Free Seoul Survivors by Naomi Foyle

didn’t have an oven.” Damien raised his voice above the rattle of the fan blowing over his chest. It was, as promised, bloody hot in Seoul in June.
    “Ancient Korean-Canadian secret,” Jake hollered back. “I made it in the rice cooker. No fuss, no muss, no microwaves! Aha: perfection!”
    “Great, I’m starving.”
    Jake chuckled. “You don’t wanna explode, buddy, you better get your mitts on that hash first.”
    Damien groaned. The great bowel evacuation was still ahead of him. Jake had taken him for a barbecue last night to get things moving, but while the kim chi, a fiery garlic pickle, had stripped the roof of his mouth, the 35-proof soju had just sent him to sleep as soon as they’d got back to the flat. It had been good to chat with Jake, though, reminisce about India, catch up on the last couple of years. After Mumbai, Jake had gone back to Toronto to run a market stall, do a few dope deals, and save enough money to come out to Korea and connect with his roots. He liked it so much here he was going to invest his own share of the dope dosh in a bar in Shinch’on, with his Korean cousin Sam. Sam was in Canada at the moment, doing a course toward his MBA, but when he got back the cousins were going to move into a penthouse flat further up the hill. Jake was lugging his stuff up there in a couple of days.
    Damien—well, Damien had left one or two things out of his account of Brighton life. It hadn’t been the right time or place to ask about the passport either. First things first.
    “Better make me a coffee,” he called out. Hopefully the four Imodium tablets had loosened their grip on his intestines by now, or else he’d be taking some senna pills too.
    “Coming right up, buddy. Coming right up.” An espresso-maker hissed in the kitchen, then Jake appeared with two cups of java. “Whay-hey. That’s my Dames. Looking alive again, dude. You were whiter than my iBook when you came through that gate yesterday.”
    “Ta, mate.” Grinning weakly, Damien sat up and reached for the coffee. The airport had been excruciating. The visa officer had pored over his passport for an age, practically the whole Anthropocene.
    “December twenty-one. You need new document soon.” The man had sounded troubled, as if this were a situation he couldn’t quite remember how to deal with.
    Clearing his throat, Damien had taken the printout from the British Embassy website out of his pocket. “Yes, I know. I was told I can renew it here.”
    The officer had stared at the sheet, the rusty cogs of his mind had ground into place; his chipped face had reset itself in stone. Then he’d told Damien to look into the camera, stamped his passport for six months and waved him on.
    One ordeal down, one to go. The baggage carousel had taken forever to get moving, but finally his grubby backpack had thumped onto the conveyor belt. It contained mostly summer clothes and CDs; as far as luggage went it was light and entirely blameless. He’d hoisted it onto his shoulder then, with knees wobbling like blancmanges, joined the customs queue. Even if the officers took a routine peek, there was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
    The officers hadn’t even glanced up from their white-gloved perusal of Laptop Guy’s bags. With sweat streaming down his back, Damien had floated into arrivals, straight into Jake’s combo bear-hug and clap on the back. To the lo-fi trundle of suitcase wheels and the random space-talk of the Tannoy, his friend had whisked him out of a revolving door, then through the glare of sunshine and hot stink of petrol fumes into a taxi outside.
    Now only Jake knew where he was: safe in a ropey little rooftop flat above a labyrinthine Seoul neighborhood—a flat that would soon be all his.
    After just one more not-exactly-salubrious experience.
    The caffeine got to work with a sharp twist in his gut and Damien groaned. “Here she comes, special delivery, down the night tunnel.” He put his cup down and rolled to