Chapter 8.5

The Ride Home

집으로 가는 길 

"You know what? I take it back. You are an idiot, Park Soo-Young.”

“Oh, well, at least I got to be a mad genius in your eyes for an hour or so.”

The bowling session was over and the two other class-ditchers had realized the giant rain clouds have been uncontrollably crying for the past hour and a half. Apparently, Park Soo-Young in all her ingenuity, blew all her measly pocket money on bowling, and left none for the purchase of an extra umbrella. Seulgi had nothing in her wallet either, except for her trusty transport card.

“Wendy’s stupid umbrella won’t be big enough for all three of us,” Seulgi griped. “I guess I’ll just have to use my jacket again…”

“It’s you guys who are the idiots, obviously. I was the one who brought that umbrella along,” Soo-Young retorted. “It would really help a lot if you guys just checked the weather forecast every morning before heading off to places. It doesn’t really matter though. We’ll be in the subway for the entire hour or so trip home anyway.”

“We still have to walk home for 15 minutes after going down at Ansan Station, unless you have money for a cab, which of course, you don’t. Ugh… and I thought I was dumb. Anyway, what’s taking Wendy so long?”

Seulgi checked her watch. It was almost 5 p.m. They have been loitering at a bowling centre in the middle of Seoul for almost an hour since they finished their game. It was a good thing that the authorities did not mind.

“I hope she has money,” Soo-Young heaved a sigh. “She’s the richest among us anyway. Part-timer and all…”

“Maybe if you weren’t such a lazy bum and always playing around or lounging around watching TV in my house, you’d be stock-full of pocket money by now, and you could get your own umbrella, instead of borrowing from us,” Seulgi murmured as she rolled her eyes with her head turned away from Soo-Young, so that she wouldn’t be noticed.

Soo-Young, who was sitting beside her, rolled a newspaper she found on the round table and whacked Seulgi’s head with it. “I’m right here! I can hear you, you know!”

Soon Wendy arrived. She came hopping down the steps with her cheek puffed up with air, resembling a hamster. However, there was a noticeable change—her umbrella had somehow transformed transparent clear. Wendy had run to the nearest convenience store to buy one of those cheap clear umbrellas before heading to the bowling center.

“How’d it go with Yeri?” Seulgi looked up, munching on what was left of Soo-Young’s Pringles.

“It went well… I think.”

“So, she’s coming back for lessons?”

“I’m not sure.”

On the way home from the bowling centre, Wendy did not elaborate on the details of her conversation with Yeri. She insisted that the talk went well, but unbeknownst to her, she sighed plenty of times for her two friends to actually notice that it still bothered her. She still did not tell them about her past. All she told them was that Yeri was upset about leaving Korea, and that was it. It was odd for the other two, who were used to hearing Wendy talk non-stop in a fast-paced chatter.

“Well, if Yeri doesn’t want to take English lessons anymore, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Soo-Young told her with her head raised leaning against the glass window of the subway car. Then she took a deep sigh. “It suddenly hit me—now that you mention it. Yeri’s leaving, I mean. I’ll miss that crazy kid. Only a few months more and she’s off to Harry Potter land. She’ll be gone. Off to a new life. A new start. Without us. It’s hard to imagine not being able to see her on weekends anymore.”

All three of them sighed.

“Moving overseas is a big change. It must have been hard for her.” Seulgi also leaned her head back on the glass, subtly watching Wendy beside her. She got the hint that Wendy could relate. (And after what Soo-Young had told her while they were bowling, she planned on observing Wendy and other people a lot more.)

“She’ll be alright. She’s a strong girl,” Wendy said callously. When everything was quiet again, Wendy just closed her eyes, focusing on the low hum of the speeding train. In a few minutes, she was transported back in time, to when a similar heartache once took place…

15-year-old Wendy stood at the arrivals area of Incheon Airport, wandering around, pushing a heavy trolley filled with baggage. Her hair was a mess; her eyes were red and puffy from lack of sleep and too much crying. The navy-blue backpack hanging on her shoulders added to the weight, forcing her posture to slouch partly due to exhaustion. Although she had never drunk alcohol in the past 15 or so hours of flight, her head hurt like a bad hungover. If the intermittent bursts of cold winter air coming from the opening and closing glass doors could reach all the way across the hall, she could have just fainted like the paper-like doll that she was. Yet somehow, she was still standing. Barely. It was a miracle she even made it to Korea without getting lost or dying in an airport.

But will everything really be alright? Can she really survive this place without her family? Can she really adjust to this new life she forced on herself just to erase the regrets of the previous one? Or will she just end up piling more regrets on her throbbing head?

