Girls dance on your computer screen: smoky makeup, threadbare tops, lewd maneuverings of the hips. You’re incensed. Who are they in their skimpy outfits to coo and purse their lips? They punctuate each phrase with a cheer: “Hey!” “Yeah!” “Obba!” “Nabba!” With their epic bodies and supernatural abilities to hold a falsetto while prancing about on stage, it’s hard not to idolize K-pop stars. No wonder Koreans call them “idols.”
Not you, though. You mock them — even as you punch the air on beat.
You know the choreo because you’ve watched it — every day, since its release, until today, their debut performance on this week’s Music Square. You know exactly when Semi’s fingers will brush up against her skirt, when Tammy will roll her pudgy 52-kilogram body.
But your eyes are on Jimin, with the pink hair. She strides towards the center; you crack your knuckles. The synths build; the audience screams; percussion goes bonkers.
The cacophony drops off — Jimin bends over with a suggestive wink and utters her famous line. With a flick of the wrist you capture the moment.
You open your bootlegged version of Photoshop and work your magic. New post: “Feminism: am I getting it right?” For good measure, you throw in a few hashtags: #pussypower #selfrespect #koreanwomen. You upload and admire as you wait.
On the left, you have Jimin in a glaring white suit, speaking in front of Seoul City Hall. Her face is stern. Closed captioning at the bottom of the screen glows with self-righteous light: “All women, everywhere, deserve to be treated with respect.”
On the right, she pulls a finger across glistening lips, her back arched and her rear exposed. Lyrics glare in blocky, karaoke-style font: “Fill me up with your love.”
Your mother calls out across the apartment. “Somin! Dinner’s ready!” Only then do you notice the rich stench of grilled mackerel. Silly woman — how many times must you ask for beef? On your way through the living room you grab the remote.
“Leave it on the news, I’m watching that!”
You can’t even see her, buried deep in the kitchen, so you’re about to change the channel.
But you squint. Tilt your head.
You turn the volume up.
“…report that a fully formed K-pop girl group walked out of the woods this morning near Daehan mountain. The four were discovered by an elderly woman when she went for a hike.”
“I was just walking around here, out back.” A hunchbacked lady flails at the trees behind her. “I was collecting some chestnuts — it’s the season you know — when I found these girls, just covered in nothing but these tiny leaves around their breasts and crotches.” She straps an imaginary belt across both areas as she names them.
The screen cuts back to the newsroom and the female anchor’s somber frown. “At first suspected to be victims of kidnapping, the young women were taken into custody to receive care. However, they seemed to be well-fed, hydrated, and devoid of any signs of physical harm. In fact, once reunited after all their physical exams, the four women started dancing.”
Cut to a hospital hallway peering into one room with four girls in oversized hospital gowns. They kick off their disposable slippers, fold up their sleeves. Cut to the girls jerking around in what appears to be K-pop choreography. The news has blurred their faces, but an audience has formed around the door. Someone zooms in on their phone, and on their screen you see a distinct face: no makeup, skin as dark as a roasted walnut. From deep within the pit of your stomach, you feel a cold thrill.
“Somin-ah.” A warm hand rubs your back. You turn to face your mother. White glistens at the roots of her hair; wrinkles fan around her eyes despite the bottles of cosmetics piling around the sink. You want to cup her tiny face in your hands. “Why don’t you come eat?”
She changes the channel to a reality show: fathers compete against each other to obtain premium food on their family vacations. Today, they’re lifting incrementally more sacks of rice; last one standing gets Korean ribeye. The screen is a mess of captions and pop-up animations, like real-life anime. The fathers are on three sacks of rice when your mother speaks.
“You could do something like that, you know.”
You gawk at her. Scoff. If anyone were to do any heavy lifting, it would obviously be Jongwook, your older brother. He was the one with the sturdy frame, maintained since he left the Navy. Unlike you, deemed physically and mentally unfit for service.
Fish bones poke at your cheeks as you gnaw. One father topples under the weight of four sacks of rice. Your mother is delusional if she thinks you can do that.
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After dinner you’re at your desk. The news won’t show women wearing nothing but leaves, but of course the photos have leaked online.
They look wildly different — from the rest of the K-pop industry and each other. Jabi is short and stocky, her calves bulging. She’s torn her pants into what looks like a diaper. Ja-ae is outright obese. ‘No wonder she survived in the woods,’ you post. ‘Plenty of calories stored up in those rolls.’ You can’t even tell what Jihye looks like. She’s covered with scarves and gloves.
