—Enough with the sacred bullshit, doctor, just tell me if you’ll do the surgery.
The doctor then went on another rant about the importance of (her long-gone) virginity, which was the final straw for Jaehee, who burst out screaming.
Heaving from anger as she recounted all this to me, she said:
—It’s smaller than a peanut. How could it be a person?
—OK, I get that. I get all of that, but maybe stealing their uterus model is not in your best interest? It’s important to them.
—That’s why I stole it.
—You have a point, it’s very “you” of you.
I giggled as I smoked a cigarette with her. Soon, I could see the gynecologist’s nurse walking up to us. Still as expressionless as she’d been when she was sitting in the reception area, the nurse held out her hand to Jaehee.
—Miss Jaehee. Please give that to me.
—Oh, unni, I’m really sorry about all of that, but he truly was an asshole.
—Yes, I know. He’s a decrepit bastard who drives people up the wall, but you’re only making things harder for me.
Jaehee rubbed out her cigarette on the pavement.
—All right. But I’m only giving this back for your sake.
As if she had any other choice. The nurse took the model offered to her.
—There’s a clinic near Sungshin Women’s University. They do abortions, and the service is much better. That’s where I go.
—Thank you so much, unni!
Jaehee suddenly embraced the nurse and said she would buy her a drink after it was all over and got her number and everything. What the hell, I thought, does she think drinking money just falls from the sky?
But you had to admit Jaehee was nothing if not personable.
And so we arrived at the gynecologist near Sungshin Women’s University, where I felt cowed by the large pink sign in front of the building. Jaehee saw my reaction and remarked:
—Don’t you feel like we’re the Fellowship of the Abortion?
I forced a laugh, and we walked arm in arm into the clinic.
The place was like a franchise coffeeshop, spacious, clean, and with mechanically polite staff. Despite the fact that it was midafternoon, there were many patients in the waiting room. (Obviously) I was the only man there. To make it look like I was totally at ease, I sat down on a sofa and opened up an issue of Cosmopolitan. It was filled with articles about Healthy and Beautiful Sex, the Different Orgasms of Different Genders, and other subjects that felt totally abstract to me. I was wondering how I could stop nervously biting my nails when Jaehee came back out. She had a bright smile as she whispered:
—They’ll do it.
Four days later, she underwent the procedure. I paid for it in three installments: a little less than 700,000 won total. She took a taxi home afterwards. As soon as she got back, she very uncharacteristically went straight to bed, so I decided to make her seaweed soup. Never having cooked it from scratch, I misjudged how much of the dried seaweed I needed and ended up hydrating what looked like a kelp farm in the sink. I grabbed a handful like a wig and waved it over the sink shouting, “Look at this, aren’t I the biggest idiot in the world?” But Jaehee didn’t so much as turn her head my way. Any other time, she would’ve cackled along. I said to her back:
—Does it hurt a lot?
—Do you really want to know?
—Nope. This’ll be ready soon.
The first seaweed soup I’d made in my life ended in total failure. I didn’t cook the meat in the sesame seed oil at the right temperature, which gave it a bitter taste, and all the seasoning salt in the world couldn’t take away the blandness of the broth. Jaehee took about three spoonfuls and went back to bed. She moaned and sighed for a bit and then said:
—Cigarette.
—No way! Even double-eyelid surgery makes you rest for four days after.
—Cigarette!
I got her a new pack from the freezer. Jaehee put the yellow filter of the Marlboro Red in her mouth and took a delicious draw.
—Goddamn. I guess I’ll live.
Two weeks later, Jaehee returned to the world of functional alcoholism.
?
One night, we were woken up from our usual drunken stupor by someone’s shouting:
—Come out, you fucking bastard!
. . . along with other vociferous invitations of that nature. I covered my head with my blanket. Fucking asshole, why can’t these idiots just go home if they can’t hold their alcohol? But as I tried to fall asleep again, I suddenly had a feeling that the name he was shouting seemed vaguely familiar. It even, kind of, sounded like my name. Jaehee also got up, rubbing her eyes, and said:
—I think it’s for you. Better get down there.
Opening the window, I saw the engineering student I’d gone to the urologist with standing there in the street. He wasn’t much of a drinker to begin with but there he was, dead drunk, and screaming things like “You gay bastard,” “You homo,” “You faggot”—the works. Jesus, the things I live to see, I thought as I dragged my slippered feet downstairs, whereupon the bastard slapped me in the face as soon as I got close enough. Something about me trampling on the sincerity of his love and how I needed to pay the price? He screamed about how he was going to tell my family I was a homosexual and a rag so spoiled I could never be washed clean. What the fuck is this bullshit about my family? I thought, then realized I’d fended him off a few times from visiting me at home by claiming I lived with my family. Jaehee came down in her pajamas and mumbled, “Is this shit over yet?” Ignoring the neck-grabbing going on in front of her, she started to smoke. The engineering student pushed me off, went up to Jaehee and said, “Nunim, listen to what your younger brother did to me,” and then went on about how many men I went around having sex with and the sex positions I liked and how I had love handles but no ass, to which Jaehee’s lack of response prompted him to grab my neck again and scream, “You’re going to get sick and you’re going to fucking die,” over and over like a bad rap song. I yawned and replied:
—You should be a contestant on Show Me the Money.
He screamed a bit more and collapsed to the ground in tears.
—Loving someone is not a crime!
—No, loving someone isn’t a crime, but you doing this right now sure is, a fairly big one in fact . . . All I did was sleep with you a few times before dumping you . . . I think you may be overreacting just a little bit . . .
As I consoled him, Jaehee kept bursting out with tiny-fart laughs before helping him up to his feet again.
—Hey. Let’s go for a drink.
And before I could stop them, they went off arm in arm, leaving me behind. When I tried to follow, she waved me off and told me I should go home.
She came back in a little less than an hour and said everything was taken care of.
—You’re a pro. How did you manage to calm him down?
—It was nothing. I pretended to listen to him and waited until he was well and truly drunk. Then put him in a cab.