Summary

In this part of Flashlight, Serk and Byung Ho continue their quiet alliance within a system that rewards secrecy and punishes speculation. They trade information about the capital, the party families who might have adopted Louisa, and the social categories that fix a life before it begins. Serk learns the hierarchies that govern the city he cannot reach while Byung Ho practices the languages and ideas that make another world imaginable. Their talks are practical and unsentimental, a ledger of what might still be possible for a lost child within a closed state.

The men manage risk by changing tongues. In order to speak freely they shift into Japanese, which drains their fear of being overheard and lets them weigh uncomfortable truths out loud: “They had taken to speaking Japanese almost exclusively, because it removed any lingering fear they might be overheard” (226). The...