The last one, the one you saw on the cellphone screen, they call Eunhye.
You tilt your head, type. ‘Are their names really Mercy, Self-love, Wisdom, and Grace?’
Your computer pings. Private message. The username makes you smile.
UgglyMonster444 writes, ‘Saw your post about Jimin. She should’ve stayed in rehab. Excellent work once again, PerSEVERE1004.’
‘Thanks Uggmon. Haven’t seen you post in a while. Hope all is well.’
Your computer makes a fuss. “WARNING: Computer will restart in 15 minutes to install important updates.” You sigh and zoom in on a girl, one last time, before you call it a night.
Eunhye is tall, thin. With her long black hair and lean muscles, she reminds you of a horse. ‘She looks like she should be running free on a prairie somewhere,’ someone writes.
“Hey.”
You perk up at the sound of the baritone voice. “Come in, hyung!”
Jongwook steps in through the door, his shoulders filling the frame. He’s a real man in the Western sense of the word, not one of those daisy boys that Korean girls idolize.
“What’s up, brother?” he says in flawless English. A meaty palm lands on your shoulder.
You want him to look at you. You want him to tell you about his day at the investment bank, about the fancy, boring business dinner he was just at. But he’s frowning at your screen.
You know better than to underestimate him, though. You know he wouldn’t judge you.
“So I was reading about that girl group,” he says. “The one that came out of the woods?”
You nod. Try to focus on his crew cut — another vestige maintained from the Navy.
“That one girl, the dark one. She looks like that girl you used to hang out with. Kyeonin.”
The name hits you like a splash of water, even as it’s been swirling in the dark undercurrents of your mind since you saw her face on TV. You breathe, slowly in, slowly out.
He grips you like he doesn’t want to let go. “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“Okay. Good night.”
You reopen the browser as soon as he’s gone. The more you stare, the more you’re certain. She hasn’t changed much. Her monolid eyes, her wide nose, skin the rich color of a field laborer, and there, right along her chin — a faint scar.
You hear your own voice from a distant memory: “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Then, you see Kyeonin, wiping blood off her chin. “Yeah, of course. I couldn’t let them beat up my best friend.”
When you wake in the morning you squint at the window — the fog looks like it’s seeping in. At your computer, you groan. The idiotic update makes everything look soft and glowy.
You head to the bathroom when your bladder’s about to burst. Your mother, humming on her way out, gasps and grabs your face.
“Uhmuh! What’s this?” She pries your eyelids apart. “Your eyes… they’re brown!”
“What?”
“My poor baby. All that suffering and doctors telling us there was no cure…”
You duck into the bathroom. Stare at your reflection. Could it be?
You rub your eyes. Rinse them with warm water, then cold. You rummage the cabinet for your mother’s artificial teardrops. You squeeze until salt water is dribbling off your chin.
Well, great. Now you can’t tell if your eyes have changed color or if they’re just watery.
The thing is, your eyes have always been black. So black that cosplayers and the occasional goth nod when they catch your eye. So black that your grandfather thought you a demon when you were born. For years your mother dragged you from doctor to shaman, hoping to find a solution, all to no avail.
As you gaze into the mirror, blinking away artificial tears, you see that, though darker than any shade of chocolate you’ve left in the toilet, your eyes are — unmistakably — brown.
No one can shut up about the Girls from the Woods: on the radio, TV, social media. “Was there a man that kept you?” “Did he force you to do this?” “Did he — ?”
They break into song and dance whenever anyone pushes too hard.
The Girls from the Woods eschew representation by any record label. What they don’t manage themselves (costumes, make-up, choreography) they obtain from sycophantic donors eager to stamp their names on collaborations (beats, recording time, music video production).
The only interviews not obstructed by song and dance are those that focus on their vision.
“As we all know,” an anchor says, “you came out of the woods. Talk about breaking into a scene, am I right? But on top of that, each of you look, eh, frankly speaking, a little different from what we’re used to seeing in terms of idols.”
Jabi, in her bedazzled bikini, giggles. “And what of it? That’s what makes us beautiful.”
‘Oh god, feminists shoving this shit down our throats again,’ Uggmon messages.
Sometimes, Uggmon feels like the only sane person in the universe. You first fell for him — in a purely non-homosexual way, the way Van Gogh fell for Gaugin — when you came across a series of posts he made:
1. A closeup of flesh bulging over Jimin’s shorts, a photoshopped pig’s tail curling away from her hind side, captioned: ‘Jimin’s selling her meat to the top bidder!’
