Maknae

*cw: transphobia

“So you see, Officer Brittel, that is why–-” So-Yeon, who perpetually suffered from cotton mouth whenever she was nervous, paused to dislodge her upper lip from her gum line, where it was presently stuck. It was the unfortunate result of saliva evaporating from her mouth at impossible speeds whenever she was uncomfortable. There is no discreet way to unhook one's own inverted lip. But it had to be done, as consonants--including those required to say the name of her potential employer--were becoming increasingly difficult to pronounce in her current state. Officer Brittel, a man of petite stature and oversized ego, remained unamused, raising only an eyebrow underneath the visor of his black peaked hat. So-Yeon loudly cleared her throat. “Excuse me. I was saying, that is why I’d make an excellent student guard for our university.” 

This would be her third part-time job attempt this semester, and she was desperate to secure something quickly. Earlier in the year, she was fired from bartending after a customer had called her a chinky bitch when she would not smile on command, to which she responded by hurling his drink onto his chest (she was going for a more dramatic splash to the face, but her aim had always been terrible). "Suck my ass," she growled before quickly realizing this wasn’t really a thing people said. She’d never been able to spontaneously produce a retort that truly packed a punch, and it was her secret lifelong desire to be able to do so. She often spent the days after witnessing or experiencing some kind of injustice lamenting as more witty, slam dunk types of comebacks belatedly came to mind. Nonetheless, the memory of that night at the bar--watching the syrupy cocktail drag the man’s hairs down his overexposed chest--still made her chuckle. 

Next, she signed up to participate in some paid clinical trials. But in the end, she only gained a measly paycheck and the newfound knowledge that she was the type to faint at the sight of her own blood. “Vasovagal syncope!” The lab technician announced her condition like a greeting as soon as she came to. “Sometimes I try to predict who'll have it before I draw the blood, but with you, I wasn’t even close.” He grinned as he continued to wave the smelling salts under her nose while she clumsily attempted to swat the acrid smell of ammonia away.

And she wasn’t able to earn money by tutoring other students like some of her peers did because she was quite frankly nothing more than a mediocre student, especially in comparison to her three sisters before her. In fact, the entire family understood what was never spoken aloud–-that So-Yeon had only gotten into the university because of her family’s strong legacy there. Ji-Yeon, Mi-Yeon, and Da-Yeon were truly admitted due to their own merit, and not because their mother was Dean of Humanities, while So-Yeon was the one everyone quietly pitied.

College was the fresh start she needed to make her own way. So-Yeon vowed to prove that she wasn’t so ordinary in comparison to her three successful unnies. 

Ji-Yeon, her chut-jjae unnie–-first big sister–-was an executive at the Today show. She lived in the Upper East Side of Manhattan with dool-jjae unnie, Mi-Yeon, and planned to move out in the spring after marrying her fiancé, Stephen, a Staff Sergeant. Mi-Yeon, the second, had created a dating app called Snatch the year prior, and was experiencing massive success with her model of allowing users to “snatch” a potential match out of someone else’s queue based on a point system. The third sister, Da-Yeon--set-jjae unnie--was in her final year of law school at Penn State and hadn’t made any objections to their father’s plans to have her join his firm once she graduated. “Isn’t that nepotism?” So-Yeon once asked. Her father vehemently shook his head. “Not if Da-Yeon unnie earns the job fair and square. Which we know she will.”

Dean Angela Park worried about her youngest child, the maknae, but tried not to overstep. Still, So-Yeon would occasionally open up her tiny mailbox on campus to discover that her mother had slid a small envelope enclosing a $100 bill in there. So-Yeon would call her mother each time with a groan. “Umma. I’m fine. I don’t need any help. I’m working, remember?” Even so, she did always accept the cash with silent gratitude. 

Angela knew that So-Yeon’s hyperindependence was a result of the trauma she endured as a child, when she was frequently left to care for herself while Angela underwent years of treatment for recurring breast cancer. During this time, So-Yeon’s father was often occupied with nursing his wife during the day and making up for lost hours of work in the evening. As a 1.5-generation immigrant who had moved to the States from Korea as a teenager, Chul-Woo Park felt the need to work harder than his American-born colleagues to stay relevant, compensate for his barely-there accent, and help people overlook his occasional misuse of definite and indefinite articles. So-Yeon’s older sisters were off in other states working or in graduate school while their mother was ill, and each insisted that they come home for a month or two to help care for their umma, but their parents refused. They even kept it a secret when the cancer came back so that the older girls wouldn’t worry. So-Yeon, only thirteen years old at the time, begged for her mother to call her unnies one evening when her father was out of town at a conference, and she found her mother retching in the bathroom, half dressed and crumpled on the cold floor. The young girl almost vomited herself when she was hit with the sharp stench of her mother’s soiled underwear. 

“Umma.” The word barely escaped from So-Yeon’s mouth. 

“So-Yeon-ah. Umma is okay. Close the bathroom door and go watch TV downstairs. Turn it loud.”

