Super Fat Friend Vol. 3
The Problem
Tonight was the night. Finally, Jason Park Miller would get him. Finally, justice would be served after almost five years of silent indifference. Finally, Jason would leave the same marks on him that he left on her.
But first, grocery delivery to Alexa G. on Olympic Blvd.
Jason felt the last warmth of daylight air whip across his chin beneath his helmet as he took off from the Ralph’s parking lot. He wished this could be the night that his hustling side gigs would meet their end as well, but he needed to keep saving. His budding welding business and mom’s retirement fund weren’t going to pad themselves.
Jason’s motorcycle threaded through the streets like a needle stitching the tattered patches of the city back together. Los Angeles had broken him in many ways, but he loved it. The more he saw the treasured neighborhoods with irreplaceable mom-and-pop shops fall into chaos and despair, the greater his love became. He revved the engine as the soothing GPS voice urged him to switch lanes.
After sending his customer a photo of the successful delivery, Jason parked his bike at Da Wool Jung (다울정), the Korean pavilion monument, just around the corner from his destination. The small park had been a haven to him in his early high school years, where he often came to read and study after school.
That was before other after-school activities found him.
Jason released a pent-up breath as he sat beneath the shelter of the curved and sturdy pine. Its traditional accents in seafoam green, rust, soft blue, and poppy red artfully intertwined overhead. He tugged at the stainless steel dog tags around his neck in anticipation of the encounters to come. They weren’t his. They were engraved with the name of a greater warrior, Michael R. Miller.
A man in a regimental suit had handed Jason the tags and a crisply folded flag as he stood shaking at the Los Angeles National Cemetery two decades ago. The man thanked Jason for the service of someone now dead. Most of the others there had called him First Lieutenant of the U.S. Marine Corps, but Jason only ever called him Dad.
He hated the rifle volley that day and tried so hard not to flinch when each shot was fired. He convinced himself to appear strong for his mom and baby sister, who was then only four years old. After the uniformed stranger bestowed him the honors, he had no choice but to become his father and care for them both.
The menacing tattoos emerging from under Jason’s rolled-up jacket sleeve reminded him daily that life never plays out that simply. He closed his eyes and prayed, knowing God would disapprove of the methods he intended to use to bring justice to his maimed beloved one, but he asked for a blessing anyway. Jason's very Irish-Catholic grandmother had named his father for Michael the Archangel, after all.
“So, if nothing else, Lord,” he prayed the last part aloud. “Maybe you could spare him for the night?” Michael—that is.
Jason brushed strands of black hair from his face and slid his helmet back on. The setting sun was orange and messy in the iridescent clouds as if someone had spilled gasoline across the sky and just tossed in a match. He left his peace at the pavilion and sped into the haze.
After tracking his target for a few hours, Jason crept through the abandoned parking garage in Downtown LA, where this particular group of K-town’s finest miscreants liked to park their cars undetected by surveillance. He knew precisely which of the nearby “unfinished” apartment buildings the target had been bringing unsuspecting women to. He could still smell their ambery perfumes as he followed the drunken trail.
One man was all they had left behind to watch over the garage. Jason waited for him to turn around and take a piss on the wall before making his move.
He grapevined silently across the filthy cement. Just as the man zipped up his fly, Jason kicked his leg into the air, and his foot violently met the side of the man’s head. He flew backward against the wall and then unconsciously crumpled to the ground. Jason squatted next to the man and slapped each of his ruddy cheeks to see if he was alert.
“Consider it a grace, pig,” he spat, “that I leave you with a bruise.”
His muted steps continued with only a slight squeaking from leather gloves as he gripped a baton and the muffled breaths he drew under a silk face covering. It was, in fact, so quiet that the sudden pounding noise coming from inside the garage almost made him jump.
Or was it… knocking?
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Jason whirled around to face the Beemers, Audis, and other cars beyond his pay grade, parked along the walls. He should have stuck to his plan. “Never look back,” he would often recite as a mantra, but this time, he did.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Inside the trunk of a midnight blue BMW, someone was… stuck?
