I Hear Your Voice

by Young-Ha Kim

  Baseball Cap interrupted, trying to stop Hoodie. “Shit. What’re you doing, bringing a bastard we just met with us? Let’s go. Fuck, let’s just leave.”

  “Where are you going?” Jae asked again.

  “Give it up.” A kid with a pierced ear threatened Jae. “You don’t need to know, asshole. Just keep your head down and play your game. Fucking dirty bastard.”

  Hoodie said, “The bastard says he’ll be a slave. Does Your Highness want to be our slave instead?”

  Piercing backed off and spit on the floor.

  Hoodie turned to Jae. “Look, we’re going to meet some girls first. There’s supposed to be four of them, but we’re only three, so if there’s us three and you, it’ll be just right.”

  “Hey, asshole, I said leave him out. He smells, for real. I’m serious.” Baseball Cap frowned.

  Hoodie suddenly became angry. “Jesus, you’re fucking freaking out. Did you bring us all together? You’re a moocher yourself, and you can’t seem to shut up. Shut your trap, you cunt.”

  Baseball Cap continued grumbling, but he backed down. Hoodie grabbed Jae’s arm and pulled him up from the chair.

  Jae said, “You know, I already paid the nightly rate for the games here . . .”

  Jae was holding back, so Hoodie pulled Jae even harder. He said, “Fuck the flat rate. Might as well be the rate of cum coming out of your dick.”

  The other two laughed as if he’d just told a great joke. Jae gave up and followed them out.

  Hoodie gave him a basic orientation that sounded like code. “Hey, you’re last. We pick first, then you. If you get stuck with a fuckin’ mess, don’t grumble. If there’s only three vaginas, you’ll have to do your own hand job. Got it? Don’t get all resentful. And keep your mouth shut. Don’t even open that mouth of yours tonight.”

  They met the girls in front of a shopping mall in the Dongdaemun district. As if they had been built on an assembly line, the girls were the same height and dressed alike in skinny jeans, tight T-shirts, and cheap cardigans. They had caked on their makeup, which may have made them look three or four years older than the guys. But their attitude and expressions gave away their youth. One of the girls stood out. She had bright eyes and a heart-shaped face, and the boys kept looking her way. A girl with hair like sesame leaves negotiated on their behalf, and a girl with two rhinestone barrettes stood behind her, as if assisting her, blowing bubbles with her gum.

  “Should we eat something first?” Hoodie asked.

  Everyone agreed. They made their way to a cheap joint nearby and sat down. The girls ate enormous quantities of spicy rice cakes and blood sausage. They ate as if they hadn’t eaten all day.

  “So, why’d you take so long to come out?” Hoodie asked.

  “It was tough coordinating our schedules,” Sesame Leaf Hair answered.

  The girls laughed. The three girls had waited for the last one, the pretty one, to run away together. If they didn’t have a pretty girl with them, their attempt at running away would only end in failure. On their first night away, or—at the very latest—by their second, they had to find a roof to sleep under, and to find a guy who would give them a place to sleep. A pretty girl was mandatory. Past experience had taught them that only one of them needed to be pretty for them to be successful on the market for runaways, so they coaxed and scared the cute one, who had been wavering, and finally won her over.

  The cute girl’s name was Jiyeon, and though her face wasn’t symmetrical, something about her kept you looking. The boys bought soju and snacks and headed for the semi-basement of a multi-unit where Hoodie lived alone. His parents used to live there, but had moved into his grandfather’s house after he passed away. He and his sister lived in the two-bedroom basement, but she hadn’t been around for over two months.

  “She’s like that,” Hoodie spat out.

  The boys descended into the house in one swoop, but the girls stayed behind and argued with one another. Only when Hoodie came back for them did the girls descend one by one into the semi-basement. They got drunk and started playing a stripping game. Each time they lost, they had to take off a piece of clothing. One of the girls finally had to take off her jeans, leaving only her bra and panties on. “Woah, woah, woah!” shouted the boys. Their voices were changing with puberty, so they sounded like wailing orangutans.

  The game continued.

