"This place is never what it seems,

This place will be the end of me."

When she starts awake it’s with a gasp that escapes as little more than a wasted breath. She’s still on the couch, legs curled against the far end, a soft impression of her head on the cushion where her head had been lying just moments ago. A warm square of golden sunlight pours through the far window where she’d forgotten to shutter the blinds and it makes Seulgi wince in the early morning and turn her face away and groan with the pain. Her head feels as if it might split apart. The taste of wine on her lips, in , a stale and sickly bitterness to it. Her phone reads no new messages, eight thirty-two AM. A pale and greying day, a gunmetal sky. The first thing Seulgi does is wipe her eyes and cough and stuff her hand into the pocket of her jeans.

They’re still there – two ruby-red dice, little white circles for numbers on each side, one to six. She holds them out in her palm and up to the sunlight like objects of ritual intended for some higher power and closes her hand around them so tight they begin to dig into her skin. It hurts, and she does it again. Then a third time, opening and closing, balling, unballing, clenched fists, her grip finding purchase in the hardness of them. She tests them as if they were not real, fantasies of her dreamworld. But a minute later with the dice still there she sits up and wipes her eyes again and puts them back into her pocket.

‘,’ she mutters. Her hands are cold and trembling. She remembers almost all of it. They were in a diner, a restaurant of some kind where the lights were warm like candles and it smelt of her favourite candies and of the freshness of the pressed leather couch seats while they waited for their food. The only thing she forgets is her face, her voice – her entirely. They had talked, but what about? And for how long? It’s as if her dream inhabits one false plane and this woman yet another. And the consistency with which Seulgi forgets when everything else remains so lucid is something she can’t quite reconcile with.

It takes her a long time to get showered and dressed for work. She’s on the phone to Sooyoung at precisely seven minutes past nine.

‘Yeah. I’m so sorry. So sorry. I know. I know, yeah. Yeah, I’m just— Okay. Okay, thanks. Thank you so much. Yeah. I promise. I won’t be again. I know. Thank you. I’ll see you soon.’

When she stumbles out of the elevator, dishevelled and out of breath, it’s nearly half past nine. Yeri’s sat at her desk with her feet kicked up on the table chewing on the rubber nub of a worn pencil. She spins her chair around just enough to catch Seulgi coming in behind her and flashes a curiously interested grin that Seulgi understand immediately. ‘Yeah,’ Yeri says. ‘Okay. Okay, that’s fine. Apologies for keeping you this morning. Thank you very much. Bye now. Bye.’

‘What time is it?’ Seulgi asks.

‘Half nine.’

‘.’

‘Long night?’ Yeri says with a smirk.

‘I just woke up late. Didn’t set my alarm properly. God, I’m such an idiot.’

‘Relax. You’re fine.’

‘I’ve only been working here a few days. I can’t do like this. I can’t afford to lose this job.’

‘You won’t,’ Yeri says, spinning her chair back and forth while Seulgi sets herself down and catches her breath. ‘Sooyoung won’t fire you over something like that. You know she’s, like, in her twenties, right? She’s only a few years older than me. She understands.’

‘I wasn’t out drinking. Or sleeping around, before you say anything.’

‘Wasn’t gonna.’

‘God, I’m an idiot.’

‘Well.’

‘Is she mad?’

‘Does she look mad?’

Seulgi raises her head over the top of her cubicle. Sooyoung is sat behind her office desk, phone in one hand, mug of coffee in the other. ‘No,’ she says.

‘Well, there you go. I doubt she even cares. Or if she does, she’s good at hiding it. Just, y’know…don’t do it again.’

‘.’

‘Best get to work.’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi mumbles. When Yeri is on the phone again and entirely distracted she puts her hand back in her pocket and pulls out the dice. Then she just sits them on the desk. As if they might have some form of animation themselves. As if the strange sentience of her world of dreams might have imbued these dice with something similar. She watches them for longer than is healthy. Nothing happens. After a while she puts them back in her pocket and punches the button on her centre console and gets to work.

