What I need is a break from the apartment. Maybe to go outside for a little while and clear my head.
I finish rolling the last pair of socks and add it to the pile on the laundry basket, then glance around the apartment looking for some excuse to make a store run.
“Hey, Mom, I’m going to run to the mart around the corner real quick. We’re almost out of dryer sheets.”
“Dryer sheets? Moni, we’re done with the laundry already. We can pick that up next time we go grocery shopping…”
“Yeah, but I never like to leave it up to chance. Dryer sheets… um, are important, and I’d hate for us to forget to replace them.”
Mom’s brows draw closer as if she’s confused by the fact that I’m suddenly so concerned with dryer sheets. Though she ends up nodding and deciding not to call me out on the obvious lie.
“Alright, baby. Pick up some mango ice cream while you’re at it.”
It’s only a few short minutes later that I’m emerging on the street outside, basking in the spring’s brisk afternoon air.
Thankfully, I only live a couple streets from several commercial businesses, including a small grocery mart that sells most necessities.
It might sound silly, but getting out and stretching my legs helps immediately. Making the short walk to the store almost instantly lightens my mood.
At least in the moment… until the next wave of sadness (which always seems to come) washes over me.
The mart emerges at the end of the block I turn on, passing by the dry cleaners and japchae spot along the way.
For a Sunday, there’re plenty of people around. Cars coasting by and other pedestrians wandering by. But there’s also a pesky man in all black trailing me as if he’s inconspicuous when he couldn’t be more obvious if he tried.
It’s not the first time I’ve felt like I’m being followed in recent days except this time it’s a lot more exasperating.
I slow up and heave a sigh.
“You know,” I say. “For someone who’s supposed to be good at this, you’re really bad at acting natural.”
Sang-cheol has the decency to rub the back of his neck and offer an embarrassed smile. He was standing outside the dry cleaner’s pretend-reading a newspaper, head bowed.
The jig now up, he folds the newspaper under his arm and says, “Miss Monroe, what a coincidence. I was picking up some clothes?—”
“Save the excuses,” I interrupt. “You think I don’t know Jin put you up to this? He has you following me, right?”
“Well… ah… I…” he stammers.
“We’re broken up. He doesn’t get to keep tabs on me anymore. You pass that message to him.”
I move forward to keep going, but Sang-cheol side steps to block my path. “You don’t understand, Miss Monroe. The threat… it’s serious. More serious than you know.”
“You mean from Black Shell? How am I supposed to take this threat seriously if you won’t tell me who he is? What’s going on?”
His brow creases as the stress seems to get to him, his hand returning to the nape of his neck. He glances around checking for eavesdroppers then takes another step closer. “It’s an old foe of his father’s. From the time of his death. Baekho-je Jin-tae hasn’t told many about it, but I heard from Min-gyu about how he’s promised to finish what he started all those years ago.”
I’m so lost as to what Sang-cheol’s even talking about until it hits me and I gasp.
Jin’s father. All those years ago.
He must be talking about how Jin became an orphan, back when he’d witnessed some horrible gangsters murder his entire family.
It’s a topic Jin has never discussed much. The only time he did it was in a moment of vulnerability when he confessed why he hated his family’s hanok that he had inherited. It was the literal home where his parents were killed.
“Oh…” I mutter finally, then as an afterthought add, “um… thanks for telling me. But it’s really not his job to take care of me anymore.”
Despite how tight my chest suddenly feels and how hard my heart’s thumping, I step past him and force myself to walk the rest of the way to the store without a glance back.
