1: Formation

Perhaps Seo Yuna’s childhood couldn’t really be considered the most peaceful. Her background was, well, dirt poor, which landed her in the ghettos of her city—the refuge of those migrants who tried to make it, but failed. Even her existence was at best questionable, and she knew it. That she was a child who was never supposed to be born.

But she never blamed her parents. Perhaps it was because she didn’t really have a model of “better parenthood” to compare their frequent absences to. Perhaps it was the natural instinct of love which every child bears for their mother and father. Or perhaps it was because her parents died, in front of her eyes, when she was just 5.

Just 5.

Just 5, she was, when she witnessed the lengths to which poverty could lead people to go. Her parents, wielding a small stack of cash in their hands, and wearing a bright smile on their face. Proudly proclaiming that they were going for a meal that night, that they would be a “normal” family soon.

The cash soon disappearing in someone else’s desperate hands, her parents’ blood soon dripping from their pulsating arteries, the perpetrator in question vanishing into the crowd, accompanied with the looks of indifference on the bystanders’ faces. Of course it was common knowledge to them that showing your money anywhere would mean you’d lose it immediately. Of course it was common knowledge to them that you never fight back against someone who is armed when you are not.

But it wasn’t like her parents had a chance to learn.

She, a precious little innocent child, picked up a small, creased paper from the ground. A five thousand won note, soaked through with blood—so much so that the painful red hues made the note’s value practically invisible. And she trod off in the distance, her innocence, her identity, her life lost.

Clutching the last remains of her parents in her hands.

Fortunately for Yuna, her parents hadn’t been in the city for all that long, and made frequent visits back home during Seollal, or the lunar new year. One of her aunts—the name slipped her mind—had heard of her misfortune, and took her in with open arms. The fresh air and spacious farms of her rural residence was in stark contrast to her previous life, where the stench of failure polluted the air, where every corner brought, for her, a dark surprise.

She tried. Seo Yuna really tried. She ran around the large gardens, inhaled the liberating scent, and pranced around freely with children just like her. She wolfed down her daily meals and made her daily journey to school. Trying to take in the life around her, and make it her own.

But when the image of the bloody five thousand won note—once her symbol of hope—floated in to her mind with German precision every night, she knew that banishing the demons of her past would be entirely impossible.

“I am going to kill them,” 6 year old Yuna said, as she walked into the kitchen one morning, 6 weeks after her move.

“Kill who, sweetie?” her aunt replied, smoothing her locks soothingly. Yuna gazed into her aunt’s eyes, and saw the shades of sympathy that pranced around in her round eyes. She knew that her aunt loved her. But she could never love her the same way her parents did.

“Those jerks who killed my daddy and mommy!” Yuna wailed, thrashing her arms about in the air. She could feel the first signs of it coming mentally, much like how some birds can detect the first signs of a hurricane. The image of that note was poking at the corners of her brain, threatening to break in, threatening to ruin her.

Threatening her with such ferocity, egging her on so furiously, that her pitifully constructed walls could only cave in submissiveness.

Her aunt, though, merely squatted down to her level, and caressed her cheek gently. “But if you kill them, sweetheart, wouldn’t that make you one of them too?”

It made sense, of course. Just like how anything, no, everything else makes sense too. But it wouldn’t mean anything, unfortunately, unless it made sense to her. It was much like the concerned gaze of her aunt earlier. Concerned, and maybe valuable, for sure. But not for her. But not for her.

For teenagers, their goals vary widely, and yet ironically can be confined to a few categories. Those who measure their worth by academics or achievements, where they are focused on their future only because they are capable enough to do so. Or those who measure their worth by social status or gang membership or some other proxy. Those were those who had already failed their lives from the moment they were born.

But for 14 year old Seo Yuna, perhaps a special third category had to be created. Those who measure their worth by how successful they were in banishing the last vestiges of their old identity, and assuming a new one.

Or, in Yuna’s case, how often the image of that bloody note played in her head.

Yuna was never the brightest child in the ghetto, or anywhere, for that matter. But that didn’t stop her cognitive function of abandoning the ghosts of her past. Her aunt and her, and maybe her adopted family, worked constantly to treat her condition. And, well, it worked. Better than any therapy could, in fact.

