Eight
On my way up to the apartment, I push away thoughts of Phoebe and think about what to eat. According to my weekly meal plan, tonight is chickpea bowls. Healthy and nutritious. I prepped the quinoa on Sunday the way I always do. Suddenly my chest feels hollow, but I don’t know why. Chickpeas are good, and as a treat, I got organic for an extra two dollars a can. I like having the same thing every week. Streamlining my life means I can focus on what’s important.
Jihoon is lying on the couch staring at a pen he’s holding but sits up when I come in. I hadn’t known how badly I’d wanted him to be home until I saw him. I throw myself in the chair opposite him, then get back up to put my purse where it belongs. He watches me before rising with a graceful motion and fetching two glasses and a bottle of wine.
“How did you know I wanted this?” I ask as I take my glass.
He puts down the bottle. “I did, too. How’s your father?”
I fill him in and feel a surge of relief when I finish the story of Phoebe and the visit. I survived but don’t want to linger on it. “What did you do today after the café?”
Jihoon updates me on his day as though it didn’t happen until he tells someone about it. There’s no detail too random for him to leave out, and even though I should find it aggravating, I don’t. I close my eyes as he describes the two dogs he saw playing in the park near a high stone wall. He has an eye for small details that make a scene come to life: the red collar and dusty paws on the black dog, and the dry, crumpled leaf stuck in the fur of the gray one.
Then I open my eyes to a delicious aroma wafting over from the kitchen and a blanket over me.
Oh my God, I fell asleep when Jihoon was talking. That’s the rudest thing I could have done, even if the low rasp of his voice could be sold as stress relief therapy. He should run an ASMR channel.
I tumble off the couch, yelping as my knees thump on the floor, and Jihoon calls from where he’s standing at the kitchen counter, “Ari, are you awake?”
“Sorry, sorry.” I get to my feet, rubbing the pins and needles out of my arm. “I have no excuse for that.”
“You’ve had an exhausting time.” He doesn’t seem to take my nap as a commentary on how interesting I found his conversation. “It happens to my friends and I often. Are you hungry?”
“Very.” This is a welcome escape from my chickpeas. When I stumble into the kitchen, pots are bubbling, and his hands move confidently to give one a stir and another a shake. I check the time. I’ve slept for an hour.
“Good, because I made too much.” He brushes his hair back, and it immediately falls into his eyes again. “I’m used to cooking for five.”
“I thought you only had one roommate.”
He pauses. “Our friends are over a lot.”
He spins around and grabs a bottle of red wine, giving a pan a liberal splash before pouring more into a glass and handing it to me. I take it and go into my room to change so my work clothes won’t smell of cooking. I unravel my hair from its bun before giving my scalp a quick massage with my fingertips. I have a headache from lying on it as I slept, and having it loose sometimes helps.
Back in the kitchen, I perch on a chair to watch Jihoon work because it’s soothing to have him cook for me. Neither Hana nor I are creative gourmets, since I strive for efficiency and she for convenience, but Jihoon seems to take real pleasure as he slices and stirs.
Jihoon’s hand halts over the saltshaker. “Your hair.”
I glance down and run my hand through to check it over. It feels fine, no knots or kinks. “What about it?”
His eyes follow to where the ends fall at my waist. “I’ve never seen it loose before.”
I pull it behind my shoulders. “I need to wear it up for work, so it’s become a habit.” My hair contravenes one of the office’s many unspoken rules: Thou Shall Not Stand Out in Thine Appearance. It’s one I’m already pushing by being visibly Asian, and I don’t like to add to it by having my hair on display. One of the partners referred to it as my geisha look when I wore it down at a holiday party.
“It has waves as dark as the memory of a night river.”
Jihoon throws off the compliment casually, like it’s no big deal, and grabs the shaker. At least I think it’s a compliment. I’ve never had a man say something like that to me before. “Thank you?”
He smiles and checks the rice cooker. It’s a boring Canadian one since I refused to get the expensive imported version that chirped, “Your rice is done!” in Korean. Hana had pouted for three days. I sip the wine to cover my confusion as he spoons rice into a sizzling pan.
My phone rings, and I glance at it. “Work.”
