Chapter Text
Ivan is born at the edge of winter in a town still shrugging off the last dredges of white. His father's presence in his life is not unlike the ice barely clinging onto the surfaces of roadside puddles—already dissipating by the time daybreak arrives. He has a mother for only a little while longer. By the second week after his ill-timed birth, the bed in the maternity ward of the hospital is empty, and one of the employees at the local orphanage miles away has come across a swaddled silhouette on the doorstep. The infant inside is so quiet that it takes the woman a few minutes to realize he is there at all.
It is the fourteenth day of February, which is also considered a day of love. “Ah, he is more fortunate than he seems,” the caretaker exclaims as she carries the infant inside. “He could almost be considered a little gift from the gods.”
He is named accordingly. Only years later does he realize the title is a heavy burden to carry.
That February, the snow melts into rain before it hits the ground. It leaves the soil soft and squishy, ideal for burrowing into. The rabbits waste no time in digging their little burrows, snuggling in deep. It becomes quite common to find baby bunnies poking their heads from between the flattened tufts of grass. In such weather, every creature is eager to find a warm place to rest, even at the cost of dirtying its own fur. Fear is farther away than the cold. The darkness of the abyss itself becomes inviting. There is not a single pit unfulfilled.
The only exception might be the hole in the infant's ribs, right where his heart should ideally be located. One of the caretakers discovers its emptiness while attempting to get him fitted in a dry onesie. At first, she thinks it is a mole, neatly tucked into the left side of his sternum.
“Another sign of prosperity,” she hums to herself. After all, the skewed patch of skin is only a little bigger than a 100-won coin. In a few seconds, her littlest finger catches on its outer circumference, accidentally pressing inside. Appropriately, she screams, alerting those around her. Medical services are contacted right away.
The arriving doctor is a little puzzled. The infant seems fine, breathing without a struggle. Still, the skin around the crater quivers with every inhale. As she looks inside, she finds nothing beyond the pitch dark. No matter what she does, she simply cannot locate a heartbeat. But the infant only blinks when she pulls the stethoscope back. There is not a single tear in his eye.
“A medical mystery,” the doctor says, shaking her head. “I have never seen anything like this before. He may survive, but no one can tell for how long. There is no guarantee of tomorrow. He's lucky that he has made it through today at all.”
The caretakers look at each other. “Lucky,” they repeat among themselves, holding the infant close, giving him his first taste of warmth. “So lucky.”
It becomes a word that he will grow up to hear too many times, even if it never truly applies.
____________
The orphanage is no different than a series of matchboxes neatly arranged side by side. Each room is the same dull shade of white. The walls are smeared with shaky lines of graphite, which are in turn filled in with mismatched crayon colors. Children wander in and out, dropping a trail of scattered building blocks in their wake. Dressed in gray, they look just like ghosts, barely inhabiting the space. Every few months, a child is taken away, having obtained the opportunity to fill the empty spot inside the 9-inch by 12-inch frame around a family portrait. Another child will usually come in to take their place. There is no shortage of abandonment in the world.
From a young age, Ivan grows used to the temporality of existence. Everything, he learns, leaves the same old shapes behind. The rolling wheels of a toy truck, turned upside down. The folded ears of a teddy bear, lying on its own face. The space between the ridges of adjacent jigsaw puzzle pieces, still awaiting the final one to fall into place. Like clouds, the traces of childhood drift away with the wind. Never to return in the same manner.
The gap in his ribs aches with the passage of memories, expanding a few weary inches. “Mindful of the decibels,” the doctor warns during his annual visits. “It is best to save any disturbances, lest they leave a lasting impact.”
So, the caretakers take to whispering in his presence. “Good boy,” they say, brushing his hair behind his ears. A harsher touch may not be suitable for the state of his body. “You finished all your peas. You can have half a slice of the chocolate cake.”
The children follow the same example. They swap worn-out socks for softer scarves, a half-melted bar of white chocolate for the solutions to the following day's math problems. Growing up, Ivan soon realizes, is a barter system by itself. One only receives what one puts out in the universe. The law of conservation of energy holds true for all things, his physics textbooks remind him. Each attempt transforms into its own reward. One must not lie idle for too long.
With an empty hand pressed over his ribcage, he does his best to give back.
____________
The flowers remain indecipherable to him. Each morning, Ivan watches as the caretakers take turns watering the blossoming maehwa and mugunghwa in the garden, the roots of their parent plants firmly embedded in the soil. Occasionally, he spots an anthill at the base of the tree bark, tiny black dots breaking out of formation and crawling into infinite holes, like planets falling into place after the Big Bang. In such moments, he likes to squat and peer at them from up close. Every absence awaits the weight of something else to crowd into its lingering spaces. There is no such force known as zero gravity. Even dwarf planets are pulled into the sun's orbit. This, he thinks, fingers prodding the crater in his skin. This cannot be the exception. Or maybe it is.
