waited for the morning to come.
When the sunlight hit my face, we immediately got going.
HENRIETTA
Getting out of bed was difficult. I guess imagining actually confronting my abductor was one thing, but what I was about to do?
Now, I wanted to make him pay—this Oh-seong—but I did not want to see anyone get hurt.
Especially Jong-soo.
“Are you sure you’re going to be able to handle everyone there?” I said to him, as we got out of our room. The men from yesterday were waiting downstairs in the lobby, with the same van from before.
“When we get to Oh-seong,” Jong-soo said, “he’s going to be alone. Even though he controls the Twin Swords, he still going to be isolated. He lives like a king—that’s how I used to as well—up in a mansion in the hills.”
“A mansion?”
I thought about living in the hills, a mansion, Jong-soo. “Why did you never take me there?”
“It’s too dangerous,” Jong-soo said. “People killed my parents there, and they almost killed Hae-il as well, way back when.”
I saw hurt flicker across Jong-soo’s eyes.
Hesitancy in his voice.
“I won’t press for specific details,” I said, entering the lobby with Bit-na and Jong-soo.
The men greeted us, and we went inside their van, talking over our strategy, what we would all say, do.
We pulled off to the side of the road, after having checked out of the hotel.
Then we stuffed me and Jong-soo inside the bag, the same way we had when we left Korea.
After a while, Bit-na got into the van, and so did the rest of the guys.
Me and Jong-soo sat in the back, riding a bumpy road, waiting patiently, Jong-soo’s gun at hand, a couple of medical supplies around our legs, cramming us in.
There was so little space, that I found it hard to breathe. But I had to keep going, had to keep going for Jong-soo at the very least.
If anything, for him.
If anyone, only him.
“I’m scared,” I admitted. “But this is what I wanted as well. What I have to do, considering the choices.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t free you earlier,” Jong-soo said. “But at the start, I didn’t trust you either. And when it came t
o Bit-na and Hae-il? They were too dangerous. Hae-il had killed people before, was a top-ranked agent for my family, like Eun-jung or Kyung-joon. If she or him decided to go and kill you…”
I turned my head down. I had already put the pieces together, so there was no reason for him to reiterate everything. But having him say it out loud only confirmed my thoughts, my hypotheses: that Jong-soo was behind everything ultimately, looking out for me, protecting me in his own way.
“If I wanted you to get hurt, I would have let you go find your way out. But there was no guarantee. The way Bit-na and Hae-il were? Are? How she is, broken and dangerous.”
“I understand,” I said.
He had to figure out his own way of protecting me. There was no other way—and I cannot say that I would do differently.
I was the girl from the suburbs who wanted excitement, wanted to find her way in the world.
I had gotten what I asked for out of Korea, this adventure of mine, coming over across the planet—my journey.
“I trust you that you can execute everything perfectly,” I said.
“The only variable that I can’t control,” Jong-soo said, “is Bit-na and Oh-seong. The Twin Swords. But I promise you, I’m going to get you out safely. That’s been my goal this entire time.”
Encouragement ran through my veins.
In my head, my heart throbbed.
I knew he had strong feelings for me, had developed a relationship in his head towards me.
He had to protect me no matter what, because of how things went: I was the damsel in distress due to fate, and he was the one who had to get me out of trouble.
“Can you hold my hand?” I said.
“Sure,” Jong-soo said, kissing me on the forehead. “Since both of us are going to be bait, I know it’s scary.”
“Are you ever scared though? Truly?”
“I used to feel that sensation, truly,” Jong-soo said, looking through the hole of the luggage bag. “But I really don’t anymore. When you get used to the lifestyle—as I told you—it just sort of grows on you, strangely enough. I hate that it has, because I don’t feel like a normal person anymore. But you never have a boring day. Never. And I’ve gotten a real tough skin because of it all. Really tough.”
I felt the calluses around his hands, on his palms, underneath his fingertips. The way his eyes gleamed in the light, what little fell through our luggage bag.
“Promise me that I’ll make it out okay,” I said.
I only wanted his reassurance.
And he did not hesitate to say, “I promise.”
JONG-SOO
Once the van stopped, my heart nearly did as well.
