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• 

  A Loose Nail

  When Kyungshin Unnie called me, I was dozing off on a train headed South. The sudden vibration of my phone, balanced precariously between my fingers, startled me awake. I glanced at the name on the screen. My first instinct was to let it ring. Then I asked myself, why would she be calling?        I wondered if maybe something had happened to Kyungho, but the concern wasn’t enough to move me. It had already been six years, after all. While I had deleted Kyungho’s phone number from my contact list, I kept Kyungshin Unnie’s. He was the one I broke up with, not her. However ridiculous it might sound, I really did believe Unnie and I could remain friends. As long as we maintained a certain. . . distance between us.        Distance was what I had needed back then, not an ending. I never once thought that Unnie would cut me out of her life. On the contrary, I worried that the reason I had delayed my breakup with Kyungho was because of Unnie—because it was hard for me to let go of her, because she cared so much for me, because I couldn’t say goodbye to her. Thinking back, I realized that wasn’t worry, but hope. However, after the breakup Unnie never initiated contact, and that hurt me.        Even though it felt strange, I held on to that hurt. And all the while, I was also guilty of not reaching out. I was itching to know how she was doing, yet I was afraid that the moment Unnie heard my voice, she’d be able to read the true intention hidden behind my “How are you?” That she’d pick up her bags and stride back into the depth of my life (she was never the type to hang on the threshold). Then, somewhere along the way, that strange feeling turned to numbness, then quietness, and now I was doing alright. So why was she calling me now?        I pressed the button to stop the buzzing. A few seconds later, my screen lit up with a missed call notification. Though I knew my stop was due any moment, I closed my eyes again. Three short vibrations made the phone shudder once more.        I had no doubt it was Unnie. She always texted this way, cutting sentences into smaller fragments. I ignored her messages and only opened my eyes when the automated voice announced our arrival.  *      That afternoon passed by in a blur. A liaison officer in charge of escorting us was waiting outside the station, standing in front of a car. My colleague and I had been sent on this business trip to learn the ins-and-outs of an international exhibition that had been successfully held for several years in S City. Basically, it was a field study.        Our entire organization had automatically switched modes after a new mayor from a different party was elected. A number of ongoing projects were dismantled, and before long my department merged with another. For three years I had been handling banner regulations, when suddenly I found myself preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Expo, one of the newly appointed mayor’s key campaign pledges.        After our tour, we were dragged to an unnecessary dinner with the team leader of S City’s department. We ate a seafood samhap dish with a weird name—Yisunshin Samhap—and drank a bit of soju.        When I finally arrived at our accommodation, a wave of exhaustion overwhelmed me, and I collapsed on the bed fully dressed. While absentmindedly tapping my messenger app, I was confronted once again with Unnie’s texts, which I had forgotten about.         Hyejeong-ah        I forgot you hate calls, sorry        Just curious how you’re doing         Fine, I typed. Then I deleted it.        On a business trip. I deleted it again.        Why would she even care how I was doing? Even if I answered that I was okay, what meaning would that have? My head spinning with thoughts, I got up and went to take a shower. I fell asleep right after.        Once I was back from the business trip, I had already forgotten Unnie’s texts. Actually, I tried my best not to think about them. But a few days later, she texted me again.         Busy?        I hesitated for a moment before I answered.        Yes. Busy. I thought she wouldn’t contact me again after such a cold reply, but I was fooling myself. Unnie wasn’t the type to get hurt so easily. And even if she had been, she wouldn’t give up. Sure enough, as though she’d been waiting, Unnie began chatting.        She started working part-time at a convenience store last spring.        The stray cat she’d been feeding had given birth to two kittens.        She had quit drinking but had become addicted to cola instead.        My phone kept buzzing because she texted in bursts, one short sentence at a time. I muted the chatroom. Since I didn’t ask, Unnie never mentioned Kyungho. I had no way of knowing if she was still living with him or not. And I didn’t want to.        From that day on, whenever I checked my phone after work, I found several messages from her, some including photos. Every time, curiosity got the best of me, and I ended up reading them all.        She told me about the old man next door who, at exactly 7 a.m. every morning, would raise the national flag (his dedication and solemn demeanor were somehow moving). About a mosquito that had been flattened between the pages of a book she’d just bought (how many mosquitoes in the world could say they found their end this way?). About the recorder music coming from some unidentified house (despite intense practice, the musician’s skills never seemed to improve, but listening to it was weirdly comforting).        I see. Great. LoL. Even on days when I left no response at all she kept texting. I didn’t mind. Maybe I wanted to reconnect with her.        Or maybe I was just lonely.        Kyungho and Kyungshin Unnie were the first people outside my family that I had ever loved deeply. Of course, in the beginning, I had no idea I would come to care for her so much. In the early days of our relationship, Kyungho and I once bickered about whether to go to my place or his. We were both quite drunk and didn’t want to part. The bar we’d been drinking at was near Kyungho’s apartment, but he insisted we take a taxi back to mine. Otherwise, we could go to a motel. Up until then, we had never been to a motel, nor did either of us ever suggest it. When I frowned, Kyungho averted my gaze and said,        My sister is home.        I knew he had a sister three years older than him. I also knew that she had dropped out of art college, that she had practically raised Kyungho after they lost their parents in an accident, and that she was now suffering from quite severe depression. That same sister had moved into Kyungho’s place a few months earlier. I wondered how the two managed to share the cramped space—he lived in a tiny apartment of thirteen pyeong, with two small rooms—but most of all, it irked me that he hadn’t told me about this until now, when he had no choice but to bring it up.        I had my prejudices, too. I had heard too many times about sisters-in-law being even more difficult to deal with than mothers-in-law. After their parents’ death, Kyungho’s sister had left university and thrown herself into the frontline of the workforce to provide for them. She had done just about anything—manual labor at construction sites, factory work, housekeeping. Right now, however, her depression kept her from holding down any kind of job for long. Kyungho adored his sister.        Our dark past caught up to her in the form of an illness, he said. She always seemed so strong, I never realized she was breaking down inside. I couldn’t see it. She’s only got me.        Whenever Kyungho brought up the subject, I felt a little uneasy. A part of me was afraid his sister was using the sacrifices she had made to hold him hostage. And what if she’d eventually demand I repay that debt as well?        At the same time, I felt sorry for her. She was over forty and had never really been able to settle anywhere, with no stable job, no partner to lean on, and now she was living in her little brother’s house. To be honest, I thought maybe depression was just an excuse.        Aside from the issue of his sister (at the time I thought she was the problem), Kyungho was good husband material. He was a civil servant like me and had no extravagant spending habits. Back then he had never shown even the slightest aggression toward me, never cursed, and wasn’t much of a drinker. He wasn’t flawless by any means, but he was nice to me, and I liked him.        Then one day, Kyungho asked me if I wanted to meet his sister. When I agreed, he said something that left me puzzled: I hope you won’t like her, or hate her either.  *      I met her in the summer. We went to a samgyetang restaurant, even though it wasn’t the hottest day of the season. I thought it was an odd choice, but Kyungho told me his sister had done thorough research before landing on this specific place.        Later, Kyungshin Unnie revealed she had considered that first meeting as a sort of pre-engagement introduction. After all, she was Kyungho’s only family. She thought samgyetang was the perfect menu for such an occasion—neither too expensive nor cheap, a dish you didn’t eat often but that at the same time didn’t require formal attire. Unnie said that while she wanted me to feel welcomed and taken care of, she had hoped not to pressure me. I was so struck by her thoughtfulness I almost felt guilty. Unnie’s long, wavy hair was pinned up with a claw clip, and she wore a loose khaki summer knit through which you could clearly make out her bra top, a pair of jeans shorts that revealed her thighs, and flip-flops. Her attire felt almost too casual, even to the point of being inappropriate. As for myself, I had opted for a two-piece linen set. Even though we met right after work, I tried to dress for the occasion.        Despite not wearing any make-up, she had an air of elegance. I could feel the people in the restaurant stealing  glances at her. It’s inevitable for beauty to attract attention, and Kyungshin Unnie was effortlessly stunning.        For this reason, I must admit I was taken aback. I had always imagined she’d be a bit lackluster, with small eyes and a shadow cast over her face that make-up couldn’t conceal. Overall, someone that had no desire or interest in taking care of her appearance. But when she looked at me and smiled, there was no shadow on her face.        Should I just call you Hyejeong? I heard you’re younger than Kyungho.        Out of the blue, she dropped any formalities and called me by my name. I was torn, unsure whether I ought to let my walls down or build them up higher. While I don’t remember the details of our conversation, my heart began to thaw against my will, and eventually it melted completely. We left the restaurant and went to Kyungho’s place, where we drank until dawn. It was a relief that we had met on a Friday.        That Saturday, we soothed our alcohol-filled stomachs with the bean sprout ramyun Unnie prepared for brunch, then proceeded to spend the day lounging on the sofa, dozing in fits and starts while reruns of some entertainment program played in the background. For dinner, we ordered fried chicken. If anyone had seen us, they’d have a hard time understanding how we could’ve gotten so close after only one day.        As I was standing in the foyer of Kyungho’s apartment, Unnie chirped, If you two get married, we’ll have loads of fun, don’t you think?        On my way back home, I kept smiling. A part of me couldn’t believe what had happened, while another found it refreshing. I felt like I had just witnessed something rare. Unnie’s words, her expression as she said them—she was devoid of all pretenses. I don’t think we were ever fully sober after that weekend. Unnie liked her liquor, and she got drunk easily. As for me, I liked Unnie and almost never got tipsy. We met up to drink every other day. As time passed, Kyungho became less and less a part of our get-togethers.        One evening, in a tiny, unknown bar on the third floor of a building, Unnie and I joined a group that was playing guitar. I was the type who held onto the tambourine like a lifeline during the karaoke sessions that inevitably followed company dinners, trying to get out of singing, but that night I bellowed out two whole songs on my own, following the guitar’s melody.        For the first time in my life, I even went to a club. Unnie brought me a dress—a tiny scrap of fabric, really—and a few accessories. I changed in a subway station bathroom stall. Unnie applied glittering eyeshadow to my eyelids, then picked up an eyeliner and drew a sharp line that elongated the shape of my eyes. Standing in front of the mirror, we both burst into giggles. It felt like I was back in middle school, even though I had never done anything like that as a teenager. I was sure the men guarding the club’s doors wouldn’t let us in, but thanks to Unnie we made it through. The club was loud, chaotic, and overall a place I would never step into again, but I had fun.        When I was with Kyungshin Unnie, I became a braver version of myself, even without the help of alcohol. Beside her, I felt free, though I didn’t know what from.        As I lay in bed to sleep, thoughts of her filled my mind. It was as if I had a light fever, a feeling I’d never experienced with anyone—not with Kyungho, and not with any of my past boyfriends. Every so often, when I went out to meet her, I’d find her already drinking with someone else. Sometimes it would be a friend of hers or an acquaintance, but there were also times when she’d only met them a few hours earlier. Among these random drinking buddies a few were surprisingly shy and reserved. Most introverts, myself included, would instinctively run if someone approached them out of the blue, but Unnie wasn’t threatening, nor did she push them out of their comfort zones. She was the type who’d seep through your barriers without you even noticing.        She was considerate with everyone, and thoughtfulness came to her so naturally that those on the receiving end, without being aware of it, simply felt respected and at ease when they were in her company. In a group, Unnie would always make sure no one was feeling left out, spreading her attention and care to each, like a mother bird feeding her chicks. I believed that was Unnie’s special talent.        Kyungho disagreed. In fact, he thought the opposite. He said Unnie had a habit of lowering herself, which made others feel superior to her. That was why people gravitated toward her.I took his words as a criticism of me. By then, we were arguing much more often. Do you know you’re acting strange lately? Kyungho said one day, when Unnie wasn’t around. I’m not sure if you’re dating me or my sister, to be honest.        Thinking he was joking, I laughed and said, I guess you’re right!        Be reasonable, he continued, turning serious. You’re not special to her. She acts the same with everyone.        I felt hurt, maybe because deep down I already knew it. As I fell silent, Kyungho sighed and rubbed his face.        Hyejeong-ah, he said with a sweeter tone, hoping to comfort me, You said it yourself before, didn’t you? That you liked Kyungshin because she had no walls. The thing is, no walls means she has no defense either. She gives her all to everyone, always laying her cards on the table. You need to protect her, not get swept away in her wind.        I got angry. I thought he was being unfair. I wanted to tell him I loved Kyungshin as much as he did. I believed he was trying to control Unnie under the guise of protecting her.        I shouted at him, You may be the one protecting your sister, but I’ll help her live her life the way she wants! If she shows all her cards, I’ll show mine, too.That was how I felt at the time.  *      Imagine a plain glass bottle, with no decoration at all, that keeps catching your eye.        With its transparent walls, you can see right through it. The bottle has no intention of hiding anything about itself, and even if it did, it’d fail. How could a glass bottle conceal its interior? It may look sturdy but there’s no guarantee it won’t break.        If you look closely, you’ll spot tiny bubbles scattered throughout the glass. The light passing through them is beautiful. Are those flaws? Beauty marks?        No, more like a glimpse of something unknown. Maybe that’s why the person looking at them feels uneasy. That day, Unnie seemed oddly unstable. She kept drinking, unable to resist the alcohol, and looked a little sad, despite trying to hide it with an awkward laugh.        We were at a cocktail bar we frequented, and she continued dozing off. She had changed her antidepressant prescription, and she said as a side effect drinking made her sleepy. I made a joke, saying that as a result she’d probably drink less, so in the long run it wouldn’t be a negative side effect anymore.        While I drank my three gin tonics, Unnie kept sleeping. Then, she jerked awake, messaged someone on her phone, and said she was going to a friend’s house. I asked the bartender for a cup of water and watched as Unnie drank it all down.        After leaving the bar, Unnie smoked a cigarette, and I bought two hangover drinks from the convenience store. We each gulped one down, and I walked her to her friend’s house, which was in an old building. Unnie said she would go in after seeing me off. When I turned around, she waved her hand and smiled. I walked to the main road and took a taxi. At four in the morning, I received a call from Kyungho. Unnie hadn’t come home. I told him she went to a friend’s house, so she was probably still there.        Which friend?        I don’t know the name.        He sounded resentful, saying I should’ve at least phoned him if I wasn’t going with her. As I explained to him that I had accompanied her to the entrance of the building and shared with him its location, I wondered why the hell I was making excuses.        I was about to tell him he was the one being unreasonable now, that maybe she didn’t want to go home because he suffocated her, but I stopped myself in time. Instead, I chose sarcasm.        Do you even know how old your sister is?        Kyungho remained silent for a long while, then hung up. I went back to sleep, then woke up and got to work. At the end of a meeting, I checked my phone. Kyungho never contacted me during work hours, but I found three missed calls and a text saying he was waiting for me in the lobby on the first floor.        Once I went down, I saw Kyungho beyond the security gate, staring into the void. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept at all. He’d been contacted by the police. Someone had called them saying they found Kyungshin Unnie sleeping on a park bench near a subway station.        If that person hadn’t reported it, if something had happened to her. . . Kyungho was speaking in a murmur, but I could sense the boiling anger underneath. For the first time, I was afraid of him.        I thought you would at least. . . but he trailed off. I wasn’t sure if he was holding back tears or something else. Then he said he wanted to break up.        I said, Okay, and that was the last time we saw each other.  *      By the end of the summer, Unnie said she wanted to meet and talk. Had I been waiting for her to say it first? I was both worried and happy. To be honest, during our text conversations, a baseless confidence had sprouted within me. I was sure this time around I’d be able to maintain the proper distance. It had been six years, and during that time, no matter how long or short it may have felt, we had matured.        We met at a sushi restaurant near my office. I’d thought she was joking when she told me she’d stopped drinking, but Unnie didn’t order any alcohol. Maybe that was why she looked a bit dull. She had been texting me non-stop about every little thing, but now that we were face-to-face, she wasn’t speaking much. She was limp as a toilet paper roll without its center. Once we were done with our food, we walked to a nearby park. The days were still long, and the sun shined on the streets despite it being seven o’clock in the evening. As if sensing the summer’s end, the cicadas were louder than ever, their buzzing pouring down from the lush zelkova trees.        As soon as we sat down on a bench, three pigeons flew over. The birds didn’t seem to expect anything from us, judging by the way they pecked at the ground. I couldn’t tell if they were eating bugs or something else.        When, a while later, Unnie rummaged through her purse, a few other pigeons and sparrows circled us. She took out a packet of candy and offered me one. Mint flavored. She said she was in the process of quitting smoking.        Why? I asked.        Why? she repeated, then she burst out laughing. The candy had melted and was stuck to the wrapper, which wouldn’t budge. At the rustling sound, the birds ran to my feet in anticipation.        I wouldn’t be able to face Kyungho if I got cancer or something, Unnie said. I took the opportunity to ask her how he was doing.        Is he okay?        Yeah. He’s gotten into biking. He doesn’t only ride outside, he also bought an indoor one. This fall he’s going to do a cross-country trip with his friends. All the way down to Busan.        That wasn’t what I was curious about, but I nodded anyway. Kyunghshin Unnie seemed to have read my mind, because she said she’d moved out. Kyungho paid for her deposit. Now she was teaching an art class two times a week at a kindergarten. In the evenings she spent at home she liked to draw, even though it was nothing more than doodles. She was still on antidepressants, but her symptoms had gotten much better. I kept nodding my head.        Then we fell into silence for a while, both rolling the candy in our mouth, staring at the birds. Unnie pointed at one of the sparrows and said, It looks exactly like one of the toddlers I teach.        Oh, that’s adorable.        The sparrows running around were cute. For the first time, I thought I would like to be friends with a bird.        I imagined it springing up into the air and sitting on my finger. Walking while it rested on my shoulder. My foolish fantasies were broken by Unnie’s sudden request.        Can you lend me some money?        I felt a stinging pain somewhere around my chest. I hadn’t been expecting much, but. . .        How much do you need?        One million won.        Are you sick?        She shook her head no. If anything, I’m too healthy, she said. I wondered what “too healthy” could mean, but I didn’t ask.        I’ll give you the money. No need to pay me back.        When she heard my answer, Unnie stared at me with vacant eyes.        I had forgotten about this habit of hers, the way she turned to look at you, her gaze blank. Quite literally, it was impossible to read any emotion or intention in her eyes, and that still stare made you look back at yourself. Is there something on my face? Did I say something wrong?        Maybe others would dislike that habit, but I didn’t mind. I always thought it was a good gaze—if a gaze can even be judged as good or bad.        How was Kyungho’s gaze? Good? Bad? His eyes were incredibly clear, almost strangely so (like the glossy black stones on a Go board), yet every time they met mine, I liked myself a little less. Maybe because of my crooked feelings that had been there from the start.        Sitting on that park bench, I sent Unnie the money without thinking twice.        I’ll pay it back, I promise, she said firmly.        Right then, a sparrow landed with a flutter on her knee. Her gaze turned to me, as if to say, Look at this!        Her face lit up with pure delight, like she’d already forgotten I had just lent her a million won.  *     Starting the next day, I couldn’t get in contact with her. Or rather, Unnie’s texts, which had been a constant flow lately, came to an abrupt end.        I got angry when I realized she’d only reached out again to get the money. She could’ve just asked by text and I would’ve given it to her, no questions asked. That way, she would have spared me this hurt.        Thinking back to our conversation, Unnie hadn’t asked anything about me. All I got was that single How are you doing? the first time she texted me while I was on the train. Kyungshin Unnie had talked about herself the whole time, while I simply nodded or offered a laugh now and then.        Kyungho had been right. I was nothing to her. At that realization I didn’t feel anger, but sadness. And not because I’d been abandoned a second time, but because I realized the one who was abandoned had never been me. That fateful night, when everything went astray, Unnie slept at the cocktail bar’s counter, her arms crossed and her head bobbing. I remember thinking she looked so peaceful. A part of me wanted to believe that she could sleep so soundly because she trusted me, but deep down I knew that she would’ve slept the same with just about anyone else, whether I were there or not. That thought saddened me.        Unnie’s back arched lower inch by inch, like ice cream melting. I pulled my seat closer so she could lean on me. Her body grew heavier by the minute. A round pool of warmth formed where our shoulders touched.        As I listened to her heavy breathing, a knot formed in my throat, overwhelmed with the feeling of one life weighing me down, heavier than Earth itself. A thought flashed in my mind. I want to protect this person. I won’t let her crumble. Though I may not be able to fully understand her, I can love her with all my might.        And then I realized—that was how Kyungho had felt all along.         I ran.  *     A few months later I received a call from the receptionist on the first floor of my building notifying me that, just a couple hours earlier, someone had left something for me. On my way home from work, I stopped to retrieve it. The receptionist told me that, for security reasons, they usually didn’t pass along items this way, but the woman’s pleas had been so earnest that they made an exception.        He handed me a pink envelope with a floral pattern. On the front it said To Hyejeong. Inside, there were twenty fifty-thousand-won bills. We never contacted each other after that. But who knows, in another six years I might get another call, Hyejeong-ah, it’s me.        If Kyungshin Unnie hadn’t been born, I might’ve married Kyungho and by now we’d have a couple of kids. If Kyunghshin Unnie hadn’t been born, I wouldn’t have cried on the streets holding a pink floral envelope.        For a long time, I believed my break-up with Kyungho was because of her, but I was wrong. We broke up because of who we were, just like Unnie couldn’t have been anyone but herself. I thought she had left me on the road like a hit-and-run driver, but maybe I was the sparrow who had rested on Unnie’s knee that day.        Sometimes I think back to that sparrow. And to the candor of my feelings, as weightless as the little bird.       Translated by Giulia Macrí

  by Moon JinYoung

• 

  Love and Flaws

  Sleep too much and your head will feel fuzzy. But I quite like that feeling.        Of all the things my aunt had said, this was perhaps the only one I could agree with. I’d been going to bed much too early, drifting in and out of sleep until high noon the next day. A whole week went by before I found myself staring at my ceiling, nodding slowly. She’s right. For the first time in my life, I was agreeing with my aunt. If you sleep for too long, you’ll feel like you’re aging quietly. I liked the peaceful feeling of time slipping by without anyone knowing. I tried to catch the moment when I fell asleep; to hold on to that last, precarious bit of consciousness. But time and time again, I failed. Once, I jolted awake and thought, I was so close.        I was wrapped warmly in my blanket, but the tip of my nose was still cold. Pinching it, I thought, This won’t do. I should get out the heating mat. Only then did I sit up, drag myself to the fridge, and down a protein drink. Panning my kitchen, I sighed. There was trash everywhere from all the takeout I’d been ordering, and balls of hair and dust rolling across the floor. And here I was blaming the heavy rain for my coughing fits and blocked nose. How silly.        While brewing coffee in my moka pot, it occurred to me that making coffee was the most productive thing I’d done this week. The thought made me chuckle. Productive? Wait till I get out the heating mat. I poured the coffee into a mug and slurped it on the balcony. It was raining. It’s rained so much this year. Soon the walls will be wet again. Just then, I received a text message from Su. Got something to give you. I willed myself to ignore the notification. But just as I was about to click on another one, I tapped on it by accident. Immediately I looked up how to turn off read receipts.        I really didn’t want Su at the funeral. In fact, I’d told him not to come. Twice. He’d shown up regardless. I couldn’t stop him—didn’t think it was polite to repeatedly turn away someone who was just trying to offer his condolences. Su acted like a real adult. He paid his respects before the funeral portrait, bowed to the chief mourner, and gave me a light hug. He skipped the yukgaejang and only had some rice cakes and tangerines. As he sipped on soju, he said, “I had to come. Your aunt was a good person.”        Su’s voice was thin and high-pitched, which made him sound ill. But that was why I had loved him. I loved the way he went by “Su” because his real name, “Daesu,” was too old-fashioned and masculine. My father took too much pride in his name. “It’s Kim, Sang, Nam. Sangnam, as in ‘manly man,’” he’d explain to strangers. But the reason Su and I had broken up after six years was because he had my father’s attitude. The kind of attitude that would compel one to say, “I had to come. Your aunt was a good person.”        After Su finished his bottle of soju and left, Mom scolded me, saying that I should’ve offered him at least a bowl of yukgaejang so he wouldn’t ruin his stomach. “Next time you see him, treat him to something good,” she said. Mom was always acting as if Su and I would eventually get back together. I didn’t want to owe him anything anymore, but people were always getting into the way of my plans, and that infuriated me. I finished the rest of my coffee, smoked a cigarette, and dialed Su’s number. He picked up after a few rings. “Hey,” he said. “Hey,” I said back. After a short pause, he said, “I have something to give you.” I rubbed my eyes. “Where should I meet you?” *       My aunt Sunjeong was fifteen years older than my father. Grandpa had died in a traffic accident shortly after Dad was born, and Grandma died of stomach cancer when Dad was six. With a sick mother to look after and a younger brother to raise, Sunjeong was forced to grow up quickly. After graduating high school and landing a factory job, Dad suddenly decided to go to university. He took the entrance exams three times before he succeeded. By then, having devoted her life to her family, Sunjeong was realizing too late that she was entering her forties, way past the prime age for getting married. “I thought my life was over! I swear, the only thing on my mind was marriage.” I remember the excitement on her face as she spoke. “I was left with either the guy who puts mousse on all three strands of his hair or the gross bastard who spits into the ashtray. I’m serious!” Perched on her lap, eight-year-old me had asked, “What about Gyucheol ajussi?”        Back then, we lived in a humble two-room apartment. There were four of us—Dad, Mom, Sunjeong, and me. Sunjeong wanted me to address her by name; she was very fond of it. At some point, I started calling her “gomo,” or “aunt,” though I can’t remember why. I do, however, remember the look on her face as she slowly turned around after hearing me say “gomo” for the first time.        With only six apartments on each floor, all the kids were close. There were three of us and we liked to rollerblade or play pretend. For the latter, we’d use the room that Sunjeong and I shared—I was the only kid whose parents both worked. Sunjeong would move to the living room to watch rented videos and sip on damgeumju. Meanwhile, in that musty little room, my friends and I would sit in a circle and designate husbands. Jo Sung-mo, Yoo Seung-jun, and Han Kyung-il were our top three. Jo Sung-mo was the most popular, followed by Yoo Seung-jun. There were days when we’d fight tooth and nail for the husband we wanted, and some when we’d quietly yield for the sake of friendship.        Sunjeong and Mom must’ve assumed we were playing house. But they were wrong. Eight-year-olds sought more than simple-minded games. We’d take turns standing in a corner of the room, facing the wall with our eyes closed. One of us would take off that person’s pants, and the other would strip them of their underwear. The girl standing in the corner would scream her lungs out, as if she couldn’t bear the humiliation. After that, she’d resume a nonchalant expression and put her pants and underwear back on, and someone else would take her place. When everyone had had their turn, we’d each stuff a doll under our T-shirts. Then, we’d hold hands and shriek our respective husband’s name, faces crumpled in our best pained expressions. In our minds, the hand we were holding was our husband’s, and they were bearing the excruciating pain of childbirth with us.        One day, we got into a fight. No one was willing to back down. All three of us wanted either Jo Sung-mo or Yoo Seung-jun as our husband, and no one wanted poor Han Kyung-il. For some reason, Gyuri really grated on my nerves that day. Of the three of us, she’d gotten to play Jo Sung-mo’s wife the most. Feeling a bit feisty, I said, “You know what they say, Gyuri. Bossy girls who insist on doing things their way never get married.” To which Gyuri retorted, “Oh, really! Is that why your aunt got kicked out by her husband?”        It was then when it all clicked: why Sunjeong was living with us, and why I called her husband “Gyucheol ajussi” instead of “gomobu.” I shot up, blood surging through my cheeks.        “Where are you going?” Gyuri asked.        “To the toilet,” I replied, straining to keep my voice cool.        When I opened the door, Sunjeong was standing there. My breath hitched in my throat. The glacial expression on her face was one that I’d never seen before. Her gaze passed over me, my friends, and the two dolls sprawled on the floor. The other one was stuffed under my friend’s shirt. Like an indignant king standing over his pathetic subjects, Sunjeong screamed.        “You wretched girls!”        Just then, someone started to hiccup. I turned to find Gyuri with tears welling in her eyes, hands clasped over her mouth. Despite her attempt to silence her hiccups, they continued, and she sounded like a squeaky rubber duck. Sunjeong sucked in a breath. Then she sat down beside Gyuri and placed a hand over her nose and mouth. “Hold your breath for as long as you can. It’ll help.” Each of Sunjeong’s fingers was creased with wrinkles. They remained earnestly fastened on Gyuri’s face until the girl signaled that she was at her limit. When Sunjeong removed her hand, Gyuri’s hiccups had stopped. *     I met Su in a restaurant near Dongdaemun Station. We’d come here often as a couple, so we ordered our usual—stir-fried morning glory, fried eggplants, and two bowls of noodles. We started off with a bottle of Harbin and ended up ordering soju. While we filled each other’s glasses, we chatted about this and that. “I was told I’m motivated by anxiety,” I said. “By who?” Su asked. “The doctor,” I replied. For a moment, Su fell into thought. Then, he nodded as if he understood.        “You agree?”        “You’re always putting out feelers to make sure that plans don’t fall through.”        “Me? When?”        “Before a trip, you’ll ask if I’ve packed my towels. And before every date you’ll ask me what color shirt I’m wearing.”        “That’s not putting out feelers.”        “Technically not, I guess. But it’s not not putting out feelers.”        I clinked glasses with Su. He knows me too damn well. As our conversation grew longer, I started worrying about that shopping bag he’d brought with him. It was from Hyundai Department Store and was one of their latest eco-friendly designs. Yikes, I hope I won’t have to pay for drinks. Maybe there’s a cheap pub around here. I didn’t know what was in the bag, but felt obliged to pay him back for it. See? You should’ve offered him that bowl of yukgaejang, Mom’s snarky voice rang in my ears.        “Actually,” Su started nervously, “I asked to meet because I wanted to give you this.”        Supporting the base of the bag with a hand, he carefully handed the shopping bag to me. When I, too, placed my hand under the bag, I felt the weight and the wide curves of the object inside. Half eager, I peeked into the pregnant bag. A deflated laugh escaped me. What the hell? Why give me this? My mind swarmed with a million question marks, but I couldn’t manage a single word. Su had given me a robot vacuum cleaner.“Didn’t think it was right for me to keep it.”Su cleared his throat awkwardly and ordered another bottle of beer.        “Why do you have this?”        “I got it as a gift.”        I watched in silence as Su mixed together an even ratio of beer and soju. I was the one who’d taught him that. Using a soju glass as a measuring cup, pour in one full glass of soju, and one full glass of maekju, and there you’ll have it, the perfect cup of liquor. One that strikes the balance between bitterness and sweetness. See, when it comes to somaek, you should be able to taste the ‘so’ and the ‘maek’ equally. Moderation is key—funny, but a universal principle.        “From who?”        I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. The scratched-up old vacuum cleaner had been a present from me to my aunt. Although strictly speaking, it’d been more of a concession.        “We met a couple times. I helped her out with some finance stuff.”        Knocking back his somaek, Su said, That’s why I said what I said. She was really a good person. There are things you don’t know about. I knew that Su was the type to be specific, and that was why he’d mentioned the “finance stuff.” I was angry not because there were things I didn’t know about him, nor because of how he’d thought himself important enough to speak on my aunt’s character. I was angry because of how meticulous he’d been; so careful that he’d felt the need to specify what he’d helped my aunt with. His meticulousness told me that he’d never cared to understand me. Always so carefully curated, his words belittled and hurt me.        But Su was a kind and sensitive person. He cared about the environment and carried around a reusable bag made from recycled materials. He was the type who couldn’t ignore a beggar’s tin. If I showed up an hour late, he’d smiled and say I’d given him time to finish his book. That time when I fell off my bike, Su had thrown aside his own bike and rushed over to me. Oh no, what a shame. Your pretty knee, he’d said, as if my hairy knee was the most beautiful thing in the world. And of course, he’d been kind enough to help my aunt.        I was dying to ask about the specifics of Gomo’s money troubles, but the question didn’t come out easily. It hadn’t been long since the funeral, and I didn’t want to seem sensitive about money. I poured the last of our soju and beer into my cup and guzzled it down. Straightening his posture, Su asked, “What’s wrong?” He never knew why I was upset, and never knowing when I’d get upset, he was always on pins and needles around me. To show that I was enjoying my drink, I widened my eyes and flashed a cheeky smile. Then I chirped, “Let’s go!” We’d had two bottles of soju and three bottles of beer in total. The meal was about 70,000 won. I shooed Su away from the counter and paid the bill. Outside, I asked, “Will you walk me home?” *     Like Gyuri said, it was rumored that after barely a year of being married to an old man who had a kid of his own, Sunjeong had been kicked out. Sunjeong was convinced that it was my mother, Minae, who had spread the rumors. I didn’t know why she was so sure. After quitting her job and a few matchmaking sessions, Sunjeong had gotten married and divorced in the same year. A few months later, she lugged all her things into my room. Without a single explanation, she told me that I was to call gomobu “Gyucheol ajussi” from now on. Mom and Dad gave me the same instruction. Nobody ever mentioned it, but Sunjeong behaved like someone who’d given up completely. She drank too much and despised everyone. Well, not everyone. There was a child whom Sunjeong showered with love—me.        Twice a week, Sunjeong went to mass. Even when her body was leaden with anti-depressants and all sorts of other pills, she’d drag herself to church. She always took me with her. For six months I attended a baptism preparation program. I hated it so much that sometimes I’d pretend to be asleep. The only part I liked was standing beside Sunjeong, who was always in her beautiful chapel veil, watching her receive communion and getting to nibble on the sacramental wafer. The first time I saw the round wafer, it looked so appetizing that I couldn’t help myself. I reached out both my hands. Flustered, Sunjeong gently pushed them down.        “People who aren’t baptized can’t receive communion,” she explained. Hearing the sternness in her voice, my lips crimped into a straight line. Sunjeong had a certain aura. One that could make a child freeze up. But after that first time, Sunjeong would sneak a look around, pull out the wafer from her mouth and quickly put it in mine. The damp wafer melted quickly on my tongue. Since then, I’d always received communion. It wasn’t until I shared this story with a Catholic friend that I learnt that Sunjeong’s sneaky behavior was considered sinful. I still remember the verses that the priest would recite: Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my Body, which will be given up for you.        Sunjeong hated Mom. For what reason, I didn’t know. People hate for all sorts of reasons. In any case, the way Sunjeong hated Mom, you’d wonder how someone could harbor so much hate. When Mom had married Dad, Mom had taken the words, “Don’t worry about anything,” at face value. Dad had in fact said those words to her, and Sunjeong had initially been welcoming and even gushed about all the fun they’ll have collecting new furniture and moving into bigger houses together. But when Mom finally moved in, Sunjeong greeted her, cheeks flushed with drunkenness and pointing an accusing finger: who moves into their husband’s house without so much as a rice cooker!        That day, Mom had run to the department store and bought the most expensive pressure rice cooker. Did Sunjeong really despise Mom because of a silly rice cooker? Back then, I thought that Sunjeong had gotten kicked out because she was mean to Mom. I thought it was retribution, something as natural as raising your hand before crossing the road. Whenever Sunjeong lashed out at Mom, I’d think, There she goes again, racking up bad karma. But one thing was for sure—I loved my aunt as much as she loved me. Even though I was young, I knew never to take my mother’s side in front of Sunjeong. To me, love was something accompanied by nervousness, something like a line that shouldn’t be crossed.        One day, Mom said she was craving spicy fish roe stew. I’d never had altang, so she described it to me as kimchi jjigae with a lot more crunch. A crossover between popping candy and a perennial favorite? I was practically drooling. “Let’s go!” I quipped. Mom shared my sentiment. But the stew didn’t meet my expectations. I didn’t know what to expect, but I certainly wasn’t expecting altang to taste like that. Not to mention, the roe looked absolutely disgusting. Disappointed, I burst into tears. Meanwhile, Mom cleared the pot by herself, dipping everything in soy sauce.        That was when it all started. Whenever Mom sat reading the newspaper, she’d feel the heat of someone’s gaze blazing past the inky words. She’d fold up the newspaper to see Sunjeong standing on the balcony, looking at the sky. “Was your aunt looking at me?” she’d ask, and I’d feign ignorance. But of course, I’d seen Sunjeong’s hair-raising glare. The reason behind Sunjeong’s death glare was only revealed after Mom had gone to Dad and wept, and Dad had grabbed Sunjeong by the shoulders and yelled, “Why the hell did you do that?” The reason was so simple. Because we’d gone to eat altang without her. But was that really all? Mom and I certainly believed so. Whenever someone used her precious soap without permission, or threw out expired food without telling her, she’d resort to one of her tacit bullying tactics, which at worst could last up to a month. Mom always bore the full brunt. What was shocking was the fact that Sunjeong was always kind to the neighbors. A sweet, warm, and outgoing woman in her mid-forties. But a woman who’d been chased out by her husband. I did really love Sunjeong. But at some point, I started to hate her. *     Su and I were drunk. As we strolled down Cheonggyecheon Stream, he made a few attempts to hold my hand, but I’d point to a karaoke place, trip over a rock, or pick up a piece of trash from the floor, strictly maintaining our cordial distance. Su said that he’d been into this new Nintendo Pokémon game. He was growing tired of catching only Metapods, and showed me a picture of the character. I already knew how Metapod looked, but seeing it again, I found it quite endearing. A crescent-shaped pupa with a plain face. “Doesn’t it have any special abilities?” I asked. “Just ‘shed skin,’” Su replied.        “Hey, that’s still something,” I said.        “What do you know about Pokémon?”        “More than you think.”        Despite my cheerful tone, my mind was occupied by that robot vacuum cleaner that I’d barely crammed into my backpack. I waited for the right time to ask Su how my aunt’s vacuum cleaner had ended up in his possession. And I wanted to know the details of all her “finance stuff.” Su spoke first.        “By the way, did you buy your aunt that vacuum cleaner?”        “Why?”        “She didn’t know how to use it.”        “That’s why I bought it.”        There hadn’t been a more foolproof appliance. As long as the machine had mapped the layout of the apartment, it could clean the house on its own. It could even return to its dock and charge itself. Mom would take care of the in-and-outs and all Sunjeong had to do was push the on/off button. Mom had told me that Sunjeong used it all the time.        When Su and I reached Jongno, we took the stairs up to street level. It was two in the morning, and the streets were crowded with drunks.        “Look at that.”        Su pointed to a couple who was slumped on the ground, sitting face to face. Their position struck me as odd, and I couldn’t bring myself to walk away. Legs spread apart, holding each other’s hands, and heads drooped, the couple looked like they were helping each other stretch. I approached them to check if their eyes were open.        “Let’s just go.”        “But what if something bad happens.”        “I’m sure they’re together.”        Naïve as always, I thought. I shook the woman’s shoulder first. Spotting her purse a distance away, I went to retrieve it. In the meantime, the woman didn’t stir. This time, I pulled her up by the shoulders and slung her bag across her torso. At last her brows twitched, and her fingers wrapped around the bag strap.        “It’s dangerous out here,” I said.        The woman looked around. When she finally noticed the man in front of her, she jumped. She bowed to me and scurried away. The man, too, turned his head sluggishly before trudging off. I shot Su a triumphant look. He smacked his lips.        “You would’ve gotten mad if I’d gone up to wake her.”        “Why would I get mad?”        “You’d tell me to mind my own business.”        I didn’t reply. He was right. I would’ve gotten annoyed. Because Su was always doing good to make a case for life. Life has a grotesque face. And I believed that we should face that grotesqueness straight on. But it always seemed like Su would do anything to avoid it.        I’d bought that vacuum cleaner five years ago. I’d landed a job at an educational marketing company and won a pretty big marketing contest. Both pieces of news made my parents very happy. Around that time, Gomo had fallen ill and spent almost every day holed up in her room. For meals, she’d crack open the door to pick up the tray of food that Mom had prepared for her, and when she was done, she’d slide out the empty tray. By then, I’d already moved out and would occasionally return to show my parents how well I was doing and indulge in Mom’s cooking.        The problem started with that darn dishwasher. I’d been meaning to buy a dishwasher for Mom with my prize  money because she was wrestling with arthritis. Dishwashers were typically installed somewhere between the bottom cabinets, but because we didn’t have any top shelves, our bottom cabinets were higher and deeper than normal. After some consideration, I purchased a medium-sized dishwasher that could be placed beside the sink. Not only had I gotten it for a decent price, I’d managed to convince Mom that this was a smart purchase, and for that, I was proud.        When Gomo came into the kitchen the next day, she saw the hefty machine. “Did Seonghye buy that?” she asked. Mom rushed to say that she’d tried to stop me, and that it was a good thing it wasn’t expensive because she wouldn’t be using it.        Still, Gomo said, “I hate it.”        And as always, she started drinking and taking pills with no regard for her prescription. This had always been my aunt’s way of showing dissatisfaction. After a phone call with Mom, I resolved to buy something just for Gomo. I went to the electronics store, bought something, wrapped it up nicely, made the hour-long trip to my parents’ house, and sat down beside my listless aunt. Then I placed the robot vacuum cleaner in her hands. A shy smile appeared on her face. “Oh, you didn’t have to. You’re all grown up now, my dear.” The hatred burning inside me dissipated slightly, but I recalled the image of a skinny twenty-seven-year-old bride running around a department store, looking for the most expensive rice cooker.        Genuinely worried, I asked, “Gomo, are you alright?” Gomo then launched into a series of complaints: That mother of yours doesn’t speak to me. I have to go to the dentist and the market. . . She started to cry. I listened to her: patiently, never taking Mom’s side. I did, however, tell Dad to look after Mom. *     After Sunjeong found out about the nature of our pretend games, the three of us stopped playing together. Even when we saw one another in the corridor, we wouldn’t say hi. Gyuri would occasionally strike up a conversation out of guilt, but Ara would later send me a long email saying that she never wanted to see me again. While Gyuri and I chewed over her overreaction and mean letter, we started becoming close again. Overcoming betrayal, our friendship bloomed. Gyuri started coming over. Sunjeong still didn’t like the girl, but never said anything about it—she knew that aside from Gyuri, I had no friends.        I didn’t know it then, but I’d been holding a grudge against Gyuri. One day during summer break, the two of us were drawing in my room. Using the fountain pen I’d gifted her on her birthday, Gyuri drew a girl. She had big eyes and long eyelashes. When I snuck another look, Gyuri was cautiously adding a few strands of hair to the girl’s armpit. Bored of drawing, I suggested we do something that was actually fun. “Like what?” Gyuri asked. “Come here,” I said. I opened the shoe cabinet, got out the toolbox, and rummaged through it. Once I found what I was looking for, I went into the bathroom and called out to Gyuri. She hesitated before stepping in.        “What are you gonna do?”        “Something fun.”        “Don’t do anything weird.”        “Like what?”        “Ugh. I don’t like this.”        Fear was written all over Gyuri’s face. Come to think of it, Gyuri had been a sensitive child; always the quickest to sense the uneasiness between what was happening and what was about to happen. Whenever I was reminded of her, I’d wonder what her parents were like.        In the toilet, I switched off the lights and shut the door. With a lighter, I lit the giant candle. A faint light flickered in the darkness, softly illuminating Gyuri’s face in the mirror. I stood before the door so that Gyuri couldn’t escape. I knew that she still slept with a light on—a secret she’d trusted me with.        “You know the song ‘Running’?”        “Duh.”        “They say it’s real.”        “Real?”        “Yeah. If you light a candle in the dark and sing it, the main character of the song will appear in the mirror.”        “He’s dead?”        I nodded solemnly. “It’s actually a song about suicide.” I whispered the last word. Gyuri darted towards the door, but I blocked her with my body and started to sing.         Are you tired of it all? Are you struggling? Are you losing your breath? Well, it can’t be helped. You’ve already started.         Gyuri began to panic. The desire to make her scream bubbled inside me.         . . . I promise you this: there will be an end. And you can rest for a long, long time. Rest till you get sick of it.         Gyuri let out a ghastly shriek and bolted towards me, knocking the candle out of my grasp. Hot wax leapt onto her. Just then, the door opened with a click and light flooded in. I raised my hand to shield my eyes. Sunjeong. Rounded with shock, my aunt’s eyes shifted between me and Gyuri. Gyuri was bawling as if she’d lost her wits. The neck of her T-shirt was loose and drooping over one shoulder, revealing the wax that had splattered onto her neck and down to her collarbone. Her skin was red and swollen. While Gyuri gasped for air, Sunjeong stroked her back to calm her.        Then, Sunjeong slapped me on the cheek.        My world quivered. So did I. *     When we came upon the hill near my house, I brought it up. Once after walking me home, Su’s battery had died. I’d had no choice but to invite him up. Gomo had been home that day. While I was in the bathroom, she had gotten out a notebook and jotted down his name and phone number. A few months later, Su had received a call from her.        My aunt had asked if he would go through some “finance-related problem” with her. “Did she use those exact words?” I asked. Su nodded. I felt embarrassed for judging him so rashly. According to Su, Gomo had bought an insurance plan with the post office in 2000. Within three months of signing up, she was diagnosed with cancer. Since there was no way to ascertain if she had bought the plan after her diagnosis, she received her payout. With that, she was able to pay for treatment, and the fees for the remaining 238 months of her plan were waived. When her insurance term ended after twenty years, she got back her pay-out. Su had helped with the latter.        “Why you, though?”        “How would I know?”        The tinge of defiance in his voice was so Su-like. Whenever he took that tone with me, annoyance would cloud my face. Why wouldn’t you know? You should. Who else would?        “She could’ve asked my dad. Or my mom. Or me.”        “She said family isn’t to be trusted.”        I tried to keep my cool, but the thought that Gomo had said something like that angered me. “What else did she say?” I pressed. Su hesitated before telling me everything. They’d met at the residents’ center to print out the documents required to claim her premiums. It’d been especially hot that summer day, but the office was cold, so they bought two hot coffees from the vending machine and slurped on them slowly. Lowering their masks with each sip.        After they got the documents, Gomo suggested they have lunch. They went to a kongguksu restaurant and ordered two bowls of noodles. Gomo had hers with sugar, while Su spooned salt into his. Su never ate his kongguksu with kimchi, but Gomo plopped a generous portion on top of Su’s noodles. This irked him at first, but after having a bite, he ended up asking twice for a refill.        Since Gomo was insistent on receiving her premiums in cash, they ended up waiting in yet another freezing office. As before, they bought piping hot coffees and blew on them. There hadn’t been much for Su to do, actually. He’d practically gone for a free bowl of noodles.        Feeling sheepish for whatever reason, Su had kept his eyes glued to his coffee before asking, “What was Seonghye like as a child?”        Gomo didn’t answer his question. Instead, she said, “That girl loves her mother an awful lot.”        Then she started rambling. She said that when I’d broken out in a high fever when I was three, she’d put me on her back and run to the hospital. That whenever she’d ask, “Who do you love the most in the world?” I’d answer, “Sunjeong?” That when lice had spread in my daycare, she’d spent the entire night picking out the tiny bugs from my hair. At last, it was Gomo’s turn. As Su watched her walk up to the counter, exhaustion crashed over him. Gomo had filled a duffel bag with twenty million won in notes and casually handed it to Su. ‘Trusting a stranger instead of her family. Funny old woman,’ Su thought to himself. Chuckling to himself, Su confessed that he’d  imagined taking off with the money. *     Before I graduated elementary school and we moved, Sunjeong and I always shared a room. Without even a proper desk, I’d lie on my belly to read or do homework. We’d go to bed around ten, but before that, Sunjeong would pray before her statue of Mary and take her pills. She was suffering from bipolar disorder, and having taken prescription medicine for a long time, she knew how the different pills could change her mood. Like a cool-headed pharmacist, she’d combine different pills, wrap them in dissolvable paper, and swallow them. “This is the only way I can swallow them all at once,” she’d explained.        “What’s that?”        “Edible paper.”        “How does it taste?”        “It doesn’t taste like anything.”        But Sunjeong made her medicine look so delicious. The way she folded them up, you’d think she was wrapping meat in lettuce. After praying and taking her medicine, she’d lie down under the covers. Her eyes would grow hazy. Her movements slowed. I’d tuck in my drowsy aunt, switch off the lights, and lie down beside her.        Once, before I drifted off, I heard her voice.        “Seonghye-ya.”        “Yeah?”        “Who do you like more? Minae or me?”        “You.”        “Sangnam or me?”        “You.”        “Gyuri or me?”        “You.”        “What if I died?”        “You can’t!”        “What if I fell into the ocean and died a horrible death?”        “Please don’t.”        “What if a motorbike crashed into me and crushed all my bones?”        I started to cry. Sunjeong would always ask me such questions until I burst into tears. Then she’d pull me into her arms and whisper, If I ever get sick, you have to look after me, okay? I’d nod fervently, and then we’d fall asleep.        Sunjeong was a heavy sleeper. Once, I’d slapped her cheeks, worried that she’d died. She also moved a lot in her sleep, and despite how careful she was with me when she was awake, there had been a few times when she’d unconsciously rammed her elbow into my face.        Sunjeong’s pills had looked extra delicious that day. While she was asleep, I lit the candle beside her statue of Mary, opened her drawer, and took out the pastel-colored pills. Very carefully, I took out a sheet of edible paper. As if I were making the tastiest ssam, I chose the prettiest pills and laid them on the paper. Then, I wrapped them up in the shape of a cute tofu rice ball and swallowed them with the last bit of water Sunjeong had left earlier. I knelt, brought my hands together, and prayed. The way Sunjeong did. Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.        All at once, I felt as if blood was rushing out from my body. I felt whole. Complete. Perhaps my unhappiness stems from knowing that I will never again experience that sense of fullness. Shortly afterward, I lost consciousness. I woke up four days later. My parents were staring at me and Sunjeong was crying. Mom grabbed a fistful of Sunjeong’s hair. I still remember the scene so clearly. Back then, I’d felt quite pleased with myself.        Twenty years later, though it’s nothing compared to Sunjeong, I myself have started on anti-depressants. Because with my pittance of a salary it seemed like my quality of life would always be shit. Because I didn’t own a house of my own but other people were living in palaces. Because they got rich without lifting a finger. Because I despised my partner. My heart emptied out in a million different ways. Once, during dinner, wearing a solemn expression, my father had said: mental illness is genetic. Genetic. *     We’d reached my place, but, reluctant to go home, we went to the convenience store and each bought a can of beer. I picked ale, and Su, lager. It was late. Seeing no one around, we allowed ourselves a cigarette. “That really hits the spot,” chuckled Su. Then, as if he’d just remembered something, he pointed his index finger at me.        “Your gomo gave me a hundred thousand won. For going with her.”        “But that’s not why I think she was a good person,” Su added. After their first meeting, Gomo started to call Su almost every day. I gave my entire life to Sangnam, you know. How can he be so, so heartless? You know what Minae is like? Whatever she said, it always ended with “Seonghye loves her mother an awful lot.” When Su said, “That’s why I met up with her twice after that,” I flared up.        “Why meet her if you don’t like her?”        “I never said I didn’t like her.”        “You said she was troublesome. It’s okay to say it. I found her troublesome my whole life.”        “It’s because she was lonely.”        “You’re not responsible for her loneliness.”        “Do I have to be to look after her?”        I didn’t know what to say to that. I thought Su was always acting nice. Perhaps “acting” wasn’t the right word, but there was no way of describing what he was doing more accurately. Su truly believed that he was being genuine, but I knew that he wasn’t and desperately hoped he’d come to realize it. But Su insisted that I was distorting and misunderstand his intentions. Likewise, I thought he was the one distorting and misunderstanding his intentions so that he could live life happily. But these days, I wonder if perhaps he’s simply someone who lives his life constantly reflecting on what’s the best attitude to keep. Whatever that attitude is, mine will always be anchored to pain, depression, and yearning.        Just as I’d expected, after the “Running” incident, Gyuri sent me a long email. I deleted it unread. I didn’t want to be reminded of all the times we’d cried together, sharing stories about our families. I realized then that sharing one’s secrets with someone close was no different from handing them a weapon. If I’d sent Gyuri an email, this would’ve been my opening line: I knew you’d betray me. You’re your mother’s daughter, after all.        “They say mental illness is passed down through the maternal genes.”        That sentence had broken me. It had severed the affection between me and Su. We had been at a PC room playing computer games and chatting about our irrational fears. The fear of sleeping with a leg sticking out of the blanket, of imperfect circles, of thunder. We both sucked at video games, so we played only practice rounds and prattled on through our headsets. Then I felt the urge to say it. In a tone that emphasized it was all in the past. Aiming my cursor at my opponent’s head, I said, “In elementary school, I was sure that I was suffering from severe mental illness.” Su was well aware of Gomo’s condition. That’s probably why he’d said it. That I was lucky to have avoided her genes.        I, of course, knew that the correlation between mental illness and maternal genes wasn’t scientifically proven. And like Su had said before, I didn’t think that my aunt occupied any big part in my depression. But Gomo had said that our pinky toes were exactly alike.        There was definitely something that Gomo and I shared. It could be something I’d inherited, or something stirred up by a combination of her spiritual wafer and the gentle strokes of her wrinkled hand. My gomo who doted on me hated my mom, whom I loved most in the world; my mom whom I loved most in the world was miserable because of my gomo who doted on me; and my dad, who was loved by everyone including me, must’ve realized that the problem would go unsolved until one of us died. And so he became someone who would say, “Mental illness is genetic.” So that he could live on. Somehow.        And somehow, that day, I’d glossed over what Su had said. But his words leeched onto me. Why did he say it like that? I love him so much, and he loves me, too. So why did he say that as if he were a stranger? The words “maternal genes” left a severe impact on me. If maternal genes were to blame for this mental war I was fighting, then all the pain I’d endured could be substituted with “Mom’s flawed genetics,” and the mental disorder that had plagued Gomo’s life could be substituted with “Grandma’s flawed genetics.”        But here’s what I know—Mom and Gomo had passed onto me an awful lot of love. Though I don’t know the exact nature of their love. Nor do I know how much of their love and flaws constitute me. In high school, fearing that I’d inherited mental illness, I’d go around checking up on my friends so that I could confirm that nothing weird was happening inside me. I never went to a clinic; thanks to my aunt’s influence, my family harbored a deep mistrust of psychiatric medication.        Su told me about the other times he met my aunt. They’d eaten ice cream at McDonald’s and had tea at Insadong. At some point, Gomo had stopped complaining, and talked instead about her matchmaking days. “What was it that she said about that guy?” Su asked. “That he spat in the ashtray,” I replied dryly. The last time Su met Gomo, she’d handed him the robot vacuum cleaner in a giant plastic bag. He’d tried to refuse, but it was useless. Gomo had refused his refusal, saying that the bugger was a good housekeeper, and that all he had to do was give its button a push. Then, she’d suddenly asked, “Are you going to marry Seonghye?” While Su wracked his brains for an appropriate response, Gomo had leaned in and whispered: “They treat me like an outsider.” *     I remember feeling bitter when I was putting up Gomo’s obituary and preparing for her funeral. Distant friends and relatives had asked how she died, and I only realized later that they’d all assumed she’d eventually die of suicide. I snorted. Looks like they didn’t know a thing about Gomo. Because she was a woman who wanted nothing more than to live. She stuck fast to health foods, took all her supplements, went on walks to get her vitamin D, and despite her love for smoking, she only allowed herself a stick a day. Even though she’d act as if she didn’t care if she died.        “We’ve been out for so long. What time is it,” I asked Su. “Past four. The sun’s about to come up,” he said. “You still have things to yap about?” I asked jokingly. Su let out a shy laugh.        “Thanks for the vacuum cleaner,” I said. “Just in time, actually. My house is a mess.”        Su rolled his eyes. Then he nodded. We threw out our empty cans. I insisted on waiting with him for his taxi, but Su wanted to walk me to my doorstep. The darkness overhead was slowly lifting. Suddenly, thick streams of rain began to pour. We ran to the parking lot and found shelter. The rain pummeled down, strong enough to demolish the crummy walk-up. Su and I cowered from the cold. He looked scared.        “By the way, I think you have to send the vacuum cleaner for repair,” Su said, his eyes fixed on a white Tesla getting drenched in the rain.        I, too, kept my gaze on the car and wondered why there were always so many foreign cars here. “Repairs? Why?” I asked. Su took a deep breath.        “It was working fine for a while. But then it started ramming into things. I was really shocked at first. It was like it wanted to break itself.”        I laughed, “Dying to go out for a stroll, maybe.” Su didn’t find my joke funny. He said the vacuum cleaner had charged into the sink and caused a glass to shatter. “Did you try turning it on and off?” I asked. For the first time in a while, Su got angry.        “You think I didn’t try that?”        “Did you get scared?”        “Scared? It’s not that simple. You wouldn’t be saying this if you’d seen it for yourself. That vacuum cleaner was mad at me. It was trying to show me something.”        I realized it then. Got something to give you. What Su had meant in his text was, Got something to give you. Something that you, rather than I, should be responsible for. In that moment, my mind cleared. When a person has been chased out, the best thing they can do is to put themselves first. But I’d always hoped that, if we ever found ourselves on the edge of a cliff, Su would put me first.        After the funeral, while Mom and Dad were cleaning out Gomo’s closet, they’d found the duffel bag full of cash. Inside was a letter. Please give this to my son Sanghoon. Sanghoon was Gomo’s stepson, the child of the man who’d driven her out of their home. Gomo would often bring him up when she drank. He shouldn’t be with his father, I should’ve taken him with me. I shouldn’t have escaped alone. At the edge of the cliff, Gomo had put herself first. Eternal guilt was the price to pay.        Our family thought about what to do with the money. I didn’t feel betrayed. Neither did Mom nor Dad. In fact, I almost felt at peace.        I tapped on Su’s shoulder. He was looking gloomy. “Thanks. For being honest with me,” I said. Su muttered, “It was really strange, I’m telling you.” I imagined the robot vacuum cleaner scuttling around Gomo’s room, crowded and musty with memories of the past.        “It’s raining so hard,” Su sulked.        He was asking to be invited up. I considered it for a moment before deciding no.        Once I got home, I showered, made myself tea, and switched on the vacuum cleaner. I set it to mapping mode, and immediately it started exploring the layout of my house. As I sipped on my tea, I stared at the scratches and dents on the machine. Then, I switched on the electric heating pad. I hoped sleep would wash over me quickly. Gomo said that if you sleep for more than ten hours, your head will start to feel fuzzy. But I liked that feeling.        Just as I was about to fall asleep, I was woken up by a distant thunk, thunk, thunk. For the first time, I felt what it was like to be right on the margin of unconsciousness. When I forced my eyes open, Sunjeong’s vacuum cleaner was driving its body into the wall. Su was right. It really wasn’t a problem that could be fixed by turning the machine on and off. I stood rooted to the floor before running up to the machine. My attempts to hit the off button were futile. I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and held it against my chest. Its little wheels spun uselessly.        Gomo would often break things, and sometimes she beat Dad. Two things I’d never told anyone. When her cancer recurred, she lost strength. She became stick thin and her breath stank. Upon her admission to the hospital, she was completely bedridden. It was as if she’d used up every last drop of energy. Before her death, she didn’t speak a word; she struggled to even breathe. All she did was stare—not at Dad, not at me. At Mom. At last, she spoke, soft as a sigh, “Minae-ya.” Then, she closed her eyes. No one shed a tear. But in that moment, I knew that our memories—wet and musty—were all tangling up with each other. Because Mom had said, “Me too.” Translated by Gene Png  * The song that the narrator sings is Yoon Sang’s “Running” (Park Changhak, 2000).

