Talking to the Ghost of Who I Knew

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((Continued from Midnight Never Ends))

Hello Mr. Parker,

I have booked a reservation at La Yeon in the Shilla Hotel for the evening of the 3rd. Please be sure to dress appropriately.

Appropriately, right. Jae had never been to a restaurant that had a dress code, and he hadn’t been able to tell if that even was the restaurant’s rule or hers. So here he was, in a situation that he couldn’t win: he had no fucking clue if he ought to wear a tie. If he wasn’t supposed to and he did, he looked stupid. If he was supposed to and he didn’t, he looked stupid. And if he just brought one with him just in case and tried to put it on outside the hotel or kept it in his pocket or something throughout dinner, he just looked fucking insane.

The real trouble had started when he told his relatives a few days before that he was going to be meeting someone for dinner. That was another unwinnable decision; tell them and have to fend off endless questions, or disappear for several hours one evening and have to fend off endless questions that were additionally colored by panic and worry. Myung-hee hadn’t hesitated before pouncing on the opportunity to announce that Jae had been texting somebody while on their shopping outing a couple of weeks before, which naturally slanted everyone’s suspicions about it a certain way. (His correction that it was an email hadn’t made a difference.)

The questions spoken out loud had died down once it became clear that Jae was dead set on staying tight-lipped, but he was aggravatingly aware of the atmosphere in his aunt and uncle’s house in the lead-up to that Friday night. It was hard to keep secrets in a crowded house, especially when all the other people in the house were convinced that they had your best interests in mind when they pried (or, in Myung-hee’s case, when they were simply teenagers at the peak of brattiness).

Jae had never even heard of the Shilla Hotel before being told that that’s where he was going, but it was apparently very fancy and had something like four restaurants and three Michelin stars. It had better blow the place his parents had taken him for his birthday right out of the water, for all the trouble it had been to prepare for. Just getting a pair of slacks tailored to fit him in a few days’ time had been an ordeal. He hadn’t even bothered with trying to get a suit jacket; it was too warm outside even at night for a jacket, anyway. The smallest silver lining was that he never had to think too much about color coordination. Black shirt, black slacks, black belt, black socks and shoes, ready to go.

He was keeping his piercings in too, and Amaranta Montalvo could just deal with it.

Yun-hee had been hovering outside the bathroom while he fixed his hair and touched up his eyeliner, though Jae studiously ignored her until he was fully ready to go. She was irritated that he’d refused to explain himself even to her, beyond assurance that no, it wasn’t a date, and yes, it would be fine. When Jae finally emerged, she had parked herself on his bed, flipping through a magazine and pretending to be uninterested in what he was doing.

“Don’t keep hanging out in here after I leave,” Jae muttered at her as he gathered his phone and wallet before pulling on his gloves. It was also too warm for gloves, really, but he didn’t want Amaranta staring at his hands. There wasn’t much to be done about his face, but then, he had seen pictures of her and knew that they were more equal in that department.

Yun-hee huffed at him, but she flipped the magazine closed and swung her legs over the side of the bed to get up. She still looked annoyed when he glanced at her, but the pinch of her eyebrows wasn’t just that. He broke eye contact first.

“Is that how you tie a tie?” She asked, dodging both Jae’s comment and the underlying tension.

“Yeah? What’s wrong with it?” He thought he’d straightened it out enough. Yun-hee rolled her eyes and crossed the room to yank the tie loose without asking and re-tie it for him. When she had finished, she smoothed down the front of his shirt too and then stepped back, frowning up at him again.

“Jesus Christ, stop looking at me like that. I’m going to be back in a few hours, not a few years.”

That did get Yun-hee to crack a thin smile, but then she ruined it by pulling him down by the shoulder and kissing him on the cheek. “We worry about you when you start acting weird, stupid.”

“I know. Believe me. I have noticed.” Jae straightened back up, but he couldn’t put too much bite into his words. “It’ll be fine. You fixed my tie, so she’s not gonna throw me out a window.”