I deal with a last-minute update on one of my due-diligence projects. It’s late for a call, and although I do my best to be professional, when I end it, my jaw aches from trying to keep my voice calm. One of my law profs told us to keep the expression we wanted in our voice on calls, and it’s harder than it sounds.
Jihoon glances at me when I’m done. “You sound different at work.”
“Yeah?” I nibble on a chive. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Harder, almost. Severe.”
I roll my head over to look at him. “Makes sense. I need to be those things so people don’t take advantage of me. Can you imagine a soft lawyer? People would think I’m a pushover.”
“All the time?”
I rub my temples. “It depends on what people expect from me. With others, I need to be peppier. More keen and positive.”
He tilts his head. “You’re not like either of those at home.”
“I mean, I can be, if you prefer,” I say stiffly. I feel like I’ve been caught out in something.
“I like that you’re like this with me. It seems more like the real you.”
I want to scoff at him because he’s known me, what, days? But he’s a little right. I always feel like I’m playing a role in my job. “I guess it is,” I say.
He smiles at the rice. “Good. I like this Ari.”
I don’t know what to say—cultural differences mean I can’t tell if he’s only being polite—so I watch Jihoon arrange the food with delicate fingers and an expression of intense concentration. He even snipped chives for a garnish. I would never bother doing that, but it looks as pretty as it smells delicious. Japchae shares space on the table with braised tofu, fried rice, and salad.
“No meat,” he says. “Hana says you’re vegetarian.”
“You checked with her?” I grab chopsticks and dig into the glass noodles.
Jihoon tilts his head to the side, then fetches kimchi from Hana’s inexhaustible store, which he cuts with scissors before plating it. “Of course. I wanted to know what you’d like but didn’t want to wake you up.”
I can’t believe he’s real. Who does that?
“You’re a fantastic cook.” I’ve been too busy eating to have properly congratulated the chef. “Why do you eat so much instant ramen when you can cook like this?”
“I don’t like to cook only for myself.” Again he bites his lip. “Eating together is good. I missed this from home.”
Since I’m now on my second glass of wine, I decide this is as good an opening as I’m going to get. “Hana said you left Seoul because of a breakup. Do you want to talk about it?”
Jihoon snaps his chopsticks on some kimchi and examines it before lowering it slowly to his plate. “The breakup.”
“They’re hard,” I say. I’m trying, but I’m not the best at talking about relationships and wish Hana were here to pilot the conversation. She’s a solid INFP on the Myers-Briggs, an Enneagram Type-2 Pisces. Or so she tells me, because those things are bull. She says that’s exactly what an INTJ, Type-8 Aquarius would think. “Breakups.”
“Yes.” He sips his own wine, frowning as if deciding what to say. “We’d been together a long time, and I wasn’t sure who I was outside of it. I came here to think about what I wanted and whether people would accept me for what I have to offer on my own.”
Despite his words, the longing in his voice is so clear that I wonder if he’s not completely done with his partner. I wouldn’t judge, even though part of me is almost jealous of this person who has so much of his attention. Even after the brief time we’ve known each other, I feel the power of his focus. When Jihoon’s listening, it’s like he’s entirely in the moment and that moment is all about you.
I’ve only known him for two weeks, but that much attentiveness is addictive.
“You couldn’t sort it out back home?” I ask.
His nod is so decisive that his hair flops over his forehead like a living thing. “I needed to get away and clear my head. If I were there, I would get drawn back in. How can you explore yourself surrounded by all the same things that have determined who you’ve been for so long?”
I don’t bother with a lot of self-reflection, but I see where he’s coming from. “I’ve never left the country, so I wouldn’t know.”
He tilts his head to the side. “You don’t like to travel?”
“Never had the chance, but I’d love to.” I poke at some bean sprouts on my plate. “I plan trips a lot, for fun.”
“Ah.” Jihoon doesn’t say anything else, but I’m left with an uncomfortable feeling that I said more than the words. “That sounds relaxing.”
It is, but I look away, self-conscious about my private obsession. “Oh, you know.”
“I don’t,” he says. “Tell me.”
I deflect. “It’s nothing, only something to look forward to. Like looking at the menu before you go to the restaurant.”
“Anticipation.”
More vicarious living, since none of these trips are for me. “How about you?”
