“Is something wrong with the chair?” Yujun asks.
I realize I’m hovering stupidly over my chair while Yujun looks on in confusion. “Nope.” I drop inelegantly into my seat and try smiling again, but it feels awkward. Where was all the confidence I gained from navigating the subway on my own? Somewhere in my shoes, I guess.
Yujun returns to the other side of the table and presses a button. “Is it okay if I order for us? I know that can seem . . .” He pauses, not quite sure what word to use.
“It’s fine. Great, actually. I’m going to leave myself in your hands.” Your perfect, large, nicely veined hands.
“Wonderful.”
A staff person arrives and Yujun gives the order. I listen closely and try to make out certain words. I think I hear “bulgogi” and kalbi, which I remember are marinated beef and short ribs, but ddeokbokki I’m not certain of, nor am I familiar with soondubu jjigae.
When I ask Yujun, he explains, “Ddeokbokki is a spicy rice cake, and soondubu jjigae is a soft tofu stew. Spicy and very good.”
He reaches out to pour the water but I nearly leap onto the table to grab it. “I’m supposed to pour,” I remind him.
He looks like he’s going to fight me for a moment but eventually sits back and motions for me to go ahead. “So you are. Have you been researching?”
“A little bit,” I admit, “but I forget more than I remember.” I eye his gift again, which he’s made no move to give to me. Maybe I’m overreacting and it’s for his mom.
“Did you have a difficult time finding the place? I could have picked you up. I’m always available to do so.”
“Your instructions were perfect and I enjoy riding the subway, I guess. I feel like I’ve accomplished something when I go places by myself. Like I’m a local.”
“Have you been to many places since you’ve been here?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that no, I’ve spent two of my days in a funeral home. Part of me wants to tell him the whole story—how I got here only to find that my bio dad had passed away, how my inheritance was photos of five different women, how my friend Boyoung spilled my drink on the photos and I don’t have the first idea how I’m going to find these women—but as I look at him across the table, his brown eyes bright with interest and a small smile playing across his lips, I decide not to. I don’t want to taint this time I have with Yujun. He’s like this light in the middle of a dark night. I want this memory of my trip here to be good, and I know this brief flirtation, these dinners together, the charming smile, will linger long in my memory so that no matter what else happens, I can pull these occasions out of my memory bank. That’s what I want to take home with me, not the smell of incense and the single portrait of my father on a bare altar, missed opportunities, what-could-have-beens. I don’t want this, my homeland, to be a place that I associate with sorrow.
“I went to a strawberry café. It was adorable. Everything was strawberry themed, even the food.”
“Oh? I like strawberries,” he says, his right dimple flashing at me. “Did you like it?”
“I don’t know if it’s any good. I ended up spilling my drink and left after I cleaned it up.”
“Then we’ll have to try it out together.” He beams.
I almost swallow my tongue. “Absolutely.” Any time that I can spend basking in the sunlight sounds good to me.
“Any other places you visited other than the ttalgi café?”
I love how Korean sounds when he talks, more so than English. I wish I could understand more so that I could hear his native language with the soft l’s and the long vowels.
“I’ve walked around the neighborhood where I’m staying. There are five chicken restaurants, the strawberry café, a laundromat”—I tick the shops off on my fingers—“and some other stores. I’m not sure what they all are. I couldn’t figure out from the lettering and I didn’t want to stare through the window for fear the owners would think I was casing the joint.”
“Casing the joint?” Yujun’s eyebrow goes up.
“It means to survey an establishment to see if you want to rob it.”
“Ah, interesting. Casing the joint,” he repeats, folding the words over on his tongue so he can use the expression later. He stores English phrases while I file away Korean ones. We’re the same in our different ways.
“I read that Hangul was designed to learn in one day, but I’ve tried and either I’m dumb or the people in King Sejong’s era were mad smart.”
He laughs, his hand coming up to cover a flash of perfect teeth. “I don’t think you’re dumb, but it’s possible people in King Sejong’s time were brilliant. Have you visited his statue yet?”