The vacuum over his left lung pulls his body inwards, twisting up his axis of rotation. His left eye twitches, unable to stay still. His tooth extends outside the boundaries of his mouth. His lips refuse to turn upwards. On rainy days, Ivan enjoys gazing into puddles, coaxing the flimsy face in the water to loosen the muscles of its cheeks, allowing the ends of its mouth to lengthen as shadows do at the end of the day. But the tense lines never budge. Somehow, they are unable to bend into a curve, the likes of which he so easily traces on graph paper. Gravity just refuses to do its work. Tired, Ivan ends up crawling under the shade of a stray table or a chair and read instead. It prevents anyone else from bothering him.
In his books, there are other individuals who are almost like him. Broken. Vacant. Ill. Cursed by witches or warlocks. Punished for their kindheartedness. Brave warriors that they are, their ailments have a purpose, neatly resolved by the end of the tale. They are even awarded accordingly for their troubles, with a true love's kiss or the discovery of lost treasure. Of course, Ivan does not imagine his condition to be the same. The cavity in his ribcage is no great sign of character. Rather, it is a mere misfortune. It could have been suffered by anyone else if they, too, had been born a little less than a complete human.
There is no impetus behind this hollowness. When it eats him whole, the world will be no different for it.
____________
The stars are confusing, too. There are so many of them, and they continue twinkling for years beyond their demise. For the life of him, Ivan cannot envision bearing a similar resilience. It takes a certain kind of shamelessness, he thinks, to shed light even after one has collapsed on oneself. Look, those lights seem to boldly declare. Look at how we refuse to be forgotten, even as we burst into a million dust particles. Even as we leave nothing behind. If Ivan were capable of envy, he would feel it every time he glanced at the sky after the conclusion of dusk. In comparison to the uncountable brightness, the eventual darkness is much easier to accept. At least for him.
Humans like to invent names for stars, in the same way they like to invent names for children. Sirius. Canopus. Vega. Capella. Spectrum. In fact, they like to invent many facts about space. In classes, the children are taught to draw stars with five corners, as if their giant shapes are palatable enough to be contained within the margins of their notebooks. Real stars, Ivan soon learns, are much uglier. As the truth often is. Real stars are gaseous bodies forever on the verge of exploding, capable of swallowing the masses of the surrounding spatial bodies with themselves. In the right circumstances, they can scorch a million wishes.
Every night, Ivan curls his body under the sheets, knees touching his own forehead, hands tucked between his thighs. He imagines vibrating with the intensity of the heat inside him. He imagines going out like a star, with only a black hole as a lasting mark. He cannot fathom being responsible for such hunger.
____________
As Ivan turns six years old, the crater grows to the size of a 500-won coin, but he's no richer for it.
“It's expanding at a slower rate than we expected,” the doctor observes. “He will likely make it to eighteen. Or twenty. Twenty-two, if life allows.”
This year, his birthday cake carries a singular candle because the caretakers refuse to expose him to more flames than necessary. He wonders if this can be counted as a premonition. Not that it matters. He doesn't mind being so short-changed on the number of wishes. He always asks for the same thing anyway: Another day with a full stomach and a cool pillow, if possible. Another day, if not another year. It is likely another vacancy that will never be fulfilled.
Barred from joining the other kids in physical activities, he takes to burying his head in more books. It is getting harder to crawl under the wooden desks in the classroom. Despite everything, his spine continues to stretch further, his body shooting up a few additional centimeters with each passing summer. He is still alive, he guesses, even though he has no heartbeat to show for it.
On listless afternoons, he blows into his own fist and wonders if this is what it sounds like. A few seconds later, the echoes inevitably relapse into a lasting silence.
____________
In the long year between the ages of six and seven, many such afternoons arrive and depart without making a difference. Somewhere in between them, Ivan is once again busy making up a heartbeat as children make up imaginary friends. This is as far as his dreams go. He has barely finished exhaling into his palm when he hears footsteps approaching from around the corner.
He blinks a few times, leftover sunlight catching in his eyelashes. Socked feet slide into his field of vision. Numerous stars are clumsily inked between the toes, restlessly wriggling on the floor. A meteor shower, he muses. Right in the middle of the day. What are the chances?
Curious, he cranes his neck farther away from underneath the haven of the desk. From this angle, he can see a pair of wobbly, bruised knees. They soon disappear underneath a rumpled skirt. Pale hands are bunching up the fabric in a manner that will likely result in a scolding from the caretakers. Ivan finds himself wincing, hoping they go easy this time.
"Hiding?" he asks, tilting his head. He can still hear the other children running around in the courtyard. There is no answer from above him. Ivan does not mind. He is used to the silence. It lives inside him, after all.
"If you sit still for long enough," he murmurs, patting the spot next to him, "they will forget you were here at all."
It is a secret he has never told anyone before. He had never thought someone else would be in need of it all. But the two feet linger in the wake of the revelation. They step on each other. Slowly, a small leg slides outward, its knee touching the ground. The other leg follows suit. This brings down the center of gravity of the body.
