Chapter 17:  The Map

 

 

I've been working all night and I'm bushed.

I need to take a five-minute breather.

I take out my phone and look at the pics of me and Moo young at Namsan Tower.

We look so happy. He's hugging me so close to him, one arm curled around my shoulder, the other across my waist, so that his hands are interlocked, and I'm ensconced in his protective embrace. He's smiling, but his eyes look kind of sad. I'm grinning broadly in all of the pics. I look like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. I'm burrowed in him in all of the pics. I look so safe, so snug, so content.

I smile to myself.

Five minutes are up, and It's time to go back to work. Sigh.

Early the next morning, I ride my bike to the playground.

He's not there.

My phone buzzes.

It's a text from Moo young.

TEXT: NO MORNING WORKOUT FOR ME TODAY.

I call his phone, but there's no answer.

I go to Moo young's place, but it's quiet and dark. 

"Moo young," I call. "Moo young."

No one answers.

I insert the key in the front door, but the door swings open; it's already open.

I sit on the couch and scroll through the pics that we took at Namsan Tower again. I look at the robot on the coffee table. It looks like it belongs there.

I take out the pic of me and Moo young that I've framed up, and put it on the coffee table.

I see a crumpled up ball of paper on the floor. I bend over and pick it up.

I smoothen it.

It's the drawing.

The figure with the purple hat has been almost torn off, dangling by a whisker at the upper edge, leaving an empty gap on the extreme right.

My heart sinks.

What does it mean?

Has he found out something terrible, something that has made him rip out the most important person in his life, the man with the purple hat?

Moo young comes in. 

He smiles at me.

"How was your workout?" he asks.

He looks fine, calm, unruffled.

I would have thought that everything was normal, if not for that crumpled ball of paper, the drawing that's on the couch next to me.

"Where have you been?" I ask.

"I went to see the doctor," he says casually. "I'll make some ramen."

He doesn't look at me.

He walks to the kitchen and takes out two ramen packets.

I walk over to him.

"Has anything happened?" I ask.

"Nothing happened," he says.

He busies himself taking out the pot, rinsing it, and filling it up with water.

"But it looks like something might have happened to you. What happened to you?" I persist.

I place the drawing on the counter.

He stares at it for an instant.

Then he seizes it and hurls it into the trash can.

"Why are you throwing it away?" I cry.

"It's all fake," he says, his voice tight. "It's just something fake, unreal, that I made up."

"It can't be fake," I cry. "Children's drawings don't lie."

"Maybe mine did," he says in a thin voice.

"Moo young -  ," I say.

"I want to tell you," he says in a low, almost inaudible voice. "I want to tell you everything, but..."

He draws a long breath.

"Not now, not today," he says in a flat, hard voice. "I'm hungry. Let's eat something first."

His whole body is rigid, tense.

"Okay," I say gently. "I'm hungry, too. Let's eat."

"Do you want eggs in your ramen?" I ask.

He's trying to rip open the ramen packet, but it refuses to tear. He keeps pulling at it, clenching his fingers around it, and pulling, until the wrapper is stretched to breaking point, and I can see the strained creases forming, and elongating, and still, it won't tear, and his breath comes louder and louder, and faster and faster, in heaving, jerky rasps, and then his fingers close in a death-grip, and his nails claw at the wrapper with a sudden surge of violent rage and blinding fury, and it tears and the dried noodles spill out, and explode in a mix of noise: the crackling of plastic and the boisterous rattling of newly-liberated bits and pieces of noodle hitting the counter joyously, the biggest chunk landing with a loud, clumsy, bizzare clatter on the floor.

He stands there, staring at it, breathing heavily.

I bend down and pick it up.

"My father killed someone," he says softly, as I straighten.

I freeze.

"What?" I whisper.

"He killed three people," he says dully.

"Three... ," I echo, numb with shock.

"Please leave," he says in barely a whisper.

He turns away from me.

"Moo young," I say.

"I want to be alone," he whispers."Please."

I look at him.

"You don't want me to be here?" I ask.

"Not at this moment," he says in a chillingly calm voice. "No."

I reach into the trash can, and retrieve the drawing.

"I'll take this with me," I say.

He barely responds.

He stands there, rigid and still, gripping the edge of the counter so tightly that his knuckles show white.

I open the door and shut it quietly.

I stumble out and sink down on the stairs.

I'm shaking so hard that I can't stand up.

I look at the drawing and weep.

The man in the purple hat has been torn off totally.

The woman in the drawing stands with her arm outstretched, but there's no one to hold her hand; there's only a blank space and emptiness next to her. Above her, the angel perches, impervious to the destruction of the happy family and the loss of a dream.

My tears fall thick and fast.

I weep for the loss of his happy family.

I weep for the loss of his father.

I weep for the loss of three other lives.

But, most of all, I weep for the loss of hope, and the loss of his dream.

The dream has sustained him all of these years, a glimmer of hope beckoning to him in the cold and the dark and the unbearable loneliness.

The dream has crumbled to ashes in the harsh light of reality.

I'm at home.

I haven't seen him nor spoken to him since he told me to leave.

I take out my phone.

Should I call him?

Jin kook comes out of his room.

"Is everything okay?" he asks me.

"Fine," I say brightly. "I just came to get a drink of water. I'm going to sleep soon."

"I'm going to visit Mother's grave in Haesang," he says.

