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Afterwards, they walk together in the Seoul night. No stars are visible in the sky, but it doesn’t matter. A million stars flew before them in the planetarium earlier, but he saw only her.
He still sees only her.
“Sorry,” she says presently. They’ve just rounded a corner. A light breeze floats past, rippling her hair against his shirt.
“For what?”
“I never replied. And I never called you, even though you asked me to.”
Call me later. He has no idea how many times he opened their conversation, read his own messages over and over, wondered if he’d sent them into a void. Into a fairy tale, perhaps – as futile as holding on to memories made in a pumpkin carriage.
He smiles, and means it when he replies, “You don’t need to apologise.”
They walk on. Another block, then another. He wonders what he’d be doing now, if she hadn’t come – if they hadn’t ended up in the same time and place once again, somehow precisely where they needed to be in this improbable universe. He would have gone home, probably, and scrolled listlessly on his phone before finally dragging himself up to bed, tired and heartsick. Or maybe he would have walked on his own through the streets, thinking of her.
As it is, he’s here, with her. They walk together as they used to – at a leisurely pace, talking about this and that. And just like before, it feels like the world is suspended in the space between them.
Eventually, yet all too soon, they come to a crossroads of sorts.
“My bus stops here,” she says. “How will you get home?”
She’s living in a different neighbourhood, she told him. Renting for the time being. She didn’t feel right living in the apartment she shared with her husband, or in the place her father lived until the end of his days. It feels good, she said, to be somewhere new for the first time in so many years.
He shrugs, runs a hand up the back of his hair. “I guess I’ll get a taxi. I’ll wait here until your bus comes.”
They stand there, watching the intermittent trickle of traffic in both directions before them, the streams of red and amber lights. He feels his heart beating faster, as though urgently counting down the time until their separation. He doesn’t know how to make this last, how to stop her from vanishing into thin air like she did on that rainy night all that time ago.
Suddenly she asks him: “Shall we go to the sea?”
He turns to her. A jolt of relief runs through him.
She turns to look back at him, a quizzical light in her eye.
“What made you think of that?” he asks. He could say yes immediately, of course; it’s not as though his answer is in doubt, but he needs to hear her answer. He needs her to say that it’s not just him, even though he already knows it. Her presence here, tonight, is testament to that.
“Well… We didn’t go, that day.” She smiles wistfully. “We should settle the bet.”
“Ah,” he says, nodding, his tone one of exaggerated comprehension, “because you hate losing, right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” she says laughingly.
“Right then. Let’s go.”
-
The bus journey is long. He thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but he finds himself drifting off after all. He stirs when they pull into the interchange, and realises he’s been resting his head on her shoulder.
She smiles at him when he looks at her sheepishly. “You must have been tired,” she says. “To fall asleep in the morning.”
They talk quietly on the connecting bus to Chuncheon.
“I’ve never been on this route before,” she muses, gazing out the window. “It’s pretty.”
He stares at her profile – at her smooth cheek, the glimmer of her earring, the slender curve of her neck. Her eyes, which look out at the world serenely. There will always, he thinks, be a touch of sadness about her. Perhaps that’s true of everyone; there isn’t a single person who lives on this earth and under this sky without some shadow of grief or regret or lingering pain in their heart.
“You know,” she says, “I really wanted to win the bet that day.”
He can’t control his smile. He’s never been able to, around her. No more than he can control the giddiness that spreads to his extremities.
“Me too. I wanted you to win, too.”
-
It was raining that day. He remembers standing on the beach, umbrella in hand, listening to the gentle patter of rainfall coalescing with the ceaseless crash of waves upon the shore.
But it’s a fine day today. The few clouds overhead are fluffy and brilliantly white, delivering no threat of rain or storm, and the affable summer sun warms him and the sand they walk on, shoes in hand.
Father, he thinks, gazing out at the calm waters, these days I sometimes think that every person in this world is an ocean. They have layers that are hidden from the eyes of others. Those are their hopes, and their fears, and their pain. It’s scary to try and swim in someone else’s ocean. But to love them, to live properly, to not be alone, I need to do that. I can't stay standing on the shore.
They’ve been silent for a long time, each wrapped up in their own thoughts as they make their way along the beach. The odd adventurous wave laps around their ankles.
Eventually she asks, “How many times a day do you think about your father?”
He thinks about it for several moments. “I don’t know… I guess it’s different every day. A lot, sometimes. More when things are hard.”
He pauses. “But you know, strangely, it’s him I think about. When I’m sad. Not my mum. Why do I think of someone I can’t even talk to?”
“I don’t know about you,” she says, “but I always thought of my dad because I wondered how I could be someone more worthy of calling themselves his daughter. And now that he’s gone, I wish he could see me, so he could see me living well. That would make him so happy.”
