ATLiens

Peachtree Street and MLK Jr. Drive

The restaurant was alive in that exhausted, sacred way only late-night food spots are alive. Grill smoke trapped in hood vents, fry oil in the air, receipts curled off the printers, and Future drilled the air.

A homeless duo and a posse of dancers from Magic City shared sleepy energy in adjacent booths as exiled clubbers laughed too loud at themselves.

Inside Lightworkers Korean BBQ, everybody was somebody for a minute. Strippers still in lashes. Doormen off shift. Students too drunk to count change. Men with nowhere permanent to be. Women too pretty and too tired to keep their shoes on under the table.

Gi fed all of them with the same irritated mercy.

'Where’s my sauce, Gi?!' a drunken college kid ranted, pointing into the kitchen from the counter.

'Sauce? You drank it!' a Korean woman shot back as the staff and regulars rumbled with laughter.

At the edge of the late-night chaos, a restaurant worker lay on a couch, listening to OutKast and scrolling her TikTok comments.

'Sh! Sh! Softly as if I played piano in the dark,' she mumbled along. A black tank top and navy joggers sat easy on her work-tired frame.

'Taeyang!' Gi didn’t even look at her, just kept arguing with drunken patriots and rattling off orders from the line. 'Break’s over!'

Tae paused 'ATLiens' and held a stare at Gi.

Gi bucked her eyes back. 'il-eonasil geongayo, an il-eonasil geongayo?'

'Are you going to get up, or not?'

Tae stood and stretched. 'I’m up, ma. Relax.'

An older kitchen worker giggled. 'Yeah! And stop stealing fries.'

'Stealing, Tae-Tae?!' a regular added. 'How you gonna save lives, but stealing food?'

Tae smirked like she hated that joke because she’d heard versions of it her whole life. As if stepping in was some kind of itch she was born scratching.

Smiling, she raised her middle fingers and casually spun. 'I’ll put these in a to-go bag for y’all. How ’bout it, yeah?'

'Taeyang!' Gi slapped a glow-in-the-dark receipt on the folded, stapled paper bag. 'We got another one.'

Tae read the ticket and sucked her teeth. 'Really?!—'

'Really,' Gi nodded.

'But it’ll put me out after close. You can’t be serious, bruh—'

Gi pointed toward the door. 'My name is Gi or boss, lil’ girl. See? That’s your problem. You need more discipline—'

'She needs a husband!' an older woman chimed in from the register. Gi and Tae shot silent glares at her.

'nali, jigeum-eun an dwae. ttal-ilang jeong-eul ssahgo issneun jung-iya!'

'Nari, not right now. I'm in the middle of bonding with my daughter!'

'Bonding?!' Tae scoffed. 'Madness—'

Gi held the bag just out of reach another second. 'And no side quests. Drop it off and come back. Atlanta got enough fools in it without my daughter volunteering.'

Tae looked toward the line cooks and delivery workers watching her. They immediately snapped back to work.

'Y’all ain’t shit,' she mumbled, throwing on the sky blue, triple extra large restaurant windbreaker.

She jammed the chef beanie/wave-cap hybrid over her wavy parted bob, grabbed the bag, and headed into the wet glow outside.

Martin Luther King Jr. Drive

Outside, Atlanta felt harsher than the heat she’d just left behind.

The restaurant glow fell off quick. Grease and charcoal gave way to wet concrete, old rain, traffic exhaust, and the sour metal smell that lived around bus stops, gutters, and storefront security grates after midnight.

Tae rolled east on her Inmotion P6, one hand resting on the warm delivery bag in her lap, the other loose at her side.

MLK stretched ahead slick and black, throwing back traffic lights in long bruised streaks.

Blue and red flashed somewhere farther up the corridor, not urgent enough to explain themselves, just present—another pressure in the night.

A MARTA bus exhaled at the curb and pulled off again.

She passed a half-closed beauty supply, a check-cashing spot behind scratched plexiglass, and the narrow convenience/electronics store with the flickering OPEN sign that always looked like it was dying but never did.

Tae stepped off the wheel and guided it inside with her knee.

The place smelled like dust, candy, and overheated plastic. Phone cases hung in fading rows behind the counter.

Chargers, earbuds, off-brand speakers, screen protectors, prayer candles, rolling papers, and loose batteries filled every inch of wall space not covered by handwritten signs.

In the back, bent over the blue mat of his repair station, Doyun sat under a swing-arm lamp with a cracked iPhone opened in his hands like a tiny patient on an operating table.

He looked up once, saw her, then looked back down. '아직도 배달하냐?'