“My trips are usually for work, so I don’t see much besides the hotel room and where I’m working. Someone does all the scheduling.”
That’s almost worse than not going at all. We both eat silently until Jihoon pauses, holding his glass midair.
“Let’s plan a trip,” he says. “Our ideal trip.”
It could be the wine and the intimate, warm feeling of eating with Jihoon that causes my first question to be “Where to?” instead of why would we do that?
He grins and pushes himself back from the table. “Anywhere. Everywhere. We could take an around-the-world cruise. Or find a small village in the Alps and feed goats for a month.”
“Did you know goats can climb trees?” I think about it. “I’m in.”
We clear off the table as we narrow down our location. “Relaxing or active?” I ask.
“Moving relaxes me. I like to walk.” He brings the wine and glasses to the living room and comes back to clear the water jug. “Busy or quiet?”
I consider this as I wipe the table down. “Both? I’d like to experience a big city, but I also want solitude. I don’t want people around me all the time.”
“I want that, too,” he says. “I like being with people I know, but I get nervous when strangers get close to me.”
We go into the living room, and he hands over my glass. Our fingers brush slightly, and I almost jerk back with the electrical shock that flashes through me. He must have been shuffling on the carpet.
“Do you need to speak the language wherever we go?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’m fine looking confused until someone helps.”
“Your English is great,” I say. “Did you learn from Hana?”
“I went to an international school and then practiced on her and a friend from Vancouver. Do you speak…” He hesitates, looking at my hair and face. “Any other languages?” To his credit, he doesn’t start naming Asian languages at random.
“No. My mom speaks enough Cantonese to order dim sum, and Dad only speaks English, no Chinese at all.”
He leans back on the cushions, jawline on display. In a way, I wish he were the same distant Jihoon of the last few days because I can tell this warmer version is going to be difficult to live with.
Live with without drooling over, I should clarify.
We hammer out a few more details. Neither of us needs luxury but do require regular showers. Shopping is important for Jihoon and not for me. I want to hit some major landmarks, and he’s happy looking at them online. Neither of us likes standing in lines.
“I’m not used to them,” he says.
“What, there aren’t lines in Seoul?”
He glances at his glass. “Not at the places I go.”
“Okay, Mr. Fancy Music Producer. We’ll avoid places where you need to queue like the common folk.”
Jihoon goes red. “Do you have any ideas on where we can go?”
“I do.” My travel notebook is in my bag by the door, and I go over to check it without bringing it back to the living room. No one has ever read it. Even Hana thinks it’s only a journal.
As I flip the pages, he calls, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I stuff the notebook back into my bag and go back. “I have a place.”
He looks at me suspiciously. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“How do you know I’m hiding anything?” I put on an injured tone.
Jihoon gestures toward my bag near the door. “Ari. You’re not subtle.”
I know when I’m defeated, but when I look at his face, I decide to trust him. “I keep a travel notebook. It’s where I jot down notes of interesting places.”
He doesn’t laugh like I fear, only nods. “It makes sense to have a place for your ideas. I have notebooks for my music, but I keep losing them.”
“You can set up a special email account to send yourself notes. My friend did it for her kid and sends photos and messages so they can read them when they’re older, like a digital journal of their childhood.”
He brightens. “I love that idea. Where are you thinking would be good for our trip?”
I hesitate. I can find what I need online, but my notebook has the perfect route already mapped out. Jihoon catches my eye and smiles at me. He hasn’t let me down yet. I make up my mind and fetch my notebook.
Sitting back beside him, I flip through the pages. The book itself is nothing special, a plain grid-patterned A5 Leuchtturm1917 with a canary yellow cover. I like all my travel notebooks to have the same look, and I have filled ones with blue, green, and purple covers on my shelf. There isn’t much of a rhyme or reason to the notes either, like being organized by continent or country, or hotels and attractions. It’s a hodgepodge of ideas and information that strike my fancy gleaned from conversations, social media, and news stories.
Jihoon looks over with interest but stays silent until I find the page I want. I take a deep breath and pass over the book. “Here. The Camino de Santiago.”
He takes it carefully. It’s a two-page spread featuring a rough map of southern France, Spain, and eastern Portugal. I’ve marked my preferred pilgrimage path across northern Spain and down south.