  by Ye Soyeon

• 

  They Said Annyeong

  One morning seven years ago, I was cutting apples in the kitchen while Heon-su stood next to me and brewed some coffee as he turned on the song, “Love Hurts.”        “Hey, I’ve heard this somewhere before.”        “I’m sure you have,” Heon-su said as he slowly made circles in the air with the gooseneck kettle. “There are several versions.”        “Yeah?” I glanced over at his tablet. “Which one is this?”        “My favorite. Kim Deal and Robert Pollard.”        We both stared for a moment into the two faces on the screen as we listened to the song.        “I like it.”        “Yeah?” Heon-su smiled. He knew I wasn’t that into music.        “It sounds like a farewell song. The kind sung by someone who doesn’t often express their pain.”        “You sound like such an adult.”        “I am an adult.” I moved the slices of apple onto a plate as Heon-su distributed the coffee into two cups. They were a pair of black porcelain teacups that we’d bought to celebrate moving in together four years ago. We’d already been dating for two years prior to that, and now we were both—without saying it—thinking what the “next step” would be. Part of the reason was that we were approaching the end of our lease for this 570-square-foot apartment. In fact, it was about six months before the end of the lease that Heon-su started looking for 700-square-foot apartments in his spare time and asking what neighborhoods and kinds of apartments I preferred. I was feeling the warmth of the cup in my hands and gazing at Heon-su as he glanced through the comments on the screen of his tablet.        “These comments are a riot. Everyone’s confessing the role that this song has played in their lives. And some people even interject with swear words. Russian, English, Spanish. Why do humans always do that when they see something beautiful—”        “Wait, stop talking—”        “Hm?”        “Did you hear that?”        “What?”        “They said annyeong.”        “Who?”        I raised my eyebrows and pointed to the Bluetooth speaker in the living room. Heon-su turned in the direction of my finger looking confused. The mellow voices of two Americans were flowing out of the gray rectangular box.        “Kim and Robert?”        “Yeah.”        “In Korean?”        Seeing the disbelief and ridicule in his eyes, I raised my voice in protest:        “Really!”        “I doubt that’s what they said.”        “They definitely said it. An-nyeong!” I was reminded of that morning with Heon-su when Robert asked me just now how to say “hello” in Korean. “Hello in Korean is annyeong. But annyeong doesn’t just mean hello, it can also mean goodbye.” Of course, I said this with difficulty and in a halting manner—I was, after all, someone taking a class in basic English. Robert waited patiently for me to finish my answer—he was, after all, someone who used to work as an elementary school teacher before retiring. There was a glint in his gray-blue eyes.        “Really? That’s fascinating.”        Although I was sure he’d heard the same answer from his other Korean students, he genuinely looked interested. Either he was working to maintain his good reviews, or this was actually the first time he’d heard it.        “Then how do you tell the difference between the two annyeongs? Is it in the intonation or pronunciation?”        He seemed to be thinking about the tones used in Chinese and Vietnamese. I thought for a second before shaking my head.        “No.”        “Then how do you know?”        As was always the case when I spoke in a foreign language, I didn’t say what I wanted to say, but only what I could say.        “You just know.”        Had my English been better, I would have said, “People usually just know. But sometimes, they part ways pretending not to know until it’s too late.” But my conversation skills weren’t good enough. Instead, I said something much simpler and straightforward and unintentionally repetitive.        “We can just know.”        Robert stared into my eyes for a moment before nodding slowly as if he understood everything.        “Right. It’s situational.”        He then glanced at the slide on the screen with those big eyes of his and made a smooth transition to a different topic.        “So. . . What’s on the schedule for today? Lesson 7, right?” * Robert was born and raised in Quebec, Canada, and had never been to another part of the world. I didn’t know it when I first met him, but his wife had died some years prior, and he was now retired, living in a house with his two dogs. One day during class, he even picked one of them up and showed it to me. Robert was a teacher on Echoes, highly rated and difficult to book. That made it hard for someone like me, a beginner in English, to approach him. The reason I couldn’t take my eyes off his profile was because of his name. I knew another Robert. Robert Pollard. Different last names, but still. Unable to make up my mind, I saved him to my “Favorite Teachers” list, then forgot about him, at least for a while. Actually, the first teacher I had on Echoes was named Sandra, a retired nurse living in New York. I was very nervous during our first class, so she talked about herself instead of forcing me to talk. But she talked so much that she reminded me of my late grandmother, who never stopped talking whenever she got you on the phone. And yet I liked Sandra. She was always warm, generous, and cheerful. But not long after we finally became comfortable with one another, she had to leave Echoes for health reasons, and I had to begin my search for another teacher. Echoes had teachers of all ages, nationalities, and economic backgrounds. From digital nomads with impressive self-introductions filmed out in nature, to university students working multiple jobs during their break to cover tuition and living expenses, to affluent retirees, immigrants, and people who lost their jobs during the pandemic. And because there were few barriers to registering as a teacher on the platform, I often got the feeling that it was a sort of global teaching bazaar or digital flea market. One teacher I met, a young woman, was jarringly blunt and bored even though it was only our first meeting. When it became apparent that I was having trouble understanding what she was saying, she suddenly said that her internet connection was bad and left the room.        She never came back. Classes ending early and frozen screens were common, but this was a first for me. My second proper teacher was a middle-aged woman living in Texas named Rose. She was in her early fifties, with pale skin and matte-blonde hair. Unlike other solidly middle-class teachers who adjusted their cameras to show off their libraries or hung artwork behind them to film self-introductions, Rose used a piece of glossy champagne-colored nylon curtain to hide her shabby accommodations. She’d even hung up some tacky lights, which I suspected were repurposed Christmas lights. Her rating wasn’t the best and she didn’t have much teaching experience, but she was more than qualified to teach a novice like me. The topic of our first session was “Studying a Foreign Language.” One unit from Echoes’ own textbook. After pulling up the slides on the screen, she asked me some prepared questions.        “Do you enjoy learning foreign languages?”        Unsure of myself, I said, “I’m trying?”        Rose’s only reaction was to nod her head before awkwardly moving on to the next question.        “What is your goal for learning a foreign language?”        I thought for a moment before giving her a relatively honest answer. “Because I want to leave this place some day?”        Not having any skills or credentials to do so, this was nothing but a vague dream of mine. I didn’t tell her the more important reason: “Because when studying foreign languages, I’m able to fool myself into thinking that I still have some potential, some opportunity.”        Indeed, it hadn’t even been a month since I brought my mother’s ashes to the columbarium. That morning—the one I’d spent drinking coffee with Heon-su—I received a phone call from my maternal aunt. When I heard the news, I immediately left for my hometown—a once booming port city that was now, because of a lack of money and people, on the decline. My home was located even further from civilization, in a small township. It wasn’t the peaceful fishing village that people often imagined, but rather a neighborhood that was slowly becoming more and more desolate—buses that came less and less frequently, and shady karaoke rooms and love hotels taking over the alleys. At first I thought my mother’s illness would serve as a nice break for me, but after less than two months nursing her back to health, I finally had no choice but to quit my job. It has been seven years now, and I still haven’t returned to work. I was able to live off my mother’s pension and some irregular paychecks, but even then, most of it went to paying off hospital bills. Eventually, I had no choice but to take out a loan using her house as collateral. And of course, I had to use her life insurance money to pay off the remaining debt, so now, I basically have no money in hand. I had hoped to leave as soon as the home was sold, but even apartments in the big city were having trouble selling, so no one was going to be interested in an old house in a small provincial town. Then again, it wasn’t really like I had anywhere else to go. So I ended up just killing time, waiting to sell the house that was chaining me down. Barely anyone came to the funeral. I felt both sad and relieved as I returned my mourning clothes to the hospital after three days at the funeral hall. But I wasn’t ashamed of these mixed feelings. I felt defiant knowing that I had done all I could, that no one in the world could say I hadn’t. At the same time, I wished for someone to take my hand and say something warm to me, something with meaning. Of course, no such thing happened. And that was because while taking care of my mother, I hadn’t maintained friendships and rarely went to any of their weddings or funerals. Although, I do remember that someone sent an anonymous garland. The only thing written on the long white ribbon hanging from the plastic flower basket were the words, “I’m sorry for your loss. May she rest in peace.” At first, I mistakenly thought it had been sent by Heon-su. And then I heard my aunt say it was probably sent by my father, who had started a new family after the divorce. “I contacted him about your mother’s death without telling you. I guess it was too difficult to get here from Canada.” After wrapping up the funeral, I stayed home and started searching for jobs online. There weren’t many places interested in a woman in her mid-forties who hadn’t worked in several years. And even those I could find had checkered reputations or poor working conditions. And besides, these days, mid-forties was the time for one to think about retirement, not start a new career. Adding insult to injury, I jammed my toe on a wooden box while cleaning out my mother’s wardrobe and had to go to the ER. The doctor told me it would take a month before I could remove the cast, and a year before it would fully recover. And then after sitting around doing nothing and feeling sorry for myself, I got the idea to start learning a new language to prepare for the day I might finally leave this country—whenever that might be. After all, it would be hard to learn any other new skill while nursing a broken foot, and I didn’t really want to start a part-time job just to quit in a few months. So, if nothing else, I figured I’d start studying English again. And this was even though I was drowning in the stress of trying to make ends meet. Rose taught me for about two months. Two thirty-minute sessions a week, although I sometimes split that up further into fifteen-minute sessions when I wanted. We practiced set phrases as we made our way through the fundamentals and sometimes talked about personal topics. Once, while on the topic of housing, Rose mentioned that she had been the victim of a large hurricane a few years prior. “It was hell. We lost power for weeks.”        And while we talked about traveling, Rose mentioned that she’d never left her hometown. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you much about other parts of the world.” Whenever something like this happened, I felt very close to Rose, as if we were members of the same socioeconomic class. But then, as with many of the online teachers I met on Echoes, Rose suddenly started canceling classes, and then one day, without any kind of message or apology, she stopped altogether. I had to find a new teacher. I rediscovered Robert in my saved teachers list, and finally worked up the courage to request a class. Now I had to start all over again with a new teacher. “Hello? My name is Eun-mi Kim. Or just Amy. Eun-mi sounds like Amy. I’m Korean and I’m forty-five. I have no brothers or sisters. I am living in a coastal city in Korea, and my job is. . .” And then one day, I realized that these thirty-minute classes—sometimes fifteen—were often the only human interaction I had all day. After factoring in the various coupons I used, our conversations cost me about 16,000 won per half hour. During our first class, I worked up the courage to ask Robert a personal question.        “May I ask you who that person is? The one behind you.”        Behind Robert was an old-looking wooden picture frame, in which a thin elderly man was seated and looking at the camera at a slight angle. The portrait looked gloomy and somewhat distorted.        “Oh, that’s my father,” Robert said without even turning to look.        “Really? I guess he does kind of look like you.”        “You think so?”        “Especially the eyes.”        The smile Robert then gave me was a bit off. Although Robert should have been in his early sixties, he looked closer to someone in his mid-fifties. And perhaps because he’d been doing this job for a long time, he was always sensitive to the pace of each class and always conducted lessons with seriousness. And yet, because his gaze was filled with generosity, I immediately felt close to him. And then something happened that brought us even closer. It was when Robert’s father passed away. He contacted all his many students and said he had to spend a few days at his father’s side. He used the specific sentence pattern, “I have to. . .,” which was something I’d practiced ad nauseam in school. I thought about not responding, but decided to send him a short reply instead.        I offer you my deepest condolences. I never met your father. But looking at you, I know he must have been a wonderful person. I wish all of you peace and rest. Robert hesitatingly thanked me during our next meeting a week later on Echoes.        “Thanks to you, I was able to give my father a proper sendoff. And your message gave me great strength.”        Not knowing what to say, I flushed in embarrassment. Being able to sincerely offer empty, cliché words of comfort was part of being an adult, but in the face of the news of someone’s passing, I always felt at a loss because of the limits and banality of my own expressions. But what was so wrong with being cliché? And was there anything more cliché than life and death? Why did I have to shy away from something just because it had been said a million times before? That day however, Robert shared something personal with me.        “Actually the person who passed away is the father who raised me.”        Not understanding what he meant, I just blinked in confusion.        “My biological father is still alive.”        I wasn’t sure what to say.        “But of course, I don’t know where he is.”        After saying this, he turned to the slides on the screen and skillfully changed the subject.        “So. . . what’s on the schedule for today? Lesson 2?” *         “Hi, Amy.”        Robert entered the meeting and greeted me with yet another bright smile. He was wearing a magenta sweater that complimented his gray hair—indeed, he knew what colors suited him. I appreciated how well he dressed. Even in retirement, he seemed to care about his appearance and looking professional. It was out of courtesy, not just for himself, but for others. It was the kind of respect that I’d been missing for the last several years.        “Hi, Robert.”        I pretended not to notice Robert’s attempt to be friendly with me and responded as I usually did. Yet just because I ignored it didn’t mean I wasn’t aware of it. In fact, it was because I was aware of it that I had bothered to apply lipstick that was two years past its expiration date before our class.        Taking care of my mother had left me with little time for exercise or makeup, and lately, I’d been feeling that my appearance seemed conspicuously older and more worn down. I hadn’t really noticed it when I was by myself, but with more frequent occasions to be in front of a camera, it was starting to bother me.        “How have you been?”        Seeing Robert’s large pupils, I opened my eyes wide as if to return his greeting. Actually, for the last several days, I’d been slightly uneasy when looking at Robert on the screen. I was both aware that he was enjoying his time with me, and that it had been ages since someone had looked at me with kindness, curiosity, and sexual desire. But not in the creepy or intrusive way. Robert wasn’t the kind of person to cross a line and let his feelings show, at least not deliberately. At first, I doubted my intuition, thinking I was just lonely. I hadn’t been in a serious relationship since breaking up with Heon-su, neither emotionally nor physically. I wasn’t sure whether what I was feeling was simply the happiness of finding a friend, the joy of being free to pursue an intimate relationship again, or the excitement of being the object of another man’s desires. Perhaps it was a mix of all three. After all, emotions never came one at a time. In fact, no matter the teacher, foreign language classes always had an element of sexual tension. Stumbling over words, delayed satisfaction, sharing intimate thoughts, shame and frustration, tension and release, the occasional uncontrollable bout of laughter, mistakes and apologies.        “I’ve been well,” I said, acting cool. “And you?”        “Me too.”        After exchanging this simple greeting, we conversed a bit more, talking about things like how to say hello in Korean, for example. A little while later, Robert turned his large eyes to the screen and glanced over the slide before changing the subject.        “So. . . What’s on the schedule for today? Was it Lesson 7?” Robert read out today’s lesson in a somewhat formal tone of voice.        “Lesson 7. Talking about food.”        Soon, the day’s goals appeared on my laptop screen. Questions like “What’s your favorite food?” “What’s your soul food?” and “Do you enjoy trying foods from different cultures?” I practiced the expressions on the screen by repeating them like a parrot.        “I like trying foods from other countries. Actually, I used to be a bit scared. But little by little I’ve come to enjoy adventures.”        “That’s good.” Robert’s interjection was somewhat robotic.        “Right, that’s how a lot of things start.” I said this without giving it much thought, but soon I was worried that the sentence might sound like I was trying to seduce him. This tension had formed because I was aware of Robert’s gaze. It was common for students and teachers on Echoes to become close and trust each other. I also had become close with Sandra and Rose. But as soon as Robert became my teacher, something changed. Perhaps it was because it had been a long time since I’d seen another person’s eyes filled with such warmth. My mother, who had suffered from brain damage and had trouble carrying on a normal conversation, could only communicate with her eyes. But in her gaze, there were no apologies or thanks, just doubt and criticism. Food. Right, my mother loved food, especially her own cooking. Indeed, she didn’t often compliment other people. It didn’t matter who she was with, she was always trying to put people beneath her. And in order to do that, she was skilled at assigning undesirable roles to other people. Even if they were her own daughter. One time while we were having a meal with Heon-su, she said something that was almost disastrous—even if she was trying in her own way to comfort someone who had become an orphan early in life. But as with everything, she had other motives. It was about indulging in the sense that she was better than others. Even at the end, the messages she sent me the most with those eyes of her weren’t “Sorry” or “Thank you,” but “I’m scared.”        “Amy, can you hear me?”        “Hm? Yes.”        “What’s your favorite holiday dish?”        I collected myself and started fumbling around in my head for the right tenses, articles, and sentence structures.        “I. . . uhm. . . I like this red bean soup that we eat on dongjinnal, which is the shortest day of the year. They say our ancestors believed that the color red chased away bad ghosts.”        Actually, I didn’t really like patjuk, but I thought it would be easier and more interesting to talk about the winter solstice than the Lunar New Year or Chuseok. After all, people loved stories with ghosts in them. But on the other hand, I could sense significant losses and omissions, the kind of inevitable losses that everyone puts up with in translation. There was a big difference between yuryeong and ghosts, between red bean soup and patjuk. Of course, there were advantages to speaking in a foreign language. Sentences built from a limited vocabulary had their own charm, like a lean body stripped of all unnecessary fat. These gaps would sometimes create unintentional “accidents.” Now that I thought about it, during my classes with Rose, there were also mistakes that weren’t funny. One time, something happened while we were talking about TV shows. As Rose changed the slide, she asked me what my favorite show was. I was beginning to mention a few celebrity reality TV programs in Korea when, realizing it would take too much effort to explain, I resigned myself to just lying and saying I liked dating shows. Rose, who, up to that point, had maintained her poise as my teacher, gave me a suggestive smile, as if she knew exactly what I was talking about. She told me she had a lot of friends who enjoyed watching dating shows and gave me a few recommendations in English. A few days later while eating a meal, I tried watching the matchmaking program that Rose had suggested to me and realized that we had a very different understanding of the concept of “dating show”—especially in terms of sexual explicitness. The women who appeared in the show that Rose suggested to me were all women with extremely large breasts, and when asked what the most important things they looked for in a man, the first woman said this:        “Empathy, a sense of humor, and ambition.”        Not a bad answer, I thought to myself as I spooned some soup.        “But in the end, I think having a big dick is really important.”        I nearly dropped my spoon on the table. These were the programs that Rose now thought I liked. I wanted to meet with her as soon as possible and clear things up. But I had to wait four days before our next class. Because she spent all day teaching classes, it was possible that she might have completely forgotten our conversation. And indeed, when we met again, she barely remembered the conversation. Instead, she gave an understanding smile and told me not to worry about it. We moved on to the next unit. However, if time and language had permitted, there was something else I wanted to share with Rose. It was about the Costa Rican woman who appeared on that matchmaking program. She was beautiful and voluptuous but lacked grace. She worked as a café waitress in some small town in the U.S. Sitting across from her under the moonlight was a Brazilian man. Much like her, he was fit and handsome, but that didn’t change the fact that he was a mechanic with a thick accent and broken English. But when the woman said to him, “I know a little Portuguese,” the look in his eyes suddenly deepened. For a moment, what had been a sultry and provocative dinner date suddenly became very serious. I liked to think that, in that brief moment, a wave of emotion swept over the two of them. Latin American history, migration, hard manual labor, native and foreign tongues, alienation and companionship—they both knew in that instant that they understood one another. This was what I truly wanted to talk to Rose about, but all I could say was:        “Actually, I don’t like dating programs.” “Let’s see, next up is a game of Twenty Questions?”        Robert’s eyes sparkled. It seemed he still enjoyed games like this even though the introductory course likely used the same materials every session. He explained the rules of the game to me in detail, almost as if he were talking to a child. But he didn’t actually treat me like a child, and I appreciated that. Some teachers treated foreign students like children, as if they wished they’d never grow up. In any case, the goal of the game was to guess something solely based on its description. Usually, I would only understand part of what he said and fail to understand the rest, so I would simply nod. And Robert, knowing my level of listening comprehension, used relatively simple words when speaking to me.        “Ready?”        “Yeah.”        Roberts eyes were glinting mischievously as he paused for a moment.        “I’m a fruit, and I’m generally red.”        “Are you a strawberry?” I said, matching Robert’s enthusiasm.        “Nope.”        Robert looked proud that he was keeping me at bay.        “Then what are you?”        “Most of the time I’m red, but sometimes I’m green and sometimes I’m yellow.”        I glanced upward and blinked.        “A peach?”        “Nope.”        “Then what are you?”        “I can be candy, jam, or toppings on pie.”        “A cherry?”        Robert smiled as he shook his head. Then after giving me a few more hints he said:        “This one will give it away for sure. I’m the logo of a famous phone company.”        “Apple!”        “Bingo.”        We continued with the remaining seven lessons. The topics included explaining traditional recipes from our home countries, foods we think of when we’re sick, and what we’d like to eat before we die. As usual, Robert sprinkled the lessons with impromptu questions.        “Is it evening there?”        “Yeah, almost.”        “Have you eaten dinner?”        “No, not yet.”        “What are you going to eat after class?”I didn’t want to give a boring answer, so I pretended to be a bit rebellious.        “I’m going to have a beer. I did well in class today. I want to reward myself.”        This seemed to amuse Robert. He then did something that surprised me, pulling out a glass of wine from behind the screen and raising it up to the camera. “Cheers!” Caught off guard, I awkwardly replied, “Cheers.” We both laughed. Seeing Robert’s spontaneity, I felt a bit bold.        “Robert—?”        “Hm?”        “I have something I wanted to tell you.”Robert looked at me with a mix of confusion, unease, and curiosity.        “Don’t worry. It’s not that serious.”        “Then what is it?”        “Yeah, uhm. I think today is going to be our last class.”Goodbyes were an everyday occurrence in Echoes, but I could detect a hint of sadness in Robert’s face. And yet he tried to stay cheerful.        “Like you said. I’m glad it’s nothing serious.”        I didn’t say anything.        “But it is a bit sad.”        I mustered a polite smile.        “Thank you for telling me. Then how about for the rest of class, we put aside the lesson and just talk for once?” * Robert checked the time at the bottom of his screen. We only had about fifteen minutes left.        “Let’ see. . . What do you want to talk about?”        “Mmm, maybe something honest?” I said, acting innocent.Robert tilted his head to the side in confusion.        “Like what?”        “Like the fact I’m not actually a teacher.”        Robert didn’t seem to understand. A few days ago, during our lesson on the topic of jobs, I had talked about the “struggles” of being a middle school teacher in Korea. I’d even jokingly mocked the school’s vice principal. All of it had been a fabricated story, borrowed from my mother who had been a junior high school teacher. Perhaps because he thought it would be awkward if he continued not to say anything, Robert asked a follow-up question.        “Then what do you do?”        “I don’t do anything right now,” I said calmly.        “And what about before?”        I was just a regular office worker.”        “What kind of company?”        “An advertisement company.”        “That’s really cool.” Robert was always good at interjecting encouraging comments like that.        I made a polite smile.        “But that’s all in the past. I wasn’t trying to lie to you. Sorry.”        Robert waved his hands in the air to reject my apology.        “No, no. It happens. It’s fine.”        We were silent for a while.        “Should I tell you something as well?”        As if wanting to ease my embarrassment, Robert extended his hand beneath the screen and pulled out the glass of wine again, holding it up high.        “I drink this every day.”        I was a bit surprised, but acted like it was nothing.        “Like a Frenchman?”        “More like a Russian.”        The burgundy liquid in Robert’s glass sloshed about dangerously.        “Since when?” I asked.        “Since retirement.”        “How much?” I asked, wanting to take a step closer to him.        Robert made a sheepish smile. “More than you’d think.”        “You dress well and always look fine to me.”        Robert smiled again, bashfully. The kind of smile I would have fallen for, had he been a bit younger.        “Everyone is like that. We all look fine when we’re not.”        “Right, it’s all situational,” I said, echoing something Robert had said earlier.Robert stared into my eyes silently.        “Should I tell you one more thing?”        I didn’t answer.        “My father. The man you offered your sincere condolences for—”        “Yes?”        “He wasn’t that good of a person.”        “. . .”        “Although I guess that’s not news. I mean, no one ever said all adults make good parents by nature.”        I remained silent.        “But I guess I’ve seen that kind of story in too many movies and TV shows. You know, the ones where everything begins or ends with someone’s obituary. Stories where people finally come to understand someone, but only after they’re dead. Or maybe it’s a new appreciation for life. Like how the two alternating notes of an ambulance siren one day transforms into a melody that means something to you.”        “Robert, I’m sorry. I didn’t quite understand what you said. Can you say it a little more slowly?”        I was starting to worry that Robert might be a bit drunk. But his complexion looked perfectly fine. Some people need a cup of coffee to wake up; perhaps Robert needed alcohol to clear his head. Of course, that was the hallmark of an alcoholic. Robert typed out what he’s said verbatim in the chat. I quickly scanned the paragraph, using the translation feature whenever I encountered an unfamiliar word.        “Do you understand?”        “Yes.”        “Actually, that’s why I thought something like that would happen to me, too.”        I was about to say “me too” but managed to stop myself. I was also about to say how truly nice it was to meet someone who knew that a loss didn’t always come with some life lesson, that life was a series of such losses without a purpose.        “Anyway, there wasn’t much written in my father’s obituary. Other than things that implied he wasn’t a good father. Of course I was aware of this myself, but I wanted to confirm that it wasn’t just me. And yet I still felt empty. I wonder why.”        “. . .”        “Perhaps that’s what life is. Trying to extract lessons from things that aren’t meant to be lessons.”        “. . .”        “Then again, what’s wrong with not learning a lesson? Why does everything have to be a lesson?”Robert let out a deep sigh as if trying to collect himself.“I’m sorry. I’ve been talking too much about myself. What about you? Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?” * Yes, what was it that I wanted to say?        Listening to Robert, I was reminded of that morning when I’d enjoyed a cup of coffee with Heon-su while listening to “Love Hurts.” I was adamant that I’d heard them say the word annyeong. “The singer must have intentionally slipped a Korean word into the song. Like medieval painters who used to hide their signature in their works. I think they embedded the Korean word annyeong into the English lyrics. Maybe that was their way of expressing their love for their roots and traces.”        Unsurprisingly, Heon-su didn’t know what I meant. He didn’t understand what I meant by “roots” and “traces.”Only after trying to explain myself again did he finally tell me that I was mistaken for thinking that Kim Deal was some third-generation Korean American simply because of her name and the fact she had long dark brown hair. “It’s Kim as in Kimberley. Not one of the Kim clans from Gyeongju or Gimhae.”        “What, really?”        Heon-su pressed the rewind button and played “Love Hurts” from the beginning again. I listened carefully to each line, trying to find the part where I’d heard it. It was about halfway through the song when we finally found it.        “Oh, they said I’m young,” Heon-su said. “Not annyeong.”        “Hm?”        “This part. I’m young, I know. That’s what they said.”        Heon-su pressed the rewind button again.        “This part.”        I blinked in confusion for a second before realizing my blunder. Heon-su, who looked proud of himself for being right, began interpreting the lyrics that followed, softly, one line at a time. It was as if he were giving me Korean subtitles for the original song, at half the normal beat so I could savor both languages. He even joked about having used the same technique to flirt with someone in the past.        “I’m young, I know. . .”        I leaned in with a serious look on my face and listened closely to the two voices and Heon-su’s.        “But even so I know a thing or two. . . I learned from you, I really learned a lot, really learned a lot. . .”        For a moment, I almost thought that Heon-su wasn’t translating but harmonizing with the singers, adding his own accompaniment. And despite being in different places and different languages, it felt like both he and they were headed toward the same exact end. When the song ended, Heon-su said that he thought the line “I learned a lot from you, I really learned a lot” felt much sadder than if they had pleaded “Don’t go” or said, “I missed you.” He said that for some reason, he felt like he understood what the person meant when they wrote that line.        “Life is mostly a cliché. But it’s hard to deny the inevitability of cliché. Of banality, of predictability, of helplessness. In the darker periods of life, what we end up saying isn’t witty or novel things but clichés. In the end, the things that stick are simple words, old words, words we think we already know and ignore or grow tired of because we’ve heard them a million times.”Heon-su was three years younger than me, so I couldn’t help but tease him, implying that he was too young to be philosophizing about life and death.“Who did you learn that from?” I asked.        Heon-su shrugged.        “My childhood friend? Poverty.”        I thought about what it must have been like to care for one’s parents from a young age. Heon-su had been solving workbook problems as a young boy in the hospital corridor. He had missed a lot of school, and when he was at school, he would often bury his face in his desk, pretending not to hear his friends talk about the school field trip he missed.        “. . .”        “Or perhaps the loss of two loved ones?”        Heon-su had spent his teenage years alongside his mother, caring for his father who had suffered a stroke. And a year after his father passed away, his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. So for five more years, Heon-su found himself back in the role of caregiver. Nearly a decade of his life, including his college years, was consumed in caring for the sick. By the time he graduated from college, he was considered an orphan and was thus exempt from military service. Because of this, while we lay in bed one night, Heon-su said jokingly that his mother had given him “two years off.” At the time, I realized Heon-su must have spent years coping with his own grief before he could make a comment like this. Perhaps that’s why, after we broke up and I found myself lying alone on the cramped cot of the hospital room that my mother and I shared with five other patients, I often thought back to that morning when we would listen to “Love Hurts” together. I would think about the way my stomach sank when I first saw my aunt’s number appear on my phone, and the way Heon-su observed with worry. At the time, I had no idea it would be the crack that would eventually break our relationship. As Heon-su used to say, “Sometimes, shit just happens.” This time, it was simply my turn to experience it. Yet, why do we always look so surprised when it happens? As though we’ve never once said goodbye to a loved one.        Annyeong.        A world full of goodbyes. I would often hum that song to myself—in the hospital when my mother was still alive, or down the dimly lit streets of my fading hometown. In this life where I thought I’d already lost so much but still had more to lose, in this process of constantly losing more and more, I would remember those times when I’d wipe my mother’s bottom with a damp towel, look into her eyes, and then feel the desire to run away—times when I couldn’t run away, times when I didn’t, times when I couldn’t but almost did. Heon-su knew all too well about what I was going through, what I would have to go through. Was that why he left me? Because he didn’t want to go through it again? Then again, technically it was I who had left him, out of courtesy. Of course it wasn’t a clean break; we met several times after that, even spent a few nights together. And even though neither of us said annyeong, we knew that we would never get back together.        “Heon-su—” One night, I spoke to Heon-su in the darkness.        “Yeah?”        “Were they good people?”        “Who?”        “Your parents.”        Heon-su fell silent before finally answering me.        “Yeah.”        “That’s fortunate.”        “. . .”        “I’ve always been envious of people who sincerely like their parents.”        “. . .” Heon-su didn’t express an opinion, positive or negative, about what I said. Though I didn’t realize it then, perhaps inside him, thoughts of what he wanted to say, what he shouldn’t say, and what he simply couldn’t say were tangled together. And maybe it had nothing to do with whether his parents were good people or not. Kind of like how, as I became increasingly surprised by my own life, I stopped making judgments about other people’s lives. Unsurprisingly, during those long days by my mother’s side, it was Heon-su whom I missed the most. Not because he was someone I almost married, but because he was someone who had experienced the same loneliness that I was feeling. Two years after we broke up, I was dozing off in my mother’s hospital room when a drunken Heon-su called me. I got up from the cot, picked up my phone, and quietly stepped into the hospital corridor. With one hand over my mouth, I talked into the receiver, trying not to disturb anyone. Heon-su, however, rambled on about this and that before unexpectedly apologizing for something he’d said in the past, on the day I first heard “Love Hurts.” “If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t have corrected you. I wouldn’t have told you it’s I’m young and not annyeong. I’d have said, ‘Yeah, that’s what I heard too.’ The idea of a cliché Korean word like annyeong being planted inside a pop song like that is so beautiful and sad. Like the image of a single dandelion growing in a crack on a concrete sidewalk.” He was sniffling as he said this. Then suddenly, as though embarrassed, he hung up. I remember standing in the hallway for a long time afterward. Now, I’m without Heon-su, without my mother, without even my younger self, the one who used to dream of the “next step.” Now, I was just in my old room, listening to this song. I learned from you, I really learned a lot, really learned a lot. But to be more accurate, I didn’t learn from him, but rather from his absence. I still didn’t know exactly what I learned, so now, whenever I listen to this song, I just say the word annyeong over the lyrics whenever they say “I’m young.” In life, sometimes there are moments when you can only be right by being wrong. That’s probably what I learned from him.        This is what I wanted to say to Robert. But I couldn’t, not just because I didn’t have the skills to do it, but also because I was afraid that the inevitable omissions and losses of trivial details and nuances caused by the awkward translations of my feelings would turn out to be the most important and precious parts of my emotions. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter if it was joy that I wanted to express. But sadness was another matter. If nothing else, my pain needed to be expressed in my mother tongue, the language of my sadness, the source of my emotions. But let’s say I did use Korean. Would all of it be conveyed, even then? Without certainty, I resigned myself to saying only a few words:        “Robert—”        “Yes?”        “Annyeong means hello and goodbye. But it has another meaning.”        “And what’s that?”        “Be at peace or Are you at peace?”        “I see.”        Looking at Robert’s large, innocent eyes, I realized that this farewell was going to be a lot harder than I thought. I hadn’t imagined saying goodbye to someone would be so difficult just because we’d talked regularly, and shared moments of tension, laughter, and concern. Isn’t it strange? At work, I used to find all that tiresome. I’d wanted to turn off the switch of social interactions completely. But as my world shrank down to just me and my mom in my old hometown, I began to long for all those many languages. Making mistakes and excuses, lying, disagreeing, trying to subtly flirt with someone, making it obvious that you’re receptive to flirtation, believing and doubting, and responding—all the gestures of social life. Perhaps that’s why Robert, who shared a few of those gestures with me for a time, came to feel more precious and intimate than necessary. So much so that, if I could, I’d want to visit Canada at least once.        “Robert?”        “Yes?”        I finally said what I wanted to say to Robert on our last day.        “Annyeong.”        “Amy?” His voice through the speakers was gentle.        “Yes?”        I opened my eyes wide as I waited for Robert to speak. I felt I knew what he was about to say, but I also wanted to hear it for myself. I wanted to nod along when he said it, as if that simple act would somehow bring me peace. But just as Robert’s lips began to part, the feed was abruptly cut, as though the power had gone out. I stared blankly at the laptop screen, which was displaying the messages “Insufficient Balance” and “Session Expired.” His face was frozen on the screen, like the distorted image of a static-filled TV or a corrupted JPEG file. I stared at the lips of someone about to say something but never managing to. And so, just as I had when I once inserted my own Korean lyrics into an old pop song, I whispered the words I hadn’t heard to myself. The same words Heon-su had said to me all those years ago. Annyeong. Goodbye. And be at peace. Translated by Sean Lin Halbert

