Page 52 of The Way Back Home

Mr. Park from down the street stops by the store a week later, asking if Ryowoon can take a look at his old Datsun. The engine’s been knocking for months, he says, and every mechanic he’s taken it to quotes him a fortune.

Ryowoon shrugs and says he’ll try.

He gets it running in two days.

Then Mrs. Yoo from the next street over brings her family’s minivan, complaining about the leaky oil pan and the air conditioning that stopped working sometime last summer. Ryowoon fixes both, and when she tests the AC and cold air blasts out, she nearly cries. She presses a handful of cash into Ryowoon’s hands, thanking him profusely, and Ryowoon just stares at the money like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

After that, it’s a steady stream. Neighbors, friends of neighbors, people from the next town over who heard about the kid who can fix cars for cheap. Ryowoon spends his evenings after his shift at the store crouched beside engines, his hands perpetually stained with grease, his clothes smelling like oil and gasoline.

I sit with him sometimes, doing homework while he works. Watching the way his brow creases in concentration. The way he looks quietly satisfied when he solves the problem, when the engine turns over and purrs to life.

He’s good at it, and I watch him every time he gets that happy shine in his eyes, thankful for it with all I am.

The house is dark and quiet when I slip out my window, my sneakers already tied so I don’t have to fumble with them outside. Mom’s been asleep for an hour, worn out from her double shift, and I feel a little guilty sneaking around behind her back, but not guilty enough to stop.

I drop down from the low roof over the side porch, landing softly in the grass, and jog toward the crossroad where Ryowoon and I always meet. It’s not fully dark, more the deep blue that comes right before summer nights turn black, the cicadas going nuts in the trees around us.

I don’t see him until I’m almost on top of him, a shape peeling itself off the wall by Mr. Han’s fence, and we both yelp and stumble back from each other.

“Shit, watch it,” Ryowoon hisses, grabbing my arm to keep himself from falling over.

“You watch it, idiot, why are you just standing there in the dark like a ghost?”

“I was waiting for you, dumbass, that’s the whole point of a meetup spot.”

I shove him, and he shoves back, and it turns into one of those pointless little scuffles that never really hurt, just an excuse to get our hands on each other and grumble under our breath. I get a good kick in on his shin and he yelps, hopping on one foot, cursing me out in a whisper because we both know better than to be loud this deep into the night.

“You’re gonna wake up the whole damn street,” he mutters, rubbing his shin.

“You started it.”

“I did not.”

“You did too.”

He flicks my ear hard enough to sting and I swat his hand away, and then we’re both grinning, all of it already forgotten as we start down the hill together, stepping quietly past the sleeping houses, laughing under our breath every time one of us nearly trips over a curb or a stray cat darts out from behind a trash can and scares the hell out of both of us.

By the time we reach the harbor the sky’s fully dark, stars blinking overhead, the water black and glassy below the dock lights. We climb down the rocks carefully, feeling for footholds we already know from memory, and find Jinwon, Haeil, Sihyung, and Yoohan already settled below, sitting on a flat stretch of rock with bags of snacks between them.

“About time,” Haeil says, tossing a bag of shrimp chips at Ryowoon’s head. Ryowoon catches it without flinching, dropping down beside him.

I settle in next to Jinwon, who passes me a bag of dried squid, already halfway through his own. The talk starts easy, drifting from a teacher who got caught napping during class to the rumor about a fight that happened by the school gates that none of us actually saw firsthand but all have an opinion on anyway. During a break in conversation after Sihyung’s done telling the story about his older cousin nearly getting arrested for jumping a fence at the naval base Haeil reaches into his bag and pulls out a few bottles of soju, holding them up with a proud grin.

“Where the hell’d you get those?” Yoohan asks, already reaching for one.

“Don’t ask if you don’t want to know.” Haeil pops the cap off one and pours it into a stack of paper cups he brought, passing them around.

I take mine without thinking much of it. We’ve snuck sips before, at festivals, at family gatherings when the adults get too drunk to notice, so it’s not exactly new. But when I glance over at Ryowoon my stomach clenches, because his face has turned to stone, his jaw locked tight, eyes fixed on the bottles of soju.

The others don’t seem to notice, too busy passing cups around, laughing. Haeil turns to Ryowoon last, cup already poured, holding it out toward him.

“Here.”

Ryowoon knocks his hand away, soju splashing over Haeil’s fingers. “Get that shit out of my face.”

Everyone goes quiet, the easy chatter dying fast. Haeil blinks, shaking his wet hand, more annoyed than hurt.

“Don’t be an ass about it,” he says.