Chapter 6  The White Tanktop

I'm watching TV and they are showing this guy in handcuffs, with a shirt over his head. He's a suspect in the murder of the college student who was found sprawled on the ground, apparently after being pushed from her apartment. The news says that the suspect, the boyfriend, fled to Canada, where he was apprehended, after using a credit card to pay for his purchases.

Suddenly I sit up. That's Cho rong! He's the other guy flanking the suspect. He looks so cool.

"He's nice, but too naive, and I wonder if I could love him."

The voice creeps into my head. 

"I'm just seeing him, let me date him first. Do you call that being sincere to him?" Moo young's voice continues to taunt me mockingly.

You don't even know me, I think angrily.

The door opens and Jin kook walks in.

"It's Cho rong!" I say excitedly. "He caught the murderer! Isn't he cool?"

Jin kook wanders to the TV, but they've switched to a different story.

"You missed it," I say, disappointed.

"For your information, he didn't catch the murderer; we all did," Jin kook says.

"Really?" I say. "Then why weren't you on TV?"

He throws a pile of washed laundry at me.

"Can't you keep your clothes?" he hollers. "Don't just dump them on the table!"

I spot the hoodie among the pile and it makes my blood boil again.

I scowl at him.

"Are you guys all like that? I yell. "If you have a girlfriend, how can you act like that?"

"Huh?" Jin kook looks at me, confused.

"Do you go to the movies with a girl even though you have a girlfriend?" I rant, glaring at Jin kook.

"Huh? Is Cho rong cheating on you?" my brother growls, and makes for the door.

"No!" I yell. "It's some other guy."

"Some other guy?" Jin kook asks, perplexed.

"Yeah, some guy that I know," I mutter, and flounce into my bedroom, and slam the door.

The next morning, I go to Arts Brewery with Ms. Hwang and So yeon.

"This is our new design team," the CEO of Arts Brewery says. "This is President Hwang, President Yoo Jin kang, and Assistant Im So yeon."

Everyone claps and smiles.

The CEO introduces us to the staff who have lined up.

Moo young's not there, and I feel relieved. It's my first day at Arts Brewery, and I'm already tense enough without his disturbing presence around. 

He walks in coolly and takes up position at the end of the line.

Sigh.

"This is Assistant Kim Moo young," the CEO says. Moo young doesn't smile, but just nods at us, and then walks off.

We're busy all morning, being shown around to see the different sections and workings of the brewery. 

Cho rong calls me, and I run outside to take the call.

"I saw you on the news last night," I say.

"Really?" He sounds pleased.

We chat a bit, then I say bye, and go back in.

Moo young's there, walking around, doing stuff.

I follow him.

"If I catch you doing something suspicious one more time, I'm going to tell Seung ah," I say.

"Go ahead, and tell her," he says nonchalantly. "I don't care."

I am floored.

"Are you shameless or confident?" I spit out.

"I'm just sure of myself," he smirks, then bursts out laughing when he sees my face.

It is genuine, real laughter; it lights up his face and makes him look boyish and carefree.

"You just don't want to lose, do you?" he smiles, looking at me, his eyes still b with laughter. "Me. I prefer to think that we've never fought."

He smiles at me charmingly, a look of appeal in his eyes. Oh, this guy is a player, alright.

"You think that you can talk your way out of anything, right?" I glare at him. "There's someone like that in my family, and I know the best way to deal with him is to ignore him."

I turn my back on him, then swing back.

"This is the last time that I'm talking to you," I say, and contort my face in the ugliest, scariest scowl ever, to intimidate him. Don't cross me, dude, or you'll regret it.

Sigh.

It's not working on him.

He's looking at me, and he's grinning again, looking like he's enjoying himself enormously.

All my self-importance evaporates. It's like when you accidentally unplug a nice, fat balloon, and all the air just rushes out; I'm feeling like that right now: deflated.

I stalk off, and I feel his eyes boring into my back. I quicken my steps. I hear the sound of a machine whirring behind me, and then suddenly, I hear him yell out.

I stop.

Again he screams.

I turn and run, my heart thudding.

I reach him, where he is standing, by the machine, bent a little over it, his right hand submerged, and hidden in the depths of the grain.

He looks at me, grimacing with pain.

I switch off the machine in a panic.

He uses his other hand to grasp the hand buried deep in the grain.

Slowly, he pulls it.

His hand surfaces, bit by bit.

I am frozen with shock.

I am expecting to see a mangled hand missing a few fingers.

He pulls the last of his hand up, and holds it up in the air.

It is a black gloved hand, healthy, and perfect, all five fingers intact.

My eyes swivel to him.

Is this a joke to him?

He is grinning from ear to ear.

"You talked to me first " he says.

I am so angry that I am trembling.