The teenager rubbed her eyes for a second. Everything was a blur. Right, my glasses… After wearing her specks, she saw another Korean girl about her age standing with the rest of the waiting crowd. The girl had headphones on, lazily swaying from side to side, in rhythm with a beat that no one else could hear. Her kind mono-lid eyes were scanning the crowd, looking for something—looking for someone. And down by her chest, she held a sign board with a rough drawing of a girl with glasses and a name in all caps. “SON WENDY.”

Wendy approached the girl and lowered her head for a slight bow.

“Are you Wendy Son?” the girl asked in Korean. It was a surprisingly new sound to Wendy’s ears, yet she clearly understood it. In Canada, it was either people spoke to her in English or in French, and sometimes even a twisted version of Mandarin. She would hear Korean, too, from time to time when spoken by her parents, and sometimes from other first or second-generation Korean-Canadians, usually mixed with English, but not as clear and pronounced as the pureness of this girl’s accent. Even the way the girl said “Wendy” didn’t sound right at first.

Without saying much, Wendy just nodded. She was honestly too tired to speak. After all that she had been through, her usual chatty self was out on an indefinite break.

“Hi, I’m Kang Seulgi! You’ll be staying with us for the foreign exchange program!” Her eyes curved up and her entire face turned into an adorable smiley emoticon. “My parents are at the parking area, and my brother is grabbing some snacks elsewhere… Gosh, that moron…” Seulgi looked around, wondering where her brother might be, and focused on Wendy again. “You look tired. Maybe you should hand me your backpack.”

Without hesitating, Wendy just took off her bag and Seulgi happily wore it for her. Then they went to an empty bench and sat together.

“I heard you’re the same age as me. February ‘94, right?” Seulgi continued the conversation, although she did most of the talking. “Since you and I will be sharing a room and live together—plus, we’re the same age and all—we can be friends, right?”

Wendy could tell that the girl was trying hard to get closer to her, but all she wanted to do was pass out. She just lifelessly nodded and hoped she didn’t look too rude.

“Awesome!” Seulgi exclaimed. Then an awkward silence fell. It seemed Seulgi had run out of things to say. The two of them just sat there, not talking to each other. Wendy slowly began to drowse off—her head bowed and her face sank in her scarf.

After a while Seulgi’s brother finally came with a box of donuts. He looked exactly like her, except his hair was shorter, and a lot taller than her. They looked like twins. “Ugh, Oppa, what took you so long?!”

Wendy could barely remember that long car ride to the Kangs’ home. All she knew was that there was this constant bickering of a brother and sister that faded into a hushed buzz… Then there was just the low humming of a car engine.

“She’s really sleeping peacefully, isn’t she? She barely said anything to me earlier at the airport. I really hoped she’d make better conversation. I at talking to people sometimes.”

“Shut up, Stupid, she flew from faraway. She’s probably tired. That’s why she didn’t talk much.”

“Maybe if you didn’t take too long to get those donuts, she could have rested earlier!”

“Tch… Kang Seulgi… you idiot. Shut up before she wakes up.”

“Oppa, shhh! … Moving overseas is a big change. It must have been hard for her.”

“That’s the same thing I said, Stupid.”

Wendy could hear all of it, and she very much wanted to join in the conversation, but her batteries were on zero at this point.

Yes, it was very hard for her. Here she was in a whole new world—helpless and slightly confused. Was it the right decision to leave it all behind and come here? She still wasn’t sure. But did she regret any of it so far?

All three years of being here in Korea, did she regret any of it?

“Psst. Wendy. Wendy. Wake up. We’re almost here.”

Wendy opened her eyes to find Seulgi nudging her. Beside Seulgi was Soo-Young, stretching her arms before getting up from her seat. She was back in the subway, and they were nearing Ansan Station. For the first time in a long time, Seulgi’s kind, bubbly countenance gave her that same warm assurance—that everything was going to be alright. Or more importantly—that everything actually turned out alright in the past three years.

Although Wendy may have regretted plenty of things in the past, what she has right now, she would never trade for anything in the world. And maybe, just maybe… Yeri would move to London and find good friends there that would treat her well too. We all need to be moving on, right? Though moving on may not be easy...

As all three of them stood up, Wendy almost fell off-balance, but Seulgi immediately grabbed her arm to steady her. “Are you okay, Wendy? You look tired.”

“I’m fine. I just had a dream.”

Soo-Young stretched some more and yawned as all three of them stepped out of the subway car doors. “I had a dream too. I was eating bonbons the size of bowling balls… Maybe I should lay off the candies for a while. What’s your dream?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing, just a dream about Seulgi.”

“Me?” Seulgi blankly stared at her, a bit surprised.

“A dream about Seulgi Unnie? What kind of dream?” Soo-Young asked.

“A happy one,” she said with a satisfied smile. “I’ll tell you more about it later. Now, let’s go home.”

Author's Note:

Here's an extra description of the "irony" of the characters (part of that one MSWord file where I keep my plans and outlines for this fic). I just thought it would be interesting to put them here (for those who actually read this far in the story.)