It was a cold October evening and Saebyeok was tired of pickpocketing men willing to bet their salaries on horses of all things. However, since she was still struggling to find a job, stealing would have to do to keep herself afloat and avoid ending on the streets begging for money, especially now that she had hired a broker to get her mother from the North. When her mother arrived, Saebyeok would finally be able to relax once again. Hopefully, she’d be settled by then.
Thoughts of money and her mother’s impending arrival swirling in her head, Saebyeok decided to get herself a drink before going home for the night. She went into a bar that, frankly, looked like a step up from a dumpster, but where the bartenders always smiled at her when she dropped by. One of them had once tried to convince the owner that Saebyeok would make a good bouncer, but he didn’t think a woman could do it. The guy they hired instead was a lazy piece of shit that still tried to hit on her even when Saebyeok said, in no uncertain terms, that if he continued to harass her, he’d end up with one less appendage.
“How are you today, babe?” he said as she went in.
Saebyeok ignored him and went directly to the bar, where Minyeo —her least favorite bartender— turned to her as if she knew her from her footsteps alone.
“Ah, my friend is here!” She said, smiling wide. “What will it be this time?”
“Vodka tonic. And don’t add ice this time, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you.”
Saebyeok sat on a stool as she waited for her drink, turning sideways to watch the people in the bar as she usually did. Minyeo set her glass down in front of her and slid a small bag of salted peanuts her way.
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“I’m trying to apologize for the ice, silly.”
“Fine,” Saebyeok said, taking a sip of her drink. It was stronger than she liked it, but when wasn’t it with Minyeo? She had the bartending skills of a toddler. Saebyeok suspected she only kept her job because the owner was into her. Good for her, she supposed. At least Minyeo had a job.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a girl who looked around her age, sitting alone in a booth, fiddling with a card between her fingers. She looked lost in her own thoughts, the bottle of soju in front of her was probably warm and no longer fizzy.
She was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way and exactly the type of girl that would not get involved with someone from the North for any reason. Still, Saebyeok wondered if she was okay, if she could smooth the frown on her face, if she’d accept a drink from Saebyeok.
A man walked to her table, sliding a bottle of beer her way. Apparently, she didn’t know the man, as she looked around when the man said something to her, her eyes locking with Saebyeok’s for a second too long, clearly uncomfortable.
“Minyeo, bring me two bottles of soju,” she said, without thinking.
“Are we partying tonight?”
“Just bring the drinks, Minyeo.”
“So cold,” she reached under the bar to where they kept the drinks. “You know, men don’t like cold women,” Minyeo said, putting both bottles in front of her.
Good, Saebyeok thought. Out loud, she said, “keep my tab open.”
She stood up and made her way to the girl’s table, catching some of their conversation as she walked.
“ —not interested, I told you,” the girl said.
“A girl as beautiful as you drinking alone might give men the wrong idea, you know? I’m looking out for you.”
He made a move to sit down, but Saebyeok got to the table then, grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back.
“Piss off,” she said.
“Who the hell are you?” the man asked.
“My girlfriend,” said the girl without missing a beat.
The guy grimaced, equal parts discomfort and disgust. “A girl as pretty as you? Seriously?”
“Man, get the hell out,” Saebyeok insisted, giving the man a small push towards the door.
Murmuring something under his breath, the man walked towards another table where two other guys were laughing at something.
Saebyeok stood next to the table for a few seconds, unsure of what to do next.
“Well, now you have to sit down for a while,” said the girl.
“I’m sorry,” said Saebyeok as she sat down. She slid a bottle of soju towards the girl. “You looked pretty uncomfortable.”
“I was,” she said. “Thank you.”
Up close, she was even more beautiful: the messy bangs, the warm brown eyes, the clever upturn of her mouth that softened her entire face. Saebyeok wondered if there had ever been girls as pretty as her in the North. There must have been, as she remembered making out with at least one of them behind a government building, but right now her mind could only think of the girl sitting in front of her, who gladly announced them as girlfriends to a stranger without a second of hesitation.
After a few minutes of silence, the girl asked, “so, do you work here?”