That was a slip-up. Jae saw Yun-hee’s eyebrows rise slightly when he said “she,” but fortunately she did not press the subject. He patted his pockets again, unnecessarily confirming that his phone and wallet were still there, and then pulled away from her to leave. “Don’t wait up. Seriously.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” she called after him.

“And get out of my room!” He shot back over his shoulder.

The rain had stopped, but Seoul was humid in the summer in the way that Kingman never was. Even with the sun starting to set, the temperature wasn’t much cooler. Jae was perspiring lightly by the time he reached the train station, and he swiped his sleeve across his hairline with a grumble. Showing up to the ultra-fancy dinner sweaty, sure. Might as well. The press of bodies on the subway didn’t help.

His reflection in the train window stared almost straight ahead, watching him out of the corner of its eye the same way that Jae was watching it, focused on some wavering point of light in the black reflected on black. Here and there, he caught a snatch of words that sounded like someone talking about the news, and he tried not to hunch his shoulders in response.

[Ruggahissy]

The La Yeon restaurant at the Shilla Hotelin Seoul overlooks the city. Inside, it is decorated in a simple way that also communicates luxury. The primary colors are white and tan, which is complemented by a similar color tone in the wood used in the walls and ceiling. Gold lattice work screens separate tales and diners.

Looking as if she'd been specially picked out to compliment the restaurant's decor, Mara sat with her legs crossed reading a magazine. She was wearing a halter neck, contrast tweed dress from Balmain. The body of the short dress was white with one thick, black line running down the center, which was lined with gold buttons. Three black tabs on either side accentuated the shape of her body on the white tweed with one gold button on each tab. The black tabs where her waist was smallest had a gold chain connecting the gold buttons. The halter neck was solid black, mimicking the look of a collar.

Past that it was all leg from mid-thigh down to a nude pair of four-inch heels. Her hair was in a bob that extended just past her chin and was so pin straight and sharp it looked like it had been cut and styled with a ruler. On either wrist, she wore gold chain bracelets that matched the chain in the middle of her dress. She had simple make up with a short, winged liner and gradient lipstick that lost intensity as it moved outward as if she'd eaten a cherry popsicle -- popular in Korea.

Her sharp nails were painted in such a way that they started out translucent before gradually becoming pink towards the tips. The girls in Korea called it "syrup nails." A pair of black, oversized, very square Gentle Monster sunglasses sat on her head. She crossed her legs and bounced one foot up and down, looking over at the entrance now and then. A waiter approached.


"나는 소년을 기다리고 있습니다."

She grinned.

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Jae obviously had never set foot in the Shilla Hotel before, much less the three-Michelin-star restaurant on its 23rd floor. The host who greeted him at the door raised his eyebrows at Jae, but upon taking his name, readily informed him that his table was already waiting. Each individual table was blocked off from the others by elaborately patterned dividing screens, leaving him with a feeling that was somewhere between traversing a maze and walking through a weirdly fancy office until he was delivered to his destination, where Amaranta already sat complete with magazine.

Goddamn, okay, maybe he had under-dressed.

The host nodded to Jae and abandoned him to his fate as smoothly as he had come. Jae found himself hesitating, one hand resting on the back of the open chair but not quite yet ready to pull it out and sit down across from her.

"Hey," he said, for lack of anything else. She was smaller than he'd thought she would be.

[Ruggahissy]

Mara pretended not to notice him until he was at the table and had said something. She looked up as if she was surprised that he was there, like he had teleported to that spot. She closed the magazine and put it on the table, then stood.

Even with the heels, he was taller than her. That was no surprise. She knew how tall he was before she'd gotten there. He was the same height as the other boy. As all the boys. All four were 5'11''. Mara smiled wistfully as if looking past Min Jae for a moment, before her eyes regained their focus, and she smiled sharply at him instead. She eyed the line that ran across the bridge of his nose and cheek.