Purple eyes look back at him. The girl blinks, pushing her legs behind her. The frills of her skirt flare, covering the tips of her feet. Just like that, all the stars blink out. The sky is left alone to come to terms with its own expansiveness. Ivan is, too.
That barren gaze is oddly familiar. Ivan cannot help but imagine staring into the abyss, only for it to stare back. He maintains the stare for a few more seconds until the girl closes her eyes. Satisfied, he goes back to turning the page of the book he has been reading. They share the soundlessness of their surroundings. They share it until the sun changes its course and their shadows begin to extend beyond themselves, meeting in the middle.
By the time Ivan looks up again, the world is dark outside. The book falls out of his weary hands, landing on the ground with a faint thump. He has long forgotten that he himself lacks the capacity to produce such a noise. For once, the stillness inside him feels like peace.
As the lights in the hallway start turning on one by one, the girl gets up. In the doorway, she pauses.
"Tomorrow?" she asks, without turning around. It is the first thing she has said to him in the last few hours.
Ivan, who has never promised anyone the arrival of another day, finds himself nodding.
"Tomorrow," he says, his mouth aching with the weight of the word. He realizes that he almost believes in it, too.
____________
Sua is a year older than Ivan, which means she is already guaranteed to live a year longer than he. Ivan has no trouble accepting the logistics of this revelation. Doctors, he thinks, would have a simpler time delivering difficult news if they did it in the form of mathematical equations. The truth is much harder to deny when it is told through numbers. A year seems like a long time, but in the end, it can be converted into a single digit. Ivan can afford to lose this much.
Sua finds solace in numbers, too. She no longer arrives at the classroom empty-handed. Instead, she spends most afternoons scribbling in textbooks, carrying over digits in addition and subtraction problems. She likes to spread the five fingers of her right hand until they resemble the corners of a star, lifting each one as she counts. She glares when Ivan leans over her shoulder, pointing out her mistakes.
“You missed that equation over there,” Ivan says to her, his chin hovering over her shoulder blade, ignoring her efforts to shrug him off. “Getting a little careless, Sua? Not scared of losing your mental math whiz status?”
He likes the fire in her eyes, especially when it is directed toward him. It is the only threat that he is allowed to be in proximity to.
Unlike the adults, Sua does not touch him as if he were fragile. She must have heard about his condition from the other children, and yet, she never asks. Whenever he crosses the invisible line, she grimaces so hard that her entire face goes sour. On rare occasions, she even digs her knuckles into his sides for a few seconds. This late in life, Ivan finds that he quite enjoys the pain that comes with being an annoyance.
Sua also happens to share Ivan's fascination with the stars. In the early evening, she turns her gaze to the singular window in the room, eyes tracing patterns in the sky. Under her breath, she recites the names of the constellations, as if confirming that they are still there.
It makes her a little gullible to Ivan's teasing. “Is that Venus?” he likes to inquire, pointing in a random direction, watching Sua's eyes widen. “Oops, my bad. Just another star.”
Sua always frowns in the aftermath. She really must not like Ivan very much, which is relieving. It means she is incapable of pitying him. Ivan would rather collapse than be thought to be softer than he is.
He has never before wondered what it must be like to have a family, but he thinks it must be close to this. Love may be unreachable, but Sua's cheek is only a few inches away. He can poke with his index finger just fine. If it makes her frown, that must count for something in return.
____________
On visitation days, the orphanage is mopped all the way to its littlest nooks and crannies. The children are dressed in their clean jackets and made to practice their greetings at least three times, along with their multiplication tables. At eight years of age, Ivan is put in the same room as Hyejin, who is blind in her left eye, and Taehwan, who prefers not to speak. His curly hair is straightened. A button-up shirt covers any traces of the painless wound he bears.
Ivan stands on his tiptoes and waves at Sua when her group passes by. He is a little shorter than the others, but he is strategically pushed to the back because he has still not quite mastered his smiles. It is not too bad. He can still see that Sua's hair is tied in little pigtails. The sight of it is quite adorable. Surely, it will tug at a few heartstrings. Regardless, Ivan is content to note that her mouth remains flat.
Cars begin arriving in the courtyard a few minutes after the doors open. The adults walk into the room, adjusting their shiny watches and necklaces. They coo at the children, petting a few stray hairs here and there, oohing and aahing as the girl at the very front tells them what twelve times three is. When they reach Ivan's side of the room, they grow teary-eyed.
“So young,” they murmur, dabbing their cheeks with handkerchiefs. “So young to have lost so much.”
They are too busy in their own grief to hear about the blue rock Hyejin found by the edge of the lawn the day before or the butterfly stickers Taehwan likes sticking on the doors of his cupboard.
Ivan's lips soon begin hurting from their poor attempts to stay upright. After having received his twentieth head pat, he excuses himself to go to the bathroom, running into Sua on the way. He presses one of the additional pieces of caramel candy he has received into her hands. As it turns out, there are a few benefits to recounting the seemingly sorrowful tale of his existence. He now understands why tragedies are among the most borrowed books in the orphanage's library.
