Myung Soo (Part 8): Last Ounce of Hope
Paris: The City of My Heart
1 Quoi?: What?
2 Tu as bien entendu: You have heard very well.
“Are you hungry?” he proceeded as though we were having a casual conversation.
“Quoi?1 Korea?”
I could hardly believe my hearing. I tried to be as calm as possible. This must be a joke.
“Tu as bien entendu2,” he answered with a tone that said it was nothing to worry about.
“Please tell me this is a joke!" I scowled.
“I’m making some Korean dishes.” He gave me a quick smile before going back to cooking as he hummed his life away.
“What is going on? How did I get here?” Then it came back to me. “I was running across the bridge with the guys chasing me, then the rope of the bridge broke and then I was falling…” It didn’t make sense. I should be in the water right now, drowning or maybe not, I could have swum my way to the shore.
“Well,” Uncle said. “You went on the bridge when the sign clearly stated that the bridge was under reconstruction.”
“Then how did I get here?”
He turned to me and winked playfully. “I worked my magic on you.”
I rolled my eyes, getting impatient by each passing second. “I’m going back to Paris. Where’s my passport?” He ignored me and kept cutting his meat. “Uncle!” I heard myself raising my voice.
When he still ignored me, I held my knuckles and stomped off to the front door. As soon as I opened it, a breeze of frosty air prickled my skin. It was freezing, similar to Paris, but the coldness here was bitter and dry.
“L, Korea is at its coldest in January. If you go out there, you’re going to freeze to death!”
I turned and gave him a piercing look. By this time, I was outside the doorway and he was inside. “I’d rather die than stay here.”
“So you don’t even want to see that girl again?” I heard the scorn when Uncle said ‘that girl’.
I stayed at my spot, unmoved despite the coldness. I gulped and tightened my jaw. “She’s gone to a safe place. You can’t find her.”
He leered as he crossed his arms. “What safe place? Heaven?” He shrugged indifferently. “If that’s what you would call a safe place.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It wasn’t only the waft of Korea’s frosty air, but also the meaning behind his words. “What nonsense are you talking about?”
“I told you,” he began grimly. “I won’t let anything happen to you, but whatever happens to her is of no importance to me. She’s now out of the picture. And it’s on you, boy.”
“I don’t believe you,” I automatically said.
He gave me a defiant stare. “If you leave, you’d never know what happened to her, would you? Even if you move back to Paris, you won’t be able to find her.”
“You’re just trying to make me stay in this foreign country and make me unable to find her. I know your plot. It’s not going to work on me. I know she’s safe somewhere.”
“Sending her to the bus stop is safe?” The corner of his lips lifted up into a smirk. A smirk that was full of pleasure and content.
Breathe, Myung Soo. Breathe. He’s playing with you.
“I’d just like to assure you that if you still want to see her corpse for the last time, you should stay here. But I’m not sorry to say, Joon Soo won’t be bringing her corpse to Korea. On video maybe?” His eyes twinkled at this idea, while my stomach churned in disgust.
“What did you do?” I forced myself to ask him. It was hard to speak, because all I wanted to do was prove to myself that Amber was still alive.
He feigned a thinking expression as he gave me some clues. “Car? Cliff? Guns? What do you think?”
I felt like I was losing oxygen. My heart pounded against my chest. I felt lightheaded.
“You’re a liar,” I decided. “You can’t make me stay here forever. I’m an adult.”
A vibration was heard. It wasn’t mine, it was his. He fished through his pocket and pulled out his Blackberry Bold. It reminded me of my phone. I couldn’t leave that phone behind. I should stay back and get my phone and passport before I return to Paris.
No way in hell I’m staying here. I can’t even speak the language.
I saw his smirk again after he saw whatever was on his phone. “We’ll see about that once your father comes.”
Suddenly, I heard the sound of an engine in front of the garage, which is just next to the door and right opposite the entrance gate. A man stepped out from the front seat and opened the back door to let my old man out. Black hat, black jacket, black everything. Still the same ol’ him. The sight of him made my stomach roll. With him around, there was to be less chance of me getting out of here.
