East Korean

Chapter 3 ~ Him...

I was lying in a bathtub; hot water was being poured on me by someone. I was too unconscious to see who it was. Someone had taken off my clothes leaving me with my underwear and bra. It was then that I regained the life to get up and curl up in a ball. I couldn’t stand being so exposed.

“Are you OK?” asked a male voice.

I was startled, but I was too tired and scared and cold to look up at his face.

His voice. No, not his voice. His dialect. It was not normal. It was different. Much different. It wasn’t North Korean.

I dreaded the implication.

“Are you okay?” he asked again, as if to reinforce his un-North-Koreanness. I was definitely not okay. My rebellion went way too far.

I buried my face in my legs and wanted to scream.

“I’ll leave the bathroom, stay in the warm water for a while so that your body temperature stabilizes. I’ve left clothes for you on the bathroom counter. Wear them. I’m sorry it’s male clothes, I don’t have female clothes.” He then left.

All the thought that did not have capability to exist in my mind before surged into me at that moment. Shipwrecked. I was in that ship, my cousin was in that ship. Was he okay? I brushed that thought out of my mind. There was a bigger issue at hand.

There was a guy. He’s taken off my clothes. I scolded myself. Why would I think about that when the issue was that the guy was not North Korean. But he spoke Korean. Could I have possibly… No. Never. Fate would not be so cruel as to give me such a fate. Could it? Would fate help me escape death to suffer an even worst punishment for my uncalled-for rebellion? Am I roaming the land of terrorists?

I hoped that maybe I was a bit delusional and hence my perception is not as astute. I probably made out the dialect wrong. Maybe I washed up on the shore of North Korea and this nice guy was North Korean and wants to help me get back home.

Or maybe fate had punished me. I screamed. That was the only thing I could think to do in that situation.

He then came surging in. I was afraid to look at him and so I buried my head in my knees and persisted shrieking.

“Ya, ya!” he yelled. “It’s midnight. People are sleeping. You’ll wake the neighbors!”

His dialect was as Un-North Korean as ever. That did not stop me from screaming.

“Miss, please, stop screaming and talk to me. What’s wrong?”

I wanted him to stop talking. With every word he says, it feels harder and harder to deny the situation that I subconsciously knew was the truth. I screamed even louder as if screaming was cleansing me of the negative energy, as if screaming will help change the reality.

Suddenly, from behind I felt his hand over my mouth. I stopped screaming and jerked my head so that his hands stop touching me. As a consequence of that plus the wet floor, the un-North Korean slipped and fell on top of me.

I never thought that I would be lying on my back in a bathtub in a bra and underwear with a guy on top of me until I got married. I never imagined that this guy would have dazzling brown eyes. Most of all, I never could have possibly even conceived the possibility that this guy would be South Korean.