We sit there in silence as the roads in the map of our future are slowly erased. Finally, Yujun speaks. “Hara, do you still feel like a striped dress in a polka-dotted country?”
“You remember that?” I’d told him once that being adopted in America felt like I was the only polka-dot-wearing person in a place where everyone wore stripes and that I’d foolishly thought if I came here, I’d fit in, but there’s something distinctively American about me—in my halting, accented Korean, in the makeup I wear, in the way I walk, smile, laugh, and so here I still feel other.
“Of course I do. Have you forgotten everything I said to you?” he teases gently.
No. I remember everything. I remember his first words were, “You’re American,” and the first sight of his dimples almost put me on the floor. I remember the way he carried my suitcase up the mini mountain over by Cheonggyecheong-gu. I remember when he first brought me to the river, fed me gimbap and beer, and kissed me so thoroughly I had stars in my eyes for days. I remember peering through the Namsan Tower camera to the cute couple in Busan and Yujun telling me that distance is a construct. I remember the last time we went to the river after Wansu said she’d acknowledge me as a Choi but that meant that Yujun would be my stepbrother and we could not be together.
He stretches his arm across the table and fishes out the red cord of my necklace, on which the jade carved duck hangs. I remember when he gave this to me and said ducks mate for life.
“We will find a way, Hara. Trust me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The first trust test comes in the form of a cousin or, more specifically, Yujun’s cousin’s family. Choi Juwon is the eldest son of Yujun’s aunt, an older sister of Choi Yusuk. He has two children—a girl and boy under the age of five. These are the kids that Yujun borrows when he wants to play laser tag or ride the roller coasters at Everland. Today, we’re taking the two children on a playdate while the parents have some adult time. We will then all have dinner together as a pre-Chuseok event. Tomorrow, the entire extended Choi family will descend upon Wansu’s house, and Yujun thought it would be nice for me to meet some of them before. That his cousin agreed to this knowing that I was Wansu’s biological daughter cheered me considerably. It meant not everyone was going to react negatively to our pairing.
We pull into the parking lot of the Hello Flour café and grab the gifts from the back seat. One bag has a large blue koala with a purple nose and the other is some indeterminable animal with yellow plushie fur and big black floppy ears. Yujun said it’s a dog, but I’m not sure I believe that. He has a few smaller items as well—jelly bracelets, paper craft airplanes, and sweets. It’s obvious that one never arrives at a Korean event empty-handed, not even a breakup.
“These feel like a bribe,” I joke as I heft a bag into my arms.
“It is a bribe.”
I stop short. “Seriously?”
He laughs at my naïveté. “Of course. Why else do we say, ‘Please take care of me in the future,’ whenever we give a gift? We want them to look at the present and remember us with warm feelings. And for little children, the bigger the gift, the warmer the feelings. Trust me. My cousins love me.”
“For your gifts?”
“And my great personality.” He grabs my hand and pulls me toward a short flight of stairs leading into the café. Before we can even place a foot on the granite stairs, two kids burst out the doors and launch themselves at Yujun. He drops his bags and catches the tiny tots and spins them around.
The air is filled with shouts of laughter, and my knees grow weak at the appearance of his deep dimples. The little girl in his arms, Choi Nayeon, loves them, too. She pokes her finger into the right one and then presses a kiss in the same spot. The boy, Choi Nara, is already wriggling free. He wants to go inside. “Milgaru! Milgaru!” he chants.
“He wants to play in the flour,” Yujun explains, his face creased with the biggest smile. He loves these two little ones.
“You don’t say.” I can’t help but grin back.
What’s the saying? Happiness looks good on you? Yujun is at his sexiest when his dimples are deep wells of joy and his eyes are crinkled tight. I love how the eye smile is celebrated here. Plushies’ expressions are stitched with upside-down crescents, cartoons are purposely drawn like that to portray extreme pleasure, people pose like that for their life shots. There’s not enough appreciation for the eye smile in the West.