I gape at him. The club floor shatters beneath me. I am speechless and reeling from Mayhem’s candor. “He said you shot his brother,” I mumble. I don’t know how Mayhem hears me, but he does. I told you. I told you Sangwoo’s shady. Now we have confirmation he’s also a liar, my intuition states quietly.
The realization dawns in Mayhem’s eyes. The smile doesn’t reach his eyes when he tells me softly, “Sangwoo fed you some bullshit story about how I shot his brother right?” Mayhem pauses, but continues at the distressed expression on my face. “He never had a brother, sweetheart. I warned you to stay away from him. And now that I know he had to lie to you–to get close to you–I would suggest you stay away from me too. Our world will tear you apart. You’re not built for this. Spare yourself the heartbreak.”
I feel as though I am spinning on a revolving axis. I am dizzy and emotional. For a moment, I forget I am in a dark and loud club. Instead, I feel as if I am standing on a platform with a bright spotlight on my face. I am powerless to the emotions I feel.
“Until we meet again.” Without another word, Mayhem turns from the bar and disappears into the dark crowd. True to his mystifying style, Mayhem does little to clarify the misconceptions about him. This man allows rumors to fuel his reputation. Only those who are directly involved have access to his truth. Perhaps this is Mayhem’s secret to his throne in the underground world. Unlike Sangwoo who displays it all under the guise of anonymity, Mayhem’s path to his throne relies on what others say about him. Who is the true Mayhem then? The true Yoon Jaewon?
“Wait! You can’t just walk away!” I shout after Mayhem. Panic grips me. I want to know more, but Mayhem is long gone.
The club music, though alive and pulsating, sounds distant in my ears now. Although the lights continue to wan above the dance bar, I am blind to it all. How can Mayhem brush me off like that? How can he walk away without explaining more? The torn expression on Mayhem’s face–when I mentioned his brother’s death–is more ingenuous than anything Sangwoo has ever told me. Without a doubt, I believe Mayhem. Choi Sangwoo lied to me. I was under his hold for so long that the truth remains beyond distortion. But why? Why would he make up such a horrible lie? Did Sangwoo want me to sympathize with him? Did he think that would draw me to him even more? Well, it did, didn’t it? He got you to kiss him out of pity. My intuition purses her lips.
I gulp down the rest of the water and wave for the bartender. Through the loud music, I order a drink known for its potent alcohol content. Then, I lean against the bar and guzzle down the acidic taste. He lied to me. Why did he lie to me?
I start to fall apart here. Everything that has plagued me since Choi Sangwoo’s appearance in my life starts to unravel. Like an origami, the dark corners of my mind fold in. All the intangible things I’ve tried to hide under false pretenses come crashing down around me.
I feel like crap as the alcohol rips through my veins. I can no longer hide my impulses.
“I can do it. Calling him . . . .” I whip my cell phone out and dial the last known number.
My head starts to spin. I feel lightheaded and more importantly, I am not thinking.
“Hey! Excuse you!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“Excuse you!”
Here and there, I bump into people. The club is getting darker and darker, making it hard for me to see where I am going. I don’t care. I have to get out of here. I want to stop the spinning.
“Oof!” I happen to walk right into someone’s chest.
“May?”
“Oh shit!”
Just as I fall, Choi Sangwoo catches me.
SEOUL MUSICAL THEATRE SITS ON fifty flights of cold, hard concrete. I don’t know why Choi Sangwoo has brought me here, but we are standing on the very top flight near the largest pillar. The entrance to the building is only twenty steps away. For a Friday night, the venue is strangely vacant. Below us, people are strolling against the nightlife backdrop. Cars race through the busy intersection, adding white noise and life to the otherwise quiet city. The view is spectacular, but reality paints a darker picture.
“Why did you drink so much?” Sangwoo scolds me. His voice brings me to the present moment.
“Says the alcoholic.” My inhibitions are long gone.
Sangwoo narrows his eyes. He is less than pleased with me. However, Sangwoo refrains from nagging further. He’s already given me an earful in the car. I can’t recall a single word he’s said because my intuition keeps chanting, “Liar, liar!” every single time Sangwoo speaks.