It comes to her naturally, experience or not. Confrontation has never been one of Seulgi’s defining characteristics – always too shy, too meek, too kindly attuned to the moods of others to ever have the strength for that. But phone work is a slight easier. There are no arguments that cannot be resolved with a press of a button. No anger too fiery to ignore, nothing to stir the poison well of anxiety deep within her. Soon she finds herself in the rhythm of things again. She isn’t quite as talented as Yeri at this – while Seulgi finds herself slipping on certain phrases, stumbling over her words, repeating things half mumbled by accident, Yeri has a calm and persuasive professionalism to her, a sort of bewitching charm to her voice that radiates confidence and understanding. But she isn’t bad either. By the day’s end she’s made two sales to Yeri’s four. Just as she’s about to turn off her computer Sooyoung leans an arm on the side of her cubicle and glances down at her with a smile.

‘Sooyoung,’ says Seulgi. ‘I—’

‘Don’t say sorry. It’s alright. Just don’t be late again.’

‘I won’t be. Sorry.’

‘What did I just say?’

‘Right.’

Sooyoung offers her an understanding smile. She taps her hand twice on the cubicle frame. ‘See you on Monday,’ she says.

‘Yeah. Thanks again.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

Seulgi watches her go. Half the office has already gone home. The clock on the wall above the potted fig tree reads just after six.

‘See?’ Yeri says, leaning on the arm of her chair.

‘Yeah.’

‘Told you she wouldn’t be angry.’

‘She did tell me not to do it again.’

‘Well, yeah. But she didn’t fire you or anything. That’s what counts, right?’

‘Suppose so.’

‘You doing anything tonight? You fancy a drink or something? Might as well, since it’s right. Unless you’re busy.’

Seulgi thinks about it. There isn’t much to think about. But then she moves a hand to her pocket and shakes her head and says, ‘Sorry. I can’t tonight. I’m a bit busy.’

‘Oh, fair.’

She’s thankful Yeri doesn’t ask her to clarify, because Seulgi has never been much of a liar and the truth is she has no excuse that would keep her among the sane and normal. Nothing that would truly suffice. She packs her bag and says her goodbye and leaves just before Yeri. The walk to the bus stop is short and cold and dark. It’s dark here as it is everywhere. There’s the bitter foretaste of a storm in the air and the broken sun sits squat and grey against the western rim of the world like soldered tungsten. Her entire building has an echo to it, a tapping of her shoes on the linoleum, the scrape on the carpets, the lingering click of a metal lock as she turns the key and steps into the unlit misery of her apartment.

The first thing she does is take off her jacket and lie on her bed and close her eyes. No peace comes to her. Only thoughts of what might still be ahead. The madness of it. Her mind swims. Thinking one moment: Am I losing it? Have I finally gone insane?

Then thinking: What would they say if they knew? What would Seungwan think? Would I need to get help? And from whom? A doctor? Psychiatrist?

Then talking to herself: Help me. Help me find my mind.

It’s a long time before she moves or does anything at all. Cars pass, light fades. Capsuled there in her eternity of loneliness, time immemorial, Seulgi thinks on how her life has come to this. What path must she have taken to have her happiest moments appear only in the absence of reality? To have solace provided in the fleeting ecstasy of an illusion. There’s a sadness to it so bitter and so worn away that it doesn’t even hurt anymore. The rawness has been filed down to nothing but a hollow ringing. She knows the danger of regret just as she also understands that the true power of this regret lies in its deception – wallowing in the past wastes the present. And Seulgi has wallowed more than almost anyone.

At exactly eleven forty-one her experiment begins. It’s a risk, but risk is all she has left. She pulls the dice out of her pocket and sets them both on her bedside table and lies down on her side so that her gaze only leaves them when she shuts her eyes. Soon sleep follows. And in the dream world it all begins again.

