Mr. Taxi

Tokyo, Seoul, London, New York

          Yoon Doojoon has been around the world. He’s been around the world, under the world, to the left and right of the world, over the world, just about any direction around the earth you can go, Doojoon has flown that way. For Doojoon, there’s never been white picket fences and golden retrievers and grassy lawns. For Doojoon, it’s always been suitcases and temporary homes. When he looks out windows, he doesn’t see a familiar neighborhood—doesn’t get to wish on a familiar sky and familiar stars.

          When he looks out windows, his tiny hands on the edge of the windowsill, his mother at his side, he sees city lights—sees the Eiffel Tower—sees Big Ben—sees the lights of the Washington Monument—sees Hong Kong’s night market—sees Tokyo’s bustling nightlife. He barely remembers looking out at Seoul. He remembers every place in the world except for the one he’s been taught to call home.

          He’s been taught that home is the only place he doesn’t remember.

At this speed, no one can catch me

          Doojoon returns to Seoul for college to his father’s surprise. His father has spent all of his own younger life in Korea and can’t imagine why Doojoon wouldn’t want to attend university in Europe or America—why would someone who is as multilingual as Doojoon, someone who’s been given the opportunities his own father wasn’t able to have, why would someone want to go back?

          Doojoon returns to Seoul for college and falls in love with what his father wasn’t content with. He falls in love with the city, falls in love with the country, falls in love with the home he’s never remembered. He falls in love and graduates at the top of his class—he joins his father’s company immediately, the branch in Yeouido.

But no one can touch me

          Doojoon meets him on a rainy night.

          It’s raining too hard for Doojoon to run to the subway station in his suit. He doesn’t have an umbrella and his sunbaes can’t have him catching a cold—he’s due for an important meeting the next day with executives that he needs to impress with a presentation about the state of things in the German branch. His sunbaes call a taxi for him and he bows out, thanking them, and heads downstairs to wait for it.

          He stands under the awning of the front entrance for fifteen minutes before a vague yellow shape appears in the midst of the pouring showers and swerves in front of the building, sliding to a neat stop—none of the swishing water onto Doojoon’s pants business—right in front of him. He opens the back door and slides in.

          “’Evening,” Doojoon says as he snaps the car door shut and throws his briefcase to one side. He leans back against the seat and waits for the driver to ask him for his address.

          The car is already moving.

          Doojoon blinks. “Excuse me?” he asks and leans down slightly to peer into the rearview mirror, in case maybe this person is new on the job and forgot to ask the client for where he needs to be driven before actually driving.

          He doesn’t find his eyes alone in the mirror for very long—a pair of clear, dark eyes, round and curious meet him there and Doojoon blinks a few more times in surprise. “Hey there,” the driver says, clearly amused, and Doojoon adds at least four more blinks for the informal speech.

          “Yeah—hi,” Doojoon replies automatically—sort of by reaction alone, and feels immediately retarded seconds afterward. “Um—so—shouldn’t you—um—ask me for my address? I should tell you my address.”

          The eyes in the rearview mirror stretch a bit, and there’s laughter—bright, pealing laughter. “I was getting there, ahjusshi—relax, okay? I don’t want you to have to whip out your defibrillator.”

          “I don’t have a defib—wait—wait—I’m not—I’m not old—“

          More laughter.

          “Okay then,” the driver says, and this time when he laughs, he leans slightly to the side. It lets Doojoon catch glimpses of bright, blond hair—so blond that it glows white in the darkness.

          Doojoon wonders how young the driver is if he can still dye his hair a color that obnoxious and not get thrown into rivers for it. He thinks that maybe at the oldest the driver is college age because otherwise Doojoon definitely thinks that someone older than that would be thrown into the river for hair that blinding—it’s probably a traffic hazard, especially considering he’s a taxi driver.

          “So,” the driver says as the reach the first red light, “your address, ahjusshi?” His voice is still amused and Doojoon is tempted to turn the light on in the cab just to prove that he really isn’t old—really.

          “I live in those new apartments near the river,” Doojoon says, “if you know where that is.”

          The driver’s eyebrows go up in the mirror and from the way his eyes curve up, Doojoon can tell he’s grinning. “Sure do,” he says, and the taxi changes lanes suddenly.

          Doojoon’s driver makes easy work of the traffic, even on the slick roads, the darkness, the downpour. The driver flits in and out of lanes without making Doojoon fear for his life—or hold onto the seat, or himself, or his cell phone in case he needs to call his mother for his dying last words, which is usually the case when he has to get a ride home with Jang Hyunseung from the communications department.

          They reach Doojoon’s apartment block in less than half the time it usually takes for Doojoon to get back either by subway, or his colleagues driving him. The rain has let up some in that Doojoon can actually see his hand when he puts it in front of his face and that the streets are no longer almost puddle in water.

