Scene 1. War at the Door
The latch opened.
Not Lee Kang's hand. Doctor Jang's. Before the rifle butt could strike the wooden door a third time, Doctor Jang pushed the latch up first. Click. The sound rang through the room. Lee Kang's body flinched at it reflexively. His arm muscles swelled. His legs pressed against the floor. The beginning of a motion to spring.
Yeonhwa's hand caught Lee Kang's back.
The collar. After the shredded coat had been stripped away, a thin cloth over the bandages Doctor Jang had wound. Yeonhwa's fingers seized that cloth. She did not yank. But the grip was absolute. Five skeletal fingers hooked into the fabric and pulled Lee Kang's back one hand-span rearward.
Lee Kang's muscles stopped.
The cold transmitted from Yeonhwa's fingertips cooled one layer of the heat in his back. His teeth found each other. His jaw locked. The amber that had been boiling inside his pupils paused for one beat. As long as Yeonhwa's hand did not let go, his body would not move.
The door opened.
Doctor Jang slipped through the gap. Half-open only. His shoulders filled the frame. So the inside could not be seen. Through the gap, outside air pushed in. Cold, dry night air. A smell rode it. Boot grease. Leather cartridge belts. Cigarettes.
Red emergency light scraped across the floor as it entered. The beam swept once past the folding screen where Lee Kang lay prone, then moved on.
"Nan no yō da."
Doctor Jang's voice drifted past the door. What do you want. Japanese. But different from the Japanese Lee Kang had heard Doctor Jang speak before. Slow. Each syllable weighted. Not the Japanese of Gyeongseong. The speech of Tokyo. The language of a man educated in the empire's heart.
Outside, boots came to a halt.
"Search." Rough Japanese came back. A military police officer's voice. Pitched high, irritable. "A subversive incident occurred at Gyeongseong Station. Every dwelling in this district will be searched. Open the door."
"It is open."
Doctor Jang said.
"I opened it first."
A brief silence passed. The officer would be looking at Doctor Jang's face. White coat. Spectacles. Tokyo dialect. Things that did not belong in a slum building like this.
"Identification."
The officer said.
The rustle of fabric. Doctor Jang drawing something from his coat pocket, handing it over. Not paper. The sound of a leather case opening. Metal striking metal. A badge. Lee Kang's ears sorted each sound.
Outside went quiet.
Very quiet.
"...Kwantung Army."
The officer's voice dropped half a tone.
"Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Unit."
Doctor Jang did not answer. No need. The badge was speaking for him.
"What are you doing in a slum like—"
"Treatment."
Doctor Jang cut him off. Before the officer could finish. Languidly. But like a blade.
"I am surveying infection rates among the Korean population. In my preliminary assessment, two suspected cholera patients have been identified." Doctor Jang's voice slowed another degree. "If you wish to enter, I won't stop you. But are you comfortable exposing your men to quarantined patients?"
The sound of boots retreating half a step from the door.
Lee Kang lay in the darkness behind the folding screen, Yeonhwa's cold hand still pressed to his back, and listened.
Scene 2. Swallow It
While the conversation continued beyond the door, fire ignited inside Lee Kang's belly.
At first it was warmth. The familiar heat that had spread through his veins after swallowing the drug. The thing that had been curled beneath the blanket the lilac fragrance had made. That warmth began to change. The temperature climbed. Warmth became heat. Heat became searing. Searing became a blaze wringing his stomach from the inside.
The glass dust had begun to dissolve.
No—not dissolve. The acid in his stomach was attacking the glass dust, and the glass dust, rather than dissolving, was scraping the walls. Microscopic grains crawled across the mucous membrane, gouging one wound at a time. Into those wounds, the blood of kin seeped—the rancid oil. Where Lee Kang's blood met the kin-blood, rejection erupted. Not fever. Rot. The sensation of something festering from the inside.
Lee Kang's back tried to arch.
It must not. Sound would follow. If sound carried, then outside—Lee Kang's jaw locked. Force pressed between his upper and lower teeth. Hard enough to ache the gums. The taste of blood circled inside his mouth. The flesh inside his cheek had been caught between his teeth.
Swallow it.
His stomach flipped once. From below to above. Something climbed up his esophagus. Hot. Metallic. Yellow and dark red mixed together. It rose to his throat. The taste of the reflux spread inside his mouth. Rancid oil. Iron. The sharp, stabbing pain of glass dust scraping back up the esophageal wall gouged at the inside of his throat.
