Seoulmates (Seoul 2)

“Ellen would love that, but our home isn’t very big. No marble anywhere.”

“I’m sure it’s wonderful. I’d like to see where you grew up, Hara. Where you went to school. Where you worked. Meet your friends.” His hand drifts up to cup the back of my head. “I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

I’m melting inside but I’m afraid to let him see it. I’m afraid of our future and I’m afraid to get hurt, so I allow myself a strained smile and a nod. “It might not be what you expect, so don’t get too excited.”

He doesn’t say anything but cradles my head in his palm while he reads. He’s a steady presence in this not-so-familiar place. I want to crawl onto his lap and inside his shirt, inside his heart. It’s safe there. That’s where my home is.

As I rub my cheek against his palm like a cat, my eyes catch on his expensive Rolex. I double-check the time against the analog iron clock on the wall, and sure enough the black arrows tell me it’s past eight. “Oh my God. Is it that time already? I’m late!” Even though it’s Saturday, I have an appointment to keep. I jump to my feet and race into the bedroom and then the bathroom to quickly rebrush my teeth. I can’t have egg in my mouth all day.

He stretches and I get momentarily distracted by the show of skin and tight muscle in the opening of his shirt. I give myself a mental shake and brush by him to my dressing room. I stumble over a new bag that Wansu must’ve dropped off when I wasn’t paying attention.

Yujun follows and leans against the doorframe, slightly out of my view so as to give me a bit of privacy. I appreciate it. I’m not as comfortable in my bare skin as he is in his. If I had his toned body with the ridged abs and solid pecs, I might walk around nude as well.

I throw on a pair of slacks and an oversize shirt. It’s warmer upstairs where Yujun’s father is. I guess they keep it that way because he can’t regulate his own body temperature. I spritz a tiny bit of perfume on and then fluff up my hair. It’s kind of a mess, but I don’t have time to shower and redo my hair. Choi Yusuk will survive.

“What is the big appointment and should I get dressed?” He’s surveying my outfit, trying to decipher my plans.

I run my hand over my throat and wish I’d told him earlier. We had texted and chatted frequently, but the topic of his father never came up. Instead our exchanges seemed to be more of a running account of my adventures in food-truck land and him complaining that Singapore was hot. At one degree north of the equator, Singapore is an endless summer. There wasn’t a good time for me to insert that I was spending mornings with his father, but now that omission seems glaring. “I read to your father.”

Yujun’s eyebrows arch high. “Choi Yusuk?”

“Yes, that’s him.” My lover only has the one. “I’m late.” I barrel forward. Yujun follows, asking questions as we go.

“When did you start reading to my father?”

“About two weeks ago. Wansu suggested it.”

“Eomma does as well. And watches dramas. Dramas are her vice.”

“Why does everyone say that?” No one talks about dramas at the office. There are only loud complaints about how trot, a type of music popular among the over-forty crowd here, is overtaking every show. Trot and idols and dramas. No one seems to like them—or, at least, they profess not to like them. Trot is for old people and idols for teens and dramas for bored housewives. Bomi tells me that there are very few bored housewives. Korean households, like those in most advanced countries, are two-income these days, which is putting a strain on women because they now have two jobs—the office one and the household one.

“They’re coded as entertainment for women—romances and melodramas—so men pretend they haven’t seen them, and if the majority of your coworkers are men and you want to fit in, then you say you watched Son Heungmin and Ryu Hyunjin and occasionally you can admit to watching a crime drama or something pertaining to jopoks.”

Son is a soccer player and Ryu a baseball player, but jopok is a new one. “Jopoks?”

“Mobster movies.”

I file the word away. “You watch dramas. You said you watched a couple of them.” We climb the stairs to the second floor and turn to the right. Choi Yusuk is installed in a large room directly above mine.

“I didn’t say I agreed with the stereotype. Some dramas are great and some are terrible.” He shrugs. “Eomma likes the very terrible, very melodramatic ones, but that’s between you and me and my father.” He pushes the door to his father’s room open.