Scared To Live

After Hours

 

 

"We fell apart,

Right from the start."


 

She’s sat on the couch when Seungwan walks through her front door without even knocking. She sees Seulgi sat there with her legs crossed and a bucket of popcorn in her lap watching a movie on the TV and smiles at her and sets her shoppingbag down on the table and says, ‘Where’d you get the popcorn?’

‘Made it myself. Well, not really. It’s that ready-in-a-minute bag stuff.’

‘Are you okay?’

Seulgi smiles a soft and tired smile. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’

‘Are you sure? Do you want to talk or something?’

She thinks about it for a long time. Then with a slight hesitation she reaches over and mutes the TV and nods. Seungwan takes her bag and sets it down in front of the couch and sits beside her, head leaning on one hand, attentive and ready to listen to whatever. ‘What’s up?’ she says quietly. It takes a lot of effort for Seulgi not to cry in frustration. A good part of her wants to curl up and ignore it all. The movie plays on, shambling mutes in a silent play. Cars outside pass in a long low swish and hum and move away.

‘Well,’ she says.

‘Something got you down?’

‘Everything’s got me down. You know how it gets with me sometimes. I just feel…I don’t know. Fed up with everything, I guess.’

‘Yeah,’ Seungwan says, listening with all the care of a mother.

‘I don’t know how to explain it.’

‘I know what you mean. Don’t worry.’

‘I just wish I found it easier to talk to people. Or to be myself again. I don’t know what’s gotten into me these past few years but it’s like all the life has been out of me. Maybe it’s my job. Maybe it’s hobbies. Maybe it’s the fact I’ve got to be an adult in the real world at last and I don’t really think I’m capable of actually doing that. I don’t know. But I look around and I stop and I just think the world seems to have lost a certain colour it once had. There’s a dullness to everything and I really don’t like it.’

Seungwan is quiet for a long time. The expression on her face is part understanding and part curiosity still. At what has not been said. Seulgi sets the bucket of popcorn down on the floor and shifts and sets her hands in her lap. ‘I’ve got rent to pay,’ she says. ‘And nothing to pay it with.’

‘What? I thought you said you were getting regular work.’

‘Yeah, well, not enough. Not nearly enough. And the money’s nowhere near as good as I wished it were, either.’

‘Why did you tell me differently? You told me you were doing okay.’

Seulgi shrugs, part in embarrassment and part in shame. ‘I don’t know,’ she mumbles. ‘I just didn’t want you thinking I was failure. That I couldn’t handle myself. I didn’t want you or anyone else thinking I was incapable of taking care of myself.’

‘I’d never think you were a failure. Why would you get that idea into your head?’

‘I don’t know. I just get these thoughts sometimes.’

‘Well, don’t.’

Seulgi smiles a slight.

‘Have you asked anyone? For more work? Or for help?’

‘I can’t ask my parents,’ Seulgi says. ‘And even if I could, it wouldn’t matter. They’re barely managing as is.’

There’s a long pause, an awkward tension Seulgi rarely feels with Seungwan that makes her tense up. Then Seungwan says, ‘If you ever need anything from me, you know where I am.’

‘Seungwan, no.’

‘I mean it. Even if it’s a couple hundred thousand—’

‘No. Stop it. I wouldn’t ever ask that of you.’

‘I’m serious, Seulgi.’

‘I can figure it out,’ Seulgi says. ‘I’ll figure it out. I’ll just get another job or something to tide me over for a while.’

‘Don’t you have any savings?’

Seulgi shrugs again, eyes on her hands nestled in her lap. ‘Enough for maybe two months,’ she says. ‘Nowhere near enough to last me until the end of the year. Not after rent and other expenses. And it’s not as if my landlord would let me off with just not paying for a third of a year. I’ve got no excuse. I’m just not earning enough money. Like I said, I’ll just get another job for the time being.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. At this point I’d take anything. Retail, I guess.’

‘Well. If you think that’s best for you.’