  by Kim Ae-ran

• 

  Choice

  1. As soon as I sat at the table with a fresh cup of coffee, a notification popped up on my phone. An e-mail, most likely. Even before checking it, my brows furrowed. Moments earlier, I had received a notification from my publisher, who’d sent me feedback for a novel slated for publication the next year. The e-mail was long and carefully crafted, very kind. But the conclusion was obvious—the manuscript needed significant revisions.        I didn’t have to go along with all the edits, but as a writer it’s easy to get swept up into your own story and lose objectivity about it. I couldn’t very much ignore the advice of someone who reviewed my work with impartial eyes. To be honest, when an author complains about their intentions being misunderstood, it often really reflects an underlying trust in the editor’s expertise. If we writers didn’t know that editors were right, receiving feedback wouldn’t bother us so much.        Sipping my coffee, I opened the e-mail.[Author Kim Seonmin_Collaboration Request] It was a message from the local library, asking if I would be interested in writing for their quarterly publication. The theme was ‘the childhood of an author.’ The deadline was good, and the payment reasonable. Not being the type of person who dwells too long on such things, I quickly confirmed the job. Only after hitting SEND did I realize I’d read the date wrong. I thought the deadline was the 27th of the following month, but it was actually this month. I wondered if another writer had bailed out, but then again, I didn’t really care.        Even if another writer had fallen through, it didn’t mean my work wasn’t still my own.        I tried my best not to let pride get in the way of my writing, but the very fact that I had to actively try meant that my petty ego was hard to let go of. I wondered why. After all, my decision to become a writer had been quite impulsive, and I’d made it in my teens no less. 2. No one was home. Dad was a civil servant, while Mom sold insurance plans. My older sister was a high school student, and since she also frequented several hagwons, she never came back before nine p.m. I was always alone when I got home after school. I spent my time lying on the couch, watching endless music videos on Mnet. Nothing noteworthy happened at my school. The teens I saw in dramas, movies, and the news looked different from me. And not just them, but the whole world also seemed to be a never-ending string of events. But the world I lived in was utterly silent, like it had been vacuum-sealed. Were the dramas and movies lying? Or was I part of an elaborate prank, with a hidden crew secretly recording me?        Time rolled by as I mulled over these thoughts until eventually evening came. Some days. I had hagwon classes, other times I didn’t. Because Mom never came home before seven, I rarely sat down to a proper meal. Most of the time I just grabbed some leftovers from the fridge and wolfed it down.        I had no idea who I wanted to become, or the person I would end up becoming, but one thing was certain—I didn’t want to live like Mom.        “Leave it, I’ll do it later.”        Mom sat sideways on the couch, waiting for her daily soap opera to start.        “Mom, what was your dream?”        “Not now. And close the lid.”        I know it sounds ungrateful to say, but to me, my mom’s life seemed incredibly dull. During the day, she begged people to buy insurance policies, then she came home, ate dinner and watched her soap opera. So mundane.        When I looked at Mom through my fourteen-year-old self, I felt like she was barely living. Rather, she was just getting by. 3. I had just accepted the library’s offer when another notification popped up. Work always comes in waves. It was an e-mail titled [Author Kim, is this the right address?]. I tapped it open.         Author Kim, is this your actual e-mail address? I found it on Google, but I’m not sure if it’s legit. I’ve read Chance and Fate, the book you published last year. After reading the first few lines, this person didn’t sound like a fan of mine, nor like they were writing because they had particularly enjoyed my work. There was a certain impatience and urgency in their tone. Or maybe it was just my state of mind. I’d published a fair number of works, but readers always remained a source of fear for me.         I’m the leading member of a parent advisory committee. I read your book as it was selected for our school’s program, A Book per Semester, and. . . quite frankly, I was shocked.        If a child’s parents are divorcing, it should be natural to try and stop them, but the girl in your book is actively encouraging them! I must also say that I found it rather uncomfortable that the teacher decided to never get married. I understand marriage isn’t for everyone, but why portray being single as a good thing—even cool!—in a novel for children who are still growing?        I worry they might develop a distorted view of marriage. I sincerely hope that wasn’t your intention. Actually, I’m certain it wasn’t. After all, you must love children, or you wouldn’t be writing books for them. Am I wrong?        In the future, I urge you to consider the impact your words will have on young, malleable minds. I believe it’s part of our responsibility as adults. Occasionally I would come across one-line reviews about my work, calling it ‘boring,’ ‘insignificant,’ ‘not great,’ but this kind of review (if it could even be called that) was a first. After reading through it, I burst out laughing. Our responsibility as adults? I wondered what kind of books one would have to write to be considered a responsible adult, and who, exactly, gets to be the judge of that. But before I could type out anything, my fingers fell limp on the keyboard. I closed the laptop. To calm my nerves, I went to brew a fresh pot of coffee. I noticed that the earlier batch, now cold, was sitting abandoned on the counter. I poured it down the drain.I couldn’t shake off the tension. It would be hypocritical of me to say I became a young adult writer because I liked kids. It had just happened, like everything in this world. 4. “‘A Day in the Life of My Mom’? That’s so childish.” My Korean language teacher had assigned our class to write a record of our mothers’ daily life. “I bet she hopes we’ll end up saying something like, ‘Oh, now I finally understand her.’”        It seemed like every writing assignment the adults gave us—whether it was a journal entry or an essay—followed the same formula. They wanted stories with a banal lesson that barely scratched the surface of life. They wanted to stitch us up before we even got a single scrape.“It’ll be a piece of cake for you,” some classmate told me.        Ever since I won first prize at the school essay competition, everyone started calling me ‘the writer.’ It’s scary how powerful it is to be pigeonholed like that. I literally won just that one contest, and hadn’t received any other awards since, and yet my classmates still asked me to write the Teacher’s Day letter on behalf of the class and nominated me for every essay contest that came up. The more these things happened, the less I wanted to write. I was afraid they’d eventually find out I wasn’t that good and be disappointed, a fear rooted in the fact that I never had anyone expect anything from me.        “Come again?” I cupped my ear jokingly.        It was barely past three o’clock, but it was already growing dark outside. The weather forecast had predicted rain, and with a flash of lighting, the sky burst open and poured down buckets. Even in this weather, Mom was probably trudging up to every house in the countryside trying to sell insurance.        A day in her life. . . In the morning, she prepared breakfast just in time for Dad to eat before heading off to work. Then she woke my sister and me so we could join him. After we each left in turn, Mom would roughly pile the dishes in the sink and go to work herself. She’d meet with clients, sometimes closing contracts and other times not, then in the evening she’d return home for a quick dinner and settle in to watch her soap opera. By nine, before the news even finished, she’d be asleep on the couch. If we tried to wake her, she’d insist she wasn’t sleeping—only to start snoring moments later.        Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night to see Mom sitting at the kitchen table, staring into the void. If I asked her what she was doing, she’d tell me to go back to bed. Come morning, it felt like I had dreamed all of it.I already knew what her day was like. Maybe I could end my assignment with some nice catchphrases like, I had no idea my mother worked so hard for us. I’ll be a better daughter from now on.        I thought about what I could write to get a good grade. Throughout the fourteen years of my life, no one ever complimented me on anything—except for my writing. I could easily get out of competitions, but school assignments were mandatory. I figured I might as well try to keep my title as ‘the writer.’ That’s how insignificant I was, clinging to such a meaningless label. 5.         Dear reader, this is author Kim Seonmin.        You sent your e-mail to the right address. Thank you for reading my book.        I’d like to rectify a few misunderstandings, so I mustered up the courage to reply back.As I typed the period at the end of the sentence, I sighed. Readers had the right to review my work, I shouldn’t react to every comment. And just because they viewed the world differently from me, it didn’t mean I was wrong. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t soothe my nerves.        After all, you must love children, or you wouldn’t be writing books for them.        Those words echoed in my ears. No one became an office worker out of love for a company, so why should a YA author love children? It wasn’t that I didn’t like them; rather, children were simply unrelated to the reason I decided to write the stories I wrote. I realized how pathetic a writer can seem, rambling on about misunderstandings regarding their work, and the hopelessness of knowing that even if I tried to explain, they’d never understand.        It was better not to answer. Writers should let their works speak for themselves; going around taking issue with every reader review just didn’t feel right.         I love writing young adult novels and children’s books. At first, I wanted my job to be nothing more than that, but along the way I became too attached. There’s a special joy I feel only when I’m writing, just like Yuna Kim feels when she’s skating or Son Heung-min does on the soccer field.        Of course I can’t compare myself to these great names, but I do take pride in my craft. However, you seem to have misunderstood: I don’t write because I want to teach something to children. I care about them, but it’s a love for those I share the same space with, not for a specific person.        Dear reader, you said that you were worried about children growing up with a twisted view of the world because of my writing, and mentioned our responsibility as adults. If someone reading my writing feels that living unmarried isn’t so bad, I would be very happy. Despite knowing that answering the e-mail was a bad choice, I kept making excuses. I felt as though I’d never be able to write again until I released this urge. I could decide later whether to send my reply or not; for now, I needed to get this off my chest. 6. “Good grief, are you planning on writing a best seller?”        When I looked up some tips on good writing, I found a few commonalities. One of them was to be detailed. So, if I understood it correctly, instead of writing I ate, you’d write, I ate the kimchijjigae my mom cooked for me right after coming home from work, without even changing her clothes. As a result, I decided to follow Mom around to see for myself what her day was like.        “I don’t want to hear you complain about waking up early tomorrow, understood? We have to be out the door by eight.”        We lived in a small provincial town, but Mom worked primarily in the rural area where my grandparents lived. When she first started working in insurance, she immediately signed my grandpa and grandma up. Then, the married couple living next door mentioned they needed insurance too, so Mom explained how it worked, and that’s how it all began. She traveled around small villages signing up the dozen or so households living there, and at first her performance was pretty good. But now she said that things had become harder.        “Are you taking all of this?” I asked, seeing the bulging bags she was carrying.        “They won’t even listen unless you show up with some kind of gift,” Mom muttered. Back when I was in middle school, a five-day week was unheard of, and everyone worked on Saturdays without batting an eye. I went back to my room without a word and locked the door.        All I did was lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling.        I wanted to have a crush on one of the boys in my class, fall in love with them, like in the movies or dramas. But they were all so immature, more like toddlers than teenagers. Finding them attractive felt to me like lowering my standards, and a single look at their faces was enough to make me sigh. The thought that they might feel the same about me never crossed my mind. While I knew the world didn’t revolve around me, I couldn’t let go of a tiny sliver of hope that I was indeed the main character. Maybe it was that faint hope that kept me going through the dullness of my days. ©CHILDISH BLUE | Choi Myung Bo  I heard Mom clicking her tongue just outside my door.        “See? I knew you wouldn’t get up.”        My eyes felt dry, as if I’d spent the night awake, only managing to doze off for a second. It’ll be a piece of cake for you. Those words kept echoing in my ears, the voices of my classmates expecting a piece from me worthy of an award. I forced myself to get up.        Stepping out of my room, I saw Mom already dressed in her black spandex trousers, a flashy brooch pinned to her blue blazer. Standing at the dining table, she was eating some leftover pumpkin rice cake from last night.        “You’ll get hungry later, so hurry up and eat something.”        I went to the bathroom and after emptying my bladder, I washed my face and tied my hair. Mom put the rice cake in a Ziploc bag. I slipped into a pair of jeans and a hoodie, then followed Mom out of the house.        When the chilly air of early fall touched my face, I regretted not putting on a jacket. Sitting in the passenger seat, I leaned my head on the window. Watching my mom leave the house before sunrise helped me realize the sacrifices she makes for me, filling my heart with a deep ache. From this moment on, I vow to be a better daughter. The sentences slowly formed in my mind.        After an hour of driving, we were in the countryside. Mom parked at the village’s entrance, picked up her phone and made a call.        “It’s me. You’re still home, right? I was in the neighborhood, and you’d mentioned you were out of disposable gloves so I brought you some. Is it okay if I stop by now? Ah, I know you’re busy, don’t worry. I also have somewhere to be right after. Yes, okay.”        “You didn’t make an appointment?”        “Nobody gives up their time for free, sweetpea.”        Now that she had somewhere to be, her face brightened. She started up the car again, humming a tune. Was she really that happy about this visit? Less than five minutes later, we pulled into a house with a courtyard. Heads of lettuce and perilla leaves sprouted from the vegetable garden. A man and a woman, around my mom’s age, were getting ready to head out, their clothes stained with dirt.        From the trunk, Mom grabbed bundles of rubber gloves, Ziploc bags, and toothpaste tubes, throwing them into a paper bag with her insurance company’s logo on it.        “You’re such a hard worker,” Mom said to the ajumma.        “We’re just back for a second, we need to head out again soon.”        “Exactly my point.”        Mom took the woman by the hand and led her to the wooden square bench out in the courtyard, where they sat. The husband, unsure of what to do, eventually decided to leave. Mom handed over the paper bag, telling the ajumma to let her know if they ever needed anything else. She scooted closer and, before giving her the chance to answer, Mom said, “Have you thought about it?”“I already have an insurance—why would I need another one?”“Your plan doesn’t cover cancer, which is why you need a dedicated policy. You know Mr. Kim from the next village over? Well, a couple years ago I tried to tell him how important it was to be covered in cases like that, and he ended up signing up for a small thirty-thousand-won-a-month cancer policy. He called me just two days ago, and guess what? He got cancer! You won’t believe how grateful he was I convinced him back then. Life is unpredictable like that.”        The woman didn’t look like the type who said “no” very often. Mom, in contrast, was unyielding. She spoke as if people who didn’t get insurance were idiots. Watching her made me uncomfortable. Instead of the hardworking person I’d imagined her to be, she looked like a hustler, someone who’d push others into buying things they didn’t need.        I left the courtyard, wondering if we were really that poor. I knew that despite the many hours he worked, Dad’s salary was low. I was also aware that my sister, a very ambitious student, was racking up quite a bit of tuition costs every month, and we were also dealing with some debt, the origin of which I didn’t understand.        A while later, I heard Mom calling me. Back in the yard, I saw the woman signing some documents. Once she was done, Mom slipped the papers into a folder and opened the car door. I quickly climbed inside.        “It was a wise decision! You’ll thank me later.”        The woman nodded, a bitter smile on her face. Not wanting to make eye contact with her, I turned my head away.        “We’ll be back just past eleven, perfect!”        “Perfect?”        “There’s someplace else I need to be. After that, we can go have a nice meal, maybe some kalguksu, or galbitang.”I didn’t answer. The day was getting warmer. Now I was regretting choosing the thick hoodie instead of a t-shirt and a light jacket. Mom took off her blue blazer. The rhinestones on her black shirt sparkled in the sunlight.        I thought about my essay, what I would write: My mom successfully closed a deal.         In this world, there are both children who wish with all their hearts for their parents to be divorced, and teachers who decide not to marry. I don’t know if you’ve read my other books, but I also wrote about LGBTQ+ characters. The reason for this choice isn’t to encourage children to become gay, transgender, or adopt any specific identity (you can’t force someone to be something they’re not), but simply because these people exist. As I put the words on the page, my emotions flared. Arguing with a reader was a foolish idea. If I were to send this e-mail, it would certainly stir up problems, even though I wasn’t that famous of a writer. Still, I couldn’t help it. I felt like after years of work, the dam had broken and water was gushing out. Many people accused me of promoting the wrong values just because they didn’t agree with my views, or believed that children’s stories and young adult novels should give straightforward answers. And it wasn’t just a few readers. All of them wanted me to be an agitator instead of a writer. However, the kind of agitation they expected from me didn’t align with my own values. 7. We arrived at a five-story residential building. Mom went up to the first floor unit, the voices of a TV program pouring out from within. She rang the doorbell. Suddenly, the sound cut off. Mom rang again, saying, “Minyeong, we agreed to meet today. Answer the door please.”        Inside, I heard the chattering of small children before it stopped.        “Did you have an actual appointment?” I asked.        “Are they gonna waste my time again? If they think I’m just gonna leave, they’re wrong.” She looked stern. “I swear, what’s up with you people? I gave you toothpaste, supermarket coupons, cooking oil, even flour! These are gifts for those who sign up for an insurance plan. How many times are you going to make me come here? Huh?”        Mom’s voice was getting louder. I grew nervous, worried the neighbors might hear. Behind the door, only silence. Mom kept ringing the doorbell. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. It had only been a few minutes, but it felt like hours.        “I’m not leaving today. You’re going to work at noon, aren’t you? Let’s see what you’re gonna do then! People should have a conscience.”Right then, the door swung open. A woman, around ten years younger than Mom, stood at the threshold, furious.        “I never said I wanted insurance! I simply asked a few questions out of curiosity, you’re the one who decided to shove all that stuff at me.” She glared at Mom.        “I didn’t force you to take anything! You were all smiles and nice words, like you were going to sign right away, and now that you’ve got the gifts, you won’t even open the door? Unbelievable.”        The woman gave me a once over, then with a smirk, she went back inside. She returned with a bunch of toilet paper rolls, plastic gloves, opened toothpaste tubes, half-used bottles of cooking oil, and thrust them into Mom’s arms.        “If you care so much, here, take it all. You’re disgusting, really.”        Mom’s cheeks trembled slightly. I just wanted to go home. I couldn’t understand why she was so invested in selling one more stupid insurance plan. I tugged at her sleeve. Mom opened her mouth, but she looked at me and sighed. The woman seized the opportunity and slammed the door in our faces. For a long while, Mom stood defeated in front of the metal surface.        Eventually we went back to the car. Sitting in the passenger seat, I urged Mom to leave, but she hesitated.“Wait here.”        Mom got out of the car and walked toward the trunk to retrieve something. A part of me had a good idea of what she was about to do, but the other didn’t want to know. I closed my eyes.         I doubt any author wants their readers to grow up with a distorted view of the world because of their work. And even if it does happen, I don’t think the writer should be held accountable for it. On the other hand, I don’t believe authors write books to educate readers on the correct worldview either—unless that’s the intention of the work.        I’m not sure if you’ll understand, but I only write the stories I want to write. To be honest, I don’t really think about the impact my books will have on the world.        My goal is just to be a sincere writer. It might sound strange since a novel is, by its nature, fictional. I guess what I mean is, I strive to depict the world I see and feel as genuinely as I can.        Instead of describing a mother sacrificing herself for her children, I might write that she is so desperate to close a deal that she will force an insurance contract on others and be humiliated for it. While her stubbornness surely comes from the desire to help her children, it’s also undeniable that her behavior is driven by the need for self-validation as a middle-aged woman who feels unable to prove herself in any other way.        The characters in my books are all trying to prove themselves, in some form or another. Even if that means shouting at their parents to get a divorce. 8. As soon as we got home, Mom took the snacks from the table and ate them standing. It was a little after twelve.        “Should we order something? What about jjajangmyeon?”        I shook my head and went to my room. Lying on the bed, I thought back to what I’d witnessed. Mom had taken a big bag of freebies—disposable gloves, toothpaste—out of the trunk and gone back to that house. I stared at her from the passenger seat. She looked like she was ready to ring the doorbell and throw the bag right at the woman, but then she turned toward me. I squeezed my eyes shut.        I don’t how much time passed before she was back in the car, turning the engine on.        “Let’s go, I’m hungry,” she said casually.        I didn’t want to cry, but I felt the tears pressing at the corner of my eyes. I bit down on my lips so hard I tasted the metallic tang of blood. Some vague thought swirled around in my head—something about life being sad, I think. I don’t remember exactly, but I distinctly recall feeling like the entire world was tainted.        I fell asleep. Startled, I opened my eyes to find it was already past three in the afternoon. Mom was dozing off on the couch. A rerun of her weekday soap opera was on TV.        “Why are you doing this? Are you really saying your son’s cheating is my fault? I did everything I could to save our marriage.”        The dialogue was drowned out by Mom’s snoring. It got louder and louder until she startled herself awake. Her eyes opened for a second, then she swiftly went back to sleep. On the dining table lay a few Tupperware containers of half-eaten food.        I opened the rice cooker. The rice had dried out after being left inside on the warm setting for too long. I helped myself to a generous serving and sat down at the table.        My mom isn’t the person I believed she was.        Out of nowhere, I thought this sentence ought to start my essay.        I shoved a spoonful of rice in my mouth. There were times when I saw how tenacious Mom could be, but I never believed she could be so crude.        I realized that unless I confessed how little I knew about my mother, the story wouldn’t move forward. I picked up the remote from the table and turned off the TV. Right on cue, Mom muttered, “Not sleeping.” She didn’t ask me to turn it on again.The mother I knew wasn’t there with me.         Surely the world needs texts that aim to educate the reader, but my books don’t belong in that category. Can you imagine how bad the situation must be for a child to wish their parents would divorce? I want to carefully delve deep into the hearts of children who harbor such desires. I want to bring to light the kids who worry they’re not normal because they don’t fit in the conventional scheme of boy-likes-girl or vice versa.        Above all, I want to give individuality to those we just indiscriminately lump together as ‘ajummas’ or ‘students.’ I didn’t send the e-mail. A pop-up asked me if I wanted to save it as a draft. I clicked NO. My books should have already conveyed the message, and if they didn’t, then the fault lay with the writing—and ultimately, with me.I had to accept that my perspective would never align with some readers. And if that meant failure, then choosing it willingly was my commitment as a writer. 9. “. . . Her arms full of gifts, Mom tried to convince her clients to sign up for an insurance plan. She cursed at them and was cursed at in response. My mother is neither good nor bad; she’s just a weak person struggling to secure one more contract. When Mom walked back to that house with the freebies bag and couldn’t bring herself to ring the doorbell upon seeing me, I felt like a pair of shackles around her wrists. Mom probably never wanted to live that kind of life. Just as I don’t want to live like her. I can’t blindly judge her anymore—because the look in her eyes, trembling when they met mine as she knocked on the door, keeps haunting me.”        I finished reading and sat down. No one said anything, not the teacher, not my classmates. A completely different reaction from what happened after the presentation before mine. There was no laughter, no mocking, no applause. Although I hadn’t received my score yet, the sudden desire to become a writer had already taken root in my mind.For the first time I had a dream. It differed from what I’d been given by birth—my nationality, my gender, the fact that I was the second daughter of a working-class family. It was something I had chosen. I think it was then that I realized writing could touch on the most painful parts of oneself.        At last, I heard my classmates talking among each other. Hyejeong tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Did your mom give you permission to read this? It’s a scary story.” Before I could ask what was scary about it, the teacher spoke up.        “You know kids, I also didn’t want to be like my mother, but now when I look back, I wonder why I was so harsh toward her. Hearing Seonmin’s story reminds me of my mom.”        In the end, I didn’t care about the score. I didn’t even care if my classmates realized that I’d won that writing competition out of sheer luck. I challenged myself by submitting a short story to the annual spring literary contest, but I didn’t make it. The next year, I entered the Youth Literature Award, introduced to me by a friend, and I won. It was the first young adult novel I’d ever written. I thought I would go back to writing adult fiction, but even when the opportunity arose, I couldn’t. It felt like wearing clothes that never quite fit me. Since then, I’ve been writing children’s stories and young adult novels.        As I wondered with what mindset I wrote my stories, I realized I’d never given a thought to my readers at all. The moment I started writing for the sake of getting good grades, the writing grabbed me by the neck and dragged me along.        I wrote to dig into my own emotions, to console my younger self, to prove my own existence. I wrote what I believed to be the truth.        How far or how close was I to the fourteen-year-old girl who wrote that essay about her mom? Whenever I write, it feels like I’m her all over again—the girl who chose who she wanted to be. If I had made a different choice back then, who would I be now? As I stand on the path I’ve chosen from many others, I wonder. Translated by Giulia Macrí