          He gathers his briefcase and peers into the rearview mirror again. “Thanks,” he says, getting out his wallet, “so—it’s—“ he counts the bills in his head and holds them out towards the front seat.

          He holds them out, but he doesn’t expect the driver to turn around.

          He doesn’t expect the driver to—

          “Wow,” the driver says with a smile, and Doojoon tries his best to keep his mouth closed, “you really aren’t an ahjusshi.”

          Doojoon stumbles out of the taxi after handing over the money and his sunbaes efforts in trying to help him stay dry are wasted anyway because Doojoon ends up standing in the rain, staring after the cab, for at least five minutes—his mouth slightly open and gathering rainwater.

          He didn’t expect the driver to look like that. 

I want you to steal me away

          They meet a second time—but it’s not in a taxi.

          It’s on the subway and Doojoon almost has a heart attack—no, he doesn’t own a defibrillator—when it happens.

          It happens because Doojoon gives his seat to an elderly man, complete with cane and bent back, and goes to stand at the end of the subway car. He goes to stand at the end of the subway car but the train swerves before he can hold on to the pole and he ends up colliding into the person standing on his left. He ends up colliding into this person, leans down to apologize, only to have familiar eyes—round and curious—

          and beautiful

          —looking up at him.

          “Ahjusshi,” the driver says cheerily and several heads turn towards them, “Hey, there.”

          Doojoon sputters. “Yah—you—shh,” he says, except that makes several more heads turn and the heads that were already turned are now glowering severely in Doojoon’s direction, which he decides is probably appropriate since a young man in a business suit half-leaning onto a teenage boy in jeans and a thin t-shirt probably doesn’t paint the best picture.

          The boy raises his eyebrows. “You know,” he says dryly, “when you ‘shh’ someone, that makes you look more like a public menace.”

          “I hate you,” Doojoon says before he can stop himself. He’s about to apologize, except the boy is already laughing, mouth opened wide and one of his palms slapping the metal pole.

          “Since you hate me so much already,” the taxi driver says, grinning, “maybe you should know my name first.”

          Doojoon finds himself grinning back. “Guess that’d make sense.”

          “Yang Yoseob,” he says, tongue between his teeth playfully. “And you, ahjusshi?”

          “Yoon Doojoon,” he says back, and feels his heart beat a little faster.

But it won’t be that easy

          Yoseob has never been out of Korea.

          They meet a second, a third, and a fourth time on the subway and it’s on the fifth time that they stop by a café at one of the stations and talk.

          They talk and Doojoon tells Yoseob that before a few years ago, he’s never been to Korea—at least he’s never been while he was old enough to remember. They talk and Yoseob tells Doojoon that he’s never been out of Korea, rarely every goes out of Seoul. They talk and Doojoon tells Yoseob that he’s gone to school in too many countries to count and that college in Korea is the first time he’s been able to have the same classmates for more than just a semester. They talk and Yoseob tells Doojoon that he’s not rich-and-swanky like Doojoon (Doojoon throws a napkin at him) and is paying for his own college (Doojoon swore that Yoseob looks like a high school student, but he supposes for all purposes that it’s good the younger man isn’t) tuition through odd jobs like being a taxi driver.

          “It’s my favorite one,” Yoseob says, sipping at his coffee, “out of all of them.”

          Doojoon raises his eyebrows, questioning.

          Yoseob shrugs and steals one of Doojoon’s scones. He breaks it in half over a napkin. “I like going places,” Yoseob says, smiling, “even if I don’t know where I’m headed.”

          “You like traveling?” Doojoon asks.

          Yoseob nods, his cheeks swelling from blueberry scone. He swallows and then says, “It’s just—planes are expensive, so I had to wait until I was on my own to start saving up to go places.”

          While Doojoon was around the world, he always went to international schools—always was in classes with kids who were just like him—they wanted to have a home, a home that they can remember, a home that isn’t different from year to year, sometimes even month to month. He’s never met someone with a home—someone who’s gotten to grow up in somewhere as beautiful and perfect as Korea—who wants to leave it to travel. Even his colleagues have told him that while they like vacationing on sunny, foreign islands, they like returning back to Korea best.

          “Don’t you like Korea?” Doojoon says and doesn’t know why there’s confusion in his voice because it should just be Yoseob’s own opinion—there’s no real reason to opinions.

          Yoseob looks surprised at the question too. “Love it,” Yoseob says simply. “But the entire world isn’t Korea, y’know? There’s more, and I kind of want to see it.” And then he smiles, bright and warm and thoughtful and Doojoon wonders if this might be another reason he’s always felt such a longing for Seoul.