"Mr. Parker," she said with a voice like warm brown sugar. She took a step towards him. "Give your noona a hug, hm? I'm old and elderly, it would be cold-hearted not to." Without waiting for a response she wrapped him in a rose-scented embrace.

"I picked this restaurant because it's the best," she said. "And because it's so high up, you can't run away," she said a bit quieter.

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"Um-" Jae was not prepared for the hug and just stood there dumbly for a few seconds before returning it with stiff arms, because he didn't know how else to react. He patted the back of Amaranta's shoulder awkwardly, shying away from touching her bare skin. Old and elderly she said, when she would have looked completely at home on any designer catwalk, at least in Jae's estimation.

He released her after only a few seconds, stepping back just in case she decided not to. He raised an eyebrow at her comment about him running away; it was hard to tell from her tone if she meant it seriously or if she was teasing him.

"Would you try to chase me down if I did?" He asked, glancing down at the stilettos that she seemed perfectly stable. Something about her, her whole look, was naggingly familiar. Jae didn't think that it was just because he'd seen her face on the news. It was more like the way that you recognized something that you passed every day without really seeing it - a billboard ad, or a shop window display, or the pictures on his cousin's Instagram feed of her favorite idols.

That was the way that she looked, at first glance. Something made-up, someone who was only supposed to exist on the page of a magazine like the one that she had left on the table, but she was here talking to him, moving and breathing, and now he smelled like her perfume.

There was something else too, which would never have made it past a magazine's photo editors: the thin scar cutting across her cheek, not too different from his own.

"Anyway, if I felt like running away, I just wouldn't have shown up."

[Ruggahissy]

Mara walked behind Min Jae and pulled his chair out for him, beckoning him to sit for their meal.

"Who, me?" she asked, surprised. "I never chase after men," she said with smirk.

Except for one.

She walked back to her chair and dropped down, crossing her legs and sitting somewhat low in her seat.

"So, namdongsaeng, it's a prix fixe menu so you don't have to worry about ordering," she said, casually waving away the thought.

Mara was much more at ease during this meeting than the last two. He was hard-shelled, perhaps, but she saw that as more of a challenge than an obstacle. It was also the first meeting where she was the older party, which made her more comfortble.

If nothing else, she enjoyed how Korean gave her an opportunity to assert that she was older and also push a little. English didn't have such opportunities and Spanish only had the casual/formal divide.

"Well..." she sighed. "How are you? You look good. I really like this whole --" she moved her hands in front of her " -- formal alternative look you have going on," she winked and held up a hand giving the OK symbol in approval.

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Jae took the offered seat, watching Amaranta as she spoke, the way she moved. He wanted to try to detach himself from the situation a little bit, maybe study her like he would the subject of a painting. He'd already compared her to a fashion model, but she could have just as easily been a portrait model, save for the fact that he wasn't sure she would be willing to sit still for long enough.

He hadn't really looked up anything about the restaurant before coming beyond its location. The menu being pre-fixed was probably a good thing; he'd had the passing thought that he might have to relay Amaranta's order to the waitstaff for her. Swanky place like this had to have people who spoke English though, anyway. In Jae's estimation as someone who enjoyed cooking, the main reason to slap Michelin stars on a restaurant was to entice tourists, especially if you were going to have it in a hotel like this.

The corner of his mouth twitched when she complimented him, though it was hard to read just how sincere the compliment was. "I think I've seen that dress," he said instead of answering her question about how he was. "You into idol groups?" He hoped not, or at least that if she was, she wasn't going to start telling him too much about it. He got enough of that from Myung-hee.

[Ruggahissy]

Mara looked thoughtful as people began bringing numerous small plates to the table -- the banchan.

"It's a good dress," she said quietly.

The arms of the wait staff moved in between the two of them, interrupting her view here and there. She picked up a lock of her hair and fiddled with it.

"I don't really listen to much Korean music. Too shiny and bright for me. But the beauty industry is second to none and they know how to dress. I like to be a chameleon. I like to look like I exactly belong every place I go."