Sua curls her fist around the wrapper, her toes writhing on the floor like little worms. The caretakers have been trying to get rid of the habit without any success. The worms survive.
"Hey, Sua," Ivan says, taking a step forward. Despite his shortcomings, he has managed to hold a few centimeters over her. "What's twenty-two minus eight?"
Sua hums. "Fourteen," she answers, already starting to turn away. Faced with her back, Ivan lifts a hand in goodbye.
“Fourteen,” he repeats to himself as he walks to the bathroom sink and splashes water on his cheeks. His hair has already begun loosening from the sweat. It makes for an unsightly reflection. “Fourteen.”
Looking in the mirror, he cannot help but laugh. Maybe the measly number is worthy of a few extra candies, really.
____________
Like all fallible entities, the stars have to fall sometimes, too.
Ivan relishes this confirmation of their mortality as he looks up the date of the upcoming meteor shower. It is only a couple of weeks away. Luckily, it will be the weekend, so he can afford to stay up a little late past his usual revision hours. He makes a note to ask Sua about the same. Although the two of them are still too young to be allowed on the rooftop, Ivan is aware of a few older boys who efficiently pick the lock so they can have a smoke after lights out. He supposes that he and Sua can just follow behind.
Alas, his plans never quite work out the way he means them to. A few days before the meteor shower, he overhears the caretakers discussing a woman who has matched with one of the younger girls. Even without hearing the name, he knows it is Sua. The white dress they made her wear on the previous visitation day was a good choice of outfit. It clearly had the intended effect. No one can bear leaving little dolls alone.
That afternoon, Sua walks into the classroom with her head down. She does not pull out a book. Her hands remain clasped behind her back. It is not like her to look so uncertain, Ivan thinks. He wonders if it is out of consideration for him. He did not anticipate that Sua would be so cruel, but sudden abundance can change even the most stubborn individuals. He suspects that the eggshells she is walking on are pricking her feet.
For a long while, Sua does not say a word. Ivan can occasionally feel her eyes on the side of his face. He keeps his head turned away. It is childish, but he never claimed to be the bigger person. Mercy is for those who have something to fall back on. All Ivan has is the growing sting in his ribs.
"I am going to have sisters," Sua mumbles, after a few more aimless moments. "I've never had a sister before."
That makes for one of us, Ivan muses. Somewhere along the way, he had gotten careless and allowed the silly thought to persist in his mind. This is what he gets in return for it. Hope truly is such a miserable feeling.
"Showing off?” Ivan asks, coaxing his lips to quirk up. “It is quite unlike you to be so proud."
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sua’s bottom lip tremble. In truth, he is unsurprised at this turn of events. He has long suspected that Sua has a gentler constitution than his own. He has seen the way she folds scraps of paper into cranes, smoothening the crinkles in their wings. Of all the words there are in this language, her favorite is “dream.” Her insides may be twisted up in a bunch, but her hands tremble when they scoop starlight out of puddles. It makes sense that out of the two of them, she is the one who gets to walk out the door and step into the warmth. Ivan can only trace her departing shadow with his eyes.
“Ivan,” Sua whispers, her hand landing in the crook of his elbow. Ivan has to keep very still so as not to shake the weight of it off. To be this affected would only be shameful. “You are only nine. You know this is the age most of us get to be picked. I heard Ms. Kim talk about it the other day. I’m certain that you, too, will—”
Ivan snorts, startling the girl next to him. The sound comes as a surprise to him, too. He had not realized he was capable of laughter. Still, it is at least the kind of laughter that leaves a bitter taste behind. For a horrifying second, he almost thought that he had changed, too.
“Do not pretend to be clueless. Or are you trying to be kind?” Ivan turns to the next page of his book. With a careful finger, he tugs on the collar of his shirt. The air feels cool against his skin. It slips inside the ruptured half of his torso. He considers letting Sua witness the phenomenon for herself. “Do you want to see the proof with your own eyes? I am afraid our delicate Sua's sensitive stomach will be unable to digest the sight. What shall we do then?"
Sure enough, there is a hitch of breath. Ivan tilts his head, barely glimpsing the tears welling up in Sua’s eyes before she gets to her feet and runs past him in a hurry. This time, she does not linger in the doorway. She makes a quick exit instead. Ivan shakes his head. What a momentous meeting this has turned out to be. It makes sense for it to be the finale.
He turns to look at the sky, which is dark again. Unfortunately, it is much too cloudy to see the stars. Well, it is not like he would have anything to ask of them, anyway.
____________
The car that picks up Sua is very fancy. Ivan squints at the sunlight glinting off its shiny hood, frowning when it only sharpens its silver glare.
Sua, carrying a box of her belongings close to her chest, pauses in front of the car’s back doors. Inside the taped box, there are a handful of white cards signed by the other children. One of them bears Ivan’s own handwriting, spelling out the following words: You’ve always been very talented, so I’m sure you will do well in life, too. Take care. It is as close to an apology as it gets. Ivan hopes Sua will not ponder over the meaning too much. In fact, it is best if she forgets about her time in the orphanage altogether. After all, she will have much larger things to worry about. Ivan is sure the little box will get buried in the dust of all the new memories obtained.
