05

tacit

‘Ahjussi.’

He walked down the awfully brittle, crackly staircase of the fourth floor with both hands in either pockets of his pants and his form terribly slouched.

‘Ahjussi.’

Just what on earth was he doing trekking through the Sahara so unprepared? The sight of his still-dusty books irked him. Irritated him beyond measure. Made him want to fling them somewhere on that sidewalk they always passed where nothing but large bushes dominated; thick vines bursting beneath the surface like mighty claws from the underworld.

‘Ahjussi.’

Well, who in their right frame of mind would take up an expedition as trying as such dressed in torn jeans and a leather jacket? It must have been a laughable feat for its time. He could only imagine – cringing as he did – the rough pellets graze his exposed knees; the cold desert wind that made sprinting look like an otherwise cool walk; the blistering sun that—

‘Ahjussi!’

‘What!?’ Mister Blue snapped, tearing his eyes away from the rusty, clearly hazardous gate they always passed upon entering the apartment complex.

‘What is it?’

‘Don’t ya wanna come in?’

He pursed his lips; his balance falling on the balls of his feet as he lingered awkwardly between the empty street and the cool dark shadows of what may have been called the foyer of Mijin’s building.

‘No. I don’t,’ he answered, throwing a single hand in her direction which he drew back and forth, shooing her off. ‘Now get going while it’s still safe.’

‘But…’

The young girl’s expression fell animatedly at his words. She lowered her head; her chin teetering somewhere on her collarbone, where a small ripple of flesh from her chubby neck formed; and with her right foot, began kicking up flecks of dust that crunched beneath the pink plastic of her shoes. She sniffed a wet mass of mucus up her nose and whatever happened to settle on her top lip, almost unconsciously; her attention solely on the floor.

‘Ne, ahjussi, I didn’t try touching ya, right? So why aren’t ya coming in anymore? We have cake today. Let’s eat it together!’

Mister Blue couldn’t understand it. The question of how he ended up with such attire was one thing. But the perplexing nature of the things going on in his mind and somewhere in his chest was on an entirely different level. He could not fathom how he felt irritation, concern, and a wallowing sadness all at once. Like some sort of swelling horizon. Bright, hot, vivid things that seemingly melted into one another.

He wanted to say yes. He wanted to spend time with her again. He despised how dependent he had become of her sticky company, despised how messy she was, despised how she could never leave him alone, and yet he craved such things with a frightening desperation he hoped didn’t show in his receding steps and trembling lips.

He simply did not have the courage to face her. Not while knowing something he was positive Mijin did not.

I found it unbelievable how capable the little girl was of putting me in predicaments where refusing her offers made me feel a grating irritation with myself. Inexplicably, the word ‘no’ had become a blasphemous decree of sorts. Mijin did not accept it, nor did she take lightly to it. Her ‘staircase stunts’ – as I’d liked to call it – had escalated to events where she took to sticking out her bottom lip hilariously and blinking at me with the untiring motion of a hummingbird’s wings.

The first three days this happened in my attempts to avoid the girl and her mother resulted in blatant ignorance on my part. I took to forcing my leave without a second glance at her pleading antics, however by day four, Mijin – to my dismay, irritation, and eventually a little bit of relief – had won.

‘Ahjussi,’ she said one night while pressing the tip of an inky green marker into a colouring book. ‘Ilkwon and Subin wanna meet ya.’

‘Oh?’ I stopped fidgeting with the brightness of her lampshade, turning to look at her curiously.

Mijin in a deep breath of air – an unsightly snort following as thick snot rushed back up her nose – and with her tongue peeking out at one corner of her lips in concentration, she hummed an agreement.

‘Ilkwon don’t believe me, but Subin said her big brother wears the same kinda pants like you, ahjussi.’

The thought was fascinating for a moment thereafter, and I found myself staring at Mijin’s chubby hand that clenched a felt pen in it, tightly pressed against the brown page. Apart from her mother, I didn’t think she shared stories about me with anyone else. I often wondered just what the other kids thought of the young girl’s odd babbling to a bench where no one – according to them, anyway – was seated in. And yet hearing that she did in fact share pieces of me in some way filled me with something warm. Comfortable. Thankful, although I’d never show it.

… Until of course, a different perspective to her declaration struck me. ‘Wait, did you draw me? Without asking? Ah, you…’

The sheer glee on Mijin’s face despite my impending threat – which, by now, she could see coming from a mile away at times like these – stopped me mid-sentence. She hopped to her feet, bounded across the room with a spring in her step for her schoolbag, and I watched as she pulled out what I placed was her class notebook. She began flipping open each page with a single hand; creasing some as she did; and then stopped at a particular one, practically shoving it in my face.

‘It’s cool, right? Riiiight?’

I stared at the incredibly long stick figure that took an entire A4 page to fit into. It had stocky legs with circles she made sure not to colour somewhere near the ankles, and equally stocky arms stuck out beside it like a scarecrow clad in tubular sleeves of what I could only imagine was a black jacket. The shoes were separated from the ankles a significant few millimeters, and the hair was a black mop of scribbles that I could tell she struggled to add the dotted eyes under without them looking hidden.

I didn’t know when I’d become so sentimental. I never had a good grasp of time in the first place, so it was hard to tell. But what I did know was that unconsciously, I smiled at the silly drawing and Mijin noticed it too, to my horror. Quickly realizing she had secretly mounted the bed to get a better look at my r