Siri, Call the Police

Had my heart ever pounded like this in my entire life? Not even when I'd sprinted the fifty-meter dash at the elementary school sports day, not before enlisting, not before being discharged — I didn't think it had ever hammered this hard.

Ah, maybe once? Either way, the brutal thudding of my own heartbeat was loud enough to ring in my ears, and that only made it slam harder, thud-thud, thud-thud. Inside my skull, two scenes tangled into a single frantic blur: reporters thrusting microphones at me after a brilliant escape, and my sunbae snatching the phone away and tearing me apart —

"Hah...!"

My head spun. It felt like my mind was racing too fast, flooding me with useless noise until a shocky, giddy high wrapped my whole body.

I reached out, and the handcuffs linking my wrists clinked metal on metal. I didn't bother steadying my violently shaking hands and arms as I grabbed that rectangular thing on the blanket. Dropped it once. Picked it up again. The thin, square grip of a phone I hadn't held in so long startled me, and I tapped the screen twice.

Had phones always been this thin?

The lock screen showed a photo of a dog. The word Choco was scrawled across it in crooked letters, like someone had written it with a finger and no editing tools at all. The dog bowl and puppy pads in the corner of the room flickered through my mind, and my face twisted.

The time was seven. Today was Friday. I swiped the screen aside and an icon spun in the center, demanding face recognition — I jerked my face away on pure instinct.

"Hhk...!"

My owner's raw panic and a body convinced it was about to die sent my heart thrashing in a last desperate flail, and a breath thick with heat slipped out of me before I could stop it.

Of course the phone was locked. There was more than one thing to hide. I switched to the passcode screen and typed 1111 with trembling fingers. They shook so hard I couldn't even tell if I'd pressed the right keys — either way, it didn't unlock.

How many failed attempts before a phone locked itself completely? Five? Ten? Three? My primitive brain, mistaking this for a predator encounter, was already prepping for a fight — dilating my blood vessels, shutting down my digestion — even when I needed to stay cold. So the thoughts in my head kept wrestling for control: run, versus the second sunbae walks in, smash her skull with the phone.

"Ahh...! Just...!"

This time something closer to a human voice managed to come out. I entered 0000. The screen wobbled and told me the password was wrong.

How many times had I tried? My head was spinning. Twice? Three times? Was it three? No — twice. Twice. 0000, 1111 — what else was I supposed to try. When was sunbae's birthday. Could it be mine. I punched in 0103. Still nothing.

Then the existence of emergency calls slammed into me out of nowhere, and I thought why didn't I think of that, and with hands shaking so hard they rattled I backed out to the previous screen — but I couldn't find the button anywhere.

"Ah, uh...!"

Where was it. It had to be there. It couldn't just not exist. Thinking that, I opened the camera for no reason, turned the screen off and on again.

Had I been living with no sense of danger at all? As punishment for never once, in the four years since I'd become this tiny body, worrying about being kidnapped, I was now sentenced to not knowing where the hell the emergency call button was on an iPhone.

Hurry, I had to call, hurry — when would sunbae come ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠upstairs. Was dinner something she'd cooked herself tonight, or frozen. The soundproofing was excellent, so I wouldn't hear her footsteps approaching — please, if I could just get it open somehow.

Should I run to the door right now, grab that door with the lock on the inside, and brace it so she couldn't get in. Adrenaline was flooding me so hard I couldn't decide what to do. My head lined up option after option while my body just kept stupidly mashing buttons, trying to brute-force a password that wouldn't yield.

"Please...! Please...!"

8520, 1234, please, if I only knew sunbae's birthday. I had no sense of how much time had passed, but it felt like she could walk in at any second and it wouldn't even be strange — ah, uh.

Drool ran down my chin. There wasn't even room left in my head for the thought of swallowing. So I got up off the bed. Swung my legs over the edge. When my feet touched the floor, the warm press of the heating came up through my soles.

Eyes still locked on the phone, I staggered to the door on shaking legs, clamped my hand around the handle, and leaned my whole weight into it. I remembered a day at the office when the other side of the partition had been loud and chaotic.

It had definitely been around November. So — 1101, 1102.

When I hit 1103, the screen told me unlock attempts were disabled for thirty seconds. I squeezed my eyes shut and poured every ounce of strength into the feet I'd planted hard against the floor, bracing the door. In those thirty seconds, my heart must have beaten ninety times.

Come to think of it, I still needed to fill the dog bowl. I'd forgotten ever since the day I'd ordered chicken, and the thought made me look down at the omurice I'd so carefully plated. Should I just carry it in and dump it straight into the bowl.

I'd even piped the ketchup on so nicely. Tch.

Maybe just for today, I thought, and set the plate on the tray and started up the stairs. It hadn't been that long, but Heeyeon's attitude had improved lately — maybe it wouldn't be so bad to start loosening things one by one.

Someday I wanted to take Heeyeon on a trip. Domestic was fine; Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe, anywhere. Ideally, though, I wanted us to go soak in a hot spring in Japan together. Heeyeon loved baths.

