Plum bruise and the manila envelope

I have a bruise the color of a plum and a man who knows where my mother lives. The bruise I can photograph. The other thing I cannot.

When he leaned across the marble and said Friday morning, my face did not move. I have thirty-one more days of this face. Thirty-one days of not moving my face while a man tells me the envelope will arrive at a house I haven't visited in two years, and Oh Byung-woo stands six feet away watching my smile like it is a performance review. I ranked them before I finished the sentence: Oh, the man, Se-ra, me, in that order. Se-ra higher than me because she took a key card and walked into 2104 and disappeared. I would like to disappear into a key card. I would like to walk into a suite and have someone else's problem close behind me.

The bruise I photographed beside yesterday's tooth. BUILDING. Two items in the same folder, both purple at the edges. My hands were not shaking when I opened the camera app. That is the part I do not trust. I am building something. I do not know what yet. The visitor log at Jongno 3-ga has my name on it. I did not file. I left my name like a bookmark so I know where the page is.

Yoon Se-ra has been at this hotel four months. I do not know what she is being paid to walk into 2104. I do know she looked at me once in the elevator bank and did not look again. I have ranked that look. It is somewhere between pity and instruction and I resented her for every second of it.