Ikhyeon teased her and cracked open another can of beer. When he drank, Morin drank her strawberry milk. The magnolia was losing its petals, and the scent of plum blossoms drifted over from somewhere. She wondered what a man who traced his scar when he missed his dog would reach for when he missed a lost love.

“How’s it going?”

Ikhyeon carefully stood the finished can next to the empty ones and asked.

“How’s what going?”

“Job hunting.”

“I don’t know.”

“I… liked your paintings.”

She had heard from Hyungrin once that Ikhyeon had been deeply sorry when she quit painting.

“I didn’t think I could make a living from it.”

“Hmm….”

Ikhyeon let out a shallow sigh that could have meant agreement or disagreement.

“If I can’t find a job this year, maybe I’ll just get married.”

The words came out before she meant them.

“That works too.”

His indifferent answer stung her, and she sucked noisily on the empty milk carton out of spite.

“What do you mean, that works. Men these days are so calculating. They won’t even date a woman without a job, let alone marry one. Well, if nothing else works out, I’ll just go back to the brewery and make nuruk¹A fermentation starter used in Korean traditional brewing..”

“Making nuruk is fine too.”

“Ha. Not your problem, is it?”

She suddenly felt like picking a fight. Morin crumpled the milk carton and tossed it in the trash, then knocked back the rest of the beer.

“Whatever you do, you’re still you.”

Ikhyeon said it slowly, chin in hand.

“…….”

“So trust yourself and keep going. Here, cheers.”

Ikhyeon tapped his can against hers and drank again.

“Do you… not date anyone?”

Morin hesitated before asking. Three springs had passed since Ikhyeon’s relationship ended. At that time, she had never heard from Hyungrin that Ikhyeon was seeing anyone.

“I can’t find the courage.”

Ikhyeon had been silently wiping the condensation running down his beer can, and he answered with something like a sigh.

“Courage for what?”

“‘He who does not fear the whale shall not board my ship.’ Starbuck said that.”

She didn’t understand what dating had to do with whales and Starbuck, but Morin listened quietly. She was thinking that Ikhyeon’s voice, slowed and weighted by the alcohol, was like petals falling one by one.

“Do you know why first love fails?”

Morin shook her head. She wanted to know and absolutely did not want to know. Her first love was still ongoing.

“Because it didn’t fear the whale. That’s why it was reckless.”

“Isn’t it reckless, and therefore pure, and pure, and therefore first love?”

Ikhyeon smiled faintly at her words. With a look that said, what a little fledgling.

“Are you afraid of the whale now?”

Morin asked.

“Yeah.”

After a long pause, Ikhyeon admitted it.

“If you’re afraid of the whale, doesn’t that mean you can board now? That’s what Starbuck said.”

If courage wasn’t the absence of fear but the act of trying despite it, then Morin wanted to be courageous too. Maybe her inability to give up on Ikhyeon was also a lack of courage. The courage to live a life without him.

“You’re right.”

Ikhyeon put his hands in his jacket pockets and looked up at the night sky. With each breath he took, white puffs scattered into the blue night. The cool, damp spring night air settled over Ikhyeon’s and Morin’s shoulders.

“Is something… wrong?”

Ikhyeon only shook his head.

Once or twice a month, whenever her dad called, Ikhyeon would come without fail, eat together with everyone, drink with her brothers, do the dishes, and leave. His unreadable face was calm and his laughter easy. Like someone who had never gone through a breakup at all.

But tonight was different. Looking up at the night sky, his eyes held an aimless, desolate, faraway look that made her want to ask what he was thinking. Like he had been at twenty. Countless nights had passed through Morin in which she had wished she were the reason for that aimless loneliness.

“Are you going to keep drinking? You’ve had quite a bit. Let’s call it.”

Even as Morin gathered her bag and moved to stand, Ikhyeon didn’t stir.

“If you’re drinking more, I’m going ahead. Kwon Ikhyeon, find your courage. They say fortune favors the brave.”