Tell him May . . . tell him what you want to tell him, my intuition urges. I cannot get the words out fast enough. I am dizzy and nauseous. I am under the influence of alcohol and frankly, I don’t care if I am being a friend to him or not.
“You’re different from what I assumed you would be.” Sangwoo’s words are cold, accusing, and isolating.
“So are you,” I rebut quickly. The alcohol spins in my head. The thudding in my heart makes the situation more precarious.
Sangwoo stares ahead as though he is deciding what to do with me. There is evidence of stress in him. I don’t know how else to tell Sangwoo that I am in pain too. I want to ask him why he is here, why he is still pursuing me, but I cannot find the right words. I am worried that Sangwoo’s answer will deter me from making the final decision to walk away from him. Mayhem’s dark warning comes into my mind. I cannot believe that gang lord told me the truth about his brother and ditched me to make the connection on my own.
“Have you ever loved anyone?” Sangwoo asks, slicing through the tension with the sharp, introspective question. There is an ulterior motive to his question, but Sangwoo masks it well.
I am used to his mood swings and randomization. I slyly answer, “Why are you asking me this?”
“Because I was thinking about my first love today,” Sangwoo says with nonchalance. “The end of the month is approaching and I cannot stop thinking of her.” Sangwoo is directly talking about Dead Girl now.
My heart constricts at his slow revelations. The conversation suddenly takes a twisted turn. Sangwoo wants to go to war with me. Ok, we’ll go to war.
“So you drink to forget her,” I mumble in disbelief.
Sangwoo attempts to redeem himself. “Only when I have a lot on my mind. Everything that I do takes a toll on me.” There is sadness in his tone. Sangwoo stares up at the night sky again. “Will you dance with me?”
“Now?” I stare at him in disbelief.
“Yes.” Sangwoo leans forward. From inside his black blazer, Sangwoo pulls out a small, black iPod. I am amazed to see that ear buds are connected to it. Music pours into my ears when Sangwoo places an ear bud in. Brian McKnight is singing about not remembering why it all fell apart.
“What are they doing?”
“Aww, that’s so cute.”
I pull out of my daze. People have stopped walking on the street to stare at us. “Sangwoo, stop. Please.” I step back from Sangwoo. I extract the ear bud. I know what he’s doing.
“I like you May. I know I haven’t been exactly honest with you. But my feelings are true,” Sangwoo mutters as he buries his face in my hair.
I stop struggling in Sangwoo’s arms, letting the words seep into me. Dead Girl. Misun. I can feel Sangwoo’s emotions surging through his entire being for the love of his life. If seeing me hurts him so much–reminds him of her so much–why can’t he stay away from me? Because he just can’t help himself. The pain she left him can only be relieved when Sangwoo finds a suitable replacement. My conscience has her box of tissue out. My intuition is long gone. She doesn’t want to witness this.
He’s the perfect one for me. I love him so much! Nothing will ever separate us. I found love, May. Her passionate voice and beautiful face surges through my mind. I am falling down a great precipice as the memories threaten to take over my entire being.
“May. Are you okay?” There is alarm in Sangwoo’s voice.
I nod as I feel the cool
night air against my skin.
“I was going to call you,” I mutter. Before I can help it, the burning tears start to form. Damn it! I press my fingers on top of my eyelids to stop the burn. But the tears continue to flow effortlessly.
“May.” Sangwoo wraps an arm around me. “Why are you crying?” Sangwoo asks softly.
“I-I–” I shake my head at a loss for words. I begin to sob. “I didn’t want her to die. I just wanted to forget her. After all these years, I wanted to let her go. I forced myself to believe that you wanted me for me, but all along you only wanted me because I reminded you of her. Why do you keep stringing me along, keeping me in the dark, and lying to the both of us?”
Sangwoo freezes. Slowly, he unhooks his arm around me.
