This REFUSAL story was originally accepted by Guernica but was withdrawn by the author in protest.

1.

A fishbone has been lodged inside my throat for seventeen years. Everyone says it’s impossible, but I can feel it. A fishbone long and white, stuck right where my esophagus begins.

I was twelve. My family lived in a small town by the coast. My aunt, who lived nearby, ran a fish soup joint at the local fish market, a place that sailors would seek for a bowl of cold mulhwe. On weekends, our family often ate at her stall.

I still remember the market that turned gloomy when night fell, the chill in the air and the lingering fishy stink, the sea that was blacker than the depths of the universe. In the small tanks that were practically fishbowls, sea creatures left from the day’s trade swam, still alive but sluggish, as if they knew death was coming.

Auntie was skilled with knives. She said she’d learned how to fillet raw fish before she became an adult. Perhaps that’s why there was no hesitation in her gestures. Scooping out a fish with something that looked like a shallow butterfly net, knocking it unconscious, and then ramming the knife into the neck—her movements felt completely natural. Sometimes a fish would keep flailing even after its head was cut off, but when I got startled, Auntie would burst into laughter and explain that just meant it was fresh.

 

One day the news reported that the price of seafood had plummeted. The television was in a corner of the restaurant, one of those old boxy sets. Uncle took a deep breath and knocked back a shot of soju, while Mom and Dad clicked their tongues and spooned up the spicy stew. Sultry air hovered under the tarp.

The only things I could eat were corn cheese and the sausages that were served as sides. I was too squeamish to eat something that had thrashed about not that long ago. I was bored and the adults, with their faces flushed the same color as sausages, mumbled about things I couldn’t understand. I killed time by tormenting an innocent sausage with my fork. Uncle picked up a piece of raw fish and put it in his mouth.

“Is Chaewon still not eating fish?”

“She won’t try. She’s probably not used to it,” Mom replied.

“Want to try, Chaewon?”

I shook my head. Uncle grinned and kept chewing.

“Why won’t she eat something so delicious?”

“Let’s try one bite, Chaewon.”

This time, it was Dad. I pursed my lips and shook my head again. Dad sucked his teeth in anger, then picked up a tiny piece of raw fish and thrust it at my face.

“You should eat what adults give you.”

“This is expensive,” Mom said, chiming in. “One day you’ll wish you’d tried it.”

Auntie grabbed my shoulder and said, “Chaewon, just one little bite, yes? Your uncle worked so hard to catch this.”

I shook my head once more. Children’s objections are frequently ignored, and my family dangled the fish before me, smiling, as if they thought I was being cute. Its white, translucent flesh looked like a gigantic larva. When my eyes welled up with tears, Mom sighed and tossed back the soju.

“What a crybaby. Who do you take after?”

The translucent fish still dangled in front of my nose. Auntie called me her pretty little niece and brought it to my lips. It felt cold and soggy.

Mom and Dad saw and shouted, “Oh! She’s gonna eat it!”

At that moment, I grew afraid. I didn’t want to eat it, but there didn’t seem to be a way out. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit down. It was chewy and tasteless. The flesh wouldn’t break no matter how much I chewed, and I began to feel nauseous. Then, with a crunch, I bit something hard. Mom realized I was about to spit it out, and barked, “Swallow it! You better swallow it!” With tears streaming down my face, I swallowed the piece of flesh.

That’s when I felt something catch in my throat.

“Good job, Chaewon! You did it.”

Laughing, my family congratulated me. They went back to their drinking. I kept coughing. The flesh had gone down my esophagus, but something was stuck in my throat.

◆

After I spent the night coughing, Mom took me to a clinic in the neighborhood. When she explained I’d eaten raw fish the day before, the doctor prodded my neck.

“There’s probably a fishbone stuck somewhere. Say aah, Chaewon.”

I did as he said. I wanted the fishbone out. The doctor shone a flashlight inside my mouth and frowned. “I don’t see it. Maybe it went deeper.”

“What do we do then?” Mom asked.

“There’s a tool for that now. Open wide.”

He placed what felt like a piece of paper towel on my tongue and took out a long, black hose. The nurse brought over a small, boxy TV like the one from Auntie’s stall.

