Part One: 걱정말아요 그대

I loved living in Seoul. I’d been going to school in Seoul for almost one semester. It was more peaceful than home. The only thing I was constantly stressed about was walking to class every morning. Somehow, there was always some other kid coming out of the dormitory opposite mine, going to class in the same direction as me, every single day at the same time as me. Always the same kid, no matter what time I leave, no matter what day, like magnets.  Sometimes I side-eye God just because I still don’t understand how that’s supposed to be believable, but it’s a fact.

Jung Jinhwan. Although I didn’t know his name at the time, I knew his appearance as if I’d known him my whole life: He was an average kind of guy upon first glance. A little bit taller than the average Korean citizen. He had a wave to his hair that he handled like art; never a hair out of place, every strand uniformly shaped, even the fringe. He always wore black, but sometimes he wore white or grey. His eyes would scare you if you weren’t used to them; thin and wide, big in an unconventional way. He stood as if he hardly meant to be standing at all. His shoulders slouched, and he walked as if he were half awake, occasionally flipping or wiping his fringe out of his face. The typical college student.

Every single day, if we were both on time, all I had to do was look around or wait a minute after leaving my building, and there he was coming out of his own building, or already 20 feet ahead of me. There were times when we’d come out at the exact same time, too. We’d both come out of our buildings glass doors, accidentally look up at each other, and sigh because neither of us were brave enough to say hello. He was local, from Seoul, and I was from the States. He probably thought I didn’t speak Korean. As for me, I was just too shy to say anything. We always ended up trailing five or ten feet behind each other.

As it turns out we didn’t end up having to say anything. It all just happened naturally. The day that it happened, I’d come back from my music club meeting. They hated me there, and they had a right to. I was a mic-hog. Performing is my thing, and what’s worse is I’m a competitive performer. I couldn’t stand seeing people doing better than me. I never wanted my name to be the beginning of the phrase “not as good as so-and-so.” I had to be the “so-and-so” they were talking about. That day, they were threatening to kick me out and it was a complete shock to me. I hid it, though. I held it in, and as soon as I got to my dorm building I just broke down. There were so many tears and so much snot that I didn’t even notice him pass. It had to be sometime between my kicking rocks around and yelling that Jung Jinhwan came back to his dorm. I didn’t notice, and as I was wiping away tears and snot, I looked up to see a box of tissues. I froze, completely drowning in embarrassment. I kept looking up and saw him, tissues in hand, looking away awkwardly, probably more embarrassed than I was. I probably looked more than pitiful in my oversized winter coat, stomping my feet, bawling and kicking dirt around in front of the dormitory.

Trying to accept his generosity, I took a tissue from the box, but stopped, not quite knowing what to say. Before I could figure that out, Jinhwan took my gross, snot-covered hand, set the entire box of tissues in my palm, then took my other gross hand and placed it on top of the box. After giving the epitome of a polite smile and two hesitant pats on my shoulder, he left to enter his building. That was my first exchange with Jung Jinhwan, and I didn’t know whether to feel thankful or ashamed.