Scene 1. Ground
The rusted hinge screamed.
Lee Kang's hand tore the warehouse door away. Tore was the right word. Not the lock—the wooden door itself stripped free of its frame. The sound of nails wrenching loose rang in the dark, a screeee like teeth being pulled.
Inside, pitch black.
Dirt floor. Dust. The damp smell of mold blooming. Somewhere in the ceiling, water was leaking—drip, drip—something falling at a steady rhythm.
Lee Kang's knees met the dirt. He had to lower Yeonhwa from his back with care. From shoulder to elbow, his muscles trembled, trembled. Not from lack of strength. From excess of care. The hands of a man setting down something thinner than glass.
He took off his coat.
As he did, the sutures along the back pulled. At every place where thread gripped flesh, a thin flame bloomed. He ignored it. He spread the coat across the dirt floor. The coat, soaked through with sewer water, pressed into the dirt with a wet, mud-thick sound.
He laid Yeonhwa down.
On the coat. On her back. Her head on the folded edge. Lee Kang's hand traced down the line of her neck. Not to check the pulse. To peel away the wet collar clinging to her throat.
The skin that met his fingertip—
Was ice.
Lee Kang's hand stopped. His fingertip rested beneath Yeonhwa's chin. Not the temperature of a living person. The temperature of cement floor. The temperature of the water that had flowed through the sewer.
His eyes began to adjust to the dark.
Through a crack in the ceiling, moonlight seeped in like a thin thread. That thread crossed Yeonhwa's face at an angle.
Her lips were blue.
A blue closer to violet. The color so drained that the boundary between upper and lower lip had disappeared. Between the lips, a faint tremor. The sound of teeth striking each other. Click. Very small. Like the bones of a bird tapping together.
Inside Lee Kang's chest, something detonated.
A thing that had been shut off through the whole flight. Even crossing the wire, even stepping on bodies, even with the howling of military dogs at his back, it had not switched on. The thing that had been sunk dead inside him—at the click of Yeonhwa's teeth—woke all at once.
His heart went mad.
It was like fists hammering a wall inside his chest. Once. Twice. By the third, his hands had begun to move. Fast. Too fast. He unfastened the knot of Yeonhwa's outer jacket. His fingers shook so badly they could not catch the knot. They slipped twice. On the third try, the knot came free.
He stripped the wet fabric away. It was steeped in sewer water. When he wrung it out, yellow water dripped onto the dirt floor. The reek rose. The mingled smell of rot and metallic blood. Lee Kang's nose ignored it. Not his nose—his brain. There was no capacity left for processing smells.
He took off her shoes. Her socks. Yeonhwa's feet were revealed. So white that a blue cast had crept in. Her toes curled inward. Lee Kang's two hands cradled her feet.
Cold.
It was like holding stones. Stones that had been left in winter sewer water.
"The water was too cold."
A word slipped from Lee Kang's mouth. To himself. A sound aimed at no one. A metallic rasp spat through clenched teeth.
"The sewer water... too..."
His hands began to rub her feet. He set her feet between his palms and rubbed. Trying to make friction warmth, at least. His palms were rough enough that her skin might have peeled. He did not stop.
Yeonhwa's teeth were still striking each other.
Click. Click.
Lee Kang's hands moved faster.
Scene 2. Stethoscope
Doctor Jang's footsteps came from behind.
A dragging sound. The walk of a man who could not properly lift one foot. Doctor Jang's stamina had bottomed out somewhere in the sewer. Lee Kang heard the footsteps but did not turn his head. He did not stop the hands rubbing Yeonhwa's feet.
The sound of a bag opening.
Metal striking metal. Lee Kang's ears caught it. Not scissors. Not tweezers. The sound of cold, round metal brushing cloth.
A stethoscope.
Lee Kang's hands stopped.
Doctor Jang approached his side. Began to kneel. Beside Yeonhwa. Holding the round metal diaphragm in one hand, reaching with the other to open the collar of her undershirt.
Lee Kang's arm moved.
He shoved.
One hand. The hand opposite the one that had been holding Yeonhwa's feet. It struck Doctor Jang's chest. Shoved was not the right word. Struck. Doctor Jang's body flew back and his spine hit the wall. A dull sound. A dry cough burst from Doctor Jang's mouth. The hack of it echoed in the dark.
The stethoscope fell to the dirt floor.
Lee Kang blocked the space in front of Yeonhwa. Still on his knees. His back turned toward Yeonhwa, facing Doctor Jang through the dark.
His eyes glowed.