To nurse her broken soul, her adopted family gave her the building blocks of what should go inside instead.

“Breakfast is ready!” Yuna called at the top of her voice, having placed the final plate on their dining table, and carried the plates of food to the table. Immediately, the sound of her clumsy male cousins tumbling down the stairs greeted her, before the much more graceful tip-tapping of her female cousin followed.

Yoongi, Taemin and Yeri—those were their names—quickly took their seats around the table. “This smells great, sis!” Yoongi exclaimed, anticipation written clearly on his face.

“You’re cooking has improved!” Taemin chimed in, taking a quick slurp of her soup before his mother came down to stop him.

“Stop eating before your seniors are here, idiot,” Yeri whispered into his ear, smacking his back viciously. The soup felt so much like escaping Taemin’s mouth then, but he kept it all in as their mother walked into the room.

“Anything happened, children?”

“Absolutely nothing!” they chorused, and they all sat down to breakfast.

“You know, you don’t have to do all this, right?” Yuna’s aunt popped into the toilet, where Yuna was currently kneeling, scrubbing the bathtub. “We all treat you as one of us here, not as our maid, you know.”

Of course Yuna knew that she could slack around if she wanted to. But she felt that in order to wipe out the memories that haunted her from the past, she had to embrace everything that her adopted family had to offer. A hardworking ethic; a moralistic, religious code of behaviour; a loyal following to the law—these were all the values she tried to fill her empty heart with.

In the hope that it would make her better.

Yuna’s first crime was committed when she was 15. It was really trivial, really. All she did was try to hide a CD under her shirt, because she really wanted her favourite boyband’s new track, and she didn’t want to burden her adoptive parents by having them spending more money on her. A few familiar elements of the city (CD shops, for instance) had crept into the little village of theirs, and her adoptive parents couldn’t afford a city lifestyle on rural wages.

She recalled the admonishing look on her aunt’s eyes as she knelt down in front of her in front of the fireplace, tears of regret flowing freely down her cheek, mumblings of apology escaping . How she swore that night to never steal again in the future, how she swore that night to live life as a good person.

How that night, the image of her hand grabbing that bloody note surfaced in her mind once more.

Much like how immersing oneself in one’s work can help distract them from all else wrong in life, Yuna decided to immerse herself in goodness for the rest of her life.

Banishing her dreams of returning to the city to pursue higher education.

Banishing her dreams of becoming a professional, competitive pistol shooter in the future.

Embracing the reality of a pious, comfortable life, working it out on her aunt’s farm.

And she tried; Yuna really did try.

She dropped out of their village school because she realised her aunt was getting old, and took over the main operations of the farm by herself. It was her, and a few farm hands, manually sowing and plucking every day, throughout the year. Bystanders walking past gave her looks of her half disappointment, half pity—but the bystanders didn’t understand. They never do.

She began following her cousins in their religious activities—saying grace before every meal, going off to church every Sunday, etcetra—because she read somewhere that reformed criminals, somehow or other, had encountered religion at some point in time in prison. But how often religion helped wasn’t Yuna’s concern; she would try any method, however unlikely, to ensure that the demons of her past would return to haunt her again.

She even (ironically) joined the voluntary neighbourhood watch force, which went around enforcing the law in the absence of a formally organised police force, and teaching young kids to not, well, commit crimes. Weird to be with the same people who caught you? Yes. But as a part of Yuna’s rehabilitation, it did not feel out of place at all.

And at the end of it all, Yuna would really like to believe that yes, she did indeed succeed.

It was the day after her 17^th birthday when she was called to the only clinic in town—a small establishment in two combined bungalows, run by an urban retiree. Your mother is ill, she learned from a croaky old voice, and rushed over to the clinic, overalls still on.

She was greeted, however, by the sight of her adopted mother grinning, and looking in the best of health. “I told you, doctor,” she effused between laughs, “that of all my children, it will be the one that doesn’t have my blood that cares for me the most.”

But Yuna didn’t take note of a single word of what she said, instead wrapping her arms around her adopted mother’s tender torso, mumbling softly into her clothes.

“Don’t scare me like this, mom.”

