Chapter 2: Concrete Angels
Black Light“Let’s call the police,” I plead while Mrs. Kwon tends to Grandpa’s wounds, “it’s serious, they can’t just ignore--”
“Seulbi,” Mrs. Kwon’s voice is soft and motherly, she stops with her hands above the cut on Grandpa's cheek and looks at me gently.
“There has to be something we can do,” I argue, “what if they come back!”
I hear music pounding outside, the first signs of Blacklight coming to life. It rises through the rickety floorboards of the upstairs apartment, shaking the entire building.
Mrs. Kwon continues her work, “I have lived in this district all my life, and I haven’t seen a police officer around here since I was a girl. Those boys are trouble, is all. They won’t be coming back here no more, they’ve had their fun.”
“but!--”
Grandpa’s stern voice cuts me off, “Hwang Seulbi. Shouldn’t you be doing homework?”
It’s his way of telling me enough is enough. I nod, defeated, and sulk to my room.
The apartment we live in above the liquor store is small, but decently sized as far as the houses in this area go. Grandpa, Mrs. Kwon, and I all have our own bedrooms, though they’re all barely big enough for a bed, let alone any other furniture. I was given the largest room, on Grandpa's account I groan in frustration and throw my notebook on the bed as I make my way to the window. With all my might I force it open, and crawl out into the night air. As usual, it reeks of alcohol and smoke. I hear cat calls from the drunks below but keep my eyes forward, focused on the tall glimmering lights of the city. The real city, filled with glamour and sleek cars and franchise coffee shops.
The calls of drunks suddenly stop and I look down. Blacklight is still in full bloom, though now that the rush hour is done most of the people have vanished into the different buildings below. A blinking neon light catches something below, a shadowy figure standing alone against a concrete building. I squint my eyes to make out the figure’s face, and jump when his lips spread into a wide grin.
He steps out from underneath the shadow of the dark building, letting the harsh florescent light catch his face. He pulls back his hood slowly, purposefully. As the lip of his hood rises, his black eyes glimmer with the reflection of neon. A cold wind blows and the world seems frozen as his eyes meet mine. We stare at each other for a moment, and then he smiles again, and recognition sparks in my chest. The other boys’ absence makes him a bit more inconspicuous, but I can still tell without a doubt who it is. I turn and scramble through my window, slam it down, lock it, and drop the blinds. I hear Mrs. Kwon's voice from behind thin walls asking me if everything is alright. I curl up in bed, pressed against the wall, and call back, "everything's fine!" but my eyes still drift to the window.
. . .
In the morning my nose is greeted by the smell of fried eggs and fresh rice from the kitchen in the main room. I crawl out of bed and into the kitchen, where Mrs. Kwon hums along to an old song playing on her ancient portable radio.
“I’m going home!” she sings, swinging her wide hips, “Goodbye city!”
When she sees me she beams, and I notice the large bruise on her temple where she was hit. I drop my eyes to avoid looking at it for too long, and sit at the counter.
“You should get medicine for that,” I mumble.
Mrs. Kwon sets a plate in front of me and shakes her head, “No, that’s not necessary, dear. It’s not like it’s a cut, just a bruise is all.”
The song on the radio changes to something slower, softer.
“Where’s Grandpa?” I ask, and swallow a spoonful of rice.
“Still sleeping,” she answers with her back to me, “poor thing deserves some rest.”
I chew my food in silence, watching the scratched silver spoon break the surface of the rice, “Is he hurt badly?”
“He’s fine,” she turns around and puts a serving of fish on my plate with a sympathetic smile, “your grandpa has been through much worse, he’s a strong man.”
I hear footsteps coming up the stairs and turn around, my heart dropping.
"Morning," Taehyung's eyes are crescent lashes, his smile bright as ever. He jingles his set of keys to the store, then comes to join me at the table.
"Oh," I breathe, "'morning."
"What's with that greeting?" he laughs, "you look gross, go get dressed."
Our eyes meet just briefly, and I remember what happened yesterday. A fierce blush spreads itself across my face. When Taehyung sees it he clears his throat and averts his eyes, "I said go get dressed," he coughs.
I stand up from the table, "Uh, right, right..."
He was acting so normal, I almost forgot.
I comb my hair slowly, watching myself in the mirror. The honk of a car outside sends me stumbling, gasping for air, shaking so uncontrollably the brush drops from my hand. I thought I was brave. I thought, I thought. I count my breaths, in and out, 7 seconds in, 7 seconds out. The girl in the mirror's eyes are more sunken than yesterday, purple from unease, wide with anxiety.
On the way to school I pray they don't show up again.
"You seem out of it," Taehyung bends his head down to look into my eyes, "did something else happen?"
"Huh?" I jolt out of my trance, "n-no, it's nothing. I'm fine, just tired."
Taehyung nods. After a minute or two he sighs and slumps his shoulders.
"It's not because of what I said, is it?" he whispers in a voice more timid than I'd ever thought possible.
I stop in place and pivot, opening my mouth to protest, to tell him it's not that, to tell him--
"Seulbi," he breathes, his eyes quivering on something in the distance.