  by Lee Sun Ju

• 

  Headlight

  On the noontime asphalt road lay a lump of roadkill.        Ashen fur matted with inky blood. Remains of a small creature, recently alive. Too grisly to take a closer look. The seven-year-old turned away. He imagined a tiny burial mound. Like a cartoon grave, marked with a twig cross. His parents had warned him not to touch anything dirty. At the crosswalk, he glanced both ways for cars. That road between the drugstore and lottery shop was usually empty. No stoplight.        By that age, the boy had accumulated a long list of rules. Cross only at crosswalks. Don’t follow strangers. Turn off the tap. At your friend’s house, line your shoes up by the door. If they ask you to stay for dinner, say it’s okay and come home . . . Pitfalls at every corner: getting hit by a car, growing sick, losing things, forgetting good manners. His dad, a county office civil servant, and his mom, a NongHyup bank teller, filled his mind with wisdom. Less about achieving and more about avoiding harm. News of a fallen bridge, a collapsed department store, or the financial crisis prompted his parents to say across the dinner table, “We’re the lucky ones, aren’t we? Doing well.”        He was the youngest of four, an obedient boy. Neighbors gushed, “Your youngest is such a little gentleman,” to which his parents would say, “We don’t get to baby him at all.” On the night of his fourteenth birthday, all six members of the family squeezed into the living room of their stand-alone house. His eyes lingered on the shared family features of his parents, two sisters, and brother. He wondered why his parents had so many kids. His dad admitted with a chuckle, “Actually, you weren’t planned.”  When teachers doled out the typical warnings, “If you boys don’t study, you’ll end up—,” he took the words to heart. He never slept in class; in the evenings, he never skipped his study sessions. After weighing careers, he chose the rising field of statistics. An undergraduate majors handbook informed him that statistics played a part in every discipline. His homeroom advisor, a literature teacher, flipped through his school records.        “Solid plan. I see you scored well in math. It’s a good fit.”        He was accepted to an “in-Seoul” university, upper-mid tier. Relatives said, “Well done.” Only the ninety-third percentile gained admission there. He deserved higher praise but was simply relieved to be entering a reputable school.        Freshman year. He decided to channel his enthusiasm and free time into the theater club. Classmates were surprised, but he pushed up his squarish round glasses and explained, “I can be somebody else.”        The conversation moved on since all the other freshmen they knew were busy performing in plays or in bands, writing for the school paper, or joining the national trekkers. In the theater club’s first production, a campus romance, he played one of the three underclassmen who followed the main character. His glasses stayed on. He delivered a few lines to the effect of “We’ll help you.” Before heading to the afterparty, he went back on the darkened stage, pretending to pick up a bit of trash. During karaoke later on, the lead actor, an upperclassman, reserved the song “After the Play.” The club president, an economics major, made a sly remark.        “Now that song is a public good, so don’t hog the mike.”He’d never heard the song before, but everyone sang along. Was it even possible, he wondered, to be robbed of something that was never his? In the productions that followed, he played another sidekick, followed by a similar bit part as an upperclassman.        Behind the scenes, he kept busy. He noticed and fixed the props that were getting unglued, steadied the volume of sound effects, and preemptively ensured that audiences wouldn’t get lost in search of the restrooms. Everyone regarded him as indispensable. He eventually took pride in his role. During his final leave from military service, he inspected all six hundred of the theater club’s mini lightbulbs and, in doing so, ended up winning over a female club member two years his junior. Thus began his belated first romance. His girlfriend’s parents called her every night at nine o’clock to ask where she was. Not wanting her to get in trouble, he always walked her straight home. One evening, she dragged her feet all the way. She pouted when they arrived. “I like you, Oppa, but you’re so you.”        Confused as he was, he resolved not to let her down. Over the course of their three-year relationship, he learned the rules of being a good boyfriend. As he went through classes, certificate programs, and career study groups, he stayed faithful and turned down a few girls who were interested in him. Looking back, he couldn’t pinpoint why his first relationship ended. He chalked it up to some quarrel or another of two twentysomethings.        Job interviewers approved of his flawless GPA and résumé. The theater club experience in his cover letter was taken as a sign of bold initiative. He earned respectable scores on the personality assessment test, excelling in chart analysis and logical reasoning. Even his thoughtfully nondescript appearance matched the image of an ideal job candidate, and he received offers from a number of conglomerates. Prioritizing job security and salary structure, he joined a global conglomerate known for its automobiles. He was one of the few in his class to land such a lucrative job in the tough market.        He arrived on his first day with the same buoyant energy as the company’s flagship sports sedan. The business district lined with office towers now had a place for him. With his first paycheck, he bought his parents a massage chair. With what remained, he took out four insurance policies that covered everything from dental care to cancer, traffic accidents to legal disputes. He opened a savings account for a future home purchase along with a private pension plan; he also signed up to donate two percent of his monthly income to an NGO for children and refugees. A year later, an eight-hundred percent bonus allowed him to purchase the company’s sports sedan. The employee discount came in handy, and a twelve-month payment plan easily covered the remaining balance. ©CHILDISH BLUE | Choi Myung Bo  By the time the installments were paid off, the company had removed all office partitions in the name of business innovation. It was meant to facilitate communication. Coworkers grumbled over the messenger app, blaming the HR team for their loss of privacy. He didn’t mind as much since he rarely left his desk anyway. But the change intensified the presence of his thirty-odd coworkers in Marketing Team 3, Floor 17, each fixated on their monitors.        His monitor displayed a swirl of customer data: age, occupation, time of car purchase, marital status, number of children, commuting distance, leisure activities, and customization preferences. “Medieval artists believed that sculpture revealed divine forms hidden in marble. Statistics do the same for messages hidden in numbers,” a professor had once said. Grand words but false. Messages weren’t hidden in numbers but conjured in boardrooms. Shaping numbers to serve predetermined ends—that was his task, at which he excelled. Fresh ideas weren’t necessary since he’d already penned enough eager reports during his training period. The numbers he crunched kept his superiors and coworkers satisfied. For that, he was rewarded with KPI scores and performance bonuses. At a get-together with old friends, he asked how they were doing. “Just working for money,” they replied. Right. Same here. One of them piped up, “Maybe we should start getting dates?”        At work, competence readily translated into personal appeal. It also helped that he never voiced ambitions or complaints. Coworkers willingly set him up with acquaintances. He humbly accepted those blind dates, never asking for photos or prying into their background. Despite his less-than-extraordinary looks, he had carefully curated tastes and good manners. He wore well-fitting clothes, kept his hair cut, chin shaved, and nails neatly trimmed. Inside his jacket, he carried a handkerchief, ironed and folded. His glasses, still squarish round, were upgraded to a popular, branded frame. He planned date night itineraries around dinner and dessert, with the possibility for a short walk or scenic drive afterward. He was an attentive listener who knew when to chime in or steer the conversation.        On first dates, he avoided places he’d visited before with others. It took effort to find new places each time. One where you didn’t have to eat with your hands. One with enough space between the tables. Not too quiet, not too noisy. Not too cheap, but not uncomfortably expensive either. Not a chain restaurant. It wasn’t easy to tick all the boxes. But I can't go to the same restaurant, expecting sparks to fly. A first date calls for someplace . . . special. That vague intuition served as his moral code of conduct.        Over the next five years or so, he had a series of four relationships that lasted fairly long, but not too long. A French bistro in a renovated house, a Western-style restaurant dating back to the colonial era, and an urban temple serving vegan food became no-go zones. Reasons for breaking up always outnumbered the reasons not to. He reminisced about the National Museum’s third-floor cafeteria. Meanwhile, at work, he moved up a rung as assistant manager, passed on his former duties to his juniors, and took on new responsibilities from his seniors. Over his lunch of spicy pork, he overheard the latest gossip—IPOs, cryptocurrencies, next-gen smartphones, exotic vacation spots, the first-floor receptionist’s hairdo—and sometimes got soup stains on his shirt. He quietly condemned a coworker who bragged about his monthly visits to a nightclub where he smoked marijuana; he disapproved of his superior’s lack of morals, knowing he played golf in Southeast Asia just to enjoy the illicit, nighttime attractions. He switched to a diet of salads and whole wheat sandwiches except for cheat days when he gave in to spicy fish roe soup or pork ribs. He eventually freed up his lunch hour by drinking protein shakes that contained all eight essential nutrients. He competed in a swim meet organized by the local district office and won a bronze medal; he handcrafted a wooden stool at a woodworking studio and kept it at his dining table. Now and then, he visited a new location to repeat well-worn conversations with a stranger. “I did theater at university, always playing students. I never had to change my glasses for a role.” Despite the sixty percent chance of getting a laugh, he’d grown tired of the line. Later, he ventured to take a new date to a highway rest stop for noodle soup; he took another blind date to the fish market for flounder. With the latter, he had two bottles of soju. It’d seemed like a good idea at the time but not so much the next day.        Now aged thirty-three, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He lived in an upscale studio with a walk-in closet, but in the quiet of midnight, he only sensed his solitary bed. He recalled the ad jingle: You leave bed and return to bed. Why settle for a mediocre mattress? He scrolled through the profile photos on his messenger app and scanned the news. Clear skies tomorrow. Unusual Russian troop movements. K-pop girl group climbs the Billboard Hot 100. Fat-soluble vitamins include Vitamin D. He tapped on a trending post to read it. I quit my job and went on a journey to find myself. Here are five habits to live as your true self. I chose singledom to live as me. “What true self? What does that even mean?” he demanded—then he cracked up. Those lines came straight out of a TV drama. He wondered what it took to live as oneself, but then he grew fed up with the idea.        He tried to envision his future. It seemed absurd to think in terms of a dream. “Why aren’t you married yet?” His newly appointed boss asked him at a company dinner before the pork belly slices were even on the grill. This time, he gave a different answer.        “My thoughts exactly.”        His colleagues weighed in as the pork sizzled. He pieced together their comments: “You marry whoever is by your side when you hit the marrying age”; “You marry to save money, but you can’t marry without money”; “The later the better, but it’s part of your human duty”; “Young people these days aren’t responsible enough to pull it off”; and to quote a disgruntled coworker, “Screw all that. You don’t want to take the plunge.” He ate the pork, alternating between salt and ssamjang sauce for seasoning. He wrapped the slices in lettuce and chewed to absorb the vitamin A and lutein. The married men, after arguing throughout dinner, began answering their phones and heading home. He followed them out. He didn’t agree with any of their views, but he had no words to articulate what he wanted.        When asked about his ideal type, he resorted to a simple stock reply:        “A pretty, smart, kind, fun girl who loves me.”        He delivered the line in his best flippant tone. “You’ve gone nuts,” people told him. A few of them were serious. Yet, as far as ideal types went, there was no better summary. He could elaborate, but people lacked the patience to hear him out. He had no idea how long it would take, nor did he know which parts were essential. Ideal signified too much to mean anything at all.        One day, he formulated twelve traits on a legal pad. The first one read as follows:        A person who is biologically female, identifies as a woman, and is heterosexual.        Too broad a beginning, maybe. But as he penned that first line, he was delighted to find vague notions gaining clarity. He wrote the next line:        A person who shares my mother tongue.        Drawing on empirical knowledge, he hypothesized a being who had yet to arrive, approaching the task like an astrophysicist or inventor. He omitted details of profession, wealth, and family background. He believed in specific signs of a person’s essence, visible to the discerning eye. He listed a few peculiar traits. For instance, the twelfth:        A person who doesn’t wear white trousers.        Imagining that person and finding her were two different matters. Social conventions around dating helped in his undertaking. With careful efficiency, he approached women and won them over. It all hinged on saying and doing opportune things at the opportune time, and he had a fair amount of experience to guide him. By now, he knew that “opportune” included an “opportune element of surprise.” A small but unexpected gift, for example, a late-night text, or even a glib show of indifference.        At times, he questioned his caution. But he couldn’t marry a person who was rude to servers or deferred credit card payments. A relative offered some testy advice: “You’ll never marry if you’re picky.” It seemed he needed a value-for-money mindset. Except that he was searching for the right person, not purchasing a gadget. He couldn’t lean on the iffy judgment of “seems good enough.” With his thirty-fourth birthday around the corner, he visited a marriage agency for a consultation. The application form made him realize that his other half wouldn’t appear by dint of a standardized algorithm—so he walked out. That night, while lying in bed, he thought, If I were to adopt a pet, I’d want a dog, not a cat. He calculated the probability of him dying alone and being eaten by that dog. Two months later, he met her.        He received the phone number of a friend of a friend’s younger sibling. With a brief text, they arranged a time and place. Reservations were in short supply around the holidays, and he booked a table at an Italian restaurant that wasn’t his top choice. Their faux flower centerpiece bothered him, but she enjoyed the eggplant parmesan with spinach and roe. When she suggested a nearby pub for drinks, he pretended not to have brought his car. The pub was packed, with only the uncomfortably high seats by the window available. They sat side by side, sipping dark lager sprinkled with cinnamon. The noise muffled her voice, but he offered her another round of drinks upon hearing, “On off-days . . . and I’m in an amateur theater group.”        After tasting the dark lager, she ordered a pale lager for her second drink. A darts machine jingled. Outside the window, a Santa passed by with a handcart.        Within three days, he got in touch with her again; by their fifth date, they were official. As the season changed, he came to know how punctual she was. She ponytailed her hair during meals, and whenever a peddler granny appeared, she bought some gum or chocolate and shared them with him. One evening, he sat in a small theater’s darkened auditorium with a flower bouquet. Twelve Angry Men was on stage, a play about twelve jurors disputing the verdict of a murder trial. He’d been aware of the theater classic since his university days. In the first vote, eleven jurors raised their hands to vote guilty. A single dissenter stood up. It was her.        “It’s not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.” 1He felt as though their eyes met. The jurors debated for an hour and a half. By the end, they agreed that the accused boy was either innocent or at least couldn’t be proven guilty. He tucked the bouquet under his arm and gave a standing ovation. A few others slowly followed his lead.         He grew convinced that his memory of the clichéd Italian restaurant and noisy pub would stay with him. Sweet dreams. Sweet dreams. Lying in bed and exchanging those texts sometimes put him in a daze. He couldn’t grasp how something so extraordinary could emerge from simple moments. He would repeat the ringing vowels of her name as if counting woolly sheep. This would gently lull him into sleep. It was high noon on a late summer Saturday. He stopped at a self-service car wash to clean his car inside and out before picking her up. He’d made it sound like a casual weekend getaway, yet his linen jacket in the backseat hid a ring in its pocket.He’d explored options—everything from a sky lounge to a hot air balloon—but the moment required someplace more scenic, sincere, and timeless. The National Museum’s antiquities had an allure, but his other memories weighed on him. Gyeongbokgung Palace fell short since it was reconstructed; Angkor Wat was too tiring a trip. His thoughts turned to the sea. The sea had always been and always would be, and yet no two shores were alike. He booked a private villa overlooking a hidden rocky cove—without consulting her. He had no way of knowing if she would say yes to marriage. Proposing wasn’t a negotiation but a mission. To drop hints and offer the ring as a foregone conclusion would be absurd. She might waver and ask for some time, but more probably, she would offer her hand, her face flushed. With his nerves buzzing, he helped her into the passenger seat.        He’d expected the weekend traffic, but it took far too long to exit the city. At the end of the bottleneck, they passed a warning triangle, skid marks, and a crushed sedan. Wanting to explain that the delay wasn’t his fault, he gave her a sheepish look, which she met with a soothing smile. Over sandwiches at the first rest stop, she mentioned wanting to visit a place on the way. A Catholic church deep in the mountains, built long ago by a group of persecuted believers. She said it was known for its brick façade and spire. He’d always hoped to meet someone who wasn’t religious, and as far as he knew, she didn’t attend church. Surely, it was just a cultural curiosity of sorts that made her suggest the stopover. The church lay somewhere in the vast space between their starting point and destination, taking them off the highway. The GPS led them to a signpost, and they covered the final ten minutes of the journey on foot.        As they trudged through the overgrown path, he wondered if she might want a Catholic wedding. He hadn’t considered the possibility since neither of them were Catholic. Weddings seemed less meaningful than marriage proposals. A proposal was a private moment between the couple; a wedding, a public spectacle for others. When he factored in the extended family, the most practical options for a wedding venue seemed to be a university alumni hall or a company retreat center—the middle ground between common wedding halls and ritzy hotel ballrooms. He’d attended Catholic ceremonies in the past and admired their dramatic formality, but he didn’t see the need for a priest to exchange vows.        The building appeared out of nowhere. A small, single-story structure of ash-colored bricks. A cross on the modest spire marked it as a church. Trees circled the structure, arching over the spire. A heritage plaque gave details of its construction, yet there wasn’t a soul in sight. Thick chains held the wooden doors shut. To chase away the eeriness, he blurted, “You could set it on fire and no one would know.”Instead of responding, she snapped a few photos of the church with her phone. He wanted to clarify—he had no wish to see it burn but was simply concerned by the lack of upkeep, especially given public arsonists. He decided against it. They held hands and walked back down the path where crickets hummed. The sun began to set. He helped her into the car and called the villa’s manager to delay their arrival time. A two-hour drive would require two hours, after all. Should he propose in the morning, he wondered, to signal a new beginning? Was this trip the best time to propose at all? When he started the engine, the automatic headlights switched on.        The road meandered through the mountains. Darkness swallowed everything beyond the headlights. No other cars passed by. His senses dulled, and he could barely tell if they were driving uphill or downhill. The road carried the car forward. He struggled to recall the rush of steering a machine larger and faster than himself.        “Are you asleep?” he asked, turning toward the passenger seat. His voice was low enough to leave her undisturbed if she was, loud enough to reach her if she wasn’t. If she wasn’t asleep but wanted to be, she could pretend. Her head tilted toward the window, with only a part of her face visible. Then came a sharp shattering of glass.        He pulled over without panicking and hit the hazard lights. She sat up.        “Are we there?”        Each time the hazard lights blinked, a few yards of road flickered into view. There was nothing in sight. He noticed that only his left headlight was on. He released his hands from the wheel and unfastened his seat belt. Muttering about the broken headlight, he stepped out of the car.        The crisp breeze gave him a chill. The jacket in the back seat crossed his mind, but he shut the door and stepped ahead. The thick woods were pitch dark. Towering trees stood watch on either side of the road. He rounded the blinking left headlight and saw the cracked lens cover on the right. No other damage. He stepped toward the edge of the road. She called out as he passed by, her lips forming the words, “Everything okay?” He nodded and walked on toward the back of his car. The taillights blinked on and off, casting a scarlet glow on the path they’d taken. A few dozen yards later, he spotted a single shoe.        A rubber shoe, navy-colored with a fur-lined ankle. Worn down but too intact to be thrown away. Based on the size and shape, a woman’s left shoe. He tried to make sense of the link between that shoe and the cracked headlight. He scanned the surroundings but saw no trace of the missing right pair or its owner. With no explanation for the fur-lined shoe, he began questioning why he was there. He eyed the dark, dense forest. With only the treetop spires faintly visible, he had no way of fathoming the depth of that wilderness. Each gust of wind swept through the leaves that ebbed and flowed like waves. Standing at the edge of that dark sea, he imagined the back of someone walking away without the one shoe they lost.        The car door swung open. She stepped out but then leaned back inside. She draped his jacket over the shoulders of her dress and called his name. As she stood with her back to the taillights, her shadow stretched across the asphalt. A midnight road, in between locations and impossible to place. Trees swayed, crickets murmured. A woman wrapped in his jacket, voicing his name. A moment no one else would know, in a place where no one would ever stop.        He walked toward her voice and stood before her. The unease that tugged at him seemed only natural given the weight of a marriage proposal. She had her hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket.        “There’s something in there. Have a look.”        “Uhm, okay,” she mumbled, pulling out the ring box.        When she glanced up to ask, “Really?” he gave a nod.        She shook her head. “No.”        His mind reeled. Where did it go wrong? The leaves and crickets seemed silent. She held out the box to him.        “You’re supposed to put it on me.”        As he took the box, he somehow knew that the crucial, thirteenth trait had been met before he could even put it into words. He wanted to deliver the pivotal line perfectly, but he choked up. She held out her hand. The ring seemed a touch too loose.“So you do know how to cry,” she said. He drove with one headlight that night, and together, they reached the sea. The sheets were silky smooth, and her body warm to the touch. She whispered words into his ear that she usually kept to herself. Once she fell asleep, he lay gazing at the ring on her hand. Morning arrived. They had breakfast on the terrace with croissants, scrambled eggs, and hand-drip Kona coffee. Back to the office on Monday. He reviewed his team’s work and cut the error margin before clocking out. He transferred the dash cam file to his laptop, saving that footage of the dark road and his disoriented figure. Two months later, they opened a joint bank account and arranged a formal sanggyeollye to introduce each other’s parents. A few months after that, he purchased a snug new apartment near her workplace. His parents pitched in with money they had saved for him, but he quietly set it aside as a retirement fund for his parents and in-laws. She approved. It meant taking out a larger loan, but his income made it manageable. At times, he stared at his phone, half-expecting a call about something found by the roadside—but the call never came.        Whenever people asked about her age or job, he looked for better ways to describe her. When they asked what about her had attracted him, he struggled to answer. After a futile search for the mot juste, he decided there was no need to explain.        “She’s a pretty, smart, kind, fun girl who loves me.”        “Lucky you,” they said, and he would insist it was a joke. An old university classmate, who made a questionable living as some sort of influencer or essayist, arrived at a meetup in a neon bucket hat. He opened the wedding invite and asked, “So, you love her?”        “Of course.”        He drove home. Left turn, right turn, a stop at the light, then a straight drive ahead. Of course, I love her. What’s love anyway? This is love. The real thing, right? Hah, that clown. He went shopping with her for appliances and picked out a dishwasher, dryer, and a Styler steam closet. They chose not to have a TV in their living room. The wedding invitations had come in every imaginable design, and the pre-wedding photoshoot turned out to be an elaborate ritual. He set out his guiding principle: whatever the bride wants. Sometimes, he tried to anticipate her wants before she even knew them as they checked off the items on their to-do list. On the list were RCIA and Pre-Cana courses, which would allow them to marry as Catholics. At last, in a small Catholic church downtown, he knelt beside her.        Notes from the pipe organ reverberated in the air. The stained glass shimmered in the midday light. Her white wedding gown matched the lilies on the altar. She didn’t think it mattered, but he’d insisted she buy a wedding gown instead of renting one. The priest began his homily with, “Although I’ve never been married myself,” drawing giggles from the crowd. He’d heard the joke before, but this time, it landed even better. The priest addressed them by name and asked them to rise. Kneeling, he’d lost a part of his past; rising, he gained the entirety of his future. After the ceremony, she teased him for almost crying again. Their island honeymoon took them to a whole other world. When they returned, hauling their luggage into their new home, she asked, “Exhausted, right?” “Not at all,” he replied. The first lie he told in that house.        On weekdays, they came home from work and sat across from each other at the dinner table. They relished their warm meals, with only brief exchanges such as “Okay” or “Now?” followed by smiles. She occasionally let out frustrations about work that he didn’t fully understand. Still, he could do the dishes, brew her tea, and run a bath for her. On Fridays, he took her on drives to the suburbs. On Saturdays, he pushed their shopping cart through the supermarket; on Sundays, he whipped up jjajang ramen as their Chapagetti chef. He crooned the old ad jingle from the kitchen—cha-ra-cha ra-cha-cha Chaaa-pa-getti. With a cheeky smack on his bottom, she quipped, “Had I seen this coming, I would’ve never!”        They celebrated their first anniversary with a studio photoshoot. She wore her wedding gown again, and he put on the white trousers she’d gifted him. They made plans to have a child, had fun trying at first, but then became regulars at a clinic. Fertility devices and drugs. Yoga and meditation. A full year of treatment led to her first pregnancy. They lost the baby at eight weeks before they’d chosen a taemyeong nickname. She sobbed on the hospital bed for two days while he refilled the humidifier, peeled her fruit, and stroked the back of her hand. Four out of ten pregnancies, unnoticed ones included, ended in miscarriage, but the statistics did little to ease her pain. For the first time, he stopped by a Catholic church by himself on his way from work. He heard the choir singing as he sat on a bench just outside.        Then came one night some months after his thirty-ninth birthday. Groans, screams, and cries. Everything blurred, but the nurse pressed something cold and sharp into his hands—scissors. He cut the umbilical cord. The nurse wiped the newborn and cheerfully announced the time of birth.        “11:49 PM. It’s a girl. Eyes, nose, and mouth open. Two ears looking good. Fingers—one, two, three, four, five . . . Toes—one, two, three, four, five . . . No outward abnormalities. Congratulations.”        Her tiny, wriggling hand wrapped around his finger. A person. Born of a person. He was humbled by the profound, brutal changes that had occurred in his wife’s body for ten months or perhaps longer. He cared for the baby before heading to work, and after scouring the internet all day for the best baby food and toys, he returned home. To lessen the disruption of his wife’s career, he broke the unwritten rule at his company that male employees didn’t take paternity leave. A few of his superiors made snide remarks, but he didn’t care. The company already had some two hundred employees in his department, with eleven of them in roles identical to his. Yet, he was the only person in the world on stage as his wife’s husband, and this emboldened him.        To accommodate their fast-growing baby, he purchased a larger home. As they moved, he packed his bronze medal from the swim meet but threw away the handcrafted stool. He donated half the clothes he no longer wore and had an e-waste recycler pick up a few outdated electronics. The old laptop he discarded still had the dash cam footage saved on its hard drive, which he’d long since forgotten. On their first night in the new house, they hadn’t finished unpacking but decided to celebrate in their living room. The table stood among the unopened boxes, unassembled furniture, newspaper-wrapped house plants, and a ride-on toddler car. A single candle flickered on a small cake as he switched off the lights. Darkness, and the night outside, closed over the table. For a fleeting moment, he mourned the suffering of faraway people starving, weeping, wandering, colliding, and collapsing. Then his eyes fell on the table, his wife, and their baby in her arms, all bathed in the glow of one candle. As he moved to join them, it struck him that they hadn’t seen a single play together since they’d gotten married.        “Wait,” she said.        He stopped mid-step. “What is it?” he asked, and she stared as if trying to recall.        “No, never mind.”        He stepped into the Polaroid-worthy scene and sat by his wife and baby. The little girl reached out, her arms waving, only to burst into giggles. “What’s got you so happy?” His wife cooed the baby’s name and laughed along. He took courage from the thought that some things defied anticipation as they were simply called forth. He had a clear, simple task ahead. He blew out the candle and clapped in the dark. Translated by Sunnie Chae 1. Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men: A Play in Three Acts by Sherman L. Sergel, Adapted from the Television Show by Reginald Rose (Chicago: The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1955).

  by Kim Kitae

• 

  Lingering Feelings

  Some memories refuse to be recalled. Because the memory exerts a repulsive force, and because we sense danger and retreat (even though it’s just the conditions of our brains), the act of remembrance can never be achieved. The memory only flickers like a fragile ember before sizzling out. Whenever this happens to me, I think:    ‘We all deserve a proper takeback, just one per lifetime.’      One fall day when such a foreboding thought rustled my collar like a cold autumn breeze, I learned that she was pregnant. Of all times to receive this news, it happened just as the food was placed on our table to celebrate our one-hundredth-day anniversary at Osteria Sam Kim—rucola salad, anchovy oil pasta, and lamb chop steak from the kitchen, and a Cloud Cheesecake that I bought last-minute from Starbucks.      “You can’t do without candles on a day like today.”       As we stuck candles shaped like numbers we’d bought at Paris Baguette into a slice of pure white cake, we joked about marriage. I always wanted to get married before my thirties . . . One hundred days together . . . We’re basically married . . . At this point if we break up, we’ll be able to claim alimony . . . Bright moonlight pouring in through the window, humming conversations, heat from the open kitchen occasionally making its way to the far corner of the restaurant—these things made our cheeks perfectly flushed. After blowing out the candles in unison, you stared down at the cake for a moment before playfully scolding me for doing too much. I said I could have done more, that I wanted to do more, and then reminded you to take a picture with Sam Kim for Instagram before we paid.      “We have to let everyone know that we were here.”      “Is this one of the things you meant when you said you wanted to do everything that everyone else does?”       I made a quizzical expression to pretend that I was thinking about your question.      “Probably?”      “Fine. I want what you want, hyeong. Do whatever you please.”      As you said this, you smiled, revealing the dimple on your left cheek, and because I couldn’t help but smile when you smiled like that, we grinned together as we toasted with glasses filled half-way with Mountain Dew. Because you were born with a weak kidney, you couldn’t drink even one drop of alcohol. And I hated alcohol because I’d grown up with a father who was an alcoholic. So even on this trivial point, we were perfect for one another. Because of this, every time you talked about how you could see us in your dreams ten years from now, even though I told you that you were getting ahead of yourself and had fallen madly in love with me, at the same time, I was thinking we could, should, would be together for that long. Even though I knew I was being rash—after all, we’d known each other for less than a year combined—I was excited by the fact that, for the first time in my life, I could imagine a future together with someone. I wished that this excitement would last forever.      Wishes.      I thought I’d lost that concept for good, along with my childhood. I never thought that it would be returned to me so suddenly.      But it wasn’t like our relationship was all smooth sailing.      Before you started dating me, you were in the process of searching for your identity, trying to figure out whether you were into polyamorous relationships. You said that it was probably because of your past relationships that you couldn’t date me just yet. Because of this, on my way home after our date—while doubting whether it could even be called a date—I contemplated what kind of relationship I truly wanted. Did I really want a monopoly over someone else’s heart? I’d taken exclusivity as a fact of life until then; it was disorienting once I realized I wasn’t so sure. But the more I mulled over it, the more I became convinced that it was greedy for someone to try to fit several people in their heart at the same time, and that polyamorous relationships were invented by misguided souls who’d never been in a proper relationship. Of course, because I couldn’t tell you directly, I only said that you couldn’t impose your definition of love on me.      “Right, of course.”      You agreed, and gave a naïve, sheepish smile. Seeing this, it occurred to me that it was impossible to have a serious relationship with people like you. And once I realized this, I only sent half-hearted replies to your text messages and made a line in the sand about how personal I would allow conversations with you to become. Thinking that I wasn’t going to devote all my time and energy on you if you weren’t going to do your utmost for me, I started meeting as many other men as I could.      Looking back on it now, those three or so months might have been the open relationship you’d been looking for. You met other men as you pleased—one reason for this was because you had no connections in Seoul and needed “friends”—and I enjoyed similar freedoms. And yet the more time that passed, the closer we became, and after a while, we couldn’t hide the fact that we enjoyed each other’s company the most. We’d never made any such arrangements, and yet every weekend, we left our schedules open to see each other—although most of the time, we just went to the movies or read books at a coffee shop in silence. Of course, we would sometimes go shopping for clothes for the upcoming season, or go on drives through the suburbs, or have sex, and through it all, we could share a peaceful and intimate routine without having to explain what it was that we wanted from each other. But because I knew just how rare it was—especially as a gay man—to find a partner like you, the time we spent together felt both wonderful and sometimes painful.      Then one day, you started sending me messages telling me too much about how you weren’t feeling well. Or you would start confiding in me about the fight you had with your parents. And when this happened, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do for you. I felt a sudden feeling of repulsion. We weren’t dating, so why did we need to expose our vulnerable sides to each other like this? Why were you trying to lean on me and seek my comfort? My goodness. Only then did I start to doubt whether we were anything more than close friends with benefits, and not wanting anything more to do with it, I put my foot down. “To be honest, we have so much in common. Personality, tastes, routines, cleanliness. It would be great to think of each other as companions. But if we’re only going to limit ourselves to fuck buddies . . . I’m not sure . . . What I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to waste my life on you anymore. Thanks to you, I’ve become certain of something. The kind of relationship I truly want is an exclusive relationship with another person. I want their absolute devotion.”      The problem was that, even though they were words meant to inflict harm, and even though you made an expression as though you’d just been punched in the gut, it didn’t make me feel any better. The moment your lips contorted slightly and started to quiver, I felt for the first time in my life what it meant to feel your heart being torn apart. But because I didn’t want to let you know that I was that in love with you, my only choice was to get up from my seat as quickly as possible. I had to make it clear that this was a cold-hearted goodbye. It took a while for you to confess to me that this was the deciding moment that made you—at least for a while—give up on polyamory. The image that night of me getting up suddenly from my chair, the image of me storming out the glass doors of the café had sent an unfamiliar wave of emotion through your heart.      “That’s when I knew. I needed to have the right to ask you not to leave, to run after you and try to stop you. But I couldn’t do that, not in the relationship that I wanted. I couldn’t cling to anyone. I couldn’t stop anyone from leaving me. That made me feel so very lonely.”      After a few ups and downs, we eventually started dating, but even after that, you would still act like someone who didn’t understand what a “normal” relationship was, and whenever you did this, you would completely wreck me. On business trips to your hometown of Busan, you would call up your old boyfriends or find a stranger on a dating app because you simply needed someone to eat dinner with—“You know you can’t get a table for one at budaejjigae restaurants.” And all of this, you told me with a smile. Every time this happened, I would blow up, saying that you were making a fool of me, and you would say that you had no ulterior motive, that you simply wanted to meet people.      “I know it’s hard to understand. But it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I’ve always lived this way. And all my previous partners live this way. Is that so wrong? I promise, I don’t have any intention of doing anything with anyone but you. Isn’t that enough? How can you say that my whole mode of existence is wrong?”      “That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just that . . . I just want you to know that when you meet up with other men to spend time together laughing and talking, it hurts me. Even if I wanted to meet other men, I wouldn’t do it because I’m afraid it might hurt you, because I’m afraid it might have a bad effect on our relationship. That’s what I think mutual respect and love is.”      “Well, I don’t. I’m all right with you meeting other people, hyeong. They’re them, and we’re us. Our relationship is ours and ours alone. Other things can’t affect it. They’re irrelevant.”      “How are they irrelevant? How can it not matter that you’re having dinner and hanging out with a man whose name you don’t even know? How can it not matter that you’re spending your time with those strangers?”      Our words hovered in the air, refusing to enter each other’s ears. Whenever this happened, I became terrified that my fantasy that this relationship might last was being taken from me—and we’d just started dating, too. But then again, all relationships come to an end. I’ve realized that much. And yet, if we weren’t willing to delude ourselves, if we weren’t willing to sweet talk each other with promises we knew weren’t true, what were we doing?      If there was one good thing that came out of our frequent bickering, it was learning what the other couldn’t stand. Thankfully, we were able to wander through the dark until we eventually met somewhere in the middle. You agreed not to do those ridiculous meetups, and I agreed to give you my utmost trust.      And yet when I was together with you—oddly enough, this didn’t happen when we were apart—I couldn’t help but question your faith. Like that day. We made reservations at a restaurant I’d never consider just to celebrate our one-hundredth-day anniversary, prepared couple pajamas and bracelets with each other’s birthstones, sat across from each other and blew out candles together. But then when you got up from your seat saying you needed to take a phone call, I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was really a call from a recruiter looking to headhunt you from your company, whether that headhunter wasn’t really some bum trying to snipe you from me, whether I wasn’t becoming psychotic with jealous delusions, wondering what I’d done to receive this kind of treatment, while at the same time telling myself to trust you, that faith was always rewarded. So, I took out my phone to scroll through Instagram. I liked every post I saw, thinking it made me generous like Buddha and would rid me of the suffering caused by distrust. But then when you didn’t come back after several minutes—you were probably just trying to play hard-to-get with that headhunter—I stared up at the ceiling for a while in boredom and typed in her name.      Sukyung Lee.      I was only half-way through her name when it appeared as “recently searched.” I first searched her up a few months ago when she liked one of my posts. It had been a long time since I’d heard anything about her through the grapevine, so I was on the verge of completely forgetting that she even existed. And because we weren’t following each other, the fact that she had liked my post could only mean that she had been stalking my account. So, by the time I opened Instagram to check, she’d already deleted her “like,” but I still had the evidence as an alert on my phone. Sukyung Lee liked your picture. Disgraceful evidence that she couldn’t delete on her own . . . The kind of mistake that she would lose sleep over . . . And yet a slip of the thumb that people try to convince themselves won’t mean anything to the person who sees it . . . That probably happens all the time. So what if I was stalking? They won’t think much about it . . . But because I knew that she was the kind of person who brooded over embarrassment with clenched fists, that alert message made me laugh and put me in a good mood. And most importantly, I felt my heart flutter for a moment when I realized that she hadn’t forgotten about me.      Was that why?      After that, whenever I made a post, I couldn’t rid myself of the expectation that she would see it. I didn’t care if she saw it or not, and sometimes I would just upload things for her to see, but sometimes I would, just for the briefest of moments, become lost imagining what she might be thinking or feeling when she saw how I was doing, what I was doing. So of course, I started spying on her account as well. Because if she was doing well without any hardships, that would mean it was okay for me to also be doing well.      According to her 140-plus posts and six highlight videos, she’d gotten married three years ago to one of the editors from the company we used to work at. After that, she got a loan for newlyweds and moved into Raemian We’ve Apartments in Dapsimni-dong. A few months later, she quit and opened her own small design company. And then last year, she adopted a Siamese cat named Bori. Nine months ago, she started a new hobby buying environmentally friendly wooden furniture and doing DIY interior design. Every August, she would travel with her husband to Gaya Island in Kota Kinabalu to go snorkeling. Her most recent hobby was making tea coasters with French embroidery.      ‘She’s doing well for herself.’      Every time I saw her post, I was relieved. And at the same time, I didn’t know what this relationship was, this relationship where we couldn’t like each other’s posts, where we could only spy on each another. Nor did I want to know what it was, so I would often just close Instagram with a sense of disillusionment. That night was no different. I was just scrolling through her posts for a moment, ready to exit as soon as you came back from your phone call. But the moment I refreshed the app and discovered the post that she’d uploaded three minutes ago, I was unable to take my eyes away from the screen for a while.  ♡♥Giving birth soon ♥♡    This was the caption under the picture of her hand clasping her husband’s with a hospital bed in the background. I hadn’t even known she was pregnant. But here she was, about to give birth. Was this the reason for her uploading that picture of a snowball with a child angel, or a mobile with colorful sea creatures, and the cover of Lim Seung-yu’s first poetry collection? Why hadn’t she just come out and said that she was pregnant? Was she afraid she might get less work? Or maybe there was some other reason? As I tried to think of why she might have hidden her pregnancy, I thought of myself as one possible reason, and even though this was obviously a conceited delusion, it was enough to kick up the sediment in my head.      “What are you doing?”      You’d returned to your seat, but there was no way I could answer your question honestly, so I just continued to look at my phone screen.      “Just a minute. I have to check something.”       Without lifting my head, I clicked on the location she’d added to the post. Baby Mom Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The hospital that her baby was going to be born in was located fifteen minutes from Exit 2 of Wangsimni Station. * Sukyung Lee. She was my old coworker, and, although it’s an open secret now, the first person I’d told that I was gay. Actually, that wasn’t true. She was the one who asked me, and I simply said “Yeah” in a halting voice after a long silence. And yet that simple reply became my first coming out. From that day on, I felt my heart opening up slowly, one bolt at a time. “Yeah” turned into “Right” turned into “That’s who I am.” And then eventually, after three years, I was able to declare, “Mom, I like men. I only like men. That’s not going to change. Really.” It always felt insignificant once I said it aloud, but people were always surprised—not that I was gay, but that I was telling them that I was gay. Thankfully, no one rejected or tried to cut me down. But perhaps it was because I only revealed my sexuality to people who wouldn’t do that to me. Or maybe it was that, after a while, I’d only surrounded myself with people who would accept me. But it didn’t really matter, I guess. In the end, I hadn’t really done anything. I hadn’t gone around telling everyone I was having sex with men. I was just happy to escape the feeling of guilt about constantly deceiving people precious to me, and happy that I could now upload pictures of me and my boyfriend to social media.      The joy of not feeling a wall between me and another man was a large project with many phases. First, I needed to take a picture with him. To do that, I needed a man who wouldn’t be opposed to taking pictures—that is, creating digital records of the two of us that made it clear that we weren’t just friends. So, the first order of business was the daunting task of getting into a relationship with a man who was okay with such pictures. Thankfully, you weren’t opposed to that.      The next issue was releasing those pictures online for everyone to see. You made it clear that you were a bit uncomfortable with this. That was understandable, so I said that I wasn’t going to do anything that you didn’t want me to do. And that I wasn’t going to blame or resent you for not giving me permission. After two-ish hours of thinking it over, you gave me permission—on the condition that I didn’t mention your name or tag your account. Of course, you were aware that people could figure out who you were by searching through the accounts I followed; you just wanted a bit of a buffer.      The last matter to resolve had to do with me. Once everything was prepared, the question remained: Why did I need to upload these pictures? Who was I doing this for? Did I really need to take such risks? (Then again, I didn’t know exactly what I was risking by uploading these pictures.) I didn’t want to take on society’s lack of understanding, nor did I want to announce my sexuality to the world. So what was the real reason I wanted to make these pictures public? I didn’t need to think for long. What I really wanted were “likes.” I wanted to receive that little heart from friends and acquaintances who saw pictures of me with my boyfriend. Did I really need a reason for that? Then I realized that this form of enjoyment might have been the thing that I’d been denied for the last thirty years: completely trivial pleasures. That bit of happiness you got from doing small things, like locking arms with your boyfriend or girlfriend as you walked down the street on a sunny day, receiving relationship advice from school friends, or wearing a ring on the proper finger at home or at work. All of the oppression, scorn, and overly cautious treatment that I’d had to endure living as a gay man would have been trivial had I been able to enjoy the aggregate of all those simple pleasures. The realization that I’d been denied the small things that everyone else took for granted filled me with unbearable anger. This anger became the only reason I needed. That day, with a heart full of resentment, I uploaded a photo to Instagram of me and my boyfriend smiling for the camera, our faces so close that our cheeks touched.      Sukyung had probably seen this picture, too.      I first met her four years ago. I’d just graduated from an art college and was hired at a publishing company near Hapjeong Station with a recommendation from my thesis advisor. Sukyung and I were the same age, but she was already three years into her career as a designer. And even before I’d entered the company, she’d been dealing with the design department’s difficult team leader. I became close to her when we just happened to have lunch together one day. Because most of the senior editors either brought their lunch from home or skipped it altogether to attend yoga class, I was eating by myself just three days after joining the company. I’d kind of expected as much—I mean, the rumors that I’d been hired solely due to connections and because I was a male had already spread throughout the company—and since the vibe was that you only ate with members of your own team unless for special occasions, I had no choice but to eat lunch alone for a while. Eating alone didn’t bother me much. I was used to being a loner since college—in fact, I was never really a people person and had only a few friends after coming back from the military because I’d switched majors with the goal of learning how to write—I had no problem going through another loner phase. But there was someone keeping an eye on me from afar . . . It was Sukyung Lee, who’d left her cohort because she didn’t want to eat at the same table as the team leader from Design.      “Hey, hey, you don’t need to tell me. Whenever we have a deadline, she’s always breathing down my neck and telling me to put this there, change that to yellow, make this font smaller. If she’s so picky, she should just do it herself. Why make me do it? It’s her design after all. Was I the one who came up with it?”      That day, when I was practically dragged by Sukyung to an old-fashioned Korean restaurant, it was Sukyung’s fiery temper and the way she looked like she was going to flip the table in rage every five minutes that endeared her to me. Until then, we’d never crossed paths because we worked in different areas. Lightly made-up skin, rosy cheeks, long black hair with thick curls, and a penchant for wearing flare skirts with Doc Martens loafers—these were what most people pointed to if they had to explain her charm. But as for me, it was her ability to express her anger so openly—something I envied—that drew me to her.      “Just pretend like you’re collaborating with her,” I said. “That’s what most people do these days.”      After a few lunches together, we became close enough to talk about our real feelings.      She squinted. “That’s your problem,” she said as she stuffed a wad of stir-fried spicy pork wrapped in perilla leaf into her mouth. “Hey, you have to look after yourself. No one’s going to do that for you.”      “Please finish chewing before you talk.”      She shook her head, picked up a perilla leaf and started shaking off the moisture.      “Hey, people’s personalities show even when they’re eating. A fistful of spicy stir-fried pork wrapped in perilla leaf. That’s me. That’s my identity. It’s not like me to add onion or garlic. And no lettuce. Just perilla.”      “But this place specializes in its onions.”      “That’s your problem,” she said as she prepared another perilla leaf for herself. “You shouldn’t follow the crowd. You should ignore it.”      “Do you know the nickname we have for you in editing?” I asked, purposefully pausing for dramatic effect. “‘So-in.’”      “‘Social introvert?’”      “No. ‘So intense.’”      “So, you don’t like me?”      Having not expected this question, I just sat there for a moment blinking.      “What are you talking about?”       “You don’t like me?”      “Well, it’s not a good thing.”      “Ugh, you’re hopeless.” She took the pork wrap she was going to eat and instead shoved it into my mouth. “Shut up and eat.”      After lunch we went to a place called Mangwon-dong Café located near our office. When we rounded the street corner and saw the shop sign, we talked about why there would be a café named Mangwon-dong Café in Seogyo-dong. “Are we not in Seogyo-dong? It’s not Mangwon-dong.” “You’re right. Let’s go to a place that’s neither Seogyo or Mangwon.” It was always like this. Thirty-five minutes for eating, and twenty-five minutes for coffee. This was the lunch schedule that we fell into without any verbal agreement. One hour a day, five times a week, until three months later when she twisted the team leader’s wrist for taking her mouse, and screamed, “You really crossed the line!” That’s how we spent lunch together, just the two of us talking. We talked about everything from our frustrations at work, TV shows, and celebrity gossip to apartment prices in Mapo-gu, tips for negotiation raises, skin problems we were secretly dealing with, parents, and the future—everything.      “What’s your dream?” she asked me.      “Hm?”      “What’s your plan. Do you even have any plans or goals?”      We would often make jokes, recreating memes we’d seen on the internet when we ran out of things to talk about. That one was from “Cinderella’s Stepsister.” We could watch Moon Geun-young and Seo Woo, Go Hyun-jung and Choi Ji-woo, and Ha Yumi without getting tired of them. I sometimes wonder if she got early hints about my sexuality from my interests and sense of humor.      “Do you practice? Are you doing it until you can’t do it anymore? But then why are your hands so immaculate and pretty?”      This line, another one from “Cinderella’s Stepsister,” was what she liked to say after I told her that I was writing every night in preparation for entering a writing competition.      “Why is your voice so loud. Act more cultured.”      “Cuuuultured? You’ve got to be joking, right?” She rummaged through the tote bag next to her before placing on the table a dark-green box the size of her palm.      “This is my culture.”      I stared down at the box until I gave in to her pestering and tore off the wrapping. Inside was a silver Faber-Castell fountain pen with my name engraved on it.      “I know it’s not much. Just a birthday present.”      “My birthday isn’t until next spring.”      “I’m giving it to you early. You said the deadline for the competition was soon. Use it when you’re writing your novel.”      We didn’t know it at the time, but that was our last lunch together. Or perhaps she’d known something I hadn’t. Perhaps she knew that she’d reached the end of her patience. Was that why she’d bought me an early birthday present? Was that why she suddenly started acting like a big sister giving me advice?      “I may not know what I’m talking about but just hear me out. It’s important for authors to write their stories honestly. I read manuscripts all the time to design book covers. I like it when you can tell exactly what kind of person the author is. It also makes designing their covers a lot easier.”      “That’s not what writing novels is about. You think that way because you usually read essay manuscripts. Fiction is different. It’s like . . . you’re writing to convey the truth through a made-up story.”      “Why take the long way around when you can write the truth from the beginning?”      “What are you talking about?”      “I don’t know.” She leaned back in her chair and shrugged. “I’m just rambling.”      That afternoon, with forty minutes still left in the day, she stormed out of the office and never returned. She took only the handbag she brought to work with her every day. Not knowing whether she was just taking a break or if she was leaving the company for good, I came in a few days later a little earlier than usual and went to her desk. I stood there for a while, staring down at the objects on her desk that had just been left there: a mug with old, cold coffee and the brown leather diary and light-green Blackwing pencil that she’d brought to weekly meetings. After taking a picture of her desk with my cell phone, I was about to send her a message asking what she was doing, but stopped myself. For the next ten days, I repeatedly looked at the picture and wrote and deleted a message to her. It was the first, sudden parting I’d experienced in the workplace, and because of this, I didn’t know what I was feeling or how to react. All I knew was that I didn’t want to do something rash. So, I did nothing, and it took a little while before I realized that she was thinking the same way.      I started eating lunch alone again. The only difference was that I wasn’t the same confident loner that I’d been before I met her. The intensity of the solitude that I now had to endure had transformed markedly. After work, I would sit in front of my laptop in my room unable to type a single word. And even if I managed to squeeze out a few sentences, when I read them the next day, they felt so immature that I had no choice but to delete them. Because the deadline for the competition was imminent, I took out an early novel I’d written in the past and turned it in, but as expected, it didn’t make the cut. After that, I stopped writing. I’d lost interest in writing stories with satisfyingly sugar-coated endings.      Then one day I received a phone call.      Her tone was so nonchalant it completely nullified her two months of absence. We exchanged some of our usual playful banter before an awkward silence fell between us. It was then that she suggested we meet for coffee. She admitted to sometimes missing our coffee breaks after lunch. I was relieved that not once during the entire phone call did her voice ever sound critical—then again, why would it?—or like she was hiding something. A few days later, we met for the first and last time, not during the day, but in the evening, on a Saturday near Dangin-ri Intersection. Because she said she wanted to go to a café that served British-style afternoon tea—“Didn’t you watch last week’s Master of Living? They’ve got authentic clotted cream.”—we wandered alleyways for almost an hour until we gave up and went into an Oppadak for fried chicken.      “And stop using honorifics with me. I’m not your superior anymore,” she said.      “. . .Yeah?”      “Of course, you only remembered to use them half of the time anyway.”      Among a crowd of pleasantly drunk customers, we found a table in the corner of the restaurant and ordered a plate of Crispy Bake Chicken and two Sprites before finally catching up. I relayed in detail everything she’d missed—the clouds of war that were still looming inside the Design Department and how the other designers had finally had enough of the team leader’s constant interfering. And yet all the while, she was just stripping meat of chicken legs with a look of apathy.       “I guess this is all behind you now, isn’t it?” I said. “All right. What have you been up to?”      “Not much. Just a big fight with my mom and breaking up with my boyfriend.”      “What happened?”      “I don’t know. Everyone’s so eager to piss me off, ya know? You wouldn’t have lasted long even if you’d stayed. You should get married while you’re taking a break. Have a kid and settle down. It might fix your stubborn personality.”      “What is this, the Gojoseon Dynasty?”       “At first, I just listened. After all, it wasn’t like I was in the right. But the more I listened, the less they respect you. It worked out for the best in the end. I closed my savings account, took out a loan, and got my own place. Besides, he was only good in bed. I’m glad to be rid of that airhead.”      “But still. It’s a small industry and rumors spread fast. You can’t just up and quit like that if you want to work again making book covers.”      “Hey—”      She flared her eyes and squeezed the fork in her hand.      “Taking a designer’s mouse is taking everything from them. I wasn’t going to stand for it.”      The ajumma who looked like she owned the restaurant came over to our table and filled our plastic basket with corn snacks.       “Aigo, you two make a great couple. Aren’t you going to drink?”      “He hates alcohol.” She gave the ajumma a peppy smile as though she hadn’t just been angry. “But do we really make a good couple? Today marks our one-hundredth day anniversary.”      Sukyung winked at me.      “One hundred days? Two lovebirds.”      “I guess? Anyway I’m thinking about just marrying this one. Men are all the same in the end.”      Seeing my eyes open wide in surprise, the ajumma waved her hands in the air and started laughing.      “No need to rush. Give it a year before you jump into anything.”      “But I want a daughter already.”      “Well, aren’t you forward. I’m feeling generous. I can’t give you a daughter. I’m not Samsin Halmeoni after all, but I can give you two glasses of beer on the house. To celebrate.”      That night, one drink turned into two, turned into three, and before we knew it, we were mixing soju with Pocari Sweat. I’d been swept along by the ajumma’s clever ploy and Sukyung’s binge drinking. I forgot most of what we talked about and did after that. Except for one sequence that I’ll never be able to forget. To be honest, even then, I didn’t fully remember the events before or after it happened. All I could do was crudely stitch together the fragmented words and images that remained in my head.      I don’t know how we got on the subject, but she told me in slurred words to stop resisting and just live my life. I laughed sheepishly. “What? What are you talking about?” She rested her chin on her right hand and turned toward the entrance. Neither of us said anything for a while.      “Are you drunk?” I reached across the table and tapped her forearm. “Hello?”       She turned toward me and stared at me in the eyes.      “You are, aren’t you?”      “What?”      “Really, truly?”      She dropped her eyes before mumbling again:      “ . . . I’m right, aren’t I?”      The problem was that this question and its vagueness had caught me off guard—not to mention the fact that my guard was already lowered because I was drunk for the first time in a long time—and so I missed my chance to laugh off this attempt to out me. Every time this had happened before, I’d been able to deny it with a practiced response. As the seconds passed and things began to get awkward, she made an expression of regret—although it’s possible this was just a part of my imagination, something I added after the fact. Either way, what I do remember clearly was my response. I just stared down at the broken edge of the table, not knowing what to do. She didn’t try to cover up the incident by changing the subject or making light of the matter. Rather, she bit the bottom of her lip like she was enduring great pain, and because this reminded me exactly of how I was feeling, I knew she hadn’t had the slightest ill intent. Yes. Perhaps she didn’t want to interrogate me about the truth. Perhaps she just wanted confirmation. Or perhaps it wasn’t that she wanted confirmation, but rather that she wanted to give me confirmation. She was doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself.      But no one should do that.      I knocked back another shot of soju and slowly began to speak. It wasn’t that I had heroically made up my mind or resolved to come out. I was simply benefiting from the alcohol, something I always abstained from.      “Yeah.”      Try as I might, I can’t remember what face she made after I said this, or what I said or did afterward. I sometimes wonder what was contained on that strip of film that was snipped from my mind with a pair of scissors. Much later, I got the feeling that I must have erased those images, either consciously or subconsciously. And now, I’m almost certain of another thing. I had also tried to erase her from my memory.      The next morning, I opened my eyes to find myself in the bed of a motel with a sore throat. I had no memory of walking out of the bar on my own, no memory of paying for the room at the counter, no memory of taking off all my clothes and underwear, but here I was, lying by myself butt-naked in a motel bed. The sensation of unnaturally cool bedsheets. The mildewy smell coming off the light-purple wallpaper. These things, along with the thin afternoon rays leaking in through the blackout curtains, remain in my memory as an unforgettable scene.      What happened to me? No, had anything happened to me?      Because I had no memories of what happened, I spent that day grabbing at my throbbing skull and waiting for her to contact me. I practiced various responses depending on everything from the nuance of her words to when she called me, what she said first, whether her voice was shaking or not, how often she paused. I even consider the unlikely chance that I would have to follow her directions.      But she didn’t text me, let alone call me.      Three days passed like that, and then I suddenly realized that she might be in the same predicament as me. If she also couldn’t remember what happened because she was too drunk, and thus was unable to decide what she should do—perhaps she might not even remember her question or my answer—then maybe the only way to end this long period of silence and uncertainty was for someone, anyone, to speak up. And if that was the case, then my calling her and honestly telling her how I felt might have been the best solution.      But I didn’t do that, of course.      And this was because of the awareness that we had passed a point of no return—just like that time I took a picture of her desk and composed a text to send her after she left the company only to suddenly delete both. Even if I resolved any misunderstandings, what then? What lay in the future for us?      To be completely honest, I must tell you that I had nothing more I wanted to talk about with her. I had nothing more to confess, no desire to meet with her anymore. I felt that we’d shared and accomplished enough. And that wasn’t because of the moment I answered her question. There was a sense of severing not between me and her, but between my old self and my current self. I didn’t want to go back to who I used to be, that person who habitually denied himself. If possible, I wanted to distance, if not completely delete, myself from everything that reminded me of that period in my life. Whatever her reason for asking that question, I needed to delete her along with everything else because she was the one who’d heard that repressed voice that hadn’t been heard by anyone in over twenty years. The moment I came out of the closet, she became the gateway to that period in myself, the biggest reminder of what I used to be. That was why.      After that, I didn’t go looking for her, and for whatever reason, she didn’t come looking for me.      Severance inevitably leaves marks. And with time, that night that we shared morphed into a thin, uneven patch of scar tissue that I would occasionally run my fingers over to remind myself of her. Of course, I never wanted to remind myself of her, but I did it anyway, and then I would feel disappointed in and confused with myself. And the cycle would repeat. Then one day, I was on my way back to the office after eating lunch alone, when, while waiting at a crosswalk for the light to change, I saw a gingko tree across the street swaying in the wind, its yellow leaves falling gently to the ground. And as I followed their languid, transient trajectory, I realized that some relationships last forever—not in spite of breakups, but because of them.  * Ten days later, when the picture of her newborn baby was uploaded to Instagram, I didn’t, couldn’t, like the photo, and had no intention of going to the hospital where she and the baby were staying. There was nothing I could do, nothing I was allowed to do, and this fact surprised me, even though there was nothing surprising about it in the least. It was just a reminder that we were nothing special.      And yet I couldn’t stop imagining myself going to see the baby. I would go up the subway station stairs and walk along a quiet street, open the doors of the hospital and walk over to the front desk and say her name, take the elevators up to some floor, walk down a hallway that smelled faintly of alcohol, and stop in front of a large glass pane. There I would look down at a baby lying in a plastic bassinet with a pink ankle band with the name Lee Sukyung written on it. Quietly, I would watch her, the way she wiggles inside the swaddle, her pinkish skin, the spittle around her mouth when she yawns, the wrinkles on her tiny feet. These imaginations continue until I’m running into her daughter on the street, both as a young girl and as a beautiful lady. The image of us crossing paths on a busy city street, completely unaware of each other . . . I don’t know what it meant, but I locked away this chance meeting in my heart, like a vague wish.      Wishes.      As such, I couldn’t confess this story to you, the embodiment of all my current wishes. While we sat side by side in a café and momentarily put down our books to stare at the afternoon sun coming in through the far window, we eventually made eye contact. I started this story as if I’d been explaining the plot of a drama I’d watched yesterday, and you quietly leaned in to listen to me. I told you about the name that I search on Instagram every time you get out of your seat, about the baby, and about the night I’d spent with her. I tell you that telling you these things is the respect and love that I was talking about. And then I add that I now somewhat understand the type of relationship that you wanted from me, which you still might be wanting from me. That is, being able to fit two or more different people in one person’s heart, with mutually exclusive feelings of sadness.      “I don’t think they’re quite the same . . . but I guess they’re similar.”      That’s what you said in response. I wanted to ask you to explain to me again exactly what kind of relationship you wanted, but because I got the feeling that we could remain together without understanding each other, because I had the premonition that we could only persist if we didn’t understand each other, I shut my mouth. Instead, I pulled out from my coat pocket a silver fountain pen with my name engraved on it and showed it to you. I told you that I wanted to write about this one day, that it would be the last time I would recall the memory of her.      “Good.”      You nodded with a faint smile. You then took a sip of your coffee, put it down on the table, and started reading your book again. It was as if nothing had happened. Watching you do this, I suddenly felt both loneliness and warmth. I wanted to say that even if we eventually broke up, even if we couldn’t make it last six months or a year, let alone ten years, even if you left me because you couldn’t stand the type of love that I wanted from you, that I wouldn’t forget this moment, that I wouldn’t lose those days I’ve spent with you. But I realized that because I’d probably cry if I said that, and you’d probably leave me if I cried, that there were some things that you couldn’t tell anyone, not even the person you were the closest to. I had to accept the fact that even if I managed to say it, the main character of that story would never be by my side. Translated by Sean Lin Halbert Park Seon Woo made his literary debut in 2018 by winning the Jaeum & Moeum’s New Writers Award. He has published the short story collections In the Same Place and Waiting for Sunshine.

