Chapter VII

 

Jiyong gazed at himself in the mirror… mirrors. It’s a mirror shop! He looked out of the glass windows and saw people flocking to and inside stores. Of course, it’s a mall. What else would it look like? Jiyong adjusted his blue polo shirt tucked inside his neatly pressed whitish-gray khaki. He wore a pair of brand new sandals. His mother is somewhere in the ladies’ wear department. He hated wearing clothes formally, especially when the destination is only a mall. He can’t argue with his mother on clothes otherwise.

Jiyong looked outside again. “There’s a bookstore…” he whispered. But to him, it’s the worst place he’ll ever be. Not that it’s too boring inside, but the silence makes one to lose sanity and burn up the whole place.

“No choice,” he said, and walked out of the mirror shop. He disappeared in the swarm of people…

 

“Who’s your author?” Dara asked Bom. Bom lazily shove a book back to its shelf and looked at Dara with tired drooping eyes.

“Listen. There’s a very wide world out of here. It’s very nice if we get out of here and –”

“This is the world!” Dara exclaimed, cutting her short and waving her hands to all the books. She smiled sweetly, but compulsorily. “I’m not agonizing you. Well, you look pathetic, Bom. Why don’t you leave me?”

Bom sighed. “You know too well that I can’t leave you. We all go by two’s. That’s the instruction.”

“Do you trust me?” Dara asked. Bom nodded in exasperation. “I’m being benevolent. Get out here and just meet me at the designated time. I can take care of myself.”

Bom looked puzzled. Slowly, her red lips formed a suspicious smile. She thought for a minute gazing at nothing and then left Dara.

 

Jiyong tipped low his black baseball cap as he entered the bookstore. As if in regret, he turned around to see people everywhere behind him. He felt indifferent in a pool of strangers. At times like this, he wanted to be aloof and unseen. He turned again and looked at the bookstore. He could count the shoppers. At ten or eleven, he quickly estimated by sight.

 

He went straight to the magazine section and took out a comic strip. He whistled in delight as he admired the sharp color drawings.

 

A salesgirl went near him.

 

“The artist was extremely good, sir.” He nearly jumped in surprise at the soft greeting. A beautiful salesgirl about his age had sneaked behind him. She smiled at him.

 

“Please call me Jiyong.” he smiled back and read her nameplate, Anne. “And I could call you Anne.” She looked nice with her white powder blouse and her blue short skirt. He thought she was extremely y.

 

Dara strode lazily as she read a part of the book she was holding. A salesgirl ran up to her with a box full of books. They bumped into each other and all papers were down on the floor.

 

“Oh, I’m so sorry, miss…” Dara immediately apologized, helping the salesgirl pick up the books.

 

“It’s a-okay. I should be the one saying sorry, miss. I’m that clumsy anyway,” the salesgirl replied.

 

They both got up and arranged the magazines. They settled it down on the reading table.

 

“Are we going to put them in accordance with their specific categorical content?” Dara asked.

 

The salesgirl smiled. She looked at her with confused eyes and an admiring face. “If you mean they need to be sorted out, you could be of great help.”

 

“Yes, that’s what I mean?” Dara sighed. “Excuse my language, Miss Karen.” She read her nameplate.

 

“No problem, as long as it’s English…” They both laughed. “You are –”

 

“Dara. That’s what they call me.”

 

“You know, you talk a lot like somebody I know, I mean I used to know,” Jiyong said, still examining the comic strips.

 

“That’s amusing. It’s possible that I might have a missing twin.” Anne took another colorful magazine.

 

Jiyong read the title. “Superman’s Twin…” He looked at her. “Superman’s twin brother is a bad boy.”

 

“Yes, absolutely. If I really do have a twin sister then I should be the better one, the good hero.”

 

Jiyong smiled in agreement, nodding his head. “But are all twins the opposite of each other? One bad and the other good?”

 

“That was only an instance.”

 

“You mean an example.”

 

“I meant a possibility.”

 

Jiyong chuckled. His round brown eyes turning chinese. “You really talk a lot like her.”

 

“Who?”

 

Jiyong fell silent.

 

“It is when sometimes life just kicks you on the and out of it,” Karen said. Dara nodded. “But of course, I tell my sister to hold on. Trying again means you are strong, right?”

 

“Absolutely.” Dara piled up the last magazines. “So when does your mother work?”

 

“She doesn’t. She’s sitting well on the wheelchair.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“There’s nothing to be sorry of.” She smiled.

 

“And your father?”

 

“Some strangers cut his head off some months ago. So that leaves me and my sister.” Karen sighed. She looked so defeated despite her sincere smiles. Dara felt a sudden surge of pity.

 

“I’m so sorry about that.” Dara sympathized. This girl is still holding on despite a severe loss. She began thinking about herself. She wouldn’t be able to stand up on something like that happening inside her family.

 

“Oh, stop that. There’s nothing to be sorry of. They say everything happens with a purpose. I still have to find it out,” Karen said.

 

“You sound like my old friend.” Dara gave her the magazines, but then hesitated, “I’ll help you carry them. Where are we going to pile them up?”

 

“Who was your old buddy?”

 

Dara smiled but hesitated to tell her.

 

“She is… She was a special buddy.” Jiyong asked the salesgirl. “And she talks a lot like you do.. Life is full of coincidences.”