It was the first time, then and there, that she had finally addressed her aunt by her rightful legal (maybe moral too?) term. And when she looked up into her aunt’s touched gaze, she, for the first time, saw the look again. The look of love that only parents could possess.

She was confident that the demons of her past were now banished.

She was confident that she would never leave this life again.

A year later, and Yuna laid down a paperweight on top of a piece of (well) paper in the dead of the night, her suitcase in hand, her heart in . She had been preparing a long while for this day—stocking up on resources, planning her route, making the right contact—and finally, today, she was ready to leave.

She was sickened, really, by the thought that she was leaving. But she had to leave. All along, even whilst preparing her escape, the image of the pistons ing furiously behind her, her desperate cries being muffled by strong hands, her preciousness taken away from her in a second—all of it, present in full force, could not go away. She was sickened, really, by an illness that inactivity could not cure.

And so, she decided, she had to leave.

“I have to leave now, mom. Don’t worry, you must live without me.”

2. Destruction

She strode the streets lazily, one hand in her pocket, the other swinging casually around, making her look as if she were the free-est person in the world, with no worries at all.

In fact, Seo Yuna had a lot of worries. Chief of which was her daughter’s education.

She had been back in the ghettoes, ever since she turned 18 and left her adopted mother. Had events like those that made her leave resurface in her mind? Yes, they did, but none created something as tangible as Youkyung was, in front of her.

Perhaps in hindsight, Yuna felt, she should have pursued education when she first arrived in the city, instead of going straight to work as a street cleaner, hidden anonymously in some nook of the vast sprawls of land. But then again she never gave her daughter a chance of becoming anything great anyway. Just like how her parents were nothing.

Just like how she was nothing.

“I need money,” 18 year old Youkyung said one day, as Yuna carried her aching body back into the small rental flat that they owned—she basically had no savings, and whatever money she took with her from her previous life was all but spent on rainy days. The downpayment for any flat was out of her reach.

“Why?” Yuna stupidly asked, before smacking her head against the wall in frustration. Of course, how could she forget? It was just days ago when her daughter’s college acceptance letter came in the mail.

“I take it as you got it, mom,” Youkyung suavely responded, flipping her hair in frustration. “I want to see the money ready by the end of next month, mom.”

“That’s when you have to confirm your university place?” Yuna asked the obvious, if only to spare herself of her daughter’s threatening gaze.

“Yea, mom.”

She was stupid. So stupid. What was she to write off her daughter’s chances of making it in life so cavalierly? Just because she was a failure didn’t mean that her daughter had to be one too, after all. And yet Yuna continued trying to justify her choice to herself. She wanted to be the parent to her daughter that her parents could never be for her. She wanted to be close to, and grow up with her daughter. She wanted so much for her daughter—herself unintended—that she had sacrificed herself.

Why couldn’t Youkyung understand? But why did she have to understand, after all?

When making the most un-selfish choice in her life, Yuna, ironically, was at her most selfish.

She took a rest at one of the benches on the street, having bought some tteokbokki from the street vendor. She was working longer hours lately, to compensate for her lack of income over the years. She winced slightly as she lowered herself abruptly onto the bench, the sharp pain rising from her aching core a painful remainder of last night.

She walked past a bar yesterday afternoon, promising wages that would help her effort in raising enough cash for her daughter. Maybe not enough immediately, that’s for sure. But surely the university accepted payments in instalments too?

Walking in, she applied for the job, and surprisingly was hired on the spot. You’re coming in tonight, she recalled the owner’s words, now with a shudder. She felt his dirty eyes trace her body, as if she was a good to be inspected. Returning at night, she asked confidently for the largest group, knowing that if she entertained enough of those that the money would soon be flowing in freely.

“You sure?” a fellow, younger hostess asked, with a look of concern on her face. “Newcomers usually take awhile to adjust to the…size, you know?”

“Well, I can’t really adjust to my lack of money now, can I?” Yuna responded blithely, communicating her intentions to the owner, who replied with a gleeful thumbs up.