  by Park Seon Woo

• 

  Guarded by Light

  On the crowded walkway toward immigration in an unfamiliar airport, I stopped and glanced around. I heard the notes of a melody that had once cradled a clear and round world covered in snow. A sudden storm had delayed several landings, and travelers running behind schedule pushed me out of their way. Outside the airport’s glass wall, snow fell on the dark runway and lights glimmered in aircraft windows. “It’s snowing.” I spoke softly as if I’d noticed just then. The melody that only I could hear seemed to chime louder. Ever since I met Kwon Eun again, or ever since I restored the memory of what lay beyond a certain rusty, dented front door, the melody would traverse long stretches of time to reach me wherever I stood. In those moments, all I could do was peer into that world where the melody chimed. At times, the world was a freezing cold room, tiny without a kitchen or bathroom; sometimes a school field blanketed in snow on a Sunday; occasionally a sickroom with disinfectant hanging in the air. There was only ever one inhabitant—Kwon Eun.    Last year, when Kwon Eun and I met at a book café in Ilsan after twenty years apart, I failed to recognize her. She was based in nearby Paju, and I’d arranged that meeting in Ilsan for an interview. As a news magazine writer, I had a running feature on emerging cultural voices, which was set to spotlight Kwon Eun, a young conflict zone photographer. The stories she recounted that day made a memorable and even moving impact. I was intrigued that a friend’s gift of a film camera had led her to photography, and I detected impassioned urgency in her accounts of life-and-death conflict zones.    As the interview neared its end, heavy snowflakes drifted down outside the café window. “That won’t be stopping anytime soon,” I muttered to myself while saving the interview notes on my laptop. Kwon Eun murmured back, “The spring winds down, the melody breaks off, and the snow stops falling.” Amused by the solemn statement, I asked if it was some sort of riddle, but she smiled and said no more. We wrapped up and stepped outside, exchanged a loose handshake, and parted at a crosswalk. A few steps on my way, I glanced back and caught a side view of Kwon Eun standing still in the snowfall with her head bowed. The snow fell harder, but she showed no intent of moving. I had a fleeting urge to share my umbrella with her, but the thought of us huddling in awkward silence held me back. I turned and walked toward the subway without glancing back at her again.    In hindsight, the things she mentioned that day—how she got into photography, the windup spring, the melody—were meant as clues. Even the way she stood stock-still in the snowfall was, to me at least, a sign. Little did I know that she was slipping me a key to a bygone time I’d forgotten.    Sensations vanished in the order they had arrived. The melody waned, our conversation faded, and the image of her standing by the street dimmed into the distance. All that remained were white snowflakes landing on the asphalt, on her coat collar, and on her shoes. Once I gathered myself and lifted my head, snowflakes from the past dissolved into the swirling snow outside the airport’s glass wall.    By the time I took the airport bus to midtown Manhattan, it was an hour before midnight. Blinding neon lights and digital billboards lined the streets, yet I kept losing direction as if thrown into a maze with no exit. As I wandered in search of my hotel, I had a gnawing thought that this gleaming city might be someone else’s dream. The dream of a lonely girl alone in a tiny, cold room, winding up a musical snow globe, losing herself in that wintry world, and falling asleep before tears could fall. Why was her dream so icy cold? * After the interview in Ilsan, I met Kwon Eun again probably on account of a snow globe. Right before she called to thank me for the magazine article, I’d been Christmas shopping for my nephew at a large retail store. Browsing through the toy aisle, I happened to see a snow globe that held all the clues to Kwon Eun’s riddle. Sidetracked from shopping, I gazed into that clear, round, windup world where a melody chimed and snowflakes flurried. Kwon Eun stood in that world, helpless in the heavy snow as if she had nowhere to go. I realized then that the image of her by the street had lingered in a corner of my mind. I can only point to the snow globe as to why, upon receiving her courtesy thank-you call, I suggested we meet for drinks. Never had I socialized after hours with an interviewee, nor had I ever felt the need. Had I not met her again and heard about Helge Hansen’s documentary Person, People, I would’ve lived my life not knowing who Kwon Eun really was.    Now I regret nothing.    It must have been a few days after Christmas. Year-end festivities had taken over, and there were crowds everywhere in Seoul. We met near my office at a subway station on Euljiro and headed to a local bar. Once we had beer and snacks on the table, Kwon Eun broached the unexpected news. She was leaving next week for a refugee camp in Syria, joining a volunteer group of pastors and missionaries. At a time when foreigners risked being abducted or injured amid the Syrian civil war, it could only be worrying news. But I had no right to tell her she shouldn’t go or should at least rethink it. It was up to her, and I couldn’t interfere in the career of an up-and-coming photographer I barely knew. Nor could I dash her innocent belief that a camera was all the defense she needed against danger. Besides, as a professional photographer, she’d already visited her share of conflict zones.    “What will you photograph while you’re there?” I asked absently while downing my beer. “Why, people,” she replied. “You don’t find the tragedy of war in weapons or shattered buildings. You find it in the tears of a young widow as she applies makeup, remembering her late husband. War is about ordinary people who, if not for war, would have cried no more than you or me.” The elaborate explanation, delivered as if from a script, took me by surprise. My solemn stare cracked her up. As it turned out, those were someone else’s words. “I’m quoting Helge Hansen.” “Helge Hansen? Who’s that?” “My favorite photographer. He’s the one who inspired me to visit conflict zones.” When she heard that Hansen had filmed his first documentary, she was desperate to watch it. She combed through arthouse cinema showtimes and scoured film sites to inquire about purchasing a DVD. But the documentary never screened in Korea and wasn’t available on disc. It was a friend studying film in Japan who managed to send her a copy, letting her watch the documentary Person, People. Her interest in Hansen led her to the work, which, in turn, introduced her to a woman named Alma Meyer. “It’s strange,” said Kwon Eun. The way she put it, she and Alma Meyer were as unrelated as passengers on distinct ships in different eras, yet they somehow shared similar experiences. As if their ships had been stranded on the same island, weathering the same storm. Kwon Eun told me with a shy smile that she had written letters to Alma Meyer whenever time allowed. Something about her smile felt familiar, and as I glanced for a better look, our eyes tangled. “So you heard back from her?” I blurted, my eyes darting away as I filled her empty glass. “I post the letters on my blog, like diary entries. All in Korean, too. Since she’ll never get to read them. She died in 2009.” Stopping mid-pour, I gave her another solemn look. What was she hoping for, writing to a total stranger who was already dead? I wondered what their shared experience might have been but preferred not to pry into personal matters. The conversation moved on. It ambled along the housing crisis, the tight spot of being thirtysomethings in Korea, and other predictable topics. Instead of fading from my mind, however, Kwon Eun’s story crystallized.    When we stepped out of the bar around 10 p.m., I told her before parting ways, “You know, I solved your riddle. About that place where the spring winds down, the melody breaks off, and the snow stops falling.” Instead of asking for the answer, she hung back as if waiting for me to go on. I joked, “Isn’t it time to outgrow toys?” but it fell flat. A cab pulled up. She climbed in while I offered a standard “Have a safe trip.” “Thank you. The camera—” “What?” The cab drove off, and I never heard the next clue. The tiny, cold room, the snow globe that stopped chiming as the light switched on, the sallow-lamped alleys that filled my eyes outside, the late autumn day I ran there with a camera clutched to my chest—these clues came to me later, one step at a time, like footprints on a snowy field. * The next morning, a thick fog shrouded New York. My hotel room on the ninth floor gave me a surreal view of the streets resembling an ancient city underwater, as otherworldly as an illusion suspended at the far end of eternity. Not unlike the dreamscape of Kwon Eun’s childhood nightmares, where she wandered, tearfully lost, and where her secrets lay buried, yet to be uncovered.    I left the hotel and arrived at the Anthology Film Archives, where I saw their special screening marquee for Person, People. I’d come to the right place. On a lobby table were brochures on the documentary and photographs of the Israeli attack on Palestine in late 2008. I took a brochure and found a corner seat. According to the director’s bio, Helge Hansen had survived an airstrike on a humanitarian aid truck traveling from Egypt to Palestine in January 2009. Hansen spoke of his motivation for the documentary: “Norman Meyer’s death in the airstrike, and Alma Meyer’s loss of her only son, bears witness to individual courage battling historical violence. As a survivor, I’m duty bound to honor their sacrifices.”    I smoothed out the brochure and slipped it into my bag, trying not to get it crumpled. I entered the screening hall. It was an early weekday, but the hall was more than half full. As I lowered my bag to settle into a seat, the lights dimmed, and I was hit by a wave of anxiety. Even as the screen lit up and the title rolled, the anxiety hardly waned. My fingers shook.    The documentary began without any on-screen text or narration, showing countless photographs on a mosque wall in Ramallah, the Palestinian capital. As a monumental photo album, the wall displayed tattered portraits of men, women, elders, and children gazing, each in their own ways, upon the world they left behind. A young woman in a hijab staggered up to press a devout kiss on a man’s portrait. The camera lingered as if urging viewers to imagine the tears that flowed from her eyes as she prepared to pay homage to her late husband.    The short, stirring sequence was followed by Interior footage of the aid truck. The driver and five other passengers, all in good spirits, chatted now and then; at truck stops, they held discussions hunched over a map. The footage was cut to focus mostly on Norman.    According to the articles I’d read, Norman’s death had caught headlines in the US, leading to widespread media coverage. The violation of humanitarian law prohibiting wartime attacks on aid convoys, the death of a retired Jewish-American doctor in the attack, the revelation that he had used his own savings to purchase the aid supplies—these poignant facts seized upon the public mind and fueled speculation over their potential impact. The media glare intensified, spilling over to Norman’s mother, Alma Meyer. News outlets hounded her for interviews, and condolences poured in from all quarters except the Jewish community. Alma Meyer turned down all interviews and ignored the flood of sympathy. She refused to go out, invite guests, or take phone calls—except for Helge Hansen, the one person she met after Norman’s death. It happened after Hansen sent her the footage of Norman’s final fifteen hours, which later became Person, People. * Three months after my second encounter with Kwon Eun, when newspapers and broadcasters reported on her misfortune, I didn’t let it get to me. The news was startling but not a complete shock, unsettling but not enough to upset my daily life. Even if I’d tried talking her out of that trip, she would’ve left all the same. Who was I to change her mind? So went my rationale. Being newly hired at a film magazine back then, I had little time to dwell on Kwon Eun. The new job came with new workplace dynamics and new forms of writing, and it was either sink or swim. I forgot about Kwon Eun without even trying. No, maybe I did try unconsciously. I nearly succeeded.    Kwon Eun’s name, a faint afterimage in the recesses of my memory, returned to the fore when a senior reporter quit on short notice, leaving me to take over his work. This included reporting on a New York documentary festival, and while sifting through my predecessor’s notes, I came across Helge Hansen’s Person, People. The documentary had released to much acclaim in 2010 and screened at several international film festivals that year. The New York documentary festival was now planning a special screening to mark the fifth anniversary of that unprecedented airstrike on the aid truck.    From that day on, I kept thinking about the things Kwon Eun had told me at the Ilsan book café and Euljiro bar. I stayed at the office late into the night, digging around the internet to find everything I could about her. Memories resurfaced, not in flashes, but in sensory fragments that, one by one, flowed back from afar. The first clue was her confession that a camera gifted by a friend had led her to photography. Her second mention of the camera while climbing into the cab—that was the confirmation I needed. Whenever I revisited her world in my memory, I always saw snow. It was a clear, round world where a familiar melody chimed while snowflakes flurried. Then there was the snowy school field where we’d exchanged those dreamlike words. “A light flashes through the camera when you press the shutter.” “A light? Where does it come from?” “It’s usually hidden away, I think.” “Where?” “Well, maybe behind the wardrobe or in a desk drawer. Or an empty bottle, even.”    Before heading on a business trip to New York, I tracked down the hospital where Kwon Eun was being treated and went to see her. It understandably took her by surprise. Despite the three surgeries to remove shrapnel from her legs, she was in danger of losing her ability to walk, but even as she broke the dismal news, her dark eyes stirred with curiosity. After a long silence, I asked, “That Fuji film camera. Do you still have it?” She fixed her eyes on me until we both broke into knowing smiles. I couldn’t bring myself to say I’d return. Before I left, she wrote her blog address on a slip of paper and handed it to me. There was a letter for me on the blog, she added, without any mention of meeting again.    Back home, I opened my laptop and visited her blog. Under the “Letters” tab, I found twelve letters addressed to Alma Meyer and one addressed to me. I read through them all in one sitting and went for a long shower. As I toweled off before the fogged bathroom mirror, I seemed to be peering out a window into a morally nebulous world—one without clear-cut choices of right or wrong. As far as illusions went, it wasn’t half bad. But the fogging cleared. The mirror gradually revealed my reflection, and I whispered, “So tell me, are you happy now?” The nebulous world gave no reply, but from behind me came the creaking of a door handle. Without turning back, I knew. It was a rusty, dented front door. Startled to find it open, a thirteen-year-old boy blinked to adjust his eyes to the dark, his timid voice asking, “Does . . . K . . . Kwon Eun live here?” * On screen, Alma Meyer explains her long spell of seclusion. “I couldn’t stand the people who hailed Norman as a ‘beacon of conscience’ or ‘the last hope for Jews.’ They brandished lofty labels, thinking this would hide their inaction and make them advocates for justice—self-delusional posturing in my eyes. No different from ignoring the things you could’ve known and using that willing ignorance to wash yourself of blame. I remember all the non-Jews who were morally incensed by the Holocaust only after the war. It didn’t anger me. Then, as now, it deadened me instead. A deadening disillusionment, that’s what it was.”    The scene cuts to her past. Born In 1916 In Belgium, Alma Meyer trains to become a violinist and overcomes the double discrimination of sexism and anti-Semitism to join the Brussels Philharmonic in 1938. Dismissed from the orchestra in 1940 following the Jewish registration law, she is in danger of being deported to a ghetto or death camp. Her lover Jean, a fellow member of the orchestra who plays the horn, arranges a hideout for Alma in the cellar of his cousin’s grocery shop, located just outside Brussels.    Morning or midday, the windowless cellar stays pitch dark unless a lamp is lit. At times, even with her eyes open, mirages unfold as if in a dream. She blinks hard. Her eyes are always met with an unfamiliar street. Only one shop has its lights on—the instrument shop. Slowly, she pushes the door open, and fellow musicians from the past welcome her back. They each sit before their instruments and strike up lively waltzes and marches, beaming as their eyes meet. “No more pain—so long as we live, all pain is meant to be soothed and healed,” they seem to whisper. She basks in the music until another blink of the eye chases away all traces of melody, musicians, and smiles. Every time the sweet vision fades, she is lonelier and more desolate. Her lips move in her sleep as she dreams of feasting on her mother’s warm food. Once awake, she is chilled by the unbearable sense of standing alone on a windswept wasteland. Jean comes by every two weeks with water and a basket of bread, but there is never enough to last a fortnight since he is as destitute as everyone else during wartime. The basket is sparsely filled, but Jean never forgets to line the bottom with a page of his original sheet music. On days when she sees the instrument shop bathed in light, she takes out her violin and holds the bow a safe distance away from the strings. She performs the sheet music without a sound. On a stage unlit, unapplauded, and silent.    “To me, spending every day as I did in that cellar with only death on my mind, Jean’s sheet music was the light that sustained my dreams of a future. I can say that the sheet music saved my life.”    After telling the long story, Alma Meyer gently lifts her head with the flicker of a smile—the one and only smile of the interview. In the dark screening hall, I smile with her. * “Does . . . K . . . Kwon Eun live here?”    The door opened, but reluctant to step inside, I kept repeating the question. The rusty, dented front door led directly into a dark room, where the only light came from a clear, round snow globe. My visit to the tiny, cold room without sunlight had nothing to do with my own will. I’d been class representative at the time, and when Kwon Eun missed four days of school without notice, the homeroom teacher asked me, along with the vice rep, to check on her at home. Once we left the teacher’s office, the vice rep said she couldn’t go because of a piano lesson. Setting out alone, I followed the street address written on a slip of paper and came upon that front door. My eyes adjusted to the dark, and I finally saw Kwon Eun wrapped in a worn-out overcoat and blanket. She stood up to reach a switch, and just as the fluorescent bulb flickered on, the snow globe’s melody wound down and stopped.    The room had no kitchen or bathroom. The single hot plate, kettle, and plastic basin holding toiletries revealed the room’s many functions. I couldn’t begin to fathom how she, a thirteen-year-old, kept herself fed and alive in that cold, impoverished room. She told me that her dad, the only family she had, would disappear for anywhere between a month and half a year at a time. “Keep it a secret,” she added, offering me a glass of water. “I’m not an orphan. I won’t let anyone put me in a home.” Not knowing what to say, I swallowed the tap water that tasted of chlorine. I grimaced and set the glass down. “Okay.” With that, I scurried out of the room. The next day, I reported that Kwon Eun was sick. It wasn’t a complete lie. The young, newly appointed teacher didn’t bat an eye. As for me, I was haunted by the idea of Kwon Eun dying in that room. It smothered me. On some days, I heard voices—classmates murmuring that she died because of me.    Without being told, I went back to revisit Kwon Eun a few times. Not that I had any real plan. I simply hated the stifling anxiety and whispers. I had nothing to bring her except odds and ends—half-read comic books and batteries for the snow globe. “You should go. I’m okay.” Despite the awkwardness of being with a girl, I’d hesitate to leave until she’d reassure me with those words.    Once I emerged from her room and took the narrow path sloping down toward the road, the surroundings would blur as if they didn’t belong to this world—sallow streetlights, kids scuttling into alleys, communal toilets with broken doors, dirty toilet bowls peeking through the cracks, and a beastly bulldozer crouching in an empty lot. The plywood and concrete shanties teetering on that hillside were half torn down. I, like Kwon Eun, was only thirteen. I had no answer to the cold and hunger she endured in that derelict shanty town. When I discovered the Fuji film camera in my parents’ closet, I clutched it to my chest and ran to see Kwon Eun—it seemed like the perfect item to pawn for a wad of cash. To my surprise, she never sold the camera. But of course. The camera was more than a mechanical device. It was her gateway to another world. She would have loved the magic of pressing the shutter and watching light pour out from every corner to embrace a photographic subject. Once the shutter closed and all the light vanished, would she have mirrored Alma Meyer in feeling lonelier and more desolate? Like scenes beyond a picture frame, those details lie out of my reach.    Perhaps forever.    Kwon Eun used the Fuji camera to photograph objects in her room. She ventured outside in search of more scenes to capture and then eventually returned to school. Once she came back to class, I never reached out or even spoke to her. I didn’t want others to think we were close since she was that girl who always wore the same clothes. She mostly ignored me as well. We never became friends, but we each kept each other’s secret. I didn’t tell a soul that Kwon Eun was practically an orphan, and she pretended not to know I’d stolen my dad’s camera. Weeks before winter break, I heard she was moving away to live with a relative. Rumor had it that her dad had been found dead in a junkyard near a gambling den, but no one knew for sure.    A long time passes, and Kwon Eun writes a letter to Alma Meyer, who no longer has a worldly address. She recounts that nearly every night in that room where her dad rarely returns, she has the same nightmare. Wary of seeing it again, she winds up the snow globe until her eyelids droop, then gazes into the snowy world for one last minute and thirty seconds. During the final notes of the melody, she pulls the blanket over her head and squeezes her eyes shut. In the nightmare, I wander a strange, unfamiliar city, calling for Mom as I jolt awake. It never changes. After writing this much, Kwon Eun falls silent. I keep silent with her. Only after a few days does she reenter the blog and slowly continue. One day, I bowed against the cold wall in desperate prayer. I prayed that the clockwork running this tiny room would stop, so I could stop breathing. That was my only prayer until I received a camera. So . . . The sentence following “so” is repeated in the only letter written to me. In it, she calls me “Rep.” Though twenty-odd years have passed, she admits to being hurt that I don’t recognize her, but she is also somewhat relieved. She asks, Rep, what is the greatest thing a person can do? I shrug. Someone once said, “To save a life is the greatest thing, an honor given to few.” So . . . whatever happens to me, remember that your gift of a camera once saved my life. Yours, Eun. The letter was saved on the day we met for drinks. She thanked me in parting, and as her cab weaved through the festive streets of Seoul, she decided to write a useful letter for once—one to be read someday by a person still alive. * It wasn’t until 1943 that Alma Meyer left the cellar. Warned that she’d been reported to the German police, Jean assisted her again in another escape. She followed him to Switzerland, where they parted at a border town. Her heart was beating with Norman’s by then, but being unaware, she couldn’t tell Jean. She embarked on a US-bound steamship, at which point severe seasickness in steerage alerted her of Norman’s presence. Upon arriving at Ellis Island in November 1943, she immediately sold her rare violin, an erstwhile extension of her body. With that money, she secured lodgings and provided for herself during the pregnancy. Five whole years after the war, she heard news that Jean was alive. He had married and started a family, which held her back from sending word of her survival and Norman’s birth. The way she saw it, Jean had outdone himself for her sake and at great risk. She chose not to upend his life again. More out of human courtesy than an ex-lover’s pride.    Until she recieved Helge Hansen’s video, she had no clue that Norman had followed Jean’s life from afar. For nearly three decades, Norman had been hiring the services of a private detective agency in outer New York that secretly gathered information. Norman visited the agency once every month or so for updates on Jean’s latest news, and he occasionally received photographs. He drew the line there, never revealing his existence to Jean and never making contact by letter or phone. While he didn’t agree with his mother’s sense of human courtesy, he honored her decision. He also believed that some things were truer than actual truth. In 2007, he received his last report on Jean—photos of his funeral and a funeral company’s booklet with the address of his grave. “I’m sorry, Norman.” The detective, who had aged with him over the years, offered Norman a cigarette. After the smoke, Norman left the office and walked aimlessly past his car in the lot. Jean Verne, a Belgian of French descent, a man who dreamed of being a composer yet never published his work, an unknown horn player who never performed solo and lost his provincial orchestra job in his forties . . . Recalling thirty years’ worth of these facts, Norman made a vow.    “I vowed to repeat the greatest thing he ever did—saving a woman from wretched death in war. To save a life is the greatest thing, an honor given to few. You see, I’m an old man now. Before I get any older, I’d like to celebrate his legacy by doing as he did.”    Those words are followed by solemn silence in the aid truck. The camera zooms in on each face, one by one, then slowly pulls back. The screen fades to black. Before complete darkness sets in, an ear-splitting blast strikes the viewers, thundering through the theater. The house lights switch on and the end credits roll—but my ears ring as if still absorbing the explosion and its grim aftermath. The last two names, Norman Meyer and Alma Meyer, appear next to their exact dates of birth and death. The latter died at home two months after the director’s interview. The clockwork running their worlds stopped in 2009.    The credits run their course, but I stay with my eyes fixed on the screen until someone taps me on the back. I turn around to find a middle-aged woman with cleaning tools. Only then do I notice the empty screening hall. I grab my bag and hurry out of the building. Fog had given way to the dazzling winter sun, bathing the street in light. * I slowly enter the shimmering streets of Manhattan. After passing a few blocks and turning a corner, I see it. My jaw drops. There it is, absorbing all the sunlight—an instrument shop window. I draw closer. Inside the shop, there are instruments of all kinds on display, including a violin and a horn. Had Kwon Eun been with me, she would have pictured Alma Meyer and Jean Verne playing music on those instruments. Rapt in imaginings, blinking hard yet guarded by light . . . Of course. Now I know. The spring winds down and the snow stops, but some melodies still chime in that world and even cross into new worlds, breathing life into lost memories.    I look down at my feet.    As the snow starts melting, the carved footprints fade. Several steps ahead, I see Kwon Eun’s small back hunched over the ground. We’re the only ones on that snowy school field one Sunday afternoon. I step closer and see that she’s holding the Fuji camera up to a set of footprints left behind. “What are you doing?” Those are my first words to Kwon Eun since her return to school. Startled, she looks up away from the camera, then huffs, “What are you doing here?” I explain, “My parents have guests over, and there’s nowhere else to go. But really, what are you doing?” Instead of answering, she motions for me to come next to her. I hesitate but then huddle up. She points to the faint outline of a footprint. “There’s light in there. They’re like small boats of light, don’t you think?” “Huh . . . I guess.” “Hidden here, too.” “What is?” “A light flashes through the camera when you press the shutter.” “A light? Where does it come from?” Once I show interest, she faces me with a glow I’ve never seen before.    She doesn’t reply yet, but I already know. I remember it all—the fleeting moment when flashes of light, usually tucked away behind the wardrobe, in a desk drawer or even an empty bottle, burst forth to embrace a photographic subject when the shutter is pressed, the thrilling sense of being briefly transported to another world when taking a photo. Kwon Eun tells the story I already know. Sunbeams reflect from the shop window and shine all their light on her.   Translated by Sunnie Chae 