‘I don’t know what’s best for me. Not even in the slightest. It seems like nothing is good for me at all. As if everything I do has no real purpose. I’m just doing things because they’re there in front of me – because I should do them, according to what I’ve been taught, how I’ve been raised. I’m just going through the motions, day in and day out. I don’t know. Maybe I need a friend.’

‘You’ve got a friend.’

‘I know,’ Seulgi says with a gentle smile. It’s a smile intended to put Seungwan at ease and for a moment it does. ‘I know,’ she says again. ‘Thank you.’

‘I get you, though. You mean another friend.’

‘Yeah. Maybe I just need some companionship.’

‘Or maybe you need to get laid.’

‘That, too.’

‘Your love life is deader than mine. Unless you’ve been sneak seeing someone on the side.’

‘I haven’t. It’s deader than yours.’

‘Well,’ Seungwan says, leaning down and pulling a small box of wine out of the shoppingbag.

‘Is that wine?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘Box wine.’

‘Box wine.’

‘Breaking the bank with that, aren’t you?’

‘Well,’ says Seungwan, ‘I figured maybe you texted me because you needed cheering up. So here’s to cheering you up.’

At that Seulgi can only smile. It’s a small gesture but it’s one that she appreciates all the same. It’s a reminder of calmer and simpler times, nights spent together at university subsisting on box wine and ramen, talks just like this. When there still existed within her some semblance of normality. She sits there and Seungwan pours the wine into glasses and they talk and laugh and she wants to say it but she never does. How could she? Thinking: Where do I go from here? And how?

The heart wants what it wants. And Seulgi’s heart was want for a whole lot more than it had.

 

 

As she stands outside the building lobby five days later it’s a cold morning and it’s been raining and she can smell the rain still in the air, the stench of dust. Gasoline from car engines. It’s a tall office building, the vestibule of glass, the lobby just inside with a single receptionist sat behind the desk and a waiting area on the left with red couches and a pinewood table between them. For a long time Seulgi just stands there. Her hands are shaking. The grey of the tower looms overhead like something from another world, a lodestone of some unfamiliar and terrible matrix.

She checks the address scribbled on a scrap of paper one more time. A place in uptown Ahyeon, an unofficial office district. Here people move about in expensive suits and button-up shirts and dress shoes with phones to their ears or talking into Bluetooth headsets like actors in a rapid and brilliantly detailed roadshow performance. And Seulgi among them the lone outsider. She glances down at herself. The last time she’d worn a proper shirt was two years ago for a face-to-face meeting with a client. Her phone reads eight fifty-six. She takes a deep breath. Three more. Then with her hands still trembling and her heart like caged electric she goes on through the vestibule and smiles at the receptionist at the counter.

‘Excuse me,’ she says in her most professional voice. The woman looks at her. She’s young, smart, well put together. Not that alike Seulgi at all. ‘What can I help you with?’ she asks in a pleasant voice.

‘I was looking for Sincheon BI Insurance. They told me it was somewhere in here, but I’m terrible at looking up places on the internet.’

‘It’s on the third floor. There’s an elevator over there if you don’t want to take the stairs.’

‘Oh. Thank you.’

‘Are you new here?’

Seulgi puts on her best smile. It’s a façade that is almost fooling. ‘First day,’ she says. ‘Had my interview through a video call, so I haven’t been before.’

‘Nervous?’

‘Something like that, yeah.’

The woman smiles at her again. ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘We all get it.’

‘Yeah,’ says Seulgi. Before there’s chance for the anxiety to engulf her fully she turns and walks down toward the elevator at the far end of the lobby and punches the number three button and waits. The beep is followed by a clunk and a soft hum. The number goes from eleven to ten, nine, down further. Seulgi waits. Her foot taps one two three, one two three on the cold pale linoleum. Her mind is elsewhere entirely – locked in the cages of her fantasy land, a cascade of futile attempts to recollect the details of her mystery encounters beyond the superficial, the irrelevant. A chance café meeting, a bowling alley, another dinner. Two nights ago it was with Seulgi waking up on a bench in front of a duck pond with somebody already by her side. As if she’d woken up in media res of some story of her alternate life. And the identity of this woman she’d been with remained a mystery. No face and no voice. As good as having never existed at all, and is this not the truth? She thinks with a certainty that made her heart murmur that it is.