  All their eyes were on Jiyeon, who continued losing her clothes. Jae too was down to his underwear. The stink and heat of eight bodies flooded the basement room. Except for Jae, it seemed as if everyone had played the game more than a few times. They screamed and cackled, but gave in to the rules. They knew how things would end. But did they really know? Jae was afraid. His eyes briefly met Jiyeon’s, then slid away.

  One by one, the girls exposed their breasts. Jae was a little shocked to see that the girls so similar in height and fashion had such different breasts. One girl’s were already rounded out like a grownup’s, another had breasts that hadn’t filled out with fat yet. One had long and perky yellow melons, and another round and firm peaches. They were drunk and excited, and their breathing became ragged as the game sped up. Finally when one girl (probably Rhinestone) stripped off her last article of clothing—her underwear—the game ended because Sesame Leaf Hair stood up and started screaming, “Shit, are we just going to keep playing games forever?”

  Hoodie (he’d taken the hoodie off, but Jae didn’t know what else to call him) stood up and slapped Sesame Leaf Hair’s cheek. “Bitch!” he said. Everyone laughed noisily, even the girl who’d been hit.

  “Why’d you do that, it hurts,” she whined, still laughing. He grabbed her arm and took her into the bedroom, skipping over the bags of chips scattered across the floor. Baseball Cap took that as a signal and grabbed Jiyeon, whom he’d been eyeing all along, by the wrist. The problem began there, when she turned him down. He turned to Rhinestone and Bubble Gum in disbelief. The girls tried to calm him down and took Jiyeon into a corner. Though they were whispering, everyone could hear them.

  They asked her, “You don’t want to put out, or you don’t like him?”

  She frowned. “I don’t want any of it.”

  “Do you know what it’s like to go hungry? We’ve come all the way here and you say you don’t want to? You want to sleep out on the street?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t want to. I don’t feel too good today, either.”

  The bed was creaking noisily from the bedroom. Baseball Cap, who was pacing nervously, couldn’t wait any longer and grabbed Jiyeon.

  “Bitch, you playing with me?”

  Jae jumped up and gripped Baseball Cap by the waist, and knocked him over. Baseball Cap shook Jae’s arm off and kneed him in the face until Jae fell over, his nose bleeding. Baseball Cap used all his strength to kick him repeatedly in the stomach.

  One of the girls laughed and said, “Wow, it’s a soccer kick.”

  Baseball Cap burst into the bedroom and in the middle of the struggling bodies, shouted at Hoodie, “Hey, come out here. Quick!”

  Hoodie came out, his hair a mess. When the girls in the corner saw Hoodie’s penis hanging out, they backed away. Hoodie, who understood the situation immediately, screamed, “Bitches! If you don’t want to do it, fuck off! I was going to let you sleep here, but you’re fucking acting up! Fuck!”

  Shocked, the girls gave up cajoling Jiyeon and instead snatched her by the hair and pulled her to the floor. Wearing only her underwear, Jiyeon lay sprawled flat like a crushed can of Coke. Sesame Leaf Hair, who rushed out from the bedroom naked, kicked Jiyeon in the face. Rhinestone lit up and dragged on a cigarette, and approached her. Everyone except Jae knew what she was going to do with the cigarette. Only when Jae saw the way Jiyeon looked at the burning tip of the cigarette did he understand. Rhinestone thrust the cigarette end against Jiyeon’s thigh. Jiyeon cried and said she was sorry, then Rhinestone and Bubble Gum pulled her up by her armpits and dragged her into the other bedroom. Baseball Cap stripped o
ff his underwear and ran in, and this time, Hoodie followed. Piercing, who had just come out of the bathroom, joined them. They heard the three guys noisily attacking Jiyeon. Like handball athletes after the first half of a match, the other girls had collapsed on the floor and were smoking. Their breasts and legs were completely exposed, and their legs, thighs, and arms were covered with cigarette burns and self-inflicted scars. They looked vacant, as if they had just woken from a deep sleep.

  Only Sesame Leaf Hair went to the next room and screeched, “Hey, don’t be too rough with her. You’ll mess her up.” That was it.

  Jae quickly got up and went to the bathroom. He threw up everything he had eaten into the dirty toilet. Maybe it was the spicy rice cakes, but his vomit exploded out with a red tint. He was dizzy, but unsure whether it was the alcohol or the events unfolding in front of him. As soon as he left the bathroom, he collapsed in the corner. As he slowly slipped into a foggy sleep, the kids continued to swap partners and have sex.