Jason removed something from his pocket, which could only be described as a jerry-rigged Swiss Army knife. Cautiously ambling closer, he waited and listened again for the sound.
POP!
The trunk lid shot open. There was no time to comprehend what happened next, but the last thing Jason saw, before being struck with full force in the face, was a bizarre blur of pink.
★★★★★
Tonight was the night. Finally, Sabrina would make her debut as the worst nightmare of the scumbags who preyed on the women of her streets. Finally, she could bring a sense of justice to Heather by stopping this from happening to others like her. Finally, her fists would see some real action.
But first, Amazon delivery.
With her phone glued to her palm, Sabrina watched the tracking for her package inch closer and closer to her apartment. A cold sweat rushed over her body.
No, she begged herself, not today!
Sabrina gulped water to drown the sloshing nausea. The triggers were becoming more intense and frequent, but it would not prevent her from keeping the appointment she had made with herself. She would climb to the rooftop of the business plaza across from Viper—the club Heather was last seen at before her assault. She would watch and wait for men who matched the vibe and description she’d heard from Danny Kim, the YouTuber who rattled off exposés on gang and crime activity in LA. He was unknowingly becoming her new best friend.
With Heather still needing space and recovery, he may have been her only friend.
A photo of the delivered package waiting outside the door prompted her to spring from her squeamish sprawl across the bed.
They were the most beautiful baby pink satin-covered ballet sneakers. Sabrina tore through the box and removed the stuffing from each shoe. Her luchador persona was now complete.
Zipping up her hoodie, she filled her pockets with a small knife, string, mask, and binoculars. In her leggings’ pockets, she crammed her phone on one side and a portable charger on the other.
She gave Lazor a few treats and a scratch between the ears before locking up and walking the short distance to her stakeout.
Sabrina held fast on the rooftop above the hanbok boutique and phở restaurant across from the club. Nobody seemed to notice her, even as she jumped down from the rickety side ladder twice to get boba and use the bathroom. Movies always seemed to cut this part out, but even superheroes gotta go sometime, right?
She slurped the last drops of milk tea through the oversized straw as it hit 11 PM. Most people were just now getting to the clubs, so she knew it would be a while before the jackals started circling for easy meat. She watched them through her binoculars—scores of young faces, girls in dresses that would barely clothe Sabrina’s upper arms. Clubs and bars were never her scene, especially after what happened to her brother. Still, people deserved to enjoy themselves without being afraid of spiked drinks or getting mugged—without it costing them their dignity or their lives.
Midnight passed as Sabrina frittered away the minutes with word puzzles on her phone. Then 1 AM, then 2 AM.
She watched, slightly groggy from the wait, until finally, she saw them. Two men in wrinkled suits were vaping outside the club, hovering over a pristine BMW. Sabrina adjusted the binocular lenses as they eyeballed the women in line to enter the club. She transferred her gaze toward the car. Inside the BMW, a man much heavier than the other two reclined in the driver’s seat, scrolling on his phone. She saw a glint in his jacket as he lifted his arm to scratch the back of his thick neck.
A gun?
As the man got up to join his comrades, Sabrina closed her eyes and gestured the sign of the cross before booking it across the street.
She hung back beneath the tattered canopy of an abandoned business entrance, watching the men smile, laugh, and seduce a group of three women, suggesting that they were a special taxi service. Or at least “taxi” was one of the few words Sabrina could make out.
As they all vaped together over small talk for a few minutes, Sabrina slinked along the row of parked cars that lined the street, strung tightly together like beads.
The heavy man had left the driver's door open, anticipating that they would all leave shortly. Her heart felt like a launched rocket as she reached in and searched for the manual trunk lever—something she had admittedly only YouTubed about ten minutes prior. She cringed as the driver’s seat still felt warm and steamy. She couldn’t make sense of the tech, which was way fancier than anything she’d ever been behind the wheel of, but fortunately, the driver was as senseless as he was sweaty and left the key fob in the front seat.