  by Cho Hae-jin

• 

  Method of Mourning

   It’s noisy. I like it when it’s noisy but not when it gets noisy. When it’s already noisy, no one notices me. When it starts getting noisy, I’m usually at the center of it. Surrounded by people starting to tease, taunt, and humiliate me—it’s a drag. I like noisy places. Even better when it’s already filled with noisy people.      In those places, it takes effort to go unnoticed. Eyes averted. Never falling in line with anyone, just standing dead-beat, arms hanging like an ape. No one turns to that kind of sorry human for help. When anyone picks a fight, I stay still and bow my head to apologize. Staying still as an unnoisy human in a noisy place—that’s me at my safest.      So this is the best place for me.       My thoughts trail off as I man the counter at Midopa. * Midopa is Seongdong Express Bus Terminal’s only tearoom. The sliding door framed with fake cherrywood has a sign reading MIDOPA, but everyone calls it Midopa Tearoom. It’s the only tearoom and diner in the building. The stubby, one-story terminal has space for only a ticketing booth, a restroom, and Midopa.      Plastic chairs fill a central waiting area, with the ticketing booth to the left, Midopa and the restroom to the right. A privacy screen stands at the restroom entrance. It separates the side-by-side doors to the men’s and women’s rooms, but people rushing to the toilets keep bumping into it with an oof. Whenever an oof reaches me at the counter, I think, The screen must’ve slanted toward the men’s room. I step out, and sure enough, it’s slanted. Seongdong is a smallish town with only five bus routes from the terminal. But I hear that oof three, four times a day. Travelers tossing their bags down, sprinting to buy tickets and empty their bowels or fill their stomachs—they’re our patrons.     Midopa has mock train cabin décor, tacky and tasteless. The cherry-colored cornice, thick and wavy, seems to lower the ceiling. All the windows and tables have the same cherry stain while the square sofas modeled on train seats are forest green. The dark colors set off the dust, forcing me to wipe the tables and lint-roll the sofas several times a day. Our most popular orders are instant coffee and ssanghwa-cha, a tonic tea with plenty of nuts sprinkled in. An egg yolk too, back in the day. Though rarely ordered, we do offer Americano and black tea. As a morning special, we serve bowls of bean sprout soup with rice; in the afternoon, we serve hamburger steak. But no pork cutlets. I like that. We sell everything except pork cutlets. I’ve been working a year at Midopa, this tearoom that’s more than a tearoom. At first, I’d wanted to leave town after high school, right on graduation day. I was broke, so I planned on busing to a seaport instead of the city. I got the idea from all the teachers who used to scold, “If you don’t study, you’ll end up working on a tuna boat. Or on some godforsaken island farming spinach.” I didn’t care about commencement, college, or home. I wanted to get away from everyone and live alone.      It was a week before graduation. On my way to school, a familiar figure stood by the main gate. Slight frame with long, skinny arms wrapped around. A familiar person I preferred not to become familiar with, ever. I backed up and walked away. It struck me that I could just leave. I wasn’t going to attend commencement anyway, so why wait till then? It struck, hit, seized me—I mulled over the words while heading to the terminal.     To reach the terminal from my school downtown, I had to take a long, narrow path. It cut through a dry grass field. Earmarked for a new commercial center until the plans fell through, the site lay forgotten for over a decade. The path diverged into a graveled concrete footpath toward the town bus stop and a dirt path toward the express bus terminal. Right by that fork in the path stood an eerie, half-built department store. Built partway before the commercial center was called off, it became the town’s oldest eyesore. Construction had stopped at the seventh floor, the concrete formwork abandoned. I took the dirt path, trying hard not to look up at the top of the building.     Once I arrived at the terminal, I bought their most expensive ticket. The bus was due to leave in an hour and fifty minutes. I entered the men’s room, trying not to kick over the privacy screen. I ripped off the name badge from my school uniform, wrapped it up with my necktie, and threw it away. I deleted the few contacts I had on my phone. Still an hour and thirty-eight minutes to go. The waiting area was cold. Frigid wind rattled the windows. I slid open the cherry-colored door and stepped into Midopa.     Warmth made my nose run. Noise drowned out my sniffling. Someone rustled through their belongings in a blue plastic sack. Clothes and slippers spilled out. Someone else slurped on their instant coffee while another person complained of having no dried pollack in their bean sprout soup. Then came objections to the ssanghwa-cha—“Where’s the yolk?” My eyes darted around and landed on a HELP WANTED sign. Handwritten with a brush pen, the sign mixed simple Korean letters with cryptic Chinese characters.     “Ready to order?” A fortyish man served me water. He wore an apron stained from working in the kitchen. I glanced over the menu.     “Do you have pork cutlets?” I asked.     “No,” he replied.     I scanned the menu again while he started clearing another table. “I’m busy enough cooking, and now this,” he grumbled. His clumsy stack of soup and kimchi bowls toppled over, clattering onto the table. A water cup clunked to the floor. The noisy diners didn’t bother to look. The man didn’t seem bothered either. I stared at my bus ticket, the destination and departure time. Then I watched as a box of dried anchovies emerged from the blue sack. The man started toward the kitchen with kimchi bowls in hand.     “What do I need to get a job here?” I asked.     With kimchi-stained fingers, the man pointed to the counter. There was nothing there. After wiping his hands, he pointed farther left. I saw a cherry-colored door. “Boss’s room,” he said. “Go see him for an interview.”     I ordered bean sprout soup with rice. Sliced chili peppers gave the broth a nice kick. The next afternoon, the man cooked me hamburger steak to celebrate my first lunch on the job. No longer grumbling, he topped the patty with a triangle-shaped slice of cheese and gently added a soft-boiled egg. On the side, there was grilled pineapple and a mound of steamed rice. I ate everything with a fork. It tasted tacky, just right for Midopa. A month into my job, I left work one day with an umbrella I’d stolen. A diner had left it under a table—a light and sturdy umbrella. The soft leather handle felt like a friendly hand against my palm. I’d slipped the umbrella under the counter, turning it over all day. As diners walked in, I studied their faces to see if they’d come back for it. Especially the ones who kept their eyes on the floor. Closing time arrived without the owner showing up.     I was thrilled to steal such a good umbrella. I’d stolen it all right since I wouldn’t have returned it to the owner. The rain had stopped, leaving the night sky crisply clear. Breathing out mist, I took the narrow path home. Wet soil clung to my shoe soles, slowing me down. As I reached the forked path by the half-built department store, I opened the umbrella. I spun it around. Water drops scattered from the folds.     With my view obscured by the large canopy, I sauntered down the whole path. I didn’t mind working there for at least three more years if it meant I could steal nice things. Things like sleek gloves or scarves. Things that made you wriggle your hands or rub your neck, distracting you. I imagined all the things, big and small, that I could steal. Good and useful things I could hold in my hands.     Once the field was behind me, I closed the umbrella. The paved footpath was dry. With no more mud slipping me up, I trotted along. Umbrella in hand. And never looking back. * Midopa is reeking of garlic. A granny waiting for the noon bus has started peeling a whole bunch. With heating on full blast to counter the cold, the air turns hot and pungent. The granny curses her luck—a septuagenarian still peeling garlic for in-laws who gorge on them for their health and longevity. “All this garlic, and they’re still hardly human. Ungnyeo puts them to shame,” she tsks. The moment I suggest, “Maybe you could peel those in the waiting area,” she hurls a fistful of garlic peel to the floor. “You want to push me around too, do you? You know how freezing it is out there?” She keeps hurling peels at me until I back away. Dust swirls in the air and mingles with the thick smell of garlic and dirt. I grab a broom and start sweeping.     “Dongju.”     A person slides through the cherry-colored door and calls my name. I don’t care to look. I sweep harder to catch the fluttering garlic peel. They land under the sofas, not in the dustpan. I poke at them with the broom, circling the granny. She goes on peeling. “S’cuse me, can I have more kimchi?” asks a diner. Right. That’s how I’m called at Midopa. S’cuse me. Hey, kid. Hey.     “Dongju.”     The woman calls me again. She sits behind a pillar and opens a menu.     I know who she is. Seunggyu’s mom, short and wiry. When upright, she hugs herself with her skinny arms. When seated, she balls her hands into fists. She let her short, ponytailed hair grow out, and then she chopped it short. I’d seen her often enough. In classrooms, by the school gate, by my front door, at the police station. I never knew how to address her. A friend’s mom was usually called Aunt as if they were family. Or Ajumma if they weren’t as close. Neither seemed right. But I never had to call her anything. She was the one who kept calling at me. Seeking me out. Even when I answered all her questions with “I don’t know.”     “Tell me the truth.”     That’s what she said one day, sobbing. By the school gate too, which made students crowd around instead of heading home. “Him again,” a boy muttered. “You think it really was his fault?” another boy wondered. “Cut it out. He’s been through enough.” That last remark—was it pity? It clawed at the scruff of my neck.     “Please, Dongju. Please. The truth,” she wailed.     She hunched over as if her whole body were a spindly speakerphone. I took a few steps back and ran. For days, I stayed home. It happened a handful of times in middle school. The woman orders instant coffee. It tops the menu as the cheapest item. The most popular too. Ready to serve in less than a minute. Empty two instant coffee sticks into a white cup and add hot water. Give it a stir with one of the old-fashioned teaspoons, and you’re done. The ssanghwa-cha is served with a mini yakgwa, the Americano with a butter cookie, and the hamburger steak with corn soup. Midopa is generous with their free sides, but instant coffee comes with nothing. I grab a tray for the coffee cup. And two butter cookies.     She stops calling out for me and drinks the coffee. She downs every drop, unwraps the two cookies, and finishes them too. In that noisy, hot, pungent tearoom, she eats and drinks with just enough of her own noise. I wash cups, rinse the cleaning cloth, and sort the receipts. I peek into the kitchen and line the trash can with a new bag. The woman soon approaches the counter. She pays with three bills and fixes her eyes on me. I know the look on her face. The look you get when you hide something slimy in your mouth. Unable to spit it out.     “Dongju,” she insists on speaking. “I have something important to tell you.”     She leaves a note with a phone number. I put her change on the counter, but she doesn’t take the five hundred won coin. I wait until the cherry-stained door slides open and the woman disappears. Once the door chime dies down, I throw the note away. I pocket the coin. It’s abandoned, not stolen. I imagine hurling the coin onto the withered grass field. Maybe I imagine, maybe I remember.Seunggyu always carried his coin. A 1988 Seoul Olympics coin, large and heavy like the five hundred won coin. It had a mugunghwa flower on the head side; on the tail, the round-faced tiger Hodori. Head tilted and wearing a sangmo streamer hat. No, maybe tiger on heads, flower on tails. Seunggyu changed his mind about it every day.     He held out the coin whenever he wanted.     “Heads or tails?” he asked.     “Heads,” I replied.     Then came the toss, and onlookers bobbed their heads as the coin flipped up and down. Seunggyu snatched it mid-air and pressed it against the back of his hand.     “Heads or tails?” he asked again, head tilted like the tiger.     “Heads.”     Seunggyu’s hand flew off the coin to slap me with full force across the face. It happened in a flash, too fast to see which side was up—heads or tails, flower or tiger. My earlobe burned. Blood pooled inside my cheek. I clutched my ringing ear in a daze while Seunggyu simply walked away. As if nothing had happened.     I got slapped every time he asked, “Heads or tails?” Within seconds and without fail. He slapped me without hesitation as if kicking away a pebble. I got slapped in the toilet. I got slapped during the vaulting exercise in PE class. I got slapped in the cafeteria while scooping stir-fried mushrooms onto my tray. I got slapped by the incinerator while taking out the trash. Day in day out, always drawing a noisy crowd. Even as Seunggyu walked away, the noise would stay. With me at the center of it. Surrounded by people starting to tease, taunt, and humiliate me—it was a drag.     Like Seunggyu, I simply walked away.     I copied his move to escape the noise. Getting slapped in the face. I wasn’t exactly ashamed of it. The thing is, I got slapped around all the time and not just in the face. What embarrassed me to death was my own verbal reflex, the automatic reply I gave whenever Seunggyu snickered, “Heads or tails?” Whichever way, I’d reply only to get slapped—truly mortifying. To reply was to play his game. That held up the hierarchy between us. * “Aren’t you that boy? From the pork cutlet diner?” asks a wizened old woman.     “Oh no,” a woman next to her sighs. After tugging at the older woman’s sleeve to no effect, she squeezes her hand to make her stop. “Mom’s getting old,” she says with a rueful glance. The granny seems to have more questions, but her daughter steers her to a table. Once seated, the granny forgets about me and groans about her knees.     “My body’s all rotten.”     “Mm-hmm.” The daughter eyes me again. As I set down water cups and menus, I hear them whispering. Words slice through the noise.     “Oh, Mom. The diner’s boy is dead.”     “Dead?”     “He’s the other one. The one the dead boy used to . . . never mind. Keep quiet.”     Keep quiet. Don’t talk. That’s what my mom and the lawyer kept saying. At the police station, they gripped my arm all through the questioning. Don’t make it worse. Keep quiet.     I bring the granny and her daughter their food, setting down the dishes one by one. I serve the bean sprout soup in a brass bowl, piping hot. I serve the sides—radish kimchi, pickled garlic, and braised quail eggs. The daughter scrutinizes me while the granny warms her hands on the hot water cup. I pretend not to notice and set down the rest. Soy sauce, napkins, and utensils. The kitchen bell rings. It alerts me of other dishes ready to be served. The worn-out bell makes a dull noise—more of a thunk than a ding.     I overhear the daughter while heading to the kitchen.     “I thought he left town for good. If he’s still here, maybe the rumors aren’t true.”     “What rumors?” the granny asks.     “About the dead boy. They say he killed him,” she replies. Seunggyu, whose parents ran a pork cutlet diner, died in an accident.     A plausible accident. Two middle school boys were hanging around in the half-built building when one of them fell to his death. The dilapidated building had none of the necessary safety measures in place.     Details emerged, turning the accident into a tragedy. The two boys happened to be on the rooftop that wasn’t exactly a rooftop. It was the seventh floor of a building that was supposed to be ten stories. Plywood formwork for molding the concrete floor had been left behind. The boys mistook the plywood for a solid railing. One of them leaned against it and fell to his death when the plywood gave way. The wood had rotted by then, making it unclear who was to blame. That was the talk during Seunggyu’s funeral.     The accident became an incident when information surfaced on how the two boys were linked. I was summoned to the police station, the counseling center, and the hospital.     “Is it true that Seunggyu bullied you since grade school?”     “Is it true that classmates reported him, but you refused a school violence inquiry?”     “Is the report true that Seunggyu beat you on the day of the incident?”     I mostly answered no. I took my lawyer’s advice in saying I wasn’t sure, that the shock made it difficult to remember.     “Did you ever wish Seunggyu would die or get hurt?”     I said no. Judging by their faces, no one believed me. But they wanted to close the case as an unfortunate accident. My mom and teachers too. Mom bristled at the interrogators.     “You want to pin a phony back story on my boy?”      She swelled up in anger like a pufferfish.     “There is no past. Just boys being boys. They play-fight, that’s what they do. Who says my son was bullied? How dare you pin that on him and treat him like a murderer?”      While she hollered, I stood still. Eyes averted, never falling in line with anyone. I let my arms hang like an ape, and when anyone tapped on my shoulder, I stayed still and bowed my head to apologize. Noise led to rumors. They were either believed or dismissed. Word had it, I’d either kicked Seunggyu in the shins or shoved him from behind. Those things wouldn’t have mattered in the hallway or cafeteria, but they did on a rooftop without any railing. “After all the bullying, it’s no wonder.” “Bullied or not, it’s inhuman.” Some sympathized, others condemned. Every day filled with noise. I stayed silent, the only one who did nothing and said nothing. *  It was my first spring in high school. The woman came to see me two days in a row. Instead of calling my name or wailing like before, she simply watched. She stood across the street, hunched under the awning of a stationery store, and as soon as I emerged from the school gate, she followed me without a word. Like a huge lump on my back. I didn’t run or swerve; I just walked. By the time I reached home and walked up the stairs, she was gone.     On the third day, it rained. The woman stood under the awning with a huge umbrella. It looked more like a garden parasol. I walked out the gate, straight to the stationery store. I stood by her under the awning. I didn’t know how else to escape her scrutiny. Being next to her or behind her seemed like the only way to avoid her relentless stare. She stayed still.     “That uniform looks good on you,” she blurted out.     The awning overhead bulged under the weight of water. The light spring rain had pooled into a puddle.     “It would’ve looked good on my Seunggyu.”     I imagined poking that bulge in the awning with my umbrella. “Now tell me the truth!” I expected her to yell. I had no way to tell her the truth she wanted. Or the truth my mom and lawyer wanted. I didn’t have it.     “It struck me as strange. It grew stranger and stranger.”     She paused.     “When Seunggyu had the accident, you called 911, right? ‘A person fell.’ That’s what you said. Why ‘person’? Why not ‘friend’ or ‘Seunggyu’? Then there was the paramedic. He said he got Seunggyu into the ambulance and turned to you. Telling you to get in if you were a friend or family. Even then, you . . .”     With the ambulance doors still open, the paramedic said, “Get in with your friend.” I told him no. I wasn’t the person’s friend or family. Once they drove off, I took the long, narrow dirt path home. Like any other day, I brushed my teeth, washed up, and went to bed. My phone ran out of battery, but I didn’t charge it. The next day, Mom told me Seunggyu had died. When she heard the police were coming to ask questions, she immediately found a lawyer.     “What were you really doing there?”     The woman asked the same question Mom had asked that day.     “Nothing,” I’d told Mom and the lawyer every time they asked. “I was doing nothing. Nothing happened.” The bulged awning seemed ready to burst.     I replied to the woman, “I picked up a coin.” The coin fell. From way above, I heard it clink to the ground as it slipped from Seunggyu’s pocket. It rolled along the dirt with a jagged, scraping noise—skritch, skrit, skriii.     I climbed down the stairs. Concrete dust hung in the air. Seunggyu lay near a pile of construction debris. I tried hard not to look that way. I used the flashlight on my phone to search the ground, and a shiny spot caught my eye. Close-up, I saw the round-faced tiger. Head tilted and grinning. “Heads or tails?” I muttered, picking up the coin. No reply.* The woman orders hamburger steak. She cuts the grilled pineapple into pieces but doesn’t eat them. She breaks the yolk of her soft-boiled egg and mashes it into the patty, but she doesn’t eat that either. She throws that look at me. The look you get when you hide something slimy in your mouth, unable to spit or swallow. “Dongju,” she says under her breath every time I pass by. I pretend not to hear. I make plenty of noise, clattering plates as I clear them away and rattling tables as I wipe them clean. By mistake, I break a coffee cup in the counter’s small sink.     Closing time arrives but the woman doesn’t budge from her table. She sits there with meat mashed on her plate like a grotesque display. The cook steps out of the kitchen, eyes the woman, and asks if I want him to call the cops.     “You know her?”     “No. Don’t know the person.”     My reply gives him a stern look. He grips his rolled-up apron and moves toward her. “Get out.” He never minces words. “We’re closing.” She gets to her feet. The cherry-stained door slides open, the rusty chime jangles, then silence. He clears the messy plate, fuming.     “Wasting good food. You really don’t know her?”     “I don’t.”     I mean it. There’s no way I know. I’ll never know how a person can insist on mashing up once more what’s already been mashed. Midopa closes ten minutes after the ticketing booth. When the ticketing employee drops by to say good night, I fill his thermos with leftover corn soup. Or sometimes bean sprout soup. The elderly employee is a distant relative of the cook. I once heard diners say the employee’s young boy had been playing at the terminal when a bus in reverse gear crushed him to death. “The old man used to be a motel cleaner across the street. But when his boy died here, they had to compensate for his loss. So they offered him the job,” they said while wolfing down bean sprout soup. “How can he work where his boy died?” “Got to pay the bills or starve. You want him to die too?” Blame and pity flared up in no time. “Must be horrible for him. Let’s leave it at that.” Solemn faces nodded. The cook stalked out of the kitchen and nearly slammed down a bowl of rice puffs on their table. He declared the ticketing employee had celebrated his thirtieth work anniversary last year and was rewarded with a watch. His son had only caught his leg under a rear tire. He was alive and well but never came near the terminal again. The customers turned sheepishly defensive.     “We got it wrong, that’s all. Doesn’t matter.”     It does. Words about people always matter. I step out of the wooden door, turn the OPEN sign around, and leave for the day. It’s dark inside the terminal. And outside too. I step only where streetlamps leave pools of light, and my mind wanders to the umbrella. The sleek object I’d stolen, the soft leather that warmed in my hand. And yet, leather is nothing but dead animal skin.     I walk home. Across the dry grass field, down the long, narrow dirt path. Small fires had left burnt patches here and there. Flames had flared at dawn when no one was out, snuffed out naturally by the dirt. No damage aside from the charred blades of grass. I walk, inhaling hints of smoke. The woman trails a dozen steps behind me. She’d been waiting in the darkened terminal, her skinny arms wrapped around herself. I keep walking without looking back. Her pace quickens as I near the fork in the path. “Dongju.” She takes a deep breath. “Dongju.”     I slow to a stop. I’d always been the one to stop, listen, and reply, so I do it again. Back in the noisy space of Midopa, I could pretend not to hear, but not now. Right by the half-built building, in the dry silence of the field, I stop.     “I have something to tell you.”     She comes closer to stand before me. I slouch over with my arms hanging like an ape. Eyes carefully averted. She reaches out to hold my hand. Her hand is cold and stiff, like a dead animal’s limb. “I’m sorry,” she begins. She apologizes for hounding me all those years. She says she’s leaving. Her husband’s staying to run the pork cutlet diner, but not her. She’ll be on her island hometown farming spinach in the sea breeze.     “I’m sorry about everything. I mean it,” she tells me.     The woman turns and walks away. Her steps aren’t heavy or light. Just ordinary steps, as if everything that happened might be forgotten down the path.     For the first time, I want to tell her the truth. Seunggyu and I were the last two left together that day. There’d been six of us at the run-down building. The usual gang that cheered whenever Seunggyu tossed his coin. They started leaving around sunset until it was just us two, the ones who weren’t called home. Seunggyu climbed the stairs, beckoning me like a dog. “C’mon, Dongju. Here, boy. C’mon.” Once we reached the rooftop, he pulled the coin from his pocket.     “Heads or tails?”     “Tiger.”      He stopped flipping the coin in his hand. “Tiger?”     “Tiger.”     “Oh yeah?” he snickered, tossing the coin. He threw it higher than usual and couldn’t tell when it would fall. It clinked against the concrete. He stomped on the rolling coin. “Here, boy. C’mon, Dongju,” he beckoned again. “Let’s say it isn’t tiger. Then I swear I’ll bust your lip. And break your teeth too. Last chance. Heads or tails?”     “Tiger . . .”     Seunggyu lifted his foot in slow motion, revealing the mugunghwa flower on the coin. “You unlucky bastard.” He came closer, sniggering. I backstepped. I kept going until I reached the railing. Seunggyu tucked the coin away and loosened his shoulders, rolling them one at a time. He shook out his wrists. Then he held up a fist in the other hand as if stepping up to a punching machine. He wound up and launched a right hook.     I crouched down.     I didn’t want to get hit. Just didn’t.     Seunggyu lost his balance and lurched forward. His legs flew up as he tripped over me. The rotted plywood crumbled against his weight. Without a second to scream, he plunged.     The scenes stayed vivid in my mind. But memory kept shifting, drawing me back in. Forever summoning me to the rooftop. Sometimes Seunggyu’s right hook hits me in the jaw and breaks my teeth. Those jagged edges rip my tongue, filling my mouth with blood. I stagger down the stairs with Seunggyu. Sometimes I get knocked off my feet and fall to the floor. Sometimes I catch Seunggyu by the legs as he topples over me. I hold fast, bearing his weight. And sometimes I stay crouched, pushing his legs over. Pushing hard.    Imaginings were harsher than reality. Again and again, I’d either hold on to Seunggyu or shove him over the edge. Out of sheer desperation. And I’d mean it each time. The woman makes her way down the dirt path. She  takes long, steady strides forward. She’ll go on not knowing about Seunggyu’s final moment. She’ll tend to her spinach on the island not knowing the last look he gave me. She’ll live out her days in peace and quiet. To that end, I do nothing. In the end, I say nothing.  Translated by Sunnie Chae    

  by An Boyun

• 

  Dear My Bias

  The day the two-month long monsoon ended with a heat wave warning, I went to watch Cresta’s second showcase. It was a four-and-a-half hour trip from Seogwipo to Seoul just to see my bias. I couldn’t feel even a stroke of wind, just humidity and heat that clung stubbornly to my skin. Only when I got off at Hangangjin Station did I allow myself to unbutton my sticky shirt and take out the fan with Hobin’s face printed on it. Before long, I noticed the young students who seemed to be heading the same way as me. There were also some fans who were proudly holding their Yaho-sticks and fabric banners bearing different members’ names. I finally let myself relax. There, much better.        “Excuse me.”       A girl scooched past and took the seat next to mine. She’d dyed her hair to match Jinil’s in the photoshoot for Cresta’s second full-length album—a shocking green at the roots which mellowed into a blue-tinted turquoise. Looks like Jinil’s in charge of the weird hair this comeback, I’d thought at the time. Who would’ve guessed there’d be Nivels who’d copy that hairstyle? Green Hair set down a shopping bag in front of her. As she fished out a reflective banner with Jinil’s name on it, the plastic antlers of a deer plushie sticking out of the bag poked my knee.       “Is that a Jinil deer?” I asked, furtively nudging the shopping bag aside.      “It’s not just any deer, it’s a roe deer!” Green Hair insisted, taking out the plushie to admire it. “Looks just like Jinil, doesn’t it?”      Her upper lip lifted as she giggled, revealing the row of shiny braces adorning her teeth.       “That’s a really pale roe deer.”       “Well, Jinil is pale.”       I’d never seen a white roe deer before. Maybe a roe deer with a butt as white as a mushroom, but never a roe deer that was white all over. Technically, the plushie was a chibi character with antlers attached so it was just weird to be arguing about the color of the fur. I guess you could call it a ‘moe-ified’ version of Jinil, as the kids say. There’d been days when my head would spin with new words that sprung out of god-knows-where along with terms that I was still getting used to. I’d made my fair share of mistakes, getting definitions and nuances confused. I swallowed the all-too-familiar sense of doubt and agreed enthusiastically. “It’s lovely.”       Carefully, Green Hair returned the roe deer to the shopping bag. She took out her Yaho-stick and slipped in some fresh batteries. Connected to the central controller, the lightsticks in the venue glowed, blinking slowly from orange to green, sky blue to purple.       I switched off my Yaho-stick for now and took out my Nashica binoculars from my bag. My seat was all the way in the left corner, in the last row of the second floor. The venue capacity was a mere thousand, but being so far from the stage made the space feel all the more massive. With my bare eyes, I wouldn’t be able to even guess if my bias was laughing or crying, or in which direction he was looking. It couldn’t compare to the front row seats on the first floor, where a fansite owner holding a bulky camera was uploading preview pictures on Twitter in real time. After I barely managed to buy a ticket off someone two days ago, the first thing I’d packed were my 20x50 binoculars.      I’d found them in the hotel where I’d worked before moving to Jeju. A Japanese tourist had left them behind along with a heap of albums. It was a common occurrence—foreign fans who bought multiple copies of the same album for the chance to enter a fansign only to end up tossing out the lot of them. As the maid-in-charge, it was my duty to discard any items that hadn’t been claimed after a year, but on the way to binning the binoculars and albums, something told me to keep them instead. Perhaps it started out as naive excitement in finding something to put in the CD player inside the used car that I’d just bought. On my first listen to Cresta, what struck me the most was their indecipherable lyrics. They were in Korean, clearly, but I couldn’t understand them any better than the foreign languages that the hotel guests spoke, and I found that strange, yet fascinating. I kept a CD in the car and one at home which I played on repeat as if I were learning a new language, not knowing there’d be no turning back.  After hurrying to take off the lens cap, I raised the binoculars to my eyes and studied the stage. Adjusting the lens before the concert was a given if I was going to catch every second of the show, starting from the very first song. But why weren’t my binoculars focusing? They’d worked just fine at last year’s fanmeeting. While my anxious fingers fidgeted with the dials in between the lenses, I mumbled to myself, “What’s wrong with this thing? Not now. . .” Green Hair tugged at my rolled-up sleeve.       “Unni, let me see.”       Before I knew it, I was handing over my binoculars. In Green Hair’s lap were a pair of her own, the same model as mine, along with a tripod that could support their hefty weight. So absorbed by her mechanical preparedness, I only realised later how naturally she’d addressed me as ‘Unni.’      After playing with the dials for a while, Green Hair reached into her bag and got out a spectacle cloth. She gave both lenses a quick and thorough wipe.       “All done. I think it just needed a good clean. Have a look,” she said, handing back my binoculars.      Once I peeked through the lenses, the stage came into view with stunning clarity. I could see the faint smudges of footprints on the lustrous stage floor, and if I looked close enough, I just might be able to see what my bias was muttering, what he was thinking, and what he was keeping to himself.       From the front pocket of my backpack, I took out a tangerine chocolate. The air conditioner was blasting hot air, as if someone had accidentally left it on the wrong setting, and the chocolate had long lost its shape. Still, it was the only thing I had on me that could express my thanks. Green Hair ripped open the wrapper and brought it to her mouth, squeezing out the chocolate with her fingers as if she were sucking on a piece of jelly. When I looked back at her after recapping my binoculars and putting away my ticket, I saw that some chocolate had ended up on her bangs. If she’d had brown hair like me, no one would’ve noticed, but that sliver of reddish brown against the bright green made it look like she’d missed a spot when she was dyeing her hair.       “You’ve got some chocolate there.”       I opened the front-facing camera and stuck my phone in front of her.      As I wet a tissue, she beamed. “Cool. Kinda looks like a twig, doesn’t it? Maybe I should ask for highlights like this.”       Humming a B-side from Cresta’s first album, Green Hair fixed her hair, using my phone as a mirror. “Oops, it turned off,” she said and tapped the screen to wake it. When the black screen turned on again, Hobin appeared on my lock screen.      “Heol!” Green Hair gasped before launching into a string of chatter. “Is Hobin your bias, Unni? I like him, too. But Jinil most, and him second,” she said, all smiles as she tousled her bangs. Feeling like we’d grown close, I confessed that Jinil was my bias wrecker.       “Really? So are we. . .”       Green Hair swallowed the rest of her sentence, clasping my hands in hers and pulling them into something like a handshake. I wasn’t lying. Jinil wasn’t the best at singing or rapping, but he danced like a pro. There was a huge gap in his skills, as if he’d sold his sense of pitch, voice, and soul in exchange for his dancing skills. The group could do without him in the tracks, but they needed him on that stage. In other words, he was a performer best watched on mute.      Since I’d heard Cresta before I saw them, Jinil only caught my attention much later. And not because he was a good dancer. The way he listened well to Hobin, who was two years older than him, and the way he, as Hobin’s roommate, would share little tidbits of Hobin’s daily life with the fans were the reasons I started to care for him. As if to prove my sincerity, I held out the fan I’d been using to cool my face. A Nivel had made customised fans of Hobin eating a hallabong and I’d paid 12,000 won for one, including shipping.       “Jinil was the one who took this photo of Hallabong Hobin,” I said. “Remember the last time he came on V App and promised to upload it? Jinil even printed it out to put in the back of his phone case so he could have it with him everywhere. You know this photo, don’t you, nim?”      I was sure Green Hair had never missed one of her bias’s livestreams. I’d spoken with such certainty and was fizzing with so much excitement that I hadn’t realised I’d gone and called her ‘nim,’ like she was a senior or my teacher.       Green Hair, who’d been intently watching me, leaned in suddenly.       “Unni, we’re in-laws, aren’t we?” she said, dropping her voice.       “Excuse me?”       “Well, you like Hobil too, don’t you? Everyone knows this photo. Hobin and Jinil? No?”       “Ah, Hobin and Jinil? Of course. Those two are my only joy in life.”       It wasn’t my first time hearing the word ‘Hobil.’ Whenever I searched my Hobin’s name on Twitter, a photo of him and Jinil would occasionally pop up and I’d see the word ‘Hobil.’ It didn’t happen very often, but sometimes I’d see a short paragraph brimming with wild imagination. I’d think, A fanfic, maybe? and scroll past. Typing out ‘Hobin and Jinil’ or ‘Hobin x Jinil’ could be too much of a hassle for kids these days who preferred to shorten their words, so it was only natural that they used ‘Hobil’ to refer to two of their favourite members at the same time. I nodded my head naively and Green Hair’s expression turned serious.       “Right? They make such a good couple. I hope we get good round one stuff today.”       “Wait, they’re dating? Is this confirmed? What do you mean by round one? Is there an event happening today?” I asked question after question, wide-eyed.       Green Hair sank back into her seat, scratching her head.       “Well, you know. . . in round two? Anything can happen.”       “Round two? Aha. . .”       I didn’t know what she was saying, but I turned back to the stage and faked a cheery nod. Someone must’ve finally lowered the temperature on the air conditioner because the wind against my nape was now icy. If the lights hadn’t dimmed and the intro music and screen hadn’t come on, perhaps I’d have blurted out, curious—So, what is this ‘round two’? Is that where Chu Cheolseon is sending our boys? Do the boys date in round two? Are they really making them do that? Sure, they suck as a company, but aren’t they taking things too far? Laughable questions. Had I asked them rapid-fire style with fury in my eyes, surely it would’ve made things awkward.   *      As the water rose without end, the peaks turned into islands.      The boys who remembered lived with the constant feeling of floating.  Against a rainy scene, the subtitles rose to the top of the screen like undulating waves while the members took turns strutting to the front of the stage. The show was about to start with a B-side titled “Cloud Hotel.” Dressed in a mint-coloured shirt, a brown bowtie, and white cotton trousers, Hobin was the first to catch my eye. There were also some members in shorts and suspenders. Were they going for the pageboy concept? Just then, the leader, Dawool, launched into an explanation of the song’s concept. A story about the host of a hotel that sits atop the last mountain peak on Earth. Really? A hotel setting? I sucked in a breath.       Walking on white clouds, every day I wait for you, let the blue-mint leaf surf the waves, welcome, welcome drink. . .      A chill dance song with unusually catchy lyrics and a melancholy melody.       If you’ll just say you’ll come, a late check-in is alright.      I gently eased my temples as Hobin yelled the lyrics of the hook, which included, of all things, a term I heard too often at work. Thank God this wasn’t the title song. To sum up, we’ve got a world where it never stops raining, a planet where the rising sea levels have left only seven mountaintops on which people can step foot, a day in the not-so-distant future when the seven members will each be left alone on their own mountains. Simply put, the concept for this second full-length album was a hopeless apocalypse. My issue with it wasn’t whether or not it was well thought out. Were our boys really going up the mountains? Here I’d thought we were way past the days when I had to worry about this. Who’d have thought they’d really send them up there? I was so sure I’d gleaned a hopeful sentiment from the teaser photos and videos. . . I mean, seriously? The two-month long monsoon ended just yesterday and the country was scrambling to restore areas that had seen a lot of flood damage. What was all this about torrential rains and deluges?       I managed to hold up my binoculars throughout the first half of the show, but when my arms went numb and my wrists started to ache, I set them down more frequently, which made a rustling sound. “Unni, want my tripod?” Green Hair offered, but I figured I’d be less of a nuisance if I just chucked the binoculars into my backpack. As I listened to an explanation of the components that came with all three versions of the album and watched the videos and B-side performances they’d prepared, the urge to pick up my binoculars gradually faded. . . And after watching them perform their title track which contained vulnerable elements that some fans had begged them over and over to take out, I put away the Yaho-stick that I’d been mindlessly waving and watched the rest of the show with my hand on my forehead or my chin cupped in my hands.  The show started at seven and ended later than expected. Before I got the chance to properly say bye to Green Hair, I was swept into the crowd and pushed out of the concert hall. My buzzing heart was finally starting to settle, and the weight of my body made me want to flop down in the middle of the street. I’d been in a frazzled state for the last two days. After my leave was approved last minute, I scurried to buy a re-sale ticket, booked a flight bound for Gimpo Airport and found a place near the concert venue to put up for the night. Just this afternoon I’d had to wait for my office meeting to wrap up before rushing to Jeju Airport to make my flight to Seoul. There were days when I wondered if I was living a busier life than the Cresta boys, and the past couple of days had been like that. On the way to the subway station, trudging one heavy foot after the other, I bumped into Green Hair again.       “Gangneung never gets this hot,” she said, holding out her portable fan to cool me down. “This Seoul weather is driving me up the wall.”      “It doesn’t get this hot in Seogwipo either.”       “Oh, you live by the sea, too?”       “Yeah. I guess if we were living in the boys’ world, our areas would be the first to go underwater.”       “You were really paying attention to the show, huh? I was too busy looking at my bias.”       We walked a few blocks in silence. The air was damp enough to breathe through gills, but my mouth was parched and I was in no mood to talk. As we passed a small Mexican restaurant selling draft beer, Green Hair spoke again.       “Unni, how about a beer?”       “Sure,” I said, my voice cracking with dryness. It was no question really when all I wanted to do at that moment was pour beer down my throat. Unlike our seats at the concert, we were lucky enough to find seats by the window and ordered a burrito bowl with a side of nachos. My hunger had kicked in after a whiff of food. I’d nothing to eat the whole day except a carrot scone and an iced coffee. Green Hair downed a pint of beer in one shot. Now that I was sitting across from her with the restaurant light shining in between us, the clear whites of her eyes and full cheeks made her look younger than I’d thought.       “You’re not a minor, are you? School hair policies are rather lax these days.”       “I’m about to graduate college.”       “Really?”       Green Hair said that she was in her fourth year of a Korean literature programme. As we talked, I gathered she was likely a decade younger than me. When a short silence fell over us, I blurted out a boring question. “Since you’re in the literature department, do you write novels?”       “Yeah”, Green Hair replied plainly, to my surprise.       “Not everyone who does literature writes novels. . . but I guess I do write things of that sort,” she said, waving her hand to order another beer. “Nothing worth talking about, though,” she added vaguely. “I just write shit that comes to mind.”      Unsure whether she’d felt obliged to answer a bad question or was hoping that I’d ask her to elaborate, I decided to change the topic. To one that every fan would surely want to discuss.       “How did you like the showcase? Did you enjoy the new album?”       “Yeah, I’d be okay if I died today.”       “Pardon?”       “Didn’t you see Jinil in those shorts? His calves were so pretty. On top of that, the suspenders and beret!”       “I was talking about the album.”       “The album? Well, I dunno. I don’t really expect anything from their music. I guess the album came out pretty well. Isn’t there usually better music to listen to?” Spoken like the fan of a performer who was better on mute, I thought. I wondered if I’d started a futile conversation, but since she was the only one around who could offer an opinion right now, I scooped some food onto my plate and carefully pieced together my thoughts.       “Hear me out. Cresta is Spanish for ‘mountain peak,’ right? And our fandom name, Nivel, means ‘altitude’ or ‘elevation.’ Even the name of our lightsticks—‘Yaho!’ is what we shout at the top of a mountain. Everything has been planned out since their debut. But why haven’t they said a word about their storyline until now? They’ve already released their debut album, three EPs, and even their first full-length which contained a completely unrelated story. But it’s only during their second full-length album that they’re introducing the seven mountain peaks in the music video? It’s such odd timing. Not to mention the whole Great Flood concept. Do you think they’re drawing the curtains? What if the company’s pulling the plug on their funding? I mean, they did forget about them for a while and this second album barely got released.”       “Unni. . . maybe you’re reading too much into this. There’s still a lot of time until their contract is up.”       “But they’re not promoting for as long as they used to, and they’re only going on a few music shows. . .”       Since Cresta had failed to make any profit from album sales or enter the charts, I could understand why their promotional activities were being cut. Besides, the new group that their company debuted had already doubled—no, tripled—Cresta’s debut album sales, resulting in a change of atmosphere. Cresta’s funding was being cut, and that was obvious even to a passive fan like me. It was only after I’d hastily bought my ticket that it dawned on me. I could’ve gotten better seats if I’d just purchased a ticket directly from the ticketing site. Since I had no friends who “stanned” the group, I was always late to new information and hadn’t noticed that the fandom was dying out.       “Unni, you know how this monsoon season dragged on for so freaking long this year? There were floods everywhere, things got washed away. The new vacation house that my aunt built was swept up, too—it was chaos everywhere. With all that’s been going on, I suppose Chu Cheolseon suddenly remembered this old lore and went, ‘Let’s roll with this.’ Maybe it took on a pessimistic tone, but it doesn’t have anything to do with abandoning the boys or neglecting them.”      “Well, I suppose pessimism is our thing. Like a fingerprint or something.”       Chu Cheolseon was the CEO of Ironship, Cresta’s entertainment company. No official criminal record, but a suspect who’d been subjected to a search and seizure. Can I really stan this group? Is it okay to consume their music and content? I used to wonder. I’d fall into a pit of guilt and shame at the thought of his name, and therefore, preferred to bury it deep enough to ignore.       “I doubt there was any real basis. The climate crisis is a hot topic, so maybe they started talking about it too. Probably thought of it as a trend.”       “The climate crisis and floods? As trends? That doesn’t make sense.”       “Why not? Look at the people who collect tote bags and tumblers. It’s all fashion to them. I mean, Chu Cheolseon named them Cresta because he was into hiking back then. I’m sure you know how the woman he dated in Spain was a hiking gear designer, and that’s why the boys were in hiking outfits for their debut performance. He’s the type who would put the boys in military outfits and give them toy guns if he were obsessed with some war somewhere. Wait, maybe I’m thinking about the group he put together before Cresta. ‘Happy Soldier,’ was it?”      I’d forgotten all about this since I mostly enjoyed their debut album by ear. Cresta had gone viral for being ‘hiking-dols.’ I’d been skeptical, too, seeing them perform in hiking gear when their song had nothing to do with mountains. I’d never rewatched any of their music show performances from the week they debuted. Hobin came on stage wearing a backpack with a 500ml bottle of water tucked into the side pocket, while Steve, the rapper, swung around a hiking stick with a paisley handkerchief tied around it. Jinil, who had the most difficult dance moves, was put in a rash guard. To this day, no one understood why they’d done that to the skinniest and tiniest member of the group.       “Chu Cheolseon’s the problem here. That ignorant asshole is to blame, not our boys. I’ll admit, things haven’t been going great, but at least no one’s getting hurt. Our boys are staying out of trouble, too.”       “No one’s hurt? I’m hurt!”       “Unni, you’re thinking way too deep. Let’s just have fun stanning this group. What else can we do, anyway?” concluded Green Hair as she clinked her mug against mine.        I’d become immune to the gnawing feeling that they would never break through, that they might stop promotions because their songs were always lingering at the edge of the charts. But the fear that this album would be their last, and the worry that there’d be fewer days when I’d see my bias, that he’d disappear soon, were feelings I couldn’t shake off as easily.  After Green Hair and I finished three beers each and left half of our food untouched, we stepped back out into the sticky night. I felt bloated. Trying to dodge the smokers coming from the restaurant entrance, we scurried down a few blocks and came upon a convenience store. A bug zapper buzzed in staccato somewhere.      “Will there be buses to Gangneung if you leave for the Express Bus Terminal now?”      “I was going to hang out at a 24-hour cafe and catch the first bus out.”       “How will you kill the time? I booked a room for the night, you should come and get some shut eye. It’s dangerous to be outside by yourself anyway.”       I didn’t want to go back to the hotel alone. I’d ended up in a business hotel out of necessity, but had I a bit more time, I’d have booked a different place. Because walking into the hotel lobby at this late hour felt too much like starting my night shift.       When I worked at the front desk at the Myeongdong hotel, I’d volunteer to be put on the night shift because I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know then that terrible things tended to happen in the middle of the night. That night. When I’d dashed upstairs after receiving a call complaining about a burnt smell. When it felt like the muscles in my calves had melted, paralysing my legs, and I’d crawled along the corridor on my knees. When I’d forced open the bathroom door that had been sealed with duct tape, and I saw. . . Since that incident, I’d never worn heels. All I could remember was the feeling of someone grabbing my arm and raising it, someone slipping a pair of slippers onto my feet, and the afterimage of billowing white smoke. Welcome, welcome drink. The strangely light yet woeful “Cloud Hotel” melody danced around my ears. If you’ll just say you’ll come, a late check-in is alright. That was Hobin’s line, probably.       “You’re coming, right?” I asked once more.        The room barely had enough space for just one double bed, much less an extra bed. I’d expected as much, but once we were inside, I felt sorry for inviting Green Hair over. If I’d known I’d be coming back with someone else, I’d have requested for a twin bedroom—no, I’d have booked a different hotel in the first place. I went over to the phone beside the bed and picked up the receiver. But before I could dial the front desk, I paused, remembering how I’d been harassed by guests who demanded an upgrade for no reason or a change of rooms over the tiniest inconvenience. Those who were willing to pay extra for a change of rooms were just as troublesome to deal with. Regardless of the situation, any room that’d been entered had to be redone.       “Ooh, what a big bed,” said Green Hair cheekily as she set down her shopping bag stuffed with merch and her tote bag on the floor.       “Am I sensing sarcasm?”       “Oh, c’mon. This is way wider than our concert seats put together!” Green Hair laughed.      I couldn’t tell if she was serious or joking. In any case, we were both going to check out early the next morning, which left us with only a few hours of sleep after washing up. I opened the closet by the toilet and pulled out a bathrobe.       “You didn’t bring a change of clothes, right? You can wear this to sleep.”      “Am I supposed to be naked under this?”      “It’s up to you.”       While Green Hair showered, I took out a bottle of water from the mini bar and sat before the vanity. I pulled out my phone and went on Twitter to look at showcase photos taken by fansites. They’d already edited their photos to perfection and were uploading them in singles or pairs. I was sure they’d recorded videos of the members leaving the venue and getting into their van, too, so how had they been able to edit the pictures between then and now? I was always in awe at how quickly the fansites worked. Only those who’d poured their entire selves into liking their bias could work at a speed like this. Maybe Green Hair was right. Anything other than our present joy was not our problem to worry about. This became clear once I looked back on why I started stanning the group. While I was retweeting every picture on my timeline and saving the photos I liked into my gallery, Green Hair stepped out of the bathroom. She approached me, drying her hair with a towel.       “Are the pictures out?”       “Here, look at Jinil.”       I showed her a fansite photo of him. He was in a chestnut brown beret, mint shorts, and white knee socks. I zoomed in with my thumb and index, filling the screen with his face, which was shining alongside the blue pearl under his eye and his gem-encrusted in-ear monitor. The excessive glimmer of the photo made it look like there were tears pooling in his round doe eyes. Green Hair gave a languid sigh.       “I’m going to kill myself.”       “What?”       “I wanna die.”       “Why are you speaking like that all of a sudden?”       When I put my phone down firmly, Green Hair looked taken aback.       “What’s wrong? I’m saying I’m so happy I could die. It’s just an expression.”      “Still. Don’t say things like that. I’m serious. Don’t.”       Green Hair was silent.       “Do you understand? Promise me. Give me your pinky.”       Green Hair knitted her brows, but wrapped her pinky round mine.       “Didn’t know you were such a boomer, Unni.”       “You’re right, I’m a boomer. You better keep that promise.”       I went into the bathroom, peeled off my sweaty shirt, and looked into the mirror. I plucked out two strands of gray hair sprouting from the edge of my part and cleared the seaweed-coloured hair clinging to the floor. Once I was in the shower booth, I turned the water on full blast. Was I too serious? I wondered. But still, it wasn’t something I could let slide. Say something out loud enough times and it becomes a habit. Just like how our pessimism endures as fingerprints do. While I showered, I worried that Green Hair had already left the room without saying a word. At the same time, I hoped she hadn’t. After letting the cold water wash away the heat clinging to my body, I matched the water to my temperature and stood under the shower for a long time.        When I came out in my robe, Green Hair was already asleep, clutching her phone in one hand. She must’ve been tired, having taken the early bus from Gangneung, dyed her hair green, gone around outside the concert venue collecting fansite banners, bought the limited edition ‘roe deer Jinil’ plushie. . . I slipped under the blanket, careful not to wake her. With my back to her, I lay on my side and lowered the brightness on my phone. Dawool had uploaded a letter on the ‘from Cresta’ bulletin board on their official fancafe. While my eyes skimmed the letter that started with, “My oh-so-lovely Nivels, thank you so, so much for coming to our showcase” and continued to be littered with so many ‘so’s, a private message from Hobin arrived.        - Ajumma, are you still up?       - I came on here because I missed you.       - I wrote the lyrics to “Cloud Hotel.” Did you like it?  Hobin wrote “Cloud Hotel”? The song about the host of the last hotel in the world? I sat up, my heart racing. I hadn’t bothered to check who’d written and composed the songs since Hobin had never once participated in the song writing. No wonder I’d been hooked right away. Did that mean he would receive royalties? That should’ve been the title track! I typed into the text box despite knowing full well that in Hobin’s chat, my message would immediately be buried amongst the hundreds of others he was receiving. I sent a few more empty messages—This album’s going to do amazing. I’m so excited for you. As if he were reading the wave of messages, there was a wait before Hobin’s next message.      - Think of me in the day and at night. While you listen to our songs.     - If I want to keep seeing you, I have to do really well this time.     - As always, I love you, Ajumma. I’ll see you in dreamland.  For a while, I lay in bed, staring blankly at the orange-flushed ceiling before returning to the messenger app. For 7,900 won a month, I could receive private messages from any member of my choice. I could also pick my own pet name, which would automatically replace the default pet name in my bias’s message to me. It was an option that could be changed at any time. Clueless at first, I’d simply set it as my real name, but finding that sort of embarrassing, I’d changed it to the fandom name for a while. It was only recently that I changed it to ‘Ajumma.’ A guest who had lodged a complaint had once called me that and I wanted to cleanse that word. Now, I deleted ‘Ajumma’ and changed my pet name back to ‘Nivel.’ All was well, thanks to my bias.       This was enough for me. To enter my settings and change my nickname whenever I wanted. To read my bias’s expression through my 20x50 binoculars. To pick and save the images I liked, to pull up and admire at will. Though the both of us might be holding our phones, there was no need to take pictures of me, no need to share the discomfort of body heat or sticky bodily fluids, no need to spread viruses like high-risk HPV. This was something I could walk away from when I wanted. And therefore, it was sweeter, safer. The most perfect and comfortable distance away.       From the front pocket of my backpack, I took out my AirPods and slipped them in. I opened my music app, set the second full-length album on repeat, and hit the play button. How many times would I listen to this album? I’d streamed their third EP so diligently. I’d created three accounts on the music site and repeated the album on mute. During the back office meeting, when it was agreed that we should tap in on K-pop and create a playlist for the hotel cafe, I’d snuck a few Cresta songs into the mix otherwise ruled by BTS, Blackpink, and Seventeen. Of course, it was the genuine belief that they’d make it on the charts that’d driven me to do such a thing. After letting go of those ambitions, I only listened to their music when I wanted to, no matter how much my bias whined. I wanted everything that went into stanning my bias to be things that I enjoyed.       The thought of ‘Hobil’ suddenly crossed my mind. At the concert venue, Green Hair had given me a look. She had the eyes of someone who was focused on what she loved and fastidiously chasing after it. I typed ‘Hobil’ into the search engine. Just as I’d expected, there were short excerpts of fanfics and the occasional picture of Hobin and Jinil. While I was at it, I entered ‘round 2’ into the search bar. It seemed the term referred to content—stories, drawings, and comics—that were derived from original ‘round 1’ appearances and events. Why write about idols though? Was it because people thought of their personalities and actions as inventions? And that idols were all putting on a show? From what I could tell, stories based on real people were called RPS, or ‘Real Person Slash.’      Wouldn’t it be easier to call them ‘literature?’ I wondered, but there were people already doing so. Seonsaengnim, this is pure literature! Please write more, we’re begging!, they pleaded, urging the authors. Was Green Hair’s writing called ‘Hobil literature’ then? Did something like that really exist? Fiction that featured the kid I loved most and the kid I loved second most?       “You know, anything can happen in round two.”       Was that what Green Hair had said? Was that why she could so easily sigh about wanting to die? Because there was a world where her bias and her bias wrecker lived in the way she imagined them? Because she was creating that world?  * I forced my eyes open to a clacking sound. Through the slightly parted jacquard curtains, the sun was spilling onto Green Hair, sitting at the vanity. What was she writing so early in the morning? I found my phone and checked the time. Eleven o’clock. The nine o’clock plane that I’d booked was probably landing in Jeju now.       “No way. . .”       “You’re up.”        Green Hair shut her laptop and turned to me. She was fully dressed and her hair looked freshly combed, and she’d probably gone out to grab the takeout coffee that was sitting next to her laptop. The alarm that I’d set for six a.m. must’ve been ringing for a while—had she been waiting for me to wake up?       “I thought you said you had to go to your part-time job in the afternoon? That’s why you had to catch the first bus?” I asked.      “It’s okay, I was going to skip it anyway.”       “I’m so sorry.”       “I could use a cold bowl of buckwheat noodles. I’m starving.”  The hotel basement was connected to a shopping mall. We had two bowls of buckwheat noodles from a Japanese fusion stall at the food court and took the escalator down a floor. The second basement, which was linked to the subway station, was lined with shops selling accessories, stationery, and casual clothing. Green Hair, who was humming barely loud enough for me to hear, suddenly shouted, “Shut up!” I followed where her index was pointing to find a mannequin standing in a clothing store. I, too, gasped once I saw the T-shirt on the faceless white dummy. Before we knew it, we were already walking toward it.       A sky-blue T-shirt, oversized. Printed on it were waves crashing upon a vast beach, a surfboard with a hibiscus painted on, and a red Ferrari. The both of us recognised it at once. It was Hobin and Jinil’s matching T-shirt that they’d worn in one of their self-produced content videos that were spliced into snappy, fifteen minute long videos that were uploaded in four parts once a week. During the group’s downtime when there was no news or other content, all I had certain months were clips of my bias in the same outfit.      We went into the store and felt the fabric of the T-shirt. Sturdy, yet thin and soft.       After checking the price tag, Green Hair offered, “If I get two, will you wear one? I owe you for yesterday.”      I hadn’t realised we’d been wearing our sweat-stained clothes from yesterday. When I spotted the sign that read ‘Buy Two, Get 20% Off,’ I happily agreed. We looked for the fitting room, thinking we might as well change now. I took off the neat yet boring shirt that I wore to work. Just as I was about to pull the new shirt over my head, I paused. On the back of the T-shirt, following the curve of the seafoam, were a few words written in white:        It’s no real pleasure in life.[1]       I studied the sentence seriously. There’s no real pleasure in life? I’d completely missed the quote despite having watched the videos a few times. How had my bias and my bias wrecker ended up in shirts bearing this particular phrase? And as idols, of all occupations—people whose raison d’être was giving joy.       I went back and forth on whether or not to put the shirt on, but recalling Green Hair’s face, ruddy with excitement, I stuck my head through. It wasn’t so bad once I thought of it as no different from ignoring Chu Cheolseon’s existence. Besides, with my backpack on, the words would be covered up, and after that, I could always just wear it as pyjamas. Stuffed in the corner of my drawer, it’d end up as just another T-shirt.  As we stood in front of the subway screen door, Green Hair took my arm and pointed at our reflection.       “We look just like a couple.”       At the mention of the word ‘couple,’ my mind flickered to the word I’d looked up the night before.       “Yesterday. . . about ‘Hobil.’ Why did you ask me about it?”       “Ah. . . that? I guess I wanted to feel glad. There’s only a handful of us left.”       Not felt glad, but wanted to feel glad? Well, I supposed there weren’t many Nivels who liked Hobin and Jinil specifically, and even fewer who shipped them—a handful, like Green Hair said. And if those people started to leave, one at a time, soon the fandom would grow quiet, and it’d be as if nothing had happened at all. The water would rise, turning mountain peaks into islands. I thought about Jinil in the music video, standing alone, steeped in a never-ending wait for a visitor. I thought of the lyrics written by my bias.      “Is a late check-in okay?”       Green Hair failed to stifle a laugh. “Unni, you sure like getting deep into things,” she said, and gave me her Twitter handle. When I searched up her account, I saw that she had a white roe deer profile pic and twenty-two followers. Underneath the picture was a link to some website, P-something dot com, alongside a couple of hashtags like #Cresta and #Hobil. The nickname on the account was Shujin. Was that the pen name under which she wrote ‘Hobil literature’? Was her real name Juin or Sujin? I was curious, but didn’t ask. I hit the follow button.       “Hobbang-nim?” asked Shujin, looking up from her phone.      It was only then that I remembered my username on the account that I used only for following and retweeting. The day I quit my job at the Myeongdong hotel despite having nowhere else to go was the day I created my stan account. With my belongings all packed, I was about to leave the lobby when the room maid unni that I’d worked with for a long time brought me a hobbang that she’d microwaved in the pantry. The same unni who had found me huddled in the corridor, slung my arm over her shoulder, carried me out, and later returned to clean up the smoky room. The steamed bun she handed me was warm and fluffy, just like the white butt of a small animal. Picking at and nibbling on the soft outer skin, it dawned on me that ‘Hobin’ and ‘hobbang’ shared the same first syllable, and so I settled on ‘hobbang’ as my username. But since no one had called me by that nickname, I’d forgotten all about it.       “Hobbang-nim, drop me a DM.”       Shujin didn’t ask me for my real name or my phone number. Would we ever see each other again? I wondered. I couldn’t say for sure, but I might drop by her round two world. How did my bias look in the world Shujin had made? Was he smiling? Or crying? I hoped he wasn’t crouched somewhere, expressionless, with words like ‘I could die today’ hanging on his lips. The train heading for the Express Bus Terminal arrived first. I stared vacantly as Shujin got on. Before I could finish reading the white sentence teetering on the edge of the waves, Shujin turned around and waved goodbye.   Translated by Gene Png   [1]   From the last line of Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