“We’re going to look inside, Chaewon,” the doctor explained. “It’ll be uncomfortable, but hang on.”

The black hose snaked inside my mouth. On the screen, lumps of flesh like fish entrails writhed and throbbed. I cowered in terror. The doctor glanced back and forth between my mouth and the screen, and said, puzzled, “We should be able to see it around here. But I can’t find it.”

“So where did it go?” Mom asked.

With my mouth wide open, I looked at the screen. My insides, which I was seeing for the first time, looked hideous, almost inhuman, like the guts of an alien straight out of a horror movie. I felt like I was about to gag and closed my eyes. The doctor pulled the camera from my throat and the screen sank back to black.

“I think the fishbone scratched her throat as it went down. If she keeps saying it hurts, you’d better go to a bigger hospital and take a chest X-ray. But I think it’ll get better soon.”

With that, we left the clinic. Mom said I was faking and got angry. I thought she was being a bit unfair, but I kept silent. It was enough to imagine her guilt when she’d see me get carted off to the hospital one day.

 

I ended up visiting several bigger hospitals. I took X-rays and had more cameras shoved down my throat. All the doctors agreed. There was no fishbone. Mom stopped believing me. In high school, I was scolded a few times by my homeroom teacher, who accused me of pretending to be sick. Each time I was ignored, the fishbone grew in size, piercing and digging deeper into my flesh.

I got into college in a big city near the neighborhood where we lived. I majored in sculpture, but what I liked the most were the sharp tools. Whenever I gazed at their keen edges and pointy tips, I felt as though I could cut through anything in the world with ease. It felt similar to the urge I’d get to mash up something perfect and unblemished, like a cube of pudding or tofu. Sometimes I wanted to run the blade from my chin down to my collarbone and pull my flesh apart. The fishbone that had been bothering me for seven long years would finally fall out. Of course these were always just fantasies.

 

2.

“Whoa, it looks exactly the same.”

The woman was comparing the bust of Junghyun in a corner of the studio to the photograph next to it. With a small smile, I walked her to the workbench. In return for my use of the studio of a sunbae, I taught a ring-making class. Most of the participants were couples. The woman was the only one attending on her own, and her pale face made her stand out from the rest of the group. Her hair was tied back and swept over her left shoulder, and she wore a simple dress. She was the kind of woman who left a vague impression. If I had to choose one defining trait, it would be the mole on her earlobe. A dot so sharp it could pass as a hole from a distance.

“If you grip the chisel too tightly,” I said, “it’ll slip off. Instead, position it right here and then use the mallet to make the pattern you want.”

The woman nodded without saying anything. It was only during break time that she spoke again. She walked closer and pointed at the bust. “Who is it?” she asked.

“Just someone I know.”

“It looks exactly like him,” she said, brushing her fingertips over the head. “Especially the dimples, and the wrinkles around the eyes.”

She burst into laughter, as if she’d remembered something hilarious. The workshop ended as usual. The woman made a silver band with no gemstones, plain and thin like herself, and then left.

 

With everyone gone, I was alone in the studio. The bust, unfinished, was staring at me from the corner of the room. When I looked into its empty eyes, my skin broke out in goosebumps. A text message arrived.

[I’m at the sushi place behind the school. Everyone you’re close with is here. Wanna come?]

It was Junghyun. You mean your friends, not mine, I mumbled to myself as I texted him back.

[You know I can’t eat raw fish.]

[Oh right. Come and have some spicy stew then. They say they miss you.]

I glared at my phone for a long time, then put it face down. The moment I raised my head, my gaze met those eyes once more. A sense of unease washed over me. The bust was glaring at me. I walked up to it. I crumpled up the photograph of Junghyun and turned the bust around so that it was staring at the wall.

On top of the workbench, my phone kept ringing. When I didn’t pick up, Junghyun sent me a string of texts, ordering me to respond. Was he already drunk? The way he acted used to make me happy, as though it was proof of how much he liked me. I must have been possessed. I realized it was truly over. I switched off the phone screen and picked up my bag. I had no intention of obeying him.

◆

It had begun not long after we’d started dating.

“Your torso’s a little longer than your legs,” Junghyun had said, scanning me from head to toe.

