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“Don’t you think we’ll ever get caught?”
A smirk, excruciatingly confident in a way that sends Shuhua’s heart into a mad fit. Knocking in syncopated thumps against her ribs.
The smoke in the backdrop, curling up to the sky while the barn catches fire, Soojin has that quality to her—untouchable like Achilles never was.
“I’ve never thought about it.”
----
They meet again after four years.
Shuhua tightens her grip on the flyer in her hand. Crumpling it purely out of shock and delightful surprise.
“Seo Soojin?”
The woman before her bears little resemblance to the Soojin she knew from university. Seo Soojin was shy. She kept to herself, kept her head down. Wore the simplest cheap sweaters and blue jeans.
Shuhua can’t believe she’s seeing designer clothing. From head to toe: the pant suit, the belt, the heels—any piece on its own must be worth more than her life. This isn’t just ‘well-dressed,’ Soojin’s attire oozes private yachts, billion-dollar homes, a beckoning finger and everything would fall into place .
Breathing in the toxic stench, cigarette smoke drifting in the breeze, Shuhua thinks about it.
How odd is it that she meets Soojin on this grey spring day.
One quick glance around their surroundings and Soojin is the anomaly. She’s conspicuous in the sea of bustling delivery men, construction workers, rowdy street food vendors.
Yet Shuhua feels inadequate in her clothes.
Underdressed.
Her silly pink and white get-up, a matching blouse and skirt—the uniform for the department store behind her—it makes her feel self-conscious. While standing next to the obscenely colourful prize wheel.
Soojin stares at her.
Scans her.
Eyes lingering on the flyer, the megaphone in Shuhua’s other hand.
The faintest of red creeps up Shuhua’s cheeks.
And this is where she should’ve stopped, leaving the other woman alone, but she continues. Pushes down her shame. Presses on.
“Remember me? I used to sit beside you in English class.”
Recognition dawns upon Soojin: a slight raise of the eyebrow, a tight smile not fully reaching her eyes. Reserved for strangers, perhaps acquaintances.
Shuhua can’t label it as disingenuous either.
----
“So.”
Soojin isn’t looking at her, she’s pouring her another glass of soju, giving it to her.
Shuhua gratefully accepts.
And downs it in one go. Ignores the fire chasing the linings of her throat, rushing uncomfortably to the pits of her belly. She finishes her thought. “What are you up to these days?”
“I went to Nairobi last month,” says Soojin.
The alcohol speaks for her. “Oh, where’s that?”
“The capital of Kenya. In Africa.”
“To do what? You went on a vacation?”
“You could call it that.” Curt responses.
Always to the point.
She has learned three things the entire night which weren’t exactly new in the first place: Soojin is rich, Soojin works in the import-export business, Soojin likely thinks she’s a vapid girl too curious for her own good.
“I wish I could go there, what was it like?”
“It was nice. Hot. I went there for charity work.”
Soojin pours her another glass. Places it in front of her. And Shuhua doesn’t have the self-control to decline. She really doesn’t.
She hasn’t been counting though she’s aware she’s way past her limit.
“What about you?”
“Huh?” The glass is at her lips.
“What do you do?” Indifferent. Smoothly laid-back, making direct eye-contact.
Shuhua lowers the glass onto the table. Startled. What should she tell.
What could compare and equal a charity trip to Africa?
What could possibly be interesting enough? “I study mime.” Soojin hasn’t asked, hasn’t said an extra word. Shuhua goes ahead anyway.
“Let me show you.”
Hooking, digging her thumb nail in—her other hand holds up an imaginary tangerine—she peels it.
Forgets there isn’t anything in her hands.
Repeats. And repeats.
She splits it into sections. Puts one into her mouth. Spits out the seeds in a bowl. When she’s done, she makes a show of wiping her hands with a napkin, smiles without showing her teeth.
“You’re good at that.” It’s the first time Soojin sounds truly interested in what she has to offer, isn’t pretending and nodding along. The corners of her own mouth stretch even further.