Whether I am alcohol driven or not, I don’t care. Anguish and betrayal pound in my chest. I cannot control it anymore or I will lose the rest of my sanity. Ever since I met Choi Sangwoo, I have known this day would come. Denial can remove anyone from the truth, further than they can imagine. It is time that we should stop lying to one another.
“You want me to take you home?” Sangwoo offers. He wants to run. He wants to deny the impending truth.
“No! I have to tell you now.” I cling to his arms. Tears are dampening my cheeks.
Sangwoo’s own eyes widen. “May, you don’t have to do this.”
I hold onto the sleeve of his shirt desperately. “I have to. Please, let me. I can’t keep pretending that I don’t know. I can’t keep having you lie to me. I’m tired of it. I deserve better than this. You don’t like me for me, and you know it. I remind you of her. Everything about me reminds you of her–my face, my physique, even my voice.”
Sangwoo’s jaw locks tight. His brown eyes become hooded and guarded. “May,” he starts again.
“You knew Lee Misun . . . didn’t you? Do you remember her the way I do?” I am desperate for him to understand this dark past of mine. “Lee Misun was my stepsister. She was Eunhye’s biological daughter.”
I tell Sangwoo my truth.
_________________________
MY EARLIEST MEMORIES REVOLVE AROUND the death of my mother. The living room was adorned in brown and black furnishing. The sobs circulated the house like musical notes rising and falling in a rhythmic pattern.
I was only nine-years-old at the time, lonely and scared. I was unresponsive to the hugs and kisses of the adults coming in and out of my home. Occasionally, I looked up at the large picture frame propped in the middle of the room. My mother’s glamorous and smiling face beamed down at me. Even though I was young, I knew about death. I knew that when a person dies, they don’t come back.
“Daddy, are you going to live with me now?” I asked him through teary eyes. There was an uncomfortable feeling in my throat from crying too much.
My father shook his head as he stooped down to my level. “No, honey. You’re going to live with me.” He pulled me into his arms, held me tightly and started to cry all over again. It was the first and last time I would ever see him with so much emotion. I was too young to understand the magnitude of the situation.
The first time I met his other family, his wife on legal papers and their daughter was when I officially moved in. I was standing in the middle of the large, lavishly decorated living room lit with fluorescent lighting and the smell of Jasmine tea.
Lee Eunhye, my father’s first and only wife, hunched over to look at me. Her kind eyes matched her soft caress on my burning cheeks. “She looks exactly like Misun.”
“Eunhye.” My father touched her shoulders. The recent events have caused him great strain and stress. “I’m all she has.” He took Eunhye’s hands into his palms and said, “We’re all she has.”
Eunhye stared at my father with an indescribable look. “Of course.” Right from the beginning, Eunhye was never a heartless or a cold woman toward me. Eunhye kissed the top of my head and hugged me tightly. Eunhye spoke softly to my father. “You hid everything for all these years, and now you bring home a little girl.”
My father didn’t answer her. Instead, he pressed Eunhye’s palm onto his lips. It was a sign of remorse and apologies rolled up into one gesture.
Eunhye bit her lower lip as her eyes welled up. “What should I do Hyun?”
“Please.” My father was anguished.
Eunhye had her eyes pinned to me. “Maybelline, you’re my daughter now.” Eunhye tightened her embrace around me.
Now that I’m older, I know the reason behind the strained meeting. My father was pleading with his wife to take me in–to adopt me as her own. At the time, I hated Eunhye. Most of all, I hated my father. I hated everything that had to do with his home. All of a sudden, I was now living with him. For nine years, I lived with my biological mother in a little apartment that my father paid for. At a young age, I didn’t realize that my biological mother was my father’s mistress. She was his best-kept secret for nine years until she died. The little family with my mother was all I had ever known. I always thought that fathers didn’t live with mothers and daughters. But after my biological mother’s death, I understood I was the other woman’s child–the half-sister of Lee Misun.
I first met Misun two days after my mother’s funeral. Eunhye took the necessary steps to introduce me to my cold half-sister. Misun recently returned from boarding school and was seven years older than me.