As the door on the right opens, Ivan catches sight of a tall woman in the backseat. She is wearing a long white dress, not unlike the one Sua is also dressed in. Her black hair falls past her shoulders, her scarred eye crinkling as she smiles. Ivan thinks it will not be too hard to convince others of the relationship between the two. Sisters, he repeats in his mind, tucking his own black hair behind his ear. Maybe it is time he cut it short. There is no one else nearby with a matching shade anymore.
Sua steps forward, lifting her hands higher. The woman shifts farther to the left, allowing the little girl to put the box down in the middle of the seat. After shuffling her feet, she begins to climb inside, hesitating only for a brief second. Ivan wonders if she will turn around and look up at the rooftop, meeting his eye.
Sua must consider it, too. Her neck turns sideways, even. Still, it never completes its arc. As Ivan watches, she puts her foot inside, settling comfortably into the seat. The last thing he sees before the door shuts is the woman putting her arm around Sua’s tiny frame. Then, the car drives off into the distance.
Just like that, Ivan is left to rely on the glimpse of purple he caught two days ago. He knows it was his last.
____________
Ivan waits on the rooftop for hours afterward. The air turns chilly, brushing against his cheeks, but he holds back the urge to shiver. He has not yet earned the right to be so fragile. The stars begin to emerge in the sky one by one, not unlike thumbprints smeared on blue ink. Ivan remains resolute in the face of their brilliance. He will not waver, he decides, even if he might not be able to measure up to all the light. Tonight, he will not waver.
A faint scent of smoke creeps into his nostrils. There is a nudge to his cheeks, the skin pressed in.
“Hey, loser,” someone appears to be saying. One of the older boys, he realizes. Is his name Jungho or Minseok? For the life of him, he cannot remember. All he can see is the burning end of the cigarette in his mouth. “You’re not supposed to be here. Run along, now. It’s time for the adults to gather.”
The words do enter his ear canal, but he has trouble registering them. The ground seems so far tonight. The stars are just so bright. If Ivan reaches forward, would he be able to graze them, just a little? Could someone like him do it, too? His chest hurts with the expectation of it. The puncture hole, still there, takes it all in.
The boy must grow agitated because the pressure on Ivan’s cheek increases. He takes a few steps backward, feeling his back hit the ledge. His collar tightens around his neck. It is as if someone is holding it tightly. He takes another step back. His head hangs in the air, blood rushing to his temple. There is a loud noise somewhere. A scream? His body is half over the edge. There is a flare in Ivan’s peripheral vision. Stars, falling. His breath comes labored. The hole in his torso expands, swelling against the push of gravity. Will it finally consume him now? Is this where his flimsy existence finally comes to an end?
The sky is taking over his eyesight. There is nothing beyond the hoards of collapsing lights. If they cannot even hold on to their floating weights, how can Ivan be expected to do the same? Sua, he thinks. Sua should have seen this, too. But she is gone, is she not? Do all goodbyes feel so permanent? Is he destined to stay in one spot and watch them happen? He feels wetness gather in his eyelashes. No surprises, the doctor had said. We still don’t know how this illness works. He may not be able to handle the shock. Something is building in his ribcage. It feels heavy. Is this what it means to have a heart?
A sudden force jerks him upright. In the background, Ivan can hear the caretakers yelling, freeing him from the grasp of the boys. “He’s hurt, don’t you see it? How could you be so careless?”
No, he is alright, he wants to say. He has never been better. To be more convincing, he tries to keep his eyes open, but they keep closing. His knees buckle. No more standing around for him. The sky is never far. It is behind his closed eyes, too.
He can still make out the flashes of white.
____________
Ivan sleeps for a long while.
In his dreams, he wanders around the streets of town. Every time his arm brushes against someone else’s, he pauses and turns around. He wonders if this stranger could be either of the two people who were responsible for bringing him into the world. The indifference of the touch settles into his stomach. He knows it will never grow into a deeper contact. The realization is a relief.
Eventually, the silly game gets tiring. Ivan finds himself squatting on the side of the road. The pavement is broken up, likely under construction. There is an uncovered pothole big enough for him to fall into. Ivan looks inside at the familiar darkness. He cannot see anything in it. Not even his own shadow. A stranger stops by his side. What are you even looking for? Ivan clears his throat. Myself, perhaps. Not like there would be anyone else. The words do not come out right. He awakens with the possibility of the syllables resting on the tip of his tongue.
The world is much shakier when he awakens, so the doctor orders him to be on complete bed rest. The caretakers bring his homework and his meals to the bed in the corner of the infirmary. Ivan goes through them diligently. The boys from the rooftop stop by, too. They apologize. Ivan shakes his head. He does not hold them accountable. They have only furthered the inevitable. It would have happened either way. He is fortunate to have had the company of the stars. He still feels a little faint when he tries to picture them.