2. Jimin holding her tear-stained face in her hands as she addresses the image, which went viral, on a feel-good talkshow: ‘Sorry you didn’t diet harder!’
3. Jimin going into rehab, her face covered by a facemask and a cap: ‘Hope they teach you self-control in there!’
You guffawed when you discovered his signature watermark hidden in every image he produced: a demented smiley face with devil horns.
Now, you and Uggmon share a bond thicker than blood — even though he still pokes fun at your username.
‘Seriously, get rid of the 1004,’ he writes, alluding to how the number, “cheonsah,” is a homonym for “angel.” ‘You sound fruity, bro. People are gonna think you’re a girl.’
The more they dance, the more the nation spirals into madness.
Girls start wearing whatever the fuck they want — scarves around faces, three-piece suits, shorts that sport their asscheeks — and so do men. Men start wearing stilettos to work, strutting around Gangnam with leather strung across their chests. They spark a fashion frenzy.
‘What is up with these betas??’ Uggmon posts. ‘Everyone is losing it cuz some bitches from the woods are spreading their filth.’
You and Uggmon vow to fight this invasion, to man the frontlines together: ‘You’re not Muslim’ ‘You’re not Gaga.’ ‘You’re not pretty enough to pull that off.’
But each quip is met with a virtual shrug.
‘These idiots are so dead-set on defending their idols,’ you write for all the world to see. ‘The more they try to pull us down, the taller we have to stand.’
You post close-ups of the Girls’ hairy moles, the rolls of flesh that peek out above their hips. When it comes to Eunhye, though… you let Uggmon take the wheel.
One interview goes viral. The interviewer asks a question that makes even you cringe. But Eunhye just tilts her head and, with a faint smile, soft-spokenly eviscerates him.
The internet erupts. She becomes everyone’s favorite. But you can’t help but watch the video over and over, wondering what happened to the girl that would have swung her fists.
“Whoa, what’s with the brown?” Jongwook asks, his palms warm against your cheeks. His eyes roam over yours. “Is it too sunny? My hair gets lighter in the summer….”
You both know that even if it were too sunny, it wouldn’t affect you, an indoor creature.
Your mother notices you squinting and tests your sight. She stands you across the living room from where she’s hung up your award, the one she framed when you won the National Youth Graphic Design Competition in your first year of high school. “Can you read it?” she asks.
You tell her what you see, but your eyes drift to the frame next to it: two photos, side by side. On the left, your mother as a young girl, nestled between four siblings and her parents. On the right, your mother beaming over her three “boys” — before your father left. You had designed the whole thing and gifted it to her when she framed your award. She had cried.
Hours later, you’re scrolling through the trenches when you find a post about Eunhye — not by Uggmon. You haven’t seen his username or watermark in 36 hours. (Is he alive?)
You pause, then click to read more.
It’s Eunhye, draped across a bed. Looking vulgar. Unspecified fluids splattered distastefully across the sheets, across her. The content is lame, but that’s not the problem: the lighting is off, her legs are clearly doctored. The Photoshop is bad. It’s the Photoshop, not the content, that bothers you. The content is completely fine.
You realize your fingers are shaking. Should you comment? Should you move on? To your surprise you find yourself… reporting the image.
From a distant memory, you hear her voice. “You call me an angel, but you’re the one who’s kind, Somin.”
In a flurry of mindless clicking you report post after post, scourging tens of pages. The hate against her has been rising, maybe, you dread, due to Uggmon.
When you return to the front page, it’s full of Uggmon’s name, like he’s making up for lost time. You stare at his latest post: ‘Horseface.’
Yup, the watermark is there, tucked into a bead along her bracelet. The image is a testament to Uggmon’s incredible timing: her eyes look like she’s giving you a stern lecture even as her lips are parted. Hands on both knees push outwards as she squats. It’s not unlike your recent post of Jimin, except Eunhye looks like she’s in control, like she’s inviting you on board, as long as you agree to follow the proper safety precautions.
You can’t report the post. It’s Uggmon. His demented, horned smiley face leers at you.
But, surely, someone else will. So you download the image — for safekeeping.
For several days now your eyesight and color have remained fairly constant. Your mother is convinced the seaweed soup is helping, but you’re not so sure.