"Don't ever talk to me again," I say, my voice low, and trembling with anger.

His smile fades.

I walk away.

"Where's the handsome guy?" So yeon asks me, when we catch a break.

"What handsome guy?" I ask.

Hee jun sidles up.

"Do you mean me? I'm the handsome guy," he says.

We laugh. He's such a nice and friendly guy.

And then I see him.

He's wearing this white tanktop. It's got this collar that stretches high across the base of his neck, so that the whole of his chest is covered. It's sleeveless, and his arms are exposed, all the way up, and that's when I see the scar.

It's a huge, long burn scar, on his right upper arm, stretching from his right shoulder all the way down, and stops slightly above the elbow, a vivid pink expanse of mottled flesh, dry and taut in parts, shiny and pale in others.

It reminds me of me.

It reminds me of my scar.

I cannot take my eyes off it.

He lifts his eyes at the exact moment, and our eyes meet.

He stills.

What does he see in my eyes?

Shock? Or affinity?

I am like you.

You are like me.

We are alike.

My broken, melted flesh is my past, as yours is yours.

The rest of the group amble off to the next section, leaving me with him.

He comes over, and stands close to me, so close that I can feel the warmth of his body, and the slight brush of his arm against mine.

We are standing in front of a mirror; it is tall and long and narrow, and we stare at our images reflected inside, compressed in that intimate space, just the two of us, alone, private, in our own world, for the other world has ceased to exist; dimly, I hear voices and chatter, but they are far away, distant, muted; everyone else, and everything else has ceased to exist, and it is only he and I, standing side by side, he, tall and towering over me, and I, small, tiny, beside him, staring at our reflections, our bodies almost touching, my hand within a hair's breath of his.

I feel a fissure of something that stirs to life, something that makes me breathe a little faster.

"What are you looking at?" he says, and I feel his warm breath stir my hair, and my heart begins to pound.

I do not answer, and in the mirror, I see his eyes follow my eyes and dwell upon his arm.

"Ah, this?" he says, softly, and touches the scar lightly.

"Hey, we're tasting some beers," Hee Jun calls out, breaking the spell. "C'mon over and try them." 

I drag my eyes away from Moo young.

"Sure," I say, and hurry to catch up with Hee Jun and the others.

It is the end of the day, and it's all quiet.

I walk in to say goodbye, and get my things, but there's no one there, except Moo young, sitting behind a desk.

I open my mouth to tell him that I am leaving, but he sees me, and offers a glass of beer to me.

"Weren't you interested in stout beer?" he says. "Come and try this new recipe."

I walk gingerly forward.

He stretches out his arm, and I can see the scar glistening in the light. I avert my eyes and take the glass from him. 

I take a sip.

"It's good," I say, impressed. "The master brewer's recipe is really good."

"Thank you. It's my recipe," he says, matter-of-factly, without a trace of pride, or arrogance.

"Oh," I say, awkwardly. "Your recipe tastes good."

I set the glass down.

"We're the only ones left at the brewery," he says softly. "All the others have left."

Oh dear.

"Well, bye then," I say, and turn on my heels.

"Are you leaving?" he says. "When I went to all that trouble to change my rotation for you?"

I ignore him and walk quickly to the door. I open it, but it's pouring.

It's a heck of a rainstorm.

I close the door and walk back in to him.

"Could I borrow an umbrella? It's raining."

"I don't have one," he says.

You have got to be kidding.

"I'll give you a ride," he says. "Just hang on while I get the truck."

I spy a cardboard, and pick it up out of desperation.

I'm not going to stay a second longer in that empty room with him. I grab the box and head to the door.

I open the door to the pounding rain and the monstrous wind, the cardboard over my head.

The next instant, he's snatched it from my hands.

He hurls the cardboard aside, and it lands in a puddle of water.

I look at him in shock.

He doesn't say a word.

The rain lashes at our bodies and the wind rises to a frenzy.

He looks wild, untamed, beautiful, standing there, looking down at me, droplets of water clinging to the ends of his hair, and running into his eyes which are blazing with fury, and something else; something hot and raw and primitive, leaving me breathless, turning my insides to water.

He stalks off, and I stand there like a fool.

He's back as I'm standing there, wondering whether I should just make a dash for it.

The truck pulls up beside me.

"Get in," he bites. "I'm not going to talk to you. Just get in."

I climb in, and we drive off.

I look out of the window all the way to avoid looking at him.

He leans over, so close that I can see the little droplets of rain on his arms, glistening on his scar.

I can't breathe.

He reaches out and wipes the windscreen, then stretches over me to wipe the window at my side.

We are almost touching, his bare arm, and my face.

I draw back, but he's already removed his arm.

We drive on, with only the sound of the rain breaking the silence.