As she ascends in the elevator she tries with all the energy she can muster to still her shaking hands. She knows that being here is in itself an enormous success but there is more still to come. Her eyes go to the beady little camera thumbed into the ceiling. To the mirror on the wall behind her. It’s in her nature, curse or not, to be paranoid. But before she has time to think on this the elevator beeps on three and the doors open her out into a wide corridor with two closed doors across the hall from her. To her right is a long glass wall she can see right through. And behind that is a room of desks and computers in neat lines and a corridor about halfway down the room leading right and disappearing and people sat about in similar shirts and slacks, all busy. Sat right by the aisle is a woman that looks younger than Seulgi leaning back in her seat with her feet kicked up on the desk and a headset with a microphone over her head. She’s sat talking into it with her eyes closed. Seulgi watches her for a moment. Then she watches her for a lot longer. Part of her thinking: I should just go home. Go and lie down and forget all about this. I’m going to be a failure anyway.

It takes her more than a minute to work up the courage to push the glass door to and step into the room and it feels a lot longer. The woman with her feet on the desk is too busy with her headset to bother turning to her. The other rows beyond are much the same – people sat about talking into their headsets or clicking away at their computers or playing on their phones. Seulgi just stands there. Caught in this strange matrix between the known and the unknown, the real and the not. This is real. And it feels so much falser than her dreams ever have.

A moment later she catches sight of a tall woman coming out of an office down the far-left end of the room. Seulgi notices her across the space instantly. There’s an aura to her that radiates a sort of calm authority – the neatness of her hair in a ponytail, the polite smile on her oddly pretty face, no creases in her posture. She waves at Seulgi and Seulgi smiles back at her and it isn’t until she’s much closer than Seulgi looks again and realises she might even be younger than Seulgi is. Or at least looks as much.

‘Hi,’ she says, extending a hand. ‘You must be Seulgi?’

‘Yeah, that’s me. Kang Seulgi.’

‘Okay, cool. My name’s Sooyoung. I’m the team coordinator here at SBI.’

‘Oh, right. But—’

‘We didn’t talk during the interview, I know. That was a colleague of mine. She normally handles that side of things.’

‘Right.’

‘Do you want me to run you through things and get you comfortable?’

Seulgi thinks about it. She glances about again. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’

Sooyoung smiles a warm and polite smile again. The aura of invincibility never wavers – the assuredness of her, how intoxicating it is to watch. She leads Seulgi into her office and sits her down and goes over everything. Then she goes over it again just in case. Seulgi smiles and nods politely and Sooyoung pulls a document out of a drawer and pushes it across the metal desk and points to something on the front page.

‘It’s cold calling,’ she says. ‘So you might get a few people who are, let’s say, not so happy to talk to you.’

‘Yeah. Of course.’

‘You said in your interview you’ve had previous experience working in call centre environment.’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi says with a formal nod. ‘I worked in one for just over a year after I was done with university. Feels like forever ago now.’

Sooyoung laughs with closed, a reserved and neat laugh with a hint of a mischievous smile that ages her at maybe only twenty-three or twenty-four. ‘What was it?’ Sooyoung asks.

‘Cell phone providers. Mostly outsourced to us.’

‘Right. SK?’

‘Yeah. Mostly.’

‘Cold calling?’

Seulgi nods.

‘How was that?’

‘You know, can’t complain. Paid the bills.’

She looks at Sooyoung and freezes but she’s already said it and it’s too late. The world slows. Her hands are trembling again. Then Sooyoung smiles a second time and leans back and says, ‘Yeah. I know what you mean.’

‘I enjoyed it though.’

