Chapter 65: Wages and Rain
The rice‐cooker's whistle pierces the dawn like a teakettle in a tomb.
I blink hard against the fluorescent buzz, measuring out soy sauce even though my wrist still remembers the silver glow of last night's firefly corridor. Two hours of broken sleep feel like sandpaper on my corneas, but the café must open, and boiled rice waits for no mystic revelations.
Across the stainless counter Min-ji balances her phone on a bag of garlic, thumbs flying.
"Unnie, you're at twelve-thousand views!" she squeals. The screen's glare paints tiger-orange stripes across her cheeks. "Look—local hashtag #FlameTigerrrr is exploding."
My stomach knots. The clip plays again in slow motion: an ember-cat vaults a river of lanterns; behind it, my outline gleams in a double aura no software filter could fake. I inhale, count to four, release.
Breathe, Ha-eun murmurs, her calm a hand cupped round a match.
"Cool," I manage, turning back to the broth. The soy splashes a shade too dark—tiny proof that awe can still shake my hands.
By the time the morning rush thins, sesame oil hangs in a humid curtain above the slicer. Kang Madam slaps a thick paper envelope onto the cutting board, scattering scallions.
"First full pay," she grunts. "Spend it on soles or soup— not Seoul."
The flap is stamped with my name in her square handwriting. Weighty—₩380 000 in clean bills. Honest money, earned with blistered knuckles instead of bond spreads. My palm tingles as though the paper were hot.
I bow so low my ponytail brushes the floor. Pride warms my throat, chased a second later by a flicker of shame: cash has always been my favorite exit key.
At ten, the sky bruises indigo although the clocks insist it is still morning. The radio perched above the fridge cackles an urgent chime: "Torrential-rain advisory for Gangwon central valley until midnight." Humidity presses our aprons to our spines; even the knives sweat where they rest in the rack.
The kitchen door swings inward on a gust that smells of wet asphalt. Yujin steps through, hair plastered to her temples, white coat streaked with drizzle. She brandishes three foil sachets.
"Electrolyte mix," she says, tearing one open and dumping fluorescent powder into a mug. "Monsoon heat saps more than sweat." Her clinical tone softens when she catches my glassy stare. "Sip. Then sleep later."
I obey, the tangy citrus fizz prickling my tongue. For a moment the café's walls blur; Ha-eun steadies my ribs from the inside.
Rain detonates at one-oh-three—an iron shutter dropped across the sky. Water lashes the tin roof, rattling windows until every pan hums in sympathy. The lunch crowd evacuates between thunderclaps, leaving half-finished barley tea sloshing in cups.
Madam Kang thrusts an insulated carrier into my arms. Steam curls from the vent, smelling of kimchi, pork belly, and red pepper.
"Grandpa Choi needs his stew before the salt separates," she orders, thrusting a folded yellow poncho at my chest. No umbrella. No argument. "Don't dawdle; gutter's already ankle‐deep."
I cinch the poncho over my head; plastic clings to my neck with a clammy kiss. The envelope of wages slips into the inner pocket where the firefly husk already pulse-glows faintly through wax-paper. Two talismans: one of light, one of paper.
The alley is a gauntlet of water. Gutters roar like mountain creeks, carrying cigarette butts and plum blossoms torn from some forsaken courtyard. My sneakers vanish beneath muddy swirls; each step is a blind negotiation with cobblestones.
Half-way to the senior flats a neon convenience sign flickers emerald through the sheets of rain. Inside, refrigerators buzz, haloing rows of green-glass soju bottles. Condensation pearls on their shoulders like sweat before a confession. The smell of ethanol—memory-sharp and impossible through two panes of glass—flares in my nostrils.
Thirst snarls awake. My tongue tastes phantom vodka; rain needles my cheeks.
Breathe, Ha-eun insists, voice firmer now. I suck damp air that smells of algae and ozone, push forward.
Grandpa Choi's porch sags under the storm. I rap on the warped wood; the old man answers in quilted slippers, eyes soft with cataract milk.
"Stew delivery, hal-abeoji," I say, forcing cheer through chattering teeth.
