Tears welled up but didn’t spill over. There had been plenty of time to cry. I flushed repeatedly until the paper was all gone. Gathering my wits, I picked up my bag once more. I opened the door.
Umma was now lying on the grass and staring up at the sky. She looked incredibly calm. At peace. I wondered if that ninety-nine-pound, fifty-eight-year-old woman staring at the fading firmament was feeling the same way I was feeling. That my life could not be summed up like the neat columns of numbers on a chart, that it could swerve in an unpredictable direction at any time. That the person I thought I knew best just because we had blood ties could actually be the most mysterious and unknown. That there were times in life when you just have to stop holding on. And that was why the only thing I could do now was to cease all thinking, to simply watch her as she smiled and attached meanings to silly things like the rising and setting of the sun. All I could do was await her death. And hope that she would die without having known.
PART THREE
Love in the Big City
1.
Gyu-ho and I decided to go on a trip to Japan together, to commemorate our two-hundred-day anniversary. We pretended to be working in our respective offices while actually composing on a spreadsheet our itinerary for the three-night, four-day trip. Or to be more accurate, I would propose something, and Gyu-ho would automatically agree.
—We’ll go to Asakusa, take pictures with the Doraemon at Odaiba, and do the hot springs in Hakone.
—Sure, sure.
We took so long packing on the day of the trip that we arrived with only minutes to spare at the airport. The queues at security and immigration made me sure we would miss the flight, but thankfully everything was moving fast. Until we presented two passports at the ticketing counter and one came back to us.
It was mine.
—Sir, this passport is expired.
Like an idiot, I had brought my expired passport, issued from before my military service. Gyu-ho was freaking out next to me (“What do we do what do we do”) and we had only a few minutes until boarding.
I gave up and handed him the envelope of Japanese yen we had exchanged in advance.
—Pocket money from your hyung.
—What?
—Everything is booked and it’s too late for refunds. At least one of us should get to enjoy it.
—You want me to go to Japan, by myself? What’re you going on about?!
Gyu-ho’s Jeju accent was rearing its cute head, which always happened when he was upset. I stuffed the envelope into his pocket and showed him the itinerary on my phone.
—Follow this plan and find some guy to spend the night with. They say Japanese men have bigger dicks. Have a million affairs. OK?
—Seriously, what the hell?
Gyu-ho grinned, more disconcerted than anything else, as I pushed him into the line for customs. He kept looking back at me, and I waved at him to go on.
I got back on the airport link alone. Gray, empty marshland stretched on and on outside the window. I felt like I was watching the same movie on repeat. My ears craved music, so I put on Kylie Minogue’s album Aphrodite for old time’s sake. Days like this reminded me of her voice. My lips kept drying out, but my pockets turned up empty—no lip balm. This was usually Gyu-ho’s cue to hand me some of his. That wasn’t all he did for me. He came home before me, cleaned the floor, had the stew cooked salty just the way I liked it, struck me speechless with the many ridiculous things he said . . . What was I going to do without him for four days? I thought of how long it had been since Gyu-ho and I had had sex. I’d never had a relationship so unmoored from sex before. And it was me who had told him to sleep around with Japanese guys, so why was I feeling shitty? Proving once again that no one is a bigger idiot than me.
?
I first met Gyu-ho at what’s now a defunct gay club in Itaewon.
It was Chuseok and they were having an all-you-can-drink tequila event. Not having a family to join for Chuseok—being a certified Unnatural focused on bringing shame to the family (not much has changed since then) and generally being stuck in poverty (yup, still)—I could hardly afford to pass up such an opportunity. I left the following message in our group chat:
Hey guys, there’s an unlimited tequila event at G today. See you all there.
My friends were all in their twenties and would never say no to a free drink, and thus we “T-ara members” soon found ourselves strutting down Itaewon-ro in formation. I’d labeled our group chat after the girl group T-ara because there were six of us and I’m so very creative at naming things. I was the second shortest of the group and had a seriously nasal singing voice. Naturally that made me So-yeon, but that’s not important; what’s really important was that we had descended upon the club and were making our entrance.
Green lasers were flashing from the ceiling, as if they were frantically trying to take someone’s eye out, and of course there were too many people at the main bar for us to get our drinks. The standing tables near the DJ booth were empty because the speakers nearby were so loud. We set up there. While the members of T-ara each had the heart of a delicate girl, we were mostly giants over five foot nine. We tried our darndest to go easy on the mincing and keep our shoulders wide and straight as we downed our tequila, our eyes rolling from side to side as we surreptitiously took in the scene. But soon, we were knocking it back: “Hey guys, slow down.” “We’re gonna get plastered.” “Hey, Boram, you’re already tilting. I said slow down.” “Wait, where’s Eun-jung gone?” “Ah, fuck it. Let’s get drunk.” So-yeon, whose liver was relatively healthy as he was in his twenties, overestimated his capacity a little too much and ended up dumping drinks down his throat like it was some overflowing sewer. And lo, the prophecy “We’re gonna get plastered” came to pass.
That was when I noticed the bartender who was trying to keep up with the demand for shots. Shorn hair, cute guy. What did the neon letters hanging above his head say?
Don’t be a drag. Just be a queen.
The speakers were pounding J.Lo and Pitbull’s “On the Floor” directly onto our eardrums.
—Hey, DJ! Why the fuck do I have to listen to “On the Floor” at a fucking gay club?