The Turn

Third installation of The Pig Butchering Plate

The Air Busan cabin smelled of stale, suffocated air and some sort of floral perfume that didn't exist in the rusted alleys of Seomyeon.

I felt my own nervous stiffness as I sat there watching a stewardess move down the aisle, fake smile plastered on her face, eyes scanning seats and passengers. She saw without seeing. She was neat and polished in her navy blue jacket, tailored to follow the lines of her body, a light blue scarf around her neck. I watched her with growing fascination.

Ryu saw me looking and gave me a light nudge and a smile. No staring, Min-jun. Don’t act like you’ve never done this before.

But I haven’t.

Her hair was pinned back. When she leaned over to check a seattbelt, I caught the scent of her hair; something like jasmine and citrus. I wanted to catch her eye and smile but unless I raised my hand or made a gesture of need, I was just a shadow in seat 14F.

Ryu spent a lot of time on his phone. Absorbed in it. I watched his face out of the corner of my eye. It held steady, composed, as if focused on purpose. But when I snuck a glance, I saw he was scrolling through a gallery of a sleek, glass-fronted villa made of white marble and uncomfortable-looking furniture. Someone elses’ world.

“Looking for a new place?” I asked.

Ryu didn’t look annoyed. He tilted the screen toward me, a small, proud smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Thinking about it. The penthouse in the city is getting a bit noisy. Too many tourists. I want something with a gate and a view of the water. You’ll have to come over for a barbecue once you’re settled. The Oknha lets us use the company yacht on weekends too.”

I stared at the azure water of the pool on the screen. “A yacht? Seriously?”

Ryu laughed and pocketed the phone. “Seriously, Min-jun. We aren’t in Busan anymore. In Cambodia, if you have the drive, they give you the keys to the kingdom.”

I thought Ryu was getting carried away. Still, I let myself imagine it.

At some point over the South China Sea Ryu started talking to me. Not about money. Not really. About Seoul. About how it wears you down without ever quite rejecting you.

“I got tired of asking permission to exist,” he confided, looking at the seatback in front of him but with the cloudy gaze of remembering what he had escaped. “Down there, nobody cares who you were.”

Later he slept. Head tilted slightly forward, mouth closed, like someone used to sleeping in transit.

I didn’t sleep properly. When I drifted, I saw fragments. A room I couldn’t fully see. Voices that felt directed at me but not meant for me. I woke before anything settled.

When the plane landed, the door opened with a soft mechanical sigh and the heat hit all at once. Not just heat. Weight. Air that didn’t move. Something sweet and rotting underneath it.

**

We walked out across the tarmac. For a moment there was nothing above us but white sky and the sound of engines winding down.

Inside, the airport was quieter than I expected. Not empty, just… easy. No lines pressing forward. No noise.

We cleared customs in minutes. Ryu seemed to know which line moved fastest, which officer to nod to. Once we were through the gates and into the main arrival hall, the humidity of Cambodia began to seep through the automatic doors, thick and smelling of scorched earth.

Ryu stopped me near a pillar.

“The company has a handler in the back office,” Ryu explained. He didn’t look at me; he was watching the crowds. “He sorts the long-term work visas smoother than the official channels. If you take it through the front desk yourself, they’ll have you in an interrogation room for four hours asking about your bank statements. This way, it’s done by lunch. Got it?”

“Yes, sure, but how…”

“Give me your passport and I’ll sort it out for you. That way you can go directly to the hotel without wasting time.” He gave a small, sure smile. “One of the many perks of working here, Min-jun.”

A man stepped out from behind the pillar. He was wearing a crisp white shirt and dark slacks. He looked like an accountant, except for the way he scanned the room.

“This is Vannak, my driver,” Ryu said. “He’ll take you to the hotel. Get settled, have a shower. I’ve got to stay here and finalise the paperwork with the Ministry guy. I’ll meet you at the hotel for a drink later.”

Vannak smiled. Polite. Efficient. He spoke Korean, but not quite like a Korean. Clean, functional.

“The car is just outside.”

---

Outside, the heat wrapped itself around everything. Vannak led me to a black van parked just beyond the curb. The door slid open without a sound.

Inside, it was cold. Leather seats. Curtains drawn halfway across the windows.

I’d never had a driver.

The van smelled inside like expensive leather and air-freshener that stung the back of my throat. As we pulled away, the city felt immediate. Scooters were everywhere, moving like a swarm. Grills smoked on the roadside, the scent of charred pork and diesel fumes fighting to get through the vents. People were eating, talking, moving through the heat like it was nothing.

I sat back and let it happen. I watched the women in floral pajamas balanced on motorbikes and the men sitting on plastic stools, drinking iced coffee from plastic bags. In Busan, the world felt like it was made of old, salt-stained concrete, everything grey and vertical. Here, the world was low-slung and sun-bleached yellow, with bright tropical greens bursting through the cracks in the pavement.

For a long time, the air conditioning was the only thing I could feel. It was a cold, artificial breeze that made me feel like I was finally on the right side of the glass. I wasn’t the guy in the alley anymore. I was the guy in the leather seat.

We passed a massive stone monument, a lotus flower made of rock, but then the city began to thin out. The French villas disappeared. The paved road turned into hard-pack red dust. The scooters vanished, replaced by half-finished concrete skeletons wrapped in green mesh that flapped in the wind.

“Vannak?” I said, leaning forward. “The hotel. Is it much further?”

Vannak didn’t look back. He just adjusted his grip on the wheel. “Construction on the main bridge, Brother. Big detour. Very posh area we are going to. Very quiet.”

The silence in the van became heavy, the only sound the gravel kicking up against the wheel wells. Then, my phone buzzed. It was Ryu.

Change of plans. Boss wants you at dinner tonight. It’s at his villa out on the coast. You are lucky. First night and you’re going out to the Boss’ villa...I didn’t get that when I came in. No dinner, no villa. Straight to work. Anyway, Vannak will take you out there. Don’t worry about clothes. We’ll sort you out.

I read it twice.

Dinner. Boss. Clothes.

I looked at my reflection in the dark glass and tried to picture it.

**

I dozed a bit on and off as we rolled on silently.

I woke out of a dream of myself as a kid, hearing my mother calling my name out a window to come in for dinner. Miiiiiiin-jun, she called. I caught myself missing her for a second and sat up in the seat.

Outside, all the tropical green was interrupted by hundreds of grey concrete skeletons: high-rise buildings that had been stopped mid-breath. Some were thirty storeys high, windowless and hollow, with rusted rebar poking out of the tops like desperate fingers.

In Busan, a building was either finished or it was a construction site. Here, they were just carcasses.

“What happened to those?” I asked, gesturing to a cluster of towers that looked like they’d been hit by a quiet war.

“Investment moved,” Vannak said, his voice as flat as the road. “The money comes, the money goes. Only the concrete stays.”

I fell back asleep again watching the huge, fading signs for "Grand Orion Luxury Living" and "Golden Sea Casino" featuring CGI people with perfect smiles and blue water. Behind the signs, I imagined there was nothing but scrubland and stagnant pools of water.

I woke again when we came to a stop.

From the window, all I could see was a wall of concrete. High enough that it blocked everything behind it. Coils of wire running along the top.

The heavy iron gate began to slide open with a mechanical groan.

Vannak stopped the car and engaged the central lock. The clack echoed in the small, cool space of the van.

No sound from inside.

No movement.

Just the building rising above it. Six floors. Balconies lined with metal bars. Lights on in some of the rooms. No one standing in them.

“We are here,” Vannak said.

He stepped out first.

I sat there for a second, waiting.

“Let’s go.”