Chapter 15Four Millimeters Short

At twenty past six, before stepping onto the scales, he took off his socks.

The socks were white, with the heels rubbed to a grey ring. He rolled the two into a ball and pushed it into the shoebox under the bed. The scales stood behind the bathroom door, an iron case, the needle sitting on zero. He stepped on and set his soles between two strips of anti-slip bumps. He counted to three, and waited until the digits stopped moving before he looked down.

Fifty-one point two.

He did not say it out loud, and he did not write it down. The number stopped in the same place every morning. He did not try to shift it.

The alarm went off at six exactly. He switched it off on the tail of the first ring and did not wait for the second. The dormitory had four beds. Two were empty, and the boards still held a ring of dents left by people who had gone. The one in the bottom bunk was still asleep. He turned over, and the boards creaked once. The curtain would not close. Its left-hand section had caught in the window frame, and he looked out through the gap.

On the hilltop stood the tower. Each morning the air decided its colour. Today it was white. Mist still pressed down on the trees, so the white of the tower was faint as well. He looked at it once, and then he put his clothes on.

The pull on his hoodie zip had snapped off. He had threaded a bent paper clip through the zip ring. When he pulled the zip up, the end of the clip touched the teeth with a click, a very small one. In rehearsal he had to pinch it between two fingers, or the teacher would complain about the noise.

The drawstrings were different lengths. The left one was a little shorter than the right. He lined them up every day. Every day they were still not level.

Four or five black hair ties were stacked on his left wrist, along with a woven string bracelet. The bracelet had faded to greyish white, and its ends had frayed. The teacher had taken them out of a drawer on the day he was chosen, one each. His was the last. He was thirteen that day.

He tied his hair back with one of the black rings from his wrist, in two places, the second over the first. When it was done, he went to wash his face. He pressed cold water against the right side of his jaw. There was a mark there, a little darker than the skin, with a pale edge. His own thumb had made it. He had pressed for too long, and it had left a patch under the skin. It still hurt when he pressed it. He did not stop.

He left at twenty to eight. One light in the stairwell had gone out, so he went down feeling for the handrail. On the footbridge the wind was strong. Below was a road, with cars passing one after another, their headlights white. He put his hood up. The left drawstring blew out and whipped across his cheek. He did not put a hand up to line it up.

Past the bridge there was a barber’s on the roadside. Through the glass door, a poster was stuck to the mirror. The person on the poster had a sharp jaw, and no pores showed on the skin. He glanced at it and did not stop.

※

Yesterday had begun the same way. Twenty past six. Fifty-one point zero. He left at twenty to eight. The convenience store had only just opened, and the cashier was stacking rice balls into the chiller, row after row, all the points of the triangles facing the same way. He stood outside the glass door and looked in. The cashier looked up, and he walked on.

Yesterday he had not tied his hair back. The teacher said his fringe was in his eyes, so he pushed it back with his fingers, up onto his forehead. Once he had done that, it fell forward again.

Yesterday morning was group rehearsal. The teacher had eight of them stand in a row by height and dance the choreography from a month earlier. She counted the beats. On the fourth count she raised a hand, and all eight lifted a foot at once. It was so neat that it sounded like one person dancing. He was sixth in the line. In the mirror, the necks of the five in front of him made one straight row. One person’s collar had flipped halfway over. The teacher walked over and turned it flat for him. He did not move.

Standing at the front was Yujin. The teacher was her aunt. Few people in the practice room knew, and Yujin never mentioned it herself. Yujin’s feet landed on the beat. Each step came down with the music, neither early nor late. On her water bottle was a sticker with no writing on it, and one corner had lifted. Each time she drank, she pressed it back down with her fingernail.

At noon they ate in the corridor, several of them sitting on the windowsill. The lunchbox held cold stir-fried rice cakes. Someone talked about the month-end assessment. They said there were only two places, and that the one sitting in the last row had come to choose faces, not to watch dancing. Yujin did not join in. She shut the lunchbox lid, opened it again, took out her chopsticks and finished her food. The boy sat opposite her, the zip pull held between his fingers, and it made no sound.

Someone else pointed at the toe of her shoe and asked if she had worn it out practising. She lifted her foot. The leather at the toe had split in a thin line. The other one looked and said it was time for a new pair. She said, next month.

On someone’s phone was a face, retouched. The skin was smooth, and no edge could be seen. The screen was swiped once, then again.

