That Little Face

"That build... I've seen it somewhere. Damn it, who was that."

Ong Jun-soo shoved past So-yul and flung the door wide. Staring after the back of the retreating car, he kept muttering that he'd seen that figure somewhere before.

"That your boyfriend?"

"What are you even saying!"

"You were drinking, weren't you? So your boyfriend dropped you off."

"Stop talking nonsense and get out of the way!"

So-yul shooed her brother off like a fly and stepped into the shop.

"Our girl's home?"

Song Hye-jin came limping out of the kitchen. So-yul's mother had a willowy fineness that could have carried her down a runway, and even with the years on her she was still lovely. But her right leg had all but lost its use, and simply standing was a struggle. So-yul saw that aching leg every day, and every time it caught in her throat the way a fistful of hot sweet potato did, tight and airless, impossible to swallow down.

"Oppa, why was Mom crouched on the floor scrubbing the pot? I told you to do that."

She must have been at it until a moment ago. Deeper in the kitchen sat a huge cauldron still lathered in suds, and the low stool beside it.

"I was checking the sales."

"Yeah, we split the work. It's easier if Mom handles the kitchen."

"Soju and makgeolli flew out the door today. Putting the potato pancakes and the braised dried pollack on the menu must've done it."

Crowing that the numbers were up, Jun-soo even tore a slip off the register and held it out for her to see. A sigh escaped her. The clock was pushing toward eleven. Come in at six in the morning to prep the shop, and the hours left for resting at home came to almost nothing.

"Can you not see Mom's leg hurts?"

"How could I not see it? Mom, the second I expand us into a chain, I swear I'll roll you out a road of nothing but flowers. I was already gonna buy one of those massage chairs this time—"

Looking at that feckless brother of hers, anger surged up hot. If he was going to stake himself to the army, he should have served it out faithfully there. What wind had blown him into walking away so he could run a restaurant, she would never understand. She had wanted to set aside a little more of her resident's pay, wait for the savings to mature, and then let Mom close up Ongsimi House and rest. The way things looked, their mother would never be able to put the work down, and it would be precisely because of her son.

Goddamn mama's boy.

"So-yul, you're about to start shooting lasers out of your eyes."

"Shall I get our girl some potato dumplings? Jun-soo!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get the fire going!"

Whether they had any sense of what was churning in her or not, mother and son closed ranks to fuss over So-yul. Before long the potato dumplings arrived, steam threading up off them in soft curls.

"Eat. Our girl worked so hard again today."

"Our little squirt, say ah. Oppa will feed you himself."

A dumpling, dipped in the little dish of soy sauce and lifted clear, came sailing toward her mouth. So-yul snatched the chopsticks straight out of Jun-soo's hand and ate it herself. With every chewy bite, the worry for her mother and the resentment toward her brother eased.

"Good, isn't it?"

"Brand-new menu item. Feels like it's gonna be a hit, doesn't it?"

Was this what family was? Looking at the two of them, so very alike, So-yul smiled.

"All right. Now talk. So-yul, who'd you give Oppa's uniform to?"

The question ambushed her, and her throat locked. She coughed.

"I'm asking where the uniform with all my memories went. Be honest. You sold it secondhand on Karrot along with the Ongsimi tee, didn't you?"

"I did nooot... Who would even buy that!"

Under the weight of Jun-soo's pressing, her voice shrank until it was crawling like an ant.

Next time I see Dr. Kang, I have to ask for it back. He's busy too. He probably just forgot.

"That no isn't sounding like a no. Where'd you sell it?"

"Seriously, Oppa, what kind of lunatic buys a smelly old uniform? And why is this calendar so crooked? I ought to hang it back up."

She reached for the big calendar on the wall, meaning only to change the subject, and it dropped with a sudden thud. The pages flipped as it tumbled across the floor.

So-yul's gaze snagged on a single date. A date circled in red. The day she had wished would never come, marked there as if to show itself off.

