FOURTEEN:

Goodbye, Summer

Jinyoung’s bedroom was mostly hooks and furniture by now. He had gone through his things, looking for anything that he might pack up and bring with him the United States. He wasn’t sure when he would be coming home again, and he thought he’d save his parents the trouble of having to ship his belongings across the ocean to him. 

Those boxes were pushed against one wall and labeled: books, knick-knacks, clothing, winter wardrobe, photo albums and picture frames, more books and more knick-knacks. He’d heard the phrase “packing away childhood” before, but this was putting quite a literal spin on it.

It was almost noon, but Jinyoung was still in bed. He’d awoken hours ago, but he couldn’t seem to get himself out of bed. That would mean having to start the day, and today happened to be the day he was set to leave.

He was lying in bed, staring at the blank spots on his wall where there used to be posters of 80’s bands and promotional posters of movies he liked. He knew that his father planned on taking his bedroom and turning into his, so Jinyoung took them down and stored them in the closet. He looked at the boxes and mentally putting the things inside them back into their original places around the room.

Time to get up, he told himself.

There was knock on his door, and his eldest sister, Miyoung, let herself in. She was dressed in a long skirt and black turtleneck, glasses nearly falling off the tip of her nose. She was carrying a plate with both hands, and on it was a slice of chocolate cake with a single burning birthday candle.

“Hey, kiddo,” she said. “You should get out of bed, it’s your birthday.”

He laughed out of embarrassment and then sat up on the covers. Miyoung lowered herself on the foot of her bed and passed the plate to him. 

“Chocolate cake for breakfast?” he asked. “A few years ago, you would have punched me in the face if I even asked for a cookie before noon.”

“This is the one day a year that I have to let you off the hook,” she said.

Jinyoung scoffed. “All those Ph.D’s are making you soft, Noona.”

“Shall we honor tradition?” Miyoung said. Jinyoung laughed again, knowing where this was leading. Miyoung started singing ‘happy birthday,’ but in the ugliest, most off-key rendition she could come up with, and she switched each line between Ancient Greek and Klingon. Jinyoung cringed. 

“Alright, alright, enough,” he said. Then, he shut his eyes, made a wish, and blew the candle out. Miyoung clapped her hands.

“You’re getting so old,” she said. “Twenty-three? Ew.” 

Jinyoung brought the plate closer to his face and bit straight into the cake. It was sweet and moist and delicious. Miyoung hit his forehead with the flat end of a fork and chastised him for eating it like that. He took the fork from her and started eating his birthday cake. That’s when he noticed that Miyoung was giving him a weird look.

“What?” he asked, mouth full of chocolate cake. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

She shook her head, but he could clearly see her fighting a frown. 

“Oh, come on, Noona,” he said. “Let’s not do this today.”

“You’re leaving today,” she said. “My little baby brother’s going off to the United States to live all alone, and he’s turning twenty-three and leaving home.”

Jinyoung shook his head. Miyoung Noona moved out practically as soon as she turned eighteen. Even when she graduated college, she went straight into post-grad and wasn’t home much. The last time Jinyoung had really lived with her was when he was eleven, right around the time that he first became friends with Jisoo.

Now, it seemed like the roles had been switched.

It was an odd feeling, waking up on the day he was set to leave his childhood home, perhaps for good. Jinyoung finally got himself out of bed and changed into his outfit for the day. He followed Miyoung downstairs to have a proper breakfast, thought at this point, it was more like lunch. He looked around the house and practiced thinking of it as no longer his. The one-bedroom walk-up apartment in Brooklyn, that was his now. A strange new place that he’d never even been to. That was his now.

He checked the traffic on the roads he would need to take to drive back up to Seoul. About four hours, though Jinyoung knew a way to cut that into three-and-a-half. He would have to leave soon, though. 

After scraping down his late breakfast, he hopped into his car to get a head start on his errand list. Each time he thought of all the things he had to do before he could pack up his car and leave, he got overwhelmed. 

First, he had to run to the store to pick up some food to have along the journey. Then, stopped by a station to fill up his car. He picked up his tuxedo from the dry cleaner’s. Once all that was out of the way, he turned to important things: there were quite a number of people to say a proper goodbye to.

He went over to the school district office first and thanked Jennie for a great summer. Jaebum was there visiting, so Jinyoung bade him a farewell, too. Mrs. Kim had also been in the office, so Jinyoung gave her a deep bow and thanked her once more for teaching him music. He asked her to extended his well-wishes to her husband.

