Park Chae-Yeong runs her family restaurant with all the flourish of one who has been in the business of fried chicken and bibimbap for a long time. She meets me in the half empty dining hall after rush hour, brushing strips of hair away from her tired, sweaty face. All around us the city settles down as lights blink on in apartments and condominiums. It takes Chae-Yeong a few minutes to believe my story of gathering materials for an officially sanctioned book. The war has left many paranoid.
I was a teacher back then. Godeung hakgyo, what you will probably call high school in English. My job was to hammer the basics of human anatomy and sexual reproduction into students who were clearly bored and wanted to go home, or smoke weed behind the premises, or just laze around. It may be hard to believe now, but I did not want to give in to my father's nagging and take up the family tradition. For me, an independent life away from the hustle bustle of business was very important. And the pay was good, so who the hell was I to complain?
About Jeong, I would like to go on record right now and tell you that she was the sweetest, most considerate girl I have ever met in my life. Her parents were both cashiers at Kookmin Bank which allowed them to enroll their daughter at a top notch private school. Quiet and shy at first. I remember someone stuck a rose and a love letter under her desk once and she blushed after every ten minutes for the rest of the day. Good in studies. Averse to smoking and drinking unlike many of her classmates. You can say she was the ideal student.
The only weakness Jeong ever displayed was her love for K-pop. Now, people all across the world listened to our songs in those days, even more than native Koreans if some old timers are to be believed. But she was obsessed with them, especially the group GTS. When she was not buried in a book of Physics or Shakespeare she would be sitting with her back against a tree, headphones plugged into her phone and music playing on a loop. Friends, teachers, fights, stray dogs, street vendors all ceased to affect her in that moment. Even if a war broke out in front of her Jeong would not have noticed.
In later days the police scraped her laptop and found a 102 GB folder crammed with the pictures of all the seven members of GTS in various concerts, charity functions, cafes, burger joints and airports. Screenshots of news articles which merely mentioned them in passing had been organized so carefully, a librarian would curl up in jealousy and die. Deeper search revealed more disturbing things. You have probably heard of it by now. Deepfakes of the lead singer Joon buck naked, covered in tattoos, getting sucked by a hot stripped whose face, quite understandably, had been swapped with Jeong's in an erotic fantasy. Yeah, that is what obsession with a pop icon does to people.
The much touted and analyzed incident happened in the school canteen, so I had a first rate view. But I must tell you about the fight one day prior. You see, Katie was the exact opposite of Jeong but the both of them always stuck together. Like melted chocolate and wrapper. Jeong would help her with homework and Katie would introduce her to the hottest boys in the city in turn. It was a fair exchange and it worked, until the moment Katie turned up her nose and declared GTS a cheap knockoff of her favorite band, The Topknots.
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Chae-Yeong looks sad. I have never seen such a catfight before. By the time three of us teachers got to the classroom, both the girls had torn each others' uniforms and scratched their faces bloody. Jeong was screeching like a whole forest of owls and sobbing at the same time while Katie simply looked a mixture of dazed and hostile. The Principal summoned the parents. Both were given a nasty earful each and suspended for three days. I thought that was the end of it. Everyone thought that was the end of it.
Nobody saw Jeong for a whole week. She did not answer texts or calls, there were no Facebook updates, not even a ping in the cyberspace that would help us contact her. Most people thought she had taken the scrap to heart and needed some time off. I dismissed the case entirely. This is one of the biggest cities in the world and a nerve center of pop culture. Teenagers get unruly all the time in Seoul.
After seven days, I was in the canteen to grab a quick lunch before my next class. A sudden commotion made me turn around and there she was. Jeong, looking like she had not slept for years. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes were blank. She just stood there in front of Katie's table like a shop mannequin. A small crowd was beginning to gather. People stopped to stare, some took out their phones to record what was evidently about to become either a reunion or another installment in the drama.
It happened in a blur. One moment Jeong was standing still, the next her arm was rising and falling like a piston. Katie shrieked as if her soul was being sucked out. Blood spattered the chairs and the onlookers. Oh god, there was so much blood. She stumbled and fell and Jeong fell on top her still stabbing in mechanical rhythm.
The canteen descended into pandemonium. Students fled helter-skelter back to their classes or took to the streets. The guards were overwhelmed and could not stop the tide. Some teachers remained in the vicinity but dared not approach the girl who had suddenly turned into a maniacal killer. I was the only one inside the building and I watched the murder in graphic detail. My food, just like my blood, ran cold after the first three minutes.
When Jeong was satisfied that she had killed her friend, she slit open Katie's belly with the cleaver and pushed one hand in. It emerged with slippery pink tubes. I think that is when my breakfast rushed out of my mouth in a mess.
We sit in silence for a long time. A family comes in, husband, wife and two little kids. Chae-Yeong nods and smiles at them, and I realize my interview is at an end. I thank her for her time and get up to leave.
Many people remember many things from that day, she tells me while holding the door open, and most of it is bullshit cultivated in conspiracy theory groups over the years. All I can see on some nights when I close my eyes is a sweet young girl standing over the disemboweled corpse of another girl, bloody cleaver in hand and not a flicker of emotion on her face.