He stops at a gas station, and I mutter something about getting an umbrella and clamber out of the truck.

I pick an umbrella, and am about to pay when he slams an umbrella down next to mine.

"Wow, buying an umbrella all for yourself," he says. "How cruel is that!"

He pays for the umbrellas, grabs his umbrella and stalks outside.

He's sitting at a table outside.

I slam my umbrella on the table and glare at him.

"How fickle can you get?" I snap. "One minute you're teasing me like an elementary student, and the next minute, you're angry for no reason."

"Why did you even bother to give me a lift if you were going to make me so uncomfortable?" I yell.

"Fickle?" he retorts. "You're the fickle one. And speak in banmal, like you did before."

I draw a chair opposite him and sit down angrily.

"Fine," I say. "Let's do that."

"You spoke to me first," he says.

"You're such a jerk," I say.

His mood lightens at my words, and he grins.

"I showed my scar to you so many times," he says. "But you're strange. You don't seem to care. Is it because you've got a burn scar like mine?"

"Injuries happen," I shrug. "That's life."

"Do you know that this is my secret weapon?" he indicates his scar.

"Really?" I ask. "Does it really work?"

"Yes, of course," he grins. "Women like it. It makes them feel sorry for me. They ask what happened, and why, bla bla bla." His eyes cloud with boredom at the memory.

He looks at me and his eyes change, become serious.

"You look like you don't have a complex or anything about your burn," he says, and his eyes are questioning, intense, as if he really wants to know.

"No, I don't," I say. "I've never been hurt because of it."

I school my face into an expressionless mask. I'm really good at it because I've perfected it after all these years.

The only way to make them leave you alone is to show them that you don't care.

He doesn't say anything for a while, but just looks at me, and his eyes are strangely gentle.

His phone rings, but he doesn't pick it up.

It's Seung ah.

"Why aren't you picking up?" I ask.

"It's because I'm with another woman."

"That's ridiculous!" I splutter. "Why do you do this? I really want to know."

He thinks for a while.

"One more step," he says slowly. "When I'm with you, I always go one more step forward. I always miss the point where I should stop."

"When I'm with you I just keep overshooting, I keep accelerating," his voice dwindles to a whisper. 

He looks at me, and his eyes are very dark.

"It's your eyes," he says. "Your eyes bother me."

"If I do nothing, then it makes me mad," he says. 

There's that heat again, in his eyes, and I feel the blood rush to my cheeks.

He looks away.

"It's making me mad again," he mutters.

He gets up and starts collecting his things.

I stare at him in confusion.

He sends me home, just as my brother emerges from the gate. He's about to empty the trash.

He stares at us in surprise.

"Hello again, Mr. Police Officer," Moo young winds down the window and smiles from inside the truck.

He drives off.

"Why are you together?" Jin kook asks.

"I went to Arts Brewery today," I say. "I'm in the design team for Arts Brewery, and I work there now. He's working there, and he gave me a ride home."

"Jin kang," Jin kook says, and there's a note of urgency in his voice, "don't get involved with that guy."

"No, of course not," I say. "He's dating Seung ah."

Noooo. I shouldn't have told him.

"Seung ah?" Jin kook says, surprised. "But isn't she with that rich guy?"

"Forget that I said that," I say, and go into my bedroom. "I'm bushed."

I work all night on my logo design for Arts Brewery.

Jin Kook comes in.

"Look at you," he says, beaming with pride. "You look like a career woman."

"I have to get this logo ready for tomorrow," I say.

He looks at the pictures of the logos for Arts Brewery that I've pinned up on the wall.

He suddenly stops and stares very long at a picture on the wall.

"What's this?" he asks.

"That? It's a logo that Arts Brewery used on gifts, like umbrellas and cups, for the summer beer festival."

He turns and knocks over a stack of colour cards that I am holding in my hand.

Cards spill all over the floor.

"Sorry," Jin kook says, and squats down to pick the cards up.

"Noooo!" I scream. "Don't touch them! They have to stay in order!"

I look for the chart to see the order of the cards.

Ah, this is so frustrating. It took me ages to arrange those cards.

"So Seung ah's boyfriend works for Arts Brewery?" Jin kook asks.

"Yes, he does. He would be able to put all these cards back in perfect order in a flash," I say, as I slowly sort out, and pick up the cards laboriously.

"Seung ah's boyfriend?" Jin kook echoes.

"She told me that she broke her bracelet once, and he picked up the beads, more than twenty of them, and put them back in the same order, and he did it so fast, and so effortlessly," I chatter. "She says that he has perfect memory recall."

I look up, and Jin kook's face looks white and strained all of a sudden.

"I have to go," he says. "I - there's something that I have to do at the station."

And just like that, he's gone.