She gave me a dubious look and offered cereal. Bomi later told me that the staff had to go all the way to Itaewon to buy the box at an international store that catered to expats and diplomats. The following day, I adamantly declared my love for Wansu’s green drink. I thought it would be some Korean delicacy, but instead it’s a kale, pineapple, mango, and strawberry smoothie with a protein scoop full of all the essential vitamins a woman needs. Wansu was oddly excited to explain this to me, and for that reason, I have downed that disgusting thing every day for the past six weeks.
I do not feel any healthier today than I did when I started drinking the kale smoothie, but that may be because I’m consuming copious amounts of fried chicken, hotteok—a flattened and fried patty of dough with melted sugar in the center—batter-fried hot dogs sometimes topped with sugared apples, and fish cakes. And, of course, my beloved fried pork balls.
In the evenings, if I’m not out with Sangki discovering another food truck or hanging with Jules and Bomi, I’m at the walnut dinner table with Wansu eating a meal made by the chef slash housekeeper, Mrs. Ji. The food served is fantastic, but it’s decidedly Western—pasta, grilled lemon chicken with a side of roasted potatoes, buttered scallops with asparagus spears, creamy mushroom soup with homemade croutons. I’m beginning to wonder if Wansu even owns chopsticks.
“No. Not really. She makes a great radish soybean paste stew. I love it in the winter, and her pork-potato jeon is also delicious. Jeon is a Korean pancake,” he starts to explain, but he doesn’t need to. I’m familiar with the savory fritter.
“I love jeon. Sangki and I went to a food truck at the Gwangjang Market last week. They made about ten different kinds. I liked the scallion ones the best.” They were thicker than most of the jeons I’ve seen in the basement department store food halls or in the restaurants.
“How was the spicy stew tonight?”
“Very good. What did you have?”
He yawns and turns his face away from the camera to hide his tiredness. “The team ordered Singapore noodles. They were good, but I’m tired of Chinese food. I want to come home and eat Korean food with you.”
“I want that, too.” I want him home with me.
A soft smile curves the corners of his lips up. “Do you miss me, Hara?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t say it much.”
“Because I sound needy and desperate.”
“I must sound the same, then, as I tell you this every night.”
“No. It sounds cool when you say it.”
“Ah, but I am needy and desperate.” His voice drops. “It has been forty-five days since I’ve had you.”
A dozen, no, a hundred images fly through my mind. Yujun at the airport in the suit. Yujun waiting outside the Airbnb in jeans and a simple white shirt. Yujun in crisp wool slacks and a sunny yellow T-shirt rolled at the sleeves. Yujun in nothing but sweat and skin, his biceps flexing as he lowers his body down and inside me. I close my eyes as if that can shut down my imagination, but it only gets worse. In the darkness, with the sound of his breathing on the phone, it’s as if he’s here with me, stroking me, kissing me, loving me. I’m overwhelmed and don’t want him to see it. It’s too humiliating.
“I think I need to go,” I croak. “Big day tomorrow. Lots of work.” The excuses tumble out of me.
The smile turns slightly smug, but he only nods. “I miss you, aegiya.”
I miss you, too, babe.
I don’t sleep well. Who could after that?
* * *
• • •
As I predicted, I am barely functioning the next day, but it also doesn’t matter. I have no new work. Bujang-nim is out at meetings, so I sit at my desk and blearily study Korean. My walk across the world is taking a long time. I decide to leave at five, and while it’s technically the end of the workday, a twinge of guilt pricks my conscience as the rest of the team remains in the office bent over their respective projects.
I have my own project—Project Get Closer to Choi Wansu. We met for the first time a few weeks ago when I stormed into her office and demanded to know if she was my biological mother. She admitted it without hesitation. She followed her confession with a less-than-grand gesture of asking how much money I wanted. That hurt a lot. It also hurt to find out that the boy I’d fallen in love with was the child she chose to parent over me, the child she’d given birth to. That pain was compounded by learning that my adoptive mother, Ellen, had actually been in contact with Wansu since I was twelve. Thirteen years of betrayal and lies is a lot to get over in six weeks.