It was an understatement to say that Yuna regretted not listening to her junior’s advice. The drinking, the foul smell, the touches were bearable, but once she was dragged out of the bar and upstairs, everything that was awful, everything that she tried to escape from, came back in waves once again.

ing in and out, whispering sweet nothings one moment and brutal, humiliating cures the moment later, manhandling her as if she was some doll to be passed from man to man. She was prodded from all corners, assaulted on all fronts, by not only reality, but also the past.

She swore she gave a despairing look to the junior hostess before she left, but she read nothing but indifference in response.

She screamed, of course. Screamed with ecstasy, screamed with delight. Pretended to be the fantasy of others, to secure the paycheck that she would get at the end of the night.

And so she was, for the entirety of the night. Being someone else’s fantasy, being someone else’s reality, for the god knows how many time in her life.

Never again, Yuna thought, would she subject herself to such humiliation again.

She must have started walking again, because by the time Yuna’s focus returned back to the world, the sky was already dark, and she was walking past one of the city’s many dark, unlit alleys, all alone. It was silent, as usual, just like any other day.

Until, of course, she heard a piercing scream, and the sickening sound of metal against bone. All of which sounded all too familiar.

She slowed her speed now to a crawl, being careful to not make her silhouette visible, or her footsteps audible. She didn’t have to turn her head to take a peek to know what was happening.

After all, she saw it all, in all its vividness, in front of her infant eyes.

The tavern was near, she noted. Once she made it to the tavern, she would probably get away from those people’s awareness, as she could easily blend in there. She knew, however, the painful cost that befell those who tried to be too smart, those who stayed behind to watch what would happen.

30 steps, according to mental calculation. 30 steps was all that was needed to safety.

And yet, just 20 steps from safety, she felt the dreaded cry of alert from the watchmen, and the furious tiptap of sneakers behind her. . She started running, but her weary self was no match for those professional ruffians. She barely made it half the way before the felt the sickening smash of metal on her head, and her senses rapidly blacking out.

Her meagre self crumpling pitifully to the floor.

“Why am I not dead?” were the first words that escaped Yuna’s mouth, once she regained consciousness and control over herself. Her head was throbbing like crazy, but she was still (roughly) able to take in her surroundings—she was handcuffed to a chair, in a small tiny room, with the sounds of submissive whimpering coming from the rooms around her.

“Because you didn’t see anything,” replied a feminine voice, from directly behind her. Instinctively she tried to her head behind to see who the speaker was, but she instead jutted straight against her neck brace instead. “Easy, girl,” the voice continued. “You’ll injure yourself like that. Besides, I’m masked and disguised you can’t tell who I am anyway.”

“Why am I here, then?” Yuna replied stoically. She knew that she was probably going to die soon, but she wanted to leave the world with her dignity intact.

“Because our stupid minions were too trigger happy,” the girl responded ily. In another world, perhaps if their worlds were reversed, Yuna decided that she would quite like that girl to be her friend.

“So, what do you want me to do?” Yuna tried to keep her voice as tired, and as exasperated as before. But internally, curiosity was overwhelming her. Were all gang kidnappings like this? Surely not, right?

“Well, we actually have no use for you. You might know too much for us to let you go, but we feel reluctant to kill you because, well, you probably know nothing,” mystery girl said. “So I’ll offer you a compromise. We’ll sell you as part of our next shipment of es to our compatriots in China. Girls of your…profile are hard to come by.”

“Go yourself,” Yuna hissed. “I’ll rather die than go anywhere near a man every again.”

There was a pause before the girl’s response, which Yuna would like to interpret as stunned silence. “Feisty, aren’t you, girl? Well, are you good with pistols and rifles?” the girl asked eventually.

So she was inviting her to join the gang, Yuna surmised. “Sure, but only if you sent my daughter to college. She’s already in. She just needs the fees to be paid.”

“Confident, aren’t you,” the girl snorted from behind her. “Very well, girlie. We’ll give you a trial, and if you fail, you die,” she said, before her heels started clicking against the floor, signalling her exit.

“Hang on a moment,” exclaimed Yuna. The clicking stopped. “As your future colleague, what is your name?” Yuna offered a parting shot, though it was born slightly out of curiosity too.

“Choa. C H O A, Choa,” the girl replied patronisingly, before slamming the door shut behind her.

