Chopsticks at the Blue Gate
Dust had settled white across the bicycle saddle Aunt had bought with a hefty sum of money. Most of her outings were handled by the old bicycle instead—the one converted from a four-wheeler by stripping off the training wheels, its saddle set low. Still, mindful of Aunt’s goodwill, she rode the new one whenever she went far into town, and only pulled out the old one for neighborhood errands.
Even when she sped along the paths between the paddies, she slowed whenever she passed an alley. The unease about the suspicious tutor, the very existence of the chopsticks—tonight she would tie them all to the string of lingering regrets and send them floating lightly away.
The bicycle racing through the blue night braked as it entered the alley to Eui-joo’s house. Its headlight brightly lit the dark passage where not a single streetlamp had ever been installed. A cat rummaging through a trash bag startled at the beam and fled; the scene was comically cartoonish.
She walked the rest of the way to the blue gate, sharing the journey with her bicycle. She did not even want to guess whether she would ever come this way again. By gifting the corrective chopsticks, she meant to close out this strange, shallow connection with the man.
Rumble-rumble—when the wheels stopped, the light that had been polishing the night path in a circle went out as well. With the chopsticks drawn from her back pocket, only the final task remained. But as if the day itself were cursed with rotten luck, the blue gate opened. Someone stood right in front of the mailbox where she had planned to slip the chopsticks in secret. Startled, the bicycle began to roll backward; its light caught only the upper half of the figure. The man’s hand, casually waving mosquitoes away, disappeared into the mailbox.
“Hi… hello.”
The man who had been flipping through a stack of bills after checking only the names slowly shifted his gaze. Turning to find the source of the light that illuminated him, a change passed across his face.
“Yang Ji-eon?”
The voice asking as if the name had only just returned to him was thick with ignorance and indifference. The lukewarm attitude made her wonder if she had come for nothing. Just as she resolved to claim she had taken a wrong turn and leave, her sweat-slick palm dropped the troublesome chopsticks.
His eyes and hers landed on the same spot at the same instant—and he was faster. The wish to vanish like the wind without a word of explanation, without him ever knowing she was the one offering the gift, would never be known even if she died and came back to life. She had wanted to be remembered as something like the neighborhood’s Hong Gil-dong—a student who looked out for others, a little free-spirited, a little exemplary.
The man stared hard at the chopsticks he had picked up, then looked down at her with an expression that asked what on earth this was. Just then the idle moonlight shifted and lit her face. Her cheeks, flushed with embarrassment, must have been put on full display by the moon’s mischief. A line appeared on the man’s previously indifferent face. With brows drawn together, he studied her carefully.
“Th-that is… my mother asked me to pass them on.”
“Your mother?”
“I happened to see you eating once before, and she said your chopsticks technique was really terrible, so—uh, wait, what am I even saying right now?”
“Nonsense.”
“Right. I’m talking nonsense. Goodbye.”
Unexpected laughter from the man caught her ankle just as she turned to leave. Holding the bills under one arm, he jerked his chin toward the blue gate.
“Want to stay for dinner?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
The smile deepened; he opened the gate and went in first. Having missed the timing to refuse, she stood awkwardly, still gripping the bicycle brake. Thinking she would go inside and turn him down properly, she followed through the gate.
“Oh, wow.”
In the short time since she had last seen it, Eui-joo’s house had undergone a small yet large change. Dumbbells, a soap dish, and a red kimchi basin sat in the yard; the broken veranda light had been repaired and now shone three or four times brighter.
“The house looks… different?”
Only a few simple belongings had been set out, yet somehow the place felt restless. After looking around with her eyes alone, she turned her attention back to the man as he carried out a low table.
“Sit.”
His words were short and plain, yet carried a force that could not be refused. Clearing her throat, she slipped off her shoes and stepped up onto the veranda. She wanted to turn her head away primly, but the state of the side dishes he had brought out was simply not acceptable.
“What on earth is this…?”
“Rice. Side dish. Kimchi?”
Even he seemed unsure at the end, floating a question mark. The side dishes looked so far gone in color that she was almost afraid to touch them, and what he called rice was closer to porridge. The identity of the dish he claimed to have made himself was later revealed to be bracken fern.
The white crystals clinging to the outside were salt, he said. As if his tongue were made of iron, the man scooped up the salted bracken and piled it onto his rice. Then, without even looking, he put a spoonful in his mouth and began reading the bills.