He pats my arm, trading the carrier for a single peppermint candy wrapped in gold foil. "For sweet breath," he chuckles. Lightning silhouettes his stooped frame; for an instant he looks carved from driftwood. Guilt prickles—if I fail myself, I fail this fragile chain of kindness.
Rain ricochets off the tin awning while I tuck the candy into a dry corner of my pocket beside the envelope. The bills are damp, edges wilting. Stay, Ha-eun whispers, steady as a metronome behind my sternum.
The storm intensifies, a solid wall now. Water leaps from downspouts like broken fire hoses, stinging my shins. My phone vibrates under the poncho: Min-ji's text blooms bright on the damp screen.
Local news wants interview about tiger flame! Call me!
Stress spikes. My reflection glints in a puddle—eyes raccoon-smudged, poncho plastered to hollow cheeks, wage envelope clutched like contraband. I turn my head; the convenience store glows a lone lighthouse in the monochrome deluge. Automatic doors breathe warmth each time a customer slips inside, rain steaming off shoulders.
Through the glass I see the liquor aisle: emerald rows under soft white LEDs, labels promising anesthetic calm. The craving surges, hot and metallic. Tremor sprouts in my left hand. The envelope grows heavy, damp paper sagging with possibility.
I step beneath the awning; rain drums a war chant on corrugated plastic. Store air-conditioning sighs out, cool and yeasty. One more step and the sensor will flick the doors apart.
My right hand lifts—fingers hovering inches from the censoring beam. Inside, three voices collide:
Just one bottle to cut the static.
Breathe, Ha-eun pleads, pulse syncing with the thunder.
And a third, quieter but mine alone: You earned this money with sober skin—don't trade it for a bruise.
The green neon crowns my trembling knuckles. Thunder rolls like a cymbal crash overhead. Rain torrents off the awning's edge, hammering the pavement in applause or warning—I cannot decide.
I inhale, tasting storm-charged air and sweet peppermint through torn plastic.
Hand frozen mid-reach, I wait to choose.
Chapter 66: Neon Convenience
The sliding doors inhale with a polite hiss and the storm's roar collapses behind me like a theater curtain. Air-conditioning washes over my skin—sharp menthol after the monsoon's soupy breath—and fogs the inside of my yellow poncho. Fluorescent tubes buzz overhead, tinting puddles on the linoleum a lurid aqua. Shelves rise in neat, glimmering aisles, every bottle and wrapper lacquered with neon promise.
Observe, do not touch, Ha-eun whispers, her voice a taut thread.
I step forward anyway.
The refrigerator wall hums like an animal at rest. Behind its glass ribs, emerald soju bottles stand shoulder to shoulder, beads of condensation slipping down slender necks. One blink, and the memory arrives: Mapo Bridge martini glass, gin clear and treacherous, salt of my own tears on the rim. My pulse bangs against my eardrums in arrhythmic Morse.
I lift a bottle before I realize my hand has moved. The glass is colder than river water, its chill tunneling straight to bone. Tiny pearls of moisture burst beneath my thumb. I feel the swallow that isn't there yet—sting, warmth, nothingness.
Ping.
My phone vibrates inside the poncho, screen lighting my sternum.
Min-ji: omg tiger clip 18k views!! they want rights
The number crawls under my skin like an ant colony. Eighteen thousand pairs of eyes. My lungs forget the four-beat rhythm. Breathe, Ha-eun urges, but her words slip on the tile.
I force the bottle back into its slot, grab a cup noodles and a liter of water—responsible items, healthy choices—then pivot toward the endcap. But the LED shelf talker flashes Peach Soju – Limited Summer Edition in candy-pink letters, exactly the hue of last year's rooftop sunsets before everything crashed. The cap is painted a shy pastel; the label promises fizzy, forgiving sweetness.
My mouth waters so fast I cough. The guardian begins to count—one… two… three—yet I no longer track the numbers. My fingers drift up, tracing the syrupy peach on the label. I pretend I'm only studying typography, but my reflection in the glass door shows a woman already tasting the burn.
The hinge squeaks when I tug the refrigerator door wide. Cold fog tumbles over my bare knees, goose-fleshing skin that rain could not reach. I choose two bottles—traditional green, traitorous peach—and tuck a barley-tea can between them like a chaperone no one respects. The weight anchors my left arm; my right hand trembles visibly, wage envelope crinkling in its grip.