“No, I don’t know anything about tending bar,” Saebyeok said.
“Me neither.” She fiddled with the card in her hands once more, turning it around between her fingers. Saebyeok saw three little figures on one side —a triangle, a square and a circle— and a phone number on the other side. She was dying to ask when the girl continued, “I don’t know much of anything, to be honest.”
And wasn’t that how Saebyeok felt all the time? She said as much to the girl, who smiled at her tiredly. “So, what’s your story?”
“My story?” asked Saebyeok, confused.
“What brought you to this shitty bar at 8 pm on a Wednesday?” Saebyeok was silent at first, staring at the condensation on the side of the bottle, distractedly peeling away at the label. “Come on, we’re two strangers in a bar, we can talk.”
“About what, though?”
“Things we never told anybody, I guess. When the bar closes, we will go our separate ways. It hardly matters what we tell each other.”
Saebyeok thought about it. The girl was right, they might never cross paths again, however something inside Saebyeok wanted that to be untrue.
“You’re from the North, right?” she asked. Saebyeok frowned at her, but the girl smiled bright and wide. “It’s your accent, you see. The way your vowels sound here and there. It’s cute.”
Saebyeok looked down at her bottle again, feeling her cheeks heat up in embarrassment.
“Why did you come here from the North?” she asked.
“I thought things were good over here.”
“And? Were you right?” Silence hung heavy for a few moments. Saebyeok had only known hardships since she arrived. So much so that her brother was suffering for it as well. Noticing a shift in the air, the girl changed her angle. “Your family, are they here with you?”
“Just my brother.”
“Your parents?”
Saebyeok swallowed before telling this part of the story. “My father got shot trying to swim
across the border and drowned. Our mother… she was hiding in China and got sent back once the immigration agents found her.”
“Where is your brother now then?” The frown was back on her face. It made Saebyeok feel ashamed for what she did.
“In a shelter,” she said, keeping her eyes down, scared to see the girl’s reaction.
“Good call. At least he’s not alone while you work.”
“More like, while I struggle to find a job. Did you know most places don’t want to hire a defector from the North? Hanawon doesn’t prepare you for this. And I have to find a way to pay for rent anyway. It doesn’t stop even if I barely have enough money to eat.”
“If it makes you feel any better, no one wants to hire an ex-convict either,” the girl confessed. Saebyeok raised an eyebrow at the girl. “Just got out today. I don’t know why I came to Seoul, either. I thought it’d be easier to hide.”
“From what?”
“Thoughts that come and go.”
Silence fell over their table as they both drank. Saebyeok wanted to ask what she thought about, but felt it was too personal, way more than what they’d shared already, so Saebyeok sipped her drink and glanced around the bar, her gaze stopping on the man who’d been chatting the girl up. He was looking in their direction as he said something to his friends, a mocking grin on his face. Saebyeok wanted to punch him square in the face.
“Don’t you wanna know why I was in prison?” the girl asked, at last.
“Let me get us another round,” said Saebyeok.
She went to the bar and signaled Minyeo to bring her two more bottles. “If you buy her another drink, she’ll get the wrong idea,” she said.
“What makes you think it’s the wrong idea?” Saebyeok fired back. She left Minyeo gaping behind her and sat back down in front of the girl, leaving a bottle of soju in front of her.
“I can’t pay for this,” she said.
“It’s on me.”
“Are you always this nice to people or are you keeping up the girlfriend act for those three guys over there?”
“I can be nice,” she said, a hint of a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “But I’m enjoying seeing that guy fume. And the company is not half bad either.”
Saebyeok opened her bottle and took a drink, keeping her eyes trained on the girl. The girl’s surprise gave way to an amused expression as she leaned back on the booth. She said, “I stabbed my so-called dad after he killed my mother. I was sixteen.
“He was a goddamn pastor too,” she huffed a bitter laugh. “And when he hit her and… did the things he did to me, he would talk to God. He'd always ask for forgiveness.”
She took a big gulp from her drink. Saebyeok tried not to stare at the place where her mouth met the bottle or at the way her tongue peaked out to moisten her lips. “He didn't pray on that day after he killed her. I guess he forgot.”