There’s all sorts of theories swirling around. Forums churn with speculation: ‘These girls from the woods, they brought something with them.’ ‘They’ve brewed some shaman potion — ’ ‘They’ve developed a virus — ’ ‘They’ve targeted men — ’ ‘No, women — ’
‘They’ve targeted people with a sense of humor,’ Uggmon says.
You watch silently from your silicon tower. You’ve had a busy few days… reporting posts about Eunhye. Uggmon is back, and you figure he can take charge for a bit.
Then, someone posts, ‘The girls must’ve targeted absolute fucking human trash.’
Your vision starts to blur around the four words.
Absolute. Fucking. Human. Trash? Ha! As if girls wearing asscheek-high shorts aren’t? You thrash your head. Crack your knuckles. Obliterate her with a torrent of facts and logic. So destroyed is she that she doesn’t respond until hours later. ‘Wow, triggered much?’
You unleash on others, just for good measure. Only when you hear your mother’s soft voice outside your door do you realize the day is dawning, cool and abysmally gray.
Your eyes lighten from healthy manure to diarrhea brown. Your mother has stopped fawning over you and is now hauling you around, convinced it can slow the fading. You go to a restaurant, but when you stumble around because you can’t see the giant “RESTROOMS” sign and knock over a chair, they ask you to leave. “He wasn’t always like this, you know,” she says.
‘My mother is harassing me,’ you write Uggmon, back from another hiatus. ‘Force-feeding me Vitamin A for my eyes.’
‘Dude, my eyes are so awesome. I look like a fucking Bond villain.’
‘Like a serial killer.’
‘Like someone who could slit a thousand throats and get away with it.’
You hesitate. ‘Can you like, you know, see though?’
‘Dude, we’re the only ones who have been able to this entire time.’
That makes you smile.
‘Look,’ he says, ‘reach out anytime. I got you. No homo. We’re in this together.’
That’s what he says, but he disappears again, right when the girls get cellphones. You’re posting about how primitive the girls are when you hear a ping. You safely assume it’s a telemarketer — until you go to bed, and charge your phone.
Kyeonin texted. She hopes you’re well. She wants to meet up.
You step out into the living room, lights off, and pace about. She’s the one who left you all those years ago. What could she possibly want from you now?
You’re in front of the two frames: your mother’s gift and your gift back to her. You think of how she lit up when you won the competition; how she cried when you gave her the present.
That must have been the most productive month of your life, when you started high school. You were in a charter school now, leaving your middle school bullies behind. You threw yourself into anything that could make you forget Kyeonin and why she disappeared, anything that could help you out — out of social pariah-ness, out of Korea. The competition could launch you into the social ethers, you thought, with a forcefield of undeniable cool.
But you had underestimated people. The competition got you the fame without any of the glory. Your reputation snaked its way across Seoul, riding the news of your win: black-eyed freak. Pussy motherfucker who needed a girl to defend him. Ugly-ass bitchface —
You turn, off to bed, and will yourself to sleep.
But the bed is not a safe space. Not with all these thoughts in your head, because now you’re thinking of how it started all over again, the teasing and harassing and degrading and laughing. It was your fault, really, for getting your hopes up.
It must have been around then that you eased up on showering. At first it had been an accident, something that slipped your mind. Then, you noticed how people drew away, and you thought maybe scent was the forcefield that would keep you safe.
Then they’d just rolled that into your nicknames — fart head, smell lord, absolute fucking human trash. So you stopped washing your hands, because if you really were diseased like they said, you might as well infect people as you shoved them away.
You breathe deeply, recall self-help posts: ‘choose not to let them hurt you anymore.’
But they are hurting you, right now, as you think of that one guy grinding your face into the pavement. His whore of a girlfriend in her too-short-shorts screeches with laughter as he tells her to shut up, shut up or they’re gonna get caught, but she laughs and laughs and the others join in and they’re kicking again, driving into your ribs, stomping your back. Above the thudding and whacking you can hear the horrible peal of their laughing laughing laughing laughing —
You’re up again. You’re at your computer. You have posting to do.
At 9:15 in the morning, when you think it late enough to not look desperate, you respond.
‘Kyeonin-ah~~~ so good to hear from you!!! That’s you on TV, right? you look so cool~ㅋㅋㅋ Yeah let’s meet!!!!! When are you free?’
“Who?” your mother asks.
“Kyeonin, for coffee tomorrow.” Across the table, you hear her sniffle.