That day I’d worn a pair of wide slacks and a black T-shirt. I felt a rush of shame in myself rather than disappointment in him. When I kept silent, Junghyun laughed, quickly adding, “I’m just giving you some advice. Try changing your style to cover up your flaws.”

It had never occurred to me that my legs were short. I’d never given any serious thought to their length in the first place. By the time I realized I should have gotten angry, it was already too late.

Even after I decided to put his comment behind me, his words kept resurfacing whenever I picked out new clothes. Do you think I have short legs? I’d ask my friends. Huh? You’re pretty tall, they’d reply. But I’m talking about my body proportions. Are my legs short compared to my torso? Then they would laugh and ask me what I’d do about it. It wasn’t like I could make them longer. As a result, I ended up wearing skirts and dresses more often than pants. Junghyun continued to give me advice.

“You look nice today. I didn’t like what you were wearing last time.” Or: “You have a narrow forehead, so that hairstyle won’t suit you. This looks better.”

Junghyun had a clever way of critiquing me. He’d start off with a positive comment and then pick apart my previous outfits, so I’d felt silly getting angry at him. Even when I was in a good mood, something would feel off. Once home, I would try on the outfits I’d worn before, looking for any flaws. In the end, the clothes I’d thrown on without much thought looked clownish, designed to reveal my imperfections. The clothes I no longer wore piled up in storage boxes, and the new ones I bought were all in the style that Junghyun praised.

I was constantly walking on eggshells around him. I wore clothes that suited his taste and changed my hairstyle. Everything in my life was adjusted to suit Junghyun. But I didn’t find it strange. I’d grown numb to my changes as if I’d been drugged. I was unable to complain to anyone or even argue with him. Junghyun never coerced or threatened me—all he’d done was simply utter a few observations. Everything had been my choice.

Even then I was still suffering from that prickle in my throat. I wasn’t in constant pain, but would remember the fishbone when it stung, each time I swallowed. I was embarrassed to mention something so trivial, but it was enough to eat away at me. Something that didn’t exist that I could still feel. I didn’t know what to do.

 

Around then, I started working on Junghyun’s bust. Reproducing shapes was what I did best. I rarely forgot a face after seeing it once, and I was good at bringing out a person’s unique traits. Copying a face without thinking about anything was simple labor and it helped me forget other things, including the needle in my throat.

Day after day, I molded the bust. I knew Junghyun’s face well enough that I didn’t need to see it to recreate it, but I still kept a picture of him next to the bust. The photograph was one we’d taken together right before we started dating. In it, Junghyun was gazing at me, his eyes curved like crescent moons. The corners of his lips were turned up in an endearing smile, and his eyes sparkled with life. While shaping his face, I also worked with a smile on my lips.

One day, after studying the bust, my sunbae stepped closer and said, “It looks nothing like him.”

I thought she was teasing me. We had always joked around, and having started college the same year as me, she knew I could reproduce to perfection a face I had seen only once. But as she sat next to me, staring at the bust as if genuinely puzzled, she muttered, “I’m serious. It doesn’t look like him.”

“That’s impossible.”

“You’re really good, but this time, what can I say? The features are exactly the same, but he looks like someone else. Not the boyfriend I saw last time.”

I closed my mouth. I took a closer look at the bust. It had the same bright smile as in the photograph. My throat stung as if a delicate fishbone were scratching it softly. Since it was time to go meet Junghyun, I set the bust aside and left the studio.

When I met him at the movies later that day, he was wearing a baseball cap and a tracksuit with white stripes. The corners of his lips looked dirty and his eyes drowsy. I was shocked. I understood why my friend had made that comment. Junghyun looked different from the person in the photograph. His gaze and mannerism, his vibe, impression—everything was different.

I was suddenly aware of how unfair our relationship was. The pants he was wearing were the same he had on in the photograph, and I’d seen that cap on him even before we started dating. I looked at myself: a dress that I didn’t wear often because it got in the way when I worked, shoes with medium heels, and long bangs that fell over my eyes. He looked the same, while I’d changed too much.

We went to sit down but something felt off. I realized I had gone down the wrong path. A path so wrong that I had no clue how to go back. At my silence, Junghyun asked why I was upset, and then kept saying how tired he was. When he realized he wouldn’t be getting a reaction from me, he returned to look at his phone.

