8. EVERYTHING'S A CHOICE

I decided to pay a visit ”home”, since I hadn’t contacted my aunt since last night. She wasn’t strict like that, she was more than happy to hear that I had something else to do than sit inside and read a book or doodle into my notebook, she was similar to my dad in that way. Plus she didn’t have to worry, which was an interesting point of view. If I ever had a kid of my own, I would’ve worried more if the kid didn’t show up rather than worry when he or she was around. My aunt’s mind worked differently. If I wasn’t around, that meant I was busy somewhere, perfectly able to take care of myself. That meant that she didn’t have to interfere.

Hanbin parked his car right behind my aunt’s husband’s Mitsubishi. He twisted the key on the power socket and let the engine cool down.

”My dad taught me to wait a few seconds before pulling out the key”, he explained, glancing towards me. It wasn’t an important piece of information, but to me, after this morning, everything that came out of Hanbin’s mouth seemed to have an enormous amount of value. I cherished even his little squeals when he suddenly had to step on the break pedal.

We stepped out of the car and walked along the little pathway that lead to the front porch. There were sacks of soil on every step. ”She’s a green thumb?”

”Yeah”, I nodded. ”Aunt Kim loves her plants.”

Hanbin stopped at the end of the steps and his heels to take a look at the whole garden. He had a crooked smile on his lips. ”I can see that.”

Aunt Kim wasn’t at work when we entered the kitchen. She was there by the stove, mixing up ingredients in her white night gown. Hanbin looked away at first, but I yanked the hem of his shirt and shot him a glare that made him concentrate. She had failed to put on a bra. Again.

”Hey, I’m back- we’re back”, I tried to sound cheerful as I approached her with a wide smile. ”I’m sorry I spent the night-”

”Oh hi”, Aunt Kim croaked. She coughed into her elbow-pit and cleared . Her eyes found Hanbin who was standing next to me. ”You must be the famous bartender?”

Hanbin laughed awkwardly and bowed to the elder. ”Yes, Kim Hanbin. It’s nice to meet you Mrs. Kim.”

”Oh please, we’ve met”, Aunt Kim chuckled and walked to the fridge. ”Don’t be a stranger.”

I sent a curious look towards Hanbin. He didn’t notice my glance. ”Yeah I’ve seen you at the store. It’s by the Harbor isn’t it?”

”It sure is”, Aunt Kim said. She moved back to her pot of ingredients. ”I’m making bok choy for dinner. Are you staying or just stopping by?”

Hanbin raised his brows at me - are we staying?

I turned to my aunt. ”We’re not in a hurry.” It was only a little past two, so we didn’t have to rush. We had agreed on picking up Hanbyul after her daycare and planned to go fishing with her, like Hanbin had suggested.

Hanbin walked past me, towards the kitchen counter. ”Do you need help?”

I could see how my aunt slowly, but surely fell for Hanbin’s magical spell. She noticed his vivid eyes and his polite manners. It was a matter of minutes when she would praise him and tell me to marry him. My mother would’ve never done anything like that. She would’ve told me to stay away from him. Which was why I asked aunt to keep this as our secret. My mom didn’t have to know about Hanbin. Obviously I didn’t ask this in front of Hanbin. I did it when he went back to his car, to fetch his phone.

Aunt understood me. She told me that she wouldn’t have told her about him anyway. And I respected her for that.

We made dinner together and aunt asked us what we had been doing during the past week. And she happened to ask us how we had met, since I wasn’t very ”keen” on talking to strangers. Especially young men apparently. Hanbin took the rein and explained how I had crashed my bike and tumbled down the side of the road where he had eventually picked me up. Even to my ears, the story sounded real. Like it had actually happened. Hanbin looked calm explaining it all, but there was a hint of discomfort in the way he sat and presented himself. A distant memory was disturbing him - the reality of how it all had went down. He obviously didn’t enjoy lying to aunt Kim, but he did it for me. I had asked him to keep this between us - him and I.

Hanbin was first to stand up from the table. He thanked aunt Kim for the dinner and the company and made his way to the kitchen. ”I’ll do the dishes.”

I jumped up. ”I’ll help.”

Aunt flashed us a hearty grin. ”In that case, I’ll go lie down for a bit.”

Once she had disappeared to the living room, Hanbin shot me a meaningful side-eye. The discomfort had piled up and I could see it clearly in him. He looked upset.