Jongwook taps your bowl with his chopsticks. “Let’s talk later, hm?”
You feel a thrill. Nod. Is this finally it? The moment you just now realize you’ve been waiting for? You feeling like grinning, but you play it cool, following Jongwook’s lead.
He closes the door to his room and sits you in front of his computer. Your heart races. What was he about to show you? Surely he knows you know the basics; no need for a biology lesson. Porn? That doesn’t seem his style. A guy like him would have better stories, better examples from his personal experience to teach you — wait. Did he have photos of his girlfriend? Videos? Your breath hitches. Even in the dark surface of the sleeping monitor, you can see your eyes are terrifyingly bright.
Jongwook shakes the mouse; dozens of tabs are open. “They’re articles,” he says, “of people who faded.”
You squirm. People who faded? You wait for the punchline. The last time you saw him with this much stubble, he told you that Dad wasn’t coming back. Uggmon said to vent whenever, but where has he been?
Jongwook plays a video, a special report on people who have completely faded. One woman modified group names by replacing the word “Girl” with “Geollae” (Korean for “slut”). Now that she’s blind she needs assistance raising her son, whom she gave birth to at sixteen.
One guy trolled female journalists, politicians, athletes. He probably went through a lot, being as heavy as he is. Picked on by a bunch of mean girls. Maybe you would’ve tried to reach out — if he hadn’t fallen onto the subway tracks while swinging blindly at bunch of girls giggling over a video, they later claimed, definitely not at him. (You doubt it.)
The video rolls on to an interview of the older brother: “He was angry all the time. I was driven away. But I didn’t think — ” He starts to sob. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
Comments underneath the video jump on how the equally heavy brother lives with his breadwinner wife and their two kids. Eyes as dark as soy sauce.
‘So what, should I cook and clean to stop the fading?’ ‘Should I be changing diapers, too?’ Commenters play it off like they’re jesting, but you wonder if they’re grasping for answers.
Then, footage of a woman being rolled into a hospital, shrieking, pulling at her face. The angry pink inside her eyelids makes the whiteness of her eyes pop. Not a vein in sight.
Jongwook steadies himself on the desk with both hands. “This one is the worst.”
The video chronicles her story via montage: a young K-pop fanatic, ditching school to create altars, physical and digital, for her idols. A K-pop trainee, spending hours each day on vocals, dancing, acting. In a windowless studio, her pre-pubescent face bursts with exuberance.
She trained for ten years, then debuted. You wince. She looks tacky, even for that era.
“She was swamped by all these trolls that found her cringy,” Jongwook says. “Some of the stuff I read, Somin. I just don’t understand how anyone could write…” He clears his throat. “She tried to kill herself, but her company covered it up. She disappeared for a few years.”
Too bad, you think. Not just the suicide attempt (you’re not a monster), but how she missed K-pop’s golden era. Maybe she would’ve fangirled the way you had, with Kyeonin.
The year you started high school the girl, now a woman, returned online. But her tone changed: from fan to anti. Her attacks were senseless, her targets many. ‘I can knead her muffin top into a dozen croissants.’ ‘His singing is so bad I could use recordings to ward off rapists.’
You think: this is good. Her material was fresh. You even have to stifle a laugh. ‘Ugg is better off slitting his wrists,’ she wrote, flipping “Ugg” (pronounced “eo-geu”) to “geu-oe” (“to slit”). You can tell she was a fan of Uggmon’s early stuff.
The day the Girls emerged from the Woods, the video reports, her eyes began to fade.
“She hated them,” Jongwook whispers hoarsely. “She hated them and she worshipped them. Hatred was her form of worship.” He places both hands on your shoulders. “Somin-ah. This is what’s happening to you. You have to stop making those posts.”
Are those tears in his eyes? You squirm. This is so far from the talk you wanted. The stories you wanted to hear. But his need for comfort outweighs your aversion to holding hands with another man. Pat pat. “Hyung, my posts have nothing to do with this. Ow, stop. Stop — ”
“But you can stop, right? You can stop posting?” His fingers dig into your flesh.
Forget UggMon: where has Jongwook been? He tells you to stop posting now, but where was he when you were getting stomped on, when —
No, Jongwook went to college. He got a job. He got a life. You shake your head.
Jongwook’s voice rises. “No? No?”
“No, that’s not what I — ”
“You can’t stop posting, Somin? You’d rather go blind?”
“Hyung, stop!”