If only that date had been the anniversary of her father's death. Staring at the D-day she did not even want to think about, that was what ran through her. Regrettably, her father was healthier than anyone, and stronger than anyone.

Like a devil.

"Mom."

"So-yul, that... I thought it was something you ought to know."

Without a word, So-yul grabbed the calendar and threw it in the trash. Unwilling to let the air turn awkward, she stretched, forcing herself to look as if nothing at all were wrong.

"I'm full. I'll scrub that while I digest."

Hold them as she might, the tears felt ready to spill, so she went into the kitchen.

With her bare hands she scrubbed hard at the huge pot her mother had left half-washed. Knowing So-yul's temper, her mother and brother cleaned the dining room in silence.

She could not have said how much time had passed. Her head was a snarl of every stray thought when a text buzzed in.

What is this. What kind of face is that.

That the message amounted to nothing worth calling a message was surprising enough. More surprising still was the name attached to it. Kang Dae-han.

She stared blankly at the texts arriving one after another.

Was she only imagining it, that the warmth she had felt in Kang Dae-han's car seemed to be rising now off this low little stool? She glanced to the side for no reason at all. The man who had filled every inch of that car was not there. Even so.

The message he had sent made its weight known, a presence settling over her, and it warmed her through.

The day had no edges to it. Life tore along as busily as if someone had stamped a D-day across it and set the clock running, and So-yul ran with it, through the hospital and through it again, seeing patient after patient the way a person tries to outrun the noise in her own head.

The red circle on the calendar. The day the man who called himself her father would walk free. She had wanted it never to come, but the seconds ticked on regardless, drawing nearer the morning the world would be made to take him back. Months still remained, and already her heart was pounding.

She was sorting patient charts at the station when Ahn Hae-young craned her neck in and stared at the screen.

"Ong-ong. What's with you today? You sick somewhere?"

"This is your third time on the same patient. Did you not sleep?"

Hae-young's words jolted her. Writing the same patient's admission and discharge sheets, and writing them again. She had plainly lost her mind.

"And the important part. You're way past clock-out. So you'll pull call for me, yeah?"

So-yul looked at the clock. It was already past ten.

"Oh—right!"

The hour they had set was long gone, and it hit her like a bat across the skull. Her mind snapped clear all at once.

"I'm going!"

"Where are you tearing off to?"

"An errand!"

Her steps pattered quick down the hall. She jammed the charts into some kind of order and, without even changing out of her white coat, hurried for the department office on the third floor.

Lee Hyeok had just come out of the on-call room. He shook the water from his hair, as if he had only now washed, and looked at her.

"Dr. Ong. What brings you here?"

"Is Dr. Kang Dae-han in?"

"I think he headed off a little while ago. Said he'd left something in an outpatient room."

"Thank you!"

At his word she caught the elevator and rode it down.

The message had come from Dae-han that morning. So-yul was the sort who kept an appointment to the minute, but the day had been such chaos that she had forgotten this one clean.

"Ha. I left my phone."

It was dead of night, and the whole of the second floor, where the outpatient clinics sat, had been shut off into solid black. She thought of calling to ask where he was, only she had left the phone back at the station.

"Where are you?"

The outpatient wing, laid out more like a maze than any other part of the hospital, felt strangely cold along her skin.

"Are you in there?"

A thread of light leaked from the X-ray room behind its steel door. She hauled the heavy metal door open and stepped through.

Behind her came a heavy clank, and the thick steel door fell shut.

"Aaaaah!!!"

The skeleton standing bolt upright inside the radiography room struck her eyes at the same instant, and the shock tore the scream out of her. She was frightened that badly. The moment she spun to run, her foot slipped, and her body pitched backward into open air.

"Dr. Ong So-yul."

In that split second, a man caught her out of the air with one hand.

"Keep this up and you really will crack your skull."

Panting, she opened her eyes. It was not the ceiling. It was Kang Dae-han.