Shin Hye walked into the kitchen where she was told that the team was waiting for her with the body. The dead woman’s body.

Lee Min Ho was talking quietly to Sister Mi-Kyung, both of them with their backs toward her. Something about the funding behind the center and cost of operations. He stood a full head taller than Sister Mi-Kyung. He wore a white shirt with sleeves rolled up. Black slacks and shoes. A belt. Very neat, very ordered. And handsome. 

Shin Hye stood still, aware that they hadn’t expected her to come through the back. She could turn and sneak out, avoiding the embarrassment of talking to him again after running away. Did he think she was crazy? Surely, he did. She’d lectured him and then fled at his mere mention of her stepping outside of the building.

Maybe she really was crazy. But she wasn’t, she knew that. However, she was intimidated by the man who stood across the room. He completely outclassed her. He, the specimen of perfection, standing head and shoulders above her.

He had watched her with sincere interest. And honestly, that was the real irony, wasn’t it? He had no business looking at her with any kind of interest, because she neither deserved nor wanted it. She was dirt in his world.

She had no adult experience in that world, and looking at him now, it occurred to her that the only way to cope with him was to bring him down to her level, even if just a little. Not by being mean to him, but by pretending to be his equal, maybe even his superior in some respects.

Wasn’t that what she’d done during most of their first meeting? She’d protected herself by coming off distant and in command of the situation. She had to do that again or risk falling apart in front of him.

I can’t let him know how much I like him.

Shin Hye gasped and jerked back into the hall. How could she think such a thing? It wasn’t true, of course, not in the faintest. She liked him, but not in that way.

Sister Mi-Kyung called out. “Shin Hye-ah?”

The thought that she might actually be attracted to this man terrified her. It made her feel like a worm, knowing that he couldn’t ever bring himself to return any affection for a piece of waste like her.

“Are you there?”

She had to control herself!

She took a deep, calming breath, absently smoothed her hair, and stepped out. They were both looking in her direction. She thought she should say something that demonstrated anything but the fear she felt, but instead she stopped and stared at them.

Min Ho-ssi (she couldn’t call him Min Ho oppa any longer) smiled. “Hello, Shin Hye.”

“Hello.”

“Thank you for coming.”

The way he was looking at her… She knew it was just normal and friendly. After all, he needed her help, so he was being nice. But it was so easy to misinterpret his look as something more. As interest.

She had to gain control!

“Well, I doubt I can be of any help,” she said walking forward, hoping that he didn’t see the slight shake in her hands. “But so that you can get this off your mind and move on, I’ll do my trick for you.”

“Trick?”

“Trick, show, whatever. I’ll be your monkey in this little zoo you’ve set up so you can get down to real work.”

“Shin Hye-ah…” Allison warned her.

“Biane, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

Min Ho looked tongue-tied, and that gave her a moment’s encouragement. She might be nothing in his world, but here she could still be somebody.

“So where’s the body?”

The walk-in refrigeration unit was around the wall to the right, and Min Ho called to someone. A few moments later, a paramedic wheeled a gurney around the corner. The body was covered in a white sheet, but the woman’s form was unmistakable.

Shin Hye stared at the body and let her mind go where it wanted to go, into the hidden folds of story behind what her eyes saw.

“Paradise?”

She looked at Sister Mi-Kyung, she normaly doesn’t use her nickname unless Shin Hye is in a state of breaking down. “Wae?” Shin Hye asked annoyed. I’m in control.

They just looked at her. She had to get back on track. She felt panic crowding her mind, but managed to push it back.

“There’s too many people here.”

The paramedic glanced at Min Ho, who nodded. “I’ll just step outside,” the medic said, then left the three of them with the body.

“Is that better?” Sister Mi-Kyung asked.

Min Ho was watching her. She had to stay strong.

“De, that’s better,” she said, moving forward. “So what exactly do you want me to do, Min Ho-ssi? Fondle a dead body in front of you?”

“Paradise!”

“I’m so-sorry,” she said, horrified at her choice of words. “That’s not what I meant.”

“No need to apologize,” Min Ho said. “Trust me, I’m grateful that you’ve agreed to try to help us out. I realize that this is unprecedented. I feel a bit awkward myself.”

“Why, because you’re not used to working with monkeys?”

“Aniyo, that’s not what I was thinking.”

“But it’s at least partly true. You could never feel comfortable in the company of people like us. We’re all just too weird for you.”

Mi-Kyung tried to steer her right again. “Please, Shin Hye-ah, this isn’t time for – ”

“For transparency?” she interrupted. “No, not in front of real people.”

Even as she spoke, Shin Hye heard the unkindness of her own words and wanted to take them back. They even seemed to jolt Sister Mi-Kyung. For a long time she stared at Shin Hye while Min Ho shifted his eyes between them.

“You’re right,” Sister Mi-Kyung said. Then, turning to Min Ho, “She’s right. This whole thing is absurd. You’re using her for your own selfish purposes without rightly respecting her own needs. I think this is all a mistake. Maybe you should just leave.”

Ani, Aniyoo,  it is not a mistake, Shin Hye thought widly. 

