Patterns

By the time Kyungsoo had emerged from the police station, it was fast approaching lunchtime. The temperature dropped significantly in the shade. Kyungsoo chose to take a path that passed by the town hall, lined with thick trees that dappled the sunlight across his skin. He admired the patterns it formed distantly, thinking of the weight of the file in his hand. His brother had been furious at him, and the notion should have made him feel guiltier than it did. People passed around him, continuing their lives, speaking of things he didn’t know, while his mind fixed only on what he needed to discover. A girl gave a short, surprised bark of laughter.

Glancing up at the suddenness of the sound, Kyungsoo saw Yulhee sitting on the hall’s lawn, a little girl no older than twelve lying beside her. She wore a thick pair of black-framed glasses, the baggy sleeves of her oatmeal coloured sweater rolled up to her elbows. Her pale, thin legs were stretched out beneath the slip of her sundress, contrasting against the grass. Resting in her lap was a file, and beside it a notebook, within which she made careful, neat notes.

It took him a moment to realise that Yulhee had been laughing.

“No Haru, your dad can’t tell that to my mum. Where did you learn that language?” she was saying, reaching up to straighten her fringe, scars visible. On her face was the closest thing to happiness he had ever witnessed for her. It was startling to look at. Yulhee had always struck him as a profoundly lonely individual; to see her almost at ease with the world was disconcerting.

“Not telling,” Haru said, forming a daisy chain in her hands. “What you’re reading is so boring.”

“Is it?” Yulhee continued to write. “I think it’s fascinating – do you know that this document comes from before the Korean War? It’s disintegrating too much to keep, so I’m transcribing it to preserve it.”

“Why?”

“Hmm?” She looked up, twirling the pen between her hands. “Well… It’s for understanding what happened before. Historical understanding of the past is vital to understanding what is happening now.”

"Oh."

"Mm. It's about the building of the train station; not the one we have now, though. The station this document is about was bombed during the War." 

It fit her, he thought, for her to be speaking to a twelve-year-old that way. Strangely enough, Haru seemed absorbed by Yulhee’s motions, peering over at the document. She placed her daisy chain absently on Yulhee’s head. It slipped slightly, but she carried on, the faintest edge of a smile on her lips. “I thought you were bored, Haru.”

“You can’t get rid of me so easily!”

“I’m not trying to. Do I have to wear this?”

“It makes you look pretty. A Wood’s Princess.”

“That’s a nice thought,” Yulhee murmured, the wind teasing the strands of her hair. “Magical Kingdoms and lost princesses – like a fairytale.”

Kyungsoo coughed at that moment, and Yulhee looked up, recognition dawning on her features. She put down her things and approached. It occurred to him that he’d been staring, resisting the urge to look at his toes in embarrassment. “Oh, hello Kyungsoo.”

“Babysitting?” he asked, wondering if he was overstepping any boundaries by inquiring.

She must have been in a very good mood, because she answered immediately, recovering her composure. The little girl was glancing between them, a smirk on her lips. “Oh, no, I had a lunch break. I help with the archives. What are those?”

“They’re your case files. Do you want to look at them?” 

“No,” she said slowly, shaking her head, that familiar melancholic expression returning, “I feel it would be too…uncomfortable, and impersonal.”

“I’ve read my own,” he said almost defensively. Yulhee only raised her brows patiently, in a way that would make even the most proud of men feel foolish. “Well… It did make me feel a bit weird reading them.