Chapter 17: In Which More Is Revealed…

"So, what's with the hole in the wall?" Zen said.

We were lying in bed cuddling a bit before I got up for work and he got ready to go to the gym.

"Uh," I said. "That…" My cheeks reddened a bit. I didn't usually have that much of a temper. Any kind of violence was unlike me. I think Zen knew that, but we hadn't actually known each other that long.

Zen was giving me a quizzical look. "Babe," he said. "That wasn't you…was it?"

When I looked down at the sheets, hanging my head in shame, he started to laugh. "Ha, it was you, wasn't it?"

He gently lifted my cheek and brushed my cheek with his thumb. "Aww, man," he said. "Even that is cute… I bet you're cute when you're angry…" He smiled and raised an eyebrow. "Well, as long as you're not angry at me, that is..."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know what got into me… I'm usually not like that."

"Don't worry about it," he said, pushing the hair out of my face lightly with his fingers. "I'm not mad or anything. This will just give me a chance to show you how handy I am."

My eyes popped in surprise. "You?" I said. "Handy? Like with tools?" Somehow I couldn't picture Zen on his knees with a hammer or a wrench or doing any kind of menial labor.

"Absolutely," he said with a look of feigned offense on his face. "Don't sound so surprised. Who you think keeps this place in check? My landlord is kind of a dick, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly rolling in extra dough."

It was my turn to touch his cheek. "Impressive," I said, half-jokingly. "I love a man with tools...it's so hot." I pulled myself up to fully straddle him, cup both of his cheeks and kiss him on his gorgeous lips.

"Mmm…" He said, gripping me tighter around the waist. "Well, just let me show you how well I screw…"

"Ugh, eew!" I said, pulling back and pushing him away with a smirk. "That was a pretty bad one…"

"Was it?" He said, frowning a bit. "Saeyoung says he doesn't like my jokes, either. He says I'm not clever with words."

I touched his cheek. "You have so many other talents, though," I said, giving him a teasing sympathetic look.

It was getting late, so we got up to get showered and dressed. When I emerged from the bedroom, I found Zen in the kitchen scrambling eggs.

"So, we didn't talk about it," he said. "Jumin…"

Oh, I thought. Here it comes. I quickly sucked in a breath and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. "Oh yeah?" I said, trying to act natural. "What about him?"

"What about him?" Zen said, spinning around looking somewhat surprised. "He just tried to drug you, MC…"

"You don't know that," I blurted.

Zen switched off the stove and removed the pan of eggs from the burner in such a way that revealed his irritation.

"I don't?" He said, his eyes now a glowing red. I held his gaze.

"No," I said, confidently. "You don't."

Zen grabbed two plates from the cabinet, clanking them angrily on the counter. "You too, MC?" he said in reference to Jaehee. "Why are you also defending that jerk?"
"Babe," I said, striding over to touch him on the shoulder. "I'm not… I just…" I sifted my brain for the right words. I was a horrible liar. This wasn't going to be easy. Jaehee better come up with something soon, I thought.

"It's just…" I started again. "Well, you and Jumin don't get along that well anyways, right? Do you think, umm…" I let my hand slide down his arm and wrapped his fingers in mine. "Do you think that maybe you could be... jumping to conclusions?"

Zen bit his lower lip and broke our gaze. I could see him struggling, considering my words. What I was saying was kind of true, though. We didn't really have the whole story, and even though the part of it that I only knew pointed toward "guilty" the thought of Jumin drugging me still seemed ludicrous.

After what seemed like a long moment, Zen sighed. "Maybe," he said, relenting. His red eyes shot up to mine. "But that doesn't mean I'm dropping this… I'm going to find out what happened." He turned to gaze out the window toward the street, which was already bustling. Since it was a basement apartment, you could only see the lower third of people's legs as they hurried by. It wasn't much of a view.

"Damn it," Zen said. "People with money, people with privilege, they think they can act any way they want…" He exhaled so sharply his bangs jumped. "I'm going to get answers."

When I got to work the office seemed more a buzz than usual. There were groups of people gathered around each other's desks, smirking and pointing to something on their computer screens. Obviously, whatever it was, it was hilarious. Must be a new meme, I thought.

I was more curious about whether or not Jumin was here yet, and if I was going to make it past his office without a sit-down. I held my breath as I approached the glass wall of his office, keeping my head down and walking a little faster than usual. As I passed by, I glanced sideways out of the corner of my eye. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the tall leather chair was empty. Thank god.