“Gratias!” She whispered to heaven.
The claustrophobic nightmare of what she was about to do came to mind for only a second before it was overridden. From the moment she put on the mask, she became the 2.0 version of herself, a version that reveled in fear. Adrenaline pulsed electrically through her systems, blissfully levitating her mind out of her body. Throwing herself into a car driven by men with guns and ill intentions was, at that point, the highest she’d ever soared.
The conversation peaked as the men were thoroughly distracted by their pick of women exiting the club. Sabrina seized the opportunity to pop the trunk and roll in, carefully blocking the latch and only making it appear closed. If she couldn’t get out, she had her phone and a full charger to call the police, and the fantasy would be over.
She slowed her breathing, conserving oxygen. She heard the men gathering at the car doors arguing in Korean while the women, she assumed by the clacking of heels on the asphalt, climbed into the back seat.
The car started, but the driver unexpectedly opened his door again and walked toward the back of the vehicle.
“Shit…” Sabrina whispered.
He pushed on the trunk a few times, but she held the fabric in place to keep it from latching.
The driver and another passenger argued before finally giving up and driving away.
For twenty-five minutes, Sabrina waited in the enclosed darkness with only the sounds of passing traffic and the seeping exhaust to keep her company. Panic crawled over her skin. There was no going back now. She would either fulfill her goal, end up caught by the police, or-
No, we can’t think about “or.”
Boop! Boop! The engine went silent as the vehicle locked, and the inebriated party stumbled out, headed to who knows where. Sabrina listened intently as their echoing voices and shoe clopping faded. It had to be a parking garage of some kind, and considering the length of the drive and the number of starts and stops, she was confident it was downtown.
Sabrina was about to crack open the trunk lid to assess her surroundings when she heard something new. A softer presence with calculated footsteps that somehow felt more threatening than any of the others she witnessed that night. Their aura passed by like a breath of rage, just waiting to scream.
She closed her eyes, focusing on their flow of movement. And speaking of flow, was someone…peeing?
Ewww.
As soon as the nasty tinkling ceased, the sound of a man groaning reached her ears, and then a body hitting the floor.
“Consider murmurmur,” a male voice said, “that murmurmur a bruise.”
Sabrina’s brain lit up with questions and best-guess answers. The only truth she could confirm was that whoever this person was, they were skilled, and she would only have one chance to best them.
“Seduce ‘em with weakness, surprise ‘em with strength.” Her brother had loved using psychological tactics on his opponents, and he was obnoxiously smug about reading The Art of War every year since he was fourteen. Yet, Sabrina retained what he said, not just in fighting, but in life.
She pounded the trunk lid with her wrapped knuckles. Thump! Thump! Thump!
Blood pulsed behind her ears. Then, the shoes scraped, pivoting toward her. Then, more of those very deliberate steps.
It’s working. Shit. It’s working…
Thump! Thump! Thump! She added a slight desperation to the beat this time.
She sensed someone hovering directly over her, jingling keys or something.
“Now, Brina!” She heard her brother’s voice in her head again as if he were shouting from behind the ropes.
POP!
The trunk flew open. Sabrina only saw a figure in black, like some DIY street ninja.
“Come out swinging!”
She rotated onto her side, stretched out her long right leg, and whacked her foot against the assailant’s face. She knew she got him good when he roared in pain and stumbled backwards, his baton flying across the garage.
Sabrina leapt out of the trunk and immediately lost balance. After being crammed for over 45 minutes, her neck spasmed, and she was out of breath. She put up her fists and began to shuffle, her heavy golden ponytail swishing with the shifting of her feet.
“Shit!” the street ninja snapped. “I think you broke my nose!”
Sabrina circled him. “There’s more where that came from, you sicko.”
“What?” he looked up at her blearily, his eyes watering from the pain and impact on his sinuses. He wiped his eyes and took in the person who had landed the blow.
