CHAPTER 54

“…Taejun, is that you?”

“Sorry for startling you.”

“Why haven’t you turned on the lights in here?”

“….”

“Shall I turn them on for you?”

“…Actually, I need a drinking buddy more than anything.”

Taejun blurted out impulsively, cutting her off.

“Uh… Alcohol, sure!”

Both of them were well aware of Minhee’s low alcohol tolerance. Nevertheless, Taejun pretended not to notice and gestured for Minhee to come over.

“Then, come over here and sit.”

Minhee, hesitating, adjusted her ice cream tub and came over to the couch. As Minhee fidgeted, unsure where to sit, Taejun tugged her wrist and seated her next to him. She then offered the ice cream tub.

“Um… Do you want some ice cream? It’s caramel cookie flavor.”

Taejun chuckled and shook his head. It was cute to see Minhee flounder awkwardly, without the excuse of ‘practice’.

“What are you drinking right now? Can I have a little?”

Taejun handed Minhee the whiskey glass. As soon as she took it and took a confident sip, she shuddered and frowned arrogantly.

“What is this, poison?”

Taejun let out a low chuckle. It was one of the very few times he laughed out loud, and the sound of it made every hair on Minhee’s body stand on end in chills.

‘I should have turned on the lights. I wanted to see Taejun’s smiling face more clearly…’

Taejun took the glass back from Minhee’s hand.

“Single malt whiskey. The whisky is the same age as you, Minhee.”

“Oh, I see. If we’re the same age, then we’re friends. Then, could you pour me a drink too?”

Taejun poured a fresh glass of whiskey from the bar set up on one side of the living room and returned. Meanwhile, Minhee, who had been scooping ice cream into her mouth, paused when she saw Taejun, then gently lowered her spoon.

“I… I often crave ice cream on days when I think a lot about my mom…”

Minhee smiled embarrassedly and blurted out apologetically. As Taejun sat back down next to Minhee, he casually remarked,

“Don’t worry about me, just eat in peace.”

At Taejun’s words, Minhee took a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. Taejun watched her with stolen glances as she savored the cold treat, the moonlight reflected off her limbs in her short shorts and tank top, making them glisten like pearls.

Taejun struggled to contain his desire that threatened to overflow. He turned his gaze away and took a long sip from his whiskey glass, feeling his throat burn.

Once again, he felt a sense of self-loathing at how weak his self-control had become. Once the reins were loosened, his libido exploded to the point where he wondered how he had managed to live without s*x. Even after indulging, he felt unsatisfied.

When he embraced this petite woman so tightly as if she couldn’t breathe and buried himself inside her, Taejun ironically felt a sense of comfort. It was as if he had found a hot and cozy place to rest after staggering aimlessly without a place to anchor. 

Apart from the physical pleasure, he seemed addicted to that feeling. Just having Minhee in sight made his heart race and his lower body ache, longing to experience that intoxicating sensation again.

However, it wasn’t the same with other women. Taejun was quite satisfied with his relationship with Minhee. So satisfied that he even entertained the unprecedented thought of continuing this contractual relationship outside the house.

‘Would it be such a big deal to have a meal together in a restaurant without Rose?’

This afternoon, Taejun learned something new about Minhee. She was a child who grew up in a loving home with nothing but love in her eyes. It was surprising to know that even she had gone through a rough growth process. Come to think of it, while he had heard about Minhee’s father, he had never heard about her mother.

‘I never imagined because she was dead.’

Suddenly, he realized he didn’t know much about this woman. Though he already knew about Minhee’s traumas and complexes. Also, her body could easily reach climax with just a touch.

But he didn’t know how she’d been living since her mom died, if she was okay now, if she had nightmares when she slept, or anything like that.

What she likes, what she doesn’t like, what she wants to do. Taejun didn’t know anything. He couldn’t understand why he was curious, but he was.

“Why until thirty-nine?”

Minhee’s eyes widened at Taejun’s abrupt question. Then she nodded as if understanding what he meant.

Her mother’s birthday letter, fourteen pages still folded, ended at thirty-nine.

“Because my mom passed away at thirty-nine. She had nothing to nag about at an age she didn’t live to see, so she told me to write when I turned forty. By then, she thought I’d probably have a daughter too.”

Minhee chuckled and shook her head.

“Actually, it’s more of a nagging letter than a birthday letter. ‘Do your homework right after school.’, ‘Make sure you dry your hair after your bath.’, ‘If you have a cold, drink ginger and honey tea.’ and ‘Do this at this age, and don’t do that.’”