Pumping through me was adrenaline, the sense of euphoria that I always had from combat.
I didn’t want to scare Henrietta, but it was true: I thrived on moments like these.
The kind of scary times she seemingly would endure, but I knew that she hated.
Most people did not want to be in danger. Even people who lived in rough neighborhoods—no one wanted to lose their lives.
I knew Henrietta was no different deep down inside.
But she had a tenacity, a strength unlike any other woman.
Even Bit-na.
“I’m going to tell you right now,” I said, kissing her again. “That if I die—”
“No,” Henrietta said. “I don’t want to hear those kinds of words. You can’t.”
“I can’t promise that I’m going to make it out okay,” I said. “But I can promise you that you will.”
Henrietta’s eyes started to well up with tears. I held her close to my shoulder and soothed her.
“We can’t be too loud now,” I said.
Because they were taking us into Oh-seong’s lair.
They were taking us into his domain.
HENRIETTA
All of the times I had been in the hood back home did not compare to what I was going through in Korea.
I was scared, scared of what would happen to me, but more scared of what would happen to Jong-soo.
Him being captured?
Tortured?
Killed?
I couldn’t think of him being mincemeat for some crazy man named Oh-seong.
There was no way I was going to let it happen. Not at all.
The wheels of the luggage bag were rolling underneath us, causing a ruckus, rocking against the tile flooring below. I saw and heard out of the hole hallways and doors. Bit-na’s feet, and talking, lots of loud talking.
The sounds of her scream, Bit-na’s, and then her arms being tied behind her back.
Jong-soo told me to get away from the hole, and to steel myself.
“It’s happening,” he said. “It’s happening.”
JONG-SOO
We were being taken in as captives, spoils of the turf war that had finally come to an end between the Twin Swords and Double Dragons.
Oh-seong, in his mind, thought himself the victor.
Although I knew otherwise.
“Stay calm,” I said to Henrietta. And maybe to myself as well, hoping that my nerves wouldn’t get the best of me.
I needed to protect my woman—I had begun to think of her as my woman. As someone I cared about extremely deeply for, who I wanted to see succeed in life outside of these prison chambers.
Because this was no place for a woman like Henrietta.
A gang?
Korea?
Maybe the latter, but not the former.
Inside herself, she must have ached for home so badly.
And I had to give it to her.
I had to give it all back to her.
We only had to wait for the signal.
Bit-na and the rest walked up several flights of stairs, banging the luggage bag against the edges of hard concrete.
Then we rolled down the hallway, clattering all the way.
I looked outside through the hole, and then I saw Hyun-jun, still well-dressed, still with spiky hair, holding onto Bit-na with cuffs.
Unchanged as I remembered him from my hateful cell where I was being held captive.
I wanted to bring my hands around him, and push his head into a saw or something. Grind him down into nothing.
“… And how could you think you would get away from us?” I heard him saying to Bit-na. “How could you think about betraying him like that? You’re a really dumb bitch, aren’t you?”
Henrietta flinched, and she averted her eyes down to the medicine packets.
I hoped we wouldn’t have to see her get brutalized by Oh-seong.
I kept my eye against the hole, looking out for any sign of action. The Yakuza were still all around, being that this was their territory.
How far had we traveled?
Were we still in Fukuoka?
After we climbed what seemed to be a final set of stairs, we rolled down a hallway, entered through a door, and then stopped before a throne room of sorts, a headquarters.
Oh-seong by a table, laptop before him, phone to the side of his laptop, a cup of coffee wafting about in the room. He was casually sitting there, legs crossed, as if he were watching a soccer game on stream or something.
I hated him.
How he acted was despicable—as if people weren’t being tortured under his rule, as if innocent people weren’t being brought into his affairs for nothing.
“He can’t get away with this any longer,” I said.
Surrounding him were several other men in suits, about five in number, presumably hired Yakuza.
There was a woman sitting in another chair adjacent to him, probably the girl who had taken Bit-na’s spot in his life.
I saw in Bit-na’s eyes rage, hatred.
She wanted to kill him right then and there.
Was ready to.
With the gun in my hand, the Glock 22, the same Yakuza gun that had they had brought to kill me—I took aim.