War had saved the city of Seoul. That’s what we were told growing up, whenever we were shown old black-and-white photographs of blown-up roads, blown-up homes, blown-up fields of cabbage and cereal grains. How little was left, how close we had come to losing it all to the colonizers, to the communists, to the Americans, to the dictators—all the powers that had once stunk up our rivers. A city rebuilt by the military because they were the cheapest workforce available. A workforce that already knew how to demolish ruins, follow directions, carry heavy things across great distances.
Decades later, parts of the city still looked flung together. Like we were still trying to erase a war. Chipped concrete blocks, chipped bricks, unfinished grouting, crooked doorways and window frames that leaned one way or the other, nothing was to last.
I took the train into one of these ghost neighborhoods. Only fifteen subway stations away from my childhood, and yet an unrecognizable world. Where I could peel off the skin of my birth. Unplug from my matrix. I found a cheap tangle of alleyways to hide me.
I passed building after building of red brick. Long ago, they would have each housed a single family. But now they got broken into six smothering rooms, or ten, or maybe a dozen. As I walked, I could hear every sound of life happening within those flimsy walls. Arguments on the phone, arguments face-to-face, faucets running, dishes getting piled on a rack to dry, TV reruns. The buildings, as frail as they were, somehow contained it all.
And they had also somehow adapted to the gear of modern life. Their signs advertised free air-conditioning, free internet, free hot water, refurbished communal kitchens, breakfast every day.
I wondered if anyone inside was listening to me, my unsteady steps, the loose wheels of my suitcase rolling over the cracks in the paving.
I stopped at a redbrick building, as old and ugly as the others. But there was a sign on the rooftop. I had to take a few steps back to read: women only. With a phone number splashed under it. A tacky yellow sign, just a flimsy sheet stretched out on a billboard, but it was enormous, spanning the entire rooftop. It even came with a spotlight that lit up the words from below.
Sweat prickled my eyes. Rolled into my ears, down my back, under my T-shirt. I examined the windows of the building, one small square for each room. A window just big enough for my shoulders and hips to squeeze through. Some of the windows were lit up and I thought I saw people moving inside, girls as small as me. I called the number on the sign.
A woman answered.
“When do you need the room?” she asked.
“I’m standing outside,” I replied. “But I can come back tomorrow in the morning.”
“Stay right there.” She hung up.
I waited and rearranged my hair, my shirt, my jeans, hoping to look reliable. Soon, the door opened. A woman squinted at me and my suitcase.
“Do you work?” she asked. Her voice was even rougher in person.
“Yes,” I lied.
“Real work?”
“I’m training to be a flight attendant. I’ll be taking classes all day so I just need a place to crash at night.”
“You already finished high school?”
“Yes,” I lied again.
She looked me up and down, scanning the plainness of my shoes, the sweat stains on my clothes. But I knew she was only pretending to be discerning, I knew she would say yes, because over her shoulder I could sense how often the units turned over, I saw the rows of rusted mailboxes, the names crossed out again and again.
“Do you smoke?” was all she asked. “This is a smoke-free facility.”
“I don’t even know how to smoke.”
“Good. Nothing uglier than a girl who smokes.”
She led me upstairs to my room. Up a stairwell littered with super-slim cigarettes. The stairs and walls were bare cement, with the white markings from construction still on them. A lone light bulb dangled from the very top, three floors above.
“Don’t touch that switch. That’s for the billboard up there. I switch it on and off every night and morning. No one else.”
“No one else,” I repeated. “Got it.”
The lodging house had always been in her family, she explained with pride. Her father had bought the land just after the war, and when he died, her mother had turned it into a boardinghouse for young women—in the years when you couldn’t think of anything worse than a young woman living alone. But they did live alone, there had always been women who lived alone, and many had done so right here.
She showed me to my room, how to shut the window properly so mosquitoes couldn’t come in, where to plug in a light. How to ignore the rectangular stain on the wall, where an air conditioner unit had been ripped out. How to lock my room from the inside and outside.
“These girls are thieves,” she said. “Not all of them, but enough of them. They never leave without taking something from the others.”
We went back out into the hall and down to the other end, where a small kitchen led to a small bathroom, just two shower stalls and a toilet. With a firm hold, the landlady showed me how to switch on the boiler and wait for ten minutes until the hot water came.
“You know, this neighborhood wasn’t always a dump. The Japanese used to live here, lots of them, the colonial leaders and businessmen, they built some really nice houses here and gave themselves the best of everything, the oldest persimmon trees and the cleanest wells. It’s good soil, giving soil. And they knew it.”
“Persimmon trees? Where? I’ve never seen a persimmon tree.”
“Oh, it’s all gone now. They covered up the wells too. But we have that same water running underneath. Giving water. You can’t dig anywhere without hitting a vein. Makes everything lush. It’s all the mountain runoffs. They run through this part of the city. Right under our feet. And once, it was the richest and the most powerful who flocked here to drink from it. You didn’t know that, did you? You thought this was just like all the other shitstain neighborhoods? Of course that’s what you thought.”
The landlady spat out a bitter breath. She ran her hand over my door, which had been painted over so many times that a thick layer bubbled. “Well, I guess that’s all gone. We used to have persimmon trees and quince trees and magnolias on every corner. Now it’s just a forest of cheap efficiency units.”
