RVDFC: Bare My Seoul

An uncontrolled sob rips its way up my throat, brutally racking through my body. The shudder of breath renews a quick, sharp pain in my torso, eliciting a pitiful whimper. All the subsequent air I take to regain control comes out as a hissing of breath sucked between clenched teeth. The sob has the same effect, and I wince, trying not to pass out.

“Tinka, hold on! I’ll be there in ten. I’m in the car right now. It’ll be alright, just hold on; I’m on my way!”

With each nod, fat tears threaten to fall from my chin. “Okay,” I respond with a harsh breath.

Ha Rin’s voice carries a subtle hint of concern matching my hushed volume. “You said he left, right?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he did,” I answer between snipped breaths and close my eyes, afraid to allow my confirmation an octave higher. Although it’s been close to two hours, I know there are still people in the FS building. Our label's hub is never completely empty.

“Where’s Nam Seok?” Her ire over my bodyguard not being there taints her question, and sounds more like a passive-aggressive accusation.

“He’s in the lounge waiting for me,” I warble and open my eyes to search for my socks.

When I finally got off the hard practice room floor, my practical brain took over. Mostly. It’s extremely hard to compartmentalize trauma when so fresh in the mind with fiery stabbing reminders. Nonetheless, I cleaned the sticky blood from my lip with wet wipes from my duffle, changed into sweats and a hoodie, then brushed my hair. I stuffed the clothes I wore to practice in a zip-lock bag I usually have for after-practice sweaty clothes. The exception was the bike shorts I wore. Though these are the most comfortable sweatpants I have, going commando always makes me feel uncomfortably bare. And yet the remnants of him were still slick between my thighs. My stomach churns with sick again and I have to swallow whatever spit I have to keep it down. I’ve already thrown up twice imagining what he did to me since I can only guess. The American in me who watched too many crime shows as a kid figured bagging potential evidence was the right thing to do, even though I hadn’t decided if I was going to report...what I do and don’t know happened.

Just thinking of the ramifications if I did, dried my mouth out and brought tears to brim my lashes. This man could rip my world apart and then some. Not to mention how it would affect my Opal unnis and, just for funzies, drag the Maxxis hyungs down with us. My actions could be the ruination of thirteen people I consider family as collateral damage. Thirteen friends who’ve supported each other since training and celebrated each other’s debuts. We’ve basically grown up together in this machine we call K-pop.

After minutes that felt like hours of internal debate, instead of dialing 112, I called Ha Rin. As Opal’s leader and my best friend, she would know what to do. I didn’t tell her everything, just that I was attacked in practice room four. Her shock and outrage were expected, but what wasn’t was how she didn’t even question why I didn’t call 112. Rin knows from experience how controversy, rumors, and accusations can have major blowback whether true or not. She also didn’t question why I didn’t call Ju-Won, our manager, either; I told her I wanted to talk to her first. Yeah, not sus at all.

“MOVE IT! Umjig-yeo, i saekkiya!!!” Rin screeches to some unknown foe, accompanied by a percussion of honks from her Audi.

You can take the girl out of L.A., but you can’t take the L.A. out of the girl. A chuckle escapes me, but I’m immediately filled with regret as pain shoots through my side. “Shhhhhhhiiitttt.”

“What? What happened?” Rin panic asks.

“You shouldn’t call people assholes. Someone might recognize you.”

Her voice fluctuates in volume as if she’s checking her blind spots. “I’m wearing a hat.”

I snort and wince. “Yeah, that’ll hide your pink and blond hair. Very sly, Marty McFly.”

She, in turn, snorts back. “Bet.”

What feels like marbles rolling from ear to ear with the slightest head shake has me closing my eyes. “Seriously, it’s the last thing we need,” I whisper-implore.

She scoffs with incredulity. “Really? You wanna rank serious situations? I think you being beaten up in a practice room in a supposedly SECURE FS building has precedence over me calling some rando an asshole.”

The partial truth I've told her chokes me, so I swallow the lump of guilt with a deep inhale.

I slit one eye open, barely able to see between my lashes. Shoving aside the discomfort that engulfs me, I lean forward, and the stabbing ache produces a sudden yelp. My quick change earlier wasn’t this painful. Does a busted ass body hurt more the longer I’m sedentary? Now that the adrenaline has faded, I can feel the full extent of the damage coursing through my body. I’m pretty sure at least one of my ribs is bruised, if not broken.

Leaning back on one of the training room’s wall mirrors, I take a few fortifying breaths before trying again. Trapping my lower lip between my teeth, I gnaw on it while reviewing my options. The “pop” I heard before being taken down wasn’t my imagination. Since then, my knee has had an unsettling, unnatural appearance. I push back the dark thoughts of what that will mean, regardless of the extent of the damage. Whether it’s a sprain or a tear, my participation in our second world tour may be null.

“Sshi-bal.”

I sink my teeth into my lower lip, desperately trying to silence the involuntary whimper that wants to escape my lips. The stabbing pain on my left side and the fiery sensation traveling up my right leg make it hard to bear. Pulling up my pant leg, I inspect my knee. The side of what used to be my kneecap is transforming into a wicked blue, flesh-tone tie-dye pattern. There’s a distinct, golf ball-sized lump that stands out against the pretty color. If I deluded myself into thinking it was just bruising, I now acknowledge that was bullshit.

I desperately try to blink back the stupid tears, but that only obscures my vision and frustrates me further. If putting my sock on causes this much pain, I don’t even want to imagine what putting my shoes on will feel like. Maybe I’ll just wait for Rin to get here.