Mara picked up a pair of black chopsticks that were on her place setting and put the lock of hair back, smoothing it down. Nothing was out of place.

"Do you sleep well?" she asked casually. "Do you have purpose?"

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The line of Jae's mouth became gradually thinner as she spoke, though it wasn't necessarily out of displeasure. There was a little bit of that, yeah, but mainly he just didn't know what to make of her. She did look like she belonged in an expensive restaurant on the 23rd floor of an even more expensive hotel. She had that part right. But the rest-

Maybe it was just because he knew who she was. He didn't know her, but at the same time, they probably knew more about each other than anyone else in the world could claim to. It was a strange kind of empathy to have.

"No," he answered her first question shortly, likewise picking up his own chopsticks and scanning the first course for whatever looked the most appetizing. It all looked good. He'd never really liked kimchi, which he supposed made him a bad citizen, but there was a lot on offer here.

"For the second thing- I'm working on it." His eyes flicked back up to her. "What about you?"

[Ruggahissy]

"Work on that. I think lack of sleep ages you more than anything else -- maybe that and stress."

Mara put the chopsticks to her lips and ate daintily and without disturbing her makeup.

The gentle clattering of their sticks against dishes filled the empty space for a few minutes.

"Yes," she said finally. "A deadly purpose. A deadly faith. A fatal game. A poison blossom which, fast by the tree of life, begins to bloom..." As the sentence progressed, it became more mumbled.

Suddenly she stood and leaned over the table, reaching over the many small plates between them. Mara cupped Min Jae's cheek with her left hand.

"I know we've only met now, but what's mine is yours. If you need anything, just let me know. I meant it when I said I was your noona."

The tips of her nails lightly pressed into his skin. The concern came through in the slight furrow of her brow and sadness in her normally sharp eyes.

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For a solid few seconds, Jae could only blink at her, only barely registering the faint bite of her nails against his cheek.

The first thing he managed to say after scanning her expression and absorbing her bizarre words was, "Are you- okay?"

Was she on something? Should he ask if she was on something, or would that set her off? "I didn't agree to meet you because I wanted something from you. You made it sound like you wanted something from me, actually."

[Ruggahissy]

"I never stopped playing the game, namdongsaeng" she said quietly. "Min..." she whispered deliberately, thick with emotion.

Her fingers straightened out and she pulled her hand away from his face, trailing the digits on his skin. Mara sat back down. She wouldn't say more than that, or he might try to stop her or ask why she was doing this. He might call her crazy, and he might be right.

More dishes were placed in front of them with colorful, elegant food arranged on the plates.

Mara would split her will. She would make sure if she died Min Jae, Kim, and Kenny had something, even if she had reservations about the other two.

"All I want is to know you're OK and that you're trying to live. I want you to know I'm here. It's hard, but you're so young, so you're not yet set in your ways. I told you, I'm elderly, and I worry. You're the only namdongsaeng I have."

To even herself, she could not fully explain the affection she felt looking at the boy -- like looking at a cute-ugly pug. But it was sincere.

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"Don't call me that." The bite that lived in Jae's voice had lain dormant for long enough, but it asserted itself now as easily as though it had always been there.

Anything else he might have said was stopped in its tracks as the next course was brought out; the waitstaff seemed happily oblivious to the sudden tension blanketing the space where they were neatly laying out beautifully-arranged plates. Maybe they were oblivious. Maybe they were just good at their jobs and used to rich people having tantrums up here. Seemed fifty-fifty.

Jae made himself look at the food and worked to smooth the scowl that wanted to take over his face back into something neutral. Making food look good was almost as important as it actually tasting good, in his opinion. Despite the weird-ass mood of this whole dinner, the people in the kitchen were earning their keep. Jae wasn't cultured enough to know if they were earning three Michelin stars' worth of keep, but if he was going to be treated to an excessively fancy dinner, he could definitely do worse than this.

