At Pujo’s firm attitude, the dejected man’s eyes landed on the ticket. The man snapped his fingers rhythmically and drew a square shape.
“Note.”
“I can’t pass along notes either. I don’t know that person.”
“That’s too much…”
His shoulders drooped like a Welsh Corgi denied a walk. Still not giving up, he rummaged through his pockets and pulled out an envelope and pen, then scribbled something on the back.
“This.”
“?”
“VIP ticket. I’ll give you that.”
“So what…?”
Pujo frowned and opened the envelope. Then he looked back and forth between what he was holding. They were the same tickets, only with different seat numbers.
“What, VIP means expensive, right? I’m not taking it. Why would you give me this?”
“It’s okay, I have lots of tickets.”
The man quickly changed his words with an “oops.”
“No, it’s expensive… So take it and pass it along. The back.”
When he turned the envelope over, handwriting that looked like it might fly away, written in terrible penmanship, was visible.
“And…”
The man, who’d been looking around with his pen open for a moment, leaned his elbow on the bar and suddenly scrawled on a napkin. Just from the momentum, it was like a calligraphy master’s single stroke.
“Kickback.”
The man spoke in a fluent, confident pronunciation unlike his Korean. The man grinned and waved his hand as he left the bar. Pujo’s boyfriend, Nam Juwung, turned the napkin around in bewilderment.
“Bribery… isn’t this a signature?”
“What?”
“It really looks like a signature. Unless it’s some code.”
“What, so he just gave me his autograph?”
Pujo threw down the tickets he’d been holding in both hands and fumed.
“Who the hell does he think he is!”
“No, but really, who is he…? A celebrity?”
“Isn’t he a psycho? And what’s this puppy and kitty, kitties don’t have mouths… fuck.”
“No, like I said before, that’s just in English…”
“Are you taking his side now because he’s kind of handsome?”
When his angry boyfriend’s arrow flew at him, Nam Juwung buried his nose in the napkin and squinted like he was looking at a Magic Eye picture.
“It’s English. Probably… starts with T, I think.”
This time he pulled his head way back and frowned. He added uncertainly,
“Might be J too.”
“Whatever, don’t look at it. Some random bum…”
Pujo, who’d been picking up the scattered tickets, stopped his hand. Then he stared at the collaborating pianist’s name stamped on the ticket and read it aloud.
“Jed Park?”
He looked back and forth between the signature and the ticket once more. It definitely looked like a distorted J.
***
That day, Kang Ikwon was unusually in a bad mood. Hard to pinpoint exactly, but he looked stiff somehow, like he was tense. Or like someone upset.
“Won’t you go on a trip?”
After finishing a call in low, rapid English that sounded angry with someone, Kang Ikwon suddenly asked. I was slouched on the couch, scooping ice cream and watching TV, and a question mark appeared over my head.
“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“Just, I felt like doing it.”
“Where would we go?”
“Anywhere, as long as we leave Korea for a while.”
“Can’t, I don’t have a passport.”
“What?”
“You scared me.”
I was really startled by the rare loud voice. But Kang Ikwon seemed not to realize that he’d startled me by being more startled himself.
“Why don’t you have a passport? What era do you think this is?”
“It’s not even the Cold War era, why… It expired a long time ago and I didn’t renew it.”
I scooped out a corner of the melting ice cream.
“When were you planning to go? Just make a new one. Does it take about a week? Is it faster these days?”
“……”
Instead of answering, Kang Ikwon crossed his arms and glared at something for a long time. His thoughtful face looked strangely anxious. Come to think of it, he’d been a bit off since morning.
“Aren’t you curious about anything at all?”
At the sudden words, I twisted my head to shift my gaze from the TV, which had been glued to the screen, to Kang Ikwon. I wasn’t really concentrating anyway.
“About what?”
“About me.”
The travel talk disappeared, and Kang Ikwon, who’d been clinging to me like a blanket wrapped snugly around my back, stared at me. It was a sunken gaze, as if he’d been watching me instead of the screen for a long time.
“You’re kind of weird today. Are you depressed?”