“Your Korean f-word elocution is notable, albeit concerning. Context?” Rin asks in her typical word-salad-with-a-dousing-of-sarcasm-dressing way.

I sigh harshly. “I think I broke a rib, and I heard a pop in my knee.”

Rin and I became fast friends on day one of training. She’s the ice cream to my cone. As the sea to my sand, her exuberance allows me to fade into the background as much as possible. It’s a perfectly balanced partnership–her, the leader of Opal, and me, the visual and main dancer. By nature, Ha Rin is a talker. Me, not so much. So as her subdued silence stretches, apprehension cranks up a few notches. A mute Rin traditionally is a scary Rin.

“Thoughts and prayers?” I jest because the ninety-seven seconds between my last comment and this is brutal. She’s probably running the numbers. All the career-mutilating scenarios I’ve been pummeling my brain over for the last two hours. Mainly, there’s a possibility that I won’t be able to go on tour; something we’ve worked our asses off for the last three years. Now they’ll have to change all the choreo and someone will have to do my parts in the songs planned for the concert setlist. Even before they leave, I won’t be able to learn routines for the MVs for any of the songs on the new album, Precious. Hell, I probably can’t even do a promo for the comeback album. Who knows how long I’ll be out if this is a severe knee injury?

Please don’t let it need surgery. I pray to whatever music god may be listening to.

Years ago, a trainee had a really bad fall and had to have ACL surgery. She was supposed to be out for six months. FS cut her.

My situation is a little different. Kind of. Sort of. Okay, not really. We are all expendable, especially when you’re in a girl group - you are chum. Though I am an established member of a moderately popular chum group. Even though we chart with new albums every single release, it took us a few years to win our first Music Core first-place award. It would help if FS, our label, invested in us as much as they did in boy groups like Maxxis or SWT. If we had a budget like the boy groups, we’d have more exposure and a bigger fanbase. It wouldn’t have taken us five years to get our own damn light stick.

“Bueller? Bueller?” I prompt.

“YOU didn’t break a rib,” she explodes. “HE broke your rib. YOU didn’t shred your knee. HE shredded your knee! YOU were assaulted, Tinka. On company property, where you’re supposed to be safe from sycophants and sasaengs. I swear to God, Tinka, by all that’s holy if the CCTV footage shows who attacked you…I’m pulling into my garage space right now. See you in a minute.”

My eyes sting and my vision swims while I gulp down the tightness in my throat. Unlike me, Rin doesn’t compartmentalize. She doesn’t suppress feelings under her boots and deny them air like the sociopath that I am. Unlike me, she doesn’t hide the ugly crap in the darkest corner of her mind, hoping it goes away. I wonder how she would handle this situation if it were her. Sometimes people dive off their soap box when it happens to them. Would she stay true or would it dim her light? Rin was born an extrovert. I became one out of necessity, but it’s not who I really am. With our fanbase, Opalus, and, of course, the Opal members, I can be my wallflower self, but with the general public, I pull a duality persona. We all do in one way or another to maintain our position in the K-pop pecking order. It helps that me and my members are tight. Back when we were training, it wasn’t uncommon to split a pack of ramen seven ways and rush through showers because of a small water heater in the dorm. The good ole camp experience of three bunk beds in one room and a closet the size of a double-wide porta-potty outhouse. All the hardships during the training years before debut are humbling and bring out people’s genuine character. Hundreds of kids wash out before being placed in a group. Thankfully, as soon as they grouped us together as Opal, we gelled pretty quickly and became good friends. By the time we debuted, we got along as well as any family with seven sisters. But Rin and I? Well, it’s weird how she really gets me.

My eyes fly open when I hear a few light knuckle raps on the tiny window of the practice room’s door. With my functioning arm, I reach up and flip the lock. Rin slips inside through a narrow part of the door and promptly closes the door, locking it once more.

I find it difficult to meet her eyes. The interesting ladybug design on my socks is my entire focus. Tears well up again. I know I look like shit. Despite its stupidity, I feel a rush of heat and an overwhelming desire to crawl into a deep hole. Part of my brain knows this is not my fault, yet another part tells me I’m responsible somehow.

From day one, they train us to be cute and flirty. How to lower our gaze to catch the eye. Drilled to smile a certain way and to smooth the edges from our movements so that they flow like silk in a light breeze. It’s not a personality biformity they want to cultivate, but second nature. Maybe I said something, did something, or sent a signal that he took as a sincere attraction? It wasn’t what I was wearing. I was all sweaty and gross after practicing with Kang-Dae. What could I have done to lead him on? For him to lose control and…and do what he did.

When Rin lifts my chin, she is sitting on her heels taking in the bruise on my cheek and the split on my lip. “Oh, Tink, who did this?”

Tears tip from my lower lashes as I violently shake my head and more stream down my cheeks.

“You don’t know, or you won’t say?” she pries gently.

My watery eyes fly to hers filled with fear. “We can’t say anything. He’ll destroy us,” I tremble quietly. “We can’t.” I try to convey the gravity of what I’m not saying through the plea painted on my face.

“Please,” I beg, seizing her hand from my chin. “Please,” I sniffle as a hot tear spills down my cheek and I clutch our hands to my chest. I repeat another “please” like a prayer, squeezing our hands tighter.

After a moment of staring into my very soul, Rin drops her head with a weighted sigh and nods.