THIRTEEN: 
Elephant

Daylight waned and dusk came sooner and sooner each day. Like the leaves that drifted from the limbs of trees and fell in scattered heaps around the stone base of the hanok, things seemed to just fall into place.

Opening night was a huge success. Aside from a few small hiccups and Glinda the Good Witch’s minor wardrobe malfunction, the show went off without a hitch. Several parents expressed how pleased they were with the outcome and with their children’s positive experience to Mrs. Kim, who redirected all the credit to Jisoo.

When word got around of how good Jisoo was with the children’s program, the school district asked her if she’d like to take on a temporary-to-permanent position as an elementary after school drama club coordinator. She figured she had nothing else to do, and the summer program had been such a fun experience. Jisoo took the job.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kim heeded Boyoung’s advice and spoke to the head doctor at the elderly care home. After about an hour or so of talking and negotiating, she came away with an agreement to let harabeoji stay there for a discounted rate. She would still need to find new piano students quick to make up the money, but with Jisoo now collecting paychecks from the school district, the Kims didn’t worry too much about not being able to afford the care Harabeoji needed.

As for Jinyoung, he and Jisoo were like milk and cookies again.

Next up on Jennie’s reunion itinerary was an overnight camping trip. It had gone smoothly enough. Aside from Yugyeom almost drowning in the lake during a race (Mark rescued him, everything was fine). And Jackson’s pants catching on fire (Yugyeom ended up dousing the flames with his shirt, which was still wet from nearly drowning). And Jennie almost fell of a cliff (thankfully, Jaebum had fast reflexes.) 

Jinyoung and Jisoo shared their nonsense song about Mr. Cactus Head with the group, and it turned into their fireside anthem.

Then, there was an after-hours evening of self-guided tours and themed cocktails at the Natural History Museum. Which turned out to be somewhat disastrous since a handful of their former classmates got smashed and destroyed a reconstructed Homo Erectus skeleton. Jinyoung and Jisoo were exploring the taxidermy hall when they heard the clamor. They ran around the museum looking for Jennie to report the damage, but no one had a clue where she was. 

The evening was practically over by the time they saw her emerge from the gemstones exhibit with Jaebum behind her. Jinyoung felt a wave of catharsis overwhelm him at the sight. 

The activities kept on coming: a pirate-themed escape room activity that reunited Jisoo with her high school dramas family. They lost the game, though, since none of them could solve the last math equation that would open the final door. 

“You ing useless Thespians,” Bambam joked, shaking his fist dramatically at the drama club when they came in last place. 

Next came a build-your-own-burger night at the 50’s diner. Jinyoung and Jisoo experimented with using waffles instead of brioche buns. At the first bite, they turned and looked at each other with wide eyes, wondering if they had just invented something new.

Then there was a movie night under the stars, during which Jennie and Jaebum mysteriously disappeared again. 

In between the activities, Jinyoung and Jisoo continued seeing each other. 

“Jungah, you already had a chance to pick the game last time,” Jisoo said. She had her shoes propped up on a desk, and she was leaning back as she watched the newly formed Elementary Drama Club argue over which improv game they wanted to play.

“But if you let Sojung pick, she’ll just want to do Understudy again!” Jungah complained.

“That’s because it’s the one everyone is most familiar with!” Sojung argued. “You only ever want to play Narrator!” After her stint as the Wicked Witch in the summer program, Sojung the Shy had come out of her shell and was even voted drama club president.

“How about I teach you guys a new one?” Jisoo suggested to calm the tension in the room. She stepped off her seat and taught them a new game, “I Can Do It Better.” She had a couple of players start the game by improvising a scene, and then instructed the players on the side to jump in and shout “I can do it better!” and then take one of the players’ place and demonstrate what they could do better.

“I can be poetic about the SAT’s better!”

“I can slap Minseok better!”

“I can imitate a drone better!”

“I can beatbox better!”

“I can speak German-sounding gibberish better!”

Instead of arguments, the room was filled with laughter, and Jisoo sat back and watched as her young protégées improvised hilarious scenes. The gaggle of sheepish kids had come a long way since the summer program, and it was gratifying to see just how smart and sharp these kids really were when they were allowed to drop their guards and let their creativity run wild. 

It was around this time that Jinyoung appeared in the classroom doorway with a laptop tucked under his arm. The children didn’t notice him, and neither did Jisoo. 

After a couple more minutes, Jisoo started to applaud and the children followed her lead.

“Okay, awesome round, guys!” she said. The kids scattered and started to collect their things. Sojung spotted Jinyoung in the doorway, and spread into a Cheshire grin.

“Hey, Miss Jisoo!” she said. “It’s your boyfriend!”

Jisoo whipped her head around to see what the hell this little girl was talking about, and she saw Jinyoung standing there, waving stupidly at her. The other little girls giggled and started to surround him, beckoning him into the classroom. Jisoo straightened up and shook her head. 

“Mr. Popular over here,” Jisoo joked once all the kids had cleared out of the room. Jinyoung blushed.

“What can I say?” he said. Jisoo was putting her things into her bag, and he took a seat at one of the low desks that was in front of hers.

“Whatcha got there?” Jisoo said, noticing the laptop he’d brought with him. All of sudden, he looked nervous.

