Jisoo had known Kim Jiwon for as long as she could remember. If someone were to ask her first memory of him, she could have sworn it began from the womb. But it couldn’t have been. They were born eleven months apart. Yet, in every childhood memory, in every photograph, Kim Jiwon was there with his toothy grin and his curved smiling eyes.

Kim Jiwon was sunshine and the moon. Sunshine because his laughter was warm and bright; moon because his eyes would disappear into crescents when he smiled. But most importantly, Jiwon was the pink bougainvilleas that grew outside his window and bloomed till late into the fall. They grew abundantly and resiliently- just like Jiwon who was generous and firm.

Jihae was born when Jisoo was two. Around the time Jihae turned six, well meaning relatives and neighborhood ahjummas would say that the younger sister took all the good looks away from Jisoo. Eight year old Jisoo was sad about how she wouldn’t grow up to be pretty like their mother.

“Maybe Jihae will become Miss Korea someday,” Jisoo said as they sat outside the corner shop of their neighborhood, orange flavored ice creams.

“I will too,” said Jiwon.

“You can’t,” Jisoo pointed out. “Miss Korea is only for girls.”

Jiwon thought about it as he . “Then, you can become Miss Korea.”

“I can’t either,” Jisoo said, sounding exasperated with her friend’s foolishness. “You have to be pretty to be Miss Korea.”

“But you are pretty” said Jiwon.

“No I’m not. Everyone says Jihae is pretty and I’m not.”

“But you are pretty,” Jiwon repeated persistently.

“Well grown-ups says I’m not and grown-ups are right.”

“Noooooo,” Jiwon cried.

Jisoo blinked in surprise.

“You are pretty! You are prettier than Jihae. Jihae is snotty and cries loudly.”

“Aigoo, aigoo,” clucked the shopkeeper’s wife from inside. She came out of the shop and stood beside them. “Jiwon-ah, you are quite the man. Tell me, are you going to marry her when you grow up?”

Jiwon was staring at Jisoo, his ice cream melting drip by drip onto his cotton shorts. Then having seemed to have made up his mind, he turned to the shopkeeper’s wife. “Yes, I will.”

“No, he won’t,” said Jisoo quickly, uncomfortable at the grown-up topic of marriage.

The shopkeeper’s wife only laughed. “Do you know what marriage is?”

Jiwon took a of his melting ice cream and replied, “Father says marriage means when you grow old with one person.”

“I don’t want to grow old only with you,” Jisoo interjected.

“Why?” Jiwon said in an almost whiney tone. “We can play all our favorite games together till we grow old. And then we can eat as many ice creams together and there will be no adults to say we can’t ‘cause we’ll be adults.”

Jisoo thought that was not a bad idea but did not concede because marriage meant you had to kiss and kissing was icky.

“You have to fall in love first,” said the shopkeeper’s wife teasingly.

“I can fall in love with Jisoo,” said Jiwon matter-of-factly.

The shopkeeper’s wife laughed loudly as Jisoo wondered what he meant by he could fall in love as though saying he could tie his shoes or he could learn to ride the bicycle.

***

Every summer, the wild bougainvilleas outside Jiwon’s window would return. Jisoo would wake up and look out her window first thing in the morning. If the windows were open, she would know Jiwon was already up. If they were shut, she happily looked forward to be the one to wake him. She enjoyed waking him, and every morning when she looked out, she almost always hoped it would be shut. She would run over to his place in her pajamas, enter the house like it was hers and race up to the first floor where she would jump atop him on the bed. Jiwon would wake with a groan and she would sing loudly until he rolled off the bed.

Sure, she envied Jihae for being pretty but she forgot everything about being pretty when she was with Jiwon.

Jiwon and Jisoo.  Summer existed for them. They cycled from their neighborhood to Jisoo’s grandparents’ house on the other side of town, followed the railway track hoping to reach Seoul, built twig dams in the creek, stole guavas from tree branches hanging low over the wall, plucked wild cosmos, competing over who could collect the most colors and tried to catch fishes from the river, though never succeeding. And somewhere along the way, Jisoo began to wear a training bra and Jiwon’s voice began to crack. Their faces became more angular, and Jiwon’s limbs seemed to grow longer every day. But even as a child, Jisoo knew that all seasons always came to an end.

