When Jinki suddenly asked me to come along with him smelt-fishing,—the ritual he once always religiously did alone or, uh.. with his father—I was bewildered at first but decided not to think too much about it and just hop in with him to the car. I had already packed the necessities for him the night before, after all. Tho my coming along with him was absolutely not in the plan before.   We drove to Chuncheon in pregnant silence. He looked restless along the way like it was the day of his first lecture as a professor in Carnegie Mellon. I didn't know why. I took it that he was just still adapting with Seoul road again after those five years and an half we spent living in the states.   We just moved back for a week and still mostly lived from the boxes. The only thing we did that was close to going out was only a trip to a nearby supermarket for some grocery shopping and fast food take-outs.   I turned my head and looked at Jinki, he was frowning. And I thought, he didn't even realize he was doing it. I sighed a little and stretched my hand out to reach for his nape, massaging it to release some tensed knots. His frown slowly disappeared and he finally looked at me, offering some confused smile.   I decided not to ask. He would tell me when he was ready. At time like this, all I needed to do was stay by his side and wait.   Once we got there and went down to the frozen lake, I helped him set our folding chairs before we brought the other stuffs—fishing rod, baits, snacks, cold beers on cool box—. It was only us there as far as I could see. As if we reserved the place for ourselves—we, obviously, didn't—. I sat on the chair while Jinki dug a hole to fish the smelts, although I was a thousand percent sure it was not the smelt the reason he came here—and invited me over, on top of it—.   "You miss your Dad." I said. It's not a question.   Jinki just shrugged and sighed.   "Go see him." I told him "We're not across the ocean anymore."   Jinki lifted his head to stare at me "You.."   "No." I cut him off, I knew that stare and shook my head "Not now, Jinki."   "But, we.."   "We.. No, me.." I corrected and looked down to my boots "I'm still.. not ready."   "Maybe he's changed." Jinki said.   "Maybe he's not," I replied, not looking up "And still sees me as a spawn of devil who's going to lure his dearest son to burn in the deepest pit of hell."   "Kibum..." he started.   "Jinki." I finally looked at him "I encouraged you to accept the offer to teach back here because I know you miss.. this." I said "You miss.. All of this that is your old life."   "And for Jun." Jinki added.   "Yeah." I smiled at the name, kicking the bottom of the cool box with the front of my boot "For him too." Then I sighed "And for my mother too."   He nodded slowly.   I shook my head "But it's not for me." I told him "It never will."   "Maybe we shouldn't leave Penn." his voice softened.   "We should." I said, and it's true "My mother can't stand the long plane ride now. And she would kill if she couldn't give Jun her own hand-knitted Christmas sweater by herself every year anymore."   His voice was almost caught in his throat when he said "If only.." his parents were like mine.   "Yeah." I knew.   I took a deep breath and wandered my eyes off, whilst listening to the clanking sound Jinki made. The sun was still crawling to the top of our head and from the hill, I could see a walking dot. Another human would share this vastness of frozen lake with us, finally.   Although the thought of that—somehow, relief—didn't last long after a few minutes. After the dot morphed into a figure.   "." I cursed, standing up from my chair.   Jinki was still poking the water beneath the hole with