failures III » kpop ✓

chapter 10

· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 10 « strange addiction »

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To me, one of the more gruesome things about the Red light district, was the way that horrible things were happening in plain sight, but everyone ignored them. The flashing signs, smiling promoters and the smell of cotton candy easily concealed the real horrors of the illegal establishments where people were forced to do bad things for money that in the end they never even saw. People walked right past the shadowy entrances in to what was essentially their prisons, took pictures, bought souvenirs, went back home and forgot about them forever.

Lady L's massage parlor was perhaps one of the worst establishments in the entire district. Not necessarily because of the conditions that the girls worked in or the things that they were forced to do, but because of their madam - a bitter old woman who didn't hesitate to beat them if she was in a bad mood. I always turned around when I saw her at the entrance, but that day there was no sight of her. Another man was sitting behind a window that was covered with old newspapers to give a false sense of privacy to the customers. They thought that they were safe, but they were still being filmed by a hidden security camera. I still got a bad feeling when he gave me my change back and I caught a glimpse of his eyes, watching me through the cracks that were between the newspapers.

My old friend Kanako was surprised to see me, but she didn't hesitate to give me a hug. Her and I knew each other from the mental hospital where I was locked up for a while. She was there too, trying to get past a particularly horrible manic episode. I met her on the balcony of the hospital, where she tended to smoke cigarettes from morning to night and her and I quickly bonded over our common views at the world that we liked to describe as a wretched place that people deserved to be saved from. A couple of months after Seulgi took me away from there, we met each other again, right here, in the most horrible place of all.

'' You should be careful, Kirin. I heard that a former gangster just got shot from Kazuo's people. He's in a bad mood because of the deaths of those prostitutes, '' Kanako explained and sighed. '' The district is overflowing with undercover cops because of them. ''

'' Do you really think that he is not responsible for those murders? '' I curiously asked. '' It would make sense for him to order their deaths. Call girls are always the ones that end up accidentally knowing too much about things that they shouldn't. ''

Kanako lit up a cigarette and explained: '' Rumors are that they are targeted by one of the regulars at the host club Lovers 100. The girls all used to work there and people are saying that their services probably got booked by the wrong person. Someone important, but also sick in the head. ''

The massage parlor was separated in different rooms, but Kanako's was undoubtedly the prettiest. She was the most popular girl who worked there too, she got a lot of important customers and when I paid her a visit, she always had some new information that she could give me. I admired the way she never forgot to curl her soft blonde hair or spray apricot scented perfume around the pink room where she worked. Even the sheets on the bed that was sometimes used for massaging, other times for different things, were always neatly folded.

Her mental illness didn't disappear and it never would, but she undoubtedly got good enough to lead a somewhat structured life, where she managed to go from sunrise to sunset without losing her mind. It took her a lot of pills to stabilize her behavior and even more effort for her to drag herself out of the dark place that she was stuck in, but now that she was holding the reins, she wasn't determined to lose control again.

'' Kirin, I don't know what you're doing right now, but have you thought about going back to the hospital? ''

I raised my head and looked at Kanako. In front of someone who went through the same thing as me, I couldn't hide the reality of my situation. '' I'm okay. ''