  by Ryu Si-eun

• 

  The Substitute Teacher

  On sunny afternoons, when the child woke from his nap, Ms. P would take him by the hand and head outside. The neighborhood, which was filled with luxury condos, had a nice playground in the middle of the complex, but Ms. P always walked to the nearby park just beyond. As she neared the park, holding the hand of this boy, this five-year-old with a bowl haircut and big monolid eyes, she felt again the pure joy these moments gave her. In the center of the park, there was an open area with a manicured lawn where children could run and play. Ms. P spread out her mat on the edge of the grass and sat down with the boy. Nearby, young women had also brought their children to the park and were chatting in small groups or watching their children play. Ms. P exchanged polite nods with them but kept to herself. When the boy asked, “Can I go play?” she smiled and nodded. Once he dashed off, she took a book from her small canvas bag and began to read. Sometimes she would stop reading to watch the boy. The children played well together. Occasionally, when he tried to take another child’s toy or overpower a younger one, Ms. P would fold down the corner of the page and go to him. She would place her hand gently on his shoulder and say in a firm but soft voice, “You’re not being a good boy.” The young women watched as Ms. P reprimanded the child. At this point, it might be good to mention the boy’s mother. According to her, she had “been tricked into marriage” by her husband, but that was just a playful complaint. From the moment she realized she had an eye for art, she had hoped to work in France. She had actually gone to Paris during high school and studied art history at a college there. However, weary from years of living abroad, she returned to Korea as soon as she finished graduate school. She hadn’t planned to remain in Korea permanently. Her intention was to stay with her parents for about six months to recuperate and then leave again. Yet, somehow, nine months later, she found herself walking down the aisle in a wedding dress.     “The friends I studied with ended up in New York, Amsterdam, or London. I had this crazy idea that I’d go back to Paris one day, even after I got married,” she once told her colleagues. “You have no idea how good he is to me. He adores me.” But the climax of her story was this: “Two lines showed up on the pregnancy test. I was so shocked!” Every time she got to this part, she’d almost burst into tears. “I love my little boy. I’d never trade him for anything now. He’s absolutely priceless to me. But was it hard raising him? No, no, it was pure joy.”      Indeed, she stayed home for three whole years to take care of him. When she announced she was getting married, her mother had felt a sense of betrayal and declared she wouldn’t help with the child-rearing. Her mother kept her word.       Anyone who heard the boy’s mother tell this story always marveled at her appearance, as there was no sign she had given birth or raised a child. Her thick, glossy hair had attractive curls that fell over her shoulders, her skin had a vibrant glow, and her limbs were long and slender. Around the beginning of spring that year, she secured a job at an art gallery—even though it was just an internship—and hired a nanny, Ms. P, to take over caring for the boy. Sometimes, those listening asked about the nanny. After thinking for a moment, she would say, “Oh, her? Hmm . . . she’s a good person.” If Ms. P had known that someone would ask the boy’s mother about her, she would have wanted her to answer this way: “Oh, the nanny? She used to be a substitute teacher.” Of course, it would be possible to leave out the word “substitute,” but that somehow felt dishonest. Ms. P had taught history—sometimes social studies, sometimes geography—for twenty long years, and she loved her job. In her younger days, there must have been a time when she’d longed to become a full-time teacher. Thankfully, there were many schools that needed substitute teachers, and until last year, Ms. P was able to move from school to school, teaching history—sometimes social studies, sometimes geography—to middle and high school students. However, after filling in for a female teacher on maternity leave last spring, no schools had shown any interest in hiring her. When she was finally forced to accept that she would never stand in front of a classroom as a substitute teacher again, Ms. P didn’t feel particularly upset. She wasn’t the type to blame others. And whenever someone begged on the subway, she never turned them away.      When she first arrived at the apartment for the nanny interview, the boy’s father said, “I heard you used to be a teacher.” He had passed the bar exam a few years ago and now worked on the legal team of a well-known company. For some reason, he felt a mix of sympathy, pity, and even a little guilt that Ms. P was sitting in his living room, applying to be his child’s nanny. However, she simply said, “There are substitute teachers younger and more capable than me. How could I stay on? That would be shameless of me.”      Ms. P thought of the students she had taught, those who’d listened attentively, nodding along while looking into her eyes. As these memories floated through her mind, she glanced around the room—the lilies in the vase on the coffee table, the geometric patterns on the curtains covering the balcony window, and the glass cabinet in the kitchen filled with decorative tea sets. She also took in the family—the handsome, polite young father, the lovely, elegant young mother, and the cute, intelligent-looking child. Perhaps at that moment, Ms. P thought of her own home with its modest wallpaper, synthetic fiber curtains, and narrow bed. She imagined herself eating alone, getting dressed alone, and sleeping alone. But these thoughts lasted only a moment, so brief she hardly registered them. Instead, her mind quickly filled with thoughts of her desk—a huge mahogany desk. It was actually a dining table, but Ms. P used it as a desk. It didn’t matter. It was the most expensive and beautiful thing she owned. Beautiful. Ms. P repeated the word in her mind. Then she straightened her back. “That’s just the way the world works,” she said, fiddling with the metal button on her tweed jacket, the best piece of clothing she owned.     Ms. P’s job was relatively simple. Around two in the afternoon, on her way to work, she would stop by the daycare to pick up the boy and bring him home, staying with him until one of the parents returned. The parents didn’t like leaving their child with someone else after dark and made sure at least one of them had dinner with him every evening. Frankly speaking, Ms. P contributed nothing to the dinner table. The weekend helper made all the side dishes, and the mother (sometimes the father) cooked after work. So, Ms. P watched the child until the father (or mother) set the table, but she never joined them for dinner, and she didn’t particularly mind.      On her first day picking up the boy from daycare, he insisted on staying until his mother came for him and ended up crying. This happened several times. Each time, Ms. P gave a nonchalant sigh and said, “All right, let’s do that.” She had twenty years of experience. Eventually, the boy would hold Ms. P’s hand and head home. While the child took a nap, Ms. P took out a book from her small canvas bag, along with some food she had packed. She didn’t help herself to even an apple from the refrigerator. When Ms. P was hired, the first thing the boy’s mother had done was to show her the tea box with its assortment of teas, the medicine cabinet, and the fridge filled with fruit. “Please, consider this your home,” she had said. But Ms. P never turned on the TV or radio, used the phone, or even touched a bottle of pills. Apart from the child’s room, the living room, and the kitchen, she didn’t look around the apartment or handle any of the books on the shelves in the study.      After their stroll in the park, the boy usually played with his toys, but sometimes asked Ms. P to read him a book. When she read aloud, he would repeat after her in a small voice. Watching him, Ms. P recalled a song she’d once heard: The seagulls stir the heart because while sinners sin, the children run and play. Because the children run and play.      Why did that song come to mind? She turned to look out the window. From the apartment, she saw the bridge that crossed the Han River, the rows of apartment complexes beyond that, and a giant Ferris wheel spinning in the distance. Sunlight sparkled on the river’s surface, and the spring breeze made the water ripple, like hundreds of pages were turning. Suddenly, Ms. P’s heart sank, and she was filled with fear.      She turned back to look at the cute, intelligent little boy who was repeating after her. She patted his head affectionately.     One day, the boy came holding a large sketchbook and crayons. “Do you know how to draw?”       “Of course,” Ms. P said with a gentle smile, taking the sketchbook and crayons from him.       “Can you draw a ball?”       “A ball?” She drew a large circle with a black crayon.       “But that’s not a ball.”       Ms. P felt a little confused. “Yes, it is.”       “Soccer balls don’t look like that,” he said, shaking his head.      What did a soccer ball look like? How were you supposed to draw a basketball? And what about a baseball?       At the boy’s insistence, she turned the page and drew another large circle with the black crayon, but she couldn’t figure out how or where to draw the lines. She tried to focus on all the different balls floating in her mind.      That night, on her way home, Ms. P stopped by a store and spent a long time looking at soccer balls, basketballs, baseballs, golf balls, rugby balls, and beach balls. At home, she copied each kind into a small notebook and practiced drawing them over and over again. The next day, she studied different types of flowers, then different colors, and then different cars. One day, she even bought a book on raising children around the boy’s age and started reading it. Sitting at her large desk, which was actually a dining table, in the corner of her small room, she felt overwhelming happiness as she organized these things. When was the last time she’d felt this way? But soon she realized that such thoughts were blasphemous. She reminded herself to be thankful for each day. However, after a moment, she compromised a little and thought, “I’ve never been this happy.” When spring ended and summer began, everything was a mess. It rained almost every day, and the air was muggy. Ms. P didn’t wear her tweed jacket anymore. Instead, she wore a light cotton blouse with sleeves that came just above her wrists. One day, while it was pouring outside, the child struggled to put on his rain boots at the daycare entrance and said, “My mommy is home today.” It was true. The day before, his parents had a big fight. They had been discussing their summer vacation. For months, they had planned to go to Rome with the boy, but now the father said he couldn’t go because of work. He added angrily that he didn’t see the point of taking such a young child to Rome. The mother thought he was being unfair and insulting toward her, so she went into the boy’s room where he lay sleeping, gathered him up in her arms, and burst into tears.     Ms. P knew their fight was none of her business and that she shouldn’t interfere, but what about the boy? What would happen to him? What if their fight affected him negatively? Would he be able to forget his mother holding him while sobbing? What if this memory became buried deep in his heart? Was there any guarantee it wouldn’t resurface somehow later in life? Ms. P thought of the delinquents she had taught. Where were they now? The ones who’d smoked, used foul language, and shouted. Their raspy voices. The thought made her heart sink, and the recklessness of the boy’s parents angered her. But when she arrived at the apartment and saw the mother lying in bed, in her pajamas with her luxuriant hair disheveled, Ms. P’s heart softened a little. She went to her and asked if there was anything she could do. The mother shook her head and spoke in a choked voice. “I’m so embarrassed.”       Ms. P shook her head.       “Since I started working, we haven’t had any proper time together. I know it must be hard for him too, but still. . .”       Ms. P patted the mother’s shoulder and went to the kitchen to bring her some warm milk.      “Drink this and get some sleep. You’ll feel better afterward.”       Watching the mother blow on the hot milk like a child, Ms. P felt a complicated emotion that was hard to describe and struggled to suppress it. She said, “Sorry, but I need to say this. It’s not good to fight in front of children.”       It didn’t take the mother long to think about Ms. P’s words. That very night, when her husband gave her a bouquet of roses to make her feel better, she told him while in his arms, “She had the nerve to give me advice.”       “What did she say?”       “She said it’s not good to fight in front of children.”       “It’s probably because she’s never had kids. To her, everything’s theoretical. But not everything goes according to theory.”      The mother fell into thought. Why do some women grow old without marrying or having children? But she soon stopped thinking about it because her life was too far removed from such a reality, and her imagination couldn’t grasp it.      “Did she say if she has any family?”       “On her first day, she mentioned her brother and his wife run an auto repair shop out in the country. Don’t you remember?”       “Oh, I remember now.”      “She paid for her brother’s college education and even helped with his wedding expenses.”      That was true. Ms. P had supported her brother through college, and she had given him a significant portion of her savings when he got married and started his auto repair shop. However, she had not seen or spoken to him and his wife for several years. Even though she didn’t know these details, the woman said, “When you think about it, she’s had such a sad life.”      But about a month later, when she had to make an awkward request to Ms. P, she had already forgotten this conversation with her husband.      The boy’s mother worked at an art museum that was getting ready to hold a fall exhibition called “Contemporary Art of Eastern Europe.” Nearly everything related to the exhibition was proceeding cautiously and slowly, as if walking on thin ice. Just when they thought they were on solid ground, a problem arose. A Romanian artist announced he no longer wanted to send his work to the exhibition. To make matters worse, several other Eastern European artists wished to withdraw as well. The boy’s mother and other staff had to stay at the museum until late at night to speak with the artists in Romania, Poland, and the Czech Republic, where the time zones were significantly different. The mother had no choice but to call Ms. P and explain the situation. As Ms. P was about to hang up, she made a joke without thinking, “Eastern Europe can be difficult.” After hanging up, Ms. P recalled a student from her days as a substitute teacher who always got confused as to whether Portugal was in Eastern Europe or not, and she laughed. She believed she knew more about Eastern Europe than the boy’s mother.      That evening, Ms. P took out the soybean sprouts and eggs from the fridge and taught the boy how to trim the sprouts. She had recently read that handling plants and vegetables was good for a child’s development. The boy sang, sloppily trimming the bean sprouts, while she mixed the eggs, chopped the scallions and carrots, and made an omelet. Afterward, she cleaned up his mess and made bean sprout soup. Other side dishes were already prepared. A short while later, Ms. P and the child sat at the table and had dinner. It was the first time she had eaten there. She patiently waited until the boy finished feeding himself. After dinner, she washed the dishes and bathed the child. When it was time for him to go to sleep, she sat next to the bed and read him a story.       “When you wake up tomorrow, Mommy and Daddy will be here,” she said.       “I know,” the boy said, nodding.       Ms. P pulled the blanket up to his neck. “What a good boy you are.”      Long after he fell asleep, his parents still didn’t come home. Ms. P sat on the living room sofa where she usually sat when the child napped. But tonight, she felt uneasy. She wanted to wake the child. At the same time, she felt like an intruder in an empty house, doing something very wrong. In the end, Ms. P turned on all the lights in the apartment—the living room, kitchen, and even the empty rooms—before she sat back down on the sofa. She was afraid. Why?      That night, Ms. P went home, lay down on her small bed, and then suddenly sat up. She knelt by the window and prayed.      After that, the couple often failed to follow their rule of coming home before sunset to be with the child. On nights when they returned late, Ms. P would have dinner with the boy, help him brush his teeth, and inspect his mouth. She would change him into pajamas, tuck him into bed, and read him a story. She cared for him more diligently than ever. The couple offered to pay Ms. P extra for overtime, but she refused. “There’s no need for that.” Those weren’t empty words. “This is my job.” Or she said, “Don’t worry about it.”      A few days later, after putting the boy to bed, Ms. P went to the kitchen. She hesitated, but then opened the cabinet. She recalled what the boy’s mother had said on her first day: “Please, consider this your home.” Ms. P took out her favorite teacup, the one with a delicate little bird painted on it. She put it back, then took it out again. She poured hot water into it, got a purple tea bag from the tea box, unwrapped it, and placed it in the cup. After a while, she removed the tea bag, threw it in the trash, and walked into the living room. She carefully placed the teacup on the coffee table and this time turned off all the lights in the apartment—the living room, kitchen, and empty rooms—leaving only the decorative lamp on in the living room. She sat on the sofa, pulled out the book she had brought, and began to read. Please, consider this your home. For the first time, Ms. P felt she truly understood what the boy’s mother had meant.      Several days later, Ms. P opened the door to the study and went inside. She hesitated a little before taking a book from the shelf. She no longer needed to bring along a book in her small bag. There were plenty of books to read in that home. How would one describe that fall? Six years later, a group of well-dressed women were having lunch and chatting in a restaurant with a small porch. They had just begun to open up, sharing their struggles and bonding with each other. They talked about their children’s falling grades, big losses in stock investments, the promotions their husbands didn’t get, and bad real estate deals. Of course, they planned to enroll their children in more classes at their cram schools, make other investments to recoup their losses, and buy new cufflinks to raise their husbands’ spirits. The boy’s mother showed signs of aging, but she looked more elegant and beautiful because of it. She wondered why they had to talk about such things on a day when sunlight bathed the streets and the leaves rustled in vibrant colors. Yet, as she listened, that fall suddenly came to mind. Actually, it wasn’t a sudden recollection. The first time she recalled that period was three years ago in the summer. Since then, that fall had often crossed her mind, whether she wanted it to or not. Many things happened that season, as if they had all been orchestrated. She’d been busy preparing for the “Contemporary Art of Eastern Europe” exhibition, their weekend helper had quit unexpectedly to care for her grandchild, and her husband’s legal team at work was in crisis due to the deaths of several factory workers. Most shocking of all, her mother-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Her husband’s only sister lived abroad, so they had to take in her mother-in-law. Her husband said they had “missed the window” to intervene, which led to several arguments between them. But did they ever have a chance to intervene? She’d never mentioned her mother-in-law’s diagnosis to anyone. She vaguely knew Alzheimer’s could be hereditary and worried that it wasn’t just her mother-in-law’s illness but a foreboding mark on the genes of her husband, who held a fairly high position for his age, and her son, who was now over eleven and enjoyed being alone.      Her thoughts naturally turned to Ms. P, who had cared for her family and mother-in-law. Perhaps she had always wanted to think about Ms. P. Her memories spiraled back to the night when she had wondered about the lives of “those kinds of women” while in her husband’s arms. She believed that autumn was the most difficult time of her life. But that was naïve of her. Every time an unforeseen hardship invaded her life, she felt cursed, but in this case, who was cursing whom?      Now it was her turn to speak. She didn’t want to say anything but also didn’t want to seem odd or boastful.      “A few years ago, my mother-in-law came to live with us because she was ill. You see, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.”       She was shocked to hear herself say “Alzheimer’s” out loud for the first time. But she quickly realized the other women were more shocked. They had never wanted to hear such things. Yet they recovered quickly.      “Oh my, taking care of a sick mother-in-law isn’t easy.”      “At the time, I was working as a curator at an art gallery.”     “She studied art history in France,” added another woman, who knew her well.      Someone sighed in admiration. “Do you speak French well?”     “Qu’est-ce que c’est, ça va, merci beaucoup,” she said playfully.     The women laughed heartily, drawing the attention of others in the restaurant.     “Taking care of my family and my mother-in-law on top of my job was really tough.”     “Oh my, I can’t even imagine. You’re amazing.”     “Our nanny helped a lot with our son. I don’t know what we would have done without her,” she said humbly, quickly adding, “But no matter how much help you get, you know how hard it is.”      No one asked how her mother-in-law was doing now, and she was relieved. Her mother-in-law had passed away last year.      She cleared her throat. “But now, it’s all over.”     If Ms. P ever had the chance to talk about that period, what would she have said? She might have said, “That family had only me. They were so grateful. You couldn’t find a couple with such grace and elegance. They never forgot a kindness.” However, Ms. P would probably never have the opportunity to share that story, because no one is  interested in her past.      Even after many years, Ms. P could still remember the day she first met the elderly woman with Alzheimer’s—a patient wearing a navy cashmere cardigan, pearl necklace, and pearl ring. One morning, much later, when Ms. P was about the same age as the old woman had been, she was washing her face when she looked in the bathroom mirror and became lost in thought. It was then that she decided to erase the old woman from her memory. But this was far into the future. That fall, however, Ms. P was simply amazed that a nearly seventy-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s could look so neat and elegant.      Ms. P arrived early every morning to help the couple get to work. She did the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and took care of the boy and the elderly woman. Sometimes, she took them for walks or to the hospital. After the couple left for work, Ms. P picked the elderly woman’s outfit—a different one each day—along with a necklace, clip-on earrings, and a ring, until one day the woman hit Ms. P in the face while wearing the ring, and it was never taken out of the jewelry box again. Sometimes the elderly woman got angry at Ms. P, saying she’d chosen the wrong clothes and accessories, but soon forgot she’d even gotten angry.       “My mother is so lucky to have you. I don’t know what we would have done without you. Thank you so much. We didn’t know what to do…” the father often said.      The young couple, floundering with fear and sadness, gradually found their balance again with Ms. P’s help. By the weekend, Ms. P was exhausted. Her back ached, and her shoulders throbbed so much every time she lifted her arms that she needed to apply pain relief patches. Luckily, the child liked the smell of the patches. Just by seeing the mess in the apartment on Monday, Ms. P could tell what kind of weekend the family had. She couldn’t bear the thought of the young couple struggling without her. So, one Saturday afternoon, when the father called, sounding completely defeated and anguished, Ms. P felt a deep sense of relief.      When she arrived, the father looked half-crazed, and the mother—Ms. P was shocked by her appearance—had a puffy face, messy hair held back by a headband, and was still in her nightgown. The boy sat on the couch in his pajamas, clutching an encyclopedia, looking as if he hadn’t even washed his face. The old woman was locked in her room.     “We had no choice,” the father said, his voice full of shame, guilt, and sorrow.      The elderly woman burst into tears upon seeing Ms. P, saying she wanted to go home.      “But Mother, this is your home!” the father said.     Ms. P told the father to clean the living room while she bathed the elderly woman and the boy. She told the mother to wash her face, brush her hair, and get changed. The mother came back shortly after, dressed in a knit shirt and slacks, and asked Ms. P what she should do next. Ms. P told her to air out the elderly woman’s room and put the bed covers in the wash. She did as she was told. Ms. P first bathed the child, dressed him, and sent him to his mother. Then she helped the elderly woman bathe, took out a green sweater and skirt from the closet, and dressed her—later on, the father would recall how his mother had looked like a Christmas tree that day—not forgetting her pearl necklace and earrings. After a day filled with intense emotions, the elderly woman ate a large helping of the meal Ms. P prepared and went to bed early.       That night, Ms. P had dinner with the boy and his parents for the first time. The couple felt as though they’d just been rescued from a disaster. As Ms. P watched those poor kids—the young couple who’d been so distressed just moments before but now sat neatly and elegantly eating their meal—she recalled that song again: The seagulls stir the heart because while sinners sin, the children run and play. Because the children run and play. Because the children run and play. Because the children run and play. . .      “I’m so sorry. We didn’t even think to call a doctor. We just thought of you,” the father said for the fifth time, looking at Ms. P.      “No, no, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Ms. P said, helping the boy eat. The boy sat next to her, practically hanging onto her shoulder. Normally, she would have insisted the child eat on his own, even if it took a long time, but that day she spooned the food into his mouth.      “My mother doesn’t recognize me. She doesn’t recognize her daughter-in-law or even her grandson,” the father said.      “She’ll get better soon,” Ms. P reassured him.      “What if she doesn’t? What will we do then?” the mother asked.       Ms. P didn’t know the answer. She couldn’t possibly know. Yet, she felt she had to give the young mother some kind of response.      “She’s very ill,” she said.      “She’s ill,” the boy repeated after her.      “It was awful. We didn’t know what to do. Mother was doing well, wasn’t she? She was perfectly fine until yesterday,” the father said, rambling. “My wife and I are so busy these days. Just look at the boy.  Of course, you’re taking great care of him, but what I’m trying to say is. . . I don’t know. . . everything’s a mess. Did you hear, Ms. P? People who worked at our company factory died. But we have so many documents to review and draw up, so what I’m trying to say is. . .”      “Honey, you don’t have to explain anymore,” the mother said, trying to comfort her husband.       But the father kept talking. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just so scared. What happened to Mother? I mean, I know she’s sick, but what are we supposed to do. . . I couldn’t think of anything except to call you. I . . . we . . .”      The father started to cry. The boy, seeing his father cry, began to cry too, and soon the mother joined in. But Ms. P wasn’t flustered at all. It was as if she had expected this moment, or felt it was her duty to resolve the situation, and she calmly comforted each one of them.      “I’m sorry. We didn’t know what to do. . . everything’s falling apart. . .” the mother said, sobbing.       “You poor things, don’t say any more. Nothing bad is going to happen.”      Ms. P looked after them until they stopped crying. After they finally finished their meal, she cleaned the table and did the dishes. She took out the teacups painted with a delicate bird and heated three cups of milk, making one cup of tea for herself. They all sat together at the coffee table and drank. Ms. P stayed at the apartment until the family went to bed.      For the next two months, Ms. P went to their home every single day without fail. The couple tried to hire a professional caregiver, but Ms. P insisted it wasn’t necessary.      “I can manage everything on my own,” she said.       One Friday night near the end of fall, as Ms. P was leaving, the mother said, “You don’t need to come in this weekend. Please get some rest. You’ve been working so hard lately.”      “No, it’s all right. Who’ll take care of Grandmother if I’m not here?”      “Don’t worry about it. You need your rest, too,” the mother said, taking Ms. P’s hand for a moment before letting go.      Later, Ms. P found out that the elderly woman had been sent to a nursing home, one of the best and most expensive, according to the research done by the boy’s maternal grandmother.      “We’ll be visiting her every weekend,” the mother said, as if justifying their decision.      And indeed, unless something special came up, the family visited her every Sunday until she passed away. Ms. P felt a little hurt that they hadn’t asked her opinion about sending the elderly woman to the nursing home, and she had a question for them, but ultimately, she couldn’t ask it. Later, much later, Ms. P felt thankful she hadn’t asked.       With the mother-in-law gone, Ms. P finally had her weekends to herself. It’s not bad. It’s good, everything is fine. It’ll be okay. Nothing bad will happen. Ms. P muttered these things to herself, almost as if she were praying, as she applied pain relief patches to her shoulders and back.      There were still many tasks Ms. P did for the family. She did the shopping and cooking, ate dinner with the boy, and read books by the light of a small lamp while sipping tea after he went to bed. They couldn’t go to the park anymore since the weather had turned cold, but reading to the child or playing indoors wasn’t bad. Soon after, the “Contemporary Art of Eastern Europe” exhibition at the museum where the mother worked ended successfully. Actually, “successful” was an understatement. The exhibition was a huge hit. Articles about it appeared in local newspapers and women’s magazines. There were even pictures of the mother, smiling confidently at the camera. The father’s work issues were also resolved without the company having to take any action. Just as Ms. P had said, nothing bad happened. Though not as often as before, the couple now managed to have dinner with the boy more often than not.      As Christmas approached, the couple decided to make up for the summer vacation they had missed and flew to a small island in Southeast Asia with their boy for a few days. For the first time in a while, Ms. P also had a long break. She planned to go on a trip as well, but ended up going nowhere. On the last day of her vacation, she stopped by a bookstore, bought a stack of books for the child, and then sat alone in a downtown café, sipping tea and watching the snow drift past the window. It snowed a lot that winter. The café was filled with a mix of post-Christmas fatigue, lingering excitement, and vague anticipation for the new year. Across from Ms. P sat a couple in their early forties, having tea and sharing a fruit tart with a girl who seemed to be their daughter. The girl checked her phone every now and then, but also laughed, complained, or talked at length to her parents. Ms. P watched them for a while. How long did she watch them? Suddenly, the girl looked up, and their eyes met. Ms. P quickly gathered her things and left the café. It wasn’t because she’d been caught staring, but because she wanted to call her younger brother all of a sudden. Having left her cell phone at home, she had to look for a payphone. She walked over five blocks, and her socks became soaked and the ends of her hair froze from the snow, but she finally found a payphone.      At last, when winter ended, Ms. P resumed her walks. She asked the boy if he was happy, and he said he was, holding her hand tightly. In the park, Ms. P still didn’t talk to the other young women. As always, she read her book, watched the child, and taught him what was appropriate and what was not. The family hired a new helper for weekend housework, giving the mother more free time, so Ms. P no longer needed to cook or clean. Sometimes, though, she still prepared snacks until the boy’s parents returned. They ate together a few times in the winter, but when spring began, they didn’t have a chance to share another meal. Occasionally, she stayed late when both parents were delayed, but that was rare. Ms. P wasn’t disappointed. She believed her life had entered a new phase of stability.      The couple also felt their lives had entered a new phase. The father sometimes went golfing with his superiors on Saturdays, an invitation that wasn’t open to just anyone. The mother’s dedication during the “Contemporary Art of Eastern Europe” exhibition earned her high praise. The family dined out often and visited the nursing home on Sundays. The father believed his mother’s condition was improving, and it actually was.      One day, when the mother punched in the door code and entered the apartment, she was struck by a strange feeling. Why does Ms. P always leave only the small lamp on? Why does she keep the apartment so dark? She watched as Ms. P greeted her, folded the corner of the page, and put the book back on the shelf. Why doesn’t Ms. P use a bookmark? It was hard to believe that she had seen this scene many times before. After Ms. P left, she looked at the teacup left in the sink—the teacup with a delicate little bird painted on it. The set was from England and her favorite. She had inquired at the department store several times, waiting two months for it. It had been worth the wait.      That night, she told her husband they should enroll their child in full-day daycare.      Ms. P’s job as a nanny ended.      A few months later, the father got promoted, and the mother became a permanent staff member at the museum. Everything was perfect, and nothing was wrong. Truly, nothing bad had happened. The night she was let go, Ms. P lay in bed, recalling the night view from their apartment. She had enjoyed the pleasant autumn breeze while watching the bridge and its lights across the dark river, the procession of car lights, and the giant Ferris wheel in the distance. She had wondered: What would happen if all those lights went out? If that ever happened, she’d believed she would know exactly where to run.      Had she been wrong?      She thought about the wrong choices, the misguided thoughts, the futile hopes, the resignation, and the losses that marked her life. It had always been that way. She had always thought it was courage, only to realize later it wasn’t. So what was it then? There were times she wanted to cling to something. She felt that life—her life—was a series of struggles and prayers. A prayer not to pray anymore. Please help me not to make another foolish decision. She had wished desperately that she would stop praying.      Back when she was young, she should have continued studying for the exam to become a full-time teacher. She thought of her parents, her incompetent parents who had depended utterly on her, yet whom she had loved dearly. And her younger brother’s family. They had a child, too, but she had never seen him. She had been happy once, too. There had been times when she had loved and been loved. Times she thought would never end. In the end, there was no one by her side, but that wasn’t a life she chose—just as anyone wouldn’t. Yet she believed that someday, a small event would resolve all the wrongs.      The young couple told her that they were moving abroad and wouldn’t need her anymore. Ms. P knew it was a lie. But what did it matter if it was a lie? For them, nothing bad would ever happen. That adorable boy would grow up well, loved by his parents. How smart and wonderful he would become! Maybe one day, he would become a dashing teenager and talk about her. The young, elegant, cultured couple might have once been her students in history—maybe social studies or geography. But Ms. P knew that was a stretch. Still, she hoped the children she had taught were growing up somewhere, elegant and in good health, living in tall, clean towers, driving nice cars, speaking with refinement, and holding important roles in society.      That’s life, she thought. It’s going to be all right. Someday, all the wrongs will be made right, like one pull on a string that would untangle the knot. Ms. P thought of these things as she closed her eyes. Falling asleep was always easier than she expected. Translated by Janet Hong   