So-Yeon quietly sobbed. “Umma. Please. Let's call unnies. Umma…” 

“Go!” her mother yelled, causing her daughter to flinch. “Umma is fine. I don’t need help from your unnies.”

But I do, So-Yeon thought to herself as she wept in front of a television that was turned on only out of obedience.

Years later, Dean Angela Park fielded comments about her 18-year-old youngest daughter while swallowing the overwhelming guilt that consumed her. 

“She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?”

“Always wanting to do things her way,” someone else would say with a wink.

“Angela, I have to say that So-Yeon is struggling a bit in my theology class. Surprising considering her sisters…”

So-Yeon knew well enough that she wasn’t as pretty as chut-jjae unnie, not as creative as dul-jjae unnie, not as sharp as set-jjae unnie. “You’re my funny one," her father would say. "My strong one. You know who would make it in the olden days on a battlefield in Korea? You, our maknae. You would make all the enemy generals fall over with laughter and then bravely slay the rest! You're tough!” He would pump his fist before So-Yeon released a harumph.

She didn't feel so tough as she now faced a cold-eyed Officer Brittel, head of Campus Security Operational Services. His black tie was immaculately fastened around a crisp blue collar, which made So-Yeon wonder if he ironed his own shirts. She willed her body to stay still, intently refraining from picking at her cuticles, and forcing her eyes to lock with his pale ones rather than inspecting the shoulder mic, badges, and pins on his uniform, which she was intensely curious about.

He eyed her through a squint. “Listen, Park, first name…”--he glanced down at her resumé–-“So.”

“Actually, it’s So-Yeon. Yeon is not my middle name, it’s part of my first name. Korean people commonly have two characters in their first name, and interestingly, the way you stated my last name first is also the way we do it in my culture. Isn’t that-–”

“So-Yawn. I’ve got another kid who applied for the job this morning, so I’m not going to be needing–-” 

His desk phone rang.

“Officer Brittel here. Yap. Ahuh.”

So-Yeon was out of time. She had been placed on academic probation for her low GPA in the fall and had only $4.75 left on her meal card, which she knew wasn’t even enough for a two-pack of instant ramen at the campus store. When she overheard Bradley, the red-haired, freckled kid in Calculus, bragging to a classmate about making $12 an hour by simply sitting at a desk by the front door of a dorm to check student IDs, she knew this was the saving grace that would allow her to stay at the university. A quiet place to study and pick her grades up while getting paid. It was perfect.

She cleared her throat. “Um, Officer Brittel?”

“...yeah, he had his interview this morning. Ahuh. Decent kid.”

“Excuse me?” So-Yeon mustered, this time a little louder.

Brittel raised an index finger without looking at So-Yeon, his facial expression unchanged.

“What do you mean?” he said into the phone. “He was just here. Yap. Ahuh.”

“Listen,” started So-Yeon again. “I was just thinking, if you’re on the fence about me, you could hire me on a trial basis, and I could show you that I work super hard. I just really need…”

“These damn kids. So fucking entitled. You know, I…”

“I was saying, I really need this opportunity. I don’t have much, and this job would really help me get through the…”

“...and I had already started the punk’s paperwork…”

“The punk? You mean the kid who came in this morning? Is he out? I can be in. I’m totally ready. Duty-ready!” She abruptly rose to her feet and performed a firm salute, then immediately regretted it. “I mean, ready for action, sir, yes, sir…” she trailed. 

Officer Brittel looked at her for the first time since picking up the phone and sighed.

“Yeah, I got someone else to cover the Conroy dorm,” he said into the phone, not without pain in his voice.

So-Yeon bounced back down to her seat and let out a small squeal. “You won’t regret this!”

The student guard training was impossibly dull, which made So-Yeon more fidgety than usual, but she diligently took notes and made sure to demonstrate signals of eagerness. She raised her hand quicker than the other trainees when quizzed about what to do if someone refused to show their ID upon entering the dorm, who to call in case of emergencies (the main public safety helpline, and not Officer Brittel’s desk line), and when to report student misconduct (not necessary for drunkenness, racial slur usage, or witnessed misogyny as confirmed when So-Yeon asked, but definitely for possession of a weapon or any kind of physical assault). 

With a new sense of empowerment, So-Yeon reported to her desk at the front of the Conroy building four evenings a week. At the start of each four-hour shift, she spread her textbooks neatly onto the surface of the table and dove in, staying submerged until it was time to check an entering student's ID. She created a color-coding system for highlighting her notes, and listened to the audio version of her texts through her headphones when she could find them for free online, as she discovered this helped her process the material. As small bits of the information began to crystallize for her over time, So-Yeon realized that the occasional student walking into the building, or the prospect of a campus security officer popping in to perform a random check, kept her more focused than when she studied alone in the library or her room. The fleeting presence of others, the mere potential of having someone see her being idle on the job, was enough to encourage her to be disciplined, which was a novel experience for her.

