Eleven
Top five reasons I might possibly have a potential thing for Jihoon.
That face.
That body.
Don’t be shallow. He’s sweet.
Authentic.
Sensitive, good listener, great cook. Technically this brings the list to seven.
Top five reasons I should not have a crush on Jihoon.
Are you twelve? Adults have relationships, not crushes.
Work. #makingpartner
He lives in Korea.
Hana’s cousin. (Better star this one. Might be reason number one.)
Don’t be the rebound from his breakup. (Could be number one. Or living in Korea is number one. It’s a three-way tie because those are all solid reasons.)
Jihoon is out when I wake up on Monday, and I experience a dip of dissatisfaction. I’m used to his morning routine—coffee, chatter, and filling me in on what’s going on in the Korean news cycle—and it’s irritating to shift back to my usual habit of moving straight to work emails.
I flip on the news to fill the space up with some sound. Wars, trade deals. Sadness, negativity. Some Asian singer is supposedly missing, but it’s not thought to be foul play. Sam Yao’s new action movie trailer is out. I turn it back off because it’s time to get going.
At work, I take two Tylenols and drink some water to get rid of my eternal headache, then stay until the lights start to power down all over the office. When I finally leave, it’s to a dark rainy chill that slides through my wool blazer.
The phone rings on the streetcar, and I answer without looking. “Hello.”
“Hi, Ari.”
It’s Phoebe, and I seriously consider lying and saying I’m about to go into the subway to buy some time. The only reason I don’t is that it means I’ll have to deal with it later when I have even less energy. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Who said anything had to be wrong?” Her voice is tight.
“Phoebe, I haven’t had the best day.” The unspoken order is there: tell me what you want because I am far from being in the mood to deal with you.
She sniffs. “Mom wants you to come for dinner tomorrow.”
“Why are you calling me and not her?” I glare at the phone, wondering if this is Mom’s way of trying to get us to reconcile.
“Mom is busy trying to get Dad to eat a carrot to kick-start his heart health and hiding his laptop so he can’t work.”
Phoebe’s delivery is so dry and her words ring so true, I can’t help it. I laugh. “I’m busy with work.”
“So?”
“So…” I stop. Too busy to see the Dad I might have lost? “Nothing. I’ll be there.” I’ll have to work even longer tonight if I have to waste three hours at my parents’ house, but there’s nothing to be done about it.
Waste. I roll that around. I don’t like that it was the first word that came to mind when I thought of spending time with my family.
I grab some flowers at the corner store to cheer myself up and head upstairs, where Jihoon is on the phone. His back is to me, so he doesn’t hear the door open or me putting away my things.
He also doesn’t hear me because lovely, kind Jihoon is in a rage. I stop with one shoe off. I’ve never heard his voice so loud or harsh. His shoulders are hunched forward as he paces and speaks faster. Then he stops and listens, one hand against the wall and his head bowed, the phone pressed to his ear.
Shit, this has big ex energy all over it, and I’m torn between tiptoeing to my room or standing there like a creepy eavesdropper because he’s talking to someone who can clearly generate a lot of passion, and I want to know more.
When he hangs up, he slaps his hand against the wall.
“Everything okay?” I ask from the door.
He spins around. “You’re home. Did you hear that?” His eyes are huge.
“Yes, but my Korean is less than stellar.” I decide to ask. “Were you talking to your ex?”
He shoves his phone in his pocket. “That’s private.”
Of course it is, but I’m already keyed up from work and Phoebe, and now he’s made me feel like I overstepped, so I’m ready to fight. “Hey, sorry I asked.”
“It was a difficult conversation with someone back home.” He sounds conciliatory, but my passive-aggressive mode has been activated.
“Like I said, sorry I asked.”
“Ari. It’s nothing to do with you. You have no right to be angry with me.” His mouth is a thin line. I should de-escalate this. I should be a good host. I should give him the space to have his feelings.
However, I can’t even do that when I’m having a good day, let alone when my sensitivity reservoir has been drained to an arid pit. “Whatever.”
He rubs his eyes. “Please don’t be like this.”
“I’m the problem?”
“Can I not get some privacy?” he snaps. “A moment to myself?”
In a fight, I’ve always been fairly good at knowing when to stop before I’ve crossed the line. Phoebe is the only one with whom I never paid attention to that border. With her, I didn’t tiptoe over it, I strut through like I was coming down a runway. It never mattered because Phoebe would already have leapfrogged over and be waiting for me to turn around.
I don’t say anything to Jihoon.
I don’t have to, because my eyes drift around the apartment—my apartment—and he gets the hint that he’s the one intruding.
“Forget it.” He snatches up his hat, jams on his slides, and is out the door.
I call Hana about three seconds later.
“Hey, hey.” She’s on video in her hotel room and wrapped in a robe. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to see how you are.”
“No, that’s a text. This is a phone call.”
True. The hierarchy of communication does put phone call above text, which ranks higher than social media post. God forbid you show up at someone’s door unannounced. That’s for deaths only or Mrs. Choi doing a drive-by room check disguised as a food drop.
“I have a problem, and I need advice.”
“Is it Jihoon related?”
“You know, not all my issues are about your cousin,” I say, insulted.
