Summary

Chapter 2, "The Boy’s Friend, 1980" is told from the perspective of Jeong-dae’s soul after he has been killed. The chapter opens with Jeong-dae describing the scene he is experiencing. His body is thrown into a military truck, piled onto many others. Suddenly, he is alone in the truck, with no other souls around. He glimpses at his own body, claiming, “how strange, to see my own eyes shuttered in that blood-leached face” (32).

The truck carries on, moving downhill until it reaches a large iron gate. It passes through and then stops. Several soldiers come around to the truck to unload all of the bodies, piling them on top of one another and stacking them into a cross on the ground. Jeong-dae takes in the scenery of the night while he feels the presence of other souls around him. He is perplexed by his...