Chapter Text
The fluorescent lights of the rehearsal room were cruelly deceptive. They gave a sterile vibrance, masking the fact that it was just past ten o’clock at night. Most had long since departed. Managers. Choreographers. Vocal coaches. Everyone except Liz and Yujin. Everyone except the women aiming to drill the final, punishing harmonies of their new title track.
Liz’s throat ached with a raw friction born from hours of chasing perfection. She kept her eyes on Yujin, watching her leader’s sharp gestures as they synchronized their voices. Yujin’s brow was furrowed. Her posture was rigid as the discipline of her long training period had instilled in her. She always demanded an absolute focus that Liz gave without question. At least until the intrusive chime of a phone shattered the room’s artificial sanctity.
Liz flinched, the note dying in her throat. A hot flush of embarrassment crept up her neck. In the cavernous space, the ringtone sounded violently loud. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she breathed, bowing her head in a hurried apology as she scrambled toward her bag slumped against the mirror.
Yujin lowered her hand, her lips flattening into a line of mild annoyance. She sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor, letting her chin rest in her fist and exhaling slowly. A picture perfect representation of exhaustion.
Liz reached into her bag, her fingers wrapping around the vibrating device, fully intending to silence it immediately. But the name illuminating the screen made her breath catch.
Rei 🐥
The letters immediately raised an alarm for Liz and she froze. Rei never called. For so many years, their digital communication had been an orderly stream of text messages. Even that time Rei got hopelessly lost in Daegu, she didn’t call. Not Liz. Not Yujin. Not even one of their managers. A phone call from Rei was truly an anomaly. A glitch in the matrix as some might say.
Panic replaced Liz’s embarrassment and it was ten times more suffocating. She turned to Yujin and looked up. Her eyes widened and she held her phone out slightly as she offered Yujin a wordless, pleading gesture. She didn’t wait for permission, her mind barely registering Yujin’s weary nod. Pivoting on her heels, Liz sprinted out of the rehearsal room, her sneakers squeaking loudly against the polished floor. She burst into the dim, now deserted hallway. She pressed the phone to her ear, her voice already trembling. ‘Hello? What’s wrong?’
The sound that came through the receiver didn’t belong to the Rei that Liz worshipped. It was a breathless sob. Absolutely broken. Rei was heaving, her breathing coming in erratic, shallow gasps that sounded terrifying.
‘Ji-Jiwonnie… please,’ Rei’s voice cracked. The desperate plea made Liz’s chest tighten to the point she felt her ribs would break. ‘Mistake… It was… such a mistake. I don’t… I can’t… Come. Please.’ Rei wasn’t making much sense. Her words were a slurry of choked syllables and panicked sounds.
To hear Rei reduced to this shattered state made Liz physically sick. It was agony. Pure agony. The center of Liz’s universe was unraveling at the edges. The rehearsal room? The potential look of disapproval on Yujin’s face? It all evaporated into absolute insignificance. Nothing else existed in the world except the desperate need to mend whatever had broken the woman Liz had been hopelessly in love with for years.
‘Where are you?’ Liz demanded, struggling to keep an authoritative tone despite the terror clawing at her throat.
‘The… the river,’ Rei wept, her voice fading slightly as a gust of wind muffled the microphone. ‘Mapo… Near Mapo Bridge.’
A cold dread flooded Liz’s veins. Mapo Bridge. The name alone carried a tragic weight in Seoul. A place where so many people went when the burdens of the world became too heavy to bear. The thought of Rei possibly standing over the swirling waters of the Han River made Liz dizzy.
‘Stay where you are!’ Liz’s voice rose, reverberating in the empty hallway. ‘I’ll be right here,’ she promised, voice cracking. ‘Wait for me. Please.’
‘Hurry,’ Rei whispered before the line went dead.
Liz didn’t think. She ran back to the rehearsal room, her face feeling clammy and somehow cold and tingly. Her hands shivered as she picked up her bag and hoodie. Yujin looked up, her face shifting from vague irritation to confusion to concern.