Another clichéd saying goes along the lines of something like this—everyone has a talent, it’s just whether they’ve discovered it yet or not. Yuna would like to think that her performance on the shooting range earlier was borne out of her natural talent, though it confounded her how she was so genetically prepared for a human invention essentially created in the last century.

“You’re a natural,” Choa had said after she was done downing ten rounds into the practice dummy, barely able to conceal her astonishment. “You’re a real natural at this.”

Yuna replied with a polite smile, the kind of reserved expression a job applicant gives before any job offer is confirmed. “Of course, you’ll have to go through interviews and stuff with our head, but if I’m to be honest with you,” Choa suddenly leaned in and whispered into her ear, “we’ll be overjoyed to have you on our team.”

Yuna didn’t remember her job application to be a street cleaner be so cumbersome. Then again, she also couldn’t think of a scenario where joining a killing gang would be just like applying for a desk job.

Yuna breezed through everything she had to breeze through, and, against all belief and common sense, found herself part of the gang mission the day she was “hired”. She was still rookie and all, and was guided along by her experienced teammates, who were all the typical mixture of snarky yet helpful. It was almost like the first day of her job as a street cleaner—how to use the equipment, where to store the trash, when to do certain things etc; it all felt the same.

“Shoot. Now.” Yuna heard the command through her earpiece, instructing her to take out the target who was not complying. It was extortion, or so she surmised, and they had stretched the victim to the point where they couldn’t pay up anymore. She was hidden in a bush, just a few feet away, where the trembling, innocent face of the victim was all too clear.

“SHOOT. NOW,” she heard Choa’s voice grumble from the other side of her receiver. Grunting in annoyance, she stretched out her pistol, gripping her finger tightly around the trigger. You can do it, she mumbled, rationalising with herself that if she didn’t take the victim’s life today, someone else would do it anyway.

Bang.

Bang bang.

And with those three, short, simple strikes, Yuna had become the person whom she had tried to banish all those years ago.

The thief of life.

The thief of youth.

The thief of humanity.

“Great shot,” Choa enthused, wrapping her arms protectively around Yuna, whilst the others worked swiftly to clean up the scene. Choa was no fool. The signs of cracking were written plainly on Yuna’s face.

But she was equally convinced that she could erase those cracks given time, and transform Yuna into her capable deputy.

“Here, take this,” Choa continued, noticing that Yuna was in no state to respond properly. She handed over a small, brown parcel, along with some notepaper and pen. “The commission is inside there. You can leave a note for your daughter as well, if you want.”

Taking up the pen, Yuna scribbled something on the paper, briefly.

“I have to leave now, Youkyung. Don’t worry, I will pay for your fees.”

Locked up in one of their rooms that night, Yuna tore of her papers, her bedsheet, everything she could see, and threw it all on the ground, creating the perfect storm of, well, everything.

She hated herself for the fact that she had welcomed the ghosts of the past back into her heart.

She hated herself for the fact that she had welcomed the image of bloody notes back into her mind.

She hated herself for ignoring the pitiful, begging face of her target.

Just like what those monsters did to her all those years ago.

Fingers trembling, she gently caressed the table, trying to find anything, anything material, that she could cling onto in her mental slide. The currents were washing her, she could see. Blood soaked currents washing her off into the distance, cleansing her of whatever was untainted. Red, dripping blood, covering her from head to toe, so much so that her contours, her features, or even her face, were intelligible no more.

Curse the hand! Why did it move on its own? Curse the head! Why was it so calculative? Curse the heart? Why was it so submissive?

Curse yourself. Why are you so monstrous?

“Don’t worry, chief,” Choa whispered in the corridor, right outside Yuna’s room. “She’ll get over this eventually. They always do.”

But Choa wasn’t right; Choa couldn’t be right. What would explain the red notes, dancing around in her mind? What would explain her bloody hand, scarred with the traces of untold fear and valuable stories? What could explain the regret, the fear, which ripped through her system every time her bullet ripped through someone else?

It will soon be okay, Choa said, soothingly. But it will never be okay.

