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When Sieun is twelve, he faints twice in one week.
The first is slight, a barely noticeable slump of the body that both he and his teacher mistake for a nap. He is confused later when he sees the red mark on his forehead because he doesn’t remember it hitting the desk.
The second is dramatic and frightening. His body feels light and his mind lighter as he makes his way home from the hagwon, like a balloon that’s floating its way up and up and up.
Then the helium bursts, clear sky surrounds him, and he wakes up in a hospital bed to the sound of his parents arguing.
It’s the first time he sees them in the same room since the divorce and the cadence of their shouts soothes him, just a bit.
It’s odd, the things that young minds cling to.
A doctor comes in to ask them to be quiet, to be aware that there are other patients on the ward, and it’s only then that they notice Sieun is awake.
They both rush over and start bombarding him with questions.
For a minute, it feels good. His mother strokes his hair and his father kneads his small hand. There’s real concern in their eyes and voices and they’re looking only at him.
Then his mother asks him what his father did to cause this and it all drops away. Loose puzzle pieces on the floor.
He rebuts, saying it’s stress because she cancelled on her last visit. She says that’s funny, of course even when she hasn’t seen Sieun in a fortnight it’s still her fault - who’s the one living with him? The one who’d fought tooth and nail in court for custody - who’d humiliated her?
They’re both standing up now, arguing over his body. The warm fingers have left, gone into crossed arms on his mother’s side and a pointed hand on his father’s. They leave a cold echo on his skin.
The doctor at the foot of the bed meets his eyes, sighs, then says loudly that the most likely cause is malnourishment.
His mother glares at his father, who turns, stunned, to the doctor. He asks him how that’s possible and if he’s sure that’s the cause.
“Well,” the doctor says flatly, “You could always ask your son. Alternatively, we can offer a blood test with results within twenty-four hours.”
Sieun’s father asks for the blood test whilst his mother scoffs. She tells him to look at your son, once in a while, then marches out.
Once she’s gone, his father turns back to him and picks back up his hand. His face is half guilty, half exasperated. He asks what Sieun has been eating, tells him that this is an important time for his body, and questions softly what, if not food, Sieun has been using the money he gives him on.
Sieun had not meant to stop eating, just as he had not meant to faint. He’d just gotten tired of ready-made food and, after a day or two, had stopped feeling hunger. He’d liked how quiet and fuzzy everything had felt too. Every sharp edge had been softened, like lines through a heat haze.
He also knows this isn't something he should say to his father, though, so he shakes his head and apologises quietly. He says he hadn’t meant to, which is true, and that he was too busy with studying, which is also kind of true.
His father lets out an exhale, long and slow and tasting as much of pride as sadness. He squeezes Sieun’s hand, and he knows he has said the right thing.
Later that evening, his mother returns with a takeout bag of kimchi-jjigae and rice. She stands by his side as he eats whilst his father stares from his chair.
Halfway through, he says, “You know, Sieun can’t eat spicy things.”
Sieun blushes, his face as hot as the red soup on his tongue. He continues eating as once again, their voices start to rise.
Before his mother leaves the next morning, she changes her contact on his phone to an emergency one so a little red asterisk now shows up next to her name and tells him, with another pointed look at his father, to call her at any time.
His father is silent on the bus ride back home. He’s holding the copy of Sieun’s blood test results, which includes a table dotted with red numbers and down-pointing arrows and percentage signs.
Soup, stars, numbers.
Red, red, red.
For the next year, he will bulk buy expensive, fresh ready-meals for Sieun. They are marketed as healthy, filled with nutrients and proteins and oils necessary for the busy modern life. Perfectly balanced.
Every Sunday, a box bearing seven sleek black packages appears on their doorstep.
The menu is limited and repetitive but Sieun eats them like clockwork anyway, because it is easy and because once, when he didn’t, he’d heard the microwave going after his father came in at eleven on a Saturday night. He’d cracked open his door to see him sitting quietly at the dinner table and eating the three leftover packages by himself.
Sieun never did find out just how much each one costs.
When he is a few months from fourteen, the deliveries stop. His father has just been promoted to his new assistant coach position and is away even more than before. He’s currently at a centre in Daegu for a two-week training camp.
Sieun does not want to bother him but he doesn’t have enough allowance for a fortnight of food and he is confused. He calls and his father curses on the phone because of course, he just got his new card and forgot to update his billing details.
He says he will restart the subscription, then pauses.
“Would you like that, Sieun?”
It’s a genuine question, quiet and considered.
Sieun is silent for a good ten seconds upon hearing this, as mute surprise spreads through his body.
“Sieun?”
He shakes his head before realising his father can’t see that, then says no, he’s old enough now that he can manage. His father agrees easily and says something about teenage appetites and won’t it be nice to pick foods for himself, but also repeatedly warns that he must remember about nutrition. Then he recommends a tteokbokki place near home that his colleague told him about.
After he hangs up, Sieun gets a notification on his phone. His father has transferred three-hundred-thousand won into his account.
He feels oddly warm at this because the number is big and that must mean something. He goes to his local convenience store that evening and buys what he remembers he likes. He gets some boiled eggs and salad too, for his health.
It feels different to when he was twelve, because his father had checked that he wanted it.
When love is scarce, drips feel like floods.
As the years go on and he is asked no more questions, Sieun’s will dulls as much as his palette. His menu narrows and narrow until he’s essentially just eating one thing, and he will buy several days of kimbap at a time because he starts feeling self-conscious in front of the store clerks.
He will stop noticing the ping on his bank app but he will always know it is there, a leaden weight in his heart’s ether, and he will not let himself faint again for the same reason.
He will never visit the tteokbokki place, because he cannot eat spicy food.
One day when he is seventeen, a boy with a loud voice and a louder gaze shoves a wrap into his mouth.
The inside feels hot and he knows it will burn his mouth, but it's not as if he can spit it out.
So Sieun chews through the lettuce, crushed slightly already by his hands, and is somewhat surprised when salt and fat and char spread electric over his tongue. The sharp tang of fresh garlic adds a cut note on top. The cold lettuce, a bitter vibrancy.
He usually doesn’t taste in such detail, but it’s perfectly balanced.
The flavours meld into a hum, mellow and fragile, that travels down through his throat as he swallows and rests, easily, in his stomach.
Ahn Suho watches him eat and he watches him back in turn. When he laughs widely and says it’s killer, right?, Sieun’s heart twists, just a bit.
He realises it’s not the food itself that he’s tasting.
His lips feel strange where his fingers touched them, as if they’ve left behind a flesh-soft imprint, skin upon skin. It’s the first time Sieun feels that an echo can be good.
Later, when he notices Suho’s shirt, he does not see the colour of his childhood.
He sees only a new warmth, clad in a brightness that suits him.