The first thing she does is check her pocket.

Irene is sitting across from her. She’s been there half an hour and they’re halfway through their food and Seulgi’s head is swimming at the suddenness of it, at how much sense it makes when it shouldn’t. Her dream has just begun. And so why does it feel like half an hour? Everything is right there, so close and so immediate in her mind it is almost tangible. Irene talks. The whiteness of her teeth almost glistens under the overheard lights, as bright as always, like Vegas illuminations. The café hums. Things move when they shouldn’t – things are not as they should be. Everything has that same oddness to it. Cars with false numberplates, clocks ticking on offbeat metronomes, smells that are too coincidental. There’s a dog out on the sidewalk with stripes, like a household tabbycat. Seulgi fishes around in both of her pockets. Then the pockets of her jacket, too. Nothing. No dice at all.

‘Are you okay?’ Irene says with a smile.

Seulgi forces a smile of her own. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Sorry.’

‘You just looked a little distracted.’

‘Just have a lot on my mind with work and stuff.’

‘How is it? I used to work at a call centre, too.’

‘Really?’

‘For about four months. Wasn’t much of a fan of it. Wasn’t for me.’

‘I can’t complain,’ Seulgi says.

‘Pays the bills.’

‘Uh, yeah.’

‘But not what you want to do?’

‘Not really.’

Irene’s little nod is b with empathy and understanding. She smiles again, eyes closed, and the gentle creases of her lower face dimple perfectly. Seulgi just studies her. She’s so beautiful it’s almost distracting. Like something fathomed out of a deeper dream within a dream, artwork in marble. She shifts a slight in her seat and her hands move to the base of her coffeecup. ‘I can sympathise with that,’ she says softly.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. IT was always something I was interested in from a distance, but my first love was always drama. The performing arts. I know that might sound unbelievable.’

‘Really?’

Irene nods a shy sort of nod.

‘Me too,’ Seulgi says.

‘What?’

‘I mean, I used to love drama. I even joined a performance group in high school. But then I dropped out after the first four months.’

‘Why?’

‘I couldn’t perform. I got really bad stage fright. And I mean really bad. I’ve always struggle with anxiety and it just swelled up and I couldn’t do it anymore. I’d just break down and cry all the time. And I looked like an idiot.’

Irene breaks into a little smile. ‘I get that,’ she says. ‘I’m the same a lot of the time. Even now.’

‘Are you a performer?’

‘I’m in a drama group. We rent out this little hall in Sincheon and put on Shakespearean plays with a modern Korean twist.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. So far this year we’ve done Othello and Titus Andronicus. And Othello again. We’re actually in final rehearsals for Macbeth as well. Performing next week.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where are you performing?’

‘There’s a theatre hall practically across the street from our studio. We’ve performed all three of our plays there.’

‘That’s so cool,’ Seulgi says. ‘Like, so cool.’

‘I wish I could do something like that.’

‘It’s always been my passion. Don’t ask my why. I guess I’ve just always been destined for the stage in one form or another. I don’t even think I’m that outgoing or anything. I’m actually kind of an introvert. But I love performing. It’s the one place you can pretend to be someone you’re not without being judged for it, you know? It’d like a world away from the world.’

Seulgi is quiet. There is more truth to that than Irene knows. ‘When are you performing next?’ she asks.

‘Well,’ Irene says, ‘the final rehearsals are this coming Saturday and Sunday. And then we’re performing live for the first time, next Wednesday, six PM sharp.’

‘Can I, you know…’

‘Come along?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Of course you can come along,’ Irene says with a smile. ‘I was actually gonna ask if you wanted to anyway.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. I thought maybe you’d want to. I don’t really get chance to show off my performance side to anyone. Never really had any of my friends or family come along to them because, well…I don’t have many people to invite. God, listen to me. I sound so…what’s the world?’

‘Real.’

