song jinah knew that full well and still realised that love could never be a priority again when she struck that first blow to her best friend’s head. then the next, and the next, and when that wasn’t enough she strangled her until her face turned blue and her nails no longer scratched at the carpet. even in her dying moments, nayoung didn’t want to implicate jinah. nayoung forgave her for it.

yet, here she is, all because the third-party chose to blow the whistle.

the ride felt like two days instead of two hours, and that still wasn’t enough time for her to think of a way out.

the building they approach is as grey as the sky above it. the metal gate clambers and slides to the side slowly, giving her a moment to look out and see the drab brown of the officers’ uniforms here. for a moment, there’s still fight left in her, still some willingness to escape. as the bus drives in, at a glance, there are spots of vulnerability and precious seconds that she can exploit to sneak out once she’s found her way out, but the cameras on the other side of the drive are another matter, and she can’t formulate a plan without taking into account any contingencies.

it doesn’t sink in until they make her change out of her clothes and into a sky-blue jumpsuit.

of course, giving the corrections officer a funny remark about looking at her ass as she checked for any smuggled goods earned her a quick smack upside the head, but that isn’t new. what’s new is the scratchy material under her skin and the cold cuffs on her wrists. they feel much heavier than they are because jinah doesn’t bother raising her hands and tries to keep her gaze to the floor. even then, she counts the number of doors in the hallway, takes note of how far away each door is from one another, and hears the cacophony from the metal-slatted openings at the upper half of each entry.

it’s just past dinner service, she hears a passing officer say to another, and catches the look that he gives her way. the pity doesn’t settle well. something bitter rises from the back of her throat, but she swallows it and keeps walking.

they stop at a door that she knows is hers, and fear grips her in vines from the floor, wrapping around her ankles until she’s given a nudge between her shoulder blades. 

the room strangles her the moment she enters it. there is a single light in the ceiling and the distinct smell of a toilet soaked in dime-store cleaner permeates her nostrils too strongly. there are six other women here, and her eyes take a moment to adjust from the fluorescent hallway to this cell. light blurs and takes her strength with it – suddenly she’s ten, thirteen, sixteen again, gasping for air in a cupboard under the stairs, smaller and smaller, smelling like the house’s old plumbing and an earthquake thudding above her head whenever her father stomps on a step to keep her cries quiet.

when she exhales, it feels like it’s the last she’ll take.

“no–,” she blurts out as the guard turns her around by the shoulders roughly. she doesn’t realise her hands are trembling until the officer lifts her wrists by the middle of her cuffs and undoes them. “no, you can’t put me in here –!”

she lunges forward, but fear makes her slow. she takes a single step, and the guard punches her in the middle, knocking the air out of her and making her stumble forward, and back on her ass when he pushes her shoulder. “you should’ve thought of that before you killed anybody.”

the door closes with a thud before she can make another desperate attempt.

it goes again, and again. her head feels heavy with the memory. the door feels closer than it is, the ceiling feels like it’s bearing down over her head again, and her heart feels like a pinball bouncing in the too-small canals of her chest. there air is stale here, overused, not enough. someone makes her way over to jinah and touches her arm, but both give out under her in shock. the tremors of her own movements make her crawl to the nearest wall – anything, anything, anythinganythinganythingplease to keep them from closing in. they say something about calm, about breathing, but her forehead rests against the wall and so do her fingers, digging into nothing but concrete.

“breathe,” someone says by her ear, squeezing her shoulder, grips her beyond the fear, and she holds onto that hand as if it’ll lead her out. she listens to the woman, follows it slowly, and closes her eyes tighter, keeping one hand on the wall to keep it from shrinking.

jinah writes the postcard in the yard.

it’s been three whole days, but she’s managed to steal a postcard and a pen. no one waits for her outside, no one gives money to her to send so much as a letter, so her cellmate – who she now knows as jisoo ¬– gives her a few won to send something out. outside, the air keeps her hand stable. she writes a single letter as her addressee.

qian knew – she had to know – jinah’s worst fears, her worst nightmares, and elected to keep her here. but jinah hoped to god it was just anger (surely, it was) and that it would subside. qian would forgive her if she could just explain that she had no choice, that she truly was sorry, and that she loved nayoung, too. maybe qian would do something. anything. qian knew this would be hell for her, didn’t she? she knew, and she still opened her damn mouth, but maybe she could change her mind and it will be alright –

as soon as her pen left the surface, however, a shadow loomed over her on the bench.