I couldn’t focus on anything. Everything began to feel weird. Junghyun was smiling, his gaze fixed on his phone as if he found something amusing. His turned-up lips and crescent eyes made him look the same as he did in the photograph. But it was his phone he was looking at now, not me. My throat hurt. When I kept coughing, Junghyun looked annoyed and went to grab some tissue. In the meantime, I picked up his phone. It was locked, but a text message arrived, as if encouraging me to take a peek.

[I’m good. But about your girlfriend… — Taeju]

I couldn’t see the other messages. Junghyun came back with some wet tissue and I pretended I hadn’t seen anything. The totally unfamiliar name and the message kept running through my mind. Taeju, a name that could be male or female.

Before the movie began, Junghyun checked his phone and said he had to go to the bathroom. He came back after the previews were over. The movie was boring. When the end credits started rolling, I mentioned a different ending on purpose.

“So the main character died?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Ah, I see.”

Junghyun’s eyes were again glued to his phone. We said goodbye and I went back to the studio. Inside that space steeped in darkness, I stared at the bust I’d worked on for so long. It wasn’t Junghyun’s face. It was nothing. I was shaping an unknown face. A face that was a blend of the Junghyun in my mind, the Junghyun now, and the Junghyun in the photograph. I looked away. But for some reason, the name Taeju was stuck in my head.

 

3.

It had been a long time since I went to the art supplies shop alone. In my bag, my phone still rang incessantly with texts from Junghyun, but I ignored them. I bought some wax, silver, and solder wire, and then on my way back to the studio, the sun set. The bust was staring at the wall, just as I’d left it.

While tidying up the studio, I wondered if I should just destroy it. Piles of documents were strewn across my sunbae’s desk. I picked one up absentmindedly. It was a list of the day’s workshop participants. One name caught my attention: Lee Taeju.

The registration date was today. I scoured through the other participants’ details. Lee Taeju was the only one who’d signed up on her own. She was the woman who’d gazed at the bust and said it looked exactly like Junghyun. Her slender frame, the curve of her ear fading into her jawline, the dot gracing her earlobe. All of it passed before my eyes in a panoramic shot.

No. It could be someone else with the same name. Taeju was a common name. But I found it odd that Junghyun’s bust had been a topic of our few conversations. If this woman was the one who’d sent Junghyun those messages, why had she come looking for me? Simple curiosity? What expression had she been wearing on her face when she’d studied the bust? Her face was blurry, even though I’d seen her earlier today. I remembered the details of her features, but the overall face refused to form in my mind. This was a first for me. I’d stared her in the face. My fingers clutched the sheet of paper.

I heard someone walk in. Believing it was my sunbae, I shouted, “I cleaned up everything already. You can go home.”

“Chaewon.”

It was Junghyun. His face was flushed. A stench of alcohol swept over me and I suppressed a gag. “What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t answering your phone.”

“I told you I wasn’t going.”

“I kept calling you, but you didn’t pick up. I got worried. Stop being so selfish and think about how I feel. Couldn’t you just come even if you don’t eat raw fish? They’re my friends.”

Something amazing happened. I knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth. He ranted, never straying from exactly what I expected him to say. His words felt distant, as if they were meant for someone else. The thought that he’d said the same sort of things to others before me crossed my mind.

“What’s it to you if I don’t go?” I asked, cutting him off. “You’re the selfish one.”

I yanked my arm from his grasp and stood up. He snatched my wrist again before I could reach the door.

“You wanna fight, is that it?” he asked.

“There’s no reason to fight. Let’s break up. You think I’m selfish anyway. It’s better this way.”

He tightened his grip around my wrist. Suddenly, I got scared. We were alone in the studio and I had no idea when my friend would be back. My phone was in my bag, but my hand was still caught up in his.

Junghyun scoffed, as though in disbelief. “Break up? What’s gotten into you?”

There were many reasons. I didn’t feel the need to explain them one by one. Instead, I wanted to use the situation to satisfy my curiosity.

“Who’s Taeju?”

“Did you snoop through my phone?”

“Who is she? Why did she mention me?”

