Page 50 of The Way Back Home

“What kind of work?” I ask.

Mrs. Nam gestures us inside. “Running the store. Opening, closing, restocking, manning the register. Everything I do, you’ll do. I’ll pay you fair wages, not just scraps and side dishes.”

Ryowoon straightens up. “You’re serious?”

“Do I look like I joke?” She narrows her eyes at him. “You’ll work in shifts. One of you mornings, one evenings. Rotate weekly. On your days off, I’ll teach you something useful.”

“Like what?” Ryowoon asks.

She smirks. “How to drive.”

The first week I take mornings, which means dragging myself out of bed before the sun’s up and walking down to the store while the streets are still quiet. Mrs. Nam shows me how to unlock the roll-down doors, how to count the register at the start of the day, how to check inventory and restock the shelves with the deliveries that come in before noon.

It’s not complicated work, but it’s steady and consistent. I like the pattern of it, the way the morning regulars come in at the same time every day. Mr. Han grumbling about his newspaper being late, the construction workers buying canned coffee and triangle kimbap before heading to the sites up the hill, the ajummas buying vegetables and gossiping about whose son got into which university.

Ryowoon takes the evening shift, which means he’s there when the kids get out of school, when the factory workers stop by on their way home, when the street gets rowdy and the drunks wander past. He tells me about it sometimes, the weird customers, the ones who try to steal, the ones who linger too long staring at the liquor shelf like they’re contemplating their life choices.

“Some guy came in last night trying to sell me a watch,” he says one afternoon when we’re both sitting in the courtyard eating lunch. “The joker said it was real gold, but it looked like something out of a claw machine.”

I snort. “Did you buy it?”

“Fuck no. Told him to get lost.” He grins, picking at his rice. “Halme would’ve skinned me alive.”

Mrs. Nam’s voice drifts from inside. “Damn right I would’ve.”

Ryowoon laughs, and I do too, shaking my head.

On our days off, Mrs. Nam makes good on her promise. She takes us out to the back roads in her beat-up short cab truck, the kind with a flatbed and an engine that rattles ominously over every pothole. The first time she tells me to get in the driver’s seat I freeze.

“Halme, I don’t have a license.”

“You think the rice paddies are going to report you?” She waves me toward the door. “Get in. You’re learning.”

Ryowoon sits in the passenger seat, grinning like this is the best entertainment he’s had all week. I glare at him and climb in, gripping the steering wheel like it might bite me.

Mrs. Nam walks me through the basics. Clutch, gas, brake. How to shift gears without grinding them into dust. How to check the mirrors, how to turn without veering into a ditch. The truck lurches forward when I first try to move, stalling out immediately, and Ryowoon cackles beside me.

“Shut up,” I snap, my face burning.

“You’re doing fine,” Mrs. Nam says calmly from where she’s standing outside the truck, watching. “Try again.”

It takes me half an hour to get the hang of it, but eventually I manage to drive in a straight line without stalling. By the time Mrs. Nam tells me to pull over and switch with Ryowoon, my hands are cramped and my shoulders ache from tension.

Ryowoon slides into the driver’s seat and adjusts the mirror, looking infuriatingly at ease. He starts the truck on the first try, shifts smoothly, and takes off down the road like he’s been doing this his whole life.

“Show-off,” I mutter.

He grins at me, one hand draped lazily over the wheel. “Not my fault you drive like a grandma.”

“You’re going to crash us into a ditch.”

“Relax. I’ve got this.”

He doesn’t crash us into a ditch, but he does take a turn too fast and nearly sends me slamming into the door. Mrs. Nam yells at him to slow down, smacking the side of the truck with her cane, and Ryowoon laughs, easing off the gas.

By the third week, Ryowoon’s driving laps around me. Mrs. Nam has him practice parking in the empty lot behind the store and he nails it on the second try, backing the truck in perfectly while I’m still getting the gears confused.

Usually I’m the one who picks things up faster, who studies and absorbs and applies what I’ve learned with expertise flawlessly. But watching Ryowoon behind the wheel is a whole new person. His hands move over the controls knowingly, adjusting the mirrors without looking, shifting smoothly through the gears. He takes to it the way he takes to fighting: instinct over instruction.