From beyond the door, Doctor Jang's voice.
"...The quarantine period for cholera patients is a minimum of two weeks. If during that time the residents of this district are permitted to move freely—"
Calm. Slow. Each syllable set down as though weighted.
Lee Kang's mouth was full of blood.
He had to swallow. Spitting would make a sound. If a cough broke free, it was over. His throat tried to push what had risen back down. The esophageal muscles contracted in reverse. Once. It would not go. Twice. It would not go. What had risen sloshed inside his mouth. It tried to seep between his teeth.
Both of Lee Kang's hands came up toward his own mouth.
He released the canteen. Both hands, to clamp over his own mouth. His palms were about to touch his lips—
Another hand was first.
Scene 3. I'll Make You Swallow
Yeonhwa's hand.
A small hand. Knuckles jutting, flesh wasted, veins showing blue through the skin. That hand covered Lee Kang's mouth. The left over his lips, the right over his nose. Completely.
Lee Kang's breath severed.
He could not inhale. Could not exhale. Yeonhwa's palms sealed his mouth and nostrils simultaneously. Every airway closed. His lungs screamed. Oxygen-starved muscles contracted in spasm.
Lee Kang's body thrashed.
Reflex. Not will. A suffocating body trying to break free independent of its own volition. Lee Kang's right arm moved. The motion of reaching for Yeonhwa's wrist. The motion of pushing away. The motion of trying to breathe.
Yeonhwa moved.
Her body came down onto Lee Kang's chest. Her weight pressed in. Light. She had not been this light before. Light enough that the outline of her ribs could be felt through the fabric. That light body bore down on Lee Kang's blood-soaked chest.
Lee Kang's eyes opened.
Yeonhwa's eyes were directly above.
One hand-span away. Her pupils filled Lee Kang's entire field of vision. Eyes that shone even in darkness. A depth Lee Kang had never once been able to read. What lay inside that depth now, his brain could not interpret. There was no oxygen left to interpret with.
But he read one thing.
They did not waver.
Yeonhwa's pupils had not wavered once. Through all of it—Lee Kang's feet kicking the floor, his back arching, his arms thrashing—her eyes stayed locked on his, fixed, not a fraction of movement.
Before that unwavering gaze.
Lee Kang's arm stopped.
The right arm that had been reaching for Yeonhwa's wrist halted in midair, then came down slowly. It fell to the floor. Not because strength had left it. Because he let go.
Lee Kang's jaw moved. Beneath Yeonhwa's palm. What filled his mouth—the reflux of blood and glass dust and rancid oil—his tongue pushed it backward. His throat moved once, large.
Gulp.
He swallowed.
What descended down his esophagus felt like swallowing sand and fire at once. The glass dust scraped the esophageal wall a second time. Going down, it retraced the wounds it had carved coming up. A searing line burned straight from throat through chest to stomach.
Lee Kang's body convulsed once, hard.
Yeonhwa's hands did not release. Not until the convulsion passed. Water ran from Lee Kang's eyes. Whether tears or blood, he could not tell. It flowed over Yeonhwa's palm and soaked between her fingers.
The convulsion subsided.
Yeonhwa's hands loosened slowly. From his mouth first. Then his nose. Air rushed in. Lee Kang's lungs inhaled in spasm. One breath. Two. On the third, his breathing began to steady.
Lee Kang's eyes found Yeonhwa.
Yeonhwa's palm was wet with blood. What had transferred from Lee Kang's mouth. Her right hand, too, was stained—the hand that had sealed his nose. Blood and tears and mucus glistened between her slender fingers.
Yeonhwa did not wipe that hand.
Resting beside Lee Kang's face, her fingers grazed his cheek once. With blood-stained fingers. A red streak drew itself across Lee Kang's cheek.
Lee Kang's mouth tried to move. Tried to say something. Nothing came. His throat was shredded. Instead, his left hand rose and took Yeonhwa's blood-stained hand. The hand where bone could be felt. The cold hand.
He held it.
Beyond the door, Doctor Jang's voice still flowed. Calm. Slow. As though all the time in the world belonged to him.
Lee Kang closed his eyes, Yeonhwa's hand held in his. Prone on the floor. Feeling what he had swallowed slowly burning inside his stomach.
Beyond the door, the sound of boots retreating half a step.
Scene 4. The Wire
The door closed.
Doctor Jang came inside and set the latch. Click. The sound pressed the room's air down once. Doctor Jang's back leaned against the door. One breath. Two. His shoulders rose once, then fell. An exhale too brief to call a sigh.