If you wish me to steer, Ha-eun says, gentle but distant, call me.
I do not call.
The queue is three patrons long: a teenager licking condensation from an ice-cream bar; a tourist couple debating seaweed snack flavors; and me, the woman wrapped in plastic thunderclouds, trying not to shake hard enough to rattle glass.
The barcode gun beeps—high, bright, merciless. Beep… the sound becomes the clang of bridge railing under a rain of hate comments. My breath shallows. The envelope darkens where wet fingers soak through; ₩380 000 feels like a live animal thrashing inside. Another ping.
Min-ji: local news wants INTERVIEW, could be u? call asap!
Flashbulb dread whites out the aisle edges. The bottles in my basket clink, impatient.
"Next," the clerk says without looking up.
I step forward. Rainwater from my poncho pools at my feet, spreading toward a mat printed with cartoon persimmons. The clerk—name tag Seo, Sang-hyun—swipes the ramyun cup, the water, the barley tea; beep-beep-beep, totals them on the screen. His hand reaches for the green bottle.
Ha-eun retreats to the back of my skull, waiting. The absence of her steadiness feels like free fall.
I lift the soju by its neck. In the bright convenience-store light the glass gleams jade, flawless. The clerk positions the scanner. Red laser petals bloom across the label, about to brand a price onto my evening.
"Miss?" he prompts, polite boredom edging into curiosity.
I hesitate, bottle hovering between scanner and counter, heart pounding strangely slow—as though bracing for impact.
Outside, thunder bruises the sky; inside, the air-con whispers of snowfields. Rain drums a syncopated tattoo on the roof, louder, faster, daring me to drown the sound with a swallow of peach oblivion.
The scanner's laser winks once, waiting.
So does the guardian.
So does the part of me that remembers fireflies hovering like borrowed grace.
My hand trembles—the faintest tilt toward yes.
Chapter 67: Relapse Line
Barcode light skims the green glass, bright as a surgeon's scalpel.
Beep–
The sound never lands. My wrist stalls halfway to the scanner, fingers welded to the chilly bottle; every pulse-beat roars in my throat. Rain hammers the convenience-store roof in frantic applause, fluorescent tubes stutter overhead, and clerk Seo waits—barcode gun cocked—brow lifting in polite impatience.
Another vibration rattles the damp wage envelope trapped under my arm.
Min-ji: 30 K VIEWS! Local reporter says pretty Seoul eonni must be you!!
Thirty thousand eyes. Flashbulbs ignite behind my eyelids. The bottle drips condensation onto the scanner glass—each drop a countdown.
One swallow and the voices die, a sly thought purrs. Sweet burn, soft tunnel, no more bridges, no more cameras.
The store's colors smear, tunnel vision greening to black.
STOP!
The word detonates inside my skull—capital letters, siren-loud. It is mine.
Warmth floods my sternum, a silver thread cinching muscle to bone. I have you, Ha-eun whispers—voice a calm tide beneath the storm. Control flips: the hand clutching soju loosens, lowering the bottle until it kisses the counter with a gentle clink. Same fingers tap twice—an apology to the baffled clerk.
Air whooshes back into my lungs. I hover, weightless behind my own eyes, watching through misted glass.
"Miss?" Seo nudges, barcode gun still extended.
Ha-eun—using my mouth—answers evenly, "Just the water and tea, please." The words drop steady as stones into a pond.
The clerk shrugs, sweeps the ramyun, the barley tea, the bottled water across red light—beep-beep-beep. He slides the abandoned soju aside as though it were any forgotten trinket, not the bullet I almost chambered.
₩2 300 leaves my trembling hand; change clatters back, coins cool against fevered skin. Receipt spits out, thin paper fluttering like a retreating flag.
Doors exhale. Monsoon air slaps my face—heavy, sour with wet asphalt. For a heartbeat Ha-eun guides the first step, then withdraws, returning the body to its rightful owner. Knees sag. I clutch the wage envelope against my ribs, feel the crackle of damp paper and the honest weight of earned cash.