The fluttering sensation trapped between her ribs makes itself known.
“I really thought you were eating something.”
Shuhua corrects her. “A tangerine.”
----
They hang out sometimes. Occasionally on a rare Saturday.
She would finish her shift, making sure she had changed into her set of fresh clothes, and Soojin would be there waiting.
Beside the arrestingly colourful prize wheel.
----
Going for drinks at the bar soon lost its glamour. She’s back to receiving minimal responses along with an overabundance of drinks.
Shuhua can barely walk straight tonight, she’s leaning her body weight onto the other woman. Helped into a cab, Soojin following in.
Shuhua has the mind to mumble her address to the driver.
Arriving home, she finds herself sitting outside on those plastic white chairs, the ones that can be bought in bulk, and Soojin is there.
Sitting with her.
Asking if she wants to smoke.
The cigarette doesn’t look like the usual kind at the convenience store. All she knows is she likes the way the smoke curls from Soojin’s parted lips, pulled by wayward invisible strings.
Dissipating into the night sky.
She likes the way Soojin closes her eyes momentarily after every long drag. Reopens them. And sharply inhales as though it stings the inner patches of her lungs.
Shuhua thinks this is the closest she’ll ever get to seeing the Soojin she knew years ago.
She can’t say no.
----
Somewhere after her tenth puff, her eyelids are drooping; she’s certain the world is moving at the slowest pace it has ever been.
She squeezes her eyes shut in a poor attempt to stay awake.
“I burn down barns.”
Shuhua must have heard that wrong. Sluggishly, she faces Soojin. “You what?”
“I burn down barns.”
“When?”
“Once every couple months. Usually on the last Sunday.”
Uncertain if Soojin is serious, she wonders, entertaining ideas that would’ve never crossed her mind. “What’s it like?”
Soojin drops her cigarette, crushing it on the ground beneath her heel. “I pour gasoline, light a match, and nobody would know.”
Melodious, speaking calmly, factually—soothing Shuhua as she enters a balmy haze. Part high-induced. She tries to envision the sight. Musty wooden planks, a roof missing shingles. A structure similar to a shed.
Dilapidated, run-down, then everything goes up in flames. “Like a perfect vanishing act,” she says, still not able to picture the scents, the emotions that would play in her head.
“A perfect vanishing act," Soojin echoes quietly. Leaning back against her chair.
A lull, a brief pause. “I don’t see it that way.”
“What do you mean?” says Shuhua.
“These barns are simply there, waiting to crumble, to collapse, to be burned. Can they vanish if no one knew they were there?”
The mental image of burning wood runs further away in foreignness, eluding her completely, and Shuhua has to know.
“Can I join you the next time?”
----
The box of matches are extended towards her.
“I—I think I’ll watch you do it instead.” Shuhua bites down another chatter, another shiver.
Soojin shrugs. Withdraws a stick, strikes it hard and fast, bringing forth a lick of flame. Shuhua isn’t told to stand back, doesn’t get asked if she’s okay.
Unceremoniously, the match is thrown.
It starts off gradually.
In a small area.
Wood nurtures flame, growing—spreading in size. That which is nurtured returns its scathing gift. Blackening the planks, consuming in its whimsy.
The smell reaches her nose.
Soojin takes her hand; Shuhua allows herself to be led away. Far from the smoke, where it wouldn’t reach her lungs.
The burning barn remains in sight.
Shuhua begins to understand why Soojin would do this. The blaze’s embrace has engulfed the barn, or what’s left of it.
Her hand is let go.
Shuhua searches, studies Soojin’s expression. Finds a trace of what she has been looking for.
Pupils dilated, reciprocating impulse. Ardor. The prettiest Shuhua has ever seen. She’s unsure why she’s leaning in, aching far below her abdomen. Wanting to hear sighs hummed from the throat.
She’s tugged at her hips, Soojin’s hands settling in their place, and Shuhua doesn’t mind.
Though maybe, just maybe. She’s forgetting something important.