  Jae finally came to the next afternoon. The kids were hanging out and eating deep-fried snacks. The girls took turns showering and fixing their makeup, and some guys played a shooting game on the computer and others played rock, paper, scissors with the girls. What confused Jae most was that no trace remained of what had happened the night before. Jiyeon, who had taken multiple sex partners under threat of more cigarette burns, was joking around with the guys and chatting with the girls. Overnight, order had been restored. Jae understood. This wasn’t the world of human beings; it was the world of animals.

  The guys tapped Jae’s head.

  One laughed. “Fool, heard you fainted.”

  “Watch, a bastard like this goes at it later even fucking harder,” another added.

  Baseball Cap frowned fiercely and threatened Jae. “You do that one more time and I’ll fucking kill you. What’s our goddamn slave doing, getting all cocky?”

  Jae merely ate the cold fried snacks. From his corner, he watched the kids. The unofficial leaders of the group, Hoodie and Sesame Leaf Hair, began organizing the house like a married couple. They consulted each other on all important matters, and everyone else respected their decisions. It was clear that if they didn’t, they would be punished. You could say it was a nightmarish version, or a pornographic one, of the way they had once played house on the playground. The eight boys and girls moved back and forth in the narrow house like ants. Only Jae bothered to clean the bathroom; it was even dirtier than the public ones at the bus terminal. There were no cleaning products around, so he made foam out of body soap and used that. He had sometimes done this kind of work at the orphanage. When Piercing had to pee and discovered Jae cleaning, he opened the door wide for all to see. Everyone laughed for no reason. Piercing made a big show of peeing into the just scrubbed toilet bowl, noisily spraying everywhere.

  The girls were sitting at the computer, logged onto Cyworld. They had nothing in the real world, but all kept up fancy profile rooms in cyberspace. They were trashing a girl they knew online, endlessly swapping insults about her. If they ever went back to school, the first thing they would do was take care of that bitch. They moved on to another site and were diligently tapping away at the keyboard when Sesame Leaf Hair went outside and answered a call. She returned, pumping her fist in the air, and screamed, “Yes!”

  They were all thrilled, looking into the mirror, fixing their makeup, and rushing around.

  One said to the boys, “We’ll be back.”

  “You better come back with some fried chicken. The spicy kind.”

  “Got it.”

  After the girls disappeared, the house felt deserted.

  “Where are they going?” Jae asked.

  Hoodie snickered. “To get fried chicken.”

  A few hours later, the girls actually did return with fried chicken. Only Bubble Gum looked a little blue; the others were full of their usual cheer. Bubble Gum went into the bathroom and didn’t come out for a long time. It was clear she was crying. The other girls ate the fried chicken and rattled on about the pervert that Bubble Gum had ended up with, as if to show off their battle stories.

  All the days bled into each other. Day and night, the girls left to earn money and returned with fried chicken, pizza, soft drinks, and soju. Jae tidied up after the boys and girls. He emptied ashtrays, cleaned vomit, and went on errands to buy sanitary pads and cigarettes. Still every night, the house returned to chaos. The stripping game was no longer needed; the kids had wild sex without condoms or birth control pills. Hoodie told Sesame Leaf Hair to help Jae lose his virginity, as if doing him a favor, but she immediately refused. She said that Jae was “dirty and gross,” but she seemed more wary of Baseball Cap. The other girls were in the same boat.

  One day at dawn, Jae discovered Jiyeon curled up asleep beside him. He tentatively stroked the fair, smooth skin of her face, then slid his tongue in between her lips. She didn’t know who it was, but she accepted it out of habit. She slowly woke up. When her bleary eyes opened and she saw whose tongue had entered her mouth, she bolted up and screamed as if the experience was new to her and it was the most horrific thing in the world.

  The girls woke up, and eventually Baseball Cap and Piercing came out to the living room and started thrashing Jae. They didn’t even ask what had happened—they just automatically began stomping on him. Only Jiyeon stopped him from being beaten to death.

  “He didn’t have me,” she said. “Don’t hit him, let up.”