I made my way to my desk, sat down and logged onto the messenger app. I had a message from Saeyoung. Check your FakeBook, it read, coupled with an animated emoji of the redheaded genius winking and snapping his fingers. Curious, I powered up my computer and logged on to FakeBook right away. Oh my god, I thought, so this is what everyone in the office is buzzing about.

There was a new meme. "Someone" had made several green screen images of Echo Girl available, the kind you could easily photoshop into any picture. In every single photo she was wearing that god awful yellow gingham dress, each with a different caricature expression on her face. There was Echo Girl, pouty and pissed, angry and shouting, with a learing smile, with her tongue hanging like a dog, etc. Altogether there were about fifteen expressions to choose from and people were going to town with them, editing and posting them as various memes. There was one of the tongue-hanging-out Echo Girl superimposed in a field of wildflowers, straight out of out of Little House on the Prairie. The caption read "Anyone seen my sheep?" There was another one with a superimposed image of Echo Girl looking shocked replacing the old woman in Grant Wood's famous painting American Gothic with the caption "Herman just gave me a wedgie". Ok, so like most memes, I really didn't get any of them, but Echo Girl looked ridiculous in all of them, which was the important part. It made very happy, very happy indeed.

I felt a very satisfied smile stretch ear-to-ear. Way to go, Saeyoung, I thought, way to go. We were well on our way.

Just before lunch, I got an idea. On my way out to grab a bite, I took the elevator down to the basement to visit the costumes department. Armin, the head costume designer, was working on the hem of what looked like a grand purple riding jacket.

"Hey, Armin," I said. "What you got there? Are we expecting a Prince impersonator?" My brain couldn't help but try to put two and two together. What kind of cat-something-with-Prince business idea could Jumin possibly come up with? I smirked at the thought.

"Well, hello there, MC," Arim said, looking up. He was a Pinocchio's grandfather type, only gay and with much better fashion sense. "What can I do for you?"

"Well," I said. "I'm here to ask a favor…" I paused and smiled wryly. "It may be kind of a win-win situation."

Armin's eyebrows went up, interested. I went on to tell him I think I had a way to get that yellow gingham dress off his hands for good. I knew, from working on the cat commercial, that Armin hated that dress. He hated being forced to design it for Jumin in the first place. He hated having it cataloged in the inventory, where it could be selected again for another shoot and another production credit.

"I just despise the fact that that dress exists," he had told me as he was adding the grand white doily collar and cuffs at Jumin's request. "It's a tarnish to my reputation as a designer and an artist… I can't believe my name is attached to a garment of such..." He snapped his fingers in the air, looking for the right words. "... of such prudish gaiety…"

To make a long story short, Armin was quite happy to hand over the dress to me to help me make it "disappear". I told him I'd take the heat if anyone ever found out.

"I'll say Echo Girl wanted to keep it," I said. "For her personal collection."

After saying good-bye to Armin, I headed out to lunch, but instead of going to get something to eat, I stopped off at a local seamstress shop. There was a young girl, about sixteen, sitting at the counter, pecking at her phone.

"Can I help you?" she asked, not even looking up.

"Yes," I said, laying the dress out on the counter. "I'd like to have a handkerchief made from the material of this dress…"

The girl caught a glimpse of the dress out of the corner of her eye and then both eyes went wide. "Wait, isn't that…?" she said, looking up at me in surprise and recognition.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, pretending not to know. That meme must be making its way around, I thought.

Just then, an older rounder woman emerged from the back. "Suki, what, do we have a customer?"

The girl started to respond, but I butted in. "Yes, I'd like a handkerchief fashioned from this material… the yellow gingham, bordered by the lace cuffs," I said, explaining.

The woman bustled over to the counter and fingered the material for a moment. "Of course," she said. "It can be done…" Then she gave me a suspicious look. "Is this, may I ask, a gift?"

"No," I lied, feeling the low heat of shame creep into my cheeks. "It's for me."

"Really?" the woman said. She knew as well as I did that gifting a handkerchief meant bad luck for someone. Everyone knows - at least in Korean culture - that a gifted handkerchief is a harbinger of sad things and tears to come for the receiver.

"Really," I assured her, but I was lying. I kenw I was planning on gifting that handkerchief to Echo Girl.

When I got back to the office after lunch, I noticed that Jumin still hadn't made it into the office. Hmm, I thought.