 

“I think so.”

 

“Do you believe that everything has a purpose?”

 

“I do.” Dara put down the magazines.

 

“And what would that purpose in your life be?” the salesgirl asked.

 

“To live according to what heaven wants me to. And you?” Dara said.

 

“To live wherever my choices would lead to,” Vince said.

 

“That sounds adventurous.”

 

“You believe in God?”

 

“Of course I do. Everything that takes place happens under heaven’s will,” Dara sighed.

 

“So your saying it’s God’s will everything happened to me. That leaves me in prison.”

 

“No. Maybe…” Dara felt so unsure. The certainty of what the salesgirl said shook her. She thought fast. “Why would God want His most beautiful creation experience hurt and anguish?”

 

“Then you can’t blame Him?”

 

“I’m certain of that. Maybe because man followed his own will other than what heaven wills. Man was wrong.” Anne took the magazines back to their place. Jiyong stared at the comics.

 

“No! You never did anything wrong in the first place. Maybe it was other peoples’ fault,” Dara said putting the books in the box.

 

“That’s making my brains spill out. It’s confusing. So do you think I deserve all of these?”

 

Dara’s answer was direct and sure. “No.”

 

Dara and Karen walked towards the shelves continuing their conversation. Across them, just after the shelf were Jiyong and Anne.

 

“So, it’s nobody’s fault?” Dara asked.

 

“No!” Jiyong replies back. He heard someone and cleared the books on the shelf to peep through.

 

Dara heard the yell. She looked across the bookshelf.

 

Their eyes met… Both of them were shocked and eagerly turned back. So, the world turned out to be that small for the two of them. It’s a small world after all…

 

Dara once believed in magic. But in her mom’s Bible, there is no such thing as magic. There were only miracles. Who created magic anyway? She looked at Jiyong.

 

“Someone who wanted fame…” Jiyong spoke. He sat down on the wide rim of the circular fountain’s edge. He faced Dara.

 

“Well, someone who is determined enough…” Dara found herself saying.

“Could’ve been anybody…”

“Could’ve been you.”

 

Jiyong gave a wry smile. He laid down the comic strips beside him.

 

Dara dusted her blue sweatshirt and tied it along her waist. She sat down beside him.

 

“But of course, the mall was conceived by someone who had great dreams for business in his mind,” Jiyong replies. He looked at her white chiffon blouse and thought of brushing her shoulder-length hair. “You look very nice.”

 

“I thought you are going to say I look fantastic.” Some magic huh.

 

Jiyong laughed. “Fantastic? Are you kidding?”

 

Dara blushed in sweet anger and humiliation…

 

He cleared his throat and looked straight to her. “I was going to say you look great!”

Dara blushed. She sighed… “I’m not relieved.” she took the book she bought and stared at the title again.

“The Empirical Attraction,” Jiyong read. “What’s empirical mean?”

“It means something which is based on observation but still needs verification to call it a fact. But for me, empirical means something like reality. It just needs to be proven.”

 

“For you?”

 

Dara nodded.

 

“Your own dictionary?”

 

“Empirical is an established observation very much supported by sensitive criticism, but is too weak to be declared a stand-alone fact.” Dara looked at him. “Do you understand?”

 

Jiyong’s gaped in confusion. He did not understand anything she said. He shook his head a heavy “no”.

 

“For instance… love.”

 

Jiyong closed his mouth and looked away. “When are you leaving?” His voice was suddenly cold.

 

Dara sighed again and looked at her watch. “In two days time, I think.”

 

“Say hello to your mom when you get back. Tell her my mom’s doing fine.” Jiyong stood up. “I think you should go now.”

 

Her heart was being pierced. Dara felt crushed. She stood and took a forced smile at Jiyong. “You look handsome, Ji. Stay the same.” She turned around and regained composure. She left disappearing into the pool of people.

 

Friendship is empirical, Jiyong thought. It’s based on observation. It becomes a fact when… what was the word? Uhmm… yes, mutual…. When it’s mutually felt, like naturally. It still becomes empirical when friends part. It is indeed empirical.

 

Dara paused at the mall’s entrance. It’s as if she was so alone. People kept pushing around, but in her eyes she saw nobody. She took out the book and threw it to the garbage canister. She missed. She thought for a moment. She went and took it again.

Then she headed back to the fountain. She saw Jiyong still standing. She took out a pen and a paper, and scribbled something. She tucked it inside the book and approached him.

 

“Ji.” she smiled and handed him the book.

 

Jiyong tried to ignore what he was feeling. “What… for?”

 

She looked at his eyes. She can never forget those eyes.

Jiyong blinked.

 

Dara grinned. “For friendship.  I think friendship is empirical, too.”

Who told her what I’m thinking? Jiyong thought.

 

He sighed. “Thank you. I’ll take care of it.”

 

“It has been an honor meeting you. I… I will miss you.” Dara left him quietly.

Jiyong clasped the book hard. What was that honor all about? His heart was yanking him. There was something missing since he left Korea. He removed his baseball cap and went on his way now uncaring of people’s eyes following him. The feeling was indeed empirical… Was it being made real today? In this so-called, why do they have to meet just as when they’re starting to move on? Curiosity and confusion clouds his mind.