Viktoria Jean

{Installation} – [oo1]

…he rolls the strange word around his tongue, “Home.”
To a vagabond, the concept of belonging constantly emerges as an entirely new sensation.

January 2017
South Korea

Jae cruises down Myeongdong alley, slows down only to briefly admire a pair of attractive well-heeled legs that were thinly veiled by sheer hosiery, elegantly crossed at the ankles. She was nonetheless not enough of a looker for Jae to lower his sunglasses; fashion can only get a girl this far along the attraction spectrum. His engine revved with increased volume as he sped, this time undisturbed, toward his studio.

Nested in downtown Myeongdong, inconspicuously hidden by retail giants fifteen times the height of his apartment, Jae’s minimalist studio was home to unrestrained creativity, an outlet for the restlessness in his soul. Soft red velvet cushions and satin blinds in the same scarlet red stood out against the dark monochrome grey leather couch lined by black carpeted floor. Colour never did provided him any comfort, apart from his strange love for deep pulsating shades of scarlet. Perhaps to enhance a sense of privacy, he had chosen cautiously dimmed lighting with the exception of his sketching desk – so brightly lit one had to squint to avoid the sheer impact of such luminescence. Prince Jae generally liked his interiors dark.

His brisk walk to his apartment while rummaging through a black bag pack for his keys is interrupted by a slight scuffle of a shoe, detectable only amidst sheer silence. Raising an eyebrow, Jae slows to a cautious tiptoe. He briefly checks his cellphone but none of his clients had made appointments.

Nobody else ever made it up here to this apartment’s equivalent of an attic, albeit luxury-sized, as Jae had made the owner put a danger barricade beyond which all other occupants had zero access to.  Unless…

He makes no sudden movement, but a hand slips stealthily into his left breast pocket, feeling for the cool metal of his .38 Smith & Wesson. He continues to tread calmly across his studio hallway.

“Jae,” says a raspy tone, “still living large I see.”

The aforementioned releases a chuckle and lets down his guard. Jae’s deep voice suddenly voids itself of bass as he embraces his old friend. “You nearly startled me.”

“Here I thought nothing scared you.”

“Vigilance is my middle name.” And he unlocks his apartment to Pierre, a rare remnant from a lost childhood.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Reina ducks as a shower of hardcover textbooks whacks her out of her mid-afternoon reverie.

“Sorry! Bookshelf getting old,” Eiji, part-time book-store manager and full time jerk, calls out jokingly from the attic. Reina rolls her eyes at Eiji’s armful of textbooks – more ammo to be fired at his best friend trying to cram for a finals paper in 12 hours.

“Eiji! I’m trying to study.”

Eiji flashes a cheeky, charming grin. “You know, this could be a good way of getting knowledge into your brain, in case last-ditch cramming doesn’t work.”

“Damn you Eiji.” Pulling on a pair of old headphones, she tries to mask the hustle-bustle of Myeongdong in the late afternoon, as well as Eiji’s teasing and awful singing.

He swings from the high bookshelf ladder and lands perfectly beside Reina – a move perfected over their tumultuous years of best-friendship. “Come on Rei, lighten up! It’s your last paper. Let’s catch a midnight movie tomorrow alright?”

She slams her book shut in annoyance. “Can’t you let me have 2seconds of peace, Eiji?”

“Nope. Perks of being your bestie. First dips at driving you insane.” Leaning over, he tickles her relentlessly until the pair rolls from couch to floor in fits of laughter, with Eiji on top. Reina shrieks, twists away in attempt to escape but fails even after several tries, knocking over her pile of notes in the process. Her reading material scatters and carpets the cherry wood floor in a ink-scribbled white paper. Abruptly, as if remembering that there were people around, she stops squirming away.

A moment of awkward silence later, Reina untangles her hand from Eiji’s hair to sit up. Eiji watches her loosened hand intently, determined not to look anywhere else – especially not at her blouse which was now carelessly unbuttoned to reveal bright pink inners…and he shyly rubs the back of his neck.

“Sorry.”

“Me too,” Reina bites her top lip and looks at the opened books lying all around them, ” we made a mess! Gosh…let me arrange that.”

Eiji pulls Reina to her feet before she could argue, and pushes her back on the couch. “You sit, let me. The mess is all mine.” He opens her textbook to the exact page she was on earlier before the interruption.

“And please Rei, button that top. I can’t take it anymore.”

Reina slowly fumbles with her buttons, staring at Eiji’s back as he busies with the rosewood shelves. As she resumes focus on her study, Eiji’s steady hands were all she could think about.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“What brought you home, Crusoe?”

“Taking a breather. I have left the streets,” Pierre pauses to swirl the ice-cubes around his chilled Americano, watching the little squares clink on the sides of his glass, as though expecting something more extraordinary to happen.

“How long is it gonna be this time, Pierre?”

“Long enough, as long as I stay undiscovered.” He knocks back a long shot of coffee.

Jae resisted the urge to catechize: what was it this time? Had he killed a man, robbed a bank, or cleaned out an entire estate? As Jae observes, a thin veil of moist from the glass’s rim glistens at the scar that ran parallel to Pierre’s lips, morphing smiles into a semi grimace, Jae feels a familiar tug at his heart strings – a deep stab of pain he once knew like the back of his hand.

Knowingly, Pierre swipes the scar with the back of his hand, shrugs and smiles comfortingly. “Been too long and the scar has numbed itself, healed. Time to move on yourself, pal.”