Only after everyone leaves does he get a chance to spread his fingers over his chest. The crater has widened. These days, it stretches from the length of his ring finger to his thumb. It might soon reach the other side of his ribs. His heart is still unaccounted for. Ivan suspects that one of these says he might wake up to find one of his lungs missing, too.
No worries. He has learned to think of his body as something borrowed. In time, he is prepared to return it in its entirety.
____________
The tenth Valentine’s Day of Ivan’s life arrives with surprising fanfare.
There is a man in an expensive suit standing by his bedside. He seems familiar. His large hand covers the circumference of Ivan’s head.
“My wife has been a little lonely,” the man appears to be saying, facing Ms. Jeon. “I thought this might be a nice present to cheer her up.”
Ms. Jeon nods, pushing her glasses backward. Ivan has always liked her the best out of all the other caretakers. “Good choice, Mr. Unsha. Ivan is one of the smartest kids here. He will be an excellent fit for your family, I’m sure.”
The man smiles, patting Ivan’s hair. The metal of the ring around his fourth finger catches on a strand. “He seems quite interesting, indeed. I know there is a lot I will learn from him.”
As Ivan is led to start packing up his belongings, he tries to recall where he knows the man from. A magazine? A newspaper? He thinks of the list of forty business tycoons he had come across a few weeks ago. Mr. Unsha, the caretaker had called him. Ivan vaguely remembers reading about the man’s successful mining business. So, he is now venturing out and committing charitable deeds? If that is the case, then adopting a sick child would surely enhance his image in the eyes of the public. As a keen negotiator himself, Ivan respects a good business strategy.
They dress him in a pale white shirt. Business casual in preparation for his future. It is not a smart choice because the car is parked outside. The leftover sunlight renders the fabric translucent, exposing the crack running down his ribs. The man who has been newly appointed as Ivan’s father glances in its direction.
“No cure, they say?” Unsha hums, rubbing under his chin. “None at all?”
“No, sir,” Ivan says, tightening his grip on the box he is holding. “But they say I should make it to twenty-two, at the very least. That is long enough to graduate from business school.”
The man stares at him before letting out a laugh. He opens his big palm. “Come along then, Ivan. I think you and I will get along quite well.”
Ivan knows how to make the most of second chances, especially those that are prone to slipping away. Without another glance backward, he puts his palm in the man’s. It could be considered a handshake if one were to ignore the difference in the sizes and strengths of their grips.
He allows the force of it to pull him along. At ten, he is already almost at the halfway mark. There is not much he has left to lose.
It is funny, he thinks as he shuts the car door behind him. Sua’s pitiful well wishes for him had turned out to be true, in the end. He supposes she has always had more foresight than he.
It must be nice, Ivan muses. Knowing the future exists.
____________
The city is so much bigger than his imagination. The towers are heads taller than the tallest kids in his year. Ivan has to crane his neck to see all the way up. He counts at least a hundred and twenty-seven windows on one. A hundred-and-twenty-two on the next. All filled with silhouettes. The people, he notices, spill out from the front doors and onto the streets like sand. Wherever he looks, there is a stranger’s shoulder, turning around a corner. If he stays steady long enough, he is bound to be touched. It is impossible to remain invisible in the middle of the crowd. Ivan is suddenly so aware of his very bones.
The sea is everywhere. Ivan can smell its bittersweet scent as soon as his adoptive father’s driver rolls down the windows of the car. It follows him down the street to the doorstep of his new house. Like a hollow shell, his chest fills up with the headiness of salt. He takes a few long breaths to expel the weight of it.
A tall woman greets them in the hallway. After receiving a few sticky kisses on his sore cheeks, Ivan climbs up the long staircase to his room, fingers trailing the wooden railing. The clothes and books he has brought with him do not even fill half the shelves of the wardrobe. He is a little daunted by the amount of space that he is now expected to occupy. He has never been good at satisfying the emptiness. He can only carry it with him wherever he goes.
The first four nights, Ivan sleeps underneath the bed. His stomach hurts from all the servings of food it is trying to digest. It feels strange to be so full. His body is so much heavier. The tailors who have taken his measurements are strictly informed to make his new garments a few sizes bigger. With so much within his reach, he is sure to grow even more. Ivan pinches the thin skin of his wrist. Someday soon, he might forget even this very sensation.
____________
Ivan’s weekly schedule is set in place soon enough.
On Mondays and Wednesdays, he receives thorough examinations from his adoptive father’s personal doctors. They poke and prod at his sternum excitedly, collecting his blood in transparent vials. To them, he is simply another medical anomaly, perhaps one they could write about in their papers, if only his adoptive father allowed for the exact details of his condition to be released. All the general public needs to know is that he is quite sick. Nothing else is necessary.