“He was happy, though. Anyone could see how happy he was because of you. How much he loved you.”
He feels more than sees her smile.
“I never asked you this,” she says after a while, “How did – how did you find out he passed away?”
“Well, one night I had some extra things from dinner, so I went to bring it to him. I knocked and knocked but no one answered. Finally this guy, a security guy or something, came by to look at the place, and he told me.”
He remembers it all too well. Remembers how he stood there, numb, feeling like a cold stone had been dropped inside of him. His mind racing with the thought of how much pain she must be in, and how he could do nothing about it.
“I see,” she says presently. “Thank you. For thinking of him. For caring about him.”
Another memory surfaces, bringing a slight smile to his lips. “Actually, he thought about me first. Do you remember when he gave me that piece of cake? It was actually my birthday that day. I was really touched.”
“Really?”
She suddenly laughs, the sort of laughter that comes to a person in spite of the tears in their eyes, the sorrow in their heart – the kind of laughter one only experiences when reminiscing about someone dear and departed.
“Do you know, he told me he gave you that cake so you’d pay me some respect. So you’d be forced to acknowledge me when we passed each other in the building.”
He chuckles too. “It did work.”
“Yeah,” she says softly. Their fingers brush. “You’re right.”
-
He lies on the bed. His heart’s pounding again, as hard as it did that night in the planetarium. He hears the running water stop, the shower curtain being pulled aside. It seems like his whole existence is on a precipice.
After a light dinner they walked around a bit more, before he said, “It’s getting late. Should we go somewhere?” And she nodded and said, “How about there?” It was a nice sort of place, a place couples and families on holiday stayed. He lingered uncertainly at the front counter, fidgeting, the reality of this impulsive trip suddenly crashing down on him. But she only smiled at the receptionist and asked calmly, “Do you have a room available?”
They did. It’s small and sparsely furnished, but clean, and the bed is comfortable. The faint motion of the sea a few hundred metres beyond is audible. The curtains ripple slightly in the summer breeze.
The bathroom door opens. She stands in the doorway, wearing a sheer white undershirt, a towel wrapped around her waist. He supposes neither of them wanted to be so presumptuous as to bring a change of clothes. He, too, wears the singlet he had on under his shirt.
Their eyes meet for several seconds, her gaze characteristically steady. Slowly she walks over to him.
Neither of them speak as she settles down on the other side of the bed. He’s lying on the right side, as is seemingly their custom. He doesn’t watch as she removes the towel and lies beside him, pulling the thin blanket up around her waist.
They turn to face each other.
Wordlessly she reaches out her arm. No question is necessary tonight. Her fingertips are warm as they alight on his face. They trace his eyebrows, the bridge of his nose, his cheekbones. Her touch is light and unhurried, calming and desperately arousing at once, just as before. But this is different. This time there is no glint of gold on her finger to stay her, and no chatter from passerbys outside to break their moment. Her fingers continue their path. Her index finger caresses the corner of his mouth, then runs along his top lip before tracing back across his bottom one.
He swallows.
“Kangjae-ssi,” she says, a near whisper. Her fingertip continues to trace the sensitive skin of his lips.
It’s the first time she’s said his name.
“Yeah,” he whispers back.
He draws her close as he did before. Her hand moves to rest tenderly on his jaw.
He leans in and closes his eyes, his hand sliding up from her waist to tangle in her hair as their lips meet. Their kisses, slow and deliberate and aching, reduce everything to this moment, this moment that feels as inevitable as it does impossible.
-
It doesn’t feel like falling after all. It feels like drowning, if it’s possible for drowning to give life instead of taking it away. It feels like he’s sinking deep, deeper and more deeply still into her ocean – into the expanses of her that no one else has ever been privy to, and that even he will never fully know or comprehend. It feels like he can’t breathe, as he swallows her gasps instead of oxygen. It feels like he’s living a dream that has somehow entered the fold of reality. And it feels like she’s as deep in his ocean as he is in hers.
-
He wakes first, the next morning.
Many things since meeting her have been new to him, and this is another. He’s never woken up with someone like this, before.
His eyes track over her face, younger and more relaxed in repose. Her bare shoulder, the sharp jut of her collarbones, her breasts. Her hand that still lightly clasps his own. He gently pulls the blanket up and listens to her even breaths.
“Lee Bujeong-ssi,” he murmurs.
Her name tastes sweet in his mouth. He smiles and lets himself drift off again.
-
They take another trip down to the beach. It’s different in the morning. The bright sunlight glances off the water, promising another fine day to come.
She says, “Now we’ve been to the mountain, and the sea too. Shall we go home?”
He nods his assent.
He doesn’t say he feels like he’s already there.