Chapter Text
HYUN-JU
I remember the first time I thought about my gender.
It wasn’t on purpose, nor did I think much of it at the time but whenever and if people ask me how long I’ve known for, I always think back to this very specific moment.
I was on the playground at school, a few other girls and I were playing gonggi.
A few boys ran over, and made faces and snide comments at me, calling me a girl, and asking where my long hair and dress was. At the time it really upset me. I couldn’t understand what was wrong.
The girls saw no issue so neither did I. But apparently, I was wrong, boys don’t play girly games. I went home crying to my mother and father. My father agreed with the boys, he told me what they said was correct, that boys don’t play girly games.
My mother disagreed, she told me it doesn’t matter, and that one day those gonggi skills will come in handy with my future children.
Racking up three years of debt wasn’t my plan. I had always been very good with money, even since a teenager. I think some people would call me boring or slightly weird, but I liked to do things my own way, and that included money.
I would hoard money, I hated spending it, and would get extremely distressed if I had to use it. The idea that I had no money and three years of debt wouldn't of been my original plan.
I knew coming out was going to have its consequences, however I didn’t expect everyone to abandon me.
My father cut off all contact, my mother constantly crying and my younger brother thinking his older brother was simply busy with the army. My friends all stopped calling and I lost my job. The year I turned twenty - seven was the worst yet best year of my life.
I was finally starting to live my truth however my truth came with a cost. I had money saved from the military, but without another steady income, that money slowly decreased. Jobs were not willing to hire me, so I turned to borrowing money.
I wish I never did it.
I wish I begged my landlord to give me another chance than to start borrowing money. With no money and no way to continue my transition it was a vicious cycle of no job, borrow money, buy food, pay rent, no surgeries. No job, borrow money, buy food, pay rent, again and again and again.
After three years I had racked up 330 million won.
….
“Hello Ma’am, can I talk to you?” I turn my head, there is a man looking at me, he has a grey suit on, holding a matching briefcase, a smile adorned to his lips. “Sure.” I reply, not sure why.
“I want to let you into a great opportunity! Will you play a game with me?” He asks, a smile not leaving his lips.
I raise an eyebrow and swipe my bangs from my forehead.
“What kind of game?” I ask.
He simply sets down his briefcase, and opens it up in front of me, I see notes of cash and two folded pieces of paper, one blue and one red.
“I’m sure you’ve played ddakji before, right?” He asks, grabbing the folded squares and holding them up in front of me.
I simply nod.
“Let’s play a few rounds, and every time you win, I’ll pay you 100,000 won.”
I stare, down at the money, back at the cards and then back to his face, the smile now gone, a facial expression I cannot described sits there instead.
“That’s it? That’s the entire game?” I speak.
“That’s it.” He smiles.
“Oh except!” He gleefully cheers as I go to reach for a card, and he quickly pulls them away.
“If I win, you have to pay me, 100,000 won.” He clarifies.
“Oh.” I look back at the money and then him.
“Or you can pay back a different way.” He explains.
“You could pay with your body.”
I step back and look down at myself subconsciously. It’s then I feel a hard sting to my right cheek.
“Like that.” The man says, I turn my face towards him, my hand reaching up to confirm he just slapped me.
“I’ll take 100, 000 won off each slap.”
I consider the offer, I used to play ddakji as a kid, I was always quite good at it. I nod slowly and the salesman smiles and offers me the cards.
“Which colour do you want to play as?”
I throw the blue card down as hard as I can, but to my dismay it doesn’t flip.
He throws the red card down. It flips.
Slap.
I pick up the blue card, determined, I throw it again.
It doesn’t flip.
I sigh, and take a hair tie from my wrist, pulling my hair into a low ponytail.
He picks up the red tile, throws it and the blue tile flips.
Slap.
I throw the blue card, it doesn’t flip.
He throws the red card, it flips.
Slap.
I throw the blue card, it doesn’t flip.
He throws the red card, it flips.
Slap.
“One more round.” I say, picking up the blue card, I can already feel defeat.
I hold my arm up high and just as I’m about to throw I remember as child, I use to win this game all the time by turning the card over. I lower my arm, and shakily turn over the tile, raising my arm again I throw, watching as the blue tile hits the red tile, both cards flying upwards and the red card landing on the opposite side.
I stare down, amazed. I did it. I did it!
“I did it!” I yell, pointing at the tile.
The salesman smiles and offers me his hand to pass him the cards. I do so, and he congratulates me.
“Congratulations Ma’am, here is your 100,000 won.” He says, holding up my money and placing it in my hand, then closing my fist.
I open my fist, and slowly see the notes straighten out in my hand, it really was 100,000 won in my hand, more than I had held in the last three years.
“You know Ma’am, there are more games like this, where you can earn more money.”
“No thank you, I don’t need more.” It was a lie. A massive lie, but I did not know this man, he had no business in my business.
The man shrugged and packed up his briefcase.
“Your name is Cho Hyun-ju, you served in the military for seven years from the ages of eighteen to twenty-six, you were laid off at the age of twenty-six and want to move to Thailand to complete your desired surgeries and get away from those who abandoned you. You have a nine-year-old younger brother and owe 330 million won.” Looking up from the money in my fist was the face of a man who knew my whole life story without actually meeting me, I scan his face, trying forever to find him in my memory book, but I couldn’t.
“H- How did you know that?” I ask. I don’t get an answer.
I get a nod, as he pulls out a small rectangular card from his blazer pocket. The card is brown, I examine it in my hand. One of the sides has a black circle, triangle and square in a line, and the other side is a phone number.
“We don’t have many spots left. Just think about it.” He smiles once again, picks up his briefcase and walks away.
I watch him walk away and look back at the card in my hand.
‘Other games like this?’ I let the quote linger in my head. Kids games? Other games like ddakji?
I pocket the card and walk away.