Page 38 of The Way Back Home

I watch the cigarette travel back to his lips. The way he holds it tells me this isn’t the first time. Not even close.

After that Ryowoon always has cigarettes on him. In his jacket pocket, his school bag, tucked behind his ear sometimes, which makes Mrs. Nam swat him every time she sees it. One afternoon on the school roof in our usual spot, the six of us sprawled across the concrete with the harbor spread out below, Ryowoon pulls out a pack and lights up and I see two more packs bulging in his pocket.

“What’s with all of those?” I ask, nodding at them.

Haeil answers for him, picking at a scab on his knuckle without looking up. “Relax, Seyeon-ah. We’ve been selling them to some of the second-years. It’s just business.”

I look at Ryowoon. He meets my eyes with a flat, unblinking stare, daring me to say something.

“You’re selling cigarettes to kids.”

Ryowoon’s jaw shifts. “They’re the same age as us. And we’ve gotta pay for lunch somehow. Unless you’d rather we just don’t eat.”

I can’t say anything. Because I know Ryowoon’s father drinks whatever money comes through the door, his mother sent whatever she could in the beginning but that stopped over a year ago, and school lunches aren’t free. Haeil’s family isn’t much better off. I bite my tongue and I keep quiet.

But I keep watch on it. Ryowoon and Haeil selling cigarettes behind the gymnasium, pocketing crumpled bills from younger students. Ryowoon picking fights again, coming to school with scraped knuckles and a swollen eye, grinning about it like it’s sport. Older kids from Yeonsan showing up at the harbor wall looking for the punk who mouthed off to their friend, and Ryowoon walking straight toward them while the rest of us hang back. He doesn’t want my interference. Makes that clear every time I try, shutting me out with a look or a word or just walking faster until I can’t keep up.

I date Jiae through the winter. I hold her hand walking through the market. I kiss her behind the school. But something gnaws at me, and I realize after a while that it has nothing to do with Jiae. It’s the empty space beside me where Ryowoon used to be.

At lunch one day I notice Ryowoon’s empty seat. His bag’s still at his desk, jacket draped over the back of his chair, so he hasn’t left the building. I eat half my rice and then push away from the table, ignoring Jinwon’s questioning look as I slip out.

I find him behind the gymnasium sitting on the overturned bucket that’s become his throne back here, knees apart, cigarette between his fingers, staring at the concrete. He looks up when he hears my footsteps, a cautious look moving behind his eyes before he makes his face neutral.

I stop in front of him and hold my hand out.

“Give me one.”

His brows lift. He looks at my hand, then at my face questioningly. When he doesn’t find a reason not to he reaches into his jacket and shakes a cigarette loose from the pack, placing it between my fingers without a word.

I put it between my lips and wait. Ryowoon watches me for a beat, then flicks his lighter, cupping his free hand around the flame and holding it out. I lean forward, touching the tip to the fire, and inhale.

Everything goes wrong at once. The smoke flows down the back of my throat and my lungs seize up, rejecting it violently. I cough so hard I double over, eyes watering, the cigarette almost falling from my fingers. My chest burns and I can’t stop hacking and wheezing, bracing one hand on my knee while the other clutches the cigarette like my life depends on it.

Ryowoon’s laughs loudly, throwing his head back, shoulders shaking, smoke streaming from his nostrils.

“What the fuck was that?” He grins broadly, the split in his lower lip from a fight last week stretching. “You look like a dying cat.”

“Shut up,” I rasp, straightening. My eyes are streaming. I wipe them on my sleeve and bring the cigarette back to my mouth with what I hope looks like determination and not insanity.

“You’re gonna puke.”

“I’m not gonna puke.”

I inhale again, with a smaller breath. It still burns but I manage to hold it for a second before letting it go in a thin stream that doesn’t look anything like Ryowoon’s easy exhales. He shakes his head, still smirking, and takes a drag from his own.

“Pathetic.”

“I’m learning.”

I cough again, less violently. Lean against the wall beside him, our shoulders close and I stay.

Ryowoon doesn’t tell me to leave. Doesn’t ask why I’m here or what I want. He just smokes, and I smoke badly beside him, and after a while he starts talking about the stray cat he found near the docks this morning, a calico with a torn ear, and how he wants to bring it some of the dried fish from Mrs. Nam’s pantry. His voice sounds lighter, by the time the bell rings for afternoon classes it feels like breathing again.

So I keep showing up. Every day when Ryowoon disappears from the cafeteria or drifts toward the back of the school I follow, and he hands me a cigarette without being asked now, the lighter passing between us in an easy exchange. I get better at it. Stop coughing by the second week, learn to pull the smoke in slow, hold it, let it go. It still tastes awful but the awfulness becomes familiar, becomes the price of sitting next to him in comfortable silence or trading insults while our legs dangle off the edge of the loading dock behind the cafeteria.

He stops shutting me out. The cold shoulder gradually thaws. One afternoon he steals my textbook and holds it over his head, laughing when I jump for it. The next he shoves a bag of shrimp chips into my hands at Mrs. Nam’s store and tells me I look skinny and my mom would kill him if I withered away on his watch. Things slot back into place, rickety and imperfect, I can breathe again.

When the whole group gathers on the school roof or down at the harbor wall I light up alongside Ryowoon and Haeil. Jinwon wrinkles his nose but doesn’t comment. Sihyung tries one, gags, and swears off them forever. Yoohan just watches with mild fascination. I lean back against the railing with Ryowoon beside me and the smoke drifts out over the water and I tell myself this is fine. This is worth it.