“She’s just someone I know from high school. I told you my high school reunion is this weekend, didn’t I? I’m the only one with a girlfriend, that’s all.”

His excuse was so obvious and banal that it made me laugh a little. There was no way I would have forgotten about the reunion. When I didn’t answer, he began to berate me as usual.

“What the hell is going on? I don’t get you. Do you want me to get her on the phone if you don’t believe me?”

“Whatever.”

Those text messages weren’t the only reason. I’d finally realized the kind of person he was. Whenever he found himself at a disadvantage, he’d get angry and blame other people. I tried to twist out of his grasp, but Junghyun held tight with both hands.

“Calm down, Chaewon. You’re too emotional right now. What did I do wrong? You can’t just spring your weird little stories on me.”

My throat started to hurt. My vision blurred and everything went white. With all my strength, I shook off his hands and clawed at my neck. Something crashed to the floor. After I coughed and gagged for some time, the pain finally subsided. I took a deep breath and looked at where the noise had come from. Junghyun was on the floor and a chair rocked next to him.

I snatched up my bag and rushed to the door, but he stood and followed right behind me. I knew I couldn’t let him catch me. I ran. He ran, too. He was going to catch me. I reached for the door, ready to bolt. But to my surprise, the door opened on its own. A faceless woman appeared with a freezing gust of wind. I screamed and blacked out.

◆

When I opened my eyes, I was at the hospital, and my sunbae was with me.

“I sent him away,” she said. “He got scared when I told him I’d report him to the police.”

I was put on an IV for an hour, and then left the hospital with my sunbae. In the taxi, she asked me what had happened. After debating if I should tell her the whole story, I did. About the messages Junghyun had received, about the woman who’d looked at Junghyun’s bust and whose face I couldn’t remember. My friend listened, her head cocked to one side.

“So, what you’re saying is that this woman Junghyun is texting in secret was at the studio today? Why? To mess with you?”

Now that I had said it out loud, my story sounded pathetic. But the fact that I couldn’t remember the face of the woman was more important. I tried my best to explain how weird that was for me. My sunbae looked at me with pity.

“I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. You’re too sensitive right now. Get some rest.”

My body went limp. Did this happen simply because I was too sensitive? Was it all just a coincidence? I got out of the taxi and hurried to the studio. When I opened the door, I saw the mess from my fight with Junghyun. My foot hit something heavy. It was the bust. I glared at it, a disfigured lump that had rolled to the entrance. What was it doing here? It should have been at the back of the studio. Had it fallen during my fight with Junghyun? Even if that was the case, why was it here? It shouldn’t have rolled this far. It was impossible unless someone had moved it on purpose. I suddenly recalled the way the woman had studied the bust. Carefully, I bent over and picked it up. It was mashed up and the corners of its mouth were twisted in an odd smirk.

My friend opened the door and walked in. “It’s going to take a while to clean all this up,” she said with a sigh. “Why are you just standing there?”

I pointed at the bust. “Was this here when I fainted?”

“I don’t remember. I was in shock, too.”

I bit my nails. “I don’t think it was here,” I mumbled. “How could it get this far? Someone must have come in by while we were gone.”

My sunbae patted me on the shoulder and then picked up the cleaning supplies. “You must’ve imagined it. Come on, let’s clean this up.”

After we finished, she headed outside for a smoke. I sat at the cluttered workbench. My mind was a mess. I tried to calm down. I was sure it was the work of that woman, Taeju. I went through the class list again. Her contact information was written next to her name. I pulled out my phone and keyed in the numbers. It was well past ten at night, but I didn’t care. When I pressed the dial button, a cold, metallic voice came on the line.

“The number you have dialed is not in service.”

Not in service? Who would use a fake number to sign up for a workshop? When the “Call Ended” message appeared on the screen, I entered the number in the search engine. It was something that I did whenever I received a call from an unknown number.

A few results came up. I clicked on the first link and opened a blog promoting a resort located somewhere in Gyeonggi province. The last entry was dated three months earlier.

[Come stay at Riverview Resort. Enjoy the stunning view of the lake in the summer. For inquiries about your stay, please contact manager Lee Taeju, XXX-XXX-XXXX]

The main section of the blog included panoramic shots of the resort, which was a tacky white building with blue accents. I scrolled through photographs of the outdated floral wallpaper and antiquated items.