”What’s wrong?” I asked, taking the place in front of the sink.

Hanbin shifted on his spot, grabbing a kitchen towel from the higher cupboard. ”You want me to be blunt or euphemistic?”

I glanced at him. ”Go straight to the point.”

Hanbin sighed. ”I don’t understand why you didn’t tell her.”

I took a plate and started rubbing it with a sponge. ”Because I don’t want her to worry.”

A brief pause. ”It’s just… wouldn’t you want to know? If it happened to someone you care about.”

I began to think. What if it had happened to Chaeyoung? She would’ve told me if something bad happened to her. She always told everything to me. So why didn’t I want to tell her, or anyone? ”I don’t know.”

Hanbin dried the plate I had washed. He nudged me with his elbow.

We washed the dishes in silence.

”Can I ask you about your dad?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. ”What about him?”

Hanbin leaned against the kitchen counter and wrapped his arms against his chest. ”I feel like you haven’t told about him to anyone.”

Hanbin was right. I blocked my father out of my thoughts. He didn’t exist to me anymore. ”There’s nothing to tell.”

”I think there is”, Hanbin said.

I blinked.

”Did he do something to you?”

My eyes battled to look down. I felt the stiffness on my neck. It was forcing my head down again. I never let him enter my thoughts, for a reason. I hadn’t prepared myself for this. I hadn’t realized how effortlessly Hanbin could read me. Like an open book. ”He liked to drink.”

Hanbin closed his eyes briefly. As if he had told himself ”I knew it”.

I straightened the hem of my shirt, pulling it down. Then I brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. Hanbin noted everything with his examining eyes.

”Did he do something to you?” He asked again.

It amazed me how he could squeeze everything out of me. I forced myself to not think about it. ”Yeah, but nothing like that-”

”Nothing like what?”

”I don’t want to talk about it.”

I shut him out. It was too much to handle, after all that had happened today.

Hanbin puckered his lips and stared at the floor. ”I understand.”

I took a deep breath. I wasn’t ready to have this conversation. I needed more time. More time to heal. Then I could tell him everything. ”Be patient with me”, I breathed.

Hanbin let out a cold laughter. ”I’ll do my best.”

***

We left the house when it came close to four o’clock. Hanbin was unusually quiet and I was on the brink of a breakdown. Somehow the tension between us was driving me insane. The police station visit, keeping secrets from my aunt and now from Hanbin, it was all getting unbearable. As the day went on and the sunlight turned more vivid, I turned more anxious and the air turned thicker. Once we were in the car, just the two of us, I couldn’t handle it any longer.

I bursted in tears.

The tears blocked my view and flowed down my cheeks. I hid my face against my palms. And he was there in my black web of thoughts. My dad, raising his hand at me. My face looking back from the mirror with a purple eye.

Hanbin stopped the car to the side of the road.

”Talk to me."

I struggled to catch my breath. ”He- he used to beat me.”

Hanbin didn’t answer.

”He beat me and my mom. When he was drunk. He couldn’t take it - he didn’t understand why I liked to read and stay inside watching films. To him it - it was embarrassing.”

He still didn’t answer.

”And… he said that I’ll never become a writer, that I lacked motivation. He called me spineless. But I know why he did it.”

”There’s no good reason to beat anyone”, Hanbin said. He sounded more upset than in the kitchen. ”Don’t try to justify what he did.”

I shook my head. ”I’m not trying to-”

”Yes you are. Just like you didn’t want to tell the cops what that piece of did to you- you think there has to be a reason for things like that, but the truth is that they’re just bad, bad people.”

”No one’s bad by heart. It’s the bad things in life that make people bad.”

”Maybe so”, Hanbin said. ”But it doesn’t allow us to keep doing bad things. We all have issues but most of us can keep living with them - we don’t have to become monsters because we faced a monster in our past.”

I stared at the empty road ahead of us.

”It’s a choice”, Hanbin said. ”Everything’s a choice.”

I dried my eyes to my sleeve. Then I turned to look at him. Hanbin stared straight ahead. He was thinking of something.

”I’m not a thing you can fix”, I found myself saying. My own voice sounded distant, even to me.

Hanbin turned to look at me. ”I don’t want to fix you.”

”Then what are you doing?”

He blinked. ”Studying.”

”What?”

Hanbin shook his head. ”Never mind.”

”Studying? Am I some freaky expe