Twelve o’clock in Korea is tar-black, deeper than anything he can remember, yet it’s always pierced by some neon light. Sometimes blinking, sometimes static. He finds that’s useful, you can be seen when you want to be and you can fade into the background when you don’t.
if you spend your life playing in shadows, do you even exist?
The crisp midnight hour smells of petrichor; he steps around gaslit puddles glistening with white-gold as he travels through the darkness. Sometimes he listens for something familiar. The unmuzzled whine of a dog, the inexhaustible drip of a cracked pipe, the sound of authoritative boots in a hollow area. And sometimes, he hears it. No matter where you are in the world, dogs are flea-bitten and bark, plumbing is carried out shittily, and insects crack underfoot. The only time he doesn’t hear it is when it’s authoritative, as if their voices and steps and sirens have been stifled. jae’s a man of misfortune, this has been established.
( At the thought he grows more wary, stepping instinctively closer to the walls. you’re close to the store now, kid. His knuckles graze the damp closed storefronts, these wide streets make him feel more claustrophobic than the small, cramped, impersonal alleys. Crazy, isn’t it? )
And then there it is, the flower shop, lined pretty and pink and most of all - unassuming. It’s legit though - at least that’s what he’s heard from a colleague who’s cousin is a regular visitor (paranoid about break-ins) jae breaches the threshold of the door, not knowing what he expected really, he’s spent so much time in America that the sight catches him off guard. No redneck flags line the walls, no petitions are on cork-based bulletin boards keep gun-usage legal, no outspoken lardy men sitting and spouting until a 10mm is put through their skull. Just lilies, magnolias, and chrysanthemums. A woman resurfaces, holding eye contact as his throat is cleared.
“ ‘M here on business. What’s your best flower bouquet for long distance shooting?”