I studied the photographs. On the fourth floor, someone was leaning against a balcony railing, admiring the lake in the distance. The figure reminded me of the woman who’d visited the studio. I zoomed in, but her face remained unclear because of the low resolution.

The woman was wearing a dress with blue stripes that matched the walls of the resort. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and swept over her shoulder. It was unlikely they’d hired a model to promote an old resort in a remote area. But if they had, there was no way they’d use pictures so blurry they wouldn’t even show her face. I closed the blog and looked up Riverview Resort on a map app. The words “Out of Business” were written in red.

I lay down in the breakroom attached to the studio. I tossed and turned all night. Thoughts of the woman whose face I couldn’t remember swallowed me whole.

 

I called the security company first thing in the morning. The camera should have captured an image of the woman. When they offered to send me the recording, I told them I’d go in person. I could use the fresh air.

I had received no word from Junghyun. Looking back, he’d never been the first to apologize. I would always be the one to call, distraught, and he would accept my apologies as if he had no other choice. But things were going to be different this time. I deleted his number from my contact list and as I did, I noticed a message I’d received in the middle of the night. It was from one of Junghyun’s friends whom I had met a few times.

[Junghyun really is going to a high school reunion this weekend. And I know Taeju, too. I hope this clears up any misunderstanding between you two.]

I snorted. I had a list of examples that proved how Junghyun’s friends had vouched for his lies in the past. Junghyun was mistaken if he expected me to believe this farce. I didn’t care what happened to him anymore. I only had to see Taeju’s face. Lost in thought, I arrived at the security company. Now, all I needed to do was check the footage. I walked into the office.

“I’m afraid you can’t see the person’s face.”

My hopes were shattered.

“First of all, the quality of your camera is low. The device is old and there are so many blind spots around the building. Plus, it hasn’t been working since last night. You should get a new one.”

The employee zoomed in on the still frame. It was around the end of the workshop. The image was so grainy that I couldn’t even make out the outlines. On the screen, the woman was leaving the studio. Her pixelated face appeared to be smiling.

 

I returned to the studio without discovering anything. When I pulled the door open, fliers and bills cascaded to the floor. I had picked them up and was sorting through them when I noticed something odd.

One of the fliers was an advertisement for Riverview Resort. Sloppily made with a chaotic layout, it sent a shiver down my spine. My fingers clenched the sheet of paper. No one would hand out fliers for a resort that had already gone out of business. Unless it was a threat. I flipped it over but nothing was written on it. Just an ordinary flier. At the bottom, written in a thick gothic font, I read: [For booking information, contact manager Lee Taeju: XXX-XXX-XXXX]

The phone number was the same one I had already called. I studied the resort and the bleak air it gave off. I had seen that same picture on the blog. A woman was leaning against the balcony. I glared at her figure. Something felt out of place. I was certain that on the blog she was turned slightly to the side. But on the flier, she faced the camera head-on. As if she was looking at someone. I took out my phone in a hurry. I opened my browser history and clicked on the blog. A message appeared: [The terms of service have expired.]

The page was empty. The posts that had been up just the day before were gone. I was determined to get to the bottom of this. I typed the name of the resort into the map and checked where it was. Why would anyone send out fliers about a shut-down resort? Fliers were for attracting clients. At the top was a sentence that said, “Come stay by the lake at Riverview Resort.”

My heart started to beat faster. The flier was an invitation. My suspicions were right. She was calling me, wasn’t she? She had no other reason to keep circling me and gnawing at my nerves. The faceless woman was summoning me. She was summoning me to Riverview Resort.

 

4.

The road to Riverview Resort was winding, narrow, and dark. I arrived well past nine. I parked hastily and got out.

The resort was sunken in darkness, making a lit room on the fourth floor stand out even more. I looked at the soft, yellow light. The door to the balcony opened and a woman in a dress stepped out.

She leaned against the railing, gazing into space. She looked as if she had taken her pose straight from the photograph. I focused my attention on the woman’s face, visible but indistinct in the dark surroundings. I wondered if I had stepped into a low-res world. My throat tickled and I brought a hand to my mouth to stop the oncoming cough. She straightened her back and stepped away from the railing.