He picked up his chopsticks and very deliberately picked some pieces off of the whole grilled fish that had been set near him, dipping them in a dish of sweet and spicy sauce off to the side before bringing them to his mouth. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. It was hard to stay mad with food this good in his mouth. That was something.

He washed it down with a few gulps of water before speaking again, his voice steady once more. "You can call me Jae. That's what most people call me."

Only one person had ever called him Min without being corrected. Hearing his name said like that felt like calling her, now.

"Have you ever seen a ghost?"

[Ruggahissy]

It was quiet for a moment.

"Joesonghamnida... Jae." she said, blinking slowly. She had stepped over the line and had done it on purpose. She had behaved too much like Tracen Danya had.

Mara ate and another question came.

She stared at him with a steely gaze. Formerly she had been jokes, teases, pushing and pulling. Now she just stared seriously.

"The obvious answer is to say yes, that I see ghosts everywhere when I'm reminded of what happened and the people I knew. But I..." she faltered and bit her lip. "...I'll tell you a story I've never said out loud."

She put the chopsticks down carefully on a wooden chopstick rest.

"I've never seen a ghost, but I've felt one. It wasn't right after. It was a few years after, when my father died. That night, I went home and I got in my bed. I fell asleep. Then, at some point, I felt something."

"When I was in the game I met a boy with teddy bear brown eyes. Since then, people have told me he was a monster. Sometimes I think they may be right, but it doesn't change the fact that I loved him and he loved me. We never said it to each other, but I know it's true. No matter what anyone says, I can't bring myself to stop, even if all I love is a memory," she explained, touching the tips of her fingers to her lips.

"That night I felt his hand caress my hand," she said, laying her left hand flat on the table to show the jagged scar in the middle. "I felt the warmth of bandaged fingers as they moved the hair off my face," she said, moving some hair behind her ear. She learned forward and mimicked the action to Min Jae without actually touching him.

"Or maybe it was a dream and he was never really there. But one day... I'd like to see him again and apologize..."

She smiled just a little bit of her cat's grin, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.

"...because I'm not sorry I took the win from him. Not anymore."

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Jae wasn't sure what kind of answer he had been expecting. The kind she talked about first maybe, or another glimmering smile and an insistence that she didn't believe in ghosts. He had a response ready for the second one: of course not, most people didn't believe in ghosts. But that didn't stop them from seeing ghosts.

He thought of Hazel, ice-cold and curled up inches from his back as he slept. He had been apologizing to her since the moment he made the choice to walk away from the car where she still slept, warm and alive, wrapped in his jacket. It was in his closet at his parents' house still, mostly untouched over the last few years. The spot of her blood on the inner lining had faded, but not entirely.

Are you here just because of me? He always wanted to ask. Are you stuck here? Or did you choose to be here? He'd never had the courage to actually speak to her. As long as he just saw her in glimpses, in that state of half-dreaming, there was a layer of safety and reality between them. If he spoke up, and she answered, any assurances from his therapist that it was all just hallucinations and lucid dreams would be shattered.

Jae looked at Amaranta's fingers splayed across the table, the scar on the back of her hand. Without saying anything else, he set down his chopsticks and, after just a moment of hesitation, peeled his gloves off and set them aside, then laid his hands on the table too.

His hands were paler and longer than hers. The nails were painted glossy black like they routinely had been since he'd been fourteen or fifteen. They weren't perfect mirrors of each other; his right hand was normal, for lack of a better word, while the left had the thick scar that cut an inch or so into both the palm and the back, between his middle and ring fingers. The last two fingers on that hand sat crooked, just a bit out of alignment with the rest, having never healed quite straight after Alvaro broke them.

"I was going to jump off the roof," he said finally, voice low. "I wanted to take her down with me. I didn't want them to have anyone. She did what I was planning to do, but she left me there." Jae smiled thinly and without warmth. Fiyori, he was sure, would have said that she had better things to do than hang around and haunt him.

"Are the others you talked to as fucked up as we are? Are we all exactly the same?" He was seeing a lot of parallels between himself and Amaranta that didn't exactly sit comfortably.