‘Good. That’s what I like to hear.’

Seulgi can only nod in response.

‘Well,’ Sooyoung says, ‘this is a little different in the details, but it’s the same principle. We offer home insurance to people on behalf of our providers. So we’re basically a third-party entity in the same way as you were, working on behalf of partners for people. Day to day you’ll be working with different providers and different companies, but it’s mostly the same sort of thing. It’s automated call routing, if you’ve ever worked with that before.’

‘Yeah, I have.’

‘Okay, cool. You should be right at home, then. Everything you’ll need is in that booklet. Give it a read over, take as much time as you want. All day if you need it. But if you’re cool with jumping straight on the phones at any point just let me know and we’ll get you set up.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’

‘Your desk is the one over there by the entrance.’

She makes a gesture toward the front of the room and Seulgi turns about and turns back and thanks her and scoops up the booklet and goes on out to her room. Nobody seems to be paying any attention to her. Her desk is directly next to the girl with her feet up on the table and she wheels her chair around and catches Seulgi looking at her and smiles and gives a gesture with her finger that says One Minute.

‘Yeah, that’s right. Okay. Okay, let me just get your address real quick and I’ll add it into the system. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Right. Alright, thank you very much, Mrs Kim. Thank you very much for your time. A colleague will contact you on my behalf in the next few days to talk to in more detail about what’s going to happen going forward. Okay. Yep, thank you too. Okay, bye now. Bye.’

She punches a button on the little caller console on her desk and takes her headset off and grins at Seulgi and says, ‘Sorry about that.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘Hard at work, y’know?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you Seulgi?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m Yerim,’ she says with her hand extended. ‘But just call me Yeri.’

‘Yeri.’

‘Yeah. You met with Sooyoung yet?’

‘I was just in there now.’

‘Right. , I probably should’ve realised that. I get a bit, y’know…ditzy at times.’

‘Sure,’ Seulgi says with a smile. A quick skim of the first page of the document Sooyoung gave her gives her computer ID and temporary password and system details for the caller console.

‘You ever worked in a call centre before?’

‘Yeah, when I’d just got out of uni.’

‘How’d you find that?’

‘Can’t complain. Paid the bills.’

Yeri looks at her and laughs. ‘Did you say that to Sooyoung?’ she asks.

‘Yeah. How did you know?’

‘I said the same thing.’

‘Oh. Right. Did she not, like, get mad or anything?’

‘Well, she never mentioned it. So I suppose not. I guess she figures ninety-five percent of people working here are just doing so for the money. Maybe a hundred percent, her included. Can’t really dismiss people for that, right? I mean, it’s not exactly brain science.’

‘Brain science?’

‘I didn’t mean that. Got my brain surgery and my rocket science mixed up.’

Seulgi can only laugh. When Yeri’s on her headset again Seulgi just watches her for a minute. She’s younger than even Sooyoung, small and dark-haired and with a face that seems to be up to no good at any particular moment, and there’s a confidence about her that Seulgi is almost wickedly jealous of. A switch between professional and personal, a clever and careful merging of the two. It’s sitting there and watching her that Seulgi feels a pang of sadness in her heart. If only things were so straightforward for herself. If things were not so torrid and in motion around her. She remembers her time at university and school before that and surely it wasn’t this hard but she can’t quite remember the specifics. Much like her dreams, the faint and warped glass of her mind, gazing in through the blur of it. What remains there remains for a reason, however unknown.

Two hours later and she’s already on the headset. She punches the automated button on the caller and puts on her best professional voice. By closing time she’s already had a sale. Yerim’s sat spinning her chair idly in the seat beside her. ‘Did you get one?’ she asks, expectant. ‘It sounded like you did a while ago.’

‘Yeah I did.’

‘Oh, . Cool. Congrats. That was quick. You’re a natural.’

‘Like I said, I’ve done it before.’

‘Makes sense. It’s not exactly the hardest job in the world.’

‘It’s easier over the phone.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ Seulgi says. ‘I just mean it feels easier than, you know, doing it in person would.’

