Page 78 of The Way Back Home

Ryowoon stays in the single room at the back of the store. Each morning when I arrive I find evidence he’s been up for hours. Coffee residue in a mug in the courtyard, his shoes already dirty, the tools already out. The air between us is still taut, but we manage. We step around each other, always aware of where the other one is, never colliding.

The morning sun slants through the open roll-up doors and paints a warm stripe across the counter where I’ve set up camp. I found a stool in the back, one of Mrs. Nam’s old wooden ones with the uneven legs, and I’ve been perched on it for the better part of two hours now, hunched over the ledger with a pen tucked behind my ear and a calculator I dug out of a drawer that still, miraculously, works. Mrs. Nam’s handwriting swims before me in columns of figures. Revenue, expenses, supplier payments, utility bills. The numbers tell a story of slow decline, a shop that kept its doors open on stubbornness and loyalty.

I flip a page, run my finger down a column, punch a number into the calculator. Behind me, the sound of Ryowoon tightening something with a wrench punctuates the quiet. He has the stepladder set up in the middle of the store, one of the light fixtures hanging open above him, its guts exposed. I glance over my shoulder. See him standing on the second rung, both arms raised, a screwdriver between his teeth, his t-shirt riding up as he reaches into the fixture’s housing. The strip of bare skin above his waistband is tan and taut. I look away quickly.

Back to the numbers. I cross-reference a supply order from eighteen months ago against the payment logged, find a discrepancy, mark it. The shopgirl’s bookkeeping was spotty at best. Half the entries in the last six months are missing dates entirely, and there are gaps where weeks seem to pass with no recorded transactions at all.

Behind me, the screwdriver clatters and Ryowoon swears under his breath. I hear him jump down, the ladder wobbling, then his footsteps as he crosses the floor to his toolbox. I don’t turn around. I keep my eyes on the page.

I get through three more pages of the ledger, fill half a notebook page with my own notes. Every few minutes I catch myself glancing toward the ladder. Ryowoon’s back up there now, fiddling with the wiring, his brow creased in concentration. Once, he catches me looking and I snap my gaze down so fast I nearly knock the calculator off the counter.

In the middle of trying to decipher a smudged entry, voices carry in from the street.

“Look what we have here!”

My head comes up. Ryowoon’s does too, peering down from the ladder.

“Yah, Heo Seyeon! Cha Ryowoon!”

The two figures that step through the open doors are backlit by the sun for a second before they come into focus. Yoohan bounces on the balls of his feet, grinning wide. Sihyung right behind, broader now, his hair cropped short, but with the same lopsided smile.

Ryowoon looks down from the ladder and mutters, “Shit. Here we fucking go.”

He barely gets off the last rung before Yoohan reaches him, hooking an arm around his neck and yanking him sideways.

“Hey, you dog-like bastard. Where the fuck have you been? Couldn’t even call once in a while?”

Ryowoon shoves at him, sneering, trying to peel Yoohan’s arm off. “What, do you want me to send you a love letter or something?”

Sihyung grins, comes in from the other side and grabs Ryowoon around the neck too, ruffling his hair until it’s standing in six directions. “Couldn’t hurt, you cold-hearted prick.”

Ryowoon snarls and swats at both of them but he’s outnumbered and outflanked and I can see, beneath the scowl, the faint crack in his armor. His jaw loosens and his lips twitch.

Yoohan releases Ryowoon and beams as he turns toward the counter, spreading his arms. I come around the side to meet him and he pulls me into a hug that knocks the air out of me, his palm clapping flat against my back twice.

“Look at this well-groomed city boy,” he says, pulling back to look me over, still grinning. “Damn, we sure missed having your face around here.”

The smile that forms on my face is easy and light. “Good to see you, Yoohan.”

Behind us Ryowoon and Sihyung are locked in a half-hearted wrestling match, Sihyung trying to get Ryowoon in a headlock while Ryowoon curses and drives an elbow into his ribs. Yoohan looks at me, nods at the stripped shelves and bare walls.

“So what’ve you two been up to?”

I gesture around. “Cleaning up, mostly. Seeing what needs to be done.”

Yoohan nods, then holds up two plastic bags, grease already spotting the bottoms. His grin broadens. “Sounds like you’re in need of a break. We come bearing gifts.”

We end up in the courtyard, all four of us squeezed onto the old wooden sitting platform with our legs folded. Yuro lies on the warm stones below, ears pricked, his eyes following every hand that moves toward the boxes of fried chicken Yoohan spreads across the platform between us. Bottles of soda get passed around, caps popped off against the edge of the wood. The sun falls warmly on the back of my neck as I sit there, a drumstick in one hand, listening.

Yoohan and Sihyung talk about the town. There’s a new hospital going up on the south side, proper one this time, not another clinic. Sihyung shows us pictures of his boys on his phone, two little round-faced kids in matching kindergarten uniforms. Yoohan’s wife is expecting their first, he tells us with a stupid giddy look on his face that makes Ryowoon call him whipped, which makes Sihyung laugh so hard soda comes out of his nose. Yoohan works at the factory now, the same one. I don’t look at Ryowoon when he mentions it. Sihyung tears off pieces of chicken as he talks and tosses them down to Yuro.

Yoohan leans back, points a chicken bone at Ryowoon. “You know, I seem to remember you owe me a hundred thousand won from the last time we went out in Busan.”

Ryowoon takes a swig of soda and doesn’t blink. “Fuck off.”

“No, no, I’m serious. You said you’d pay me back the next week, that was what, ten years ago? Twelve? Interest alone—”

“Yoohan, I will throw you off this platform.”