The woman’s face faded into the darkness once again. The light from the room was casting a deep shadow over it. But I could still feel her gaze on me. She took a few steps back and disappeared in the room as though telling me to follow her.

I was certain. This was an invitation. She had invited me. I strode toward the building. The lobby was dark and the elevator was out of service. I flew up the stairs.

I wondered if I had ever behaved as impulsively as I did now. The closer I got to the fourth floor, the louder the banging in my head was. It was the noise Auntie had made when she cut off the fish heads, the slamming of the heavy knife against the wooden board. The mushy flesh of the fish. The blue eyeballs of the flatfish. The fishbone stuck in my throat for seventeen long years. Everything that had stifled my thoughts, the words that hadn’t come out, they had all clumped together and fused into the fishbone. It choked me, digging deeper into the soft walls of my throat.

Images and voices from the past prodded my senses. I ran after their noise. Toward the moment when everything would become clear…

But was this noise coming from inside my head?

I stood in front of Room 403. I couldn’t move, as though my feet were bolted to the floor. The banging was coming from inside the room. The impulse that had driven me until seconds before vanished at once. The yellow light shone through the crack in the door. Something smelled like fish. Was it because we were by a lake? Was this the smell of stagnant, rotting water? Helpless to do anything else, I pressed the doorbell. I couldn’t turn back after coming this far. The door opened. We finally faced each other.

“Welcome.”

The woman smiled.

 

My gaze swept over the woman’s ponytail and pale skin. I checked her left earlobe. A sharp dot punctuated it. A delight rose up within me, so intense that I wanted to shout and hug her. The woman stretched out her hand.

“We’ve met before,” she said in a familiar voice.

I nodded slowly. I was happy, as though I were meeting an old friend. I reached for her hand. But the moment I looked down, I froze. Taeju’s hand was covered in red, as if she’d stuck it inside a can of crimson paint. Taeju glanced down.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, scrubbing her hand on her dress.

I stood still. Something else caught my attention. Her dress, which had been hidden in the backlight, was also soaked in red.

I was confused. Could I run away? The hallway I’d run down was completely dark. A darkness that was full of the unknown. Was this reality? Was the woman in front of me real? I grabbed the bloody hand that Taeju held out to me. Her thin hand was real. I could feel her skin. I let out a sigh of relief, or perhaps terror. Taeju gently wrapped my hand in hers.

“Come in. I was waiting for you.”

She led me inside. Across the threshold, I stepped on soft carpet. The lamps were dim and gave off a warm glow. Taeju hummed an unfamiliar tune. We moved ahead until a living room appeared.

There were corpses. Three of them. Their heads were smashed in and their necks cut off. Their faces were completely unrecognizable. Laughter bubbled up inside me. What was wrong with me? Was I imagining things? I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. The fishy stink pierced my nose.

“It’s not a dream,” Taeju whispered in my ear.

When I opened my eyes again, the scene was unchanged. I stifled a gag with both hands. Even when I opened my mouth, no sound came out. A scream shattered the stillness. Not mine, but someone else’s.

“Help! Someone save me!”

It was Junghyun. I turned to where his voice had come from. In a small room, separated by a sliding door, he was blindfolded and tied to a chair. His squirming reminded me of the fish that Auntie used to fillet. He was screaming at the top of his lungs.

I stepped back. The heel of my foot hit someone’s forearm. My legs gave out and I fell with a cry. Thick, crimson liquid oozed from the carpet and pooled between my fingers. I let out a guttural noise, like an animal on the verge of death, and backed away.

“Chaewon? Is that you, Chaewon? Please save me!”

Junghyun was shouting my name and twisting against the ropes. He had never pleaded so desperately with me. But there was nothing I could do. Shaking, I hugged my knees with my blood-soaked hands. I wanted to erase myself from this place. As if I had never been here. I wanted to gag Junghyun’s mouth that kept shouting my name.

If he stopped screaming, I could bury the fact that I was ever here. I grimaced and glared at Junghyun. If only I could sew shut or tear away that mouth of his.