With a happy smile, Minhee took a long sip of whiskey and then coughed.

“Ah, it burns my throat! It’s like Dragon’s Breath! I need ice cream!”

Minhee filled a spoon with ice cream and pressed it against her red palate, then closed her mouth. With a happy smile, the spoon slowly slipped from her moist lips.

Her small, pointed tongue quickly swept over her lower lip before ducking back into her mouth. Watching this, Taejun raised his glass again and swallowed more whiskey.

“It’s delicious like this! The strong taste of the whiskey goes well with the caramel cookie flavor. Do you want to try it with ice cream, Taejun?”

Minhee offered Taejun a spoonful of ice cream. Taejun pushed the damn ice cream spoon into his mouth.

“How does it taste?”

‘Ah, that question isn’t appropriate.’ 

Taejun managed to calm himself down. He remembered the obscene image of Minhee that had appeared in his dreams the other day. It was torturous.

“…Sweet.”

He crossed his legs and leaned forward slightly. There were still many things he was curious about. Taejun hastily threw out the first question that came to his mind.

“How old were you when you came to the U.S.?”

“I was ten.”

“Was there a reason for immigrating? You said your father took over a friend’s restaurant on Hilton Head Island. Was that the reason?”

Minhee shook her head.

“No. When we were in Korea, my parents were both middle school teachers, and then my dad went to the US for two weeks on a training program organized by the Ministry of Education, and then he caught ‘American Syndrome’, you know what I mean?” 

Minhee arched an eyebrow at him.

“First-generation immigrant parents often have this incurable disease, where they think that if they go to America, everything will be fine for their children, and they’ll be able to fulfill the American dream. It’s a disease that can never be cured until they come to America.”

Taejun slowly leaned back in his seat, watching Minhee’s face light up with laughter.  ‘American Syndrome’ was a new word to him, but he knew what she meant.

“They didn’t want to raise me like a stressed-out eighth-grader, forced to study in a suffocatingly competitive society. Maybe because both of them were middle school teachers, they were worried about the symptoms of ‘Middle School Syndrome’.

“Middle School Syndrome?”

“…Don’t you watch Korean dramas or browse internet communities at all, Taejun?”

“I check economic news and the stock market.”

“I see, you must have the ‘American side’…”

Minhee muttered to herself.

“American side?”

“You know, the ones at school who hang out only with other Korean-Americans. The ‘American side’ are those born here or who came when they were young and only speak English and socialize with American kids. The ‘Korean side’ are mostly 1.5 generation or international students, who speak Korean and only hang out with Korean kids.”

“Awww. What kind were you, Minhee?”

“I ended up being on the ‘American side’ because I went to school on an island without Korean kids. If I had grown up in places like New York or LA, I would have been on the ‘Korean side.’ There are a lot of kids who immigrated later than me who are completely ‘Americanized’, but I’ve always been unusually ‘Koreanized’. Maybe it’s because I miss Korea so much…….”

Taejun was about to enter 7th grade when he dropped out of school. Besides Taejun, there wasn’t a single Korean student in the public school in the impoverished area he attended. Today, he heard words commonly used in the ‘Korean community’ for the first time.

As a teenager, when he thought of Korea, he naturally thought of his own family. On days like that, the headaches and chest pains were unbearable, and nightmares often followed. 

So Taejun tried to bury Korea deep inside and avoid looking at it as much as possible. However, the Korea that Minhee described was different from the Korea in Taejun’s consciousness. It was somehow pleasant and wistful. Even that made him feel a little nostalgic for her Korea.

“Well, what does ‘middle school syndrome’ mean?”

“It means showing off. Kids in puberty do a lot of embarrassing things, then kick the blanket..”

“Kick the blanket?”

“When you’re lying down to sleep and you think about it and you’re embarrassed, you kick the blanket with your foot.”

Taejun chuckled.

“Showing off seems to be an abbreviation of ’empty boasting.'”

“‘Empty boasting’? What’s that?”

“Empty boasting. It’s a four-character idiom that the term ‘showing off’ originated from.”

“Four-character… Oh! That’s the one with four characters, right? My dad uses ’empty boasting’ a lot. It’s weird. Miho says these days, only old people in Korea use four-character idioms.”

“….”

“Oh! I didn’t mean to say you’re old. Well, you seem older than me, not that you look old, but I think you’re older than me…”

Minhee tried to recover from her blunder, but her words trailed off thinly.

“I’m thirty-two.”

“Ah…….”