On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he receives personal tutoring on all subjects, so he can join school in the appropriate grade. These include lessons on proper etiquette, such as sitting practice and smile correction sessions. Ivan’s spine aches for hours later. They always tie him up in the chair too tightly. Still, he is relieved to receive a task he can succeed at. Others can rely on talent, but Ivan only has effort to his name. On Sundays, he is surprisingly allowed to rest, which means he gets to accompany his adoptive father to the golf course and put his learning to the test in front of his colleagues. In the evenings, he gets to come home and browse through his adoptive father’s personal library. These days, he has been reading about space missions.
Fridays would almost be his favorite if he were a more carefree person. Given that enrichment is an important aspect of child development, his adoptive father has hired someone who can help him alleviate potential boredom. Her name is Hyuna, and she is the youngest of all the employees who are in charge of looking after him. Ivan is a little fascinated by her work ethic. She appears to take her work very seriously. Typically, she takes him to the local movie theatre to watch whatever film is airing. Afterward, they go to a restaurant or a park. Although his adoptive father has assigned him a personal driver, Hyuna insists that they take the train or the bus. It is all part of the experience, according to her.
“If you ever have to survive in society like the rest of us, you’ll be in trouble if you don’t know how to get around,” she says as she fills water into one of the wine glasses and hands it to him. Ivan watches as a long strand of brown hair falls across her face. She makes no attempt to brush it away. Seeing her without her sunglasses, Ivan realizes there are dark circles underneath her eyes. “Besides, isn’t it way more exciting? When else do we get a chance to exist so closely with all the people who are also alive in the same moment as us?”
She pats his back a few times before walking away. As she takes each step, a series of soft clangs rings out in the room. Hyuna, Ivan notes, is a little like him. She, too, has a cavity in place of a part of her body. Occasionally, as she takes off her metallic leg to rub around her knee, he gets to see the patch of skin where it fits. In those instances, he wonders if she is aware of the constant loss as he is. If Ivan were a little braver, he would ask. Mostly, he just tries not to stare. He himself knows how much it irks him when people stare.
Years ago, the doctors had considered installing a pacemaker inside his infantile body. The idea was dropped as soon as they realized his body appeared to have no need for it. There was no rhythmic heart to stabilize. To this day, they are unsure how the blood flows within him in the first place. They just know that it will not last long.
No metal in the world can seem to offer a solution.
____________
School fills up quickly with the thundering footsteps of incoming students. Ivan’s polished black boots are stepped on a few times, stained with patterned dustprints. Dressed in a navy blue jacket, he does not stand out from the rest of the crowd. It is almost addictive. No one stares at the stubborn curls that have escaped the captivity of the gel. No one catches the long tooth sticking out of the side of his mouth. No one knows what is hidden behind the third and the fourth button of his inner shirt. No one except for a few teachers, that is. He is to come to them if he is in need of anything. Or if he needs to go to the infirmary, as might be expected.
In class, he writes his name in block letters on the blackboard. The students clap at appropriate intervals. The teacher tells him that he can sit next to a girl with long brown hair in the third row right by the window. The sunlight makes the top of her head appear pink. Ivan blinks a few times until the illusion fades.
“Mizi,” the teacher calls, shaking the girl’s shoulder. She appears to have fallen asleep with her nose squished against the desk, right on top of her spectacles. There is a jellyfish-shaped eraser clutched inside her fist. “Wake up. You have a new deskmate.”
The girl slowly looks up, her head jerking forward. The sun rays catch onto the lopsided rims of her glasses. She waves at Ivan. He waves back.
From the window, Ivan can see a quarter of the sky. He watches the clouds shift as the bell rings, signalling the start of yet another school day. As he settles down into his seat, the teacher writes down a few mathematical equations on the board. Sua would have solved these right away, Ivan thinks, writing down the answers a couple of seconds too slow. Even miles away, he still falls behind. His seatmate yawns, rubbing under her right eye. Ivan lets the sound lull him into a haze.
The bell rings again. Time is abruptly cut short. In history class, his seatmate puts her textbook in the middle of the desk to share with him. Tracing the margins, he notices that she has scrawled something in the corner. Nice to meet you :) Do you like history? There is a badly drawn jellyfish beside the words. Oddly, it looks like a spaceship. Ivan leaves the space next to it blank. He only has stars inside him left to draw, but he does not know how they will turn out. He just nods.
The third period is English. The students have been asked to do an oral presentation on a topic of their choice. Ivan is reasonably excused from the same. He keeps his arms folded across his chest as each student goes up to the front of the class. Boram talks about the bibimbap his mother makes. Eri talks about the elephants she saw in India last summer. Luna talks about the lavender-scented perfume her brother gifted her on her birthday. All of them are capable of carrying a dozen little loves inside their non-porous ribs. When they get nervous with all the eyes on them, their lips twitch upward effortlessly. Ivan’s own ribs are like a sieve. The little bits of joy he has gathered drip out of the little holes he carries. There is no force at work on his lips. They remain as they are in the same shape.
His seatmate, unsurprisingly, talks about the sea.