“You’d rather shit all over the internet than be here with your family?”
You hate that you squeal like a little bitch but both his hands are shoving you into the chair and you squirm, you heave, you search his eyes to remind yourself he is not your bully, he is your brother, perhaps the only person on this goddamn planet to love you unconditionally unlike the mother that nags you. “Hyung, please, please let me go, let me…”
But his eyes flare over a hideous scowl. You try to tear his hands off you but then — you feel something fracture. You feel something leak. You think: you should reach. You should shove his chest — or maybe his face? It’s right there, brimming with all the contempt of your bullies, and you think, you could pull his ear. You could slap his cheek. You could wrap both hands around his skull and press your thumbs into his eyes or claw his perfect —
He releases you, horrified. “Sorry, I’m so sorry.” He keels over onto the desk.
The screen wakes when he knocks the mouse; the videos continues. A collage of photos: selfies the woman took to track her eyes’ progression. She skipped days or doubled up to note any changes in the rate of fading.
Jongwook sobs, head hanging. He tells you how he’s struggled since dad left, how he’s plagued with dark thoughts but chooses each day to study harder, work harder, bench harder, date harder. He tells you how he works even harder to provide for you, long into the future.
But your eyes zoom in on the selfies, on something nestled in one of her eyebrows. Like a trick of light, a watermark. A demented smiley face with horns.
You’re agitated. You realize this is a bad idea. Not just the coffee but the coffee — the act of grabbing a caffeinated drink with someone who’s been the star of your dreams for a solid decade and a half. What would she wear? A bikini of leaves? You feel a sharp pulse in your lap.
“Somin?” Her voice rings, bright and clear. A richly colored leg steps through the fog.
Seeing her again is like being scorched by the sun. It’s like butterflies burst out your fucking chest and rose up through your esophagus and you’re just a gaping window of flapping wings. She’s pretty, as ever — so what if her face is long? The scar on her chin has faded. You want to reach out and touch it.
“Somin-ah, it’s been too long.”
When was the last time you gave a proper two-armed hug instead of just standing still while your mother clutches you? You take a deep breath, smell grapefruit and sweat. Sitting across from you, she fits just inside your range of vision, nestled in white. To your surprise, you speak first: “So you changed your name.”
She laughs, setting you thrumming with nostalgia. “Yeah, I still haven’t met anyone who thinks of ‘perseverance’ when they hear ‘Kyeonin.’”
Her eyes drift to the mug between her hands. She’s probably thinking what you are — about the other, more common meaning of “kyeonin”: traction, as in, “Do you think I could gain some traction with Kyeonin if I play nice to her loser friend?”
She looks up, smiling. “But all that silly stuff is behind me. How have you been? Did you become a graphic designer? Or a programmer?”
“Oh, you know. No…” You shift. “What about you? Seems like you’re doing well.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am. It’s amazing, actually.”
You wait for her to go on, to tell you about all the horrible things behind the scenes.
“How was art school?” she asks. “So much better, right? Creative guy like you.”
“Oh, let’s not — my life is boring.”
“Oh, well, how’s your mother? How’s Jongwook?”
“He has a girlfriend. Ha.”
“Oh, great!”
Beside you through the window, camera shutters click. “Is that her? Oh my god!”
“It must be hard, right? The creeps, the relentless schedule, the starvation diets…?”
She frowns. “Not really. I mean the industry isn’t perfect but that was the point of our group, right? Make it a better place for all. Dismantle the system from the inside out.”
Dismantle the…? What kind of junk has she been reading online?
“I mean, I get gas on stage.”
“Gas?”
She chuckles. “Hard to take bathroom breaks with our schedules.”
It takes you a beat. Gas. On stage. You feel something fracture. You feel something leak.
“What a truly, truly terrible fate,” you drawl. She laughs. You drown her out. “I mean, what ever will you do? How will you climb across all your screaming fans and your hand-wrapped presents to take a dump while the rest of us are drowning in every moment of our normie-ass fucking lives? You’ll just have to persevere!”
She’s not smiling anymore. “It’s you, isn’t it? PerSEVERE1004?”
You go cold. Wonder what she’s seen.
“You’re still funny, you know. I didn’t want to believe it was you, but the more I thought about the username, and how you avoided talking about me…’”
You hunch over.
Her voices softens. “What happened to the anti-bullying club?”
“I couldn’t find a teacher to sponsor it. You would know, if you’d stuck around.”