"Do you want me to come with you?" I ask.

"No, it's okay," he says. "You don't have to come with me."

"You want to be alone, too," I say sadly.

"Huh?" he says.

"Nothing," I smile and go to my room.

The next morning, I walk a few laps around a school field.

I wander around town.

I walk past the walls with posters of missing children pasted up there through the years. Some have yellowed and are torn at the edges.

I stop, and look at them.

I think of his drawing.

Everyone looked so happy in there. There was even a drawing of an angel.

What had Moo young said? In his dreams, his father, the police officer in the purple hat, was still looking for him. 

"Somewhere out there, he's still looking for me, his missing son."

I look at the posters of the missing children through a hazy blur of tears, and they stare back at me, gone, but never forgotten; because I want to believe, I need to believe, that somewhere out there, someone is looking for them.

It's hope that gives them the strength to go on looking.

For when hope dies, the dream dies with it.

Without hope, without the dream, what else can one cling to to go on living?

Love.

When hope dies, and the dream crumbles to dust, love takes its place.

That night, I text him.

TEXT: I LOVE YOU.

It's night.

I wait at the alley leading to his place.

I see him walking up the alley. 

He stops when he sees me.

He looks pale and tired, and his eyes are red-rimmed, haggard pools of despair and sadness.

"Are you really okay with someone like me?" he asks, his voice raw, unsteady.

"Of course," I say.

"I want to be born again," his voice breaks.

His eyes are full of tears.

He stumbles, and reaches out to me blindly.

And I'm running to him, flying to him, across the space, across the divide, my heart bursting, exploding with love and pain and sadness, but most of all, with love, with so much love, enough, more than enough to fill him, to comfort him, to take away his pain, his suffering, his agony, more than enough to fill him up for forever, and for the rest of our lives.

I throw my arms around him, and hold him close to me. 

I warm his shivering body with my love, I his cold cheeks with my gentle hands, chafing them, melting the ice, willing them to come to life again, to breathe again.

He's weeping, his tears wetting my face, my neck, drenching my shoulders.

He clings to me and sobs brokenly, his shoulders heaving.

I hold him tightly, and he clings desperately to me.

I'll never let go, I vow silently. I'll never ever let you go.

I'll never let you be alone again.

I'll heal your brokenness, and make you whole again.

My love will fill you with strength and courage.

From the ashes, you'll be reborn, renewed; a new man, a new beginning.

And I'll be with you every step of the way.

I'll be with you today, tomorrow and forever.

We go into his place and make ramen. 

He holds me tightly from behind and won't let go. We walk around like this, preparing our meal, coiled together, fused together, as if we're joined at the hips.

"You'll have to wait 30 minutes," I say, showing him how to cook the rice.

"Rice isn't that important," he smiles, his voice half-muffled, snuggling into my back. 

I can feel his warm breath on the back of my neck and his heart thudding against my back.

"If you want to be born again, you should live in a warm home" I say softly. "If you live in a warm home, then you'll have the smell of warm rice."

"That's so easy," he says.

We sit side by side and hug and smile at each other as we wait for the rice to cook.

Then we sit and eat.

I laugh.

"This reminds me of the first time that I came here," I say. "It was a very strange house. I thought that the house was like you, cold and dark. The house that always feels lonely, and makes you want to leave."

I hold him tightly, and tilt my face to look into his.

"I hope that it'll just get warmer and warmer. When you have a cat, you've got to feed it. When you have flowers, you've got to water them. When you have food, you've got to eat it, or it'll go bad. I hope all of these things grow on you and won't let you go."

We sleep and cuddle together in bed.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says, "even if I have nothing. Even if I go far away, I'll always come back to you."

The next day, Moo young and I go to a theme park.

We have so much fun riding the merry-go-round, playing bumper cars, and walking around the park with rabbit ears.

"I want to ride a rollercoaster," I say, eyeing the huge monster in front of us.

"Never ever," he says, looking horrified.

"But I want to ride a rollercoaster with my boyfriend," I whine.

"No way," he says.

I drag him there anyway.

We ride the rollercoaster up and down.

"What did you do to me?" he asks.

"It's hard to say," I grin.

"I can't believe it, that I'm actually here, riding a rollercoaster," he rolls his eyes.

We're home.

We look at our scars in the mirror, our arms pressed against each other, his arms entwined around me from behind.

The jagged edges of the scar on his arm taper off, and flow smoothly, joining up with the beginnings of the scar on my arm, like two paths meandering, meeting, and merging into one long, unbroken, uninterrupted trail, strange and powerful and stark in its complicated terrain of ridges and dips, its convulated twists and turns, a thing of beauty created out of the horrendous scars of the past.

Each of us was incomplete on our own.

But then, I met you, and you completed me. You met me, and I completed you.

Together, we are complete.

Together, we are whole.

"Look at that," I say in awe. "It's almost as if they're connected; when yours ends, mine begins. It's like a map. Maybe we met because this map led us to each other."

He kisses me tenderly on my head, and looks at me in the mirror.

We hear the sound of the kettle boiling, and we hurry to the kitchen.

"Ouch," I wince, accidentally scalding my finger on the hot kettle.

He hurries me to the sink and runs cold water over it.

"It looks quite bad," he says worriedly. "I'll go to the pharmacy and get you some cream."

"It's okay," I say, but he's already walking out the door.

I sip my tea, and wait for him to come back.