One of them asked the boy how he was getting on with the month-end assessment. He said he was not quite there yet. The other one smiled and said that was what everyone who was not quite there always said.

In the afternoon the teacher had each of them dance eight beats of their own choosing. Practice ran in rounds of three minutes. Before she played the music, she started the timer on her phone.

The boy chose that routine.

That routine belonged to someone else. Three years earlier, that person had practised in this room right up to his last week. Every night the boy sat on the corridor floor outside the doorframe and watched through the gap in the door. The gap was narrow. It showed only one corner of the mirror, and half of that person’s body in it. He watched for seven days. Each time that person landed, his foot came down on the third board from the window, and through the gap the boy heard that one sound, dull. That person had one habit. At the start of the third phrase, he always came in half a beat late. The boy learned that half beat.

He learned it with nothing in his hands. He sat on the corridor floor and tapped the beat on his knee. When he got to the third phrase, his fingertips drew back first, then came down. That drawing back was the half beat.

Yesterday afternoon he had also counted her steps in his head. From the door to the strip of tape, it was eleven steps. On yesterday’s eleventh step, her foot had not drifted.

Yesterday, when he reached the third phrase, his body moved first. His foot came down half a beat behind the music.

In front of the mirror, the teacher raised a hand and pressed it down once. The music stopped.

“Way out of sync.”

She did not look at him. She looked at his reflection.

“Change it back.”

After saying it, she did not turn round at once. She stood where she was, both hands hanging, her thumbs pressed to the seams of her trousers. It lasted about as long as one eight-beat phrase. Then she walked to the next person, said something, and that one nodded and began to dance.

Yesterday’s dinner had been instant noodles. His roommate put an egg in. The yolk broke, and the yellow ran into the broth. The boy did not add one.

Last night only one notch on the dormitory’s hot water was warm. He had had his shower, and when he came back his roommate was still in bed, looking at a phone. Its light moved across the ceiling in patches. The boy lay down, laid his fingers on the duvet, and tapped out the beat. When he reached the third phrase, his fingertips came down half a beat late every time. He pulled that half beat back. He did it many times, until every tap landed on the beat. Then he stopped.

His roommate switched off the phone, and the room went dark. He did not sleep. He tapped through it once more.

※

The practice room was on the third floor of the old building. The doorframe at the end of the corridor was wooden. Where a patch of paint had come off, the darker wood showed. The corridor smelled faintly of mop water, and the smell mixed with the wood of the doorframe. The tungsten bulb above the door gave a warm yellow. It reached the doorframe but not the threshold.

One wall of the room was all mirror. Above the mirror frame ran a long light. Its tubes were a cold white, and they lit only the mirror side, while the wall behind them was dark. The window was on his right. At night the glass turned black and reflected the room’s tubes. The air conditioner was old, and when it ran it gave off the smell of burning dust.

The floor was old. The third board from the window creaked as soon as you stepped on it, a dull sound, as if someone underneath had tapped it gently. That board was his beat. Each time, he landed the first beat on it.

In the corner was the sound system. The left speaker made no sound. The teacher had said it had been repaired twice, and neither time had it been properly fixed. The music came from the right only, lopsided. The barre along the wall had come loose at one end. It was wound round with tape, one turn over another.

A row of name stickers ran along the wall, one for each trainee, each with a name written on it, in the order they had joined, from the door to the window. The boy’s was the last. It had been replaced only last month, so its corners were still stiff. The one before his had been torn half away.

That person was called Jaewon. His name was still on the wall, only half of it left. Three years, and nobody had peeled it off. The next morning the sticker was already half torn away. Nobody said who had torn it.

There were fingerprints on the mirror in several places, left by the cleaner who swept in the early morning. He wiped one with his sleeve, and when he reached the bottom edge of the frame, the line of black tape came into view.

In the morning he sat on the floor, stretching his legs. His left knee had an old injury. When he pressed down, there was a very faint click inside the knee. Each time, he waited for it to pass before he pressed further. The other two were stretching in a corner. One had trainers with the heels trodden flat. The other had socks printed with a very large rabbit, its ears pressed against the top of the foot.

She had already arrived. She stood in front of the mirror with her back to the door, her head bent, looking at her feet. Her bag sat on the windowsill, its mouth open, and a length of white sock showed.

Her shoelaces were tied the way they always were. First a firm knot, then the two loops pulled to the same length. The left loop was always half a finger shorter. She had never changed that.