“It’s so big,” she says, widening the space between her outstretched arms. She wiggles her fingers. “Almost as big as the sky. There are a million kinds of fish inside. Try to picture the strangest creature you can imagine. There’s probably a fish that looks similar somewhere at the bottom of the sea. But that is not so surprising. You and I were once fish, too. The land we are standing on was deep inside the water. One day, I think we will all go back. That’s why it’s important to know how to swim. When the sea comes for you, it is so hard to fight back against it.”
The students clap as she takes a big bow and walks back to her seat. A boy goes up after her, stumbling a few steps in. There is a crown of red flowers on his head. He tries to straighten the interwoven stems, his trembling fingers flattening the fringes of hair stuck underneath it. Through the thick strands, Ivan can make out a thin scrape on the boy’s forehead, extending toward his right eye, which appears to be smaller than the left. Its upper eyelid is puffier. Ivan wonders if the boy cries a lot.
“T-That was really great, M-M-Mizi,” the boy says, his cheeks growing pink. He looks down at his right palm. Ivan suspects he has scribbled a few notes on his skin. “My topic isn't as c-cool, but I-I’m still going to talk about it. Uhm. Here goes.”
A few students in the back chuckle. A boy sitting two desks to the right of Ivan throws a pencil. It lands right by the front row, rolling between the boy’s legs. The boy shuffles his feet, pointing to the flowers around his forehead.
“T-These are anemones. My eomma likes to plant them in our windows. I think she has grown thousands and thousands and thousands of them. Every day, I wake up to so many new flowers. I m-mean, I used to. A few w-weeks ago, my eomma caught a really b-b-bad cold.” The boy bites his bottom lip. He blinks rapidly. “She has to be at the doctor’s for a while, so there are not many anemones in our house right now. That’s why I’m trying to c-collect a thousand of them and bring them to her, so she can come home soon.”
Bringing out his other hand, he passes around a brown notebook. On the pages, there are incomplete outlines of petals in a few dozen shades of red. A flower crushed by the side of the road. A flower growing on an apartment’s windowsill. A flower tucked behind someone’s ear. Ivan’s ears ring as he runs his finger down the smudged whorls, filled with a pale yellow. There is so much color, he thinks, tracing the curves of green leaves, tapering down at the end. Each of these flowers has been imprinted on the paper with so much care. Did you draw all of this? The words get stuck in his throat. How? How can you do it? How can you remember something so forgettable? He coughs, trying to get the sounds out.
“Till,” the teacher is saying, standing up, “do you need to step out for a minute?”
Ivan cannot hear the rest. The boy’s fingers, he realizes, are long, covered in Band-Aids. An artist. A musician. A son. The possibilities are endless. Do they shake when they hold the stem and fold the flower closer to eye level? There is a twitch in Ivan’s chest. The crack deepens. He thinks he could stick three whole fingers inside. What had his seatmate said about trenches in the sea? That no one knows how deep they go? Ivan wonders if there is a limit to his own emptiness.
Ivan’s hand must go up because the boy looks in his direction. The teacher pauses, his hand a few inches off the boy’s shoulder.
“Anemones aren’t so native to the area.” Ivan can feel his mouth move without his own will. This is not what he means to say, but it is still true. Flowers, he thinks, live for such a short duration. People, he thinks, live only a little bit longer. This is the truth he has always existed with. “I assume it would be a little difficult for you to find a thousand.”
The boy frowns, going cross-eyed. He takes a step forward. “What did you say?”
Ivan smiles as the adults have taught him. Ah, he must have uttered the wrong sentences again. Is the boy going to cry? Is he going to leave like Sua? He feels a little faint with anticipation. If he had a heart, it would be entirely out of his control right now. He inhales, biting down on his tongue. Is it him, or is the boy a little closer to him than he was before? Ivan can see the green of his pupils. It is a few shades lighter than the green inside the sketchbook. All of a sudden, his gums hurt. His ugly tooth wants to make its way out.
“Do you need me to repeat it?” he asks, scratching his chin. The boy takes another step. It is a bit difficult to keep track of his movements.
Dazed, Ivan blinks, and the room blurs. He blinks, and the boy is right here in front of him. He is pulling his fist back. Why is he pulling his fist back? His knuckles are already bruised. Ivan has never touched anything long enough to be bruised. There is a cave, Ivan wants to tell him. There is a cave the size of your fist right where my heart should be. No one dares to touch me too hard because of it. Would you still do this if you knew?
But the boy does not need a forewarning. His curled hand is already sinking into the side of Ivan’s cheek, spitting the skin. There is blood gathering between his teeth. Is this what it means to connect with another human being? Does it always feel so everlasting? He thinks it will never end.
Ivan laughs, lifting his own fist. He pushes the boy to the floor. It is funny, is it not? There is another pit opening up inside him. This time, it is on his cheek. Unlike the other one, he has earned every inch of it. So, there is an answer. An explanation. He does not have to wonder why. Because he knows. Because he can trace the wound to this exact moment.
The world is here. For once, it is making firm contact with him. With the strength he has left inside him, with the strength he has never been allowed to embody, Ivan reaches back for it.