“It would make your mom so happy if we go around and see him, and it would be funny!”
I shake my head with violence.
“Oh, come on,” says Sujin. “There’s nothing to do here anyway.”
You could revisit the Loring Center with Miho, I write.
“And why would I do that?” she says, her eyes glinting.
* * *
—
IT IS NEW YEAR’S DAY, he is probably not at his stupid shop, I write and show Sujin before we start walking over to the bike shed. None of us have brought any gloves and our fingers are going to freeze off if we bike into town.
“Well then, we can go get some coffee at the bakery and say congrats to Hyehwa,” Sujin says. “Make her give us a discount.” She smiles evilly.
We round the corner and Sujin leads the way through one of the inner gates. She has a good memory, that one. We have only gone bike riding a few times and that was years and years ago. My father still keeps all the bikes in the shed clean and oiled, although I doubt anyone uses them, now that all the children of the Big House have left the nest.
In front of the bike shed, we run into a man on the path wearing a thick black down coat. It is the youngest son, Jun, who looks at us with a startled smile, hands in his coat pockets. I haven’t seen him in years, ever since he went for his mandatory military service. I had heard from my mother that he is a nuclear scientist now, working at a government think tank. He is the only one of the children who is still unmarried.
“Hello,” he says. “Who are you?” His voice is friendly and interested as he looks at us but mostly at Miho. She does look very out of place here, in her emerald green coat and her flowing hair, which she has fashioned into a high ponytail for the bike ride.
The girls fall back a little and I bow, catching his eye. “Oh, it’s Ara!” he says in surprise. “Are these your friends?” His tone takes on the jolly, avuncular tone of the Big Family that I mind so much. I nod.
“Hello,” pipes up Sujin. “We’re visiting Ara’s parents for New Year’s.”
“Ah, I see,” he says, running his fingers through his hair. “New friends from Seoul.”
“Happy New Year,” says Sujin, not contradicting him. She had met him several times in our past life.
“Happy New Year,” he says.
Bowing again, I make the first move to walk past him and into the shed, and the girls follow. As I pick my old bike and search for others that Sujin and Miho can ride, I look up, and he is still standing at the end of the path, looking back at us before he catches my eye. He waves and I turn away, pretending not to see him.
* * *
—
WHEN I WAS in school, I used to live for glimpses of Jun. Those were the years I helped my mother in the Big House after school, so that I could go sit on his chair and sometimes even his bed when my mother wasn’t looking. If my life was a drama, he would have fallen in love with me and battled his parents for a happy ending with the housekeeper’s daughter.
But here we are, my friends and I, streaming into town on rusty, creaking bikes, going to peek at a lonely old man who has failed at love, who has a son and already thinks in terms of concessions.
All for a joke, of course.
I would care if I hadn’t already stopped caring about anything years ago, the day I lost my voice.
* * *
—
IT TAKES US almost twenty minutes to get to town because Miho is precarious on a bike, plus she keeps stopping to stare at the trees even though Sujin and I yell at her that it’s cold