Someone walked past, glanced at the boy’s chest, and said, “Your zip’s been making noise the whole time.” The boy said it was nothing and pinched the zip pull between two fingers. The passer-by had already reached the window and did not look back.

At the bottom right corner of the mirror frame was a strip of washi tape. On it, in ballpoint pen, a single word had been written: three. The lettering was very straight, a size smaller than other writing. One edge of the tape had lifted a little. When she came in that morning, she had pressed it flat with her thumb. That was where she stood. From the door to that spot was eleven steps.

The boy stood in the doorway. He said nothing and counted in his head.

One, two, three, four. On the eleventh step she stopped, her toe pressed exactly on the edge of the tape.

Today, on the eleventh step, her foot came down on a crack in the floor and drifted half a finger to the left. She did not stop. She moved the foot back and stood on the tape.

The boy noted it in his head.

※

For the month-end assessment he could recite the order: profile first, then front face, then the whole body. Standing in a row for thirty seconds. For the profile he had to show the right side, because the right jawline was his. The right side had to come out a little further than the left. Each time, he drew the right side in first, and then stood square.

Nineteen days to the end of the month. On the notice board in the corridor was this month’s list, names only, no scores. His name was on the twenty-third line.

On assessment day they had to wear the same black training clothes, sleeves pulled down to the wrist. The bracelet had to come off, and the hair ties had to go into a pocket. He had taken it off once. The ring of skin it had covered was paler than the rest, and its edge was very neat.

During the assessment, someone sat on a chair in the last row, not speaking, a pen in hand. As each person stood in front of the mirror, the one in the chair looked for three seconds, and the pen touched the paper once. He could also recite the order of looking: jaw, eyes, hands. Only those the first look landed on would be called by name. You could move only after three seconds.

He wanted the first look. Standing in a row of people, the first look had to make them recognise him, so they would not need to ask his name.

At today’s rehearsal they stood in line again. Six to a row. He was the fifth. In the mirror, on his right, was Yujin’s profile. Her heel came down, quieter than anyone else’s. Thirty seconds, and nobody moved. When the thirty seconds were counted, the teacher said, “Good,” and everyone lowered their hands at the same moment.

The teacher walked up to the second person. The ruler in her hand pressed on that one’s jaw, just once. “Here, push another millimetre.” That one did as she said. The teacher walked on and did not look at the third.

Along the bottom of the mirror frame, the teacher had stuck a horizontal line of black tape, level with the height of the jaw. One end of the tape had lifted, and she pressed it flat again with her nail. Standing at the mirror, your jaw had to press up to that line. The teacher carried a plastic ruler from the front of the line to the back, measured each person once, and read out a number, not a name. When she got to the third person, the ruler stopped partway. She did not read the number. She looked at the mirror, moved the ruler down a little, and only then read it out.

The ruler was his own. He had not bought it. On the day he moved into the dormitory, he pulled open the desk drawer, and there it was, lying on top of an old timetable. The edges had been worn round, but the markings were still clear. At the zero, a shallow dent had been worn in, and he had not worn it. He did not throw it away.

He had measured with it many times. He pressed the zero against the edge of the mirror frame, brought the line of his jaw across to it, and then looked at the black tape line. Each time the number was different. The difference was only millimetres.

※

Three years ago, on that day, he too had sat on the floor outside this doorframe. It was his first week, and he was the youngest in the group. Two others had come in with him that week, and both had left later. Every morning the teacher called the names at the door. When she reached his, he had to stand and say, “Here.” In the first few days his voice was small, and the teacher made him say it again. He sat with his chin on his knees and his back collapsed. The teacher had said his sitting was slumped. He did not change it.

In the evening, that person came out of the room. He had a bag on his back and a bottle of water in his hand. The heels of his shoes were trodden flat, and as he walked, every step came down on the outside edge. He reached the door and stopped for a moment.

Then he crouched, held the boy’s chin with two fingers, and lifted it. He lifted it to a certain height and stopped. The tungsten bulb above the door lit his jaw yellow, and it cast one line. That person did not look at the boy. He looked at the corridor outside.

He held still for about a second. Then he let go, said nothing, and walked off with his bag on his back. The corridor lights switched on by sound. As his footsteps went past, the lights came on one after another, and then went out one after another.

The boy did not move. His chin stayed at that height and did not drop. The stretch of neck felt tight, and his throat was a little dry. He stayed like that until every light in the corridor had gone out.