Yuna recalled, with a shudder, the second time she went along on a mission. Once again, she, hiding in a bush. Once again, her target, seemingly almost the same, glancing with pleading, pitiful eyes. The order came through the earpiece. She wanted to take it off, to throw it to the ground, to stomp it with her foot. But in the end, she always complied, letting the cursed messenger of death out from her grasp.

Maybe that was the third time, maybe it was the fifth. Who knew? Who cared? They—male, female, teenagers even—all looked the same to Yuna. And every night, after it was all over, the red images in her mind danced freely—seemingly freer each time, compared to the last—haunting her from start to end. She would wake up in a cold sweat, panicking and wailing, and yet her fingers would be curled around her blanket, willing it to be a pistol. Willing it to shoot.

It would be okay, Choa said. But it could never be okay.

Maybe, all stories have to have three clichés. So here is the customary third cliché—that where the weak succumb to pain, the strong fight it. And Yuna considered herself strong. She fought to keep her composure with every shot she took. She fought to eliminate the indecision in her every step. She fought to destroy the hesitation in her heart.

She willed the red notes, dancing in her mind, to haunt someone else instead. She told herself that it wasn’t “what if” for her victim, it was “what if” for her daughter. She told herself that this pain was temporary, that it would go away, but that her daughter’s life would be permanent.

That if she took away the future of some others, she could propel her daughter’s ascent to the stars.

And, just like any other event in her life, Yuna, eventually adapted.

Months passed. Or was it years? Yuna couldn’t keep track; she didn’t wish to. She still killed frequently, yes, but much less often than she did in the past. Emotionless, she was, when the pulled the trigger that ended someone else’s life. The media had called her, and other gang members, “cold-blooded killers”. But if they weren’t cold blooded, how could they survive with the guilt of killing another human? To be warm blooded was a weakness. To be cold blooded was the natural evolution.

Yuna considered herself a master of this. Long gone were the days where she would curl up in her bed, dancing with the demons, clashing with her soul. Long gone were the days when she had felt so empty when had emptied someone else’s life.

In fact, right now, it was the exact opposite.

Long gone were the days, after all, where she had to kill for the money. She was rich now, off the commissions she made for her marksmanship. Her daughter had more than enough money for college and tuition, and despite the drifting between those two, Yuna couldn’t have been more content.

In fact, she had to kill now to banish the demons in her heart.

It was all too clear for Yuna now. It was her mistake, trying to replace evil with good. Good never lasts. Good can never last. Think, just think, of all the good people in the world. Are they martyrs? Sure.

But they are never succeeders.

Why not just let everything go, and defect to the evil side. Sure, evils are hated. But they are only hated because they succeed, and the others don’t. Morals are nothing but the leashes placed on those who are destined for stardom.

Instead of resisting, Yuna should have done what she was doing now all along. Let the evil energy sweep into her, and control her entire being. Convert me to a monster, she willed with all her heart.

So that I won’t have the frailties of a human.

From the moment Yuna laid her eyes on her, she knew that that girl would be her ending. The one that does it in for her.

It was a regular operation, like any other, when she spotted that girl, timidly hiding in one corner, quickly snapping a picture of the criminal activities that were going on. She knew that that girl, who could be no older than 35, would in her hands possess the evidence that would end up convicting her. She knew that all she had to do was to follow protocol—whip out her pistol, and blow her brain to pieces.

Yet, unlike all those years ago, she couldn’t, just couldn’t, force her hand to pull the trigger. Because the face in front of her wasn’t a massive glob of features, unidentifiable, unoriginal, just like the rest. It was distinctive. It was memorable.

It was unkillable.

She knew that no one else spotted the girl. And so, she let her go. With her future. With her life. All in that girl’s hands.

The first warning signs came just a few days later, when Choa burst into her office and ed a file into her hand. “The police have gotten something on you, Yuna, and it appears to be serious.”

Choa’s eyes willed Yuna to flip open the file, and see what the evidence was. But Yuna already knew what it was. And what it would lead to.

“Thankfully, we have a mole in the police, so we are able to stop this for awhile before more people know. In the meantime, take out this girl,” Choa instructed, concern in her voice, picture in her hands. “Her name is Kwon Mina.”