“Sorry. What’s it about, then?”
I hesitate. “Okay, it’s about Jihoon.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I check the time. “It’s only six in Vancouver. Why are you in a robe?”
“Because I hate humanity, so I put on my failure robe to call it a day.”
“I hate humanity, too.”
“Good.” She moves over to a chair near the window. “What about Jihoon?”
“You go first.”
“Mom.”
“What happened now?” I ask.
“The usual. What am I eating. Why so much of it. Why am I traveling for work instead of settling down. When am I visiting next. Why did I leave home in the first place.”
It’s no surprise that Mama Choi has conducted boundary oversteps number 1,043,431 through 1,043,435 because the woman can be difficult. She believes the Korean—at least Busan—way of doing things is superior to all cultures at all times in all areas of competition, particularly when measured against the Chinese and absolutely against the Japanese. When she brought over gimbap and I called it Korean sushi, Mrs. Choi called me an ignorant child before deconstructing a roll to explain in detail how it differed (and was better) with regard to flavor, texture, and composition. When I told her I couldn’t eat the ham, she refused to believe it and held it to my mouth until Hana grabbed it away.
“I don’t want to talk about it now,” Hana says. “Tell me of your hatreds.”
It comes out in a rush. All the minor work irritations I can’t seem to shake off. The fight with Jihoon. Phoebe. Seeing Brittany meeting with both Meredith and Richard in the big conference room.
“That’s a lot,” Hana says finally.
“Thanks. Your turn again.”
“Don’t you want to talk about what happened? How you feel?”
I make a warding gesture at the phone. “You know how I feel about feelings.”
“You know how I feel about talking about feelings.”
She loves talking about feelings. “Guess we’re at an impasse.”
“Hold on.” She leaves the phone on the table, so I now have a great view of the ceiling, and I hear the muffled sound of her thanking the pizza delivery person.
When she comes back, Hana already has a slice hanging from her mouth like a backward tongue. Time to divert her. “What about your day?” I ask.
“Good try.” The words are muffled, and she takes the slice out of her mouth.
“You were planning to go for a walk around Stanley Park,” I say. “There’s a reason you’re holed up in your hotel besides your mom.” The pizza makes me hungry, so I go over to the kitchen. Looks like Jihoon was in the middle of cooking because there’s a sliced onion and the rice is out. I don’t have the energy to cook, so I grab some bread and stuff it in my mouth.
Hana cracks open a Diet Coke. “A guy argued with me that sexism didn’t exist. In fact, men are the ones who are discriminated against these days.”
“Did he cite his source?”
She gets another slice of pizza. “Yeah. It was the internet and his personal experience as the father of a daughter.”
“Can’t argue those.”
“Then he told me that being told to smile was helpful because women look prettier when they’re happy.”
Now we’re both laughing, even though it’s not at all funny despite being painfully hilarious. Then Hana sighs. “The worst of it is that, honest to God, one hundred percent, he didn’t get it. He insisted he didn’t need to be there because, and I quote, he ‘was a nice guy.’”
Nothing to say there. She eats more pizza, and I eat more stale bread. “Don’t worry about Jihoon,” she adds. “He can take care of himself.”
“I feel bad.”
“Did you share a feeling?” She makes exaggerated prayer hands over the pizza box.
“Shut up.”
Hana looks down. “He’s got some stuff going on, but he told me he’s going to talk to you about it. He needs time.”
I laugh uncomfortably. “I mean, he doesn’t owe me anything. We’re not in a relationship.”
She looks horrified. “Eww. With my cousin?” Her eyes narrow. “Ari.”
“What?” I busy myself in the fridge.
“Why would you even say that? Is it something on the table? Is it even in the room where the table is located?”
“Of course not. Don’t worry.”
She gives me a long look. “Okay.”
“I need to get back to work,” I say, deploying my go-to excuse to get out of anything.
“I don’t know why you want to make partner at Yuckerly and Jerklings so bad,” Hana grumbles, brushing crumbs off her robe. “You don’t like anyone there. You don’t have a single work friend. They don’t treat you well.”
“Work is for working,” I say. “It’s the best firm in the city, which means the best lawyers in the country work there.”
“You’re spending your life on something you don’t like. It’s a waste.”
“It suits me,” I say.
“You haven’t given yourself a chance to suit anything else.”
I make a face at her, and she gets the hint that I don’t want to talk about my career choices right now—or ever. I’ve made up my mind on the correct path for me, and you don’t get to the finish line by taking detours.
She manages to get off the phone before I can press her about her mother, and I pass the table where Jihoon’s notepad sits open and filled with scribbles. I change out of my work clothes and come back out dressed for coziness in sweatpants, my hair in a loose knot. It’s late but I haven’t had dinner and I should cook. Instead, I take a bottle of wine and go out on the balcony.
The sounds of the city rise as I prop my feet on the rail and lean back in my chair. I have a memo due tomorrow, but instead I pull out my travel notebook and flip through the pages. All these places I’ve never seen. I told myself I’d go later, but later never seems to arrive. I toss the notebook away, frustrated with myself in a way I’ve never felt before.
Behind me, the door to the apartment clicks shut, announcing Jihoon’s return.