“whose postcard is that, little girl?”

she doesn’t bother looking up, and instead folds the 100-won coin in postcard, and tucks it in the front pocket of her jumpsuit before answering. “mine, now. what’s it to you?”

jinah looks up.

they are only numbers here. she doesn’t bother learning who this woman is but, surrounded as she is by others who look just as menacing and just as ugly, she figures it’s someone who thinks she’s the boss. by the way her (unwaxed) upper lip curls, it’s obvious that jinah’s dismissiveness isn’t something that she’s used to.

“i hear you have no one on the outside, girl. no one to miss you, no one to send anything to, no one to get money from. i’m asking you nicely where you got it.”

she doesn’t blink. there are worse monsters like this. there are monsters like her, who sit on the lowest bench and mind their own business because their friends and cellmates are on their own shifts sewing clothes together. so, she answers, “none of your business.”

again, probably the wrong answer. “don’t be a little bitch, kid. give it to me. everyone pays up if they don’t want to get hurt – and you don’t want to get hurt, do you?”

she takes a step forward, and jinah stands up in turn, fast enough that it makes her head spin wild with excitement she wishes she didn’t feel. the woman is definitely bigger than her, taller, bulkier. there’s a clear vein at her neck that would be too easy to stab.

“no.” she scoffs. this is nothing. this woman is tiny, and she glares up and jabs a finger right at her chest, in the middle of her non-existent breasts, pressing against bone and fat and skin. “fuck. off.”

the woman sighs. “fine. i warned you.”

as if waiting for that queue, the women on either side of their leader holds her arms still. they’re too quick, and her hand is still clutching onto a pen. the fist comes for her stomach first. her foot lands on the right woman’s foot, head dodging down as a large fist almost hits her temple. the fight in her shocks them for half a second, and this is enough. the left one goes down next, earning a swift four-fingered jab to her throat. her elbow hits the other one’s stomach, too, just in case, and when they stumble back their leader realises that this is no ordinary little girl, and especially not when jinah aims the pen at her neck – but she catches it with her palm just in time. the ink nib digs into the leader’s skin with the force and speed of it, but instead of fighting back, she steps back and cries –

“she did it!”

jinah’s brows quirk into a frown – “what –,”

and this time, more than one grabs her wrists. someone hits the back of her knees, twists her elbow and her shoulder back. the familiar click of cuffs binds her wrists together, and something hard hits right at her spine, making her fall on her stomach. but this isn’t enough, and she sees the pen sink into the wet, muddy earth almost as quickly as her cheek hits the ground. and still this isn’t enough, because they hit her again. yet it isn’t enough, it isn’t enough, no –

“you think you’re so tough on your own, huh?”

“we knew it was a matter of time. damn, fuck – stay still! – fine, let’s see how you do on your own, crazy bitch –,”

“no –! no! it wasn’t me!” she hears her own voice from far away when they hoist her up from under her arms. her legs struggle to find their footing, stumbling. mud clings to her cheek and it stings her lip. she tastes it when she swallows. “no, get that – fucking ¬– son of a bitch! – NO –!”

she doesn’t know how long she’s spent here.

this cell is smaller. louder. when they threw her in, the coin fell out of her pocket and through the shower drain. there isn’t a shower. there’s a bucket that smells like shit and almost makes her throw up. the flat floor smells like piss and vomit. there aren’t any windows. there’s a single vent at a ceiling that’s too high for her to reach. the mattress is so thin she might as well have slept on the floor itself. at some point, she tore as little pieces off the postcard as she could to pass the time, dropping them into the slots of the drain.

she doesn’t know how long she’s been here.

there’s a ghost every time the light mocks her under the metal door. no one opens anything here, and even if they did, jinah wouldn’t hear it. she doesn’t know how many times in a day her father’s cold, dead fingers sink into her skull in her sleep. she doesn’t know how often her mother steps on her chest when she sleeps. she doesn’t know how often nayoung strangles her.

she measures it by the times she wakes up, by habit, by stale food. there is a single meal in between her waking and sleeping moments, comprised of gruel that tastes sour and bread hard as stone. sometime in between, her mother visits, blames her, yells at her, asks her why she didn’t go with her father, and why it had to be her father who died. then, when she cries enough for her to leave her be, her father takes her mother’s place and says fear without opening his mouth. before she sleeps, he keeps her company, whispering, hurting, bleeding. when she wakes up, right before mealtime, nayoung hovers above her and strangles her with love.

jinah doesn’t know how long she’s been here, and she doesn’t know how it is she finds herself out.

when they let her out, she smells like death.