When they were thirteen, Jiwon told her that he was going to his uncle’s in the State. Not just for the summer, but forever. Jisoo cried and pleaded with him to not go. Jiwon said he didn’t want to either but his father wanted him to. She yelled at him and he yelled right back. Jisoo threw his books from off his table and stomped out the room.

But on the day he was to leave, Jisoo came with her family to see him off at the train station that would take him to Seoul and from where he would catch the flight to America.

Her mother had helped her pick out a new shirt that he could wear in America and her father had helped her make a keychain-  a tiny wooden slab on which her father had drawn a girl with a mushroom hair cut and a boy with smiling eyes. They had then drilled a hole through it and slipped a chain with which Jiwon could hang his keys from. Despite Jisoo’s reluctance, Jiwon hugged her in front of everyone and for once, no one teased them. Jisoo would remember him waving goodbye from the window in his baseball cap and white t-shirt as the train pulled away.

“I promise to see you again,” he had said.

But that was the last time Jisoo saw him again.

In the beginning, they wrote each other letters. She told him of how mean Potato teacher was, how much of a cry baby Jihae was, and how Mino said he was going to marry her.

I don’t want to marry you, Jisoo wrote, But I’d rather marry you than marry that idiot Mino.

Don’t worry, Jiwon wrote back. I won’t let him marry you. I won’t wish that upon him.

There were so many things she wanted to tell him but the letters took so long to deliver. By the time Jiwon’s response arrived, she would have forgotten half the things she had wanted to say.     

Soon, she realized that Jiwon would not want to know about their new teachers in school, or the new ramen shack near Dong Hyuk’s house and the loud ahjussi there who yelled at them always. They didn’t seem important enough to write about, but there was nothing else she could write about either. Bobby’s letters were also becoming shorter with time. He had new friends and they did American things together like skateboarding and eating fries. Jisoo felt there was no need in telling him that Ramen Ahjussi added tons of MSG in his soup. Soon, the letters dwindled to one birthday card and a Christmas card per year.

Days were not the same without Jiwon. Everything she did reminded her of him. Summers were the worst. She would wake up and look out the window at the bougainvilleas blushing in the summer sun. The flowers that once warmed her heart now taunted her loneliness. The warm season lied bare and empty ahead of her.

But like most young people, Jisoo learned to move on with time. She found new girlfriends who introduced her to TVXQ and women’s magazine. The year she turned seventeen, she woke one day and looked out the window to see Jiwon’s shut window bare of any bougainvilleas. When did they stop returning and when did she stop noticing? The thought suddenly filled her with a heavy sadness. Was this what growing up was? Forgetting people who were once the sun and the moon in your life? Determinedly, she pulled the curtain across her window.

After high school, Jisoo decided to stay back in her hometown and attend the local university. She knew she was average at best with no spectacular dreams, while her more ambitious sister wanted to study design in Seoul.  She knew her parents could not afford sending the both of them to Seoul for studies, and she was okay staying back.

College for Jisoo had no notable events to talk of. Nothing much happened in small town Universities anyway. But one thing she noticed was that she was suddenly receiving attention from boys. In the beginning, it confused her; because Jihae had always been the pretty one. Then with time, she concluded that perhaps she had grown into her own skin as well. She almost dated a boy called Seung Yoon but backed out at the last moment when she saw him flirting with another girl. College ended quietly and Jisoo got a job as a teller at the local bank right after.   

“Do you know what my brother asked last night?” Seulgi, her colleague and who she also knew from school asked her.  

It was lunch break and they were sitting together sharing their packed lunches.

“What?” Jisoo asked absentmindedly as she tore a piece of cabbage kimchi apart with chopsticks.

“He asked if there was a pretty teller at the bank. He said he had heard about a pretty employee from his friends.”

“What?” Jisoo scoffed. “I don’t know any pretty teller working here. They must be blind.”

“Aish,” Seulgi said. “You should be flattered. He says his friends come to the bank just to see you.”

 Jisoo laughed. “Or maybe people just need money.”

Seulgi shook her head. “Mark my words. You will be receiving marriage proposals soon.”

Jisoo scoffed. “I’m not getting married at all.”

“Sure, sure,” said Seulgi sarcastically.

Jiwon’s promise that he would marry her flashed in her mind. She wondered if he still remembered.

 

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