The Call Girl

Diary 2: Entry 6

This man had ruined everything. And now I was going to ruin him. I sat crouched in the bushes outside the man's house. It was the dead of night, almost 2am. After seeing what he had done to Jiu, he could not go unpunished.

I'd immediately returned home from the hospital to prepare myself for this. I was now outfitted in black jeans and hoodie, along with a black face-mask and black cap. And to complete the picture: a baseball bat. But I hadn't yet figured out what I was going to do with it.

At first I thought I would bash the man's head in, but that thought quickly fled. No matter how angry I was I don't think that's something I could ever do. But would I still beat him with this bat? That second thought danced around my mind as I set myself up outside his house and waited. But I had been waiting for an hour or two now. I didn't want to wait much longer.

One car still remained in the man's driveway, but the house wasn't empty. The bedroom light was on, so I assumed the man's wife was home and awake. Probably waiting up for her scum of a husband.

As I thought about the wife, the anger drained from my muscles. She didn't hurt Jiu. Her children didn't do anything. Only the husband was in the wrong. If I damaged the car or the property, I would be attacking the family. And that was a line I didn't want to cross.

So, with a heavy sigh, I stood up and abandoned my vigil from behind the bushes. I strolled away down the street, swinging my bat idly through the summer night's breeze. I had to think of something smarter. A way to make the man pay for what he did, and a way to win Jiu back as well. But to succeed, I would need every advantage I had. Money. Smarts. My friends.

My stomach dropped. My friends. I'd have to tell Sua and Siyeon the truth. They would finally know how pathetic I really was. I would never live it down.

I propped the baseball bat against a bin before I made my way into the subway station.

A familiar feeling seeped through my veins. Self-loathing. In the end, it was money. That's what it took to get someone in bed with me. The more I opened my mouth, the less people stuck around; and the less I opened my mouth, the less people noticed me. It was a no-win equation. I lost no matter what.

On top of that, everything had been going so well for Jiu until she met me. Now she'd come to harm because of my actions, and I'd violated her privacy to boot. I was...despicable. I hated myself in that moment, more than ever.

The lights of the subway lit the tracks as it approached, and the thought crossed my mind that it would be so easy to simply take a few steps forward and solve all my problems. Once and for all.

But I hesitated for too long. The subway pulled up. The doors opened. Like a leaf on a river I drifted aboard, my gaze listless and empty as if I had already died.

A while later I found myself in my dorm room. In the dark. Alone. I sent a message to Siyeon and Sua. And then I collapsed into a dreamless sleep, too tired to feel anything anymore.