I reached the door, lifted one leg in the familiar way to balance the plate, and pressed the door-lock button. A soft whirr as the little gears engaged. I grabbed the handle and pushed — and strangely, the door wouldn't open. What?

"Heeyeo— ah, never mind."

The soundproofing was perfect. Not just absorption — full sound-blocking construction — so even if I knocked, Heeyeon inside wouldn't hear a thing. Ugh. Annoying. I set the food on the floor for a moment and shoved the door hard. It jolted open a crack, then shoved itself shut again in a hurry.

"...?"

I pushed again. It gave a little more than before, then slammed closed under force. Ah — only then did I realize it wasn't a problem with the doorstop meant to keep it from slamming. I put my hand flat against the door and pushed slowly, steadily.

Unlike the short bursts, it opened bit by bit this time. The gap wasn't even five centimeters, but it would be enough for her to hear my voice.

"Heeyeon?"

"Hhk...! Hhk...!"

The sound of ragged breathing, overwhelmed by emotion. Ah — I wanted to stand right in front of that mouth and take those hot little puffs of air straight against my face. Breath as feverish as if she were burning up. The arm I'd been pushing with gave a fine, electric tremor.

"What are you doing?"

I couldn't figure out why Heeyeon had suddenly gotten so sulky. Had I done something especially wrong today?

"Uh, hhk...! A-ah, no...!"

"Hm? No what? Heeyeon. Want some omurice?"

Generously speaking, she was overcome; ungenerously, she was in a full panic, mumbling something.

"U-unnie, birthday. November, wh-when is it?"

"..."

My hand went to my pocket. Unconscious — but the sensation climbed my spine. No phone.

"...Shit."

I muttered it under my breath. I forced my startled heart to settle, clawed my reason back into place, and mercifully remembered — there was a passcode on it. Ah, fuck. Thank god. Before I'd installed the pet camera, I hadn't even bothered locking it.

So I spoke into the crack. Once I understood that everything was still in its place, that nothing had actually happened yet, a grin spread across my face again.

"My birthday? Whyy? Gonna get me a present?"

"A-ah, u-uh, r-right, yeah. H-hurry..."

Her voice trailed off, fraying — and then, suddenly.

"Ah."

That little sound.

"S-Siri, Siri. Siri. Siri."

Considering how long cooking had taken, Heeyeon really was a little — just a little — slow on the uptake. Still, this was dangerous now. I pushed harder.

"P-police, call the police, emergency c—!"

A scraping sound — flesh dragging across the floor. Her butt sliding back, probably. Cute.

The gap widened and I started to force my way through; Heeyeon kept shoving the door with everything she had, so I sighed. Nothing for it. Hoping she wouldn't get hurt, I wrenched the door open hard. It swung all the way. Mid-swing it caught for a second, then gave — maybe she'd bounced off something.

I stepped into the room and Heeyeon bolted for the far wall.

"Poli— keh. Cough...! Po—! Offi—"

"Heeyeon."

"Hhk...!"

I held out my hand. If she handed over the phone and came into my arms, I was willing to feed her the omurice waiting outside.

"Come here."

I took a step. Heeyeon trembled all over. Naked like that, her chest shook with every shudder.

Her head whipped around — she spotted the pet camera and scrambled for it. She snatched it up and glared at me with the resolve of someone gripping a real weapon, and I laughed, ahat. Look at her — phone in one hand, pet camera in the other, tiny fingers stretched ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as wide as they'd go just to hold both, burning with fighting spirit.

"Come here already. Keep this up and unnie's gonna get mad."

"G-get away. Go...!"

"Hm?"

"I said g-go...! I-I'm serious, serious...!"

She really was terrible at threats.

"I-I'm really. Gonna h-hit you. I'll hit you, so. G-go...!"

And the way she bared her teeth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at me with actual malice wasn't exactly pleasant, so I closed the distance. The promise to hit me must have been sincere — her right hand whipped back, then forward.

Honestly, the force was too pathetic to bother dodging or snatching midair. I just caught her wrist and plucked the phone free. She suddenly dropped low, thrashing the arm I held and shoving her foot into my shin. About as hard as a cat making biscuits.

"Hnn. Give me that too. Don't your fingers hurt?"

With a hand whose swelling had gone down a little, she was still clutching a pet camera far bigger than her grip and batting at my thigh, so I took that too and tossed it aside. I checked the phone screen.

I slipped it into my pocket.

Now she was shoving at my body with both hands, so I crouched to her eye level, caught the hands flying at my face, and bent the ring and pinky fingers — the ones she'd injured at the joint before — the wrong way.

Crack. Crack. Two clean, almost refreshing sounds, and a raw scream filled the room. I glanced back, startled — the door had already swung shut on its own.

I bent the middle finger once more for good measure, then set them back, and her eyes rolled up; she passed out without even managing to close them. I scooped her up like a princess and laid her on the bed.

I went back out, brought in the omurice, set it on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nightstand, then sat on the edge of the mattress beside her and stroked her hair.

Apparently she still didn't really love me.