Page 134 of The Way Back Home

“You kids trying to hustle free popsicles?” I call out as I approach, bag swinging from my arm.

Heads turn. A chorus of voices pipes up, small bodies twisting on the bench and bouncing on their feet.

“Hi, Mr. Heo!”

“Mr. Heo, hello!”

“Mr. Heo, this ahjussi is so old-fashioned,” the Melona kid announces, pointing an accusatory popsicle at Ryowoon. “He says the red bean popsicle is better than the Melona bar because it has protein.” He says the word protein the way someone might say cockroach, his nose wrinkling with the full dramatic force of a nine-year-old’s disgust.

I recognize most of them from the school. A couple from my class last year, the rest from the grades below. Ryowoon blanches beside me, his head snapping toward the kid.

“Ahjussi?” he repeats, his voice pitching with indignation. “Who are you calling ahjussi, you little punk?”

He lunges for the popsicle and the kid dances backward, giggling, holding it over his head as if Ryowoon can’t simply stand up and tower over him by three feet. I watch, arms folded, smirking, as Ryowoon leans forward on the bench making a grab and the kid dodges again.

One of the other boys, a quiet one with a buzzcut who I remember from the spring semester, has been watching Ryowoon for a minute. His eyes are fixed on Ryowoon’s hand where it rests against the table’s edge, the way the wrist bends at that slight wrong angle, the stiffness in his grip when he reaches.

“Ahjussi, what’s wrong with your wrist?”

I freeze. My eyes cut to Ryowoon, bracing, watching his profile. The scar beneath his jaw flexes as he turns his head toward the kid.

But Ryowoon just looks at the boy, one brow cocked.

“My drunk old man broke it when he was beating the shit out of me,” he says flatly. “What about it?”

I blow out a long breath through my nose. Roll my eyes toward the sky. Well. What did I expect?

The kids erupt. Gasps, wide eyes, mouths falling open with theatrical horror. The Melona kid forgets his grievance entirely, popsicle dripping onto his fingers as he stares.

“Your father did that?”

“Yep.” Ryowoon nods with grim solemnity. “That’s why you should stay away from alcohol. It makes you mean.” He holds up a finger. “Smoking too. Destroys your lungs. I started when I was fourteen and by the time I was twenty I was hacking so hard I thought my actual lung was going to come up. Picture that.”

The kids are rapt. Horrified and fascinated in the way only children can be, leaning closer instead of pulling away.

“I had to get away from him eventually,” Ryowoon continues, settling into it now, crossing his arms over his chest like he’s a war veteran recounting his campaigns. “Had to start all over. No money, no job, no nothing. Just me and whatever I could carry. Lived alone for years, worked in a car factory.” He jerks his thumb in my direction. “Then this one tracked me down and dragged me back to this shithole town.”

“Language,” I mutter.

“Yeah, whatever.”

The quiet kid with the buzzcut is still staring at Ryowoon’s wrist, but his face has shifted from curiosity to soft fascination.

The Melona kid, apparently over his horror and already circling back to his primary concern, perks up. “So Mrs. Nam left you this store? Both of you?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s so cool.” He looks around at the shelves through the open doors, thinking. “Can I inherit the store someday?”

Ryowoon doesn’t miss a beat. “Sure, whatever. Go to business school first.”

I snort, dropping the grocery bag onto the table as I settle beside Ryowoon on the bench. “Alright, you guys should get home before your parents start wondering where you are.”

They groan, protest, drag their feet, but they go, peeling off in twos and threes, waving sticky popsicle hands over their shoulders. Thank yous trail behind them down the hill. The Melona kid turns back once to holler, “Bye, Mr. Heo! Bye, Ahjussi!” and I can feel Ryowoon bristle beside me.

“Ahjussi,” he mutters darkly. “I’m thirty-five, not fifty.”

“You did just tell them a war story and lecture them about protein in red bean popsicles.”