I figure he’ll glance at it and give it back, but instead he examines the path before reading the notes about hostels, sights, and packing tips that crowd the corners of the pages. “May I look through the rest of the notebook?” he asks.
“Why?”
He looks at me. “This is fascinating. I want to know what other places have caught your attention.”
In for a penny, right? I’ve already come this far, so I nod. Part of me is happy to be able to share it. There are so many enthralling places in the world and to talk to someone about the ones that interest me is…well, it’s fun.
Jihoon takes his time working through the pages. There aren’t many, since I only started this one a couple months ago. He points to one of the entries. “We can see the world’s oldest ham?”
“At the Isle of Wight Museum. They also have the oldest peanut.”
“Let’s log that for a later trip.” He turns the page. “Ah, I’ve been here!”
“Atlantis Books in Santorini?”
He nods. “It’s very twisty and crowded inside, but you can buy a book to read on the outdoor patio. The town has one of the best sunsets in the world.”
I sigh, and Jihoon leans in so our shoulders touch. “You’ll go one day,” he assures me. “Perhaps we should go to Greece for our getaway instead?”
I’m torn before I remember this is all make-believe. We’re not going anywhere. “Let’s stick to the Camino.”
“It’s perfect,” he says. “Walking and quiet.”
“You can shop in Seville. Or we can fly into Paris.”
“Then we can go up the Eiffel Tower,” he says. “I’ve never been to the top, only saw it from the hotel.”
I look at my notes. “The best times to go are spring and fall.”
“Fall,” he says with certainty. “It’s my favorite season.”
“Mine, too.” I check my phone. “I say we do three days in Paris and then get a train south. We can have a bus take our bags ahead each night so we don’t have to carry all our clothes as we walk.”
He frowns. “Doesn’t that negate the point of a pilgrimage walk?”
“Do you want to carry a huge bag for twenty kilometers each day?”
Jihoon weighs the actuality against the purity of the experience. “No.”
I shut my notebook and lean back against the couch. “I wish we could do this now.”
“We can,” he says. “I jumped on a plane to Toronto. I can get on another to Paris.”
“I can’t go to Paris. I have work.”
“Then let’s do this next year. For now, we can go somewhere that doesn’t involve crossing an ocean,” he says.
“We should,” I say. I’m not sure what he means, but I’m tentatively open to the idea.
“I’m not even sure what I like to do anymore. I’ve been too busy with work.” He tosses the pillow aside. “Books. Do I like stories or facts? Am I a man who enjoys puzzles? Graphic design? Horse racing?”
“Can’t help you there.” I grab the glasses and refill them. Then I pause. “Wait, I can.”
He swirls his glass. “Do you have a flowchart?”
I ignore that. “Are you free this weekend?”
“I’ll have to check my calendar since the zero people I know in the city are all begging for some time.”
“Decline all zero. We’ll have a Who Is Jihoon Day while you’re in Toronto.”
He lifts his perfect eyebrows. “That sounds like the worst name for a national holiday.”
“Well, we have Canada Day. Not very creative.”
“We have Hangul Day, when we celebrate the creation of our alphabet.”
I pause. “That’s pretty cool, to be honest. Are you in?”
“I’m not sure how I can resist.”
It’s not until I’m almost asleep that a text comes in. It’s an itinerary for next year’s Camino walk from Jihoon, with all the details we discussed, complete with flight availabilities to Paris from Toronto and Seoul. It’s in my calendar, his message ends, with a link to a meeting request for today next year.
He’s called it Jihoon and Ari’s Super Awesome Getaway. I accept the request. Mine too, I type.
Then I lie in bed and look at the screen. We can have a fun day exploring while he’s here, but obviously this big trip will never happen. Jihoon’s only here for a few weeks, which is no doubt why I feel so free with him. He’s safe because nothing can happen. Our Super Awesome Getaway is safe as well, a dream I can plan for and anticipate without worrying about taking time off work or getting sunburn or blisters. It will be always unrealized and perfect.
I click the map link he’s included and trace my finger from Salamanca to Merida. Perhaps one day I’ll do that walk, and if I do, I wonder if I’ll remember Jihoon. Or if he’ll remember me.
It would have been fun to do together, though.