Rain needles through the poncho's ripped shoulder seam; rivulets race down my neck, washing the store's neon from my skin. Every breath tastes of ozone and distant sea.
I duck into the nearest alley—narrow, brick-lined, ankle-deep in runoff. The downspout at the far wall spits a silver rope, roaring like a waterfall in miniature. My legs fold without warning; kneecaps splash into a puddle so cold it steals my voice. Water bottles tumble from the plastic sack, spin once in the current, bump against my shin. I manage to snag them before the street can claim them too.
Retching follows—dry, violent convulsions that drag up nothing but bile and yesterday's fear. When it passes, I sag against the wall, forehead pressed to clammy brick. Rain and tears blur together, saltless.
You chose, Ha-eun murmurs, presence a gentle palm between shoulder blades.
"I did." The words scrape out brittle, but true. "I chose."
Above, lightning forks, bleaching the alley white; thunder answers an instant later, a rolling drumbeat that rattles my ribs. The storm swallows the city, hides my ragged sob into its throat.
I curl both hands around the envelope—edges mushy yet intact—and clutch it to my chest as if it were a buoy in floodwater. With every shuddering inhale the scent of soju still lingers in my nostrils, phantom-sweet, but another fragrance edges in: stew spices from the insulated carrier now resting at my side, the scent of work honestly done.
"Stay," I whisper—not to Ha-eun, not to the storm, but to myself.
In the lightning's afterglow, I see the bottles bobbing in the puddle—a mirrored green and a grinning peach label—glittering shards of the future I nearly surrendered. The next thunder-crack swallows their color, and the rain washes everything two shades cleaner.
We breathe, the guardian reminds, counting four beats in, four beats out, until my teeth stop chattering, until the bottles drift away on the alley's turbid stream and clink softly against the drain grate.
A final flash splits the sky, and its echo will open the next moment—an alley of wet stone, a girl on her knees, and a choice that, for one more heartbeat, holds.
Chapter 68: Thunder Sob
Rain sluices off the corrugated awning in a shimmering curtain, each drop a needle stitching sky to alley floor. I push through the watery beads, one numb step after another, hugging the damp wage envelope to my chest as though the paper were an organ I might lose. Thunder bellows overhead—deep, predatory—and my shoulders jerk; the motion sends dirty runoff splashing over my sneakers and into the open gutter at my feet. Green neon from the corner convenience store bleeds across the rivulets, turning them the exact hue of the soju I almost bought.
A breath. Another. Observe, breathe, release, Ha-eun murmurs, her voice a silver filament in the din. I try to follow the cadence, but the air is so heavy with petrichor it feels like swallowing wet stones.
The alley kinks beneath a rust-streaked fire escape. When I reach its narrow shelter, adrenaline abandons me. My knees fold without negotiation, smacking puddled concrete hard enough to send pain flaring up my thighs. Rainwater rebounds, cold against the fever on my skin. I twist, brace a palm to the brick wall, and vomit nothing but sour bile; the splash streaks the red bricks a darker shade. An acid tang climbs the back of my throat while the world tilts sideways.
Count, little crane. In four, out four.
"One… two… three… four," I whisper, lips trembling. The tremor in my hands spreads to my forearms, then my jaw, chattering teeth like cheap castanets.
Lightning rips the clouds open. In the stark white flash, the brick isn't brick but steel—Mapo Bridge railing slick with rain, city lights smearing into the river. I taste martini brine and gravity in the space of a blink.
Then thunder cracks—an artillery roll that shakes rust flakes from the fire escape—and the vision shatters. I'm back in the alley, nails digging into mortar. You chose breath, Ha-eun reminds me. Her tone carries neither chastisement nor praise—only fact.
"That doesn't make me less hollow," I rasp. My voice sounds too loud, the words too soft; both are swallowed by the rain.
I need something solid. The envelope. Fingers fumble the flap open. Inside, the notes are bleached at the corners, ink bleeding into violet bruises—yet they're all here. "Fifty… sixty… seventy," I count aloud, anchoring each bill to reality. Rain drums the paper like a snare. I slip the wad—my first honest wages—into the driest pocket I can find and pat the half-full water bottle at my hip. Proof of victory, however small.
