After New Year’s, we started taking Mandarin classes. Gyu-ho’s hospital was planning to launch a consortium with a big Chinese medical corporation to set up hospitals in Beijing and Shanghai, which was what prompted me to suggest it. There had been rumors circulating in my company that we were opening a China office too. And as the time we spent together had shrunk so much, it seemed to be a good idea to have something we could do jointly. On nights when classes finished late, we would take a cab back home together, staring off in opposite directions. Seoul’s scenery passed by slowly outside the car window. The first time I met Gyu-ho, these streets were flooded with the light of neon. Thinking of my emotions back then, I couldn’t help but grin. I had been the one to sign up for classes first, but Gyu-ho was making much better progress. I wasn’t great at memorizing things, and unlike me, illiterate in Chinese characters from a young age, -Gyu-ho used his characteristic diligence to forge ahead with great speed. He managed to obtain a level 5 on the HSK exam in only six months. I failed that level but applied for the post in Shanghai anyway.
Two weeks later, I heard the news that I and a coworker who had been hired two years before me were up for the post. Gyu-ho swiftly applied for his counterpart administrative position at his company’s Shanghai clinic and got the job. They were even offering him a living stipend. We looked up where to live in Shanghai, where the city’s gay clubs were, what the prices were like, and good places to buy furniture. While I was looking up the visa requirements for my job, I came across a clause saying that anyone wishing to reside for more than six months in China needed to pass a physical. A physical that included blood work. According to my search results, China was cracking down on sexually transmitted diseases that in recent years had been spreading among their population.
Kylie.
I had wanted too much. I’d already been given so much in the past three years. When you try to have too much, you’re bound to stumble at some point.
The next day, I went to my boss and told him that due to my mother’s illness, it was probably best for the company if I withdrew my application for the China posting. To Gyu-ho, I said that my coworker got the job. Gyu-ho replied that he would also stay, there were many hospitals that wanted him. As always, I gave Gyu-ho the right answer.
—You have to go. You can’t just give up this great opportunity. You really should go.
Gyu-ho said nothing.
?
And for two months after that, we lived the same way as before. We laughed at each other’s jokes, kissed, deboned fish for each other and placed the flesh on each other’s spoons, occasionally showered together, and in the midst of it all, Gyu-ho’s new luggage set was delivered to our house and his things left our drawers and went into his suitcases. A flash, a moment of possibility—but I didn’t go down that path. I knew the swelling of my heart would last only a moment. These feelings of aching possibility were only a sign that our time together was finally over for good.
On the last night we spent in the same house, I gazed at Gyu-ho’s sleeping face. He slept like a dead man, just like always. Why did he never make a sound when he slept? Like he was afraid of being a nuisance to others. Like he was a burden, no matter how long we had lived together. Was that my fault or his fault, or just something neither of us could do anything about?
The next day, I went with Gyu-ho to the airport in Incheon. Once we checked his bags, we had about an hour left until his flight. Gyu-ho said he was hungry, so I went to a Paris Baguette to get the japchae fried pastry he liked and some milk. I shook my head when he asked me if I was hungry too. He was the one who was hungry, but he took only a bite of the pastry before asking me a question.
—Are you going to wait for me?
—They say going out with a local helps you pick up the language faster.
—Why do you keep smiling? Is this funny to you?
—You know I smile a lot.
—Are we breaking up?
—Stop asking me. No one cares anymore.
—And you don’t care if we’re not together anymore either, right?
Gyu-ho shoved the pastry he was eating into my hand. Then, looking like he was about to cry or was infuriated with me, he got up and walked swiftly toward the departure gates. He was as big as a mountain, but he walked like an angry elementary school student. Rarely did he have such emotional outbursts—I suppose it was because I hadn’t given him any of the answers he had wanted to hear. I sat there watching him disappear before turning my head.
The airport link was surprisingly empty, even for a weekday morning. Outside the window, gray mud flats and the dried-up tufts of harvested crops stretched endlessly into the distance. As I gazed out, I realized we were passing what was technically the city of Incheon. “Incheon is famous for You Sulhee.” I mumbled the You Sulhee Nursing Academy jingle under my breath like a crazy person, and then looked around, embarrassed. I was the only person without any luggage. Just a half-eaten cold pastry in my hand. I looked down at his teeth marks in it. I had the urge to listen to a fun song, something by Kylie Minogue or T-ara, but my cell phone battery was drained. This was when Gyu-ho normally handed me a portable charger. And what else? He portioned out my pills and water every morning, passed me his lip balm when my lips were cracked, hung up blackout curtains in my room, scratched my back when it itched, took a shower first so the air in the bathroom was nice and warm. You were the only person who did those things for me, so honestly, Gyu-ho, I actually really care that we’re not together anymore, a lot . . . I continued to gaze out at the scenery outside the window that kept blurring as the train sped toward Seoul, back to the big city that I knew so well.
PART FOUR
Late Rainy Season Vacation
1.
I was a little surprised when the Uber that Habibi had sent for me arrived at its destination, because what I’d assumed was a large shopping center turned out to be Bangkok’s Park Hyatt Hotel.
I realized I’d forgotten all about the place once I stepped into the lobby.