Amber. The light of an ember still burning even where moonlight could not reach. The eyes of a beast inside its den, glaring at an intruder.
Doctor Jang leaned against the wall and looked up at Lee Kang. Another cough came. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. In the dark, what came away on the skin could not be seen.
"...The fever's dropping."
Doctor Jang said. The sound of labored breathing wedged between his words.
"Pulse is weak. The cause, you know better than—"
"It's because she's cold."
Lee Kang cut him off.
Cut was the precise word. He severed Doctor Jang's sentence half-open as though with a blade. Lee Kang's voice was low. Closer to a snarl. A vibration coming from somewhere deep in his throat.
"Because she got wet in the sewer. Because the night is cold. That's why."
He pressed each word down as he spoke. Not confirmation. A verdict.
Doctor Jang's mouth opened, then closed.
Opened again. He was going to say something. His eyes met Lee Kang's. The amber burning in the dark. Doctor Jang's mouth closed. The words went back down his throat.
Silence crawled across the dirt floor.
Doctor Jang pushed off the wall and stood. Slowly. One knee made a cracking sound. He did not pick up the stethoscope. He took up his bag and walked to the opposite corner of the warehouse. The dragging footsteps receded into the dark.
Lee Kang did not turn his head until Doctor Jang had completely withdrawn.
He looked down at Yeonhwa.
Moonlight was tracing the line of her throat. The bone of her neck stood out beneath the skin. A throat so wasted he could not remember when she had last swallowed.
Lee Kang's gaze passed over that bone.
Passed over it.
He looked only at the blue lips.
Scene 3. Body Heat
Lee Kang began to take off his clothes.
He removed his shirt. As he pulled it off, the flesh of his right shoulder turned with it. The burn-cooked skin had fused to the fabric. As it lifted, a layer of skin followed the cloth. The way a thin peel comes away.
No sound.
Lee Kang's mouth twisted once, then settled. That was all.
Blood had clotted along his left shoulder. The place where the flesh above the collarbone had been ripped out. The sutures were in, but half the thread had come undone. He had scraped against something while crawling through the sewer. The split edges of the wound were tangled with cement dust and dried blood.
Lee Kang moved behind Yeonhwa.
He knelt at her back. Lifted her upper body. One hand supporting the back of her neck, the other on her back. Her body was loose as a doll's. No strength in it. As though only one layer of cloth had been laid over bone.
His bare chest met Yeonhwa's back.
Fire caught.
The burn on his right shoulder screamed first. When Yeonhwa's thin garment brushed across the scalded flesh, Lee Kang's vision whited out for an instant. The sensation of salt rubbed into stripped skin. To that was added Yeonhwa's ice-cold body temperature. The heat of the burn and the cold of Yeonhwa collided on his skin and clawed at each other.
His teeth clenched.
A screee sounded inside his mouth.
Yeonhwa's back was pressed to his chest. He could feel each vertebra. Each knot pricked his bare skin. Distinct as beads threaded on a string. It had not been like this before. The last time he had held her, flesh had met him first, not bone. Now there was only bone.
Lee Kang's arms wrapped around her.
Both arms. From behind. He pulled both her shoulders in toward his chest. The flesh inside his forearms touched her arms. Cold. His own body shivered in response. He clenched his teeth. Held her tighter.
Every time the burned shoulder pressed against Yeonhwa's back, the flesh felt as though it were cooking through.
Lee Kang's brain received the signal.
Translated.
My heat is going into her.
The corner of his mouth eased, barely. In the center of pain. In the middle of the sensation of flesh splitting open. The corner of his mouth lifted. Not a smile. Halfway between smile and spasm.
Hotter would be better. The more it hurts—the more I can give.
Yeonhwa's tremors continued faintly inside his arms. The click of her teeth striking each other resonated below his collarbone. Lee Kang's chin came to rest on the crown of her head. From her hair, the smell of the sewer. Beneath it—very faintly—another smell rose.
Something like flowers.
His nose moved. Unconsciously. He buried his nose in Yeonhwa's hair. Searched for the scent. Beneath the stench of sewer. Beneath the iron of blood. Like a wind blowing from very far away, something like lilac grazed the tip of his nose.
His eyes closed.
"You'll be warm soon."
He whispered. Into her ear. His teeth were chattering with pain, breaking the words apart. Even so, he forced a smile beneath the voice. The wreckage of a laugh hung from the end of the sound.
"I'm... I'm hot. Just hold on a little."
A lie.
