Dark Tide

Chapter 1

Their driver is dropping them at their apartment complex when the motorbike pulls up beside them. Her husband's phone has slipped under the driver's seat, and he's grappling aimlessly for it, worse for soju and beer, whilst their driver rolls his eyes at her knowingly. She waits out on the pavement for Minseok, their car blocking the entrance to the parking level, and the bike pulls closer as the rider revs his engine. She throws a scowl at his impatience, and the noise of the bike diminishes. The rider raises his visor, his dark eyes illuminated by the lighting from the entrance tunnel. She meets his stare, and her bag slips from her shoulder in shock as his eyes widen in mutual recognition. Minseok is beside her now, and their driver pulls away. The bike doesn't move, and she can hear her heart pounding in her forehead, as his huge eyes hold her gaze. Minseok touches her arm, unaware of why she is rooted to the pavement, and, as they enter the complex, the bike revs and speeds downwards into the parking area.

Later, she lies awake and restless, watching the angular shapes of the shadows on her ceiling. She knows Minseok lies comatose in the room down the corridor, but her mind tries to imagine another apartment, further below, where she now knows he lies. She wonders if he is sleeping with his dark lashes lying like fans against his cheeks, or if he lies awake too; unsettled by the bizarre coincidence of seeing her again.

*******

It is two weeks later, just past midnight on a Friday. Minseok is in the US, a business trip neatly scheduled to suit his social arrangements, and she has been with friends in Itaewon. She has given their driver the weekend off, preferring to use taxis when she's alone, still uncomfortable with the decadent notion of having a driver at her beck and call. The taxi drops her at the street corner and, as she approaches, a single headlight pulls out towards her from the parking level. As she shields her eyes from the piercing beam, the noise of an engine roars and swerving wheels slew alongside her. She somehow knows it is him before she lowers her hand. His visor is up, and he holds out a helmet towards her.

"Get on," he says, his voice muffled by his helmet, as she gapes at his impetuous order. She cannot move, cannot think, feels the rumble of the engine merge with her thudding heart.
"Get on!" His voice is impatient, and he thrusts the helmet towards her.

Later, she cannot quite recall how she takes the helmet from his insistent hands, nor how she climbs on behind him. She vaguely remembers feeling pleased that she is wearing flat boots and feeling worried that her dress will somehow catch in the wheels, as he lowers his visor and tells her to hang onto him. He barely slows down as he turns the corner at the bottom of the hill and steers them out into the traffic on the main road. Time moves so quickly as they cross the Hangang, and weave in and out of taxis and buses, that she struggles to process quite what the hell has just happened. She hasn't ridden on a bike since she was in London, on Emily's scooter, but the way he swerves around slow traffic and the sensation of her arms gripping his waist feels altogether more dangerous and unhinged. As they leave the busier roads behind, after Gwangjin-gu, and she is sure he must be ignoring the speed limits, she turns her head sideways against the back of his jacket; almost imagining she can feel the leather warm against her skin. The sensation of the wind ripples against her thighs, and the lights of store fronts and building windows streak backwards past her gaze, like the firecrackers she watched from her roof terrace on Seollal. At Mangu-dong, the streets become quieter, and the buildings less illuminated, and it is almost as if the eyes of the city are closing as they pass, riding away from the pretence and falseness that she knows is her life now.

As they climb upwards on a narrowing road, she feels a knot of panic rising in her stomach: a mixture of nervous excitement from being pressed against him and sinking terror at the preposterousness of what she has done. And yet she knows she had no choice. Every moment of the past two weeks she has been drowning in the image of his eyes, and the memory of the sea at Songjiho. Everything that she had locked away neatly in her mind has tumbled out like a violent torrent making her distracted and impulsive again.