“Leaving, are we?” his cold raspy voice spoke wryly as he stared me through his black sunglasses. “Morning, Hyung,” he greeted Uncle Lee, who greeted him back.
“I’m not staying here,” I said firmly as I looked into his sunglasses hard. I wasn’t going to back off.
“Boys,” he said, almost like a command.
The man, who opened his door for him, and the driver, who had parked the car into the garage, instantly reacted and grabbed both my arms. I struggled for a second, but fell to my knees when a big blow was sent on my neck.
~✡~✡~
For weeks, they locked me in my room and the door leading to the balcony. The room would only be opened when the men came to give me food. Uncle Lee went back to Paris and Papa stayed around. It was odd because for all I knew, he had not been in Korea for what? As long as I had lived. But an idea made me feel nauseous.
It seemed like he was staying for good. I was staying for good. The two men he took with him were Korean, obviously to not allow language barrier to take place around here. Good thing they spoke English and French, otherwise I would be screaming and shouting to donkeys, wouldn’t I?!
Nevertheless, I made many attempts to escape, one of them was to starve myself, so they would take me to the hospital. But to my dismay, they didn’t take me to the hospital and, instead, called a doctor in. Well, that made me realise Korea has their own system. It taught me a lesson, I would never do that again. It made me so weak that I couldn’t move for days. Any escaping attempts could go out the window.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Amber every single day. I knew she was alive. But I needed to make sure she was alright, right? I contacted Min Ho who was under the name C on my mobile’s contact list, but the messages sent kept coming back as failed. I called, but the operator kept saying the number did not exist. Did he change phone number?
I decided to contact Sung Yeol. To no avail. The operator insisted that the number didn’t exist either.
What’s going on?
I turned my phone off, took the battery out, and looked at my SIM card. I took a deep breath to control myself. How dare he? How dare they?
They changed my SIM card to a Korean one and I could not find my French SIM card. Anywhere. Though, I was sort of glad they didn’t do anything to my phone. It contained too many things I didn’t want to erase.
I confronted Papa and he said he had destroyed it. What was I suppose to do? It was done and in the past. I could hold a grudge at him forever, but it was already destroyed.
I asked him if I could talk to Sung Yeol. He didn’t give me any answer for a moment, but to my surprise, he agreed. I waited for Sung Yeol to come to Korea; obviously so he could help me escape. I could always count on him. Although he got beaten up by his dad for his rebelliousness, he would always do it again because he knew his dad would never harm his children. Like mine would.
I’m not his puppet.
Even Maman’s last word for me was to find my own way and live life as I always wanted and I shouldn’t let anyone or anything hold me back because life is short.
Time went too fast. Two months passed since I was abducted to Korea. And I felt angry with myself for not being able to leave the country. I was also getting worried of Amber, Sung Yeol, and Min Ho as they were expecting me to be in Toulouse.
Then, finally, my childhood friend came at the door.
But it wasn’t Sung Yeol. It was Hyun Ah.
~✡~✡~
Papa was downstairs with his men talking business on the phone. About ten men guarded the house I was in. After that day, some other of his Korean underlings came to join the first two.
"What are you doing here?” I hissed at the girl in front of me after my door securely closed.
I wanted Sung Yeol, why was it her who came? Did I sound rude? Not that I didn’t miss my sister, but at that moment, the one I needed was Sung Yeol because I had run out of ideas about escaping. And Sung Yeol always had limitless ideas, strange ideas.
“Oppa,” she said, ignoring my dismay. “You’ve been in Korea this whole time? Do you know how long Sung Yeol Oppa and I have been looking for you?!” She looked angry and annoyed. Then she added, with a more enhanced emotion for the two words, “And her.”
But what was weird, I noticed her expression changed when she mentioned Amber.
“Where’s Sung Yeol?”
“We hadn’t been able to find you. You never contacted us. Why didn’t you? Oppa has gone to Malawi in Africa. He’s helping around at a school there.”
My eyebrows lifted at the absurdity of her story. “Since when does Sung Yeol care about Africa?”