Different sounds reached Lee Kang's ears.
The boots had retreated. But not far. They stopped on the road in front of the safe house. After stopping, other sounds began.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The sound of iron stakes being driven. A hammer striking metal in blunt, even intervals. One. Two. Three. Stakes going into the road.
Clinkk.
Metal unspooling across the ground. Barbed wire. The sound of a coiled roll of barbed wire tumbling open on the road. The sharp friction of thorned steel scraping across concrete.
Lee Kang's eyes were half-open. Prone on the floor. Yeonhwa's hand in his. The sounds entered his ears, but inside the fog the drug had made, their edges were blurred.
Doctor Jang pushed away from the door. Walked to the window. Parted the curtain's edge by one finger's width. Looked outside through the gap.
Closed it.
Doctor Jang's mouth did not move. For a moment. Then he turned slowly toward where Lee Kang lay. Sank down beside him. The sound of his knees meeting the floor was dull.
"They pulled back."
Doctor Jang said. Voice suppressed to its lowest.
Lee Kang's eyelids trembled once. It almost became relief. It did not.
"But."
Doctor Jang's words stopped. Outside, the hammer struck once more. Clang. Doctor Jang resumed in time with the sound.
"The entire district is sealed."
Lee Kang's eyes found Doctor Jang. Still half-shut.
"They used the word quarantine."
The dryness had been stripped from Doctor Jang's voice. What lay beneath was exposed. Too angular to call emotion. Something closer to resignation.
"Quarantine control zone. It means they intend to let nothing out—not even a rat—and starve whatever's inside."
Outside, the barbed wire unspooled once more. Clinkk. The sound of thorned steel hooking onto a stake. A barrier was being erected across the road. A barrier encircling the entire slum, safe house and all.
"The bomb at the station was the Koreans'."
Doctor Jang swallowed one breath.
"But that's not the only reason they're sealing this district."
Lee Kang's fingers squeezed Yeonhwa's hand once more. Weakly.
"The factory is gone. The tank is gone. Every test subject is dead. But one got out."
Doctor Jang's gaze traced Lee Kang's back. The bloodstains seeping through the bandages.
"They know a blood-reeking monster is hiding somewhere nearby."
Clang. The hammer struck once more.
"The bomb at the station is a pretext. The real objective is finding you."
Doctor Jang's hand rested on his knee. The same wrist Lee Kang had seized earlier. Above it, the bruise of Lee Kang's fingerprints showed blue-black. Doctor Jang did not look down at it.
"There is no way out."
Doctor Jang said.
"We hold from inside."
Fire still burned in Lee Kang's stomach. Glass dust still scraped the membrane. The blood of kin still warred with Lee Kang's own. That war made heat, the heat made convulsions, the convulsions pushed clots upward.
Lee Kang's mouth opened.
He could not stop it.
Something dark-red poured out. Blood. Mixed with something else. Yellow granules. Transparent shards of glass dust. Fragments of flesh that might have been his stomach lining sloughing away. All of it tangled together, falling onto the cement floor.
Lee Kang's eyes rolled back.
Whites only, his eyes opened toward the ceiling, then clenched shut with the convulsion. His body bucked once off the floor and dropped. Yeonhwa's hand was still inside his. That hand shook with Lee Kang's convulsion.
Doctor Jang turned Lee Kang's head sideways. So he would not choke on what he had vomited. From the corner of Lee Kang's mouth, a dark-red stream ran and pooled on the floor. Inside that pool, glass dust caught the light and glittered.
Outside, the loudspeaker blared.
"—This district is designated a quarantine control zone effective 0600 hours tomorrow. All movement within the zone is prohibited. Repeat—"
Doctor Jang took Lee Kang's pulse. Fast. Far too fast. Lee Kang's eyes were closed, the convulsion subsiding. Subsiding, not ending.
Yeonhwa's hand moved inside Lee Kang's. She did not pull free. Even as Lee Kang's fingers loosened. Yeonhwa's hand wrapped around his instead. Cold fingers took Lee Kang's limp fingers one by one.
Outside, the barbed wire rang one final time.
Clinkk.
Rats in a cage.
Three rats.
One was a monster. One was a doctor. One was a voiceless saint. The wire encircled the three of them. The empire held the wire.
One last drop of blood fell from the corner of Lee Kang's mouth and joined the pool on the floor.
The safe house light flickered once.