“To you, I’m just a man you first met at a bar, but you never ask anything.”
“Uh… I asked a lot.”
I turned my head again and scratched my neck.
“Like, I asked if it was monthly rent and if you were going to keep living here. And I asked if you were close with your friend at that restaurant…”
I was curious about your lover often.
With a feeling like I’d lost, I didn’t let that out and kept my mouth shut tight.
“Not stuff like that—about me? Don’t you want to know anything?”
Kang Ikwon didn’t let my lame answer slide and struck it down. Strength entered the arms holding me.
“Things like my age, what school I went to, how many siblings I have, what I studied in America, what work I did. Why I came back to Korea, how long I’ll be here.”
“Are you going back to America?”
Before I knew it, my voice had gotten louder, almost like shouting. Of course, I’d never pictured a future with Kang Ikwon, but for that very reason, I’d never even imagined him leaving here either. With a dazed mind, I tried to picture New York, a place I’d never been, but nothing came to mind except the Statue of Liberty.
“Yeah, well… you lived in America for a long time…”
I forced myself to nod and sucked on the spoon. The English phone call from earlier and the way he’d demanded we travel and looked for my passport flashed quickly through my mind. Could that be it? How long did he say he lived in America? Ten years? Twenty years? I should’ve at least asked his age. How am I supposed to know what age a junior prom is even talking about? America, when I’ve never even been to Bugok Hawaii.
“Is that all?”
“What else?”
“You’re just accepting it like that and that’s it?”
“Well… if you’re going, then what can I do?”
Who am I to hold you back? I scraped the bottom of the empty ice cream container pointlessly. Kang Ikwon looked at me strangely with eyes that seemed ready to hate me to death. Eyes that were chillingly cold enough to intimidate, and seemed to resent me. He silently unwrapped his arms and went into the bedroom. Strange. When Kang Ikwon was holding me, I felt like he was clinging to me, but when he pulled away, I felt like I was the one who’d lost the hand I’d been holding tight. I followed after him, clutching the nearly empty ice cream container like Pooh’s honey pot.
“Hey, are you sulking…?”
That’s when my pocket vibrated. I checked with the spoon in my mouth, and at perfect timing, the message I needed had arrived.
Pujo hyung Got the ticket Come get it
“Oh. As soon as possible… I’ll come… get…”
Messages kept coming in succession while I was typing.
The date is today though (Confident)
“Kang Ikwon! Let me ask just one thing.”
I tried my best not to put any nuance of your wish is my command, I’ll grant you a question into my tone as I stepped on the bedroom threshold.
“Do you have time today?”
***
“Can’t we just go in together?”
“I’m just picking up one thing, right?”
“Then…”
Kang Ikwon closed his mouth with a reluctant face.
“Come back quickly.”
Ah. I clasped my itching fingers tightly together. He looks just like a sulking large dog right now—if I pinch his cheeks saying he’s cute, he’ll really get angry this time, right? But wait? This is Kang Ikwon? The same Kang Ikwon who, when his shirt turned pink from my mistake, said without hesitation, “I’ve been thinking I needed a salmon-colored shirt anyway”?
“I’ll be back at the speed of light.”
But of course, I had no intention of conducting an experiment of pouring oil on a fire. I didn’t want to make Kang Ikwon angry, nor did I want to enjoy confirming his love by watching him suppress and endure it.
When I pressed and pulled my lips away from his cheek with quick pecks, his eyes immediately softened. Watching someone’s mood and trying to ease it weren’t things I was used to. But, ah. I was tickled and delighted by even that change in myself, like a father holding his first child for the first time. I can do this. Exchanging affection with someone.
As soon as I entered, Pujo hyung held up two envelopes in both hands instead of rice cakes.
“What, why are there two?”
He paused for a moment, then soon his eyes lit up as he opened his fingers.
“I just pick one? There’s no dud, right?”
“Geez, you childish, good-natured bastard.”
Hyung flipped the envelopes over. One was clean and one was messy with scribbles like a worm crawling. I squinted and deciphered it.
“A code… Russian cursive?”
“This is a VIP R-section ticket.”