Lee Kang was not cold. He was not warm either. The side where the burn was cooking through felt as though it had been dipped in boiling water, and the side where Yeonhwa touched him felt as though bare skin had been laid on ice. The two temperatures were waging war across his chest.
He held her tighter.
Yeonhwa's bones pressed into his chest. The burn screamed. The corner of his mouth lifted again.
It hurts. So the heat is going.
No one corrected the translation.
Scene 4. The Hunt
Time passed.
How much, he could not tell. The way the moonlight through the gap in the warehouse had shifted along the floor suggested an hour or two.
Yeonhwa's tremors subsided.
Inside Lee Kang's arms. Very slowly. The click of teeth striking each other diminished. The frequency of bone meeting bone slowed. The intervals stretched. Then stopped.
The corner of Lee Kang's mouth lifted.
She's warm now.
His arms loosened, barely. He tilted his ear to check her breathing. There was breath. There was. Very shallow. Very thin. Lighter than wind brushing a blade of grass.
She's asleep.
His eyes opened.
The opposite corner of the warehouse was faintly visible in the dark. Doctor Jang was sitting against the wall. The bag on his lap. Something in one hand.
An opium pipe.
He was not smoking it. He was turning it between his fingers. Click. The tip of the pipe striking the metal clasp of the bag at steady intervals through the dark. No flame. Whether the bowl was even filled, no way to tell.
In the dark, Doctor Jang's eyes were watching Lee Kang.
Lee Kang looked at Doctor Jang.
Two pairs of eyes met in the pitch black. Lee Kang's amber and Doctor Jang's black. Doctor Jang's expression was not visible. What was visible was only the faint tremor of the fingers turning the pipe.
Lee Kang opened his mouth.
"At daybreak, I bring a doctor."
The voice was flat. Eerily calm. Not the voice of a man who had been grinding his teeth against pain moments ago. The voice a beast makes after steadying its breath before a hunt.
"A Western doctor. From Severance."
Doctor Jang's pipe stopped. The click cut off.
Silence descended.
Outside the warehouse, something passed. Heavy. The vibration of a military truck engine rolling along the road climbed up through the dirt floor. The tremor that climbed Lee Kang's spine grazed the burn. He ignored it.
"The Empire is searching all of Gyeongseong."
Doctor Jang said. A voice held to its lowest. The hand gripping the pipe came down to his knee.
"They'll be guarding the Western hospital even more. Korean entry is already—"
"That's why we bring him out."
Lee Kang cut him off.
"If we can't go in, we drag him out."
His eyes glittered in the dark. A cold glitter. Calculating eyes. Eyes already drawing which door to break, which throat to snap, which route to slip out by.
Doctor Jang's mouth opened, then closed.
Opened once more.
"...And when that doctor sees Yeonhwa, what do you think he'll say."
A low voice. Low and dry. The hoarse whisper of vocal cords smoked through with opium. Not a question. Something borrowing the shape of a question.
Lee Kang's eyes narrowed.
"He'll give her medicine."
Lee Kang answered.
"Shot. Pill. Transfusion. Something."
"Are you looking for a doctor who'll tell you only what you want to hear."
Doctor Jang's words crept across the dirt floor through the pitch black. Reached Lee Kang's ear. Lee Kang's jaw flinched once.
Silence.
The truck outside receded. The vibration sank. Drip, drip—only the sound of water leaking from the ceiling remained.
Lee Kang's arms wrapped around Yeonhwa again. Tighter. Her vertebrae pressed his chest. The burn wept. The corner of his mouth trembled, barely.
"If money doesn't work, I'll break his neck and drag him here."
Lee Kang said.
"The one with the best medicine."
Doctor Jang did not answer.
He raised the pipe. Placed it between his lips. Did not light it. With the empty pipe between his teeth, he looked up at the ceiling. Moonlight seeped through the crack like a thread.
That light caught Doctor Jang's eyes. They were wet. Whether from the moonlight or something else, no way to know.
Lee Kang did not look.
Did not look.
His chin buried in the crown of Yeonhwa's head, he glared at the dark beyond the warehouse wall. A searchlight beam grazed past. Through the gap in the warehouse wall, white light briefly clawed across Lee Kang's face and vanished.
What was left where the light had passed.
A half-naked body, dried with blood. A shoulder cooked through with burns. A back where the sutures had come undone. That body cradling a girl who was nothing but bone. Two arms wrapped around the girl's shoulders, chin resting on top of her head.
Lee Kang's eyes glowed in the dark.
Cold.
Drawing tomorrow's hunt.