Kwon Wookyung dropped me off at the front gate and said, “See you.”
I answered with a flustered “Yeah, yeah,” waving my hand back and forth. Kwon Wookyung stood still in that spot right up until the moment I closed the gate.
Wait. I feel like I forgot something?
The thought had barely crossed my mind when Haeyong let out a short bark, staring toward the inside of the garden. It was because of Dad.
Dad had been sitting on the bench under the tree, looking up at the sky, and when he saw me, he smiled warmly. Even though it was the weekend, he’d just come back from the office and was still in his suit.
“Dad, when did you get back? What are you doing out here?”
When I sat down next to Dad, Haeyong rubbed his body against Dad’s legs and covered his suit pants in white fur.
“Just a little while ago. I was waiting for my son.”
“Aren’t you tired? You should’ve gone in and washed up. I just went around the neighborhood.”
Dad was the kind of person who had no relationship with idleness. His food trading company was fairly large, so he often went on long-distance business trips to places like the US or Europe. He was the hardest one to see at home, but on days when I had a performance or competition, he’d always carve out time to come see me. Holding an enormous, extravagant bouquet in his arms. When the stage was over, he’d praise me — saying I was the most handsome and the best one up there.
“I’m not tired at all.”
Dad lightly stroked my head.
“Dad is at his happiest these days. My little rice pup walking around this confidently, talking to me like this.”
“Hmph.”
I bumped my forehead against Dad’s shoulder, acting cute. I knew that at twenty-four, that kind of behavior didn’t really suit me anymore. But, well — it was just the two of us, so what did it matter.
“Did something good happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been smiling ever since you walked up.”
“Hmm… nothing really. Am I smiling?”
I reflexively touched the corner of my mouth — and sure enough, my lips were curled way up. Oh, I really am smiling.
“When our son is happy, his eyes droop like this, and those big eyes disappear.”
Dad pulled down the corners of his own eyes with his fingers. He always said I took after Mom’s eyes — deep double eyelids, big and wide.
“Maybe it’s because the evening air felt nice. The weather warmed up a lot today.”
I didn’t bother bringing up that I’d run into Kwon Wookyung. It wasn’t for any particular reason… I just didn’t feel like saying it, somehow.
Just then, the front door opened and Mom peeked her head out.
“What are you doing outside? If Haehyeon’s home, come in together. Come in and eat dinner.”
“Yes, yes.”
Haeyong barked back with a “Woof!” and Dad and I burst out laughing. Mom, watching us, laughed too.
Laughter really is contagious, it seems.
“I wonder when I’ll finally not have to come to the hospital anymore.”
I let out a sigh as I got into the car. I was on my way out of the hospital after finishing my rehabilitation therapy. I was so sick of it. An endless cycle of home–hospital–home–hospital. Since I could barely move on my own beyond walking slowly, I felt like I was suffocating.
I want to run around freely. I want to mash the buttons on a game controller. I want to send texts like crazy on my phone!
“Be grateful you’re not hospitalized.”
My younger hyung got into the car after me and sneered.
“I seriously feel like I’m going to die from how stuffy this is. Ha. Driver Park, could you take us to a bookstore nearby?”
I called out to Driver Park in the front seat.
“A bookstore? Why?”
“To buy a book.”
“Since when do you read?”
“Geez… I’m buying a workbook. I have to take the GED exam.”
I was currently only a middle school graduate. Since going back to high school wasn’t an option, I needed to pass the high school equivalency exam and graduate as soon as possible. I wasn’t sure yet about college or what direction I wanted to take — but I figured I’d think about that gradually.
“Oh, really? You can barely write properly and you’re talking about workbooks. Stop messing around and go home and rest.”
Haechan hyung immediately wrinkled his face and scolded me.
“No, I’m trying to buy it ahead of time so I’m prepared.”
“Since when were you such a model student. You weren’t even good at studying.”
“I was still in the top 5 in my class, you know?”
“Could you get into college with those grades?”
“Ugh……”
It was pointless to brag about grades in front of my younger hyung, who had been academically top-ranked at a national level. It only made me feel small. Seeing that I couldn’t argue back, Shin Haechan grinned smugly as expected. Ugh, so annoying. What kind of omega is ever going to take this one home.
