She sets up shop on the footpath across Eonsook’s workplace everyday.

Her hair is always well settled in a braid draping her left shoulder. Her face is built with enthusiasm on good days and serenity on bad ones. Never has she been heard speaking with malice, her voice unaltered from a dull hiss oddly reminiscent of string quartets. Her clothes are always neat and tidy; her nails never gather dirt under themselves. She feeds the stray dogs sometimes, and on days with nearly no business she sits down near the gutters as if meditating.

She never has any shoes on.

Eonsook has bought many late-night companions from the woman—some four hundred pages thick, some filled with more illustrations than words. They hold her together like nothing else ever has. They usually work in keeping the loneliness at bay but when they don’t she shuts them up and thinks instead of the mystery who sold them to her. She switches off her night light and slides back to murmurs of eoseo oseyo and kamsahamnida. Because there is comfort in those recollections, there is a sort of feather-light happiness in them.

"What’s your name?" she asks of the poor woman one day while spare change is being counted. The fingers are stubby and short, not very lady-like. But their movements have undeniable grace, as if they’re dancing on the keys of a piano or spinning their way up guitar frets. Maybe in another lifetime she could’ve been a famous musician and Eonsook would’ve sat in the audience, clapping her hands. The thought is silly after a while.

"I was born nameless, manim," is the reply she receives, the tone dripping like honey out of a pair of dry and thirsty lips. It’s sweet, but a little too sweet that it starts to burn against the tongue. There’s an underlying taste of misery and misfortune but it’s so well hidden, Eonsook doesn’t even bat an eyelid until much later.

"The others like to call me Junghee."

"And what is your favorite book out of all these, Junghee yah?" Eonsook smiles at her friend—she likes to think of them as friends—waving her hand around stacks of paperbacks that are not fortunate enough to have earned themselves a proper retail stall. “You always suggest so many of them to me, and each one is so beautiful. But which one have you liked the best?” she wants to know.

"I…" Junghee shakes her head at her lap, face worn as if ashamed of herself. "I don’t know how to read, manim… I never—never went to school, you see?"

Eonsook delays the pain in her heart with the onward roll of her words. “And have you ever considered it? If you were offered the chance, I mean…” Her brain races ahead of herself, quickly bringing to mind a list of friends and contacts who could help in such a situation. Social workers, philanthropists, ladies who work for destitute women, ladies who married into money. They’d die at the opportunity of something like this.

"A-aniyo…" Junghee unintentionally wipes the list away, holding out unfolded bills and polished coins. "I just want my dignity back. How will going to school help?" It puts Eonsook to shame, just a simple sentence like that. She wants to bow for forgiveness but isn’t sure that would suffice. So she lets the change go this time, saying it’s alright you can keep it, Junghee yah. It’s the least she can do.

Many days later the police spot her. Her braid is yanked loose when she’s thrown aside, her money is ripped out of the little tin box that is her only savings account. The blanket she sits on is torn open to check for contraband, her neatly piled books are kicked away as if nothing better than trash… some even landing in the gutter. This is a routine and no one ever does anything, because encroachment is a crime. Some only have enough courage in themselves to stop and stare, but no one interferes.

Eonsook’s lunch hour doesn’t start for another twenty minutes. She misses everything.

A cut lip, a bruised cheek, a possibly broken arm greet her that day. She runs forward to help with the mess but is pushed away. Junghee’s usually burnished hazel eyes are now wide and watery with fright. “No, manim, don’t! They’ll hurt you if the see you here! Go away!” she pleads. “Don’t come here anymore, go away!” she swats at the air between them.

Eonsook withdraws because clearly the woman is distressed beyond comforting, but her glance catches on the cracked and broken heels of the other’s feet. And in the privacy of the ladies’ washroom she feels herself crack and break with the aftereffects. One of the janitors knocks on the door of her cubicle to ask if she’s alright. She doesn’t know how to respond, so she continues to weep incoherently.

"M-manim, what’re you doing?!" Junghee tries to twist away, but Eonsook holds her ankle in an iron grip. Onlookers gasp and whisper, probably filling their ears with stupid blather and gossip. "Manim, don’t! I—I can’t accept this, it’s wrong!"

The shoe slips into her foot with ease, and its pair is equally obedient. Two tiny black bows on school bus yellow wiggle in an unsure to and fro motion. Eonsook smiles at the sight, looking up to find the other flustered and confused. “I wanted to throw these out anyway,” she lies because admitting otherwise might present her as a conceited snob. “Not like I bought you a new set of shoes or anything… Wear these out, will you?” She pats Junghee’s knees and stands up.

"M-manim… this is too much…" the woman begs from the footpath. "You are always too kind to me, but this is too much! I cannot accept these!" They’re all someone like Eonsook can do right now, though. And she thinks it’s a decent start.

"I have some more useless things in my closet. You can take them if you like, I don’t mind~" she adds before leaving, shrugging indifferently for show. "Yeolsimhae…"

There aren’t too many customers, but Junghee smiles wide the rest of that day. Yellow is a good color for a guardian angel.