“I’ve been… working on something,” he said hesitantly. He laid the laptop down on the desk and then opened it. Jisoo saw a music production software program open on the screen.

“On a song?” Jisoo asked, sitting down. “Dude, that’s great! Can I hear it?”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Jinyoung fished a pair of earbuds out of his pocket. Then after untangling them, he plugged into his computer and then handed them to Jisoo.

“Just keep in mind,” Jinyoung said before hitting the spacebar. “I haven’t so much as touched a new song in years, so it’s going to be horribly apparent that I am rusty. And, yes, I’m probably going to be a little sensitive.”

“You’re such a baby,” Jisoo joked. Regardless if she liked it or not, she was just happy that he was writing again. 

“Just play it, let me hear it.”

Despite the tone of jest, Jisoo could see in his body language that he was nervous. His hand shook as he pressed down on the spacebar and played the song. It began with a soft, faded instrumental and subtle baseline, and then there was Jinyoung’s soft, echoing vocals, with a falsetto line layered beneath. 

I came back from being so far

Past the times I thought would last forever

How have you been? I missed you

Sadness falls from your eyes

Jisoo looked up at Jinyoung, who was watching her face intently as she listened. His body was tense and she could practically see him shaking with anticipation of her reaction.

His voice in the track repeated the chorus: I’m coming home, coming home. The song was sorrowful and hopeful all at once. It was emotive and melancholic, and she’d never heard his voice sound so wistfully sad and hauntingly beautiful at the same time. The lyrics sounded so personal. She pressed her lips into a thin line. Jinyoung noticed, and he wondered what it meant.

She paused the song and pulled one of the earbuds out.

“It sounds good,” she said. Jinyoung raised a brow.

“Really?” he asked.

“It sounds… really different from anything else you’ve written,” Jisoo said. “More… mature, I guess. More… emotionally complex. What’s it called?”

“‘Coming Home,’” Jinyoung said. He looked down at his hands and smiled. It was his real smile this time. It came out more often now. Jisoo turned to the computer and was about to play the song again when he spoke: 

“You know,” he said. “Your grandfather talked to me in the hospital while you were talking to your parents.”

Jisoo raised her brows. “Oh,” she said. “He did? What’d he say?”

The look on her face made him realize that she was worried Harabeoji had said something inappropriate. But he waved his hands to assure her that it wasn’t anything like that.

“He talked about writer’s block,” Jinyoung said. “I said that I hadn’t written music in a while was because of writer’s block. I said it like a joke, but… it was true, too. When we all went off to college, I just couldn’t write anymore. Musically, creatively, I felt stuck.”

Stuck. Yes, that was exactly how he felt. Stuck with a major he didn’t like, a girlfriend who didn’t like him, and a job toward which he had only lukewarm feelings. Stuck in a distorted version of the life he imagined for himself. No writing, no growth, no music.

The last thing he wanted to do was make Jisoo feel guilty. It wasn’t anyone’s direct fault, as far as he knew, but he could almost exactly pinpoint the start of this stagnant feeling to the last day of summer five years ago. She didn’t say goodbye, and when she left, she took the music with her.

Jinyoung swallowed.

“Harabeoji said that writer’s block is what happens when you don’t live your life honestly, and you won’t be able to move on until you go back and fix what’s wrong,” he continued. “It got me thinking about myself and the kind of life I had in Seoul. It wasn’t all bad, but in some ways, it felt like I was going down a road that I wasn’t meant to be on, like I took a wrong turn somewhere. Coming home… feels like a chance to go back and take the right turn.”

“Overcoming writer’s block,” Jisoo said gently. “That’s a very good way to look at it.”

Her stomach churned. She could feel him steering the direction of this conversation dangerously close to the memory of that day. Images of the sky and the sea were rushing back to her, and she was trying to stop it.

“Your birthday is coming up,” Jisoo said, wondering if that would change the subject. His brows shot up, and the air cleared.

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “That’s right.” Truth be told, he’d forgotten. 

“So, what are we doing?” Jisoo asked. She crossed her legs under the table and accidentally hit his shin with her foot. She felt him shifting in his seat. He looked down at the desk and grabbed the edge of it.

“I’ll actually be leaving on that day,” he said. 

Jisoo widened her eyes. “You are?”

Jinyoung nodded. “My plane flies out of Seoul on the 24th, remember?” he said. “Minji and I are over, but I do still have that job in New York, I’ve signed the contract already and everything.”

“But,” Jisoo uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. “You just finished saying that coming back here felt like a chance to take the right road, are you really heading back down that way, again?”

Jinyoung sighed. “The convenience of being paid is too valuable to just throw away,” he said, switching his voice to one that was steady and logical. “I’ll need to have something before I can jump straight into a recording arts career.”

“That’s… very true, I guess,” Jisoo conceded. A smart move, she supposed. It wasn’t as if he could wake up one day and decide to throw away everything and become a music producer. Even successful music producers didn’t start out that way.

“Accountant by day, music producer by night,” she said.

Jisoo didn’t know why she was feeling so upset about this. Of course, Jinyoung was professional enough to keep his work life separate from his relationship with Minji but… still, she had thought that now that they’d broken up, he’d be free to stay here. Free to fall in lo—

Stupid, she thought. Of course, he had to honor his contract and his other commitments. What kind of friend would she be if she tried to pull him away from those things? She woul