She shrugged. “There was no contact from you for a while,” she gulped and averted her gaze. “And the next thing he told me was that he wanted to go to Africa for a year. Coincidentally, they need a chef at this boarding school and he went right for it.”
There goes my last hope. Why couldn’t he just wait? It’s not like I wouldn’t contact him.
But what bothered me was why he decided to go to Malawi. I didn’t mean he was heartless, but he hardly knew about those stuffs. He didn’t even care about hobos lurking around the street of Paris, let alone those people living in poverty in the third-world countries.
“Tell me about it. It was shocking,” Hyun Ah said. “Oppa, have you been out around Korea yet? I know you can’t speak the language, but I can. I can show you around.”
Hyun Ah spent the first five years of her life in Korea, but despite being too young to be taken out from the country, she was still able to speak the language. Aunty taught the Lee children Korean strictly as she wanted them to be able to communicate with her family.
But I had no time for this right now. I needed to find Amber. Hyun Ah seemed to be hiding something. She seemed guilty.
“Hyun Ah, is everything okay? Just tell me. I can take it.” I wasn’t sure I could, but I wanted to know. “Is this about Amber?” I forced the question out despite the dread that invaded me.
“No," she forced out a smile, “I don’t know where she is.”
She started looking around the room and opened some draws here and there. She checked out the bathroom and the closet, everything. I was rooted to where I stood. I didn’t know how to go with the situation. Something was odd.
When Hyun Ah exited the bathroom from her own tour, she gave me a wide smile. “So, do you want to go out?”
“Hyun Ah, what did you come here for?”
“To see you of course. When Appa came home telling me to contact Sung Yeol Oppa, I tried and couldn’t. When he told me you were in Korea, I immediately organised my transfer here.”
It surprised me. She actually transferred herself to Seoul National University just to be with me. But I could hardly bother about her crush. My mind was too clouded with the anxiety of Amber’s safety and the absurdity of Sung Yeol’s whereabouts.
I took a hold of her shoulders and I noticed her blushing. “Oppa?”
“Hyun Ah, I need you to help me.” She frowned and prodded me to go on. “I need you to get me back to Paris.”
Her eyes widened in surprised. “Why?”
“Because,” I said. “I need to see Amber. I need to know that she’s safe.”
“She’s safe,” she answered, rather abruptly.
I furrowed my brows in confusion. “I thought you said you don’t know where she is.”
After what seemed like forever, I felt her trembling. She looked away from me and a pool of water appeared under her eyes. Confused was my first reaction. Panic and anxiety came next.
“Hyun Ah?”
She wiped the oncoming tears and turned towards me. “I need you to tell me what happened, so I could have an idea of what is happening here.”
I wasn’t sure if I could trust Hyun Ah. Did I have a choice?
She said, “Oppa, I’m here for you. You have to trust me. You know I love you right?”
I dismissed her last sentence and decided to tell her about the escaping plan. Where we planned to go, what we were going to do, how long we planned to be there for, which was unknown. I also told her the fact that I asked Sung Yeol to send our stuffs to Min Ho’s house the day we were meant to go to Toulouse.
When I finished, we were sitting on the carpet floor with our back against the side of the bed. She was next to me, holding her knees together. When I heard her sob, I stiffened.
What the hell is going on?
“You shouldn’t have done it. You should—,” she hiccupped, “Shouldn’t have… run away. Y-you should’ve… broken up with her.”
“What’s wrong, Hyun Ah?” I grabbed her tight and made her look at me, but she wouldn’t. “Tell me!”
She sobbed and hiccupped again. She stuttered her way through her words, “I… I h-h-heard Appa and Uncle t-t-talk-talking a-about i-it…” She shivered, but I held her firmly. She seemed to get the message. “I-I d-don’t think it’s… it’s a good i-idea fo-for you to… to go back…”
“What the hell is happening?” I bellowed impatiently. I felt guilty for shouting at her, but the matter at hand was grave.
“I-I h-heard… Uncle…” She hiccupped again. I was getting anxious and tried to control myself. “K-k…” She was having a hard time saying the word. She bit her lower lip hard that I thought it would bleed. “Uncle killed her,” she choked out the last few words in her tears.