'You’re still doing deliveries?'

Tae leaned on the counter, still catching her breath from the ride. '엄마 알잖아.'

'You know how Mom is.'

He gave a flat little grunt through his nose.

With a pair of tweezers, he lifted something microscopic from the phone’s guts and set it aside.

Then he finally looked at her fully—delivery bag, work clothes, helmet hair, the tiredness she thought she was hiding.

'오늘 이상해.'

'Tonight feels wrong.'

Tae glanced toward the front windows as headlights slid over the glass. '늘 이상하지.'

'It’s always wrong.'

'아니.' he shook his head. '경찰이 이상해.'

'No. The police are acting strange.'

That got her attention.

He nodded toward the street with his chin, still speaking low and clipped. '아까부터 몇 번이나 지나갔어. 순찰이 아니야.'

'They’ve passed by several times. It’s not normal patrol.'

Tae frowned. '단속?'

'A sweep?'

'몰라. 그냥 빨리 갔다 와.'

'I don’t know. Just go make the delivery and come back.'

She gave him a look. '그 말 엄마한테 해.'

'Tell Mom that.'

For the first time, something almost like a smile touched one corner of his mouth and died there.

Shouting started outside.

It was far more aggressive than traffic irritation. Not random male voices. One trying to stay in control, two others enjoying themselves too much.

Doyun and Tae both turned toward the window.

A young Black woman—Kennedy, one of Doyun’s customers—was on the sidewalk near the curb, receipt still in one hand, little white repair ticket crumpled in her fist.

Two men had closed in on her before she could get fully away from the storefront.

One was broad and local-looking, older than the other two, with the swagger of a man who liked testing strangers under bright light.

The other was younger, skinny, restless, a grin on his face that kept slipping every time Kennedy didn’t scare right.

The older shoulder checked Kennedy lightly.

Tae felt her jaw tighten.

Through the glass she couldn’t hear every word, but she caught enough.

'...walking around like you don’t owe me money!—'

'Aye! I told you I was—'

'Nah, you need to pull your tone back—'

Kennedy took half a step backward and hit the hood of a parked car with her thigh.

Her face changed, her shoulder dropped too fast.

Tae knew that posture.

Kennedy’s right hand traveled under her hoodie for her waistband.

Tae moved.

The door banged open behind her hard enough to rattle the hanging chargers.

She crossed the sidewalk in four quick strides, delivery bag still in one hand.

'Hey!' she barked.

All three of them looked at her.

Kennedy’s hand froze where it was.

The older aggressor turned first, irritated at being interrupted, then confused by who had interrupted him.

Tae was still in her work clothes, still carrying food.

'What?' he said.

Tae pointed at Kennedy without taking her eyes off the two men. 'Ken ain’t did nothin’ to you. Move around.'

The younger one laughed. 'This got nothin’ to do with you—'

'You’re in front of my daddy’s store with one of his customers? I’m all-the-way involved.'

Both men glanced instinctively at the window.

Doyun hadn’t come outside, but he was visible now behind the counter, still and watching.

The younger guy rolled his neck. 'We just talking.'

'No,' Tae said. 'You’re showin your ass. Big difference.'

Kennedy’s hand twitched again toward her waist.

Without looking at her, Tae snapped, 'Aye, Relax.'

That was the moment the older guy understood something was off. 'Man, fuck that cheap-ass store!—'

Tae saw Kennedy’s hand creep further with a hardening face.

'Don’t be stupid, Ken.' she glared.

The police lights washed brighter at the far end of the block now, still not here but near enough to make everybody recalculate themselves.

Kennedy swiftly walked away as Tae grimaced.

The older aggressor spat at the sidewalk near Tae’s shoe, then backed up with that universal look of men who knew they’d lost the moment but needed to pretend they were choosing to leave it.

'This your little bodyguard?' he called to Kennedy. 'Aww, don’t leave your bodyguard!'

She didn’t answer, continuing up the block.

Behind the store glass, Doyun was already looking past them toward the eastbound lights.

Not at the fight. Not even at her. At whatever pattern in the street had set his nerves off in the first place.

Tae noticed and followed his gaze.

Two police cruisers slid through the intersection slow, not chasing anybody.

Hunting shape. Looking.

Their headlights touched faces, windows, doorways, tires, hands.

Searching.

Tae stood there one second longer than she meant to, delivery bag warm against her arm, helmet hanging from two fingers, Atlanta humming around her like something electrical buried under pavement.

Doyun opened the door. '빨리 가.'

'Go. Now.'

Tae took the delivery bag and pushed past them. 'I don’t have time for this shit.'