"The entrance looks different."


    From the moment Kim Daram stepped out of the jeep, she looked annoyed.


    That was when I knew.


    This wasn’t going to go the way I planned.


    "Oh, that toilet."


    I forced my voice to stay flat.


    Daram wasn’t Woo Min-hee.


    She had been jealous of Woo Min-hee back in school, but it was never about her—it was about the life she had.


    While Kim Daram clawed her way up from rock bottom, desperate just to keep moving forward, Woo Min-hee did whatever the hell she wanted and still ended up in the same ranks.


    Their personalities had always been different, but time had stretched that gap into something irreconcilable.


    Daram had married young, had a child, became a mother.


    A grainy war-time video flickered onto the screen.


    SKELTON’s Beatbox (3).


    My earliest—and quite possibly my most hated—recording.


    On screen, a younger me swayed to the beat, face obscured by a mask, letting loose a half-trained, yet earnest beatbox routine—


    "Boom-chik! Pak-chik! Chiki-chiki pak-chik!"


    For whatever reason, this video had been universally despised.


    I figured Kim Daram wouldn’t be any different.


    "Oh, this."


    She let out the flattest response imaginable, checking her watch mid-sentence.


    "You used to practice that all the time back in Beijing, huh?"


    No reaction.


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