Afterwards he stood up. His legs had gone numb, so he held the doorframe and stood for a while. There was an old scratch on the frame, and his fingers landed right on it.

He remembered that height. For three years, every day, he had lifted his chin to that point and then measured it with the ruler. Each time it was still short by a little.

※

In the afternoon they rehearsed in pairs. His partner was someone whose name he did not know. He only knew that the partner’s left foot turned out, and that before turning, they had to glance at their feet first. The afternoon sun slanted in through the window and fell on the third board. There was grey dust in the joins between the boards. Yujin stood in front of the mirror and danced an eight-beat routine, each step landing on the beat. The teacher walked behind her without a word and pressed her shoulder back, once. Yujin’s shoulders came down.

During a break in the rehearsal, Yujin went to the window to fill her bottle. The tap was very loud. She waited for it to stop before she screwed the cap back on.

He practised his profile in the corner. He took photos with his phone, seventeen of them, and deleted sixteen. The one he kept had a very fine line of light along the edge of his jaw, let in from the window. He looked at it for a long time, then put the phone away.

Rehearsal ended at five. He did not leave straight away. He stayed in front of the mirror for a while. Yujin crouched to tie her laces. When she stood up, the left loop was still half a finger shorter than the right.

The boy watched the two loops. When he had finished watching, he untied his own laces and tied them again. He tied a firm knot first, then pulled the two loops to the same length. Once he had pulled them, the left one was a little shorter. Nobody had taught him that way of tying. He had learned it by watching.

※

He ate dinner at the convenience store downstairs from the dormitory: triangular rice balls, the wrapper torn open from the bottom. When he tore it, he did not tear the nori. The whole sheet stayed on the paper. He peeled it off in strips and ate it.

At half past nine he measured in the mirror of the dormitory bathroom. The mirror was small. It showed only his jaw and his mouth. The mark was still there. He pressed the ruler against a seam between the tiles. That seam was straight, straighter than the edge of the mirror frame. The number came out a little more than it had in the practice room. He did not change it.

At ten o’clock he put on his jacket, went downstairs, and walked back to the old building. He passed along the empty corridor and returned to the practice room. No one was there. The tungsten bulb was still on. He pushed the door until only a gap was left.

His phone stood on the floor, leaning against the bottom of the mirror, screen up. No music was playing. The screen lit up. The time was twenty-one minutes past ten. The lock screen had no picture, only a row of numbers. The face on the screen looked a little narrower than the one in the mirror. He knew that was the edge of the screen, not his face. There was a message he had not answered. It was from home, asking whether he had eaten. He glanced at it and did not reply.

He sat back on his heels, facing the mirror, and tucked his knees under him. The floor was cold, and the cold came up through his trousers. His shadow fell at the bottom of the mirror. It was very short.

The tubes were flickering. With each flicker came a very fine sound, like a wire pulled tight and then let go. In the mirror he flickered too, and then came back into the light.

The heating pipes knocked twice inside the wall and then stopped. There was the light of a torch in the corridor. A guard’s torch swept past the gap in the door. It paused, then moved on, and the footsteps faded.

He danced the routine. Eight beats. On the third phrase his foot came down on the third board, with a dull thump. This time he did not pull back. The beat was true. Every step landed on the music. On the fifth phrase, the arm had to sit a notch lower than that person’s. The teacher had never mentioned this part. He had changed it himself.

He stopped and raised a hand to touch the mark on the right side of his jaw.

The ruler was by his hand. He pressed its zero against the edge of the mirror frame, brought the line of his jaw across, and looked at the black tape line. Seven millimetres short.

He pressed his right thumb against the mark and pushed inwards. He pushed three millimetres, until the muscle tightened and would not give any more. He stopped.

He measured again.

Still zero point four centimetres short.

He had measured this figure more than a hundred times, and each time it stopped in the same place.

Eleven o’clock. The tower on the hilltop was due to switch off, as it did at this hour every night. It went out fast, all at once. He did not look at it. His eyes were on the mirror, on the line of black tape, and in the gap between his jawline and the black line. The “three” on the tape in the bottom right corner of the frame turned pale under the light.

He said quietly to his reflection:

“Three millimetres further in… that’s enough.”

He put his hand back on his jaw and pushed three millimetres more, and stopped in the same place. A faint line of cold pink reflection rose on the window glass. He did not notice it.