A sob sneaks up—raw, animal. I clamp my mouth shut; it breaks free anyway, a sound ripped from somewhere deeper than lungs. It echoes off brick and corrugated metal, merging with the storm until I can't tell which cry is mine and which belongs to the sky. I do not tap for help. I do not beg Ha-eun to mute the grief. I let it quake through me, shoulders heaving, tears indistinguishable from the rain sluicing my cheeks. The guardian hums a wordless lullaby beneath the uproar, but she does not take the pain away. She simply holds the rhythm while I bleed it out.
Minutes—or maybe seconds—pass. My sobs gutter to hiccups, but cold replaces sorrow with ruthless efficiency. Shivers roll up my spine; fingertips blanch, stiff as unlit matches. Body temperature falling, Ha-eun notes, calm yet urgent. We must move—find warmth.
"I can't." I try to stand; legs quiver like hollow reeds, and I collapse against a dented dumpster. Steam ghosts from a nearby drain, the hiss mocking the shallow rattles of my breath. The alley's mouth looks impossibly far—three, maybe four metres—but it might as well be kilometres of black ice.
Darkness encroaches at the edges of my vision—no, not darkness, a rectangle of shadow sliding between me and the downpour. An umbrella, cloth as dark as fresh ink, jeweled with salt-white droplets.
"Seo-yeon-ssi?" The voice is low, careful, almost lost in the pounding rain. Warm light from a phone torch halos the silhouette: slight figure, ponytail tucked beneath the hood of a yellow raincoat, the beam catching on a familiar pair of sensible hiking shoes. Park Yu-jin.
Rain softens under the umbrella's dome, trading roar for hush. I tilt my head back—every vertebra protesting—until my gaze finds hers, brown eyes steady behind fogged lenses, concern bright as the sodium lamp glowing behind her.
Thunder growls again, distant now, but still enough to tremble the puddles at my knees. I cannot form her name; it lodges in my throat behind a last dry sob.
Yu-jin kneels, one hand extending, umbrella canting to shelter us both. The torchlight paints her features golden, and for the first time since the bottle left my grasp, the knot in my chest loosens—not from guardian breath counts, but from the promise of human warmth.
I reach—water trailing from my sleeve, fingers icy—and graze her offered hand.
The storm keeps shouting, but inside the narrow alley a quieter story begins to unfold.
Chapter 69: Umbrella of Salt
Wind funnels through the alley mouth, driving the rain sideways in silver blades, yet beneath the black canopy the world calms to a hush. Yu-jin's umbrella hovers like a portable night sky, its fabric still dusted with stray grains of sea-salt from last month's kimjang. Droplets strike and burst, leaving tiny white halos that glow under the sodium lamp.
"Can you stand?" she asks, voice pitched just above the storm.
I nod, though my legs feel as watery as the gutter that gurgles beside us. Yu-jin slips an arm around my ribs—surprisingly strong for someone so slight—and on the count of three we rise together. The alley spins, then steadies. Wages envelope presses damp and warm against my palm, the paper slightly tacky where rain once soaked it.
In four, out four, Ha-eun murmurs inside my chest, matching the even cadence of Yu-jin's breathing. I let the guardian's rhythm blend with the pharmacist's steadiness, twin metronomes guiding one faltering body.
The walk to the pharmacy is four blocks of flooded pavement and neon reflections. Puddles slap against our shoes; my patched sneaker squelches like a wet sponge. Lightning flickers behind the clouds, turning Yu-jin's yellow raincoat into momentary gold. She keeps the umbrella tilted toward me, shoulder growing dark with rain. I want to apologise for that, but my lips are busy measuring breaths.
Ahead, a violet sign buzzes: 파크약국 – Park Pharmacy. Its glow diffuses through the downpour like amethyst smoke—beacon, sanctuary, second chance.
Yu-jin disables the alarm with a soft chirp and guides me through the rear entrance, straight into a narrow stockroom stacked floor-to-ceiling with boxes of cough syrup and herbal compresses. The air smells of antiseptic, licorice root, and cardboard. Fluorescent lights click on, replacing the roar of the storm with an electric hum.