She offered the hollow encouragement and gave his shoulder a couple of playful taps.

“So… Morin.”

Ikhyeon suddenly grabbed her wrist where her hand rested on his shoulder. He called her name in a voice that trembled slightly.

“Let’s get married.”

Ikhyeon’s voice fell at the same moment as a magnolia petal.

“Why?”

It was the only word she could manage at that moment.

“Because… you like me.”

Morin’s heart slammed against her throat and dropped deep.

“How did you….”

Kwon Ikhyeon was a terrible person.

Morin bit her lip to keep from crying.

“I know what that feeling is like.”

Kwon Ikhyeon was truly a terrible person.

“You said you couldn’t find the courage.”

“Haha. Honestly, it takes courage to reach out to a girl with three older brothers.”

“You’re drunk. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Morin tried to pull her wrist free from his hand, but he wouldn’t let go.

“You’re right, I’m drunk. But I know what I’m saying. If I weren’t drunk, I couldn’t have proposed to you. What I’m saying right now is a drunk truth.”

Ikhyeon wobbled up from his chair. Morin watched the plastic chair scrape back, feeling detached from reality.

“Morin.”

Ikhyeon tried to get down on one knee but lost his balance and knocked the table, sending the beer cans lined up like bowling pins crashing loudly to the ground.

The wind blew, the scent of plum blossoms was dizzying, and withered magnolia petals fell onto her shoulders one by one. Passersby glanced over at Morin in her gray hoodie and Ikhyeon down on his knee.

“When you get a job, let’s get married.”

Ikhyeon took something from his jacket pocket and slipped it onto Morin’s ring finger. The metal, warmed by his body heat, was warm. Morin had assumed it would be a pull tab from a beer can, but it was, astonishingly, a ring. None of it felt real. Not the proposal, not the ring glinting under the light. The most unreal thing of all was Ikhyeon on his knee, looking up at her.

The wind lifted his hair and revealed his clean forehead. The pulse beating at his temple was plainly visible, and yet all of this felt like a fantasy she had conjured herself. So much so that she hadn’t even thought to question the ring that had appeared from his pocket like magic.

“Why are you doing this all of a sudden?”

“I want… to be loved.”

At that moment, Morin saw an expression cross his face.

It was the same expression she had seen on twenty-year-old Ikhyeon’s face, dancing under a streetlight in the early hours of a morning when snow had been falling in a frenzy, wearing mismatched flip-flops on bare feet and a stretched-out sweatshirt.

“I want to be loved by Gu Morin. With you, I think I could board the ship.”

“What if I don’t get a job…?”

Staring at the ring sparkling like a dewdrop, that was all she could manage to say.

“I’ll wait, until you do. I’m a calculating man.”

Morin burst out laughing.

“I feel at ease with you.”

Morin’s smile faded. It was a way of saying he didn’t love her. That he didn’t expect much from her. No expectations meant no disappointment, and that was why he felt at ease.

Even so, Morin accepted his proposal.

Because the Morin of that time did not fear the whale.

“Gu Morin!”

A short honk brought her back to the present. Morin looked at the car pulled up along the road. Her husband. He had rolled down the window and was calling her name.

Morin slowly crushed the milk carton and watched her husband wave. And she thought: she wanted him to feel his heart split in two because of her.

He should be uncomfortable. He should be frantic with anxiety, wanting to be near her yet terrified she might hear his heart pounding. He should be thrown off by emotions he couldn’t control. The words he couldn’t say should rise up as tears.

When Morin didn’t move, her husband turned on his hazard lights, got out of the car, and ran to her. She watched his tie swing against his chest as he ran.

He would never know, not until the day he died, that she lay on the floor instead of the bed so he wouldn’t hear the heart that gave itself away without her permission.

Morin looked up at him from where she sat.

“What are you doing here?”

He asked.

“Waiting for Kwon Ikhyeon.”

Morin pulled up the corners of her mouth.

Her husband smiled back. His Indian dimples appeared on his cheeks.