But Yuna didn’t have to move her eyes one bit, to see that that girl was the girl who she earmarked to be her ending.

Kwon Mina, she murmured to herself, her fingers gently caressing her delicate features, imprinted on a mere piece of paper.

Yuna knew everything. Yuna knew their plans. Yuna knew that she was important enough such that if she didn’t design a plan to save herself, her confederates would. She texted Mina, every time she knew that danger was to strike. She trailed Mina daily, if only to make sure that no one launched an unforeseen attack. She even shot one of her own teammates, Chanmi, only because she was getting too close to Mina.

Every time she blocked a bullet that was meant for Mina, every time she left her confederates frustrated and despairing, every time she grinned at the grateful reply from Mina (who had no idea her saviour was also her victim), she felt the essence of evil flow through her body, and into her gutter. She felt the demons of death, the images of soaked red notes flow through her mind once more.

She was killing herself day by day, only to feel herself live more and more.

She was okay now. She was okay.

The following weeks were a flurry. The cold handcuffs on her wrists, the sneering of the public, the desperation of her friends, the smirk on Mina’s face—all blurred into a messy image in Yuna’s mind, along with the dancing of demons in Yuna’s mind. Funny, that while her inmates would kill to get out, all she wanted was to see her dear daughter. And her adopted family, who must, in some corner of Korea, still be praying for her return.

There was this common belief, that if your ashes are sprayed across a wide field, your presence and your soul would be returned to those who treasured it most. Yuna made a mental note to, on the day of her execution, request for her ashes to be dealt with like that.

To return to the land of her living, she had to die first.

But she couldn’t die yet. Passion for the living burned through her soul, tearing apart all the scum that had resided in her heart. Who was Kwon Mina to do this? Who was Kwon Mina to land her in such a state, where she was so far apart from her life? Who was Kwon Mina to arouse such feelings in her heart, which made her forget whatever she held true?

Who was Kwon Mina to give her a second chance, to return to the ones she loved most?

Ridiculous. Her passion grew to ridiculous levels. Such that she looked forward to court hearings and interrogations, just to catch glimpses of Mina’s cold face in the stands.

Burning. That’s how it felt, daily. Her body felt weightless, meaningless, even, as she floated around daily, aimlessly. Is this how cancer patients feel, when they know all hope is lost, and look forward to the day when the searing pain ends? Because that is how she feels daily. She wants the end to arrive. But the swamp that she had created for years is hard to raze down.

She felt like jumping out of the dock, and embracing Mina in joy. She would have, in fact, if not for the fact that she was firmly bolted down to the seat—the sternest treatment given to the cruelest of killers. She felt relief, as it was the promise of nooses and death that now filled her minds, not the torment of emptiness. At the last moment, just before she was to pass, she had attained it. She was herself, once again. Seo Yuna, and her current body, were now the same thing once again.

3: Recuperation

“Mommy,” grown-up Youkyung asked, “why are we here?”

They were striding on the snow-covered fields in rural Korea, the sea of green smothered now by the purest of ice.

They were walking along comfortably, just as Yuna had envisioned them to be—her, on the left, clutching Youkyung’s left hand; Mina, on the right, clutching Youkyung’s right hand.

“Dear, we are going to see your grandparents, and your cousins.”

It was four o’clock. Four o’clock, they say, is prime time for executions. If you think about it, that makes a whole lot of sense. Killing someone at four leaves just enough time for their last meal to properly digest in their stomachs, and yet not hungry enough to request for a last dinner as well.

It was four o’clock, and she heard the footsteps of the jailor walk towards her cell, almost with clockwork precision. Her time was now.

Of late, her life had been nothing but serene. The demons, the notes—they were long gone, banished into Neverland. Forever. Perhaps they never existed in the first place—or perhaps they were always meant to be there, guiding her (finally) onto the right path. And she was glad that, before all was too late, her feet landed on the right path.

The right path of love and redemption.

“How about your parents, Mina-mommy?” Youkyung asked, leaning towards her second mother. Second, perhaps, only because Mina was younger, and because Mina didn’t exactly birth her.

“Silly girl, you met them last week already, didn’t you?” Mina exclaimed, ruffling her hair as they trudged forward on the snow, gentle, white flakes falling off Youkyung’s smooth hair.