As soon as I got back to my desk, I gave Jaehee a call. She answered after the third ring.

"Hello?" Jaehee said, as if she couldn't see the caller ID.

"Jaehee," I said, glancing quickly over both shoulders to make sure no one was in ear shot. "It's me. What's going on?" I paused and when she didn't answer, I added: "Time's almost up."

"I need some more time," Jaehee started.

"Uh-uh," I said. "No way, no can do. We had a deal." I glanced in the direction of Jumin's glass office. "Where's Jumin, anyway? It's not like him to miss work."

Jaehee was quiet for a moment on the other end of the line.

"Jaehee?" I prompted. "Are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here," she said and she sighed. "Come by my office before you leave, around 5pm. I'll tell you what you need to know then."

Before I could answer, the line went dead, click. She had hung up without even saying goodbye. That was so rude, so utterly not-Jaehee. I found myself a little thankful I hadn't had time to eat lunch because suddenly my stomach was churning in an up-chuck kind of way. I wasn't so sure I wanted to hear what she had to say.

At five o'clock, I grabbed my things and went straight to Jaehee's office, a small renovated broom closet at the end of the north hall across from the men's bathroom. I tapped on the half open door. The placard, I noticed, didn't even include her name; it simply read: "Assistant to Jumin Han".

"Come," Jaehee called from inside.

I pushed the door open and squeezed myself into the folding chair across from her desk, which was piled high with papers and surrounded by towering file cabinets.

"Hello, Jaehee," I said.

"Hello, MC," she said. "Did you eat a good lunch?"

I swallowed, remembering my lunchtime errand, and then felt a little guilty about the handkerchief I was intending to gift to Echo Girl. What kind of person was I becoming? Obviously the kind that steals dresses and doesn't eat lunch.

"Uh, yeah," I said. I guess you could add "the kind of person who lies about small things" to that list. "And you?"

"I had some take-out," she said.

"Take-out is bad for you," I said.

"Yes, I know," Jaehee replied, and then she sighed. "Look, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just get right to the point."

"Ok," I said, bracing myself for the worst. "What is it?"

"Well," she said. "I didn't tell you exactly everything last night."

A chill started to make its way up my spine. "What do you mean, Jaehee?"

"Well," she started and then cleared her throat. "Well, the pictures aren't the only thing I found…"

"Oh god…" I groaned both inwardly and outwardly. So there was more to this story...

Jaehee went on to explain to me that, when she was taking the Higanbana flowers and the card with my name scrawled in red ink to the incinerator, she hadn't been able to help herself.

"I just had to know," she said.

"Had to know what?" I said, although I think I did.

"You know," she said. "What the card said… Just in case. You know that anything relating to the company ultimately comes down to me. If anything were to happen, if there was a lawsuit or a scandal, it would be my responsibility." Jaehee ran her hands frantically through her brown hair in a way I hadn't seen before. She was visibly stressed...and kind of scaring me.

"God, Jaehee…" I said.

"I just had to get ahead of it, you see?" she said, her eyes went wide and were kind of bugging out behind her glasses. There was zero of the calm and collected Assistant Kang that I was used to. Suddenly I saw that I needed to step in and take control.

"Ok, Jaehee," I said. "Just calm down." I spied a pitcher of water and some glasses on top of one of the shorter file cabinets to my left. I got up and poured her a glass of water. When she took it, I noticed her hands were shaking.

"Ok," I said, after she'd taken a few sips. I didn't know if I had the patience to wait until she'd calmed down. "Tell me what's going on. One thing at a time. Starting with: what did the card say?"

Jaehee placed the water glass on her desk, then took her glasses off and starting rubbing her eyes. After a moment, she reached to open one of the side drawers of her desk and pulled out a what looked like a plain white card.

"Oh wow," I said, recognizing the size and shape—it would've fit perfectly inside the envelope with my name written in red ink. "You kept it?"

Jaehee tossed the card across the desk towards me within reach, and I picked it up. The card read:

You are my sweet desire

My everlasting source of fire

Drink my potion in your wine

And once forever, MC, be mine.

"Jesus," I said, shivering with what I felt was a newfound level of creepiness. "What is this?"

"That's what I said," said Jaehee. "Then I did some poking around on the internet. It appears that it's an activation incantation for a love potion."