But he can never move on without the knowledge of what had transpired. Pierre’s code of honor to Jae’s dead father is something above and beyond the courage that exists within the young lad holding on to a promise never to reveal the enemy, lest Jae should take the fatal path of hatred and revenge.

“I wake up every morning with the resolution of moving on, only to realize that at the end of the day, nothing has changed. Not me, not the world,” Jae shakes his head resolutely, continues, “The world is a cosmogony, and even so I’m on the outside looking in, plotting an entrance. My curiosity brands me just like your scar.” He grips his glass so tight, his knuckles turn white.

“That world you generalize is not everything. You don’t have to be in it. They are not to be messed with, Jae. You told me to stay out of the streets yourself! Its ridiculous if I’m out of it and you’re bidding your time to go in.”

“And when I do, it will be the first and the last time I’m associating myself with that world.”

“You’ve always associated yourself with that world. You’ve kept yourself so secluded, full of rage, just like your dad! One day you’ll set yourself ablaze. You don’t even know who and what you’re fighting against! There is no cause for your resistance. Why don’t you take it from me, and learn to live for something real. ” Pierre’s volume increases with his laden warning. In his own head, he sees faces of the dead – friends, passerbys, allies, enemies, and people he had loved and lost.

Jae visibly stiffens. A moment of tension passes between the grown men, whose pride and stubborn hot-headness are very much the same as before.

“If you spent every bloody waking hour obsessing over righting a wrong, over seeking closure and vengeance if that’s what it takes, then like me, you would know.”

Jae’s deep-set fury was masked, but Pierre has always known that for a fact. His ensuing silence posits empathy, and he forsakes the stab at discouraging Jae’s lifelong preoccupation with finding out who were his father’s traitors.

“Enough about me, Pierre,” a moment later Jae waves a hand dismissively,  “So tell me, why are you back?”

“Just making my rounds, routine home-coming.”

“Home-coming? Not like you, Pierre, not at all.“

Pierre traces a finger along the spines of a stack of books lining Jae’s bookshelf. “You’re right. I’m not sure I’m even me anymore,” he pauses to inspect a book, and then replaces it. He looks Jae in the eye. “That’s what life does to people.”

Both takes a moment to brood on this thought as they revive past habits of working their jaws on crushed ice.

“In any case…. I’m glad you’re home.” Jae breaks the moment with heart-felt sincerity.

“Me too.” Pierre smiles genuinely and rolls the strange word around his tongue, “Home.” To a vagabond like him, the concept of belonging constantly emerges as an entirely new sensation.

“Now, who wants more brandy?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Looking like the archetype of discretion – a low-slung haversack thrown over a casual black suit – Pierre walks inconspicuously downtown, keeping his senses on high alert for a messenger of sorts.

He had received an anonymous text from Nagasaki, instructing him to locate a messenger, newly deported from Las Vegas, who holds the crucial link to a large investment sum. In this case, money would save hundreds of lives.

Navy office suit, expensive earrings and a grey briefcase – that was his clue. Accustomed to ambiguity, Pierre’s vagrant instincts serve him well. Nevertheless to isolate one woman amongst the throngs of prostitues in this district was tougher than manually separating sugar from salt.

Once or twice he spots the cues, but those women lacked one thing or another. He walks with increasing speed, avoiding all female-like creatures in varying states of semi-nakedness flinging their desperate bodies into his zone.

He spots a young lady in a navy blue blazer at the entrance of Millers’ Pub, whose short skirt swishes to reveal a considerable length of porcelain white skin – an unintentional attraction that catches his eye. For a split second he wonders if she could be the messenger. Then his expert eye zooms in on her pale face, all wide-eyed suppleness, strikingly exposed like hooked liver on dangled bait. She wasn’t the messenger he’s looking for, but she’s definitely here for another reason.

Their eyes met. Pierre feels a tug in his chest. Eyes narrowed, he grimaced in her direction, walks past without a second glance, and then turns into the next alley.

Upon losing sight of the bustling main street, he exhales deeply and takes great comfort in the gloom of the avenue. The streetlamps were extinguished – some cracked and others smashed. His lack of visibility sharpens his remaining senses, his ears picks up timid footsteps from the rear, probably harmless. And there she is – flanked by scarlet red lips a cigar dangles from between her perfect teeth and as she steps closer she reveals a grey briefcase from beneath a suit of navy-blue, unclasps the lock and swings out a revolver, aims it straight into Pierre’s unguarded chest.

There are women who could physically subdue a man, who could make a man do her bidding. Then there are women who could unknowingly touch the careless depths within a man, and those were the most dangerous of all.

—–

Scarlet Carousel ©
Think of your lifetime as a long carousel ride. With luck you get to mount on the ride of your choice. Some seats will always be more desired than others. Opportunities to switch may arise. The ups and downs are rhythmical and inevitable. You may choose allies to ride alongside, or choose to face this ride alone. The only way to get off is when your ride ends.

Who gets to dictate the start or the end?

A vagabond on the run, bearing a secret he sworn to keep from his best friend – a hardened man who built his empire from a great loss. A constant sidekick who’s always desired to be the protagonist, and the love of his life who doesn’t know it yet. A girl who is dangerously unaware of the depths of her fears.

What will unite or tear them apart in this journey, this ride of a lifetime?

✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫

To be continued…
The full chapter list over here.

Author’s Note: this is a 2020 reboot – some caffeine-boosted late-night attempts at injecting life into my creative soul. All comments welcome.

xoxo
Viktoria Jean