Still the Same

"It wasn't that bad, you know."

"Like hell it wasn't. I thought you were out there telling the whole world you'd come from the country. You were seriously country when we first met."

Won-young pulled the sun visor down and stared into the mirror as if she meant to bore a hole through it. She held the look for a long moment, then hiked both shoulders as high as they would go.

"Still. Getting this pretty without a single surgery—that's pretty impressive, don't you think?"

"And there she goes."

"Tell the truth. I wasn't ugly. I was just a little country, that's all."

Slipping back into old thoughts, Lee-kyung let out a short laugh. Even then, Won-young had been strangely obsessed with being told she was pretty. Most likely because he almost never said it.

After they started dating he would still look at her, often enough, and call her ugly. Only that had been another way of saying she was beautiful—a childish little game, born of the fear that she was so lovely something might happen if anyone else laid eyes on her. If he had known they would break apart so soon, he would have said it more often.

He turned his attention back to the road. It was all long past. He did not regret those days, not for a second—the days he had pushed her hard enough that she could leave without a single lingering regret.

"What are you doing tomorrow?"

Won-young was asking again. He had nothing on, but he didn't hurry to answer, and her impatience got the better of her. Right on cue, she called him once more.

"Ryu Lee-kyung. I asked what you're doing tomorrow."

Their eyes met, and she pressed him without bothering to hide how urgent she was.

"Please just answer me faster."

"You're the impatient one. I'm not slow."

"You are slow. Seonbae, you are so slow. I'm going to explode!"

He breathed out a short laugh and swept his bangs back.

"What else. I'll be working."

"Don't tell me you're working tomorrow too. I finally came home, and you won't even spend time with me? I came back to Korea after nine whole years."

He set his arm on the window frame as if none of it touched him. His voice came out a little cold.

"Why would I hang out with you."

"I don't have anyone to hang out with."

"See Ji-an."

"Of course I'm seeing Ji-an. She just can't drink. The only person around who'll stay up all night drinking with me is you, Seonbae. What am I supposed to do?"

He turned his gaze toward the window and muttered.

"We already saw each other at dawn. Meeting again tonight would be pretty rude to that handsome younger boyfriend of yours. Know when to quit, Noh Won-young."

If you want to drink with me, end it with your boyfriend first and then come back. The words rose all the way to his throat. Whatever shape they might have taken, Lee-kyung did not let them out.

"He wouldn't care."

"I would. I'm more particular about manners than I look, and I'm conservative, and—"

"That's low."

She cut him off mid-sentence to call him cheap, and he gave a hollow laugh.

"Fine. I'm the bad guy. Anyway, I'm busy. I've got a lot to do."

"Busy with what? You don't even have an exhibition to prepare."

"And why do you know my entire schedule."

"I happen to have a very competent spy. Whatever. Just so you know, I'm barging into your studio tomorrow."

"Don't tell me you have the address too."

"Yep. Did you think I wouldn't?"

"Ease up."

"There is no easing up with me. You know that, Seonbae. From the very beginning, once I set my mind on something, I did it."

"You don't let a single word go."

"Nope. I don't lose to you anymore. I'm going to do whatever I want."

Sure he couldn't win this with words, Lee-kyung swept a hand quickly from her forehead all the way down to her chin.

"...Do whatever you want."

"Seonbae."

"What. Why are you being scary."

"I'm hungry."

"One thing after another."

"I'm hungry! Buy me food."

Trees mirrored in the dawn lake shivered, one after another, in the wind. Her house was right in front of them. In the end, he turned the car around.

She had forgotten to turn the alarm off.

Still half in a dream, Won-young dragged her sleep-heavy eyes open and barely managed to shut it off. Arirang—set so she would not forget a Korean's pride even in a foreign country—was her own little morning call, cute on purpose.

She meant to steal a little more sleep, but somewhere a bird was singing. Cheep. Cheep-cheep-cheep. Good grief. It really was birdsong. Oh my—how many years had it been?

Won-young rubbed her eyes and sat up in a hurry. Through the window she had left open, the first thing she saw was a massive zelkova far off, standing guard at the village entrance. Early summer hung in the air. Outside, everything was deep sunlight and wind, and the blue-green trees that watched over the village stirred something in her. June. In the season she loved best, she finally let herself savor the fact that she had come home.

"Wow. Still the same."

Munsan-myeon, Aokuri. Once the long stretch of highway ended and the country road began to wind, that was where the real Aokuri started. Against the great rise of Mount Aok, houses stood scattered here and there, the kind of warm, familiar scene you could find in any farming village. Every house had a wide yard, and instead of building the walls up high, the neighbors had planted deep-rooted trees there that bore fruit through all four seasons. So whenever hunger struck, picking an apple off a branch, or gathering persimmons, or popping a jujube into her mouth to chew—that had been ordinary life for Won-young as a child.

"Haaaa."

She drew in the cool morning air and reached both arms long toward the ceiling. Stretching herself out in turn, she let her gaze drop. Up close, discarded furniture huddled together, and every kind of junk lay piled in a mess.

"Our house is the same, too."

Twelve pyeong. A container house—barely four hundred square feet. This was the home where Won-young had lived, day and night, until she came of age. Small as it was, it had everything it needed: a kitchen, a bathroom, two rooms. Of course, leave the rooms behind and you had to put your shoes on to reach the kitchen and the bathroom, each on its own. She hadn't minded. Here she had grown up looking toward countless dreams, a sweet future, a tomorrow in which she would be happy.

On the old desk, notebooks lay stacked in layers. Knowing exactly what they were for, Won-young smiled before she realized she was smiling.

That was when it happened.

Through the low window, Dad Jeong-geun popped into view and grinned at her. From outside he asked with a gesture, You eating now? Won-young nodded.

"Yeah. Of course I am."

"What's wrong with your face, then?"

"What's wrong with my face?"

Jeong-geun pointed at the mirror behind her. Mid-yawn, she caught sight of herself and startled.

"Oh my, look how puffy I am. Dad, where did my eyes go?"

"Where do you think. You traded them for the ramen you ate at dawn."

Won-young burst out laughing.

"Yeah. You're right. At dawn I ran all the way to the convenience store in the next village and ate my way through ramen, dumplings, and—oh! Vienna sausages, too. But Dad, when did that convenience store show up? I feel like something else used to be there."

"A gas station."

"Ah... So the gas station went under after all?"

Jeong-geun said it had.

"Oh, Dad—after breakfast I'm going for red-bean shaved ice. You'll come with me, right? I want Aunt Hyesuk's."

Thirty years old, and the moment she came home she felt as if she had turned back into the heedless little girl she used to be. At the excitement she couldn't hide, Jeong-geun bit lightly at his lower lip.

"Dad, why do you look like that?"

"You can't eat that anymore."

"Why? Aunt Hyesuk doesn't make shaved ice now?"

"The thing is, Hyesuk died of colon cancer two years ago. So the shop closed for good."

"..."

She hadn't known.

That the shaved-ice shop belonging to Aunt Hyesuk—the place she and Ryu Lee-kyung had gone all through every season when the heat bore down—was no longer in Aokuri. And that Aunt Hyesuk had died of colon cancer the year before last. She had not known any of it.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were out of your mind getting your graduation work ready back then, so your mom and I just went quietly."

"...I see."

"Yeah. Come on out. Wash up and let's eat."

"Okay."

Two years ago, Won-young had been so busy that even ten bodies would not have been enough. More than once, she had answered a call from her parents and fallen asleep without ever realizing it.