"A love potion?" I said, incredulous. "You can't be serious…"

Jaehee nodded gravely and then slid another piece of paper across the desk. It was a couple of pages stapled together, a print out from a website called WithoutAWitch. I scanned the pages quickly. A recipe for a love potion? Seriously?

"You'll notice that some of the ingredients, St. John's Wort and Valerian, in particular..." Jaehee started to explain. "Both of these herbs have known adverse side effects, including drowsiness, photosensitivity and nausea."

Which is exactly what I experienced, I thought. Thinking back to that night at the karaoke bar, I remembered how I felt woozy when standing up, how the flashbulbs of the cameras had affected me, how all of the sudden I had felt like throwing up.

"Jesus…" I said. It was all I could say. I was stunned. A love potion, really? From the level-headed Jumin?

It was as if Jaehee had been reading my thoughts. "Yes, I know," she said. "It seems so out of character, but I fear he is really having a break with reality."

Jaehee said she had confronted Jumin with the information last night, after she'd encountered Zen in the chatroom. At first, he pretended not to know what she was talking about, but Jaehee kept pressing with follow-up questions and additional evidence. She said Jumin had eventually gotten angry, stormed out of the room and locked himself up on the third floor with Elizabeth the 3rd.

"I know he seems distant and cold on the outside," Jaehee said. "But he's really not like that." She sighed and began to rub her temples. "You know, I think I knew it back at the time, that he had a thing for you, way back during that first week in the chat room…"

"Yeah, I remember," I said, not wanting to remember. Jumin would pop into the chat room pretty often. Honestly, at the time, I'd thought he was handsome and he definitely had the kind of intelligence that peaked my interest. Oddly, though, on the flipside, he'd both complain about being lonely, and then brag about how he had no need for emotions. Part of me kind of liked that he was "complicated", but then I remembered how well I'd done with "complicated" when I dated Kwang-jo. I'd learned my lesson, no thank you.

Then, on Day 5, when it became apparent that Zen and I were becoming a thing, Jumin's character turn passive aggressive, slightly hostile. He started getting jealous of our interactions, saying they were "cringey", and picking particularly on Zen. First he called Zen out for his drinking and smoking. Then he ridiculed him, calling him shallow, narrow-minded and, ironically, hostile. Finally he'd started in on Zen about how he should be the model for his new cat commercial, and that was when it turned into a full-on chat room brawl.

"I don't think he ever got over it," Jaehee said. "He was used to having women throw themselves at his feet, but not so used to developing feelings for someone himself." She said, sighing. "Honestly, I doubt he knew what was happening to him…and I doubt he knows now."

"God, Jaehee," I said. "He's acting like a kid pulling a girl's braids in grade school because he likes her."

"Yes," Jaehee admitted. "He is acting inappropriately, but not out of malice."

Jaehee was right. When it came down to it, I knew Jumin was a good man. It wasn't his fault that he'd had an unhappy childhood and no good role model for how to be in a good romantic relationship. The Chairman, Jumin's father, had always had a revolving door of young mistresses in his life. It's not that the Chairman's girlfriends weren't nice to Jumin, it's probably more likely that maybe some of them were too nice. I could see how that could make him feel increasingly uncomfortable. I sighed to myself. God, poor Jumin. He deserved to be happy.

"We have to help him," I said, suddenly. Already I knew I had a battle ahead of me trying to explain all of this to Zen. I could already hear his voice inside my head.

"But babe, you realize this is the man who tried to poison you," Zen would say. "You could be dead right now."

"But I'm not," I'd reply. "Besides, they were only herbs… Jumin didn't want me dead."

"No," Zen would say, his red eyes burning with anger. "He only wanted you alive and in his bed… God!" Then he'd pause and try to shake the image he'd just had of me and Jumin out of his head. "Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse."

"Babe," I'd say, putting a hand on his shoulder. Then I'd give him a loving and earnest look. "No need to be so jealous. I love you. Don't you want Jumin to be happy, to be as happy as you are?"

"No," Zen would say, quickly and definitively. "I don't. I think that arrogant prick can live happily ever after with that damn cat of his, for all I care…"

"But babe," I'd plead, pulling my last card. "Jumin is RFA… He's family…"

And that was pretty much how the actual conversation went...

Whoa... it's all happening. I feel like Jumin's motives are revealing themselves... Thanks (always) for reading, commenting, making suggestions, etc. ... it's both motivating and helps me think about the characters and where to go next... Stay tuned :-)