‘Oh, right. That makes sense as well. Anyway, I’m gonna head off. I’m not staying around a minute longer than I get paid for.’

Seulgi only smiles and says goodbye. When she’s gone Seulgi just sits there and studies the room. The dull gunmetal of the walls, the yellowing of the wilted pencils in their porcelain cups on the desks, the soft bluewhite glare of the computer monitors. A slight metronomic tap tap tapping of keyboards. The clock on the wall just gone five thirty PM. Sooyoung is sat behind her desk engrossed in a folder and talking on the phone. Seulgi watches. All of it seems like the nightmarish equivalent of her usual dreams – everything is that much colder, quieter, more distance. There’s a tension in the air that perhaps only exists to Seulgi but it doesn’t need to exist to anyone else. An isolation she can’t quite shake. And it isn’t until a moment later she realises something that makes her heart sink. She thinks:

This isn’t a nightmare. This isn’t another dream. This is my life. This is the real world. This is what I’ve got to work with. And I wish it were not. I wish for all the world it were not.

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TEZMiSo
One more chapter to go! :)

Comments

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ChouLights
#1
I just started listening to The Weeknd religiously and this whole series makes me so happy thank you
Kaz012_ei #2
Chapter 16: Uhmm... I guess I'm speechless? I really haven't grasped what happened or maybe my mind isn't attuned to understanding this deeper. There's that gap that got me confused but I guess it happens... There are events that would lead to believing a false reality, and we end up trying to reconnect the severed lines. Not sure what went on to trigger that or it's just really deep thinking of existentialism.. Anyway, glad that I finished this. As usual, thank you for sharing this!
JaeKnight
#3
Chapter 8: .... I-uhmmm,,,, I must have skipped a chapter lol.
JaeKnight
#4
Chapter 6: Yikes idk who Wheein is lol. But hmmmmm why do i think Irene is the person Seulgi wants to be? I mean the call, it shows on the chapter that she's a bit timid (on calls). And then Irene works at a call centre. And all those details. Theyre very similar, at least in terms of interests, but Irene is a step ahead than Seulgi. HmmmMmmMm
I'm a fan of subtly so this is very nice
peachyseulgi
#5
Chapter 16: i dont know if i understood it well but what i have grasped so far is that seulgi was looking for answers all this time not knowing that looking for them would only break her. and knowing that ignorance is a choice and a blessing, would support that maybe all seulgi needed was to stop asking questions and live life as it is, may it be between two different time lines or two different universes. she just needed that little push inside her to let her finally feel happiness.

nonetheless, this was a great read. happy that i was kept updated by aff on this fic. thank you for this, author.
jenlisasbiatch
#6
Chapter 15: I'm not smart enough to understand what happened but gods this story is so good. Thank gods I let this story be finished first instead of waiting for the chapters because I would've lost my mind while waiting and asking and pondering what really is the truth and how would the story turn out! Another great read. Thank you
Reveluv4vr
#7
Chapter 12: I'm confused the way Seulgi is now more confused!! When did Irene favorite color change all of a sudden!! ?? And the change in color of those mysterious curtains..
Yultislay89
#8
Finished reading this masterpiece at 2 in the morning :”
Omg I was fascinated by the concept of this story, and the ending!! Ughh I’m happy for Seulrene but I’m still curious about the truth, I’m thinking that maybe Irene is real in the first place, and maybe in the present year they broke up, leaving Seulgi with trauma or wht so she can’t remember Irene in her real life and that’s why she dreamed of Irene, But then when Irene appears in the present year.. I don’t know what to think anymore lol, important thing is I love this story, mind blown! Thankyou for making this storyy aaaa ><
Reveluv4vr
#9
Chapter 2: This story is unique and cool.. lovin' it.. Reminds me of W.
ilovebaejoohyun
#10
Chapter 16: ok so I am really confused and I dont think I'm intelligent enough to really understand the story, but this was a great read