?
This time last year, I’d gone into the same contact lens store that specialized in colored lenses. The night before, we had been dancing at a club, and Gyu-ho—in a fit of sheer enthusiasm—-had thrown his head back and lost a lens. Gyu-ho’s eyesight was so bad that the shop said they had only one product available that would work for him, and it happened to be one of those pupil-enlarging disposables. Gyu-ho said he’d rather wear the uncomfortable lenses instead of his Pororo glasses that shrank his eyes to the size of mustard seeds. We were offered a 15 percent discount if we paid in cash, but I didn’t have enough baht in my wallet. I did have some won, however, and in the process of googling for a nearby currency exchange, we found a jewelry store a few doors down that converted currencies. I was on my way back to the lens store when a nylon jacket on a Zara mannequin seduced me into entering the store and buying it. By the time I got back to Gyu-ho, he was sitting at the lens shop with his normally sleepy-looking eyes so wide in the pupils that he looked like a drug addict or a rabbit detective in a Japanese anime. Blinking his sparkling eyes, Gyu-ho immediately began to admonish me.
—What took you so long? If I died waiting for you, would you be happy?
—Sorry. The sight of you is just too funny for words. Hello, Usami.
—Kumakichi! What is this you’ve bought?
I unfurled the jacket from the shopping bag and Gyu-ho sighed. Luckily the lenses could be paid for with the money I’d just exchanged. Gyu-ho put the lens box in the fanny pack he always wore (whether in Korea or Thailand). Stepping out of Central Embassy with Gyu-ho and his twice-dilated eyes, we looked around for the pharmacy he had researched beforehand and pinned on Google Maps. It was only twenty minutes away from the hotel on the BTS monorail.
Once we got off at the station near the pharmacy, I took over navigating, as Gyu-ho was bad with directions. My expectation had been that the place would be hidden away in some seedy alley, but it was right there on the main street. The interior was also the same as any other pharmacy. I showed the pharmacist a picture of the generic version of what I needed. The pharmacist, if he really was a pharmacist, took out a bottle of pills and explained to us, in English, how they worked. He said that taking just one a day at a set time was enough to perfectly prevent the disease. He really said the word “perfectly.” How could he be so confident? He added that taking two of the pills before risky intercourse and then a pill every twenty-four hours for two more doses was enough to prevent transmission. I wrote all this down on the Notes app on my phone and wondered how different my life would be now if I’d had these pills seven years ago.
Would it have been very different? What would my life look like—better, worse, or the same as now? Thoughts led to more thoughts, but I abruptly got a hold of myself. We bought three bottles of the generics and a box of Kamagra liquid gels. It didn’t even cost 200,000 won, but we were even offered a 10 percent discount on top of that if we paid in cash, so we did. Feeling like we’d spent too much money in one day, we got back to the hotel. We took out the vodka we’d gotten from duty-free, mixed it with calamansi juice bought from a convenience store, and drank it by the pool until the sun went down.
The next morning when we got up, we burst into laughter at the sight of each other’s swollen faces. The result, likely, of drinking all night coupled with all those salty snacks. Gyu-ho, with his eyes half-closed, approached me with a pill and water. I popped one of these strange pills into Gyu-ho’s mouth and one into mine.
—We’re giving Kylie a vacation as well.
—Yeah.
After brushing our teeth side by side in front of the mirror, we showered together in the vast shower and quickly left the hotel. Quickly because we were afraid we’d end up napping again if we dawdled. No destination in mind, we began to walk where our feet took us.
—Where shall we go?
Gyu-ho said he wanted to see the ocean. I couldn’t believe he had lived for twenty-odd years by the ocean and he still wanted to see more. Aren’t all oceans the same? I thought, before I answered:
—The ocean is really far away from here.
—Why? It’s Thailand. Isn’t it surrounded by ocean?
—You’re thinking of islands like Phuket or Koh Samui. This is Bangkok. It’s like Seoul. We have to drive out for a while before we hit the ocean.
—So Bangkok is up on land as well.
Gyu-ho truly was the first person I’d ever met who used the phrase “up on land.”
I remembered the time we had first met, how he’d answered my question about why he had come to Seoul: It was my dream to come up on land.
“On land,” “my dream” . . . he sounded as sentimental as an old man from the postwar generation or a North Korean defector, enough to render me speechless for a moment—and I couldn’t help bursting out laughing.
—Why’re you laughing?
—Because you sound funny! Your accent is back.
—Stop laughing.
—Sorry. So what’s your dream now?
—My dream . . . Hmm. Making lots of money. And . . .
—And what?
—Walking down the street at dawn with you, like this.
—Ugh . . .
I had scratched at my arm to hide my embarrassment, and snuck it around his. Something I never would’ve done normally, but he did say it was his dream, and who was I to deny him that? Even the hazy smog at the crossroads near Ewha’s main gate at dawn made the setting ache with longing. Feeling like we were the only survivors left in a dystopia, we walked home together. I had drunk too fast and felt the alcohol dissipating from my brain with every step, but that was all right because I was with Gyu-ho.
Because soon we’d go to my shabby room and I’d pee toxic-smelling piss into a toilet with a weak flush, and we’d take our clothes off, shower, and lie down skin to skin in front of a whirling fan. Because it’d be just us left.
I couldn’t believe it had been two years since we became a couple. It made me feel a flash of nostalgia, which made me reach out and brush the skin on Gyu-ho’s elbow. That was the extent of the public display of affection Gyu-ho had allowed me in Thailand, the heat being his excuse. He looked over at me, eyes sparkling, and asked:
—What shall we do now?
—Do you want to see the river instead of the ocean? They’ve got a big river here, like the Han. The Chao Phraya, just twenty minutes by taxi. We can take a boat from there to Khao San Road.