The city lights are like shining, shooting stars

          It’s been two months since the fifth time they met on the subway.

          It’s a Friday night when Yoseob is driving Doojoon again his taxi—only Doojoon has no idea where they’re going. He has no idea because it’s Yoseob’s destination this time around.

          “You’re not, like, kidnapping me to sell my organs or something, right?” Doojoon asks warily when they skyscrapers and lights and everything that makes Seoul a city start to get sparser—they are reaching the outskirts.

          “Definitely, hyung,” Yoseob says and Doojoon kicks the back of the driver’s seat.

          They drive for another half an hour and by the end of that half an hour, it starts to look more like a farmland than Korea’s capital city. They drive and drive on nearly empty roads, passing vast fields filled with tall grass until Yoseob finally decides to stop and park on the side, amidst the gravel, before Doojoon falls asleep.

          “Finally,” Doojoon says as Yoseob shifts into park. He gets out after the younger man unlocks the car and realizes, as soon as he does, that Yoseob’s already started running away from the road and out into the grass.

          It’s dark—it’s dark and a little bit windy and definitely farther than even the outskirts of Seoul. Doojoon thinks that they are probably well on their way to a toll road leading to another province or something. It’s dark and grassy and windy and Doojoon can barely see Yoseob—barely sees Yoseob and after a few seconds of finally locating him, Yoseob seems to fall to the ground, disappearing completely.

          Doojoon takes wide strides through the waist-tall grass until he reaches Yoseob’s spread-eagle body and nudges the side of the younger man’s side with the tip of his shoe. “Yah,” he says, “Yah, Yoseob-ah.”

          Yoseob grins up at him. “Stop being a stiff and lie down.”

          Doojoon rolls his eyes and gets onto his knees first, suspiciously, before he lets himself be pulled onto his back completely by the other man. His head is next to Yoseob’s, arms and fingers and legs touching. “What now?” Doojoon asks, trying to sound short and exasperated because he doesn’t really fancy the idea of letting the fact that his heart has gone over the speed limit that his body’s deemed healthy show into his voice.

          “You’re always going on about how you love Seoul,” Yoseob says, “but they’re not much different than what the tourists always say, y’know?” The younger boy points up then, straight up at the sky. “So I thought I’d give you a few reasons that the tourists usually never get to know about.”

          Doojoon turns his head straight and looks up—looks up at the night sky.

          Oh

          He didn’t know that it was possible—seeing stars so close to Seoul, so close to such a brightly lit city.

          “It’s pretty,” Doojoon says quietly.

          “Taxi-driving involves a lot of wandering around and getting to know the smaller, obscure roads so you can get around traffic faster,” Yoseob says and while Doojoon’s eyes are latched onto the stars, he can still tell the younger man is smiling through his voice. “It’s the same, right?”

          Doojoon looks at him. “What?”

          Yoseob nudges his chin upward. “The sky—it’s the same sky over France, over England, over New York, over L.A., over China, over Japan—it’s the same one wherever you go.”

          Doojoon gazes at Yoseob’s profile, small face tipped up towards the stars, eyes thoughtful and focused. “I guess it is,” Doojoon says softly.

Hey, don’t look away—take a risk

          It’s right there, in that field with the stars watching them—the night sky that blankets the entire earth—it’s right there that they have their first kiss a week later.

Freely, going anywhere

          They have for the first time a month later in Yoseob’s apartment. 

          They have for the first time on a rainy night, the downpour heavy, the air windy and swinging around the windows loudly. The droplets cling to the windowpanes and the light is orange and soft and dim, staining the white pillows with a yellowish cast, staining their bare bodies with colors and shadows.

          Doojoon has seen sights and sceneries and monuments and sculptures and works of art that make it onto the top lists for tourists to visit—for beauty, for wonderfulness, for greatness, for the pure spectacle of it all. He’s seen all of them, and he remembers all of them as clear as day.

          He doesn’t think any of them are beautiful anymore.

          Not really.

          Yoseob’s face buried into his shoulder, Yoseob’s teeth biting his lower lip to keep in the cries, Yoseob’s pale fingers digging into the sheets, Yoseob’s small wrists locked behind Doojoon’s neck, Yoseob’s thighs clamped around Doojoon’s waist, Yoseob’s hair spread around his head like a white-gold halo, Yoseob’s moans—high and keening, Yoseob’s whimpers as he comes—soft and breathy.

          Compared to this—

          The Seven Wonders of the World couldn’t even measure up.

It’s just like my wish—why am I nervous?

          Yoseob is chosen for an internship overseas—an internship in France, and then Spain, and then England, and then Germany, and then Ireland, and then—

          Doojoon needs to be in Seoul—he needs to take care of the company.

          He doesn’t want to have to leave again.