‘I’m so sorry, unnie, something came up. It’s a bit of an emergency,’ Liz lied, her throat tight with guilt and dread. ‘I have to go. I promise I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.’ She was already backing toward the door.
Yujin opened her mouth to speak, but after seeing the sheer desperation in Liz’s eyes, she decided against it. So instead, she nodded in confirmation. Liz didn’t wait to see her nod completely.
The drive through the streets of Seoul was a blur of neon lights and adrenaline. Liz pushed her car to the absolute precipice of legality. Her speedometer permanently hovered five kilometers above the speed limit and squeezed through intersections just as the traffic lights turned from yellow to red. Every second mattered. She hurried. She had to. For Rei.
Her phone sat in the cupholder. The GPS app glowed harshly in the darkness of the night, tracking the location Rei had shared. Liz pulled up near the Han River park. The silhouettes of the tall office buildings obstructed whatever moonlight Liz had hoped for. Liz abandoned her car, and rushed toward the coordinates.
She found Rei on a bench, tucked just away from the main walkway under the shadow of a glass high-rise. Rei looked so terribly small. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, her shoulders shaking violently as she wept into her hands. The sight overwhelmed Liz with a sense of fierce protectiveness.
Liz dropped to her knees on the cold pavement in front of the bench. ‘Rei-ya,’ she whispered.
Rei lifted her head. Her face was ruined with tears, and her eyes bloodshot. She began to heave again as she tried to speak, ending up choking.
‘Shh, I’m here. I’m here,’ Liz lulled softly. She pulled Rei into a hug, wrapping her arms around the trembling frame. Rei collapsed into the embrace, burying her face into Liz’s shoulder. Her fingers gripped Liz’s hoodie with white-knuckled strength.
Liz held her, immensely grateful to feel Rei’s heartbeat against her own chest. She used the back of her hand to gently wipe the hot tears from Rei’s damp cheek. Her touches were almost reverent. She let her fingers linger for a fraction of a second on the soft skin.
‘It’s okay, I’m here,’ Liz whispered into Rei’s hair. ‘Whatever it is… Whatever happened, I’m here to help you. I swear,’ she promised, stroking the dark strands of Rei’s hair over and over.
Rei’s breath shuddered against Liz’s neck. She pulled back just enough to look Liz in the eyes. Her grip on Liz’s hoodie didn’t slacken. If anything, her fingers dug in deeper into the fabric.
‘I need you,’ Rei gasped, her lower lip trembling violently. ‘I need your help. Manager-oppa… he… he… he raped me.’
The world lost all color and sound. For a second, Liz’s brain refused to process the words, treating them as a foreign language she hadn’t learned. A wave of nausea washed over her. Someone had touched Rei. Someone had brutally defiled the perfect woman Liz worshipped from afar. A dark fury flared up in Liz’s chest. Something fueled by a protective rage and a pang of jealousy. Someone took what Liz hadn’t even dreamed of touching. Her neurons worked overtime to come up with a plan. She had to. For Rei.
‘Let’s go,’ Liz said after a few moments, steadying her voice as she tried to pull Rei toward the car. ‘Right now. We’ll go to a Sunflower Center. They’ll help you.’
‘No! No, no, no!’ Rei frantically shook her head, her dark hair flying widely across her face. She looked utterly terrified.
‘Rei-ya, listen to me,’ Liz pleaded, trying her best to remain calm. Maybe Rei just wasn’t familiar with what to do in situations like these in Korea. ‘The Sunflower Centers are safe. They will help you punish him. You don’t have to be afraid. They’ll do…’
Rei kept shaking her head, a soft no, please escaping her lips. She grabbed Liz’s hands, squeezing them until it hurt. ‘Promise me. Promise me you won’t go to the authorities. Promise me you won’t call the police. Please.’
‘You don’t have to worry about your career,’ Liz whined softly, assuming that to be the source of Rei’s distress. ‘The people at Sunflower Centers know what to do. They know how to protect victims. I’ll make sure they do.’ The words slipped past her lips before she could reel them in.
‘It’s not that,’ Rei choked out, her voice dropping to a whisper.