“Cheap is good, though. People will always need something cheap.”
“Not cheap like this. None of you girls should be living here. I would rip out my eyes if I knew my daughter was living like this.”
“You have a daughter?”
“No. And that’s for the best.”
Her footsteps spiraled down the stairwell.
I spread out on the floor of my new room. I took out my old bath towel from my bag and wrapped it around me. From another room somewhere, the stink of cigarettes wafted in. I lit up a cigarette myself and decided to smoke the whole pack. I kicked up a leg and stretched it towards the opposite wall. There would be no room for any kind of bed, not even a mattress, not that I could afford it. A soft buzz vibrated through my floor, maybe the electricity for the yellow billboard on the roof.
I passed out like that, cigarette in my hand. I woke up and saw that I’d received dozens of calls and text messages from my mother.
Where are you?
What do you want for dinner?
I can make anything you want, its just us two again
I also saw that, in my short sleep, I’d burned a hole through my towel. At first the burn upset me, like I’d damaged something. But when I brought my towel to the communal shower, I discovered that the hole fit perfectly over the plastic hook on the wall.
*
Morning brought strange sounds I’d never heard before. The sounds of a neighborhood where everyone lived alone. No families, no playgrounds, no toy shops with stuffed animals piled up against the windows. But we had convenience stores on every corner that sold cigarettes, booze, and frozen hot dogs all day and night. The occasional roars of delivery trucks and motorcycles that used our alleys to get around the traffic of the main roads, to cut through the city.
I wasn’t sure how I would fill my whole day. I dressed to go outside.
The other girls had already left, or maybe they were sleeping in their rooms, who knew? I could only see the cigarette butts they had tossed all over our stairwell.
Just before I went out the front door, I passed the row of rusted mailboxes in the narrow entryway. The bits of name tags that had yellowed and faded, even in a sunless corridor. Out of the nine rooms, only five were occupied. Four mailboxes were stuffed full of flyers and ads, clumps of glossy paper that wouldn’t budge even when I tugged at them.
I pulled harder. A few pages fell out. All the flyers promised to put you in touch with other people—private loan managers, realtors, pizza shops, prostitutes, Chinese noodle shops, massage therapists, car sellers, car buyers, people who would pay money for your gold teeth or your old defunct electronics and musical instruments and kitchen knives.
One flyer was for a vocational school. They specialized in training students for jobs in the aviation industry: as airplane mechanics, as airport security officers, and as flight attendants. The model on the flyer was dressed in the same ivory uniform as the ladies I’d seen all summer.
I called the number. After a few short rings, a bubbly introduction greeted me.
“Thank you for calling the Pacific Aviation School, the number-one trusted training program of the aviation industry. How can we assist you today?”
She spoke so fast that it made me stutter. “How much is the flight attendant program?”
“The new year is already underway,” the voice replied. “Shall we register you for next year? We can also put you on the waiting list for the second half of this year. There are always some spots that open up.”
“How much is it?”
“We have a number of scholarships available for students who show exceptional potential. Registration ends in three weeks. We recommend registering as soon as possible, as spaces fill up quickly.”
“And the tuition?”
The woman paused. “Please come by our main office,” was all she gave me. “We’d be happy to give you the introductory tour of our facilities and connect you to our extremely successful graduates who have reached the interview step with all major airlines at a remarkable rate of one hundred percent. We provide a free headshot photoshoot in one of our coveted trainee uniforms, just for participating in our campus tour.”
She droned on about the in-flight simulator and the cabin replica we’d use for our practicum, the various language courses offered so that we could apply for positions at airlines from all over the world, the new course on deescalating terrorist attacks, which was the first of its kind in Korea. We’d also learn to taste and pour wine properly in order to adequately serve VIP clientele. We’d even get referrals to the best clinics for affordable braces and cosmetic surgery.
“Other places will rip your face apart and stitch it back together like a monster,” she chirped. “Our expert physicians only enhance the beauty that’s already there, which employers much prefer.”
I signed up for a campus tour. “Any spots left for today?” I asked.
“We’re delighted to offer you a tour tomorrow.”
In the meantime, I’d have to get through this one. From my window I watched the summer swell one last time. It bloated the alley with rain. Men rushed to work, their nice shoes and pantlegs splashed and drenched. They trashed their umbrellas in the middle of the street when the spokes snapped in the wind. Soon the monsoons would pass, the mugginess would recede, and I would have to shut my window to keep out the cold.
My phone chimed.
Where are you daughter?
I turned off the ringer. But the screen kept lighting up.
Tell me where you are. Tell me before I run out and turn the whole country upside down
im ok, I finally replied. that’s all im going to tell you
okay. when are you coming back? i made a fresh pot of rice in the rice cooker so eat that when you come home tonight just eat it all
fine
your father can’t find out
just handle it don’t be so weak
i made new rice for you
dont be so weak be strong
She didn’t respond.
be strong, I texted again.
I sat there, staring at my phone, waiting for the beep. I felt my mother at home, lying in her bed, with only the flash of my text messages to light up the stillness of her room, while she waited for my father to come home. Not so wasted that he would bother the neighbors, just only wasted enough to bother her, that was all she asked for. And then I squeezed my eyes shut so that I wouldn’t have to see any more.
__________________________________
From Tailbone by Che Yeun. Used with permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury. Copyright © 2026 by Che Yeun.