“Not to mention you were staying with them for the whole of the last six months, dear daughter,” Yuna continued gently, leaning her head against her daughter’s light frame.

The three of them continued, walking on the dreary white snow, taking in the fresh, winter aroma of the region. Simple things—like the two of them getting together and getting married, or the three of them sharing a simple afternoon together, free from all the twistedness that was their world—were all that Yuna could possibly dream of.

She knew, as her trembling legs approached the stand, that her loved ones were in good hands. Mina, in her last act of charity, decided to take Youkyung in as her own daughter. She didn’t have to, of course—Youkyung was already well on her way to a successful future. But it assuaged her concerned heart that her two most beloved women would be with each other in the future, waiting, waiting for her to make her reappearance.

As for her adopted family? She learnt, through the most old fashioned of hand written mail, that they were all fine. They still resided there, in that old farm, the three of them—along with her aunt. And along with their families.

They had questions, of course. Why did you leave? Why are you all over the news?

But those were questions. Questions didn’t have to be answered, after all. Just understood and acknowledged. Some questions are too hard to answer. Others, just don’t need a response.

“Mommy,” Youkyung asked, turning her head to Yuna’s direction, “why were you gone for so long?”

Yuna was tempted to not give an answer. But she knew, from her surroundings, that an answer, if not given by her, would be supplied by someone else instead.

“I was charting your future, my dear,” Yuna replied, caressing the locks of her daughter gently. O, how heavenly this felt! Her daughter, very much the physical remains of a very bad dream, was now the supplier of good memories and good feelings instead.

“And I was charting mine as well.”

“How does your future look like, mom?” Youkyung asked, naturally.

Yuna was tempted to speak about demons, about angels, about her soul. But who would understand? But who could understand? Her life was complicated—everyone’s was, but hers more so. And whose place was it for anyone to step in and interpret her story, just from the limited perspective of their lens? And so Yuna replied in the only way she knew how.

“With you, my darling. With you.”

Boring chants resounded from in front of her, signalling her imminent hanging. It was unnecessary. Which inmate on death row wouldn’t know the rules regarding their hanging? Which inmate, with their senses soon cut off, with their lives about to vanish, would care?

She droned out the boring voice of the hangman, the passionate but stupid voice of the priest, and the monotonous and boring voice of the doctor, who claimed her ‘fit to hang’.

‘Fit to hang’. Who uses this kind of term now, anyways?

All she did, during this entire ordeal, was to project, in her mind, how beautiful her life could have looked. The heights to which she could have ascended. The beauties which she could have enjoyed.

The Mina she could have married.

“You know, mommy, I read an article somewhere that some serial killer is about to be hanged in the city? She was named Seo Yuna too, you know! How can someone who shares your name be so cruel, whereas you are the best mother ever, having provided for my education, and more, with no reluctance?”

Was. She was named Seo Yuna. Was she, or is she? If she was named Seo Yuna, then what is she named now? Yeo Suna?

But her daughter was right. She was Seo Yuna, in the past. Maybe not anymore, now, but definitely, in the past, she was Seo Yuna. Seo Yuna the brutal killer, who took fun in killing innocent civilians. Seo Yuna, the girl who is about to be hanged. Seo Yuna, the girl who Mina killed, not married.

“Maybe we are the same, darling,” Yuna responded, distantly. “Maybe, despite all this, we are one, and the same thing.”

“Any last words?” she heard the executioner yell out. Great, she thought to herself. I’m free now, from all this stupid nonsense. She shook her head, and, in a matter of seconds, was hoisted up onto the platform, the cold grip of the rope nestling itself firmly onto her neckline.

Without warning, the platform below her gave way, knocking her immediately into unconsciousness, her last words trapped deep inside .

I have to leave now, Mina. But don’t worry, for I am now free.

And back in the land of the living

[A/N]: Hey guys! Hope you liked this one-shot, which is a continuation of my three part series analysing themes. 

If you liked this, please do subscribe or even upvote this story. As usual, I would love to read your comments on this story as well; your words make my day. 

P.S: To those who celebrate it, happy Lunar New Year!