AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lee Jonghyung, my birth father, turned out to be a predatory asshole who deserved to die, yet I never got to confront him. Wansu today isn’t the poor mouse she was when she had me. Choi Yujun is the sibling I didn’t know I wanted but the man I’ve always dreamed of. My motherland is beautiful and warm but still so foreign, and my time here is slipping away.
But to dwell on those things seems pointless. I should be like Wansu and take what I can from life. I’ll suck all the heat and charm from Yujun and store it in my body like squirrels store nuts in their cheeks. When I return to Iowa, I’ll pull out my memories when I’m lonely, one morsel at a time during the long, cold winters. If I only have these four days, then I’m going to spend each minute enjoying myself. Yujun once proposed a dinner with Ahn Sangki and Boyoung, and the idea of matching those two is appealing. It’ll be fun, something ordinary Koreans would do.
I let Wansu’s driver take me home. I left Yujun’s phone with Wansu and I’m going to try to make it through the next few days without a phone. When I get home, I’ll buy a new one. Home. My mind thinks it’s Iowa, which tells me that I’m making the right decision. Once I’m back in Des Moines, these two weeks will be a memory and I can tuck it away and forget it about it. My head pounds and my hands are shaky as I reach for the front door, but that’s because I’m hungry, not because I’m upset.
The app everyone in Korea uses on their phones has a PC version, so I download that to my laptop and text Yujun.
ME: Dinner tonight?
YUJUN: Yes
I love that I don’t have to wait for a response from him.
ME: Let’s invite Ahn Sangki
He sends me a frowny-face emoji.
YUJUN: Let’s not
ME: I thought I could invite Boyoung and we could introduce them
YUJUN: Let’s invite Ahn Sangki
ME: Brilliant idea
YUJUN: Let’s eat here
He sends me an address. From the photos, the food looks amazing, so of course I say yes.
ME: Yes
YUJUN: Are you doing well?
I sort of want to know whether he’s talked to Wansu, but I sort of don’t. If I’m to keep him in my head as Yujun from Seoul, I need that separation.
ME: Yup gotta run my roommate is here
I move on to Boyoung before I am tempted to ask Yujun any more questions.
ME: Dinner tonight?
BOYOUNG: Oh my god yes of course how did it go with your mother?
I like Boyoung. I consider her a friend. She helped me search for my birth mother and maybe is owed some kind of explanation, but I do not want to get into this with her either.
ME: As good as can be expected gotta run my roommate is here
I snap the laptop shut and go find Jules. She’s out on the patio smoking.
“I’m using you as an excuse to avoid questions I don’t want to answer.”
“Glad to be of service.” She holds out the cigarette to me.
“No, thanks. Want to spend the very last of my money with me?”
“Sure. What are we doing?”
“I need to buy some gifts. I’m having dinner tonight with Yujun and a couple of friends.”
“Nice.” She stubs the smoke out in a dish set on the railing. “So you and Yujun are a real thing? You think it’s going to last?”
I think of our trip to the top of Namsan Tower and how he had me look through the viewfinder at the people in Busan. I’d spun up dreams that maybe we could write and he would visit me and I would visit him and perhaps something lasting might form. That night seems another lifetime ago.
“No.”
“How was he?”
I arch an eyebrow.
“I can tell you slept with him. You have that look. That and you have a small bruise on your neck.”
I clap a hand around my throat. “You’re kidding.” I sat in front of Wansu with a hickey? Is that why she said we had soft feelings for each other?
“Nah.” Jules smirks. “But your response tells me everything I need to know.”
“You’re evil.” I drop my hand away.
“I have a shitty job and a nonexistent love life. I have to get my thrills in where I can. So how was he?”
“If he was a tourist attraction, the national debt would be retired,” I admit.
“That good? I’m going to have to shoot my shot after you leave.”
“The hell you will. Try it and I’ll murder you.”
Jules’s eyes drop to my hands, which I realize I’ve fisted at my sides.
“Not going to try to make it last but you’re ready to go to prison at the thought of him being with another woman. Make it make sense.” Jules makes a tsking sound.