His mother and father were a good deal more emotional than he expected they would be. They had just sent their daughter off to live in Japan a few weeks ago, though, so he imagined that they were going through another bout of empty nest syndrome.

He decided to save Jisoo for last. She would be the hardest. 

Jinyoung finished loading up the car around 3:15 pm, but the sky looked like it was an hour later than it was. He was amazed at just how fast things could change in the space of a few hours. He took a look at everything he’d managed to pack into the backseat of his car and sighed. 

There was just one thing left to do.

He bade his final farewell to his family, and then he began the five minute drive over to the Kims’ hanok. He switched off the ignition as he pulled up in front of the house, but he made no move to get out of the car just yet. Grass grew up in the cracks of the gravel. Flat stones had been laid on the ground as a makeshift path to the front door, which had finally been fixed and replaced. The tiled roof used to be a vibrant blood orange color, but years of sunlight and weather had turned it brown. 

He spent so many afternoons here as a kid, learning to play piano and read music. He remembered that once had to help sneak Jisoo back into her room through a window because she was too drunk to use the front door. They once set off some fireworks right here in the front yard. 

This, too, was home, he thought.

The front door slid open and Jisoo emerged from inside the house. Jinyoung stepped out of the car and walked over to the stone base. Jisoo met him there.

“All packed up?” she said when he got close enough. He looked back at his car and then nodded.

“Looks like that’s everything,” he said. “Except the bed and the furniture and the kitchen sink.”

She grinned. “I guess it’s really happening,” she said. “You nervous?”

Yes.

He shrugged. “A little,” he said. “Mostly stressed, thinking about how much work is going to be waiting for me once I land. I’m hoping I did enough this summer to make the moving-in smoother.”

“I hear you,” she said. “Moving in was a when I went to LA, too. Is someone meeting you there?”

“The company is sending someone to pick me up at JFK,” Jinyoung answered. “Other than that, I’ll be on my own.”

Jisoo smiled. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”

Jinyoung frowned. “I guess it is.”

“Oh, before you go,” Jisoo said, then she turned and went back into the house for a minute. When she came back out, she handed him a slim white device. His Nintendo DS. Jinyoung laughed as he reached out to receive it.

“I’m sorry I lost your charger,” Jisoo said with a chuckle. “I turned my room upside down to find it. Then, I realized I didn’t even finish that level I was on. What a waste.”

“Now we’ll never know if you could have beaten it,” Jinyoung said, looking up at her with a fond smile.

Jisoo fidgeted with her hands. “I want to say that I’m sorry, again,” she said softly. “What I did was uncalled for. All that confusion you went through because I suddenly cut you off, I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t hurt by it anymore. It was like the pain had just packed its things and slipped away. But if apologizing would help Jisoo forgive herself, then he accepted it anyway. 

“You know that you’re my best friend, right?” Jisoo asked. Jinyoung sighed and gave her a soft nod.

“And you’re mine,” he said. Their eyes met, and for a moment Jinyoung felt that he was ten years old again. Seeing her for the first time. He swallowed a hard lump in his throat and then put his arms around her. Jisoo wrapped her arms around his chest and breathed in his scent. 

This, too, was home.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Jinyoung said, forcing himself to put on a smile. He could feel her shaking her head against his shoulder.

“I’ll call and text,” she said. “And video calls are a thing, too. I don’t know when I’ll be able to visit or when you can make it back here again, but… I’ll stay in touch. I promise.”

Jinyoung nodded and sighed. “Good,” he said. When they finally pulled away, Jisoo’s eyes were pools of unshed tears, and Jinyoung silently hoped that they wouldn’t spill over. If she started crying, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself either.

“Be safe,” she said with a trembling voice. Jinyoung nodded. 

He heard someone say once that the particles that made up the bodies of human beings were the same things that made up the stars and the universe. Somebody speculated that perhaps the reason some people’s lives were inexplicably drawn together was because once upon a time, their molecules sat side by side and were suddenly scattered when an explosion set time on its never-ending forward course. And now their molecules would do anything to be together again.

Jinyoung wasn’t sure he believed that, but… if he did, it would explain why he felt so strongly, even as they bid farewell, that he and Jisoo would see each other again.

But for now, he let his eyes linger on her face a little while longer. He was trying to remember every dip and curve of her face, trying to make this moment enough to last him the next however many years it would be until the next time they could be together.

“Goodbye, Jisoo,” Jinyoung leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

Then he got back into his car and began the long journey back to Seoul. Above them, another day cycled into twilight, and summer said its goodbyes, too.

Jinyoung slammed his foot down on the brakes. The wheels whined in protest as he pulled the Lexus off the road and onto the shou