Seoul, present day
THE TEXT, WHEN IT finally comes, arrives at 3:23 am. Wanting to be kept in the loop, I’d provided one of the hospital nurses with a burner phone and a large wad of cash a week ago. And then I’d waited.
X
This one simple letter tells me all I need to know. Mr Yoon is dead.
Hours on from that text, as I sit on a hard subway seat on my way to visit a client, I wait again. My heart beats out the theme tune of anxiety in my chest, as it’s done since the early hours of the morning. Now I wait for another message, this one from Mrs Yoon’s solicitor.
The first in a long line of dominoes is teetering.
Feeling nauseous, I pop a ginger chew into my mouth and check my phone for what must be the hundredth time today. Still nothing.
I’m about to tuck it back into my satchel when the hairs on my arms rise.
A man, somewhere in this carriage, is watching me. I’m sure of it.
With my silvery violet pixie cut, my tattoo-dotted arms and the tank top I’m wearing on this hot summer’s day, I’d expected a few stares. I know I’m an outlier. An oddity. Other. What was I thinking, attracting attention to myself? But I knew the truth of it. It wasn’t other people’s attention I was attempting to attract. It was my own. My new look was a deal. A deal I had made with myself. The hair, the tattoos – I was readying myself to become someone new. Someone different. Someone who…could. Or at leastwas going to. Once I’d signed the paperwork Mrs Yoon’s solicitor would provide, there would be no turning back for me.
Still, I must admit, now that I’m on full display in the subway, I regret not taking up my client’s offer of sending a car.
Why, just once, couldn’t I have said yes?
I don’t know Seoul. I’ve never been to Hannam-dong before. I’m carrying something precious.
But I was never going to agree to that car, was I? I didn’t want to owe anyone any favours.
Ugh. I can still feel his eyes on me.
It’s nothing, I tell myself.Nothing.
Unable to concentrate, I shove my phone into my satchel and my gaze falls upon my upturned wrist and my latest ink – a likeness of a brooch I’d sold months back and couldn’t seem to get out of my mind. Victorian, 1864. I let my finger trace the circular frame of the outside – pearls and gold – and then the woven crisscross of flaxen hair encased in the centre. I hadn’t thought I’d grown attached – until it was gone.
This happened now and again. Sometimes I’d dream about pieces after I sold them. Sometimes I’d dream about them while they were still in my care. Sometimes they gave me nightmares. There had once been a necklace of bog oak that I couldn’t rid myself of fast enough.
My finger starts to move up to the tattoo above this one, a twist of braided hair open at one end. This one is a permanent mark not only on my skin, but in my heart. Just as I’m about to settle my attention upon it, I feel that gaze once more.
I look up.
There he is. Standing. Leaning. He’s younger than I’d expected, though I’m not entirely sure what I’d expected. Something middle-aged and leering in an ill-fitting suit, perhaps. When our eyes meet, he startles, his attention darting to the phone in his hand. There is no challenge here. I have stepped on a twig in the forest, and he has bolted.
I’m about to glance away when a small flicker of a smile crosses his face.
He stretches. Shrugs. The sleeve of his T-shirt lifts.
And a tattoo peeks out from under the hem.
Oh.
I see then that I’ve read this whole thing wrong.
He doesn’t think I’m an oddity. He was – is – sharing.
And this I don’t know what to do with.
I am never comfortable around men. I am always wary. Fearful of what might happen. What I might do. Being looked at is never good. But being seen is worse.
I move my gaze to the floor and try to pull myself together. I think of my therapist. What would she say about this? I still can’t believe I have one (a friend made me find one), but I have to admit that she’s been… helpful. Which is surprising, considering the lies I’ve told her about myself. The half-truths. The fabrications.
As the train rocks along, I return to a talk the two of us had a while ago, about control. About feeling likeI have control of my life, and things do not just happen to me. I am capable and have agency. I am the mistress of my own fate.
Her words resonated with me that day.
The mistress of my own fate.
I’d repeated the phrase for weeks. Could I ever be the mistress of my own fate? Whenever I thought back, I couldn’t remember a time when any sort of control was my reality. A time when I called the shots.
Not that I think back often. I’ve learnt the hard way that there is nothing to be gained by revisiting what can never be changed.
But once Mrs Yoon signs that paperwork, it will all be up to me. The choices… mine.
That’s what I need to focus on now.
The train stops. I don’t look up, but I see his feet move. He departs.
See? There was no need to panic. He was simply a walk-on part. The smallest of characters in my story. There was never any