“I still want to buy the books first.”
“So you’ve decided to use me as your pack mule.”
Grumbling and making a big show of being annoyed, he ended up following me to the bookstore anyway and bought the GED prep workbooks for me. If he was going to do it all along, he must have some kind of illness that kills him if he doesn’t give me grief first.
He kept hovering and giving unsolicited commentary even as I came back home and neatly lined the workbooks up on my bookshelf.
“…Hyung, don’t you date?”
He’d taken a leave of absence from work and spent every single day stuck at home, and all he ever did was torment me.
Please, just go out and meet someone — anyone — and torment them instead of me.
“What’s it to you.”
That prickly reaction confirmed he was definitely single.
I held back an obvious smirk and tilted my head.
“Is there really nobody around who likes you? People leave letters in my desk drawer or reach out through ByeolStar all the time.”
As underwhelming as I might seem, I’d had quite a few girlfriends. Someone would confess, we’d date, break up, and then someone else would confess right away — to the point where I barely had a moment of being single after my first relationship.
“Who said there isn’t? By any measure I’m too good for them — why would I waste my time dating some half-baked person and end up like you?”
Hyung scoffed. True to form as someone who lived for their own self-importance, he said things in the most brazen way — the kind of thing that would get you pelted with rocks if you said it out loud in public.
Who on earth is going to end up with that one someday?
“What was that?”
Without realizing it, I’d let my inner thoughts slip out and even clicked my tongue — so Shin Haechan pressed his finger against my nose and yanked it hard.
“Ow, ow! Let go!”
“Let’s fix that flat nose of yours while we’re at it.”
“It’s not flat!”
The man who was supposedly an orthopedic surgeon was spouting quack nonsense while tormenting my perfectly fine nose. I frantically breathed through my mouth and made a whole scene before finally prying his hand off. If he pressed on an injured area with that kind of force, he’d be killing all his patients.
I rubbed my tingling nose and glared straight at Shin Haechan.
“Stop bothering me and get out!”
“Watch your language! Be polite!”
After nagging me and flicking my forehead twice on top of it all, he mocked me one last time on his way out.
“Just you try asking me some stupid question when you can’t figure something out while studying.”
“When have I ever asked you anything?!”
Watching my younger hyung, I had come to understand with painful clarity that being a top-tier academic genius didn’t necessarily mean you were good at teaching. I could confidently bet anything that if that man ever became a professor someday, he’d be infamous as a psycho who tormented his students.
Hyung easily dodged the cushion I threw at him with all my might, let out an irritating cackle, and slammed the door shut.
When am I going to go pick that up? I turned away from the cushion lying pitifully on the floor and ran my fingertips along the spines of the books lined up on the shelf.
No one was pressing me to achieve something quickly, but I alone felt restless. I need to work harder on my finger exercises and handwriting practice.
I moved the hand gripping the pencil slowly across the blank notebook. Every time the pencil tip grazed the paper, clumsy handwriting at an elementary school level revealed itself.
Hello
Twenty-four
Ballet
Kwon
I was writing down words as they came to mind when I paused.
“Kwon” had too many strokes, so it was glaringly obvious how poorly I’d written it. Something this ugly doesn’t suit Kwon Wookyung. As far as I could remember, Kwon Wookyung had never been ugly for a single moment in his life. I had watched that guy grow up over ten years, barely missing a day — so I could say that with confidence.
Me beside Kwon Wookyung, Kwon Wookyung beside me. That had been such an obvious, given formula.
That law had come into being when eight-year-old me first came to Korea.
I was born and raised in America. It was because of my father’s business. There weren’t many Korean people in Pasadena, California, so at the private school I attended, there were no other Koreans in my grade. So in daily life, I spoke almost exclusively in English. Since I had family, I wasn’t completely unable to speak Korean… but I wasn’t particularly gifted at learning languages, so my parents had put off my Korean education for later.
But the schedule for returning to Korea due to business got moved up sooner than expected, and I ended up coming to Korea with very little confidence in my Korean. My speaking ability in particular was noticeably lacking, and my pronunciation was awkward.
“An-nyo… ye-deu-ra.”
At that time, I was facing the greatest crisis of my life.