  by Son Bo Mi

• 

  Summer

  1It started about a month ago.Something in my ear clanged open and shut every time I swallowed. I didn’t know what it was.The sound continued even when I chewed. In the early hours, I rubbed my ear in my sleep. In the morning, I could sense my left auricle and the heat inside my ear.When I rose from where I’d been lying, my head felt heavy.When I walked, my body seemed to list to the side. I bet it’s due to my ear.It’s my ear, it’s my ear. I chanted it like a spell. Nothing outside of my ear concerned me. For a month after A left the house, she didn’t keep in touch.If she contacts me, I’ll show her my ear. I’ll tell her she can turn the auricle inside out if she likes. I’ll take her hand and hold it to my ear. Warmer than my cheek, isn’t it? I’ll say.A told me she wanted a slightly different version of me. She didn’t want a different me. Just a slight change.I told her, You change first.What did she say then? Maybe she said, Okay, I will. Or maybe she said, Why should I?Whenever she had a meal, she’d take out the mayonnaise and squirt it around on her food.She squirted it onto scrambled eggs, ddeokgalbi, salad, and boiled potatoes.She’d also mix it into plain rice together with a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil. She spent four months at this house. It filled the spring.My you and your me.We also had this conversation. We were sitting at the foot of the bed.What am I to you?And what are you to me?The light was off in the room, but we could see everything there was to see.We slowly examined each other’s eyes, nose, lips, hands, feet, fingers, and toes.It seemed like our hands and feet were similar even if they were a different size.Perhaps we were brother and sister in a previous life.Or if not, the inner organs of sperm whales.You the heart, and I the liver. It could’ve been like that.  2The doctor stuck a long, thin steel tool in my ear.I was sitting in the examination chair with my head braced against the headrest. An enlarged image of my ear canal was visible on the monitor facing me. If you put water in flour and knead it and put water in and knead it again, what does it become? the doctor asked.Gooey dough, I answered.Yes, like earwax. The doctor began scraping and removing the buildup, and inside my ear, the noise was terrific. I recoiled and winced. At some point a nurse appeared. It’s all right. You’re in good hands. Don’t worry, she said, patting me on the thigh. She looked to be past middle age, her hair gray with a few brown strands. She was wearing a purple cardigan.How is it? Is the sound still muffled? the doctor asked me.I tried a few vocalizations. Ah. Ah. I rose from the examination chair, setting my feet on the tiled floor and standing up.My back was damp. Maybe I’d been sweating during the procedure. I tried rotating my head and walking on the spot to test if my head was heavy, or if my body was leaning to one side. I couldn’t yawn properly, but I tried. I also tried clicking my teeth together a couple of times to find out if the sound was still ringing on the inside. I couldn’t tell whether my hearing was clear or muffled.At any rate, it’s not back to normal. You have some inflammation of the eardrum. The doctor proceeded with his explanation after showing an image of my eardrum next to a normal one on the screen. Mine was a little thicker and redder.I’m giving you a prescription for antibiotics. Take the medication and come back on Friday, the doctor said.The nurse beside me said it was time to go.I paid for my consultation, pushed open the glass door and left the clinic.The hot stuffy air in the hallway wafted against my face.I went into Yang’s Pharmacy directly next door.It was bright and spacious. The light coming from the ceiling fixtures was neither too blue nor too yellow.The pharmacist went by the name of Yang Yu-jin.She stood there wearing a plastic name badge with her name on it.Yang Yu-jin was always alone behind the counter.Was she a few years younger, or my age exactly?Perhaps she was 5 or 8 centimeters taller than me.Generally speaking, she was lanky and pale. Her head appeared to be big and solid.She always widened her eyes a little when she assisted me. Her eyes were both fierce and affable.I wonder why she left an impression on me.This person, and that one, making one kind of impression or another, it tired me out.You’ve been to the ENT specialist today, she said, taking my prescription.Yes, I replied.She lined up fifteen little sachets across the counter with three pills in each: a painkiller, an antibiotic, and a pill for stomach ailments.She went over them, and concluded, You’ll have to reduce your stress level.Yes, I said, turning and walking out. Just as I was approaching the glass door, Yang Yu-jin called out to me and I stopped.Take this, she said, proffering a warm bottle of Ssanghwatang. 3Pretend I don’t exist. A buried her face in her hands. You do. In fact, you’re very real, I thought, looking at A in front of me.How can something stop existing?Take this. A held out the thin thread-like necklace she’d been wearing and dangled it in front of me.What’s that to me? I asked.Take it and put it on. I think it’ll suit you. A fastened around my neck what had just been around hers.I bent my head forward slightly. I felt the cold, light weight of the chain and the brush of her fingers on the back of my neck.A and I walked together toward the only mirror in the house. She went first, and I followed behind.The sound of our steps on the wooden floor was somehow magnified. We stopped in front of the mirror and looked. My neck and the nape of my neck, my face and hair, my wrinkles and blemishes.It suited me just as A had predicted. It’s platinum, she said.She rested her whole palm on the nape of my neck.Now if something amusing happens, who can I tell? And who can I talk to about something sad and stressful?Tears streamed down A’s face.I looked in the mirror at the image of her crying. What’s wrong? I asked,But she didn’t answer.I looked at the image of myself standing there wearing A’s necklace.I stood there awkwardly with my arms hanging down.Whenever I made eye contact with myself in the mirror, I felt distressed.   Shall we go somewhere? I asked her.How about going to the supermarket, or a bookshop? We could buy something new. Even just talking about something new would distract us. They’re too far away, she said. 4I was far away, and I had to take the bus home.While waiting for the right bus, I drank the Ssanghwatang I’d got at the pharmacy. It was hot and sweet.I lived in a remote place, far from anywhere else. To get to a café or playground, school or clinic, I had to take a bus or walk for twenty to thirty minutes.I had to walk along a dirt path or a narrow two-lane street.I always wanted to be farther away.It was difficult, even impossible, to just be mentally distant.I needed to physically distance myself from everyone and everything. I left the place I’d rented securely for five years and signed a contract to live somewhere a little further from the outskirts.No one was curious about my move; neither did they try to dissuade me.A was amused.Do people really reside there? At that time, A used the polite language form to address me.Yes. I will attempt it myself. I used the polite form, too.We didn’t have any trouble conversing even when we were formally addressing each other. A didn’t talk too much, but she talked enough.  Sudden gabbiness from people who were quiet, sudden quiet from talkative people, extreme quiet from people who’d merely been quiet, volubility from people who’d merely been talkative—the people I met generally knew no moderation. Either they nattered on, or they kept their mouths shut, expressionless, the whole time they were facing you.A was someone who both spoke and kept quiet in moderation.I did not feel any discomfort with the way she talked or with the timing of her silences.She was the only person who asked about my new place. I told her all about it.The living room doubles as a kitchen with a large window that takes up most of the wall. It faces north, but it’s bright.There are two rooms and one bathroom.The walls are white, the wooden floor is brown, and there’s no bathtub.It has a large yard and my contract will last for two years.Are you having a housewarming party? A asked.I’ve got to, I said.There were some old, deserted houses at scattered intervals around my neighborhood.Empty lots outnumbered the houses that were inhabited.Weeds grew in every lot. They flattened easily in the wind and rain, and then one day they’d rise anew. Small flowers like grains of rice bloomed at their tips, and on sunny days I could see their bright luster.On clear days it was eye-piercingly bright, and on overcast days, the surroundings were dark.There were spiderwebs around wherever you looked.Among the weeds, between branches, between the railings and the ground, in sunken hollows in the earth.I loved seeing dew on the spiderwebs.Aren’t you scared of living here? A asked.Living here—these words sounded so strange. When she first visited my home, A’d shown a lot of interest in it. She said it was magical, free, and fascinating, and not just the house, but the road leading up to it, the view of the low mountain in the distance and the dirt road. The things you stepped on whenever you walked, the big and small pebbles along the way, the refreshing breeze dancing in if you opened all the windows in the house, the sounds of the leaves rustling and the bugs you’d never heard of before, and the light and the shadows.Scared? What’s scary about it? I asked her.A listed all kinds of scary things.It was strange because nothing she listed seemed scary to me. How can you not be scared of anything? I’m starting to hate you, A said angrily.You’re so unfeeling, she sighed.What about you? How can you say you’re a feeling person when you put mayonnaise on everything you eat? I asked her with a smile. I wasn’t meaning to pick a fight. I said it hoping she’d laugh.But I don’t think she was amused. A and I decided to go out.We decided to have some coffee at a cafe and break up for good.It was a twenty-minute walk to the nearest coffee shop.In this twenty-minute span, I expected she’d change her mind.I couldn’t make A change her mind. Not even twenty minutes could do it, and when we arrived at the coffee shop, she still thought the same.It seemed as if something was settled in her mind. She didn’t appear to be looking at me but at the glass behind me.You seem to have made up your mind about something, but what? I asked.The truth of our relationship, she answered.What truth? I asked.She didn’t reply.Her eyes were almost closed in response to the sun streaming through the glass exterior of the coffee shop. I bet I looked like a shadow with the window behind me.I wanted to ask her if she could see my expression. We left the coffee shop and walked down a nearby alley.After a while, we sat down on a bench at a school’s playing field.The sun was about to set.It’s getting dark, so why don’t you stay over? I asked her.No. Over the next week, I’m going to collect my things and leave for good, A said.I didn’t want this to happen. At the same time, I wondered whether it’d really take a week. The few things she had would only take a single trip. Even if I brought to mind all her clothes, make-up, books, stationery supplies, and other sundry items, it seemed like there’d only be enough to fill a ramyeon box.A got up abruptly from the bench as if she were really leaving.Will we meet again? I asked. You go find your own happiness, A answered.Happiness? Oh, whatever, I said. By the time I’d said it, A had already turned her back on me and disappeared. So I was the only one to hear those words. Even after she was completely gone, I sat there a little longer.I sat for a long time, as if someone was pushing down on my shoulders and I couldn’t get up. The playing field slowly darkened, and the seesaw and the iron bars and the small number of trees there all turned the same color in the darkness. What kind of tree is that? Watching the leaves and branches sway, I wondered if it wasn’t time for me to go home.Alone, I walked five times around the playing field.My speed increased as I walked, so that by the last lap, I was almost running.5I feel like there’s still something there, B said, as if he knew all about my situation.I can tell by your face. B looked at me with a smile.We were surrounded by thick smoke from the grilling meat. B’s words were buried in all the noise.He asked about my ears. So they’re fine now?I thought, Yeah. My ears, they were uncomfortable until just three mornings ago.But now look. I’d gone and forgotten about them.How could I forget so easily?From day one, I hadn’t taken the medication. Where had I put it? I hadn’t thrown it away. I’d even gotten that Ssanghwatang.B flipped the meat over in front of me and chewed it noisily before washing it down with some soju.Something kept spraying me in the face.Like grease from the meat, or drops of soju, or B’s spit.The doctors said my eardrums weren’t normal. Were they normal now?I recalled the doctor telling me to come back on Friday.That would be tomorrow.Did I have to go? It didn’t seem necessary.Look. It’s too bad. Call her. I think she’ll answer. B seemed entertained by my plight.Is this amusing to you?Yes, B said.B was going through a divorce, but he didn’t bring it up.He appeared to be absorbed in my story, giggling. He didn’t look at all like someone going through a divorce. I wasn’t curious about how he felt during the divorce or how it happened, or even why he considered my situation amusing.B had been chattering excitedly, but as time wore on his expression became gloomy, and when we had finished our food and drink, he was crying.Even so, I loved her, B said, in a tone of confession.He said he didn’t want to get divorced.If you love her then why did you do that, I muttered.I don’t know the answer myself, B said.So you loved her, but what are you going to do now? I asked him.I really don’t know. I don’t know, B replied.He was pretty drunk, so he asked if he could stay the night at my place.I refused.He asked again and I refused again.B and I decided to part ways before midnight.He called a designated driver service. I felt like walking a little.I estimated it would take me an hour to get home. B fell asleep in the passenger seat of his car, and I began walking.I walked for ten minutes, and the rows of lit-up signs and the hustle and bustle disappeared.I walked a little farther and the damp smell of the earth and the scent of the chestnut blossoms became heavy in the air. I heard the frogs and the toads croaking. The sound was a continuous bombardment, like that of falling raindrops. I didn’t see anyone out there, but then I saw the outline of a person. It was so dark that I couldn’t tell if I was seeing them from the front or the back. After walking a little more I could tell I was viewing them from behind.I thought I recognized them. It was Yang Yu-jin. Was it really her?I’d never seen her from the back.No, on second thought, I might have seen her more frequently from the side and the back.The longer I walked, the more certain I felt.It was her limp hair and her long gangly frame.She was holding something in her hand. Was it Ssanghwatang? I wondered.I almost called out to see if it was really her, but I didn’t.I walked slowly, letting her get farther away.  6Am I allowed to swim? I asked the doctor.I was sitting with my head against the headrest of the examination chair.The doctor poked the long, thin steel tool in my ear and studied it this way and that.The eardrum is still red. The infection hasn’t gone away yet. If you really have to swim, make it short, the doctor said.People’s ears aren’t made to be submerged in water, he continued.Is he mad now? I wondered.I wanted to see his face, but I couldn’t turn my head. I was told that if I moved my head I could get hurt.The human ear, the human body—they’re not empty vessels. They’re not made to hold water. He seemed to be scolding me.Then what is the ear made for? I asked him.Could he answer that?It didn’t seem like he knew much. He was just good at poking instruments around in the ear. Human eyes, noses, and lips were all made for a reason, the doctor answered without really answering.Do you swim a lot? he asked.It’s not that, I said.He issued me a prescription for three days worth of antibiotics. He said that if there was no discomfort, I didn’t have to come back.The elderly nurse was wearing the same cardigan as before. With a nod, she indicated that it was time for me to go.  7A packed her bags in one go and never came back.Her belongings appeared from time to time.In the morning, things that hadn’t been there like plastic bracelets and earrings, hairpins, hand cream and fuzzy socks, popped up here and there around the house as if someone had come and deposited them there.I got a clear acrylic box, put all of A’s things inside, and set it on the kitchen table. From 1 until 4 pm, the box shone in the incoming sunlight. At 6 o’clock, light passing through the box formed pieces of rainbows on the white wall. I sat at the table facing the wall.When I sat at the table eating my meals looking at A’s belongings piled haphazardly inside the transparent box, I thought of her eyes, her nose, and her lips. Sometimes she smiled, but more often she was expressionless. Was it so?  Many things seemed to have already faded. There were only uncertainties. I stopped eating and pulled the acrylic box from the side of the table over in front of me.I stroked the smooth surface of the box. Bright light reflecting off the box dazzled my eyes.I thought, what should I do with this box and its contents? I recalled the things that A said had scared her—things connected to the house. The stillness within the house, the things that brushed against the windows, and the mysterious bursting sounds. And also her parents, A compared her parents to rotten flesh that had to be removed from her body without anaesthesia. And the things she couldn’t shake off—the anger she had inside. The recurrent dream she had of riding a high-speed elevator up high and then crashing. The future she seemed to have seen. Occasionally, she talked about our future. She said, You don’t comfort me at all, and the you she spoke of was me. You don’t say anything. When A said this, what had I said in reply?Perhaps I said, What? I’ve talked a lot.Or perhaps I said, I’ll talk more from now on. 8The doctor said people were not empty vessels.But I didn’t mind being an empty vessel.I’d actually like to be one, if I could.Above the pool, in the middle of the ceiling, was a heavy square glass pane. On bright days, light streamed down from it.The pool had a glass wall facing out on a mountain. While swimming underwater, I saw patterns of light rippling along the blue tiled floor. If I were an empty vessel, I could hold them too.I swam fifteen laps mostly underwater, hardly coming up for air.After swimming like that for so long, I was dizzy and almost gagged.My throat burned I was so thirsty.  In the shower room, I realized that the thread-like necklace had disappeared. When I was washing myself to a slippery shine, I felt there was nothing hanging from the nape of my neck. I checked the drain in the shower stall but didn’t see anything.I went to the change room and checked inside the locker as well. I put on my swim trunks and cap and goggles once more. I began a lap in the swim lane. I sliced through the water, looking only at the bottom of the pool. I was swimming for so long that it seemed I’d learned how to breathe underwater.Maybe with my ears. It seemed like I was breathing with my ears.  The whistle sounded. Everyone left the water.I did too.Outside the window, the mountain was getting wet.When did it start to rain?Outside the window, the rain sprayed like it was scattering in the air instead of falling.The mountain grew a little darker in the spray. For a long time, I looked blankly at the mist in the air and above the mountain. I couldn’t find the necklace.I returned to the shower stall and had a hot shower.To get home, I’d have to walk for forty minutes, or take a cab or two buses.The rain didn’t seem to be letting up. My faraway house was removed from everything. It was also removed from romance.I probably expected something when I moved into this faraway house. What? I wondered.A had maybe expected something of me.What? I was drenched all over waiting to catch a taxi in the rain.The things I was wearing stuck to my body and felt like skin. Trucks splashed through the water as they passed, making a terrific noise. How long will I have to stand here? I thought, waiting for a taxi to come.As I was waiting, the mist slowly drifted closer.The visibility was so poor that even if a taxi appeared in front of me, it would be a blur.Where is the necklace now?The thin thread-like one.That didn’t break, and barely held together. I imagined it somewhere in the water of a swimming pool I didn’t know.  9My ear was itchy and hot through the night. 10It seemed like the rainy season had already begun, as the rain didn’t stop.At the desk of the ENT, “Shape of My Heart” was playing.The elderly nurse was humming to herself. Maybe she didn’t see me push open the door and come in.Or maybe she didn’t care if anyone came or went.Was the doctor her son? I wondered.I approached the desk.She recognized me and smiled.“Shape of My Heart” kept playing, like a soundtrack. Even the auricle is red now. You must have had a tough night, the nurse said, in a worried tone.Yes, I replied.There were no other patients waiting.I went straight into the consulting room and faced the doctor.The doctor poked a large dab of clear, toothpaste-like gel into my ear. My ear, and my head as well, felt as if it was filled with a cool, heavy substance. Whatever you do, avoid touching your ears, the doctor said.Okay, I said.When did it start getting worse? the doctor asked. And what have you been doing recently?  he went on.I didn’t tell him everything that had happened.Suddenly. Last night it started getting worse, I answered.Even while I was having this simple conversation with the doctor, I could hear “Shape of My Heart,” on repeat, and the patter of the rain. After he put the gel in my left ear, every sound became muffled. My body leaned to the side as I walked towards Yang’s Pharmacy.I felt so drowsy that it seemed like I was already half asleep as I walked. I held out the prescription and met eyes with Yang Yu-jin. By any chance, were you out walking alone a few days ago? I don’t know. She looked uncertain.She disappeared into the lab at the back.I sat down on the green sofa placed there for customers. I ran my palm over the green sofa, made of fake leather that felt almost like vinyl.Looking up, I counted the number of light fixtures in the ceiling.I was dazzled by the light, and my head felt heavy.Maybe I was coming down with a cold.The tip of my nose tingled, and I felt a chill. How’s it going? I began to text.I’m sorry, I wrote and then deleted it.Your things, I wrote and deleted it.Mayonnaise, I wrote and deleted it. The necklace, I wrote and deleted it.These days, my ears, I wrote. Yang Yu-jin walked out of the lab and turned on the air conditioner in the corner.It’s summer, I wrote.  Translated by Kari Schenk

  by Kim Umji

• 

  The Diving Bell and the Poison

  The patient sustained catastrophic respiratory damage. At first, he was incapable of breathing independently and had to be intubated, but his condition later improved and the tube was removed. Orthopedics predicted a significant chance of nerve damage due to compression fractures to the first and second lumbar vertebrae, and explained that the patient had also seriously fractured his fibula and calcaneus. Even if everything else somehow stabilized, he would never walk normally again. Then again, ambulation wasn’t the problem. The microfractures to his left cranium were accompanied by brain damage. He had retained partial consciousness, but the patient continued to drift between lethargy and confusion.      If there was one thing to be thankful for, he had miraculously avoided damage to the hippocampus, meaning his language and memory functions were likely to recover. Something to be thankful for, yes, from a doctor’s perspective. From anyone’s perspective, really. Anyone would say the same thing. Gong returned to her office and sank into the chair, melting into the cushions. It had been autumn until just recently, but the world outside was clearly already freezing. Winter. So it’s winter. White-gray trees peeked out between the white-gray buildings. The landscape grew paler by the day, bleached into monochrome. She liked that. It’s like . . .a good season for quitting something.      She had been aware of this exhaustion for some time. But rest wasn’t the solution. Sometimes resting would only worsen the fatigue. Rest could sometimes mean neglecting the soul, abusing it. She tried to avoid being alone. And if that wasn’t possible, she made sure to always be doing something. At least grinding tomatoes in the blender, perhaps staring at the pulp until it turned to puree. That puree, too, would be processed again. Digested in the stomach and blended with other matter.      Gong knew that corpses, too, worked like tomatoes. They slowly decayed, broke down, and disappeared, until finally they were indistinguishable from their surroundings. Like a person sinking into the water and trying to look around. Descending into the pitch-black abyss, perceiving one’s own body deteriorate. Slowly realizing that they were becoming part of the world that surrounds them.      Much had changed in the past month. But “changed” was too mundane a word. Her life was now something altogether different. Did it even qualify as “life” anymore? Did breathing, moving, and being sustained count as life? Hyeon-wu would have laughed and replied, Sure does. Life’s a stubborn, dogged monster.      Gong turned on her phone. The wallpaper was a picture of Hyeon-wu, smiling as brilliantly as a cloudless day. In the background were mountains, and hikers, too. Gong would playfully complain, You’re a photographer, can’t you send me something nicer than a phone selfie? Hyeon-wu would burst into laughter. Almost a literal Bwa-hah-hah. She had never laughed that way before, not once. She’d loved Hyeon-wu’s laughter almost as much as his pictures, probably because it was the kind of laugh that could disarm anyone.      They had moved in together about five years ago. They hadn’t meant to not get married, but time had simply flown by. They hadn’t meant to not have children, but again, time had simply flown by. Did it feel empty to realize their lives were made of so unintentional choices, she wondered out loud, but Hyeon-wu would reply that it didn’t. Even if we didn’t mean for it to happen, our choices and perspectives still shaped it all. And those choices and perspectives were shaped by the logic of the universe we inhabit, too. Even trivial choices with surprising results are ultimately influenced by the rest of the world.      That much was obvious to anyone, and cliché of course, but Hyeon-wu made it all sound so persuasive. Gong would respond by tilting her head, staring into his face.      Let’s get married, Hyeon-wu had said, lying face-up in bed, Everything will be so much easier that way. Leaning back on a pillow, Gong turned the page of a book and replied, Sure. His proposal wasn’t particularly moving, nor was her response particularly hesitant. Being together for five years does that to people, huh, thought Gong.      What if one of us gets into a car crash? We’re not considered family, so we can’t be each other’s guardians. And if I die in an accident somewhere, they wouldn’t let you see my body, Hyeon-wu said, smiling awkwardly. Gong didn’t smile back. Embarrassed, Hyeon-wu added, Sorry, I know it’s a serious topic. Gong still didn’t respond. Hyeon-wu quickly said, Anyway, what should we have for breakfast tomorrow? Boil up some nurungji? No wait, salad with chicken breast sounds better. Or maybe both, heh heh.      One month ago on that fateful morning, Gong got up feeling properly rested for once. The sleeping pills had done the trick. In spite of the lingering daze, the dreamless night of rest had been lovely. Sunlight filled the living room balcony, a sight so unfamiliar that she suddenly felt out of place. As though she’d never seen such bright light, such a brilliant image, as though she’d never seen sunlight fill a balcony. It made no sense. I’ve lived here for years. Seen that balcony thousands of times.      And on the sunlit balcony was Hyeon-wu. Leaning over the railing, halfway outside. Teetering dangerously on the edge. Gong gasped. One of those days you’re going to disappear, just like that. It was a terrible premonition. The balcony looked like an aquarium of sunlight, and Hyeon-wu’s silhouette was almost hazy as he leaned even further out the balcony with camera in hand. Gong raised a hand and tried to yell. But there was only silence. Is this a dream?      Being a photographer doesn’t give you a license to put yourself at risk for your pictures, Gong had once said, but Hyeon-wu had laughed and given a long-winded response about how risks were what imbued his pictures with soul and turned them into masterpieces. She had wanted to protest, That makes no logical sense, but Hyeon-wu didn’t seem particularly convinced either. The debate ended there.      Hyeon-wu usually braved the danger of falling from four stories above the ground for pictures of birds, cats, and subjects like rooftop fans. Recently, he’d switched to plants and animals, and even when he took pictures of the city, he only snapped shots without any people. I’m not trying to find healing or anything. That kind of healing’s not actually a thing. People say that nature brings healing, but the thing is, nature is by definition a constant, cutthroat struggle. Even a peaceful forest with a cool breeze is a life-or-death battle if you get down on your knees and look closely at the ground, he’d said, stating the obvious in that ever-so persuasive way that left Gong with a confused tilt of the head.      Sometimes, Hyeon-wu would take closeups of the plants on the balcony. It was almost foreign to see him that way, safely taking safe pictures. Hyeon-wu was supposed to be going from New Zealand to Antarctica, taking the Trans-Siberian Railway to a northern town shivering at fifty below freezing, or racing across the Mongolian deserts to his next remote adventure. At some point he began crisscrossing battlefields. Palestine, when Israel began its offensive; a refugee camp on the border, when Syrian forces began attacking the rebels; Washington, when the Occupy movement was at its peak; Paris, when the Charlie Hebdo attacks occurred. That was Hyeon-wu, and Gong, although nervous, did not get upset with him.      Finally, Hyeon-wu pulled himself back inside and waved. Then he focused again on something beyond the railings. It was just like him, to be so immersed in his work. Gong wondered what he might be doing, but instead muttered, Hey. Good morning.      She paused. Then added:      I love you.      It was so unlike herself that she chuckled, but no one else would have seen it as laughter because it was so faint that it resembled more a stilted cringe.      Being an unsentimental person, Gong never really said things like I love you or even I like you. Hyeon-wu would tease, C’mon, don’t make excuses about personality. You’re just not that into me. She would respond with an awkward smile. Back then, Hyeon-wu had said that he loved how her eyes and lips twisted with those smiles—It’s nice to see a shy smile on you sometimes.      Shy. Shy, yes. Yes, it was shyness. But what really, did that mean? Gong didn’t really understand such emotions. So much about emotions still escaped her. The blinding sunshine still spilled in through the windows, and now the balcony remained utterly empty. No longer would she look out at the balcony and mutter quietly, like she did back on that morning. * Gong headed for the ICU, counting the time until her rounds.      The patient: Kim Jeong-sik, sixty-five years old.      He looked more like a middle-aged man than an elderly one and had a naturally strong build—that is, before he was carried into the hospital. Now, his skin was damaged in multiple places and his body hooked up to all manner of tubes and lines.      Kim Jeong-sik had jumped, burning, from the fourth floor. He’d only survived because he’d been caught in the branches of a tree and then landed on a car’s sunroof. His unusually youthful body had shielded him from the worst.      You should have seen all the people performing CPR when he arrived, the head nurse had said. Reporters had packed the hospital lobby and spilled all the way out the doors. Vehicles from broadcasting companies came and went. The director’s office instructed staff to be “especially cautious” with the patient, assigning the best of the best to his medical team. Gong was conscripted from neurosurgery, being a specialist in traumatic cerebral hemorrhaging.      When Gong first joined the team, the attending physician was a surgeon who had been practicing for two years. They performed urgent treatment like skin grafts. Now, a different doctor was the attending physician: a neurosurgeon with three years of experience. The patient was to be transferred from one department to another, passing through neurosurgery and neurology before being sent off to rehabilitation. That is, if he was lucky.      Gong spared no effort, designating the talented and hardworking resident as the attending physician and personally performing daily checkups, even visiting the ICU overnight. Due to subdural hemorrhaging, the patient was at risk of cerebral edemas and spikes in intracranial pressure, which meant they couldn’t let their guard down.      No one came to visit. According to the head nurse—who knew everyone and heard everything—the journalists whispered that the patient had lived alone for a long time. He’d run a decently successful chain of VHS and DVD rental stores until just over a decade ago, but sales fell year after year, because he had clung to an obviously dying business model.      It was not long before his company failed. It was a predictable end. He’d tried to diversify, opening 24 hours and also offering comic books and convenience store fare like snacks, but to no avail. Other rental stores had long since shuttered their doors, and as restaurants and cafés sprung up in his neighborhood, rents began to rise unsustainably.      By the time he liquidated the business, he was left with nothing but debt. What came next, too, was predictable. First, he turned to Ocean Story slot machine arcades, and when that went bust, he got hooked on online gambling funded with loans, and ended up getting divorced. He’d spent a significant amount of time in homeless shelters, more recently circulating dirt-cheap gosiwon room rentals. It was a cruel fate for the man, yes, but a fate so generic and common that no one paid him any attention.  At night, the ICU descended into watery silence. Gong stood amidst the faint specks of light and stared at the patient. The patient had regained consciousness, yes, but he was not fully lucid, pumped full of painkillers and a cocktail of drugs. When he was awake, he was capable of some conversation, but nothing that counted as coherent. A nurse would have to lean all the way into his face to hear what he whispered, which were mostly short gasps of water, can’t see, hurts, and where am I. The rest of his nerves still had not recovered. His body did take signals from his brain and moved almost imperceptibly, but his responses were slow and limited.      The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.      Gong thought back to that movie. The story of a man descending endlessly into the water, stuck in a diving bell. The diving bell was, of course, a metaphor. The movie was about a white man left fully paralyzed due to a stroke. The fall of the cynical, proud, and successful symbol of masculinity. And death. I guess even people like him dream of being butterflies, she had thought while watching the movie, then wondered quizzically, Or is it because he’s like that he dreams about being a butterfly?      Plip. Plip. Plip. The intravenous drip continued at steady intervals. The patient was in a lethargic state, his breathing unstable. Gong quietly took in his face. It was an angular visage, so much that it almost seemed to be made of stone. But at the moment, he was completely defenseless. Utterly unprepared for outside intrusion or harm. As fragile as expired tofu.      She placed a hand on his neck. Pressed gently on his carotid artery, his weakest point. Eyes narrowing, Gong pressed harder. The artery took clear shape on his throat. One small cut with a razor, for instance, and his blood would drain away rapidly. The life would leak out of him like air from a balloon.      Gong knew that people were, above all, physical beings. The human soul was neither holy nor virtuous nor evil. It was all simply the result of physical, genetic, and environmental circumstances and changes. A small injection of specific chemicals would confuse the brain’s neurotransmitters, thrusting the individual into another dimension. It was so easy to change sensations, desires, and personalities. Humans were weak and malleable and controllable. There was no other way to describe them, she thought.      She inserted a needle into the patient’s arm. The drug would help staunch hemorrhaging and prevent intracranial pressure from rising. Once the patient’s physical circumstances improved, he would be able to converse. They could lean an ear towards his mouth to hear him speak, or lean into his ear to speak to him. If he improved further, he might even be able to nod in response. Gong returned home and looked out at the balcony. It was steeped in silence. There was no rain or snow that day, no particulate matter obscuring the sun. The balcony was exactly where it had been before. The sun still rose in the east and set in the west.      The only difference was Hyeon-wu. And the only change was in the plants on the balcony. The plants’ change, however, had been dramatic. Some died so quickly that there was nothing she could do. At first, she tried watering them, but soon gave up. It was like the plants were rejecting water, sunlight, nutrients, everything. Her heart hardened one night and she tossed them all out. Even the poinsettia and the geranium, making a point of taking them outside at midnight when the garbage truck came by and putting some bills in the garbage collector’s hand.      Now only one flowerpot remained, the one where Hyeon-wu’s ashes were buried. A plant was growing out of the soil, but Gong didn’t know what it was called. She didn’t want to know. All she had to do was hold a smartphone in front of it, but what did it matter? The plant had a long, thin stem with unnaturally heavy leaves, which were broad and dark green. The poor stem was struggling to hold up the burden. She couldn’t stand the imbalance.      She understood that the world was not sentimental. And that the truth was it was not the world that was unsentimental, but herself. Maybe I’ve been off-balance all this time. Like a heavy leaf clinging to a slender plant.      Gong thought back to her intern days, of when she’d been tasked to assess dementia patients. Repeat after me. Apple. Tree. Train.      One more time. Apple. Tree. Train. Try to remember, okay?      They would then discuss the weather for a minute, then Gong would ask, What comes after “apple”? The patients would stare back blankly.      Apple…apple…after apple was…pear? …Mountain? …Home? The lost gazes would eventually land on her face and stop.      I can do this all day, Gong had thought when she looked at these people who walked all alone in their landscapes of apples and trees and trains. It was like walking into the deepest, innermost sanctums of their hearts. In those sanctums lived apples, pears, mountains, and homes, but none of that had made her lonely. Or compassionate or sympathetic. It was a satisfying job, bringing some comfort to the gaps in patients’ souls.      Gong had no interest in yoga or Pilates, and had never gotten into plants, pets, music, or art. Never met up to chat with friends at nice restaurants or ask how they were doing over text. Only occasionally browsed Twitter and Instagram, but only because they were followers of acquaintances, especially Hyeon-wu. She was neither a drinker nor smoker, only enjoying a solitary Weizen once a week or so, and only a single can over a book or an old movie.      Hyeon-wu never understood. Do you ever, like, have fun? I live with you and I still don’t get you sometimes. Gong had stared right back. Fun? Fun, huh. Gong wasn’t used to that word.      She knew a bit about Hyeon-wu’s work, of course. How they brimmed with emotion. Each snapshot precarious and impassioned and filled with longing, beautiful or ugly or meaningful or meaningless. Hyeon-wu had only held two exhibits and published one photo essay book, but he was already a rising star not just as a freelance journalist but as a photographer. Everyone agreed that he would someday go mainstream. The photo essay book was already about to join the ranks of bestsellers.      Gong’s only interest was in the brain’s neural circuits and the structure of the cranium. The speed and state of the blood circulating the cerebrovascular system. The gunk building up in the blood vessels, whether or not there was subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and cerebral aneurysms. She felt like a simple component in the machine that was the universe. And had no complaints.* A pair of police detectives waited on the bench. One seemed to be in his fifties, and the other early-to-mid thirties. The middle-aged one was utterly relaxed, like he had seen every case in the book and then some. He was the sarcastic half of a buddy-cop movie brought to life, or at least heavily influenced by one.      The younger detective asked most of the questions while the older one observed—took in, really—Gong with narrowed eyes. They assumed she wouldn’t cause them problems because she was a woman. But Gong didn’t care, because eventually they would understand: in this particular field, the detectives knew absolutely nothing.      Her office was simple and ordinary. The winter sun hung on the drapes. Gong kept the drapes shut when she wasn’t on duty, turning on a lamp instead. The office was dim, just lit enough so that her eyes felt comfortable.      “You keep up with the news, Doctor?”      “I do.”      “How is the patient?”      “We’re doing what we can so you can interview him in a couple of weeks, but we can’t guarantee—”      “A couple of weeks,” the young detective repeated.      This time, the older detective steepled his fingers and also repeated, “A couple of weeks?”      Gong frowned. “Again, we can’t guarantee anything. The patient’s condition could rapidly deteriorate at any time.”      “So less than two weeks,” the young detective concluded.      Gong did not nod. “His respiratory system and cranial nerves are our primary concerns at the moment, but it’s not so simple. He could suffer acute cardiac arrest, or even fall into a coma,” she explained, combining facts with hypotheses. If the patient did indeed improve, they could hand him over to detectives in under two weeks. Yes, a handover. Gong and the team were tasked with restoring him to sufficient health that he was capable of basic conversation by that point.      But when speaking with the detectives, Gong was always conservative in her assessments—not because she wanted to avoid getting their hopes up, but because no one truly knew what might happen to the patient. The detectives had to be made aware. It took time for vitals to stabilize, and most importantly, for linguistic functions to recover. Until then, it would be impossible to conduct a simple interview, let alone an interrogation. You are to wait, if only for the sake of accurate testimony. You must wait. You must wait. That was the message from Gong and the team.      The media and the internet mostly seemed to acknowledge at this point that it would take time for the truth to be unveiled. Let’s take our time. There’s no need to hurry. The police, too, did not complain about the pace of the investigation, at least not out loud. Take your time. We’re in no rush. But the detectives on the case were brimming with impatience.      “We’ve been on standby for a month,” the younger one said. “You stated that he was capable of simple conversation, so why make us wait? There’s nothing more important than figuring out his motives.”      Gong was silent. The detective added, “We need to know why he did what he did.”      Why he did what he did. That’s right. Why did he do what he did?      People were always interested in motives. Motives were important, true. But Gong was not curious. The incident had already occurred, and it could not be undone. It was the police’s role to uncover the reasons, and hers to determine if the patient lived or died. Detectives did police work, and doctors did medical work. That was the nature of the universe.       Reporters had pieced together scraps of information slipped by the police and wove up several narratives. Their articles, however, made it hard to tell what was fact and what was conjecture. As if reality and fiction were waging war in their writings.      Mainstream news told the story thus: A man in his mid-sixties named Kim barged into a newspaper company and started a fire—not in the lobby or the president’s office, but the editorial office on the fourth floor. The fourth floor was also home to conference rooms and interview rooms. The newspaper also ran a small studio where they recorded content for their video platforms.      Kim had strolled down the hallway and walked into the editorial office. It had taken him only two and a half minutes to go from the front doors on the first floor up the elevator to the fourth floor and through the editorial office doors. He had taken the lid off a gasoline container as soon as he was out of the elevator, trailing fuel as he walked past the soundstage. By the time people realized what he was doing and what was about to happen, the fire had been lit.      It was an unprecedented act of arson on a major news outlet. The outcome: catastrophic. Polyethylene had been used during renovations on part of the building, which the fire had devoured in a wake of toxic smoke. One person died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and two of suffocation. Seventeen more were injured, three of them in critical condition, meaning the number of dead could rise further. The fire had consumed not just the editorial office, but the studio next door, which had only one exit and no windows.      One of the dead was a young journalist intern. Another was an editor-in-chief who had recently won an international prize in journalism, only days away from retirement. Some of the guests who had come to the building for interviews or to make an appearance on the broadcast had also been injured.      The building was still smoking when one news outlet reported it as an electrical fire, noting that the metal door up to the rooftop was closed. They claimed that the tragedy had been caused because the door had been locked to deter people from smoking on the roof, basing the hypothesis on testimony from a building caretaker that an indoor smoking room had recently been installed and that the rooftop door had been closed off. Fire prevention codes were hauled up to the chopping block. But the article was purely speculative, based only on one caretaker’s testimony, and turned out to be wrong. It was taken down in less than an hour.      The cause of the fire was not difficult to track. The building was indeed a tinderbox, yes, but the flames that day were not caused by a short circuit or a smoke break, but a person with malicious intent: arson. The survivors who regained consciousness gave testimony; the security camera footage clearly showed the arsonist enter the building with a container of gasoline. The day after the incident, some of the footage was leaked online.      Clad in grey overalls, the arsonist entered the building through the first-floor entrance with gasoline in hand. There was a security turnstile, of course, but he passed through it with ease. The man simply gave the security guard’s office a wave. The guard waved back and opened the turnstile. Renovations had been underway on the second floor. The young security guard, a subcontractor only recently assigned to this post, had assumed the arsonist was working on the second floor.      Then there was the footage that had everyone talking. It had been uploaded to a video-sharing platform, and almost looked like something out of Hollywood. It began with a shot of an indoor space glowing red with flames. The camera panned to the windows, then back indoors. The arsonist must have started recording and propped up the phone on the windowsill to film himself. For a moment, he peered into the camera to check that it was running, then he leapt into the flames. He raised his hands high into the air, triumphant. The composition was dramatic, a shadowed man standing with arms defiantly raised to a backdrop of fire. Almost satanic. The arsonist streamed it all live on social media. The video was quickly deleted by administrators, of course, but by then it had been circulated all over the internet.      The arsonist not only streamed the act of arson, he even gave a determined performance in the flames. The clip spread almost as quickly as the fire, with the title “demon_irl.” People claimed it was a copycat attempt to mimic hate-based terror attacks across the world, kind of like those terrorists who streamed themselves shooting down civilians with machine guns. The only difference was that this arsonist was holding a container of gasoline.      Many people wondered if “demon_irl” was a hate crime or some sort of cultist attack. The newspaper he attacked happened to be serializing an in-depth investigative feature on the negative effects of religion on Korean society. How in contemporary times, religion had turned into a sort of spiritual service industry, what method religions used to amass wealth, both within and without the system, why people were so prone to faith, why Koreans tended to be so fervent, and how diehard fandom—religious, political, and social—had become so mainstream in Korea. Some partisan readers and religious organizations protested, but the editorial staff had refused to bend. One of those investigative features had been found in the arsonist’s hand.      But as it turned out, the arsonist was a single man aged sixty-five with no connection to any religion. He had attended church many years ago but had been an ordinary parishioner who had never tithed or showed signs of having suddenly fallen to religious fervor. Searches of his home turned up nothing of note, save for all the signs of an impoverished man living alone. No signs of mental instability, not enough evidence of antisocial psychopathy. Circumstances made it difficult to conclude that the newspaper feature was the reason for the attack.      Journalists investigated the man’s past and learned that he had gone from one cheap gosiwon to the next, and when he could no longer even do work as a day laborer, he resorted to theft. The record was from two years ago. The man had stolen a box of donuts and a bottle of whiskey from a convenience store while the cashier was briefly away. As the man had already been on probation for another crime, the judge had followed protocol and sentenced him to eighteen months’ imprisonment. The chaebol patriarch who had been sentenced the same day had been given a six-month suspended sentence. He had been connected to corporate corruption totalling at approximately 1.5 trillion won, but had been let off easy for “fear of the impact his imprisonment might have on the economy.” The petty thief in his sixties had stolen one box of donuts and a single bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a total of approximately 45,000 won.      Although the whiskey was a small blemish on the narrative, progressive media had blasted the criminal justice system, labeling the man a “modern-day Jean Valjean.” One conservative newspaper published a column that argued progressives were comparing apples to oranges, as the chaebol patriarch had the national economy riding on his shoulders. People on all sides raised their voices, but the system never changed. The people dispersed. That was how the universe always worked.      But not for the single man in his sixties who had committed theft and been sentenced to eighteen months in prison. His sentence was shortened and he was released three months early. That was half a year ago. Ironically, he chose to set fire to the progressive news outlet that had compared him to Jean Valjean and criticized the justice system. No one could confirm if he had really read that article in particular, but whatever the case, his actions simply did not make sense.      Supposedly, the man had once run a blog for promoting his video rental stores. Someone claimed that he had made far-right political comments on his message boards. Testimony emerged claiming that at the time, his interest had not been in films but political propaganda.      Fact-checking revealed that such claims were not entirely true. The man’s “far-right political comments” were simply copied sections of editorial columns from the best-selling conservative newspaper in circulation, which were far-right in nature but not necessarily antisocial. The arsonist had not posted any original content save for those promoting his video rental business. The assertion that he had been obsessed with propaganda, too, turned out to be baseless. Back when the business was still running, YouTube had not been mainstream in Korea. It was a time before such political content was produced and consumed in video form.      One daily published a column that speculated that perhaps all the possible motives proposed so far were true. Perhaps by assigning a singular motive, we consciously or subconsciously attempt to dismiss all other issues, the columnist claimed. Is this not the willful act of sweeping under the rug the rampant hate and rage and indiscriminate vengeance in our society? When this hate, rage, vengeance, and inequality balloons on and on until it finally bursts, what will we do with the aftermath? The column went on and concluded: This is a quintessential antisocial act by an individual hostile to society as a whole. We must examine every facet of this case and commit ourselves to addressing. . .      The column, however, failed to explain why the arsonist had chosen that particular newspaper, why at that particular time, why the fourth floor specifically, why the fiendish livestream, or any of the myriad whys behind the case. Why the particular man in his mid-sixties committed such an act. The arsonist’s testimony and confession were crucial, but matters were complicated by his jumping from the fourth-story window while ablaze. He had survived, but was left with catastrophic damage to the brain and the entire nervous system and was incapable of giving an account of any sort.      The case could only be fully understood and the facts properly uncovered if the arsonist survived. That was apparent to all. To the journalists and the public and the doctors and the police. The police had made an additional request to the hospital: to not disclose to the culprit the extent of the damage he had wrought. Revealing the fact that multiple people were dead or injured could cause problems, they said. That it could affect his mental stability, which came with the risk of the man refusing to testify, which in turn meant the truth of the incident would be lost forever. He must not know the truth, for his knowledge would distort his truth forever.      Gong did not argue. Even in something as mundane as a car crash, the truth was a real, tangible thing. Unyielding. Singular. Extant in physical time. Why did the accident happen? Whose mistake or fault caused the accident? What kinds of intentions and decisions were involved? What universal logic was at play in those intentions and decisions?      Once the confession was made and the truth brought to light, the culprit would likely be sentenced to death. He would appeal, and finally be delivered a life sentence. In prison, he would do push-ups and keep himself fit. He would write letters of contrition, be designated a model prisoner, and be permitted a brief leave upon the death of his mother at her nursing home.      Gong could see it all unfold, as if it had already transpired. She did not forget that she was a vocal opponent of the death penalty. Human institutions must not sentence a human being to death, as it is tantamount to an act of murder… But one who has done something deserving death must be put to death. . . She quietly watched the conflict waging in her thoughts. Hyeon-wu had died in a car accident. Gong did not think he had jinxed himself or sentenced himself to that fate with, Common-law couples don’t have legal status. What if one of us gets into a car crash? We’re not considered family, so we can’t be each other’s guardians. And if I die in an accident somewhere, they wouldn’t let you see my body. . . Sorry, I know it’s a serious topic. . .      His words echoed on and on. Hyeon-wu had clearly been thinking about ducking through conflict zones on the borders of Afghanistan or Syria, or clambering up and down some wintry mountain slope. Not a fatal left turn at an intersection in downtown Seoul.      Hyeon-wu had rushed out of the house that day to make an interview. He had been running five minutes late because Gong had come home for lunch that day.      He had been grinning over the meal, pretending to answer questions like, What’s the secret to publishing such a successful photo essay book? He would reply, The secret is to respect the subject, not the camera. Then he said they would ask, You used to be a wilderness photographer in remote areas. What made you pivot to conflict zones? He asked Gong what she thought might be a good answer. She advised that an answer like, A bit of risk adds a real pinch of soul to a picture, would sound too corny.      It was only a twenty-five-minute drive to the newspaper office. Hyeon-wu had been nodding loudly along to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” in the driver’s seat. Traffic was light, so he would make it just in time. His car was at the very front of the left lane, waiting for the left-turn signal.      Flames burst from a building ahead to his left. It was about two blocks off, and the windows about halfway up the building were glowing red. That was         Hyeon-wu’s destination. The old song was reaching its climax. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, Life goes on, bra, La,-la, how the life goes on. Instinctively, Hyeon-wu reached into the passenger seat for his camera. The yellow light went dark, and a millisecond before the left turn light came on, he floored the gas pedal. One hand on his camera, one hand on the steering wheel. His tires left skid marks on the pavement, and momentum pushed him sideways. An SUV on the other lane was roaring towards him, speeding up to catch the yellow light before it changed.Hyeon-wu’s death was pure coincidence. It just so happened that he had an interview at that exact time, that his car had been the first one in that lane, that the arsonist set fire to the newspaper at that moment. Hyeon-wu had known that the next signal would be the left turn arrow, and that the turn would get him straight to the scene of the fire. He had grabbed his camera by instinct and stepped on the gas pedal precisely when the left turn light came on.      So generic was the accident that no one gave it a second thought. The dashcam footage only solidified the banality of the case, and because it was a simple traffic accident, there was no “truth” to uncover or fight for. Gong was the only one who understood the chain of causality between the rising flames and the accident, and the only one who cared. She thought about the distance between the fire and the intersection. About the angle between them. About the abyss. Into the abyss she plunged, trapped in the diving bell. The ICU had no windows. Gong stood there and watched the patient. The patient watched her. They watched each other with eyes unmet, as if gazing into the distance past each other. Eventually, the patient moved his lips, as though trying to speak. No words were formed. Foam formed on the corner of his mouth, then dissipated into a small patch of moisture. It slowly dried white.      He did not seem to be asking, Will I live?       Yes. You will. You have to. Gong did not answer. She simply had her eyes on him. Watching silently.      What good is it, clinging to life? They’ll interrogate me, then the world will condemn me, the patient did not seem to say.      You have to live. Otherwise. . . how am I supposed to I kill you? Gong did not say.      That’s right. Kill me. As soon as you can, the patient did not say. If he did, she could never kill him.      It had been ten days now since Gong started personally administering neurotransmitter treatment injections into his arm. In proper doses, it would heal the patient. But an overdose would cause catastrophic side-effects such as cardiac arrest or circulatory failure.      It was a doctor’s job to maximize a drug’s effects while minimizing its side effects. She couldn’t remember how many times she emphasized this at guest lectures. All drugs—whether chemotherapy agents or cold medications or painkillers—cause both effects and side effects. The Greek word pharmaka, where we get the word “pharmacy,” refers not just to medicine and toxins, but to all drugs, no matter their effect. The truth is, the rest of the world also consists of countless interactions between effects and side effects. . .      At least, that was Gong’s understanding. If there were no side effects, it meant no effect had taken place. That understanding was the bedrock upon which her knowledge of pharmacology, love, and life was built.      Gong had once seen a feral cat catch a mouse. I thought cats these days didn’t care about mice. Maybe ferals are different. Hyeon-wu’s face fell. The cat was literally tearing into the mouse. Probably intending to toy with it for a long time before finally letting it die. With bloodied teeth and gleaming eyes, the cat looked up at Hyeon-wu. Hyeon-wu looked at the cat. In that instant, Gong looked not at the cat, but at Hyeon-wu. She knew he would watch the cat for a long time.      Hyeon-wu said that he was exhausted. He was sick of recreating such scenes. The world was already unfathomably violent and aggressive and sadistic, and reproducing them in photography or words felt like empty repetition, he said. Gong thought he was being too emotional. Hyeon-wu was always true to his emotions, always running straight towards his next destination, always risking danger, and frequently hurt in the impact. That was both his weakness and his charm, Gong had thought. She knew that thoughtful people who examined both sides of an argument and tried to take all the multifaceted aspects of a situation into account were the lethargic ones.      I don’t believe I’ll be going back to the wilderness or to conflict zones, Hyeon-wu was supposed to say clearly and persuasively at the interview. I’m more drawn now to the peacefulness of a quiet life, the quiet struggles within that serenity, and the love and death that eventually follow. That new direction in my life guided the direction of my new book. . .      The morgue did not permit her to see him, because according to regulations, only family were permitted to view bodies. I’m sorry, but we can’t do that. And the body was. . . severely damaged when the car caught fire. Not just the epidermis, but. . . The manager trailed off, knowing that Gong was a doctor. She didn’t have to hear the rest. The external force of the crash would have broken his body and ravaged his skin, his organs, and his nerves. There was no nuance or subtlety there. Gong pictured the scene as if looking at an ultrasound or an MRI. With eyes shut, she played it back in her mind in monochrome. How could she not? And how could she possibly stop? This too will pass, Gong did not think.      She opened her eyes. Silently looked at the patient. She had a needle in hand. His eyes were shut. The blood vessels in his neck looked more prominent than usual. It only took a little effort to administer an injection. She simply had to insert the needle and put pressure on her thumb. The drugs in the syringe would flow into the vein. It would circulate through the patient’s blood.      This man had no idea what a diving bell was, let alone what it meant to sink into the abyss in one. This man would live. Still trapped in her bell, still sinking into the depths, she watched the man. The room was a quiet, bottomless aquarium. Down and down the diving bell sank, and Gong’s body and soul were slowly warped. Poison slowly spread through her heart, but she did not realize it.      The ICU had no windows. As it had one simple purpose, the room was a space without an outdoors. With herculean effort, the patient opened his eyes. His gaze pointed at Gong. Who is this person, and why am I lying here, he seemed to wonder. But soon he seemed to get his bearings and his lips twitched. Gong watched, eyes narrowed, before leaning her ear close to his mouth. The patient’s voice reached her ear. Gong’s face slowly went rigid. Translated by Slin Jung

  by Lee Jangwook