Page 17 of The Way Back Home

We spend whole afternoons like this, wading deeper into the creek until the water soaks through our shorts, chasing dragonflies that flit just out of reach every time we lunge for them. Ryowoon’s faster than me, but even he can’t catch one no matter how many times he tries, coming up with empty hands and cursing under his breath the way he’s heard his father do, even though neither of us really knows what half those words mean yet.

“You’re supposed to sneak up on them,” I tell him, even though I’ve had just as little luck as he has.

“I am sneaking,” he says, annoyed, creeping toward another dragonfly perched on a reed, moving so slowly it’s almost funny to watch. He gets within an arm’s length before it darts off, and he yells after it.

By the time the sun starts dipping low we’re both soaked through, our shoes ruined, mud caked up past our ankles, but neither of us wants to head back yet. We flop down on the bank, the grass cool against our backs, and we watch the water move for a while, not saying much, tired from running around outside all day.

I don’t remember falling asleep. One second I’m looking up at the sky through the leaves, watching them shift in the breeze, and the next Ryowoon’s shaking my shoulder, carefully quiet, nothing like his usual shouting.

“Seyeon. Seyeon, wake up, look.”

I blink my eyes open, groggy, the sky dim and orange above us. I follow where he’s pointing, down toward my own hip, there’s a dragonfly perched on the fabric of my shorts, its wings glinting even in the fading light.

“Don’t move,” Ryowoon whispers, and for once he actually listens to his own advice, both of us frozen still, holding our breath like even breathing too hard might scare it off. We stay like that for what feels like forever, watching it rest there, wings flickering every so often, until finally it lifts off on its own, disappearing into the dark trees around us.

“Whoa,” I say, sitting up slowly.

“Told you,” Ryowoon says, grinning like he had something to do with it, even though he didn’t. “You’re just lucky like that.”

We race home after that, realizing how dark it’s gotten, both of us getting yelled at when we finally show up, mud-streaked and soaked, way past when we were supposed to be back.

Some days we go to Ryowoon’s house instead, when his father’s shift at the factory keeps him away until evening. The second we come through the gate, Nuri, the Cha’s jindo dog, starts barking, straining against her chain outside the dog house, tail whipping so fast it looks like it might fly right off her body. Ryowoon always runs to her first, dropping to his knees to unclip her.

“Hi, girl. Hi, Nuri-ya,” he coos, voice soft the way he never talks to anyone else, scratching behind her ears while she licks at his face, whining with excitement. “Were you good today? Yeah? Good girl.”

He has a paper wrapped bundle in his pocket most days, scraps he’s saved from lunch or bits of meat a neighbor tossed out that he salvaged from behind the butcher’s, he unwraps it, feeding it to her piece by piece, letting her lick his fingers clean after. Nuri adores him, follows him everywhere the second she’s off that chain, bounding around the yard at his heels like she thinks she’s still a puppy even though she’s not.

I like watching him with her. He’s different with her, gentle and patient and not spiky and mean like he is to other kids. He talks to her about things I don’t think he’d ever say out loud to me, murmuring under his breath while he pets her, and I pretend not to listen even though I always do.

We spend the rest of the afternoon running around the yard with her, throwing a stick for her to fetch, letting her chase us in circles until we’re all breathless and collapsed in the dirt together, Nuri sprawled between us panting happily.

It’s not all easy though. We fight almost as much as we play, the two of us tangled up in each other so much that it’s bound to happen. We argue over who gets to be the hero when we’re playing pretend on the playground, both of us wanting the same role every single time, shoving each other off the top of the slide when neither one gives in.

“I called it first!” I shout at him one afternoon, hands balled into fists.

“You always call it first! It’s my turn!” he yells back, shoving my shoulder hard enough to make me stumble.

We wrestle over the remote in his living room some days, both grabbing for it at the same time, yelling over each other about whose show it is, kicking and scratching until one of us wins and the other sulks in the corner for ten minutes before we’re back to normal like nothing happened.

Mrs. Nam gets the worst of it most days, since we always end up back at her courtyard eventually. She’s had to come out more than once to smack us both about the head with whatever’s closest at hand, usually the broom, breaking up whatever argument’s gotten too loud for her liking.

“You two are going to be the death of me,” she mutters more than once, shaking her head as she goes back inside, leaving us glaring at each other in silence.

It gets worse one afternoon, though, worse than any of the shoving matches before. We’re sharing a comic book Ryowoon found tossed out behind the bookstore, both of us wanting to read the same page at the same time, and it turns into a fight over who gets to hold it, who gets to turn the page next. He yanks it out of my hands and I lunge for it back, and it turns into something bigger, both of us grabbing at shirts, rolling around on the ground in the courtyard, yelling things neither of us really mean.

“Give it back, you jerk!” I shout, my fingers tangled in his collar.

“It’s mine, I found it!” he yells back, shoving me hard enough to send us both tumbling, knocking over one of Mrs. Nam’s flower pots in the process.

Neither of us hears her coming until the broom cracks against my back, then his. We both yelp and scramble apart, sitting there stunned and red-faced in the dirt.

“Enough!” Mrs. Nam shouts, standing over us with the broom raised like she’s ready to swing it again if either of us so much as breathes wrong. “What in the world is wrong with you two? Fighting like a couple of alley cats over a comic book!”

“He started it,” I mumble, refusing to look at Ryowoon, my chest still heaving.

“I did not,” Ryowoon snaps, glaring at the ground, his hair sticking up in every direction from the scuffle.

Mrs. Nam makes us pick the comic book up off the ground, smooths the crumpled pages between her hands before handing it back, and tells us both to sit on opposite ends of the courtyard until we can act like civilized human beings again instead of wild animals.