‘Not the word I was looking for, but I’ll take it.’

‘What word were you looking for?’

‘I don’t know,’ Irene says. A moment later she breaks into a beaming smile. ‘But I like real. Thanks for saying that.’

‘Thank you for being real with me,’ Seulgi says. And before long, she’s smiling too.

Time functions differently. Here the clocks go as normal – seconds seep away, hours stack up, things pass her by with no consequence. In the world of her dreams weeks pass in a single night of sleep, days fall like dominoes cluttered and disordered – time has ceased to have all meaning. What is up might be up one night, down the next. Does any of it matter? Seulgi thinks perhaps it does not.

The next night she lies awake thinking about it. The dice are still there on her bedside table. For some reason she is compelled to roll them and so she does. The first roll lands on double five. Then three and five. Four and one. Two and four, two and four again. She puts them back where they were and lies with her face to the dark of the ceiling like a nightwatcher waiting for some greater signal and it never comes. What does is a vision of last night – they’re in a café, and she’s talking about her performance art, a drama group Seulgi remembers, Titus Andronicus and Othello and now Macbeth, but she can’t quite remember where. Or her face. Voice, anything. The same as always.

Seulgi sighs. If it were not so painful perhaps it would be amusing. But all that remains is the frustration. It’s a while before even the thought of sleep comes to her. Lying there in the dark listening to the gaps in the texture of the world. Perhaps this is some essence of the dreamworld yet to come. Or perhaps not at all. A minute before sleep she rolls over and palms the dice and makes sure they’re tight in her grip. And when she sleeps it’s with the dice still there, still in her hand.

‘Is this a dagger which I see before me? The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight?’

Seulgi watches her with all the attention of someone having discovered something wondrous for the first time, a childlike infatuation, glee in the burning of her eyes as she watches Irene pace back and forth on stage. She’s dressed in a brown tunic and robes with black gloves, her hair pinned back and lovely, a regality to her as she recites her lines. It’s a speech very few can do proper justice, but Seulgi thinks perhaps she might have earned herself a place among them. Back and forth, eyes alight with a stirred sort of manic horror befitting her role. Seulgi watches it all, enraptured, captivated utterly. When she’s finished and the lights dim to black and the curtain shutters she’s the first one to applaud, and the last one to stop.

It’s almost an hour before Irene is finished backstage. Seulgi waits for her in the corridor outside the dressingroom, and as people pass and disappear into the other rooms and occasionally glance at her all she can do is smile awkwardly and nod and try and still the rapid electric beating of her heart. She’s a stranger in a strange place, an outcast among this band of actors and dramatists, a companion for her muse. Nobody else seems to be stood with her. Nobody seems to be waiting as diligently.

When Irene exits the performers’ room it’s with a bag slung across one shoulder and a beaming smile on her face that only gets wider when she sees Seulgi there, leaning against the wall at the far end by the fire escape door, nervously tapping her foot on the floor.

‘Hey,’ she says, still grinning ear to ear. She’s changed into a plain black sweater and jeans and she’s as gorgeous as ever and Seulgi has to actively try to not stare. It’s a task of almost Herculean proportions, one she’s not quite up to. ‘Sorry for keeping you waiting,’ Irene says. ‘I didn’t know if you minded staying around or if you wanted to go.’

‘I don’t mind,’ Seulgi says.

‘Do you wanna grab something to eat? I’m starving.’

‘Sure. Wherever you want.’

It’s the same restaurant. Same décor, same dance of the lights. The brightness of it. It isn’t until they’ve already ordered that Seulgi smiles and says, ‘That was amazing, by the way. Should’ve said it earlier.’

‘What was?’

‘Are you kidding? How about the whole performance?’

‘You think?’

‘Do you not?’

Irene shrugs. There’s a slight tint to her cheeks that is almost uncharacteristic, a strange shyness to her.

