“Sit down and shut the fuck up. You don’t want to know what’s going to happen if I have to get out of this chair.”
Kyung waits, listening for Vivi or Tim to stumble out of their beds. Connie spared no volume, which was meant to intimidate him, to make him behave. He realizes how different he must have sounded when he told Jin not to hit Mae again. He can almost hear his weak, frightened voice, just trying to spit out the words. Connie spoke with the kind of force that Kyung didn’t possess as a teenager, leaving no room for doubt about the consequences of his decision. If he doesn’t sit down again, he’s going to suffer. Kyung is terrified now, terrified and desperate and filled with an overwhelming desire to make his father feel exactly as he does, if only Connie would let him. He rests his hand on a table, and the idea comes to him quickly, so quickly that he doesn’t stop to think before he acts. He picks up a candle and swings, hearing the hard strike of bone against glass. Connie slumps forward in his chair, dropping his arms to the floor.
The room is suddenly quiet. Nothing, no one—not even Kyung—moves. He holds the jar in his outstretched hand, counting the seconds as they pass. Five, ten … He’s never hit a man before; he thinks he hit him much harder than he meant to. Connie remains folded over his lap, his back rising and falling with each breath. Fifteen, twenty … As Kyung returns the candle to the table, a single word begins to beat through his head like a drum. Run. The longer he waits, the louder he hears it, but he inches toward Connie’s chair instead.
“Are you … are you okay?” he whispers, pushing him upright.
Connie slowly opens his eyes at the sound of Kyung’s voice, blinking like someone waking from a heavy sleep.
“What”—he reaches up, wincing as he touches the back of his head—“what happened?”
He stares at Kyung, his expression confused. Dazed, almost. And then there’s a flicker—a bright, angry flicker in which Connie appears to remember exactly what happened. “Idiot,” he says hoarsely. “You stupid … stupid…” He shifts in his seat, about to get up, but standing seems to require more strength than he has. He winces again as he leans against the headrest. Then his chin rolls forward and he passes out.
The word continues to beat, even louder and faster than it did before. Run. And this time, Kyung has to listen. Every muscle in his body is awake now, vibrating with the horror of what he’s done and what he knows he has to do next.
*
There’s a single lamp glowing in the living room window, a single figure sitting on the sofa inside. The front door is unlocked, as if Jin is expecting him. There’s no use trying to deny it now. He and his father share the same mind. Jin knew what Kyung would learn at the police station, so he returned to his house in the Heights to spare Ethan, to prevent him from witnessing what Kyung had so many times as a child. His choice to come here is the closest thing to an acknowledgment of his wrongdoing, an invitation to end this where it all began.
Kyung makes no effort to enter the house quietly. He announces himself by throwing his keys on the floor. It’s not the element of surprise that he’s after. What he wants to incite most is dread. He remembers it so clearly from his childhood—hearing something as innocent as a plate or glass break and then the awful wait, wondering when the screaming would start, wondering how long he’d have to count before it stopped. No wall was thick enough, no door closed tightly enough to keep the words from reaching him. Ha ji mah! Ah pa. “Don’t! It hurts.” There was no such thing as mercy then. No mercy, no pity, no god, no grace. Only open palms and closed fists and the seed of this moment planting somewhere deep inside him.
Jin remains seated on the sofa when Kyung enters the living room. He doesn’t seem alarmed, or even worried to see him. He just sits there with his elbow propped up on a pillow, drinking a bourbon or Scotch. He empties what’s left of his glass and refills it, three fingers high, from a bottle on the end table. Kyung walks past the sofa, saying nothing as he pours himself a whiskey from the bar.
“You saw him at the police station?” Jin asks.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Was he sorry?” He clears his throat. “About what he did to us?”
Kyung thinks for a moment as he settles into the armchair across from Jin. The word “sorry” never crossed Nat Perry’s lips. “No, he wasn’t. Not at all. Are you sorry?”
“Would it matter to you if I was?”
Kyung thinks about this too. “No.”
“Then there’s no reason to say that I am.”