Rei’s eyes swam with fresh tears. Tears Liz wasn’t even sure how she still managed to produce. Rei’s gaze darted around the dark park before they settled back on Liz’s face. ‘I… I killed him,’ she said unbelievably quietly. ‘To get away… I had to! I hit him. Your vase. The pink one. While he was on top of me. I hit him. It broke.’
Liz’s heart stopped.
‘He went down,’ Rei continued, her breath hitching as she relived the moment and her gaze distant. Her hands mimicked a heavy motion in the air. ‘He was on the floor. He was disoriented. But… I looked at him. And I just… kept hitting. I kept hitting until he stopped moving. Then he stopped breathing.’
Horror… Absolute horror bloomed in Liz’s chest. The image of her beautiful Rei standing over a bloody body, striking it over and over again, was the stuff of nightmares. Something that fractured something inside Liz. Something she couldn’t name.
‘The Sunflower Center… If the police find out… I’ll be locked up,’ Rei sobbed, grabbing Liz’s face with her trembling hands. ‘Everyone will see me as a murderer. Please, Jiwonnie. You promised you’d help me. Don’t let them take me.’
Liz looked into Rei’s beautiful face. Ravaged by tears and snot, yet Rei was still so fucking beautiful. And it made Liz’s entire moral foundation collapse completely. Someone had wronged Rei. Someone they trusted. Someone that deserved every little bit of pain that Rei inflicted on him. What was the law if it would cast doubt on Rei’s standing as a victim? What was justice if it would have Rei punished for defending herself? What was right and wrong anymore? The netizens that would rip into Rei like rabid dogs? The journalists that would drag Rei’s name through the mud? No. Liz couldn’t allow that. Couldn’t accept that. The only truth that mattered was Rei. She was the only truth that ever mattered. As if protecting Rei meant burying the truth, Liz would dig the grave herself.
‘I won’t tell anyone,’ Liz promised, hoping she sounded as firm as she would have liked. ‘I won’t let anything bad happen to you, ever again. I swear.’
A sense of violent relief washed over Rei’s features, her eyes filling with tears once more. ‘I need your help,’ she pleaded with a whine. ‘I can’t do this alone.’
‘Anything,’ Liz replied immediately. Her devotion to Rei overwrote every other instinct. ‘Anything you need.’
‘I need a morning-after pill,’ Rei whispered, voice thin with shame. ‘And I need to get rid of the body. In the river. Tonight.’
Liz’s eyes widened. A sudden vertigo made her head spin. A morning-after pill was one thing, but a body? Becoming an accomplice to a murder was a line she had never, in her wildest dreams, imagined crossing. For a fraction of a second, Liz glimpsed into a dark abyss. She glimpsed at the person she would become. But then her eyes tracked the elegant curve of Rei’s jaw. The tragic beauty of her tears. And Liz knew then and there. She loved Rei too much to care about her own soul. If she had to damn it, she might as well go down as Rei’s shadow. She had to. For Rei.
‘Okay,’ Liz nodded slowly. ‘Okay, I’ll help you.’
Rei let out a broken cry and threw her arms around Liz’s neck, hugging her with a suffocating tightness. ‘Thank you! Thank you! I knew I could count on you.’
The drive to Yeouido was a blur. It was the nearest hospital, but Liz couldn’t even stop to think if it was the right one. When she pulled into the dimly lit drop-off lane, Rei made no move to unbuckle her seatbelt. She just stared straight ahead, her fingers tightly laced in her lap.
‘I don’t have my registration card with me,’ Rei murmured. ‘I can’t believe… I forgot it.’
‘I can take us…’
‘And I don’t know what to do,’ Rei interrupted Liz with a frantic wail. ‘What if I say the wrong thing in Korean? What if I mess it up?’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Liz proposed immediately, already reaching for the door handle. ‘We’ll go together. I can do the talking.’
‘No,’ Rei pleaded, turning to look at Liz. Her eyes went wide with a fresh surge of panic. ‘Please. You go. Act like you’re getting them for yourself. It’s easier that way. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and expose us.’