“Oh, Somin, I’m so sorry — ”
“For what? For making half the nation go blind?”
“No! We had nothing to do with — Well, if we did we don’t know how and we’re sorry.”
“No you’re not. Good the fuck for you for getting out when you — ”
It’s been so long since a friend held your hand that you almost jump.
“Somin-ah, I’m sorry I left without telling you — ”
“It’s okay, I understand — ” you croak.
“Don’t do that — ”
“I actually really like your music, you know? It’s cool! I — ”
Her hands clench tighter around yours. Dammit. You look at the ceiling to blink tears back into your stupid fucking eyeballs.
“I get why you do it,” she says hoarsely. “I know why you like Uggmon. But ‘The more they try to pull us down, the taller we have to stand.’ That was your motto, remember?”
For days you have imagined this reunion, scripted and staged every moment. She would start off her bubbly self, then fall apart, and you would be there to catch her. She would bare her dark, dirty secrets so that you could do the same. You wouldn’t need Jongwook anymore, now that he’s just another judgmental prick. You wouldn’t even have time to post or wonder what happened with Uggmon — that crazy bitch — because you’d be so busy being the bigger man for Kyeonin. Then, even at the pinnacle of her success, you would be bound again by pain.
Why else was she friends with you back then? What else could she want from you now?
“I’m so happy for you,” you whisper hoarsely, and to your surprise it’s true. Even as your throat stings, for a moment, your vision clears as you blink. Water drops onto your arms.
A fusillade of shutter clicking. You are crying, dammit — and now they have photos.
“Whatever you’ve done, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “You deserve to be better — ”
Light flashes. You jump. The shutter-clicking crescendos as people press up against the glass. Their voices rise as the paparazzi shove aside fans.
Then — out of nowhere — squealing, stupid laughing laughing laughing laughing —
You glare at Kyeonin. She said she wanted to sing. She said she wanted to heal people with her music. She never talked about dressing like a slut.
You toss her hands. Find the photo on your phone and push it across the table. You tap-tap the screen, trembling. “Why don’t you focus on keeping your legs together, ‘angel’?”
Pain whips across her face. “That monster online is not you.”
“So you admit it. I’m a monster.”
You don’t wait for her to answer.
You’re couch-ridden. Jongwook’s moved the sofa up to the TV, given your vision. You mother prefers you here instead of at your computer, “So that we can see each other.”
On screen, grunting men flip tires. “I still think you could have done that,” she says.
“Mom, stop shaming me! Hyung is the strong one!”
“Strong — what? No, I mean this!” She lurches forward and taps a caption, then a steam-puff animation coming out of someone’s ears, then text popping out of someone’s mouth.
You stare at her, then off towards where you think the frames are.
“Somin-ah, I never wanted you to be your brother. You didn’t have to finish school, you didn’t have to go to the army, but you could have done something that kept you inspired — like starting that anti-bullying club you always talked about. You could have captioned and animated shows that make you laugh. Or worked on those music shows you watch all the time anyway.”
The men on TV burst out laughing as they topple. Their kids rush to climb over them.
“What happened?” she asks, and you’re not sure. She goes to bed.
You change the channel. On this week’s Music Square, the Girls from the Woods perform their second single. First it’s Ja-ae, then Jihye opening the song. “Hey hey hater, I know you love me…” The crowd chants their names. Jabi takes center stage to sing the bridge. The music, already spastic, starts to build. Percussion strobes along with the lights. Then, with a zoom like you’re being sucked into a vortex, the music falls away. Eunhye stares straight at you.
“You’re just an ugly monster.” She drops to the floor, popping her knees wide open.
You flick on your phone and post. ‘Repost!’ everyone screams. ‘Old news!’ But some applaud you for your simplicity. It’s just an image — the one you had shown Eunhye at the café.
‘No need to add anything,’ you write, ‘when she’s already showing us all her insides.’
When you wake the world is white.
You crab your way into bathroom. Fumble for the light switch — out of habit, out of defiance. You feel it snap, hear it click, but up and down, the switch makes no difference.
You peel your eyelids apart and look at where the mirror is, but even without being able to see your reflection, you know: it’s all a terrifying, aggressively uniform white. A void in which you now exist. A void in which, you realize, you existed all along.
If you’d like to support my work, or if you want detailed author notes on my K-pop inspirations, you can purchase the story here:
(The story on Amazon is about one draft earlier than the version I revised and submitted to MFA programs.)