Before Saebyeok could fully process everything the girl told her, she continued, “and before you ask me, I don’t know how I did it either. I completely blacked out. That was my mom on the floor, I couldn’t think rationally.”
“I would’ve done the same,” Saebyeok said.
“Yeah, you look like you would,” she replied, taking a final gulp from her drink, her cheeks rosy from the alcohol. “I should probably go. The shelter won’t let me in if I’m drunk.”
Saebyeok wanted to say something that would make her linger for a while, but she was at a loss for words. The girl stood up and said, “you never told me your name.”
“What for?”
“To know what to call you, obviously.”
Saebyeok wished she had the courage to ask the girl for her number, but would she even have a phone if she just got out of prison? Instead, she said, “Saebyeok. Kang Saebyeok.”
The girl, who was a lot shorter than Saebyeok but had the benefit of standing up, looked down at her and smiled. “Saebyeok. Pretty.”
She made it as if to turn around, but Saebyeok’s hand found hers in a swift movement, keeping her close for a moment longer. Her hand was small and warm; Saebyeok would have held it forever. “And yours?” she asked.
“Jiyeong.”
“Family name?”
“Don’t have one,” Jiyeong said, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. “See you around, Kang Saebyeok.”
And with that, she was gone.
Saebyeok’s hand still tingled where she’d been holding Jiyeong’s, as if an electrical current had passed between them and was now settling under her skin. She found herself smiling as she took the final drags of her lukewarm soju.
In front of her, right under one of the bottles Jiyeong drank from, was the small business card with the weird symbols. She wondered what it meant or if the number on the other side was important.
If she followed her now, there was still a chance she could catch her and give it back. If only to have a reason to give her her own number, see if they could talk some time. It didn’t have to be a big deal, right?
She took the little business card and saved it in her pocket while she settled the tab with Minyeo. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man from earlier leaving the bar, steps stumbling as he made it to the other side of the door. Saebyeok sighed. There was a non-zero chance the man was waiting for her looking for a fight.
Once she paid, she quickly left the bar, thinking that she didn’t know in which direction the shelter was and this was a fruitless endeavor from the start.
She didn’t have to worry, though, to her right, almost a block away, Jiyeong walked at a brisk pace. Behind her, the man from the bar, saying something that Jiyeong was doing her best to ignore.
Back when Saebyeok lived in the North, she didn’t have to deal with men following her the way she had in the South. If anything, because you never knew if the person you were messing with had any ties to the government and they didn’t want to end up in prison. It still happened: she still got comments walking down the street, some men still dared to follow her all the way home and would only be deterred by her father’s presence. Men in the South were bolder though, they cared less about the consequences because it was likely there wouldn’t be any.
Saebyeok started walking in their direction without even thinking about it; white, hot anger bubbling under the surface. The entitlement these men had would never cease to infuriate her. She watched as Jiyeong got closer to the light in the intersection and looked both ways, as if getting ready to make a run for it.
Before she could run though, the man grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back, bringing him closer to him. Saebyeok walked faster. Jiyeong must have seen something out of the corner of her eye, because she tried to break herself free, but the man wouldn’t let her go.
Saebyeok pulled out her pocket knife as she reached them. Jiyeong’s eyes darted to her when she grabbed the man by the back of his shirt and put the knife to his throat. The man’s words stopped at “ —left you to go home alone then? What the—”
“Think very carefully about what you’re going to say next. I hope the words ‘I’m sorry, it’ll never happen again’ come out of your mouth followed by ‘I’m leaving now’”
Jiyeong looked smaller under the streetlights, her face a mix of fear and surprise, her nose piercing a bright glittering spot in the darkness. The man still had not let go of her.
“Let. Her. Go,” Saebyeok said, accentuating the last syllable with a twist of her knife that punctured the skin right under his chin. A drop of blood made its way down the man’s neck, Jiyeong’s eyes focused on the man.
“Leave,” she said, her voice firm, unwavering.
