EIGHT:
Jinyoung That I Met

“It’s just one evening,” Jinyoung said to Minji. They were in his Lexus and were on their way over to the Kims’ house, which meant he had just about five minutes to get his girlfriend back onto his side. 

At the end of his and Jisoo’s piano duet in the rehearsal hall about a week ago, Mrs. Kim, his old piano tutor walked in and scolded him for neglecting to practice. Then, after a brief catching up, she invited Jinyoung over to their house for dinner the following weekend. Jinyoung had asked if he could bring his girlfriend. 

“Just for a couple of hours,” Jinyoung said. “We’ve gotten dinner with a bunch of our friends before, it won’t be any different.”

Minji looked up from her phone and sighed. “It will be fundamentally different, though,” Minji said. “Yeah, we get dinner with our friends back in Seoul, but they’re our people. These people don’t like our people.”

Jinyoung blinked in confusion. 

“What do you mean by ‘these people’?” he asked.

“You know, like—” Minji put her phone down for a minute and made a vague gesture which Jinyoung took to refer to everything. “You and I, we’re city people, we’re not used to this… sleepy, claustrophobic small town vibe. If you stay too long in a small town, you start thinking small thoughts.”

He furrowed his brows at her. “Are you saying that just because these people—through no fault of their own—were born in a small town that they’re simple-minded?”

Jinyoung to a dirt road. “Not going to lie,” he said. “That’s a little bit offensive, Minji.”

“Oh, never mind,” Minji said, sighing and turning away from him. “Sometimes I feel like you purposely misconstrue my words, like you derive some kind of pleasure from misunderstanding me.”

Jinyoung scoffed. If anything, she was the one who was always misunderstanding him, always sending him mixed signals. He used to like it. Back in the early stages of their courtship, she played hard-to-get, and Jinyoung thought it was kind of thrilling, kind of y, having to decode her messages and find out what she was hinting at. He played along. 

It was less attractive now, though, almost six months into the relationship. He just wanted to talk to her, plainly, without guile or hidden agenda or cryptic innuendos. 

The Kims didn’t have a driveway. The front of the house had a stone path leading to the stone base of the hanok, and there was grass shooting up from between the pebbles and the gravel. Jinyoung pulled the car up there and parked. 

“Minji, I don’t want to fight with you,” he said gently as he switched off the ignition. “You know I love you, and you’re like family to me. So are these people. There is no ‘our people’ and ‘their people,’ there’s just people. You just have to… find what’s similar in the differences and use that as a point of connection.”

Minji didn’t answer him. She looked out through the windshield at the sagging old house and sighed. Jinyoung turned a soft gaze on her, silently begging her: Please do this for me. Please love the people that I love. They’ll love you, too.

She didn’t say another word, and Jinyoung didn’t know what to make of it. They both got out of the car and approached the house. The door slid out of its frame again when Jinyoung pulled it. He tried to balance it against the wall.

“Hello?” he called. “Sorry about the door.”

They were greeted by Harabeoji, who was wearing hanbok and pacing the floor with his hands behind his back. He stared blankly at Jinyoung and his girlfriend.

“Park Jinyoung,” he said. “You’re late.”

Jinyoung was kicking off his shoes and he checked his watch. It was 7 pm on the dot, making him precisely on time. “No, we’re not, sir,” he said. Harabeoji grunted.

“Don’t try to outsmart me, son,” he said. “I know your lessons begin at eleven. My daughter will be upset.”

Jinyoung smiled. “Harabeoji, I haven’t been to lessons in years,” he said.

“Then my daughter will be extremely upset,” Harabeoji said in an even sterner voice. “Nothing can be achieved in this life without commitment, young man. Goals are achieved by those who show up.”

“Harabeoji, stop harassing our guests,” said Jisoo, appearing from the kitchen. She was wearing a plaid apron over her t-shirt and jeans. She led her grandfather to the dining room before returning to greet Jinyoung and Minji with hugs for both.

“Sorry about my grandfather,” Jisoo said nervously to Minji. She must still remember their unfortunate encounter in the town square. Jinyoung swatted away her concern like it was a fly.

“No, it was kind of inspiring,” Jinyoung said. “You really should be collecting his pearls of wisdom in a notebook or something.”

Jisoo’s mother and father came out into the living area to greet their guests, too. Along with Miyoung and Boyoung, Mrs. Kim had been more of a mother figure to Jinyoung than his own mother. She spoke to him in a casual, slightly irreverent tone and then asked to see his hands. She could somehow always tell whether or not he’d been practicing on the piano based on the state of his fingers. Then she commented again on how tall he was getting and playfully slapped his , teasing him about how many squats he must be doing each day back in those Seoul gyms. 

“I bet your girlfriend likes it,” Mrs. Kim, winking at Minji. Jisoo hid her face, embarrassed by her mother’s behavior. 

“Mom, you can’t just slap people’s asses as a greeting,” she said. 

“I’m just being friendly,” her mother said, and even gave Minji’s a light tap, making the girl give a stunned yelp.  Jinyoung used to get his wrists slapped with a switch when he rushed or dragged the tempo during lessons, so he could tell the difference between friendly and unfriendly slapping and for the most part he didn’t mind. Minji, however, looked disturbed.

“I hope you guys are hungry,” Jisoo said to Minji, trying to make her feel comfortable again. “My mom went sort of crazy in the kitchen, and I should apologize in advance for the tofu. It’s not her forte. But I did make a cake for tonight.”

“You baked?” Jinyoung said. “And the house is still standing?”

“My Pinterest skills have improved over the past five years,” Jisoo said. “You’ll be shocked. It’s a crepe cake, and if I do say so myself, it’s pretty bomb.”

Minji pressed her lips into a thin line. “I’m actually on a low sugar diet.”

Jisoo’s mother really did pull out all the stops on tonight’s meal. Miyoung and Boyoung did most of the cooking while Jinyoung was at home, and his sisters liked trying out elaborate western recipes. 

Mrs. Kim, however, served them nothing but traditional Korean fare. Braised beef short ribs and vegetables, spicy pan fried tofu, seasoned bok choy, soybean sprouts, kimchi, fried flatfish, potato salad, pork dumplings, cold slices of pickled cucumbers. The table was so full that there was hardly room to rest their chopsticks. 

Jinyoung dug right in. Jisoo helped her mother spoon rice into bowls to pass around the table before going for the beansprouts. Mrs. Kim handed a bowl of rice to Minji.

“Uh,” Minji said, accepting the bowl with a cautious look. “You don’t happen to have… quinoa, instead?”

Mrs. Kim looked at her like she just spoke Greek. 

“It’s a type o