17. Prisoner

Mrs. Baek arrives home from work, after getting Chung Ho from school and tiredly puts her shopping bags above the kitchen table. She had gone to the supermarket to buy the ingredients for the dinner as she felt like cooking something different today.

Chung Ho enters in the kitchen and approaches the table. “Mom, there’s no one at home,” he informs, with a confusing yet inquiring look.

“I told you in the car that Cho Hee wouldn’t be at home in time to get you from school,” she looks at him while she starts taking the food out of the bags. “And Chung Hee must be coming from college by now,” she throws a quick look at her wrist watch to confirm her thoughts.

As if Chung Hee had heard them, he opens the entrance door. He takes out his shoes and makes his way towards the kitchen.

“I was just talking about you,” Mrs. Baek says as she gets the help of her younger son with the food.

“Oh really? Saying bad things?” He asks with a little chuckle.

“No. I was saying that you would arrive at any moment and you did,” she smiles. “A mother’s instinct never fails,”

“Well, I’m going to take a bath,” Chung Hee says as he makes his way out of the kitchen.

“I’ll cook dinner now, don’t take too long under the shower,” she warns. “So, Chung Ho will you help me with dinner?” she questions in hopes the boy will accept her invitation.

“I prefer waiting for it to be cooked. You know, it’s better if you have your kitchen safe,” he answers as he too, leaves his mother in the kitchen. She shakes her head and laughs at Chung Ho’s answer. What a good way to refuse such offer.

“Alright. I think that’s enough for today, don’t you?” I ask Lay as I close the Korean book.

“I learned quite a lot today. You’re a great teacher,” Lay compliments me. We look at each other and genuine smiles appear in our faces.

“Thank you,” I thank him as I appreciate every compliment he gives me.

“So now it’s my turn to be the teacher. Well, first I’ll explain you the basics,” he starts and grabs the notebook he had used before for the Korean lesson and writes some things.

“First off, you need to know the musical notes and their symbols. This is a treble clef, this is Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do,” he draws as he names each musical note. I look at him attentively and then at the notebook to the drawings he’s doing.

Suddenly I find him extremely attractive, as I follow each corner of his face; his moving lips and his blinking and long eyelashes catching my attention. He looks at me and I snap out of my world feeling uncomfortable, almost blushing.

“It’s not difficult, right?” He questions and I shake my head. Of course I didn’t hear some of the things he was saying but I think I caught almost everything.

Time passes by and we continue our guitar lesson. The sun has already set up and instead of a light blue, there’s a dark blue with shining points above our heads. The sky has been left alone with the moon and her little fellows.

“Well, it’s dark already. Should we continue tomorrow?” Lay asks as he takes a look at the sky.

“Yes. It’s dinner time too so, I better be home so I won’t get scolded by my mother,” I give him a sincere grin and he grins along.

After gathering all of our belongings we make our way towards the exit door. We chat on our way down inside the elevator and once we arrive I say, “Well, that’s my stop,” I leave the elevator only to see Lay following me.

“That’s my stop too,”

I grow surprised by the fact that we actually live on the same floor and haven’t noticed since we met.

“Oh. So, where is your door?” I ask him. After all it will be much more helpful if I know where he lives. In that way I can go tell him if I need to skip any lesson, for example.

“It’s number 25,” he answers. He lives in the last apartment on the fifth floor as