The man let her go and touched his hand to the spot where Saebyeok’s blade hurt him, inspecting his bloodied fingers. “You bitch,” he said, turning to face Saebyeok.
Saebyeok, who was as tall as this man and clearly not intimidated by him, stood her ground with a smirk on her face. If he dared jump on her thinking she would be an easy target, he had another thing coming.
The man put his hand back on the spot where Saebyeok had previously put her blade, turned around and hurried along the road, as if he needed to be somewhere and he was incredibly delayed. He walked leaning slightly to the right, clearly drunk. After he crossed the street, he gave Saebyeok a last look of contempt then disappeared from their view as he turned right.
Saebyeok put her pocket knife away as looked at Jiyeong. “Are you okay?”
“Thanks to you I am,” she said, her voice small as she hadn’t heard her before. “Saebyeok-a, that man… he was ready to—”
“But he didn’t,” Saebyeok reassured her. “I’ll walk with you to the shelter if you want.”
“I would like that,” Jiyeong replied with a small smile.
She was so beautiful. Saebyeok found herself thinking she would follow her anywhere when she said, “lead the way.”
They walked in silence for a couple of blocks until Jiyeong asked, “what would you do if you came into easy money?”
“How much money are we talking about?”
“Billions of won.”
“What do I have to do to get it?”
Jiyeong looked straight ahead as she said, “anything. Everything. Your choice.”
Saebyeok gave it a moment of thought, but she knew her answer would be the same no matter what. “I would get my brother out of the shelter. Make sure my mom arrives safely. Give her a house by the sea.”
They reached another large intersection and Saebyeok glanced at Jiyeong. The girl was observing her with her beautiful brown eyes as if she was seeing her for the first time. “A billion won is a lot of money, you can do more than just that. Isn’t there a place you want to visit?”
The light turned green and they crossed the street, then Jiyeong turned left and Saebyeok followed. It was a long minute before she said, “Jeju Island.”
“Jeju Island?”
“I saw it on TV and I thought it looked exotic. It didn’t look like Korea at all,” she defended, but there was no need, Jiyeong just looked at her with a smile on her face. Saebyeok found she rather liked seeing the girl smile.
“You have to dream bigger,” she said. “Hawaii. Or the Maldives.” They turned right as they reached a smaller side street. Jiyeong seemed to brighten up at the mention of those distant places. “Have a mojito too.”
“Mojito?”
“Like the movie? Really?” At Saebyeok’s blank stare, she added, “oh no, we gotta fix that. Maybe we should have a girls’ night out, drink mojitos, find a place to watch the movie.”
Saebyeok very much liked the idea of seeing Jiyeong again, but a “girls’ night out” seemed like a friendly outing, far from what she imagined when she thought of Jiyeong. To avoid the awkwardness, she asked, “what about you? What would you do with a billion won?”
“I haven’t thought about it.” She looked at Saebyeok then and said, “go with you to Jeju Island?”
Something fluttered inside Saebyeok. She would love that. She almost said as much, but Jiyeong added, “sorry, I shouldn’t assume.”
They arrived at the shelter; harsh white light spilled out from its front entrance. Saebyeok could see a stern woman behind a counter talking to a girl who couldn’t have been older than them. This was it then.
“Thank you for walking me home, Saebyeok-a,” Jiyeong said, her voice a little distant, almost sad.
Saebyeok suddenly remembered the card she was carrying. She took it out of her pocket and offered it to Jiyeong. “You left this at the bar.”
Jiyeong took the card, turned it around her fingers a couple of times, then tore it to pieces. Saebyeok frowned, but Jiyeong was smiling as she threw the little pieces up the sky like confetti.
“I thought it was important,” Sabyeok said, bewildered.
“Maybe it was. I don’t know. I don’t care.” She grabbed Saebyeok’s hand, making her heart race. “I think I just found a reason to stay in Seoul.”
Gathering courage she didn’t know she had, she said, “do you want to go back to my place?”
“Careful, Saebyeok-a,” Jiyeong teased. “I might get the wrong idea and think you’re flirting with me.”
She flashed her a smile. “What makes you think it’s the wrong idea?”