Is this girl for real? He thought. She looks like she’s on her way to Anime Expo.
“Wait! I’m not with those asshholes. Did they… kidnap you?” he asked.
Sabrina lengthened her spine to reinforce all five feet and ten inches of her frame and gestured to her torso. “Do I look like I can be kidnapped?”
Only then did Jason realize the woman standing before him was not a victim. He wasn’t sure what she was, but she, like him, was ready for a fight. He rolled backward, elegantly, like a gymnast doing a floor routine. He retrieved his baton and lowered it to a less defensive position. He was so fast that Sabrina froze in awe for a few seconds, save for her drooping jaw.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone…” Jason removed the bloody silk mask that covered the lower half of his face. “Ow… dammit…”
Sabrina hissed through her teeth upon witnessing the busted bridge she had caused on an otherwise very smooth and pleasant-looking face. His dark eyes were bloodshot and circled with exhaustion, but also strangely inviting and kind.
His voice grew nasally as he struggled to inhale. “I’m trying to get the men who drove the car you were just in. Based on your lame cosplay, and the fact that you aren’t with them, I’m going to take a wild guess that you are, too?”
Sabrina crossed her arms. “You’re one to talk, Mortal Kombat. But yes, I’m trying to get those men.”
“Well,” Jason continued. “You don’t have to put yourself in further danger. I got it from here.”
He stomped toward the staircase that led out to the street, but Sabrina pulled him by the back of his jacket collar.
“Get the hell off me!” he snapped, slapping her hand away and blocking her with a palm strike.
“I’ve been prepping for over two weeks to get these bastards,” said Sabrina.
“Well, I’ve been waiting five YEARS.” Blood was still dripping from his nose.
“Oh, for God’s sake-” Sabrina huffed. She then reached out to his face, but he blocked her again. “You’re not going to make it very far like that.”
“Oh no, no, no. You’ve already done enough damage, Blondie.”
“Fine. Good luck breathing.”
They glared at each other for several seconds, with Sabrina’s eyes distracting Jason for at least five of those seconds. The fluorescent lighting overhead hit them just right, igniting her blue-gray stare beneath the pink resin mask.
“How do I know you won’t make it worse?”
“You don’t, and it will hurt like hell, but I’ve done it f-for-” She hesitated, choking on her words, and then… oh no…
“For?”
Please, please, please… she pleaded to her body. We’re so close.
“Forget it.” He walked away again.
“For my brother.” Even she was surprised by her own honesty. “He was a boxer. I fixed his broken nose at least three times that I can remember. You’ll still need to go to the doctor, but it’ll get you through tonight.”
Jason looked into her eyes again, and a curious sensation arose. The nausea stopped, and the cold sweats dried. Like a ship dropping anchor in calmer waters, Sabrina was stilled.
“Make it quick, and if you even think about trying anything-”
Before he could finish his sentence, Sabrina had grabbed him by both sides of his face. They were so close they could feel each other’s breath. Jason wriggled a little at the awkwardness.
“Hold still. Bring your wrist up to your mouth. Bite down on your jacket,” she ordered.
He scrunched his face sourly at the thought of what was coming, but did as he was told.
Sabrina gently ran her thumbs under each of his eyes, then brought them together at his nose.
“@!^$&*#” he slurred profanities into the leather cuff of his jacket.
“Breathe,” she whispered. “One… two…”
Her eyes had him transfixed once more, and then-
“AHHH!”
SNAP!
She adjusted the bridge back into place. Jason writhed around until the initial shock of agony passed. Sabrina felt a little terrible for what she had done, but it was his fault for being so unnecessarily mysterious, lurking around criminal hideaways.
Once he composed himself, he wiped his face and said, “I’m… Jason.”
Sabrina thought about changing her name, maybe using Babcia’s or her mother’s, but being dishonest to this man, though she had known him for about ten whole seconds, somehow felt even more wrong than breaking his nose.
She swallowed the rest of her hesitation and held out her hand. “Sabrina.”