"Change," she says, handing me a faded café-logo T-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants scavenged from a lost-and-found bin. "Bathroom's there." No curiosity in her tone—only practical warmth.
Inside the tiny washroom I peel off the rain-heavy clothes. Water slaps the tile like discarded regret. Gooseflesh ripples over my skin, but the dry cotton clings gently when I pull it on, holding heat against my bones. I wring stormwater from my hair, watching it spiral down the drain with the last traces of bile and shame.
When I emerge, Yu-jin is waiting in a kitchenette no bigger than an elevator. A kettle whistles on the single burner; steam fogs the cracked windowpane. She empties a sachet of electrolyte powder into a ceramic mug, lets the boiling water blossom it into cloudy gold, then tops it with a splash of room-temperature tea.
"Slow sips," she instructs, pressing the mug into my hands.
The first mouthful is salt-sweet and faintly citrus, a flavour that summons the memory of mountain springs and Ch 36's rescue. It settles my stomach, nudging warmth into fingers that still tremble. Yu-jin watches until the colour returns to my face, then nods—approval conveyed with the brevity of a prescription label.
"Still sober?" she asks.
I manage a hoarse "Yes." The single syllable carries more weight than the mug.
"Good."
She leads me to the first-aid nook—just a rolling stool beside a metal cabinet. Neon light slices through venetian blinds, striping the room in equal parts storm-blue and antiseptic white. I prop my injured foot on the stool. Yu-jin unwraps the damp rag, her fingertips deft and unflinching.
The cut has swelled, edges angry red yet clean. She swabs it with iodine; the sting bites, and I flinch.
"Pain proves blood's moving," she says. "Keep it that way." A thin hydrocolloid patch seals over the wound, a translucent promise of protection. She rolls a fresh bandage around the arch, ties it neat. "Change this tomorrow."
Tomorrow. The word lands like fresh earth on an unmarked grave: heavy, smelling of possibility.
We migrate to a narrow wooden bench in the darkened dispensary. Shelves of medicine tower above us—rows of orderly cures that feel almost mythical. Outside, the rain tapers to a whisper, drops ticking on the tin awning like distant metronomes winding down.
I cradle the empty mug. Silence swells, companionable rather than awkward. My breath no longer fogs the air. The damp envelope sits on my lap, edge curling. Yu-jin reaches into her coat pocket, pulls out a pharmacy receipt, and scrawls something with a blunt pencil:
Light, Dark, Breathe, Release – repeat × 4
She folds it once and slips it into the envelope behind the bills. "Carry that," she says, tapping the paper. "Pocket-sized antidote."
"Thank you," I whisper, the words thinner than steam yet somehow steady.
"Rain will pass." She stands, stretching the stiffness from her shoulders. "Come back tomorrow—same time—for a proper check-up. And real dinner that doesn't come in dust form."
A laugh escapes me—soft, incredulous—and it doesn't hurt.
At 14 : 35 the storm has dwindled to a moist hush. Streetlights blink in the lingering daylight, unsure which shift they belong to. Yu-jin insists on walking me home. We share the umbrella; salt crystals glimmer along the seams like tiny constellations. Watercourses trickle along the gutters, carrying neon-pink petals torn from some unlucky shop sign.
Three blocks later we stop in front of the karaoke building whose attic I rent. Rust spots fleck the door, but at this moment it looks almost welcoming. I turn to Yu-jin, ready to mumble another inadequate thanks. She forestalls me with a small smile—nothing saintly, just a mechanic of kindness doing routine maintenance.
I bow. She returns the gesture, then folds the umbrella with a soft snap; droplets scatter like handfuls of beads, catching the dull glow of the streetlight. Rest, Ha-eun whispers, the word settling over my shoulders like an extra blanket.
I step inside. The latch clicks. Behind the frosted pane I glimpse Yu-jin's silhouette pivot toward the pharmacy, umbrella reopening—a black wing edged in salt—before mist swallows her shape.
Up the narrow stairwell, the mantra receipt rustles against the wages, a steady heartbeat of paper inside my pocket. Tomorrow waits at the cusp of ink and breath, and for the first time in years, I intend to meet it.