Page 129 of The Way Back Home

It devolves from there. Yoohan lunges across the platform accusing Ryowoon of hiding cards and Ryowoon shoves him off, Sihyung tries to play mediator and gets dragged into the scuffle when Yoohan grabs his arm for leverage, and I’m laughing so hard my ribs ache as cards scatter everywhere and Yuro barks once, sharp and confused, from his spot at the foot of the platform before deciding whatever’s happening isn’t worth getting up for and putting his head back down.

They’re idiots. All of them. And it’s exactly what this place needed.

The card game becomes a standing weekend fixture. Every Saturday they show up, sometimes bringing their wives who sit inside with tea and watch the four of us make fools of ourselves through the kitchen window, shaking their heads. The bets get more creative. Yoohan wagers his fishing hat, the one his wife bought him that he claims is lucky. Sihyung puts up a coupon for his restaurant that he insists is worth a full dinner but reads like it was written on the back of a receipt in crayon. Ryowoon wins most of it and gives nothing back, piling his winnings beside him with a smug look that makes Yoohan’s eye twitch. Sometimes Ryowoon tosses his spoils down to Yuro like tribute, and the dog chews happily on whatever lands near him, and Yoohan throws his hands up and says he’s going to lose his mind.

It fills the store with something it hasn’t had in years. Life. Laughter. Noise that seeps into the walls and makes a place feel like it belongs to someone again.

I walk outside one afternoon to ask Ryowoon something about a delivery estimate and find him on the wooden platform, asleep. Lying on his back, one arm flung over his head, his mouth slightly parted, the other arm curled around Yuro, who is tucked against his side with his head resting on Ryowoon’s stomach. The dog’s eyes are closed, his tail giving a single lazy thump when he senses me but otherwise not moving, content right where he is. Ryowoon’s hand rests in the fur along Yuro’s neck, fingers loosely curled even in sleep.

I lean against the doorframe and watch them for a while. The question can wait.

In the evenings when we’re cleaning up, I’ll hear the scuff of Yuro’s nails on the floor and look over to see him trotting after Ryowoon with his ball in his mouth, dropping it at Ryowoon’s feet and sitting back, ears perked, tail swishing. Ryowoon always pretends to be annoyed. Mutters something about the dog being a pest as he picks up the ball, but then he walks out to the courtyard, and I stand in the doorway of the kitchen watching him toss the ball across the yard and clap his hands to call Yuro back, his voice dropping into that softer register he probably doesn’t realize he uses. The one I remember from a long time ago, a boy talking to his dog in a voice he didn’t use with anyone else.

We take Yuro down to the harbor in the evenings when the heat breaks, let him off the leash to bolt across the sand and splash into the surf. Ryowoon follows a few steps behind, hands in his pockets but his eyes locked on the dog, watching every movement. The first time Yuro waded too far out and a wave knocked him sideways Ryowoon was in the water before I could blink, shoes and all, scooping the dog up and hauling him back to shore, cursing under his breath about how the mutt has zero survival instincts. Yuro licked salt water across his entire face and Ryowoon sputtered and held him at arm’s length, scowling, and then pulled him back in and pressed his forehead against the dog’s wet fur for just a second before putting him down.

He thinks I don’t notice these things. Or maybe he knows I do and has stopped trying to pretend otherwise. Either way, I see it. The smile that breaks across his face, full and unguarded, when Yuro catches a piece of chicken from the air and perks his ears begging for more. The way Ryowoon’s hand drops to the dog’s head without thinking whenever they’re sitting close, fingers scratching absently behind his ears. The way Yuro gravitates to him now as much as he gravitates to me, sprawling at Ryowoon’s feet while he works, following him from room to room, pressing his nose against Ryowoon’s palm when he reaches down.

Something about it makes my chest ache in the best possible way. Because I can see it happening. The hollow look that’s lived behind Ryowoon’s eyes since that night we drove to the vet clinic, since he pressed his face into Nuri’s fur and said goodbye to the only living thing in that house that ever loved him without conditions. It eases. A little more each day. Not gone or forgotten, it never will be. But loosening its grip, making room for something new that brings him that same uncomplicated joy.

I sit on the kitchen step one afternoon and just watch. Ryowoon is crouched in the courtyard with Yuro, wrestling for a stick, laughing as the dog growls playfully and yanks it from his grip and then immediately brings it back and drops it, wagging, wanting to play again. Ryowoon grabs it and holds it above his head, Yuro jumps, paws on Ryowoon’s chest, and Ryowoon stumbles back, catches himself, throws the stick and watches Yuro tear after it with his tongue lolling.

The look on his face when he turns back. Open, warm, alive. I burn it into my memory and keep it there.

My mom comes by every few days. She brings food in containers that multiply like they’re breeding, side dishes and rice and soups she made the night before, enough to feed a small platoon. She stays to help sometimes, painting a window frame while Ryowoon holds it in place, folding the laundry she found in the basket by the bathroom door without being asked, tidying the kitchen while we work out front. Ryowoon protests mildly, tells her she doesn’t need to clean up after us, and my mom waves him off with the same motion she uses to swat flies and tells him to eat more, he looks thin.

I take Ryowoon to see her house one afternoon. He’s never been, and my mom’s been asking. We walk up the hill together, Yuro between us, Ryowoon quiet as he takes in the neighborhood, eyes sweeping the streets, looking for what’s changed and what hasn’t. Inside, my mom gives him the tour, showing off the small yard, the kitchen she’s proud of because it’s twice the size of the one we had in the Parks’ basement. Ryowoon nods along, complimenting things, his hands shoved in his pockets and his posture a little stiff.

I’m in the kitchen getting water and I hear him get quiet. Come back out and find him standing by the TV stand, looking down at the framed photograph. The two of us at eighteen, caps and gowns, his arm slung around my shoulders and that huge grin splitting his face.

He picks it up, turns it in his hands. Glances over at me with a wry curl to his mouth.

“This the picture you used to find me?”

I lean against the wall, crossing my arms. “My mom sent me a photo of it, yeah.”

He looks at it again. That grin, the one in the photo, ghosts across his real face for a second.

“Was a handsome devil, wasn’t I?”

I roll my eyes.

He sets it back carefully, though. Lines it up with the dust marks on the shelf so it sits in the same spot it’s been sitting for years.

One evening after my mom leaves, having stuffed us both to the point of physical discomfort, Ryowoon and I lie sprawled on the platform with the empty dishes between us and the sky turning purple over the harbor. Yuro is asleep beneath us, his paws twitching. The cicadas are out in force, their droning filling the warm air.

I stare at the sky for a while, then turn my head to look at Ryowoon’s profile against the fading light.

“Did you ever try to find your mom?”

His face doesn’t change. His eyes stay fixed above the roofline, on the first stars appearing.

“No.”

I tell him about the gravesite I found in the hills outside Gwangju. His mother’s family, generations of them resting in that quiet place. How I wondered about her when I was standing there, wondered if she’d made it somewhere.

Ryowoon is quiet for a long time. The cicadas fill the silence, droning and relentless, and I almost think he’s not going to answer.

“No,” he says flatly. “Never looked.”