“No, wait—that, um—”
“Hm?”
All his attention was on the bills; he answered half-heartedly. She had been about to ask whether he had used the chopsticks she brought last time to cook soup. That was before the eyes racing down the bills snagged her gaze. Hadn’t he drawn her pity last time by calling himself illiterate?
“Excuse me.”
“Yeah.”
“You said you can’t read.”
“Yeah.”
“Then what are you looking at right now?”
“Electric bill.”
“You can’t read, but you can read that?”
“Yeah.”
His joke-like answers made heat rise in her; she set down the chopsticks that had been stabbing aimlessly at the air.
“You lied.”
About being Eui-joo’s half-brother, about being sold off for debt, about dropping out of high school—he had scraped hard at other people’s sympathy. Once one lie was exposed, the rest became suspicious. Maybe it had all been a trick to freeload side dishes.
“Final consonants are hard. Other kids just started reading at some point. No one taught me.”
In a rather neat voice the man cooled the suspicion that had been boiling inside her. The spoon busy scooping rice slowed a little.
“…But you went to school.”
“The teacher laughed at me. After that I never asked again.”
So he could roughly make things out, but never knew them exactly. She thought she understood now why he had called himself illiterate. Where the suspicion had been, pity rushed in like the tide. She scooped rice so lightly that only a few grains clung to the tip of the spoon. Once she decided to think of it as porridge, it was not too bad.
“You only need to learn a little. It’s not even hard.”
Looking again, she saw a Hangul study book among the bundles of belongings set out by the door. He was not some beast that had completely given up on learning; the thought oddly reassured her.
After carefully examining the many bills, the man finished his last spoonful and stopped eating. A hand disappeared under the table and came back out of his pocket with something—the chopsticks she had given him. He turned the packaged product this way and that, then tilted his head.
“How do you use these?”
At last the topic she had wanted arrived. She set down the spoon that had been counting grains of rice and sat up straight.
“You put your fingers into those holes you can see, the way I explained last time. Middle finger in—yes, yes, like that.”
“Like this?”
“Yes! That’s it! Perfect!”
She explained with such passion that she never noticed rice grains flying in every direction. After several tries the man finally learned the proper way to hold the chopsticks. Once his hand had the feel of it, he immediately tried picking up a side dish with the new method. After a few humiliating slips on the small plate, he finally caught a piece of bracken. Overcome with emotion, she clapped without thinking.
“It looks so good. The best—the absolute best!”
Just then the man, who had been dangling the bracken he held right in front of his eyes, changed the temperature of his gaze. Softened eyes slowly, insistently traced her smiling face and clapping hands. Matching the gradually slowing rhythm of her applause, his gaze climbed until it stopped somewhere near her pupils. A lukewarm emotion flashed up and vanished. It was so brief she could not tell what the feeling had been about.
“Uh… um.”
Even she thought she might have overdone it. She sat with knees pressed together like a child being scolded and received his gaze. Yet the moment she grew quiet, the man seemed to lose interest and simply went back to picking up side dishes. Watching the much-improved chopsticks technique, she slowly floated the idea of parting.
“I… um. Maybe I should go.”
“Where.”
“Home.”
Even knowing that in Chowa-ri a student like her had nowhere else to go but home, the man deliberately asked. She had expected him to say goodbye; instead he dragged the moment out with lukewarm eyes. Having advanced one step beyond fist-style chopsticks, he kept trying to pick up bracken. She confessed to herself that her heart was full of joy watching him. The thought that she would sleep well tonight even brought a smile to her face.
“Yang Ji-eon.”
She wanted to stop flinching every time he called her full name, yet instinct still made her start. She answered brightly without showing any personal complaint.
“Yes?”
“Teach me some studying.”
“…What?”
“Because of work I have to graduate high school. It’s hard alone.”
In a calm tone he laid out his circumstances, then held her eyes for a long time. The proposal brought on by a single pair of chopsticks was quite radical. She, who had resolved to cut off all meetings starting today, could not easily open her mouth.
A person trying to settle down and study, a person isolated in the neighborhood—thoughts reached that far and she was about to speak permission when Aunt’s furious face rose before her.
“I don’t think I can. I’m busy.”
If she were ever caught playing alone with a man, it would be a death sentence. She had expected at least a flicker of disappointment, but the man only nodded as if the result were only natural.
“Yeah, okay.”
For their last night together, the ending felt somehow bland.