—If your hometown is in Jeju and you work in Itaewon, why do you live in Incheon?
He said it was because of his older brother. Just a year older than Gyu-ho, his brother, after four years of trying, had managed to get into a medical school that happened to be in Incheon. Around the time he was finishing up his premed courses, their mother came up to Incheon, saw how badly he was living, and sent Gyu-ho to help him out. Gyu-ho began to make his brother’s meals, clean up his place, and be a companion (?) to him. I was surprised by this positively anachronistic, eighties-style narrative of the scrappy bumpkins who come up to Seoul for their schooling, but Gyu-ho seemed to have a different take on it.
—I was a troublemaker from an early age. I dropped out of high school. I even dropped out of the technical school I only scraped into. I felt bad for Umma, there was nothing to do on the island, and since I’m gay, I wanted to try living in Seoul. Not that Incheon is Seoul, but you know what I mean. So I came up.
—Isn’t it hard living with your brother?
—It’s hard. Very hard.
This spoiled brother of his seemed like a real piece of work. Saying he hated the rib stew Gyu-ho had cooked for him, he ate only the meat off the ribs and flushed the bones down the toilet, which remained broken to this day. When he was home, all he did was put on his headphones and curse loudly while he played video games. When Gyu-ho said they had barely exchanged ten words in their six months together, his face was shaded with an animosity that I had never seen in him before. Being the tactful-if-crafty little thing that I was, I changed the subject by asking Gyu-ho what he did during the week, to which he answered lightly that he went to nursing school.
—The government subsidizes it and they even pay you a stipend. I’m almost finished with the clinical part. Hey, do you know this song? Let’s go together to You Sulhee, You Sulhee Nursing Academy . . .
The “song” was apparently the jingle to his nursing hagwon. I laughed and said I’d never heard of it; Gyu-ho looked sad and said that everyone in Incheon knew it.
—My parents said that when my brother sets up a clinic, I could get a job there helping him. Basically asking me to be his servant for the rest of my life.
He said this expressionlessly. What was he, a babbling brook? I could see right through him. And how did he know that complicated family histories were my special weakness? This was a punch I hadn’t seen coming. In my not-so-short time living the gay life, Gyu-ho was the first person I’d met who put on no airs and was willing to reveal himself all the way down to the marrow. There was the look of someone who was stubborn as hell but managed to do everything he was told. He gave me the impression of being someone unusual in that regard. As I stared at him without saying anything, he looked back at me and said in a somewhat mournful voice:
—Really, everyone in Incheon knows it. You Sulhee.
I finished off the udon broth down to the bottom of the bowl and said:
—Are you busy today?
—Why?
—I can get you into a musical for free.
—Wow, really? Can you do that? I’ve never seen a musical before.
That the first musical of his life was going to be a production of what was said to be the worst casting of Grease in world history . . . I felt a bit bad for him, but what could you do? That’s fate for you.
—I’ll get you the best seat in the house. But I have one condition.
—What’s that?
—I have a close friend named Ji-yeon. You know, that guy who hit me with his elbow?
—I know him. He’s muscly and tan. Famous.
—Right. He can be an ass but he also has a knack for occasional insight, if you know what I mean. He said something to me once. That when two people are different ages but speak informal Korean to each other, they’ve had sex. So let’s speak informal Korean.
—How old are you?
—I was born in eighty-eight, you in eighty-nine. You should call me “hyung.”
—Hey, how did you know when I was born? But I’m an early eighty-nine. All my school friends are eighty-eight.
—This is the real world, who cares if you’re an early eighty-nine? That’s the way it is out here. Besides, you said you dropped out.
He said nothing.
—Sorry. I need to watch my mouth. But let’s speak informally.
The pout of his thin lips provoked an urge to tease him with everything I had in my arsenal as well as a conflicting urge to give him everything in my heart, my world.
We walked side by side to the theater, where I got the guy in charge of ticketing to get Gyu-ho a seat. He went into the theater alone, and I sat down in the small glass case next to the box office as always, staring at the large monitor that showed the performance live onstage. Danny, in his tight blue jeans, got on the car and shouted:
—Greased lightning!
The little car on the stage would be shining its headlights on Gyu-ho’s face. Was it weird that that small fact made me think Danny’s unspeakably bad singing was a little better today? And there I was behind the glass showcase, humming, “Let’s go together to You Sulhee, You Sulhee Nursing Academy.” I was well and truly screwed.
?
Gyu-ho barged into my house one Saturday afternoon. He took out a Bosch drill set from his gigantic backpack. He said he’d set his heart on purchasing it with the tips he’d collected from Chinese tourists over the Seol holidays, not that I could understand why anyone would set their heart on a drill set. Gyu-ho took out the curtain rods and curtains I’d squirreled away in the corner of my closet. Then he started to put up the curtain rods, standing on a chair, while I held the chair steady and looked up at him.
—What is this obsession with you and curtains?
—You’re always frowning when you sleep. It’s kind of ugly.
I grinned. Gyu-ho got all sweaty as he installed the rods and hung the curtains. “I’m all done,” he said as he came down from the chair, and I wiped his sweat. His warm forehead. The curtains, wrinkled from being stuffed in the corner for so long, really did block out even the tiniest ray of light. Like Gyu-ho and I were all alone in this world. He left the drill set by the desk and said he had to go to work.
—This early?
—Yeah. I’m having dinner with all the other hyungs.
—Aren’t you going to take the drill?
—It’s heavy. It’s not like I’m going to use it anywhere else.
—(Jesus, why buy it then?) Sit down for a bit at least.
He was already late, he said, not pausing for even a glass of water as he whooshed out the door. I stared at the closed door. He came all this way to hang the curtains? From Incheon?
What the hell? So touching.
That night, I woke up to an urgent knocking on the door. Complete darkness. Fuck, who is this in the middle of the night? I picked up my phone: three missed phone calls, and the time was 7:30 a.m. Jesus, could morning really be this dark? I heard another series of knocks on the door and stumbled toward it, wearing nothing but underpants. There Gyu-ho stood with a box of macarons in his hand.