The students walking into Conroy were for the most part compliant with swiping their ID in the little black card reader that was affixed to the student guard desk. A small green light upon swiping indicated that they lived in that dorm and were allowed through. Red meant they needed to be logged into the computer system and escorted up by the person they were visiting. Occasionally, a student would try to hold up their ID and walk briskly by rather than swiping–-one time someone held up a sub sandwich wrapped in butcher paper as if to say, “It’s the trademark red checkered wrapping from our campus deli, so I obviously am a student at this school”--and So-Yeon would, without fail, block their way with her arms outstretched until they followed the appropriate protocol, no matter how begrudging they were. 

She felt a thrill from knowing she could do this task right–-do it with excellence. A feeling of ownership swelled in her chest like a hot air balloon becoming taut and ready for takeoff. 

Her unnies didn’t quite understand why she would take this job when there were teaching assistantships, administrative aide jobs for academic departments, and internships on Capitol Hill. “Are you safe doing that guard job, So-Yeon? You’re just so tiny.” “Sweetie, why don’t you just let umma and appa help you? They said you weren’t accepting their online bank transfers.” “Oh, sissy, why doesn’t unnie just write you a check for the semester, and you can just cash it instead of doing that security thing?”

They wouldn’t get it, So-Yeon knew. They had always had their own never-ending list of accolades. Captain of the swim team. Principal dancer in ballet. Lead of the musical. Valedictorian. First chair cellist. State champion.

But this was the first anything to belong to just So-Yeon. Not one of the sisters had even tried student guarding, not one of them would even have considered it. Knowing this, and excelling at the role, gave her a new sense of fortitude. She stood a little straighter, walked with her chin a little higher, and felt sensational pride when returning to her dorm with bags of groceries from Whole Foods.

Thursday evening shifts were So-Yeon’s favorite. The unexpected nature of a Thursday night student entry tickled her. A sloppy student might stumble in after College Night at the bar and she would announce, that no, their frequent buyer's card from the smoothie place was not adequate for entry. Or sometimes no one would come into the building for over an hour–-she could never predict what she would encounter. 

She jerked her head up one of these evenings when she saw an arguing couple at the doors and put down her green highlighter, which she used for unfamiliar Biology terms that she would review when she reached the end of the chapter. She had been engrossed in the section on DNA and gender chromosomes, and was disappointed to be pulled away from it.

So-Yeon froze. The students coming in were not a couple at all. The boy trailed closely behind the girl, speaking to her in a quiet, conversational tone, but his words made the blood drain from So-Yeon’s face.

“Hey, man. I said, where are you going? Not to the all-girls’ floor, are you? People with dicks aren’t allowed up there, you know.”

The girl, who had been walking steadily and with a stoic expression, abruptly pivoted to face him then. “I told you to back off, asshole,” she said through clenched teeth. So-Yeon recognized her. Alyssa. They were in the same British Lit class, and So-Yeon often found herself lost in the pristine twists in Alyssa’s hair. She marveled at how they all seemed to be so precisely the same diameter. Alyssa always smelled like sweet pineapple, with a hint of something warm, maybe vanilla. 

Heart pounding, So-Yeon stood, causing her chair to skid loudly on the tiled floor. The boy noticed her for the first time and smirked. 

“Yo, guard. This guy’s trying to go to the all-girls’ floor. You better stop him.”

So-Yeon's eyes narrowed. She knew this kid. Fucking Bradley from Calculus.

She locked eyes with Alyssa to send a silent signal. I've got you.

“She said to back off, Bradley. I know she lives here. But I’ve never seen you in here before. So until you can show that you’re a Conroy resident, you need to leave. It’s after guest hours.”

He snickered. “She? That is not a she. Can’t you see his Adam’s apple? He’s a freak of nature. Except nothing is even natural about this freak.” He elongated the word freak, enunciating each hard consonant with hatred.

So-Yeon burned with rage. “Listen, you ignoramus,” she said in a measured voice. “You want to talk about nature? If you ever bothered to open up a book, you would know that gender is not the same as sex and that in fact, there are--in nature--multiple sex variations within chromosome combinations. Ever heard of XXY? Intersex? Klinefelter’s syndrome? Indigenous two-spirit people? Didn’t think so, bigot.”

His eyes widened. 

“What’s the matter, man?" So-Yeon continued. "Cat got your tongue? Or did your fragile ego get your tongue? Take your narcissistic, toxic masculine, insecure ass out of here before I call campus security!” Her words were punctuated by the echo that reverberated against the high ceilings.

To So-Yeon’s surprise, Bradley did back away after a brief slack-jawed pause, but not without muttering, “Who the fuck still says, ‘cat got your tongue’?”

Her pulse still racing, she then turned to Alyssa. “I’m so sorry, Alyssa. That was awful. Are you okay?”

Tears streamed down Alyssa’s smooth, brown cheeks as small, uneven breaths escaped from her mouth--from both terror and relief. She nodded and placed a hand on her chest. So-Yeon copied the movement while steadily holding Alyssa’s gaze to let her know that nothing else needed to be said.

But Alyssa did whisper something. “That was the best comeback I’ve ever heard.”