She was obviously shocked at this realisation. Sure, Uncle and Papa were in the killing business, but not anyone she knew had been killed. It shook her so much that I knew she saw Uncle and Papa in a whole different light now. It was no wonder she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to leave her comfort zone. I assumed Sung Yeol had left before she found out about it, which made her being all alone afterwards. It must have been hard on her to deal with it on her own. She was too young to know about this.
“You’re lying!” I said, more like yelling. “I don’t believe you.”
She lifted her head, grief and sorrow were evident. As much as she didn’t like Amber being with me, the few times they met, she was actually pretty nice to Amber. She just had this naïve idea that one day, it would be over between me and her. Which was wrong. I was sure Hyun Ah would find the one meant for her along the way and she would forget about me altogether.
“Oppa…” Her lips trembled and her body shook vigorously. She held on to my arm, trying to keep herself steady and making me stay with her. “I know it’s hard for you to take right now, but—“
I released myself off her and staggered back. “You’re lying. It can’t be. I sent her off myself!”
Through her weep, she forced herself to talk. “After I heard that conversation, I went to find out where you two lived from Woo Hyun Oppa. An old lady was there. She said she owns the place. I asked for Amber and introduced myself as your friend. She said…” I stared blankly at the floor as I held my breath. “She said she came home to find no one there. She hasn’t seen any of you since she got back. The place had not been cleaned for what seemed like ages. There was no sign of you or her. The neighbours didn’t even know where you two went.”
I wanted to ask her whether she had asked Min Ho, but I realised it was a stupid question. Hyun Ah has no connection with Min Ho whatsoever. The Lee and Choi are like Romeo and Juliet’s family.
I felt her hand on my arm. It was tender and warm, but the message didn’t get through me. I was too shaken by the news. We shouldn’t believe it just from words right?
“I was so scared something happened to you as well. I was so relieved when Appa said you were looking for Sung Yeol Oppa. I know you want him here, but I haven’t been able to contact him. He hardly gets reception or internet in Africa. They take a trip once every three months to town where there are internet and phones. The last time was in January, the next one would be in April.”
“How long is he going for?” I had to take my mind of Amber’s news. No. It wasn’t reliable. I knew Hyun Ah wasn’t lying, I would know it when she was, but I couldn’t just believe what she had heard. Uncle and Papa were probably trying to get her into their scheme as well.
“A year.”
“What? That’s insane!”
“That’s the plan. But I doubt he would,” Hyun Ah said, wiping the drop of tear that just fell onto her fair, unblemished cheek. “I heard they only have water for shower once a week.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “Amber’s still alive. Out there somewhere.”
“I… um…” She gulped. “I brought her stuffs with me.”
“What?”
“I took both of your stuffs out from the owner’s place. She seemed angry that you two left without a word and she hasn’t received any rent fee for two months.”
I creased my forehead. “You took her luggage to Korea?”
“No,” she said, “just… a few things." She reached out for her handbag and took out a thick book with a small coded lock at the side. “I think it’s a diary. I can’t open it. I don’t know the password. You might be able to.”
It wasn’t a diary where Amber kept her schedules in, but her diary where she probably had written some private matters in there. I extended my trembling hand to the book. I had no idea what the code could be.
“And… there’s something else,” she said as she put her hand in her bag again to pull out a sealed white envelope. “I haven’t opened it. The lady at your apartment said it was sent for you without an address to send it back to. She forgot to throw it out, but I decided to take it just in case you turn up.”
I saw her smudged make up as she blew her nose into a tissue. Before she left to give me some privacy and take some sleep after the long flight, she said, "Maybe she has to leave the world to be safe."
I noticed a look in her eyes that I found strange as she handed me the envelope. It was similar to that time when we were kids, the time when we were climbing down from a tree at the back of her old house. She tripped while I was still up on the tree. I leaped down to protect her from the fall and fell on the hard concrete with her on top of me. I grazed my knee, it wasn’t big, but it was bleeding. She cried and apologised repeatedly.
Yeah, it was that same look. Guilty because she felt like she did something that hurt me.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
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