‘I never thought you’d actually, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Play Macbeth.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. I mean, I’m not an expert on my Shakespeare, but I know Macbeth, and I know Macbeth is a man’s role. And there’s the whole prophecy thing.’

‘Yeah,’ Irene says, as enthusiastic as ever. ‘That’s the whole point of what we’re doing. We’re basically taking traditional roles and flipping them on their heads and saying, “Look, we can do it too!” There’s no reason we can’t. As long as we’re creative about it and we flip the explanations and stuff too, so that everything makes logical and coherent sense within the story we’re trying to tell. I think that’s most important.’

‘Isn’t Macbeth a man?’

‘Well, yeah. But that’s what I mean. It’s about showing that the arts are for everyone – I think no role should be banned from anyone. That’s what being creative is all about. And I’m so excited about the prospect of that. I think what we’re doing is really cool. And I’m really proud of it.’

‘Well,’ Seulgi says, ‘you’re an amazing actress. Really amazing. You should go into acting or something.’

Irene shrugs. ‘Stage plays are a little different than movies or TV. Or even being on a big drama roadshow or something. There’s a lot more to it than that. I don’t think I’d ever be up for it. Don’t think I could ever be confident enough for that.’

‘You seem really confident to me.’

‘That’s the thing, isn’t it? I think sometimes it’s quite easy to appear confident when you’re not at all. It’s the same as theatre – it’s a mask. A façade. Sometimes it’s carefully crafted and sometimes it cracks too easily and you’re left trying to pick up the pieces. In some way we’re all putting up a façade, willingly or not. I think we have to, to get by.’

‘Maybe you’re right. But I think you should try. You’re too good not to.’

‘Maybe one day I will. Or maybe not. I suppose I’ll have to see where the wind takes me.’

Irene glances at her. The faint glint in her eyes is enough to make Seulgi’s heart leap. ‘Thank you,’ she says softly. ‘For coming along tonight.’

‘Wouldn’t have missed it for anything. You made it sound super interesting.’

‘I mean it. Like I said the other day, it’s not often I get anyone to come along to these things, even if they know they’re happening. Seeing you in the audience tonight was just…you know.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ Seulgi says with a smile. She’s still smiling as they eat. She’s smiling all the way up until she turns and looks about the restaurant and sees a woman sat by the far window on her lonesome, looking out at the night against the warp of a single candle. She’s dressed in dark jeans with a silver beltbuckle and a pink jacket and her hair is a cropped blonde just above her shoulders. Seulgi can’t see her face from there. Part of the thinks she doesn’t need to.

‘What?’ Irene says. ‘Seulgi?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Are you okay?’

Seulgi forces out a smile. The overwhelming feeling of déjà vu hits like cannonfire. ‘I just thought I recognised someone, that’s all,’ she says.

‘Who?’

‘That girl over there by the window. I thought I knew her. Maybe I do. She looks familiar. Like someone I used to know.’

‘Well. Go say hi.’

Seulgi looks at her. The apprehension in her own voice isn’t present in Irene’s. She doesn’t want to do it – the outcome is in doubt, her reality, as always, in a constant state of flux. But something more immediate urges her on. She says, very quietly, ‘I’ll be right back.’

‘Sure.’

The walk to the far side of the restaurant feels like forever. Each step is louder. People might be watching. Seulgi’s hands are shaking again. She stands by the table until the woman turns to her, a small and attractive face, two dimples pressed into the politeness of her smile. ‘Can I help you?’ she asks.

‘Sorry,’ says Seulgi. ‘Are you Jung Wheein?’

The woman is silent a moment. Then she says, ‘I’m sorry, do I know you from somewhere?’

Seulgi never musters a response. She looks back at Irene again. Then her world snaps back into the dark like a rubberband, no graduality to it at all. She blinks and there’s no sound, no restaurant, no Wheein, no Irene. Just her bed, alone. The dice where she’d left them on the table. Soon she’s crying, and it’s a long time before she can stop again.