It's the kid. The same one from yesterday. He stands eerily still, the only motion coming from the wind that disheveles his hair and dirtied uniform. His earlier wounds have been replaced with fresh wounds, a cut across his nose and bruises on his cheekbones. He is the spirit of innocence in a world too cruel for his survival. He is the vibrant ocean stained with oil and human waste, the saw-burned edges of a cut down oak. He's looking at me, and all of a sudden it feels too tragic. Too familiar.
"Hey!" Taehyung is shouting. He's dropped his backpack and is running towards the boy. A light is blinking, a bell ringing. The black haired angel is standing in the middle of train tracks. I can hear the crunch of fabric in Taehyung's fist as he grabs the boys jacket, flinging him over the safety barrier, and slamming him into the concrete. They both crash into the grown, landing hard. The train rattles past, a beast far too busy to realize had it come just a moment earlier, a life would have been lost.
"What were you doing!?" Taehyung screams. The boy doesn't move. Beneath locks of black hair, blank eyes watch the train go by. Inside those black pools, there is something darker than black. A longing for release.
"You should have let me die," he hisses. The world silences as the boy sits up, brushes off his uniform and spits out blood.
"W-what?" I murmur.
When the boy's eyes land on me, they instantly soften. And he is an angel again. Tears swell up and overflow, the boy hunches his shoulders and at last, sobs. "You should have let me die!" he screams, a ragged and ear-splitting sound that could shatter even the most frozen of hearts. "Just let me die!" he cries, "just make it stop!"
I reach out my hand to comfort the boy, and he takes it, clenches my fingers within his so much I wince from the pain.
"There's no other option!" he pleads to me with swollen eyes, "there's no other way, they'll find me, they'll--" his eyes suddenly widen in fear and he scrambles backwards, choking on his own tears.
"He's right," says a dark and alluring voice behind me, "you should have just let him die."
And there they are. Of course they would be here. They never let their victims go free.
The blonde steps around me with his long, thin legs, this time a cigarette dangles between his lips, "Look at him," he laughs, approaching the terrified boy,"have you ever seen anything-" he swings his leg into the boy's ribcage, "more-" another kick, the boy screams in pain, "-pathetic."
"Jackass," another boy appears from behind the first one, this one the orange haired one from before. His face is long, and his eyes are beady. I think the blonde one called him "hope." He approaches the boy and offers a hand to him, pulling the kid up to his feet.
"Kid's a lot tougher than I thought he was," Hope smirks. The boy is stony faced, looking down with dark shadows cast onto his swollen face.
"It's too bad."
I'm not even shocked at the newest voice. Rather, I'm frozen. Chills creep down my spine, the smell of wet air and the musk of concrete enters my nose. He's not touching me, but I can feel his fingers all over my body. They're tangled in my hair, wrapped around my throat, clutching my wrists so tight it burns.
"You know why it's like this, don't you?" the leaders voice scrapes down my ears like nails on a chalkboard. I look to the boy for answers, but he refuses to raise his head. Blood drips from his disheveled hair.
"This poor, poor kid," the leader steps towards the boy, tilting his head so his dragon tattoo is in full view. I notice he's not wearing a school uniform like the others today. Instead he wears a loose, black tank top, revealing chiseled tan muscles, as well as a series of scars and bruises. "I didn't want it to be this way, you know," he says, sighing almost sadly, "it's too bad he had to get involved."
"What are you talking about?" I demand.
"Seulbi!" Taehyung snaps, glancing from me to the drifters, fear in his eyes.
The leader grabs the boys cheeks, and forces his face up, then throws him at me as if he were a doll instead of a person. I catch him on his way down and turn back to the leader.
"He doesn't have anything to do with me!" I scream, realizing what this all means.
"I warned you, I really did," says the leader, shaking his head disapprovingly, "I told you to be afraid. But you weren't. Now you'll both have to pay." He turns to look at us, and slips his hands in his pant pockets. His eyes fall onto me tenderly, almost inquisitively. There's something in there behind the cruelty; interest, wonder, maybe even curiosity. "You see," he continues, strolling around us. Taehyung screams for me, but the blonde one swiftly forces him down. "You see," he repeats, "when I see someone with a fire like yours, I only have one thought. Put it out. That's it. Sick, I know. Pretty twisted, huh? But I really just can't stand to see your ing self-righteous little face."
My heart shivers and retreats to a darker, darker place. The leader raises his hand, and everything goes into slow motion. He grits his teeth, and with almost cinematic affect, brings his hand down to my face. I flip, fall, maybe even scream, I'm not sure. But I hit the concrete. I think I'm bleeding, from where, I'm not sure. The boy doesn't look up, he doesn't even flinch, nor move a single centimeter from his place beside me on the ground. Coward, a part of me curses him, Smart, another part praises. Taehyung is off the ground and sprinting towards me, screaming my name, but I can't really hear him. Everything seems so distant and dreamlike.
Now I'm being lifted off the ground, swung around onto someones back. I can smell Taehyung's hair, the same shampoo he's been using since 7th grade. I'm a little sorry for getting blood on his shirt, but when I go to say so, I only wheeze and choke. The drifters walk away as quietly as they had come, sneaking off like the rats they are. I turn my head and watch over Taehyung's shoulder, where the boy on the road slowly dusts himself off and stands up, spits blood out of his mouth and pushes his hair of his eyes. I almost catch the glimpse of a smile on his bloody lips.
* * *
Sorry this chapter isn't quite as long as the last one. I'll start the next chapter right away so stay tuned!
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