“I’m sorry.” Min Ho looked dumbfounded. The poor man must be thinking he’d entered the twilight zone. “I thought we had an understanding. We went to so much trouble bringing the body here.”

“But you see, that’s the problem,” Sister said. “To you this is all considerable trouble. Where does that leave Shin Hye? I think we need to consider her needs in this exchange, don’t you?”

“Eo? Of course, but I wasn’t aware that we’d failed to do that.”

It occurred to her that they were both treating her like a child. She wasn’t a child. “I don’t have any needs you can take care of, Min Ho-ssi. And the last thing I need is for you to play matchmaker, Sister.” Too much information. She couldn’t seem to stop putting her foot in ! “I don’t have the slightest interest in that aspect of this encounter. But you’ve come all this way, so let’s finish.”

Before I ask you to hold me, Min Ho oppa, because the truth is I would dream about a man like you every waking moment if I allowed myself to. I would lay myself on a sacrificial altar to float through space with you. But I can’t so I won’t, not ever.

Nonsense! It just wasn’t true!

She stepped around the stainless-steel island and approached the gurney.

“I’m sorry. Really, we don’t have to do this if you feel uncomfortable.” Min Ho oppa said as he stepped to the other side of the body.

“Kwenchana oppa.” Shin Hye said as she saw at the corner of her eyes, Sister raising her eyebrow. I can call him oppa, can’t I?

“What do you want me to do?” She asked him.

“You said you saw these… ghosts… a couple of times before. Twice when you came in contact with deceased bodies.”

“De, but I have to tell you that most of the ‘ghosts’ I see are just figments of my imagination. I can’t explain what I saw or why I saw it.”

“You can try. I really appreciate you helping me,” he said. “I realize how awkward this is for you, and I want you to know that I don’t expect anything. It doesn’t matter if you don’t see anything.”

It was kind of him, and she thought he meant what he said.

“But since we’re here, why don’t we give it a try?”

She nodded. He reached down, took the hem of the sheet in his fingers, and pulled it down. Her eyes were on his fingernails, how clean they were. Being clean and tidy must be important to him.

“Her name is Song Ji Hyo,” He continued.

Shin Hye blinked and looked at the dead woman’s pretty, pasty-white face. There was a cut above her right temple. Perfect lips, perfect skin.

She hated Song Ji Hyo. But that was ridiculous. She hated no one, not even her own father. What was getting into me?

“She died last night,” he said.

Her mind began to fill with the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death, abstract images that come from her own imagination.

Shin Hye was suddenly unsure if she could go through with this. Mnemophobia offered only a fine line between the fear of bad memories and the fear of creating new bad memories, and though she’d worked through it all with Sister Mi-Kyung, she now felt those old fingers of fear reaching up inside of her.

It should be me, she thought. I should be dead instead of this beautiful woman. I’m not even a woman, not really.

But she was here and he was waiting and the fear of disappointing him was as great as her fear of creating a bad memory by touching such a beautiful dead body. So she stretched out her hand, tried and failed to still her quivering fingers, and gently touched Ji Hyo’s white cheek.

She felt only the bloodless skin, chilled by the refrigerator’s cool air. She saw no ghosts. No visions. Not even an image spawned by her own overactive imagination. Just a dead girl on a gurney, cold to the touch.

Shin Hye left her fingers on the face and glanced up at Min Ho, whose eyes rose to meet hers, searching.

What did you expect, a butterfly to fly out of when I touched her? A frog to leap out of my shirt? A ghost to pop out of her? I never did deserve to be in here with you, so can I crawl back into my corner now? I’ll just rock and moan for a while like a good monkey.

“I’m sorry,” she said instead. 

“Nothing, huh?”

“I told you.”

“Nothing at all? Not even a… thought?”

“Nothing.” She removed her hand. “I’m s…”

But she didn’t get to say sorry, because in that moment her vision suddenly went black. A voice echoed in the darkness, speaking to her, “I’m going to drill some small holes in your heels, about half an inch wide, but don’t worry, as soon as your blood drains out, I’ll plug them back up. You’ll still be beautiful. Perfect. Arrasso?”

A woman’s voice: “De.” Ji Hyo’s voice, only it felt like it was coming from Shin Hye, because in this moment, Shin Hye was Ji Hyo.

Her mind reeled with objection and she reached for something to steady herself. Flesh filled her hand. Ji Hyo’s flesh. But Shin Hye was in a full panic and felt like she was going to fall, so she held tight.

“Ji Hyo?” A man’s voice filled her head. His voice. Did she know this voice? Had she heard this voice, felt this hot breath on her cheek?

A face filled her vision. His face. A handsome clean-cut face with strong cheekbones and dark hair. Genuine, smiling eyes as he reached a gloved hand for her cheek and her skin with his thumb.

“So beautiful. You are his favourite, remember that. And that makes you my favourite, because you were lost but now you are found. I found you. Think of me as God, it will help you.”

Horror at the sound of that familiar voice slammed into Shin Hye and robbed her of breath. She tried to pull her hand away, but her fingers were latched on to the body’s cold flesh as if they wanted more. A part of her needed to know more.

Shin Hye screamed and