“Misun, why don’t you say hi to Maybelline?” Eunhye introduced us. Misun stared at me with dark eyes and pursed lips. We could have passed as twins. At the time, dressed in her school uniform, Misun was already a tall and mature seventeen-year-old. Misun’s hair was always dark, long and layered. The halo formed around her face accentuated its oval shape, light brown eyes, and heart-shaped lips. She was beautiful beyond measure.
“Who is she?” Misun addressed our father.
“Your sister.” My father narrowed his eyes at her. “May will be living with us from now on.”
Misun stared at me for the longest time. Instead of a warm and welcoming smile, she turned on her heels and stalked upstairs.
I looked at my father hoping for an explanation, but the fallen look on his face told me I was not going to get one. I assumed that Misun’s cold and isolating behavior would result in her ignoring me entirely. However, I got a good dose of reality when Misun approached me that night. I was climbing into bed when she turned up in the bedroom we shared.
“So, you’re the whore’s daughter.”
I turned and made eye contact with my half-sister. Misun watched me with an intense facial expression. She had cold, arctic eyes for such a beautiful girl.
“What did you say?” I asked. At the age of nine, I wasn’t sure what the word whore even meant. But when its intonation was coupled with Misun’s disgusted facial expression, I just knew it was a bad word.
“Your mother is a whore,” Misun repeated with disdain. “You know–a woman who opens her legs for men. A home-wrecker. A mistress.”
I could only stare at Misun in shock. How could someone be so cruel and hateful towards me? I wanted to fire something back, but I was too young and overpowered by her.
“You girls aren’t asleep yet?” On cue, my father showed up at the bedroom door.
“Yes.” Misun flashed a forced smile at him. “Good night daddy.”
Taking my chance to escape her, I crawled into my bed and pulled the covers over my head. I held my breath when I heard the bedroom door close and Misun’s footsteps. I was always a quiet and mousy child. I was no match for my older half-sister who had a fiery personality and behavior.
“Get up!” She yanked the covers off me.
“Wha–?” I sat up in bed and stared at her. “Leave me alone!”
Without warning, Misun threw my pillows onto the floor. “You’re sleeping on the ground.”
“There are two beds. You get your own bed, I get mine.” I pointed out.
“You’re sleeping on the ground!” Misun narrowed her eyes at me. Her beautiful face contorted into harrowing
features. With one more swipe, Misun successfully threw my blanket on the ground. I growled at her, refusing to let her bully me. “Give me back my pillow and blanket.”
“You’re sleeping on the ground!” Misun grabbed me roughly, tossed me on the ground, and threw the covers on me. She slapped a pillow against my head, strong enough for me to twist to the side. “You’re not wanted here and you’ll never be wanted here. What gives you the right to come into my house and take my things?” Misun leered in front of my face.
I sniffled, not wanting to her to see me cry. “Why are you doing this to me? What have I done? I hate you!”
Misun narrowed her eyes at me. She bit down on her bottom lip in disgust. “You’re not going to be living here long, so I don’t care if you like me or not.”
At age nine, after losing my biological mother and having my entire world turned upside down, I cried myself to sleep that night. I felt helpless, scared, and hopeless. I just couldn’t understand why Misun hated me. Although it was hard for me to adjust to it, I was desperate to make some sense. Days passed, weeks went by, and months accumulated. I cried myself to sleep every night because I missed my biological mother so much that it hurt. Nothing from that point on ever felt the same. Nothing felt worth it. Although my father took me in, he never attempted to develop a relationship with me other than being my disciplinarian. Eunhye, on the other hand, opened her heart and treated me as though I was her own. But Eunhye became blind and deaf when it came to how Misun treated me. How could I compete with her biological daughter?
Misun came home one afternoon with a basket of two kittens. My father bought it as an early birthday present for her. Misun was over the moon about the precious kittens.
“Mother, look, aren’t they beautiful?” Misun showed Eunhye.
“Oh my god, aren’t they a sight?” Eunhye cooed at the small, white kittens. “They’re sisters?”
“Yes, but you see this one is darker and this one is lighter. They have the same mother, but different daddies.” Misun gave me a look.
April Loves Black Coffee: First Impressions Page 40