Taeju was watching me. In her hand was a large knife, one of those used to fillet raw fish. She walked closer. I curled up like a baby. Taeju, who was now only inches from me, offered me the knife. She wanted me to take it. Her face looked as white as a sheet when she softly said, “It’s time to choose.”

I knew what she meant. I looked at the knife. It wasn’t the blade that she was pointing at me, but the handle. I frowned and shook my head. Taeju didn’t press me. She looked as if she had already known what choice I would make. I kept shaking my head. Pain exploded in my throat. A coughing fit ravaged me, more severe than usual. I clutched my neck and crawled on the floor.

Taeju, who’d been watching me in silence, withdrew the knife. She placed it on the floor and crouched down at eye level so that her face was in front of mine. I couldn’t bring my eyes to meet her gaze. I glanced at the mole on her earlobe.

All of a sudden, she reached for my face and grabbed my chin. I was still coughing. Her grip was so strong that my mouth opened on its own. Taeju peered into the darkness inside me.

“Poor thing,” she muttered.

My eyes widened and I was seized by another coughing fit. Taeju stroked my back with her free hand. My breathing slowed. Her eyes were still fixed inside my throat.

I finally stared into her face. My gaze met the light brown eyes I had been trying to avoid. Taeju simply grinned back. When she stopped sweeping my back, she hooked her fingers into my mouth and stretched it open, pulling me closer.

Two of her long, thin fingers entered my mouth. They went deep, past my palate and the root of my tongue. To my surprise, I didn’t gag. But then a splitting pain rose in my throat and I buckled from the nausea. I could have thrown up my organs. Propping myself up on the blood-soaked carpet, I coughed for a long time. I felt a stinging pain, and something popped out of my mouth.

It was the fishbone. Whiter than white. It was real.

I picked it up with shaking hands. It was as long as my thumb, fine and sharp. I held up the glossy thorn against the dim yellow light.

Laughter threatened to burst from me. For some reason, I wanted to howl with laughter. I wanted to clasp my belly and roll around on the floor. Instead, I raised my head and looked straight at Taeju. She looked at me, too. I heard a metal object drag on the floor.

“They all want to deny what’s real and accept what’s not, don’t you think?” Taeju asked.

Her thin, pale hand clutched my wrist. Then she stepped lightly toward Junghyun. The silver band on her index finger that she had made at the workshop pressed against my skin. A strange satisfaction bloomed within me.

The heavy knife was in my hands. It was the same one Auntie had used long ago. The wooden handle fit perfectly as if it were mine. Taeju moved behind Junghyun, grabbed his chin, and lifted his head. My eyes fell on his exposed neck. I stared her in the face. She grinned at me.

“Is everything alright?”

At her question, an odd sense of calm settled over me. I nodded. Everything was following its natural course. I felt as though I was with a different me. I raised the blade in my hand, just as Taeju showed me. My actions felt completely natural.

With a crack, the knife hit something hard, and blood splattered over my face.

I looked at Junghyun, now dead, head craned back like a fish with its head cut off. Taeju had sunk to the floor, snickering uncontrollably.

I helped her move the corpses. We stacked the four bodies inside the small car that was parked in front of the resort. When we finished, the morning sun was already rising. A thick fog shrouded the dark woods. My hands and clothes were stained with blood.

I took a deep breath. The crisp dawn air grazed against my throat. I closed my eyes and saw flashes of what had happened the night before. When I recalled the stench of blood and fish, and the heaviness in my hands, my breath exploded from my chest like a wail.

◆

When I came to, I was in my car again. I felt refreshed and clean, as if someone had washed my face for me. There were no other cars in the parking lot. When I lifted my head, I saw my reflection in the rearview mirror. I stretched open my mouth. In the middle of my crimson flesh, I saw a hole blacker than black. Nothing was stuck in my throat. I couldn’t believe the huge fishbone had actually fallen out. I stayed like that for a long time.

I closed my mouth and stared at my face. When I tied my disheveled hair and swept the loose strands behind my ears, I noticed something odd. I leaned closer to the mirror. On my left earlobe was a crimson dot. A bloodstain. I stared at it and then rubbed it with my thumb. The crimson dot, which could have passed for a hole, disappeared.