Us. Expose us. Rei was making Liz a part of her world. But she was right. Rei was in a vulnerable state. The inquisitive minds of the hospital could pry information out of Rei that would send her straight to the police. A weight settled in Liz’s stomach. The burden of the lie had to be hers to carry. She had to. For Rei.
Seeing Liz’s hesitation melt into compliance made Rei give a fragile smile. ‘Thank you! I knew I could count on you.’
And that tiny smile was like a drug. It immediately eased the tight knot in Liz’s chest. She nodded encouragingly, and stepped out of the car. She walked into the sterile glare of the emergency unit. The reception desk was manned by a middle-aged woman with a pinched face. Her eyes were glued to a computer screen, fingers working frantically to input information Liz likely had no idea what it meant.
Liz swallowed hard and stepped up to the counter. ‘Good evening. I…’ She paused and lowered her tone. ‘I need a prescription for an emergency contraceptive.’
The receptionist paused her typing. Her eyes slowly traveled up Liz’s disheveled appearance. The messy hair. The creased clothes. The lingering panic in her eyes. And a cold judgement settled over the woman’s features. She didn’t say a word, but the slow sigh she let out was dripping with disapproval. Liz felt a hot rush of shame dry out her throat, but she forced herself to stand tall. She had to. For Rei.
After a humiliatingly long wait, Liz was called into a small examination room. The doctor, an older man with thick glasses and an indifferent demeanor, didn’t even look up from his chart.
‘Why do you need the morning-after pill?’ His tone held nothing warm.
Liz swallowed the lump in her throat, her hands clenching into fists inside her hoodie. ‘My… my boyfriend’s condom broke,’ she lied, her voice sounding hollow in the quiet room.
The doctor let out a dry, humorless chuckle, finally looking up at her over the rim of his glasses. ‘At your age you should be having babies,’ he remarked carelessly. ‘Instead, you girls are reckless and shameless, and rush to me for a quick fix.’
The comment felt like a slap. Liz’s face burned with a staggering shame. She wanted to scream at him. To defend her honor. To make him understand she was doing this to protect the most precious person in her life. But she couldn’t. She had to take the hit. So she swallowed the bitter taste on her tongue, and kept her eyes fixed on the floor. She had to. For Rei.
‘When was your last menstrual cycle?’ the doctor plowed on, entirely unbothered by her distress.
‘Ten days ago,’ Liz answered stiffly.
‘Any allergies to any medication?’ He shook his head as he began typing up the prescription.
‘No.’
The doctor printed out the slip of paper and handed it to her. As Liz reached out to take it, he held onto the edge for a fraction of a second. ‘You should really consider children now, miss,” he offered a fatherly, but disapproving look. ‘A child makes a woman look prettier.’
Liz forced her lips into a polite smile, bowing her head slightly as she took the paper. Inside, the shame ate away at her dignity. She felt filthy. She felt humiliated. But as she walked out of the hospital doors and back into the cool night air, she shook it off. She had to. For Rei. Liz’s comfort shouldn’t matter now. Only Rei mattered.
When she opened the car door, the dome light illuminated the interior. Liz blinked in surprise. Rei was sitting up straight. Clearly, she had used the visor mirror to redo her makeup. The tear streaks were gone. Her skin looked flawless. Her lips were touched by a soft color. She looked breathtakingly beautiful. As if the nightmare of an hour ago had belonged to someone else entirely.
‘Did you get it?’ Rei inquired sweetly.
‘Yes,’ Liz sounded a bit breathless as she stared at the stunning woman beside her.
She drove directly to the nearest 24-hour pharmacy. After stepping inside, Liz handed the prescription to the pharmacist behind the counter. The man looked at the paper, then eyed Liz funny. His gaze lingered for a second too long on her anxious posture and her breasts. The now familiar wave of shame tried to claw its way back up Liz’s throat. But she pushed through. She had to. For Rei.
She paid for the medication, took the small box, and walked back to the car. She handed the foil blister pack to Rei. With a small thank you, Rei popped the single pill out. She grabbed an old, half-empty plastic bottle of water that had been rolling around Liz’s floorboards for days, uncapped it, and swallowed the pill in one elegant gulp. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, turning her beautiful dark eyes toward Liz.