Page 11 of The Way Back Home

When the sky starts turning orange, she finally claps her hands together and shoos us up.

“Go on now,” she says. “Before your parents start worrying. It’s almost time for them to be back.”

We scramble up, brushing dirt off our shorts, and I bow quickly and messy the way Mom always tells me to, bending at the waist.

“Thank you, ajumma!”

Ryowoon bows too, with less flourish, but he means it; I can tell by the way his eyes crinkle just slightly at the corners.

“Come back,” she tells us, tone stern again but with a soft undertone. “Anytime you’re hungry, you hear me? Don’t you dare go stealing from my freezer again. Just knock on the door.”

“We will,” I promise, already reaching for Ryowoon’s sleeve to tug him toward the gate.

She watches us go, standing there in the doorway with her arms crossed, the light from inside spilling out around her like a halo. I look back once before we round the corner, and she’s still there, still watching, like she wants to make sure we get home safe.

Ryowoon and I don’t say much on the walk back up the hill, but our fingers brush together a couple times, and once our hands end up tangled together, just like Mrs. Nam said we did back when we were born, like we can do it even when we’re not thinking about it.

The next day I wake up before Mom leaves for work, and I’m already thinking about the sweet orange popsicle, my mouth watering just thinking about the fish Mrs. Nam gave us. Mom’s surprised to find me dressed and ready to go before she’s done tying her apron over her uniform.

“Where are you off to so early?” she asks, smoothing down my hair with her palm.

“Ryowoon’s,” I say, which isn’t a lie exactly. I do end up finding him at the bottom of the hill, sitting on the curb outside his gate, poking at an anthill with a stick.

“You think she’ll feed us again?” he asks when he sees me coming.

“Only one way to find out.”

We race down to the store, and when we push through the door the bell jingles above our heads. Mrs. Nam looks up from behind the counter, and for a second I worry she’s going to yell at us for coming back, but instead her face softens.

“Well, look what the wind blew in,” she says, setting down what she was doing. “Hungry again already?”

We both nod so eagerly she laughs.

That whole afternoon she keeps us inside, out of the sun, feeding us rice and little dishes of banchan she pulls from a cooler under the counter. The television up near the ceiling plays her drama, like before it looks to me like a bunch of shouting and crying and dramatic music, but she watches it while she stirs a pot on a burner in the back, occasionally muttering at the screen like the actors can hear her. Ryowoon and I sit cross-legged on the floor mats, stuffed full, sneaking looks at each other whenever the actors on the screen kiss or scream, both of us giggling behind our hands.

“You two are going to wear a hole in that floor with all that wiggling,” Mrs. Nam says without turning around, and we both freeze, caught, before dissolving into laughter again.

The day after that, she’s got a different look on her face when we show up, one that makes me a little nervous.

“If you two are going to keep coming around eating up all my food,” she says, hands on her hips, “you’re going to have to earn it.”

Ryowoon and I exchange a glance. “Earn it how?” he asks.

“Work,” she says simply, and hands him a box of canned peaches to stack on the shelf.

I get put on vegetable duty in the courtyard, a bowl of spinach dumped in front of me with instructions to pinch off the roots. My fingers turn green and my nose wrinkles at the smell, but I don’t complain, not with the memory of yesterday’s food still fresh in my mind. Ryowoon grumbles about the cans being too heavy, but he stacks them anyway, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth in concentration.

That’s just how it goes from then on. Every morning we show up, and Mrs. Nam puts us to work, sweeping the front step, wiping down the freezer glass, sorting through boxes of instant noodles that come in on the delivery truck. In return she gives us lunch, sometimes rice cakes or hard candy tucked into our pockets for later. In the afternoons, once she shoos us out so she can nap before the evening rush, we run down to the playground, our stomachs full, and spend hours on the swings until the sky turns orange and it’s time to go home.

It’s a good few weeks, maybe the best I can remember. But then one afternoon when we come walking into the store together Ryowoon’s dragging his foot a little, wincing every time he puts weight on it.

Mrs. Nam’s face changes the second she sees him, the easy smile falling away.

“Cha Ryowoon,” she says, voice sharp. “Come here.”

He tries to shrug it off, tries to say he’s fine, but she moves toward him, gripping his arm and steering him toward the back room. I trail after them, hovering near the doorway as she sits him down on a low stool and crouches in front of him, rolling up the leg of his pants.

The bruise there is dark, almost black, spreading to yellow and green at the edges like a bad painting. My stomach twists looking at it. Mrs. Nam’s mouth presses into a thin line, and she doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but she reaches for a jar of ointment on the shelf and starts smoothing it over his skin with careful fingers.