A Mad Tea Party

Six in the evening the next day found Yulhee and Kyungsoo sitting awkwardly on opposite ends a bench beneath a streetlamp, out on the very edge of town. Several paces away, in the deep grass, was an abandoned farmhouse. The field it had used to serve was now overgrown. Yulhee settled down, making an uncomfortable little cough. The two of them sat stiffly, face in opposite directions. “You just got off work?” Kyungsoo asked hesitantly.

She nodded. Silence descended again. Yulhee found herself fiddling with the edge of her dress. Kyungsoo was drumming out a rhythm with his nails on the wood. Several long moments passed. Yulhee shifted about slightly. Kyungsoo tried to recall the last time he had ever been alone with a girl; those were embarrassing high school memories that nobody needed to recall. And that was stupid to think of; this was Yulhee, someone who could beat statues in a staring contest.

The silence was beginning to get oppressive. It began to become increasingly obvious to both that someone was going to have to say something, and a comment about the weather was not going to cut it. Kyungsoo searched desperately for topics of conversation that Suho frequently used.

“So…” he began.

“Did you know that the first mayor of this town died because a ferret bite he received became septic?” Yulhee blurted out.

Kyungsoo blinked. The woman sitting on the other end of the bench went red and went back to studiously picking at the hem of her dress. A surprised chuckle burst out of his lips, because it was just such a Yulhee opening, and unconsciously, he smiled. “Did you find that out in the archives?”

Still looking at the ground, she nodded. “Why do you work there?”

“I like history. It’s a story.” She made a gesture that seemed to be trying to convey how long and important this story was. “Everything is linked together,” she explained further, “And it’s fascinating to watch its flow.”

“So you like stories?” Kyungsoo asked, curious now.

Yulhee titled her head back, staring at the stars. It took him a moment to realise that she wasn’t thinking; she was showing how much it meant to her. “Very much so.”

“Why?” Her brow furrowed, and he got the distinct impression that she found it an idiotic question. “I guess it’s hard to put these things into words,” Kyungsoo said thoughtfully, feeling a bit awkward now.

There was another bout of silence, and to his surprise, Yulhee spoke again. “Why did you not change your surname?”

“Come again?”

“Do. Your brother’s surname is Kim.” 

He shrugged, and then admitted a bit guiltily, “I picked it before I was adopted. I…Um, I wanted to be unique. Not, um, a Kim, or Park, or Lee.”

Yulhee looked at him. “You’re laughing at me,” he said, half-accusingly, half-amused.

“No, I’m not.”

“Your face is doing what it does when you’re laughing at people,” Kyungsoo explained. She tilted her head a bit to her left, furrowing her brows, a motion that he had come to understand meant confusion. Aware that he could sound like a creep, he amended, “Your mouth stays…flat, but the rest of your face is speaking another language. You raise your brows and your eyes, are making fun of what you’re seeing.”

She patted her cheeks, looked at him, and shook her head.

“Yes, you do that,” Kyungsoo laughed.

Yulhee arched a brow, and her eyes were snickering again. “I’m not the one who picked a surname to be special.”

“I was twelve!” He shook his head, smiling a little. “It’s probably a good thing Star Wars hadn’t come out then. Twelve-year-old Kyungsoo would probably have insisted his name be Han Solo. Twelve-year-old Suho would have picked Vader.”

“You always struck me as more of an Empire man,” Yulhee muttered, eyeing him.

“Well, Vader is very charismatic – and force chokes, very efficient.” He looked at her. “You’re laughing again. I’m sure you were very mature when you were twelve.”

“Mm.” She seemed very fixated by something on the floor suddenly. Kyungsoo considered this, and then it twigged. “You had the princess phase.”

“I will have you know I told everyone I was a fairy princess,” Yulhee said primly.

“Ah yes, that makes all the difference.”

“You don’t have any credibility to be that sarcastic.”

“Go on, I want to hear what you told people.”

She pressed her fingers together. “My aunt went to Seoul and came back with this body glitter…and I smeared it on my arms, and in school I’d let my sleeves lift a little so someone would see. Then when they asked, I’d say, ‘Oh, nothing.’ But I was really stupid – we had PE that day, and the teacher made me wash it off in front of everyone.”

