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“They already had plans.” She’s glum, too, but not because she’s self-conscious about her severe black one-piece with the large circle cutouts on the sides.
“Are you and Bomi fighting?” The other girl had quickly turned down Yujun’s invite.
Jules sends me a suspicious look. “Did she say something to you?”
“About you two dating or you two fighting?”
“Both.”
“No.”
“How did you figure it out, then? We’ve been so careful.”
I fiddle with the umbrella in my piña colada. “Your knees touched.”
“Huh?”
“The other night at Casa Corona, your knees touched.”
“Bullshit. There’s no way you guessed we were seeing each other from our knees touching. Bomi must’ve said something.”
“Nope. I figured it out. Sangki, too. You guys looked like a couple.”
“You and Ahn Sangki-nim look like a couple,” Jules shoots back. “And you aren’t one.”
I laugh out loud at this. “We do not.”
“Whatever.” She huffs out a sigh but it’s obvious Sangki and I have zero chemistry. We’re friends and anyone looking at us would know that, just like anyone looking at Yujun, whose hand didn’t leave my back until his friends pulled him away, knows that we do not act like siblings. “I think she’s avoiding me because I got mad and walked out of Casa Corona, but what was I going to do? Listen to her declare that being with me will ruin her life?”
“That’s not what I heard her saying. She was warning me to be careful.”
“She was warning both of us. She was saying that a relationship with me is as impossible as a relationship between you and Yujun, which isn’t even true. There’s no law that prohibits you two from being a couple, whereas Bomi and I could be fired for indecency if it got out that we were dating.”
My eyebrows fly up. “Wansu would fire Bomi over that?”
“Theoretically, although I don’t know where Choi Yujun’s mom stands on it, to be honest. But most older Koreans are against it. Younger ones say that they aren’t, but there are plenty of people with prejudices who don’t like to admit it.”
I’ve run into that at home just being Korean in America. The people you least expect think certain ways about you because of how you look or whom you love.
“The thing is that it’s all about family here,” Jules continues. “Take Chuseok. It’s centered around honoring the ancestors and it’s a big deal. The women start to prepare a week in advance. You have to make certain dishes and even place particular foods on different parts of the table. There’s a rule about how many times you bow and when you’re supposed to drink the special rice wine.
“They hold these charyes twice a year. Once at Chuseok and once at Seollal, the Lunar New Year. Gijesa is held on the anniversary of the dead person and they even observe sije, a ceremony held seasonally. This country’s traditions are all built around the family and the continuation of the family. If her family learned she likes girls, they might try to take her siblings away. Her brother is the eldest son, and he’s supposed to carry on all the family traditions.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself here?”
Jules drops her face to her hand. Her blond braids fall forward and I brush them aside before one falls into a salsa dish. “I don’t know. Bomi takes care of her sister and brother, so her relatives shouldn’t judge her. But I guess even if the majority accepted our relationship, it wouldn’t work out. We’re so different. Bomi would never come to a party like this.”
“Why not?”
“Because this isn’t her type of crowd. This is a fast crowd and one the older Koreans don’t approve of. In a lot of ways, Bomi is old-fashioned. She likes to dress conservatively, is afraid to show a little skin. She would not wear this.” Jules points to the cutouts in her sexy black one-piece.
“She doesn’t seem to mind how you dress or act or talk.”
Jules’s lower lip pushes forward slightly. “I know.”
She really adores Bomi.
“What are you two discussing so intently?” Yujun is alone finally. He leans back and stretches an arm across the top of the rattan love seat. The buttons of his loose-fitting cream embroidered shirt have given up at the midway point. Both the red silk cord of his necklace and the jade duck are visible, nestled between two hard, defined pecs. Mouthwatering, really.
“Swimsuits,” I answer when I roll my tongue back into my mouth.
“Mukbangs,” Jules says.
“Chuseok,” I add. I’m not sure if Jules wants to share what’s going on in her life, and it’s not my story to tell.
At the mention of the upcoming holiday, Yujun’s face hardens slightly. My own gut tightens as my friends’ words swirl in my head. When it is time to hold jesa during Chuseok and honor the ancestors, Yujun will be invited but Hara will not. At a wedding of his cousin or the baptism of a niece, Hara will be left out again. . . . Choi Yujun is an extrovert. He loves people. He loves his family.