          Yoseob is chosen for an internship to travel the world—how long, indefinitely. He needs to accept—he wants to leave.

          Doojoon tells him to accept too—tells him he should leave—should go and do what he’s worked so hard to do.

          “And you?” Yoseob asks as their bodies cool down beneath the sheets, heartbeats returning to their normal rate, perspiration drying. Doojoon’s arms are around him, and their fingers are intertwined, “Hyung?”

          Doojoon holds the younger man closer. “I’m staying in Seoul,” he says.

And I don’t know why and I don’t know why

          They break up.

          It’s been a year since Doojoon’s ridden a taxi on a rainy night because his sunbaes can’t have him getting wet.

          They break up because they have dreams—because Yoseob dreams of a world he’s never been able to see, and Doojoon dreams of a home he’s never been able to have.

          They break up with promises of keeping in touch—with promises that they’ll be friends. They break up with Yoseob telling Doojoon not to get mistaken for a erted ahjusshi on the subway, and with Doojoon telling Yoseob not to get pushed into Italian canals. They break up with Doojoon kissing Yoseob on the lips one last time—they break up with Yoseob insisting that it’s just sweat, not tears, just sweat because the weatherman said Seoul was going through another heat wave.

          Doojoon tells him that Paris won’t be as hot.

You’ll follow me, right?

          Doojoon’s parents fly in from Sydney in the fall because his father has to check in on how things are going in the Seoul branch and Doojoon’s mother wants to visit Doojoon’s aunts and uncles. They fly in from Sydney and Doojoon helps them check into a hotel, and he shows them around his apartment—goes out to dinner with them and listens to his father’s stories about how he hates kangaroos.

          It’s a Sunday when his mother goes off to visit Doojoon’s aunts and uncles and Doojoon and his father go off around town during the day, and settle into a cozy bar for a drink when it gets dark.

          They talk like they haven’t been able to for the past few years—phone calls aren’t the same.

          They talk and Doojoon decides to ask the question when he’s appropriately drunk enough. He decides to ask the question that’s been on his mind ever since he saw round, curious eyes and a warm smile—still warm even though it was soaked in sadness—off at the airport. He decides to ask the question while his dad has just finished a story of how Doojoon’s mother made him go to a four-hour long opera for their anniversary this past month.

          “If weren’t married to Mom yet before you left,” Doojoon says thoughtfully—disregarding how his words slur, “how’d you get married to her in the end?”

          His father looks surprised, and Doojoon ignores how his dad discreetly takes away his son’s still-half-full-probably-fifth-or-so-drink. “I mean,” his dad says, just as thoughtfully—probably also disregarding how his own words slur, “she followed me.”

          Doojoon thinks about that. “Did she want to travel, too?”

          His dad smiles faintly. “No—but—I guess she wanted me.”

I don’t want to say goodbye, goodbye

          Yoseob sighs, flopping down on his bed and holding his phone above his face, peering through his messages. He grins at Junhyung’s texts—multiple ones in succession about how Hyunseung somehow managed to screw up another call through communications and had to do it while Doojoon’s father, the CEO, was visiting for inspections too. He scrolls through more messages—ones that he wasn’t able to read on account of being dragged here and there all over Amsterdam for more translation training.

          He rolls onto his stomach just as his eyebrows furrow at a particularly curious text from Dongwoon of the marketing department. He rereads it a few more times, wondering if he’s so tired that he’s seeing things wrongly—or if he’s just gotten too used to letters and not hangul. He rereads it a few more times and after he’s sure he’s not hallucinating, he checks the time and date of the message sent.

          The hotel phone on the nightstand rings right then and Yoseob picks up.

          He places it to his ear. His hand shakes a little.  

          “Send him up,” Yoseob says quietly, his English falls apart when he’s nervous.

          Yoseob waits—he waits right in front of the door, waiting for a knock on the other side. He waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and—

          His hands are in fists. “It’s open,” he says—in Korean.

          The door opens.

          Yoseob thinks that Doojoon’s lost some weight.

          They look at each other for a long moment.

          It’s been a year.

          It’s been a year, but Yoseob has to smile—it happens before he can stop. “Hey there, ahjusshi,” he says and tells himself that crying is ing stupid so he shouldn’t do it because he should be happy—he should be happy that Doojoon is visiting him. “Papa Ahjusshi sent you on vacation?”

          Doojoon grins. “Better,” he says, and pulls something from the back of his jean pocket—a laminated office card hanging from a lanyard.

          Yoseob reads it in two seconds—reads it at first sight—reads it instantly.

          And then he kisses Doojoon.

Yoon Doojoon

Head of Foreign Affairs

Yoon Inc.

Mr. Taxi, Taxi, Taxi—I’m going quickly, quickly, quickly