  But the beating stopped only when Hoodie intervened. “You wanna go to reform school? Quit it.”

  Baseball Cap dragged a tearful Jiyeon into the bedroom. He laid her on the floor and spread her legs open, and got on top of her. Jae crawled to the bathroom and washed his face. His entire body was burning. He couldn’t tell if it was from raging, murderous thoughts or from lust. He was at the age when it was hard to tell the difference. If something was boiling, the boiling was all he could feel. When Jae left the bathroom, his eyes fixed on a fruit knife left after someone had sliced up an apple. Rhinestone, who must have sensed a menacing energy in him, silently took his arm. This hand that had nearly scarred her friend’s face with a cigarette was surprisingly warm, tender. Only when she embraced him did he realize that she was naked. Those days it was as if they were naked when dressed, and dressed when naked. Only when she kneeled and sucked on his penis did he forget the knife. He began crying, then ejaculated in her mouth. She gazed up into his face, but he avoided her and left quietly.

  The alley was peaceful. No one seemed to know that right in front of them, young fourteen-year-old girls were hustling on the streets and having group sex at night. A woman in her fifties throwing out garbage glanced furtively at Jae, then hurriedly returned to her house. No, he thought. Maybe everyone actually does know. They’re just ignoring it. On top of the red brick wall, a tabby cat in heat screeched. Jae asked himself, Why on earth do things like this happen? There was no answer. His entire body began trembling. Finally, he returned to their world.

  Soon small changes began to happen. Group sex became less frequent (though it didn’t disappear) and couples paired up. Bubble Gum began having diarrhea, so she returned home, reducing the number of girls to three. Hoodie slept with Sesame Leaf Hair and Jiyeon slept with Baseball Cap. Piercing, with Rhinestone. Jae continued as a slave. Sometimes when the girls were drunk, they helped relieve his sexual needs using one method or another, almost out of kindness.

  As time passed, the girls began to have more influence. Whether it was because they were the ones bringing in the money, or if that was how it always went, Jae wasn’t sure. The guys began to listen to Sesame Leaf Hair’s nagging. The house became a little cleaner, which the boys didn’t mind. When the girls brought home money, they all went to a cybercafé and played an Internet game or went to karaoke and jumped around singing. Sometimes they put Jiyeon on video chat to lure men in, then sent out Rhinestone or Sesame Leaf Hair instead. While one girl stayed inside the motel, the other girls paced back and forth o
utside, holding their phones. While this was happening, the boys lazed around at home and played computer games.

  “Leave her alone today. She isn’t in good shape,” Sesame Leaf Hair said to the boys.

  That day Rhinestone had been forced to have group anal sex with two men. The girls lifted Rhinestone up from the floor in their arms and cried together. After wailing for some time, they fixed their makeup, said they were going to cheer themselves up, and went to karaoke. The girls came back with busted-up hands. When asked what happened, they said they had run into an old enemy at the worst time and place and punched her right in her trap. On Baseball Cap’s birthday, the girls returned with a cake. They opened a bottle of cheap champagne and lit some firecrackers, and smeared the cake all over Baseball Cap’s face. The boys stripped him down and said it was a birthday beating before they stepped all over him. Even though they broke one of his front teeth, he grinned happily. Later he got drunk and imitated a comedian playing the village fool, saying, “Baseball Cap is nowhere!” They laid him down on his stomach and pounded him on the back, singing, “Why were you born, you asshole? Why were you ever born, you asshole? Why were you born into this fucked-up world?”

  “Are you going to keep living like this?” Jae cautiously asked Hoodie one night. The girls were out and the boys were sitting around watching TV. At first Hoodie didn’t seem to understand what he’d asked. Hoodie’s mouth hung open and he looked perplexed, as if Jae had spoken in a foreign language.

  “This? What do you mean by ‘this’?” He seemed annoyed and continued chewing on cold leftover chicken.

  Jae scanned the room. “This, like here now. With the girls.”

  “What about ‘with the girls’? You mean how long is this craziness going to last? Why? You don’t like it? Then fuck off.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, I was just curious. So it’s always going to be like this?”

  Jae readied himself in case Hoodie suddenly attacked him, but Hoodie shrugged. “The bitches’ll leave soon enough.”