“That was anticlimactic,” Kyungsoo observed. Yulhee rolled her eyes.

There was silence again, but it was far more comfortable this time. He checked his watch, seeing that it was a little past seven. Thinking of a way to kill time, Kyungsoo turned to Yulhee. “What…is your name?”

Startled, Yulhee looked at him. “Are you feeling ill?”

“Ah, no – it’s this joke from this movie…Oh, you probably wouldn’t have seen it. There’s no Korean version. It’s called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

“How did you see it?”

“When I went to interview people in Seoul, I stayed at a cousin’s house, and he had some tapes in English. It was one of them.”

“You can speak English?”

“Yes, I speak English perfectly,” he responded. When Yulhee just looked amazed, he smiled slightly. “You didn’t understand that, did you?”

“Where did you learn English?”

“I stayed in Seoul for several months. My cousin had some language tapes, so I used those.”

She tilted her head to the side, eyebrows raised, which he figured was her version of surprised. “What is this movie about?”

“Well…”

He was trying to poorly explain the Black Knight sketch when Yulhee interrupted him, “I don’t understand this story.”

Kyungsoo dropped his hands. “Where did I lose you?”

“I’m still at the moose.”

“Those…were the opening credits.”

“I don’t see how this is funny,” Yulhee continued, frowning as though this was something of profound importance. It was strangely cute.

“I’m probably not explaining it very well,” Kyungsoo acknowledged, “I guess…it’s funny because it doesn’t make sense?”

“Is this movie American?”

“No, British.”

“Ah. British,” Yulhee said, in the way you would say ‘of course, I should have known.’

“I don’t mean to change the subject,” Kyungsoo said, glancing down at his watch, “But it’s eight.”

Nodding, Yulhee got to her feet. If Chanyeol had not come by now, he wasn’t about to come at all. “Well…” he said uncertainly, flashing her a hesitant smile, “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

He watched her start to walk away, and impulsively, he called out to her. Turning, she looked at him expectantly. Kyungsoo raised his hand slightly, and imitated her awkward wave. Yulhee’s face barely twitched, but her eyes were laughing.

The next evening, Yulhee came armed with a box of snacks, but she stopped short when she saw that Suho was sitting next to his brother on the bench. “Hello Yulhee!” he said cheerfully, waving at her. Kyungsoo gave a much more sullen-looking one. Confused, and more than a little flustered, she sat down beside Suho on the bench. The three of them sat in extremely prickly silence for several minutes.

“So…” Suho said, drawing out the sound, “You two meet here every evening?”

“Just recently,” Kyungsoo said stiffly. Suho had this half-hopeful, half-confused smile on his face, and it twigged in Yulhee’s mind what he was thinking. Over Suho’s shoulder, she shot Kyungsoo a look. He shook his head imperceptibly. Nearly seething, she sat the box on her lap, frowning at nothing.

“Well, that’s wonderful – I’m glad,” Suho continued obliviously. Then it occurred to Yulhee why Kyungsoo didn’t want to dissuade whatever his brother was thinking – it took some of the pressure off his back. “I’m sorry for interrupting, I just wanted to check on you Kyungsoo – and Yulhee, my wife asked me to invite you to dinner next weekend.”

“Ahh?” Yulhee managed, still too caught in the thought. Suho smiled at her kindly. “I…That… If it isn’t too much trouble...”

“You don’t have to,” Kyungsoo said, at least attempting to rescue her, though she was still irritated at him.

“Don’t say that – you haven’t been coming over at all, even though Eunju cooks especially for you and it is really very rude of you to –” he breathed sharply, recalling Yulhee’s presence.

“I already said that I’m busy,” Kyungsoo stated flatly.

“You don’t even have a real job!” Suho snapped, “Aside from chasing after fairy tales.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Ah, Yulhee…it would be our pleasure.”

She was caught between a rock and a tight spot, and sought a diplomatic approach. “Uh…I’ll think about it.”

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter