The first time she sees him, she thinks he’s beautiful.

          She thinks he’s beautiful, and she almost feels sorry that this has to be their first meeting because she knows she doesn’t look the best she should—she wishes that their first meeting could’ve been maybe when she wasn’t drenched in sweat and panting because she can’t seem to get enough oxygen in her lungs at the moment. It’s not the best first impression she’s put on, definitely, but at the very least, the waiting is over because she’s wanted to meet him for a while now and nine months of having to wait would make anyone antsy.

          So she reaches up and takes him into her arms, giving him a small smile that he’s clearly not going to be returning any time soon (which is okay, they’re both tired and it’s been a long ride), and mentally apologizes to him for not being able to spend too much time on their first meeting since she’s sure they both want to get some sleep and she’s also pretty sure that if things don’t start settling down her husband might pass out on the hospital room floor in a few seconds.

 

 

 

 

          Her husband sighs next to her, and she has to sigh too as the cries start ringing through the darkness again. It’s her turn this time, so she tries not to stumble as she feels around for her slippers and forces her body out of the bed. She only has to pad a few steps before her stomach comes into contact with the edge of the crib and she reaches in, picking him up and resting him against her chest and shoulder.

          He quiets down just a little after that, but there’s still little discontented whimpers muffled against her neck so she walks out of the bedroom and heads for the living room, flicking on the lights as she goes. He continues to whine in her arms until she brings him to the windows that overlook Seoul from their apartment. From there, he never fails to stop crying.

          She sits down on the couch and props him up in her lap so he’s facing her, while her hands support his back and head. His wide eyes—tearstained but ever clear and huge—blink up at her like he hasn’t just woken her up for the twenty-third time in less than three hours. She sighs at him a little. “You know,” she says and tries not to think about how it probably spells some sort of mental illness stemmed from exhaustion if you start a full-on conversation with your infant son at three in the morning, “if you make a girl mad and then look at her like that, you’re just going to get slapped. And then you’ll be lonely forever.”

          He blinks at her again, and then reaches out to rest one tiny, chubby hand on her arm, patting it. “It might work with me,” she says, “but it’s not going to work on other girls, okay?” She points her finger in his face and he grabs it with both of his hands, holding on tightly. He smiles brightly then, and those round eyes vanish and as tired as she is, she finds herself smiling back.

 

 

 

 

          His first word ends up being Appa which means that her husband gets gloating rights and gets to finger-flick her, and all she can do is glare at him while he kisses her playfully on the lips because she was the one who started the bet in the first place. So when her husband leaves for a short trip to the market to restock on diapers amongst other things, she takes Kikwang back into the bedroom so she can put him down for his nap.

          “The next time you want to stack blocks,” she says glumly, resting her chin on the edge of his crib as he lies there and looks up at her, wide awake as if nothing is wrong and it’s not time for his nap, “stack them with Appa, okay?”

          He just blinks up at her like he always does, one hand reaching up toward her and she sighs because it’s not like she’s ever going to be able to say no and takes his tiny hand in hers. The moment her fingers wrap around his wrist and his small fingers take hold of her thumb, his eyes disappear again and he even gurgles a little laugh.

          She rolls her eyes and takes his other hand (really, it’s his hand and wrist and part of his arm because he’s still so tiny) in hers and moves them up and down a few times so he starts laughing until she’s almost afraid he might suffocate because he’s laughing so hard (as hard as a baby can) and while she has no idea what’s so amusing (if he’s laughing at her face, then she might just kill herself), she can’t find it in herself to stop and let him take his nap.

          But once her husband comes back, diapers in tow, and pins her to the wall of the living room, she supposes that she can sacrifice maybe an hour or two and let Kikwang sleep.

 

 

 

 

          When Kikwang says Umma for the first time, she slaps her husband’s shoulder so hard that he falls off the couch.

 

 

 

          Once he can walk, once he can talk, once he can do a little bit more than simply blinking his eyes up at her and having them disappear into a laugh or a smile without her exactly knowing what he finds so amusing (because he seems to find a lot amusing), she starts to learn that Kikwang is almost perpetually happy despite how much he liked to cry at night when he was younger.

          Even when he has little accidents, when he stumbles or trips or bumps into things, he doesn’t really cry. His eyes will fill up with tears and he’ll start whimpering and asking for her to make it better or stop it from hurting, but he doesn’t cry—he doesn’t scream or shriek like she’s always seen toddlers do.

          And she can’t really put her finger on it, but—even though there’s no mother that would want her child to cry—there’s something about Kikwang crying that wrings her heart a little bit more than she’d ever expect. Kikwang’s teacher at his preschool, and the adults at the play centers would always say it too. That whether it’s because he only cries if something is truly serious unlike most of the other children, or whether it’s just because he’s a good-looking child like his parents (that always makes her smile), there’s something different and heartbreaking when Kikwang cries.

          So as he runs to her as she stands in the classroom at the end of the school day (barely a few hours because it’s only still preschool), and promptly attaches himself to her right leg, she thinks that it’s a good thing she’ll be around for a while to make sure that Kikwang cries as little as possible.

 

 

 

 

          She puts him in his bed and his little arms let go of her neck as he plops down onto the mattress and slips his feet into the blanket. She doesn’t take his socks off tonight because even with the heater on at full blast, it’s still colder than ever and she can still hear the ice rain going on outside the windows. He’s already half-asleep but he’s still holding onto her hand and when she tries to pull away, his grip is firm.

          She pats his leg. “You have to sleep now, sweetheart,” she says, “and it’s bed time for Umma, too.”

          “Can I play in the snow again tomorrow?” he mumbles, turning onto his side, and yawning. She pulls the covers a little higher on him, tucking them around his small body so there won’t be any cold getting to him during the night (although she usually checks up on him anyway later on and adds another blanket just in case).

          She his hair down on his head as she watches his eyelids droop over even though he’s clearly trying to keep them open long enough to hear the answer he wants. “We’ll see,” she says, even though she’s pretty sure that tomorrow it’s going to be more ice than snow and she and her husband have to go out and leave Kikwang with the babysitter anyway. “Good night, now.”

          “Bye, Umma,” he murmurs, his lashes finally touching down against his cheek.

         

 

 

          It was nothing weird at the moment, because Kikwang always tells her bye whenever she or her husband tells him good night. He always does that so it never strikes her as weird.

          She only realizes later on how fitting it is.

 

 

 

 

          The car crash happens out of no one’s fault, except maybe nature’s.

          The road is winding and small and the roads are icy and both cars collide just as they are turning on a part where neither driver could see what’s coming until it’s too late. It doesn’t help that the road is on the edge of a high rise and even if there was a chance for any of the involved to survive, both cars went tumbling down the icy hillside.

          There’s not much horror involved for her—she watches her husband blackout first in the midst of trying to swerve out of the way, and she blacks out next without being able to utter another word or take another breath.

 

 

 

 

          When she next opens her eyes, she knows she’s no longer alive.

 

 

 

 

          They still let her see him. It wouldn’t make sense if they didn’t because she’s supposed to have everything she wants here. She’s with her husband, and both of them are with their parents and for a while everything is fine. It’s definitely odd, definitely terribly strange and wonderful and lovely telling her mother and father all about Kikwang even though obviously her parents already know and have already seen him even if not quite in person.

          It doesn’t quite strike her while she’s with her parents and her husband and her husband’s parents, it doesn’t quite strike her or her husband for the first few moments (Days? Weeks? They don’t know how time passes in this place) that because their parents are here with them, because all of their relatives are already here with them, that there’s no one down there with Kikwang.

          That’s when she and her husband ask to see him.

          It’s not hard, apparently, to look down.

          They can look whenever they want and most everyone spends a great deal of time looking down and watching their loved ones who haven’t made it upstairs yet.

          So she looks down.

 

 

 

 

          He’s taken to an orphanage.

          He’s taken to an orphanage and for a while everything is fine since the orphanage is run by nuns and they take care of him as well as she could’ve hoped that he would be taken care of without her doing it herself. It’s not exactly the best, the nuns can’t give him all their attention because obviously there are other children, but it’s better than nothing and she tries not to get too upset whenever she sees tiny things like Kikwang being overlooked when he needs someone to open a bottle for him or when he’s lonely because all of the nuns are busy and none of the children want to play with him.

          She tries not to get too upset and it’s not hard to be happy where she is because it’s a place where everyone is happy—and she is. She is, truly. She knows that it’s not just her who has a bit of yearning inside themselves to be back on earth only for the ones they had to leave behind. Everyone is supposed to feel that way and everyone does—her parents tell her that they felt that way all up until the moment she joined them.

          It’s just—

          Even though the nuns all have other children to attend to, she wishes that they’d give Kikwang a little more attention. She doesn’t understand why they can’t see how lonely he is.

 

 

 

 

 

          He’s sent to a foster home not very long after—maybe a few years, give or take. He’s sent to a foster home around the same time that he starts to lose teeth and she smiles when that happens for the first time—calls her husband over and points down where a nun is helping him give the tooth that final twist to bring it out of his mouth. It makes her laugh a little the next time he gives one of his huge smiles and there’s a gap where a tooth should be.

          For a few weeks, the foster parents seem quite all right.

          The house isn’t in the greatest part of Seoul and the husband and wife don’t bring in the greatest income, but it’s passable and she watches as Kikwang quickly takes to them because that’s what Kikwang always does—how he’s always been. As long as you’re kind to him, he’ll smile at you and he’ll love you with everything he has and she waits and watches to see if this man and woman will love him back.

          They don’t.

          It gets to a point where she doesn’t even understand—can’t even comprehend—why they would sign themselves up as foster parents because they hardly pay attention to him other than feeding him and dragging him to and fro school. They never really speak to him, they never ask him about his grades even when he shows them a succeeding row of A’s, they never smile at him, they never do anything with him and it makes her so angry that Seoul suffers a week of thunderstorms.

         

 

 

 

 

          At school, it’s even worse.

          It’s worse because rather than neglecting him, for a reason that she can’t fathom, they bully him. They push him around because he’s small, they make fun of him because he wears glasses, they make fun of him because he doesn’t have real parents, they make fun of him because he’s too skinny, they make fun of him because he laughs too much—because he smiles too much when nothing’s even that funny, and she’s angry. She’s so angry she thinks she might cry, but then Seoul would probably end up drowning.

          Her husband is hurting too and he sits there with her, looking down, his arms around her waist and his cheek on her shoulder and tries to tell her that there’s supposed to be a reason. That one thing they’ve learned being here for all this time, is that everything happens for a reason and apparently Kikwang has a reason that they just have to wait and watch for.

         

 

 

 

 

          He’s barely out of childhood—barely into that stage between a boy and a young man—when something happens that not only launches Seoul into a state of thunderstorms, but all of Korea into various states of terrible, horrible chaotic weather.

          It wouldn’t have happened, she thinks, it wouldn’t have happened if those terrible foster non-parents had paid attention even for just a moment when Kikwang told them about the bullying—when Kikwang came home with bruises, when even the teachers mentioned that Kikwang was having trouble with classmates at school, when the teacher mentioned that Kikwang was having trouble getting along in particular with sunbaes.

          It wouldn’t have happened, she thinks and even though she doesn’t want to end up flooding the entire country, she can’t hold the tears back and they stream down and soak the clouds beneath her. It wouldn’t have happened, she thinks as she can’t take her eyes away as the older boy—so much larger than Kikwang even if he’s only two years older—does what he’s clearly been intending to do since he gagged and dragged Kikwang into the bathroom stall.

          None of this would’ve happened, she thinks as she finally buries her face into her husband’s chest because she can’t look any more when Kikwang starts to scream, if she was still on earth.

 

 

 

 

          He gets transferred to a new school then, and with new foster parents.

          None of it is any better.

          He’s almost close to absolutely silent now, during an age where he’s supposed to be talking more and making more friends. He still smiles—that’s one thing that almost shocks her and her husband to a point where they can’t speak. The fact that he somehow still smiles—true smiles, real smiles, when she remembers how she always used to grouch and grumble at the tiniest things like not being able to put her hair up right for school when she was his age.

          When he meets his new foster parents, despite their obvious reluctance, he still smiles (it’s not as bright as before, a little weaker, but it’s still beautiful and she wants to cry). When he’s introduced at his new school—a middle school now—he smiles even though the school is dingy and old and worn and it’s more than clear that the kids here have no interest in learning, have no interest in anything other than the darkest parts of humanity.

          She hopes and hopes and hopes that maybe the reason will show up soon, whatever it might be, because she can’t take any more of this. It’s been eight years since she and her husband have left, and she doesn’t want it to be any more. Any more years, and she’s afraid that Kikwang won’t be able to smile like that anymore—it’s already a miracle that he can still smile now.

 

 

 

 

 

          Her hopes fall flat.

          At first—at first—it looks like it might get better.

          There’s a teacher at this school, a young man who’s dry and witty and Kikwang takes to him and he seems to take to Kikwang. Whenever Kikwang wants to get away from the other kids during lunch and recess, this teacher will always let Kikwang into his classroom, will show Kikwang parts of his life—will teach Kikwang some things here and there about music, songs, singing, dancing and she watches, fascinated and delighted the only way a parent can, as he learns to move his body fluidly and flawlessly to deep melodies and booming harmonies.

          She makes a mental note to put in a good word for this teacher, whenever his time comes to join them upstairs. It helps that he’s good-looking, and that earns a few minutes of pouting from her husband.

          But in a way, this makes it worse.

          It’s middle school, and Kikwang is still a little bit small, still a little bit skinny, and the older boys still bully him. They go on relentlessly, cornering him behind the school, about how he always spends so much time with Jung-seonsangnim, about how he’s always cooped up in that classroom, and what would he be doing with the music teacher? What could someone like him be doing with Jung-seonsangnim—something inappropriate? Something gross? Something disgusting? What’s Kikwang doing—and they prod him and kick him and hit him and she doesn’t understand.

          She doesn’t understand, because she thought (didn’t his preschool teachers and the adults at the play centers) that just the sight of Kikwang crying breaks hearts, so she doesn’t understand why all of these boys—why everyone—she doesn’t understand how anyone can stand to hurt him. She doesn’t understand—doesn’t understand—doesn’t understand—it’s just confusing, it’s awful and horrible and she can’t comprehend any of it.

          If this reason waits any longer, then Kikwang will never smile again and the reason will be useless—whatever the that reason even is.

         

 

 

 

          The next time it happens, she thinks that while she still doesn’t understand why they have to hurt him, she can somewhat understand the sick, sick, sick reasoning that goes on in their minds.

          It’s because Kikwang is pretty.

          It’s because he’s too pretty—with a face like a doll, with eyes that are rounder than the girl’s, with eyes that curve into crescents when he smiles (he’s still smiling, yes, and it still astounds her), with a body that hasn’t quite grown yet—and it’s sick, it’s sick, it’s sick and twisted but the neighborhood that this school is in isn’t the greatest in Seoul and everyone here is sick and twisted and so it happens.

          It happens again and again to the point where Kikwang no longer really fights back and Seoul doesn’t go through anymore thunder or rainstorms, because after it becomes something so regular, she doesn’t think she has any more tears left. She doesn’t think that her eyes can produce any more tears—she thinks they’ve all already been cried because it hurts too much and even her husband’s eyes are dry now.

          Her parents still try to console her—still try to tell her again and again that there is a reason, there always is, if she just waits then she’ll be able to see—

          But she doesn’t care anymore.

          If there’s a reason, then there’s a reason, but right now, all she can see—all she can ever think about—is Kikwang huddled in the corner of his bedroom, holding her picture in his hands and smiling down at her photographed face through his tears. It’s her birthday today, and he’s asking her how she’s doing, and—and—

          She thought her eyes were dry.

          Seoul nearly floods.  

 

 

He goes off to high school and by now, she doesn’t know what to think any more. She doesn’t know what to think when he doesn’t even have the heart—doesn’t even see the point—of fighting back when the older boys pull him into bathroom stalls or behind the school and do their dirty work. She doesn’t know what to think any more, doesn’t know how to react when this becomes a regular thing and it starts to permeate itself in Kikwang’s mind because one thing about watching from upstairs is that you can see everything that goes on in everyone’s minds.

          And she doesn’t like what she’s seeing in Kikwang’s.

          She doesn’t like seeing thoughts of this is all I’m good for starting to make themselves at home in his mind. She doesn’t like it when she starts to see things like that in his mind, doesn’t like it when his attackers take it upon themselves to enforce things like that into his mind. She hates it. She hates it—hates it—hates it and as always she can’t find it in herself to ever understand how they can say that.

          How can they tell him that that’s all he’s good for?

          She doesn’t understand why still, up to this point, why hasn’t anyone been able to see Kikwang the way she does?

 

 

 

 

          But Kikwang is strong.

 

 

 

 

          He’s always been strong on the inside, and now she watches as he takes steps to be strong on the outside, too—spending painstaking hours at the gym alongside continuously keeping up his grades sky high even when his foster parents still could care less if he not only gets first place in exams within the school, but also within the district. Even if no one seems to care, he still goes on making himself stronger in every way possible and in a way, it breaks her heart more than if he’d just given up on everything.

          And the next time it happens—the next time his attackers try to shove him into the bathroom stalls—when she hears the resounding crack of all of their noses breaking against Kikwang’s fist (while she knows that no mother should be proud of her son fighting) she can’t help but smile a satisfied smile as she watches the older boys stumble out confused and shocked with their faces black and blue.

 

 

 

 

          Kikwang graduates high school and comes of age without Seoul or Korea going through any more bouts of unpredictably hostile weather. His foster parents no longer want anything to do with him. There’s no money for college, and he’s just given the little inheritance she and her husband were able to leave him because when they left upstairs they were still young and orphans themselves.

          On his last night with his foster parents, he still bows all the way to the floor and thanks them and for the first time, she wants to yell at her son. She wants to scream at Kikwang because she’s so angry she can’t even see through her tears (why aren’t her eyes ever dry). She wants to scream at him and ask him why he would ever thank people who never loved him, never helped him, never even cared when he came home late into the night bleeding and bruised and limping from something that’s not a foot injury.

          She doesn’t understand why he would do that—doesn’t understand how he can do that. But then again, she supposes that there’s not much she understands looking down. And it’s strange, because everything is supposed to make more sense once you’re no longer on earth.

 

 

 

 

          He moves into a small apartment near downtown Seoul, still not the best part of the city, but better than before and all she can do right now is breathe breaths of relief because he’s finally out of everything—he’s finally away from foster parents who neglect him, away from classmates who attack him, away from teachers who never care about him. He’s finally away from it all, but now he’s on his own and a part of her worries that this could be worse than before.

          She watches as he spends days looking for jobs all around the city uselessly, pointlessly, until he starts wandering—at night—around a club with a sign that claims to offer jobs continuously, that always has positions open regardless. She watches as angels start to flit about the parting in the clouds that she sits by—watches as they move invisible strings lighter and softer than air down to earth, to where Kikwang is, and shift things around (getting ready for his reason, they tell her when she gives them confused looks).

          When Kikwang finally decides upon entering the club, when Kikwang learns what these open positions really are, when she sees him accept—

          She doesn’t cry—this isn’t a moment for her to cry.

          She’s horrified.

 

 

 

 

          She’s horrified as she listens in on his thoughts and realizes that even though Kikwang is strong—even though Kikwang has been strong enough to endure what he’s had to endure—everyone’s strength has its limits, and this is where Kikwang’s strength ends.

          He’s strong, but he’s still human.

          She just—she can’t—she can’t do anything but look with her heart breaking into pieces once again as the thoughts in his head swarm like sick, black clouds. She can only watch as the thoughts that once frequented his head whenever his attackers came around in middle school and high school—can only watch as those thoughts become a permanent fixture while he signs forms and applications for a full-on spot at this club.

          Those thoughts continue to float in his head, continue to permeate every cell of his brain as he goes back to his apartment and gets ready to move the few things he’ll need into the room they’ve given him at the club. She hates it. She can’t stand it. She knows she can’t do anything, but she just wishes that the clouds she’s seeing in his head are physical and that maybe if he bumps his head on something, they’ll fall out, because they are the most untrue thoughts she’s ever seen.

          They’re lies.

          They are ugly, ugly, disgusting lies and she wishes—hopes—pleads—wants so much—she wishes somehow, Kikwang could see that.

          But it’s impossible.

          Everyone’s strength has a limit, and Kikwang’s hit his—she knows she should just be proud that he’s had strength that’s lasted him this far because it’s farther than she ever would’ve made. It’s farther than her husband ever would’ve made. It’s farther than plenty of people ever could’ve dreamed of lasting, and she just tries to curl in on herself to ease the pain a little.

          It’s just—

          It’s one thing for everyone around him to think of him as little more than a pretty face and a pretty body.

          It’s another when he himself thinks that.

 

 

 

 

          But he makes friends.

 

 

 

 

          For the first time, he makes friends and even though they’re friends in a dark and dirty world, she doesn’t see that at all. She just sees how happy they make him and how he makes them happy and wonders why it took so long for him to find people who see him the way she’s always seen him.

          She likes them—she likes them past the fact that Kikwang likes them, because she just does. She likes them because despite the way they earn money, they’re all still kind—they’re all still genuine and it baffles her a bit. It baffles her husband a lot. It baffles and bewilders both of them because when they were on earth, like everyone else—like the norm—they looked down on these kinds of people.

          But they can’t anymore.

          She can’t anymore. She can’t look down on them anymore as she watches Kikwang utterly confused as a pretty Chinese girl tries her best to mime what she wants to eat at him through her broken Mandarin. She can’t look down on them anymore when she watches Kikwang find a dancing companion in a thin, thin, young (so young) boy with hair that grazes his shoulders. She especially can’t look down on them anymore as Kikwang finds a best friend in a boy just his own age with a voice so strong that she swears even the heavens shake when he sings.

          As odd, as twisted, as unusual as it is—

          For the first time—Kikwang is happy.

 

 

 

 

          When Kikwang gathers enough money, the first thing he buys is a car.

 

 

 

 

          He drives to their graves.

 

 

 

 

          It’s a bright afternoon, sunny and warm and Kikwang doesn’t have to be at the club today. He buys flowers from the ahjumma who peddles them in a stand near the graveyard and the burial home—she smiles up at him, pats his cheek, and as he gets out the money to pay, asks him who a good-looking young man like him is visiting because a face like that should never be allowed to cry.

          She puts her hand over —bites her lip.

          Kikwang just smiles back, bright as ever as he sneaks in extra bills, and tells her thank you for the flowers, bows and heads over to the maze of headstones.

 

 

 

 

          She watches as he sets the bouquet of flowers down between the two headstones. He dusts off the stone, fingertips dragging slowly along the engraved characters as he sits down in front of them on the ground. Her eyebrows furrow a little because she thought that he would just stand and pray and then be on his way again (she wants him to rest as much as he can on his days off and the graveyard is a long way from his apartment).

          That’s not what he does.

          He sits there, not quite smiling but not quite frowning—his hands folded in his lap as he breathes in and out quietly and deeply for just a moment. His head tilts to one side slightly, gazing indecipherably at the headstones. “I’m sorry it’s been so long,” he whispers, softly even though there aren’t any other visitors at the graveyard right now.

          Her husband takes her hand in his.

          “You and Appa are doing okay, right?” Kikwang asks, suddenly directing his eyes right at her headstone and her husband squeezes her hand. Kikwang is smiling now and she doesn’t know if it’s a happy smile or if it’s something else, but it doesn’t quite feel right. There’s something terribly wrong with this smile and she doesn’t know what it is until Kikwang’s eyes are suddenly shining a little too brightly and his voice breaks at the back of his throat when he tries to speak next.

          His knees are level with his chest now, his arms tight around his legs as he curls up and continues staring at the headstones, eyes tracing the curve of the characters that spell her name and her husband’s name. “I miss you,” he says and his voice breaks again. There aren’t any tears (not yet) and she doesn’t want there to be because then it’ll rain, and it’ll rain on Kikwang and he might catch a cold because the parking lot is far away and she can’t cry—not again—not after she’s cried too much.

          Kikwang buries his face in his knees. “I miss you,” he repeats, voice suddenly sounding tiny and muffled and all suddenly she can’t see him—she can’t see the graveyard, can’t see the ahjumma peddling flowers, can’t see the flowers, the headstones—she can’t see anything, can’t see any of it. Suddenly, all she sees is a little, little boy with round eyes that disappear when he smiles. He’s all that she sees only he isn’t smiling—he’s crying—he’s crying and crying and tears are pouring down his face.

          He’s crying.

          He’s crying.

          He’s crying.

          “Why did you leave?” he whispers and his face is still buried in his knees, but his voice is cracking and breaking and she knows he’s crying—he’s crying—he’s crying.

          She’s crying, too.

          Her husband is crying.

          “Why’d you have to go, Umma?” he chokes out, and raises his face just enough to look again at the headstones and she can’t take it. She can’t look even though her eyes are glued to him and she couldn’t look away even though she wants to. Somehow, this hurts so much more—this hurts so much more than any of those times he was being attacked, he was being bullied, he was being , he was being neglected—this hurts so much more because it’s her fault. It’s her fault that all of this happened.

          She left him.

 

 

 

 

 

          Kikwang stays until darkness falls—past sundown.

          His tears have stopped and for the most part, he just sits there silently, staring at the headstones.

She watches his hands tighten together into fists as he closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again slowly.

He stands up, then—gets to his feet and dusts off the backs of his jeans. “I’ll try and come back soon, okay?” he says softly, reaching out and patting first her husband’s headstone and then her headstone.

Kikwang stares at the graves for a last few minutes, before he glances up at the clear night sky (it almost feels like he can see them) for a short moment. He turns on his heel, then, and begins to walk away.

 

 

 

 

 

          It goes on like that for a few years.

          Nothing remarkable happening (thankfully—thankfully, so thankfully, nothing awful happening), just Kikwang seeming to find some stability in this instable lifestyle working at the club, dancing in the studio he bought above his apartment, jogging around Seoul in the mornings, spending time with his friends from the club at night and in the afternoons.

          She doesn’t watch him as closely as she used to—she doesn’t sit by the parting in the clouds to watch him every second he breathes, but she still watches him often (how can she not?). There’s something she’s gleaned, though, as she watches him through these few years—through the little stability he finally has working at this club. She notices that the friends he’s made start to leave one by one.

          She notices that they all leave one by one—

          And although Hongki still remains—even though Kikwang’s closest still remains, with the way she’s learned in why and how they leave, she knows Hongki won’t be here for much longer. She knows he’ll be gone soon, too, and even though she’s happy for him (the way she was happy for all of the ones who left—she didn’t even know how attached she’d grown to them, as if they were her own friends), she selfishly doesn’t want him to leave.

          He’ll leave—

          And then Kikwang will be alone again.  

 

 

He has a lot of clients—a lot of regulars—and even though some of them have been with him since his first time at the club, she never really pays attention to any of them. She doesn’t really look at them, tries not to really focus on them, because other than paying for his bills and making sure he has enough money to stay healthy and buy himself what he wants and needs, she doesn’t think any of them matter all that much.

She might no longer look down on these men and women (girls and boys, really—barely adults, most of them) at the club, she definitely will never stop looking down on the men and women who make use of them.

           

 

 

 

          So she doesn’t notice it until Kikwang points it out himself.

 

 

 

 

          Kikwang doesn’t visit the grave all that often—it’s a far drive out from his apartment, and she knows that even though he likes talking to them, it still hurts him to stay there too long and to look at their names (names he had to learn from the nuns because when they left, he was too young to know them as anything except Appa and Umma).

          But he visits today. He visits on a day that’s bright and sunny just like the first time he visited, and as always, he stops by the ahjumma to buy flowers for their headstones. He’s been happier than ever lately (despite his friends leaving—despite how she knows that he knows Hongki will probably leave soon, too) for some reason, and it shows on his face today. It’s a pretty day and it’s one of the days he has off. She watched him spend all of last night dancing before he collapsed well-exhausted and content into bed.

          He puts the flowers between the headstones like he always does, and sits down in front of them. Her husband says to her that he’s never seen Kikwang smiling this much in front of their graves in the past times he’s visited. She blinks down and thinks that it’s true—she doesn’t think he ever has.

          “I was going to come last week,” he says lightly, “but it was raining really hard and on the news it said there were some blocked roads.” She smiles a little, chin resting on her palm as she’s stretched out on her stomach while she looks down through the split in the clouds.

          Kikwang plays with the petals of one of the flowers. He grins then, suddenly, just to himself and his eyes look down into his lap almost sheepishly. “Umma,” he says, glancing back up at her headstone, “I’m going to tell you something, but you can’t tell Appa yet, okay?”

          She and her husband exchange glances for a moment before she decidedly starts shoving her foot in his face so he’ll leave. He adamantly sits next to her for a moment, reasoning that there’s no point in him leaving because it’s not like Kikwang is going to know if he’s hearing this or not, but she doesn’t care because that’s just rude to their son. He’s a grown young man, she snaps, so he deserves privacy and her husband pouts as he trudges away before she can shove her foot into his nose again.

          “At the club,” Kikwang says slowly—almost nervously—turning a fallen petal around and around in his fingertips, “I have this regular, Umma. He’s—he’s kind of different than the others.”

          Her eyebrows furrow. She doesn’t remember any of them being different—but then again, she never really pays attention to any of them in the first place.

          “He’s kind of hot,” he admits and suddenly the grin is back on his face and he laughs a little—sheepishly—after the words are out of his mouth. “Sorry,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “And—he’s,” he pauses thoughtfully, head tilting to one side, “he’s nice. He’s sad a lot, though, because he loves this other guy—and they’re best friends—but his friend doesn’t love him back.”

          Kikwang’s eyebrows knit together, then, and even though he’s still staring at her headstone, his gaze is suddenly miles away. “Do you know why, Umma?” he asks and she blinks in surprise. “He’s really nice and he’s hot and even when he’s sad, he always tries to be happy and he works really hard—so why doesn’t his friend love him back?” He genuinely looks confused—looks sad and stumped, and she has to smile again (smiles sadly) because she wants to be able to tell him that it doesn’t always work that way.

          In fact, it rarely ever works that way.

          “He knows his friend won’t love him back,” Kikwang goes on, “but he still takes care of his friend when his friend’s hurting.” He frowns a bit, almost a pout, and she thinks that this might be the strangest visit yet because too much is happening and she doesn’t know what to make of it—it’s a nice surprise, a nice change, but it all seems so surreal to her because these problems—they’re—it’s—

          They’re such normal problems.

          This is the kind of conversation she remembers having across the kitchen table with her own mother when she herself was a teenager—just a few years before her parents died.

          “I wish his friend would love him back,” Kikwang says quietly, putting the petal carefully against the concrete. “He’s younger than me, Umma, and he’s always happy—so—so when he’s sad, I don’t—I don’t know,” he says slowly, eyebrows furrowing again unsurely, “it makes me kind of sad.” He smiles, snorting, and looking up. “Weird, huh?”

          Okay.

          Okay, she’s confused. She’s really confused now because now it’s starting to sound like Kikwang has—like—he—it’s starting to sound like Kikwang likes this boy. As in, likes-like this boy. As in the way she felt for her husband but wouldn’t admit it because it was a lot easier to just continuously trip him in the hallways whenever they passed each other.

          She’s confused because while she understands that Kikwang might be civil—might even develop light, shallow friendships at face value with his customers to a certain, business-like extent—she can’t understand at all how he could ever start to like one of them as a close friend. Even worse, she can’t understand at all how he could ever like one of his customers as more than a friend.

         

 

 

 

 

          “Oh,” Kikwang says, after he stands up and dusts his pants off. His eyes widen slightly, like he’s remembered something important. He smiles at the headstones—that same sheepish curve to his lips. “I almost forgot to tell you his name,” he says brightly and leans in, hands cupping around his mouth like he’s going to whisper into someone’s ear. “Son,” he says with a pause between each syllable, “Dong—woon.”

          And with a last smile (he’s smiled more in this visit than she thinks she’s ever seen him smile in all the years past) he pats both headstones like he always does, and heads off back towards the parking lot.

 

 

 

 

 

          The next night at the club, for the first time, her attention is nowhere on Kikwang (being hugged into suffocation by Hongki). All of her focus, her eyes and ears, are trying their best to find Son Dongwoon.

 

 

 

 

 

          She ends up having to wait the entire evening because he’s the last customer Kikwang has for the night—from the way it seems, Dongwoon is always the last.

          She gets a better glimpse of his face when he walks into Kikwang’s room, and she admits it as sheepishly as Kikwang did—but just as willingly. He’s good-looking. He’s incredibly attractive and young (although she would never have guessed younger than Kikwang) and he’s suited up like a high-end businessman, despite his age, briefcase at his side and all.

          She expects him to do like all of the other businessmen that Kikwang has for regulars—to loosen his tie while Kikwang sets the timer and strips down and undoes the bed and starts small, pointless, conversation. She expects him to maybe be even more silent and standoffish than that because all the others were just regular, everyday businessmen, but Dongwoon looks like he would be found sitting either in or very close to a director’s seat.

          Her expectations are kind of smashed—they’re kind of smashed really hard.

          All her expectations are absolutely crushed and flattened because the first thing Dongwoon does, before Kikwang even has a chance to close and lock the door—the first thing Dongwoon does is sweep Kikwang into a breathtaking hug. Kikwang’s feet are almost lifted off the floor because Dongwoon is so tall and the younger man pulls both of them to the bed, but whereas other customers (all customers) just throw Kikwang onto the mattress and start kissing him—

          Dongwoon just keeps on hugging him.

          He never lets go of Kikwang as they fall onto the bed—even cushions the blow with his own body, and his arms, if anything, just hold on tighter.

         

 

 

 

 

          She thinks that if were open any wider, her jaw would probably touch earth.

 

 

 

 

 

          But then she watches as they only have once (just one round in so many hours, whereas other customers try to squeeze in rounds again and again in as little time as possible for their money’s worth until Kikwang is exhausted), and Dongwoon spends the rest of his time (the rest of his money) just sitting there in the bed next to Kikwang, laughing and talking and asking Kikwang how his day went—giving Kikwang the food that he’s brought—making Kikwang smile—listening to everything Kikwang says with the widest grin on his own face.

          She’s shocked—she’s so shocked that not only is she sure that her jaw is going to touch earth, but she feels like Seoul might go through at least a light rainstorm tonight. That’s how shocked she is—she’s shocked, but she doesn’t know if she’s more taken aback or if she’s just too touched to process any thoughts because she can’t believe it. She can’t believe it and she’s almost scared to hope.

          For now, though, she just watches with her heart soaring because it feels like finally. It feels like finally, finally, finally—even if it might not last long, even if Dongwoon just wants someone to spend time with while he’s healing over his own broken heart, even if it’s just a temporary thing—for now it’s just finally, because finally there seems to be someone who sees Kikwang the same way she does.

 

 

 

 

 

          Her husband calls it stalkerish (she kicks his stomach, of course) when she spends the next few days nowhere near Kikwang—instead, she aims her hole-in-the-clouds at Son Dongwoon and her husband insists that if they were still on earth, this would be considered a crime (she hits his face and that seems to get him to slink away for at least a few minutes so she can get on with her non-crime because her husband is watching too so they’re both stalkers, okay).

          Dongwoon’s life, if anything, just might be the perfect opposite of Kikwang’s. He lives in a pretty, pretty part of Seoul that even she and her husband never thought of looking through apartments in. Dongwoon’s apartment building makes her think of penthouses and champagne and everything sparkling and lush in movies and magazines. His office building—his car—his clothes—the places he goes with his co-workers—it’s all the same and she watches it all with a tilt to her head and thoughts in her eyes.

          She doesn’t expect to find anything that really interests her—nothing that really shocks her—until she watches as Dongwoon goes to a grocery store, buying the usual foods that she’d expect a well-off bachelor to buy, but then he stops at the bakery. He stops at the bakery section and starts searching closely through all of different packages—examining labels and flavors and sizes and titles, even asking the baker which ones were new and which ones they had last week because—

          She can see his thoughts.

          Looking down from where she is, she’s allowed to see anyone’s thoughts, and when she looks into Dongwoon’s just then, she sees thousands of images—images all with Kikwang’s face in them. She sees Kikwang telling Dongwoon about which breads he likes—she sees Kikwang eating something Dongwoon bought—she sees Dongwoon asking Kikwang which ones he wants Dongwoon to bring next time.

          This time, her husband’s jaw almost touches earth.

          Hers would too, but she’s better prepared this time.

          Even though this still makes her eyes bulge.

         

 

 

 

 

          It gets more and more shocking from there.

 

 

 

 

 

          It gets more and more shocking as Dongwoon lets his friends meet Kikwang—more and more shocking when his friends like Kikwang (she can see their thoughts and every single one is genuine), when they care about Kikwang, when they ask Dongwoon about Kikwang, when they tell Dongwoon to take care of Kikwang. It’s shocking—it’s all surprising and new and foreign and even though she tells herself that this is how it should’ve been, after all she’s seen Kikwang go through, it’s just so different and she knows that he can’t seem to believe it either.

          She finds herself searching through their thoughts whenever she can, and is shocked—time and time again—when she finds that none of them ever truly think anything bad about Kikwang. Most of the negativity in their thoughts stems around how much Dongwoon has to pay and what happens if higher-ups at the office find out, but other than that, there is never anything about Kikwang. All thoughts about Kikwang are such pure thoughts that without this situation, she would’ve assumed they were just thoughts worrying about the welfare of a friend.

          Even though she’s shocked herself, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt when she sees the thoughts swarming around his head and every single one of them is absolutely baffled about why any of these people would ever care about him like this.

 

 

 

 

 

          She’s glad Dongwoon doesn’t seem confused at all.

 

 

 

 

 

          Kikwang drives out to the graveyard two days after the meeting with Dongwoon’s friends. The day isn’t so sunny—there’s brightness peeking through, but the sky is mostly covered with lots of soft gray, and the air is a little bit muggy and too warm for a spring day.

          The peddling ahjumma is happier than usual to see him because it’s spring, so she has all sorts of new flowers in her cart and even though (for some reason) Kikwang isn’t in the best of moods, he still smiles as brightly as he can for her, listening to all of her recommendations and letting her pick the colors and kinds of flowers to put together for him.

          He pads out to their headstones, bows lightly to the other people who’re visiting graves today, and places the flowers between the two graves like he always does before folding his legs and sitting down. He isn’t smiling today, but it’d be wrong for her to say that he looks sad, because it’s not quite that either. She frowns as she tries to decipher what exactly is in his expression—it’s a conflict, but she doesn’t know what kind.

          Minutes upon minutes upon minutes pass before Kikwang finally looks up at the headstones—most of the people that were at the graves when he arrived have started to finish their prayers and leave. He doesn’t greet her or her husband—he doesn’t start it off with how he’s been doing, doesn’t say anything to begin the conversation like he usually does.

          All he says is, “I wish he would stop loving him.”

          She stares.

          What?

          Kikwang curls his legs up against his chest again, resting his chin on his kneecaps and his eyes are confused, eyebrows wrinkling together. “I want Dongwoonie to stop loving his friend,” he whispers, looking from her headstone to her husband’s headstone and then back at hers. “I want him to stop being in love with Kibum-shii and—because—because Kibum-shii is never going to love him back so I want him to stop and—Umma,” he covers his face with his hands, “I think I’m a terrible person.”

          She blinks.

          What?

          Her husband looks at her—just as perplexed.

          He’s not—Kikwang isn’t—he can’t—

          Is he—no—could—he’s—

          Does Kikwang love Dongwoon?

 

 

 

 

 

          The next two hours make her feel like she’s back on earth in the apartment watching dramas on the television. Either that, or it makes her feel like she’s the mother of a teenager.

          Which, emotionally, she supposes that’s what Kikwang is.

          Kikwang has the emotional experience of a teenager (maybe even less), but with all the understand and knowledge and intelligence and comprehension of an adult (maybe even more) and with all that conflicting together, even she and her husband are sitting there listening to their son with their heads spinning because they don’t know what to do or what to think.

          If it wasn’t such a new situation, it could’ve even been funny.

          “I saw Kibum-shii’s boyfriend,” Kikwang says glumly (he’s been saying everything glumly for the past two hours). He gives a passing beetle a withering look. “Dongwoonie’s a lot hotter—and taller.” He glances up at their headstones. “A lot taller.”

          Her husband covers his mouth then and she slaps his arm because this isn’t the time to be laughing.

          “Dongwoonie always has to clean up Kibum-shii’s puke when he’s drunk,” Kikwang continues then, glumly of course, (she knows it’s a horrible, horrible thing to think, but she almost wishes he would leave because it’s been like this for the past two hours). He stops the beetle in its path with a blade of grass and flicks it away a couple of inches. “I’ve never puked before,” he says, and she swears that he’s pouting.

          To make things worse, her husband suddenly puffs his chest out because he’s proud that their son’s never puked before and she hides her eyes because they are both such stupid boys.

          “And,” Kikwang goes on (she sighs, as her husband starts to roll around on the clouds, laughing), “Kibum-shii is too skinny. He needs to work out.” His eyes widen a little bit towards her headstone right then. “Right, Umma?”

          She thinks that her husband might just die a second time.

          From suffocation.

 

 

 

 

 

          But she’s happy.

 

 

 

 

 

          She’s happy because even though Dongwoon talks about Kibum to Kikwang at the club (although nowadays, it looks more like Dongwoon is just answering because Kikwang keeps asking about Kibum), she sees Dongwoon when Kikwang can’t and now it’s no longer even in his thoughts. It’s not even just in Dongwoon’s thoughts any more that Kikwang comes up.

          Kikwang pops up everywhere in Dongwoon’s life even though they only see each other twice a week for a few hours late, late at night.

          Before his friends at the office even get a chance to ask, he’ll already be telling them about something funny that happened with Kikwang the other day—he’ll already be asking them where to get this cookie and that soda because Kikwang mentioned in passing that they’re his favorites. He’ll already wondering out loud what’s warmer for the coming winter—that sweatshirt or this jacket and it’s never his own size that he asks for. He’ll already be looking through CDs—dance mixes that’ve just come in from Europe and the States.

          Despite what Kikwang thinks, she’s able to see Dongwoon when Kikwang can’t, and even though she still sees him spending plenty of time with Kibum, she also sees—more than once—how Kibum has to call his name more than once because his mind was miles from his body. And because she’s where she is, she can see exactly where his mind was.

          Almost always, his mind is walking through the glowing doors of a club.

 

 

 

 

          The parts that she loves watching the most, though—the times when it makes her the happiest to look down upon—are when they’re together at the club. It’s when they’re together in Kikwang’s room, either before or after having , and it can get to a point where she almost makes it rain down on Seoul again but for completely different reasons than ever before.

          Because even though Dongwoon might only be starting to realize for himself that he doesn’t love Kibum, even though Kikwang is still terribly unsure and insecure about how Dongwoon would ever feel towards him in return, even though everything is still a little bit rocky and instable—now she knows, for sure, she knows that the reason has arrived and it’s staying for good.

          It’ll take time for it to fully happen, but as long as it’s here—as long as it’s finally, ing finally, here—she thinks she can start to breathe easy again. The way she hasn’t breathed since a little, little boy—still wet-eyed and confused—was dropped off at the local orphanage.

 

 

 

 

          It’s obvious—it’s clear—that Kikwang’s been unlucky.

          At least, it was obvious and clear to her.

          That’s all she could think about, in the beginning—she could only ever think about, curse and cry and scream until thunder boomed and clapped all across the country. She could only ever think about how unlucky Kikwang was and how unfair everything that’s happened to him was and why—why did they have to take her and her husband away so early and hand him everything that’d happened to him in life (so early, so young).

          Now, though—now as she watches Kikwang being kissed within an inch of his life on a rooftop overlooking Seoul’s nightlife—now she wonders if Kikwang really has been unlucky.

          Because it’s true—it’s undeniably true—that he’s gone through what most people only have nightmares of, only have to ever face in books and newspapers and the evening news on television and with online articles. And no only once—he’s gone through it again and again in a seemingly endless, horrific cycle. It’s undeniably true that he’s gone through what most people never even think of—never even want to imagine.

          But after all of that—

          It’s also undeniably true that now Kikwang has what most people are never even able to find—what most people, no matter how hard they search and no matter how many times they try—Kikwang has something most people, especially in this world and in this time, will never have.

 

 

 

 

          Although she and her husband really do almost die a second time when Dongwoon seems to think it’d be romantic to spin Kikwang around on a rooftop and almost hurls their son over the railing.

          Because even though she misses him (misses him terribly even if she’s been watching this whole time), now that there’s someone who makes him smile that widely (he’s even smiling as Dongwoon starts frantically apologizing for almost plunging him to his death), she doesn’t want to see him or Son Dongwoon up here for a long, long, long time to come.

 

 

 

 

          It’s a gray day—clouds heavy with impending rain—the next time Kikwang visits the grave. This time, though, he’s not driving himself and it isn’t the usual car they see him take. And when it’s parked, Kikwang steps out of the passenger seat and Dongwoon comes out from the driver’s seat, already holding a hand over his head and telling Kikwang that they should’ve come yesterday when it was sunnier.

          Kikwang laughs and shoots back at how it’s not even drizzling yet. She can tell that he’s excited—he’s so excited that he runs the wrong way around the sidewalk and passes the peddling ahjumma without noticing. Dongwoon just grins and jogs after him, easily catching up and (because there’s no one else there since it’s scheduled to rain) catches Kikwang around the waist, spinning him all the way towards the graveyard.

          They calm down—laughter fading into smiles, hugs melting into hand-holding—as they near the headstones and Kikwang doesn’t sit down this time. He just stands there, his hand in Dongwoon’s, and for a long moment that’s all they do.

          “What should I say?” Dongwoon asks, breaking the silence.

          Kikwang breaks into a smile (and it’s obvious to her that he’s been killing himself trying to hold it in). “I don’t know,” he says, looking up at the younger man, right before his eyes widen suddenly. “Oh—hold on for a sec,” he lets go of Dongwoon’s hand and starts heading back towards the parking lot.

          She watches as Kikwang runs towards the flower cart.

          Dongwoon watches him, too.

          He turns around, then, looking at the graves again. “This is awkward,” he says sheepishly, after a moment.

          She smiles. Her husband puts his arm around her.

          “Um,” Dongwoon says, “my folks are up there, too. So—um—say hi to them for me if you see them.”

          Her husband laughs a bit into her shoulder, and she bites her lip to keep her smile from growing too much because it’s not like she hasn’t seen him like this before around Kikwang but it’s Dongwoon—it’s Dongwoon—and they love him. They haven’t found his parents yet, but they will, because they have to tell them that they love this boy just as much as their own son.

          Dongwoon’s hands are folded in front of him and he turns his head a little, eyes instantly finding Kikwang (while he’s talking to the ahjumma) before he looks back at the stones. Dongwoon smiles a little, then, almost apologetically and her eyebrows furrow at that. “I’m sorry it took so long,” he says softly and falls open a little bit and her eyes stretch. “I mean—I just,” he pauses, “I don’t know if I would’ve been able to do anything even if I’d been there earlier.”

          Her husband squeezes her hand.

          “But I’ll do everything I can now,” Dongwoon says, and tries smiling again. “I can’t make any guarantees,” and he waves his hands in front of himself—almost playfully. “But you’ll see me up there before I’ll let anything hurt him anymore.”

          She smiles back—it’s hard for her to smile too, right now, and Kikwang has barely any time after he puts the flowers on the grave before it starts raining and she swears she tried to hold it back, but she can’t. It starts raining because she’s crying and Dongwoon grabs Kikwang’s hand and runs them both over underneath the wide awning of the burial home’s porch.

          They’re both already considerably soaked because of the distance between the vast graveyard and the building, but just as Kikwang’s trying to squeeze some of the water from his clothes and shaking his hair out of his eyes, Dongwoon’s already wrapped his arms around him again, pressing their bodies close and Kikwang’s laugh is amused and exasperated but his arms are around Dongwoon’s neck right away.

          “You’re drier than me,” Kikwang observes, and smiles, “hugging me’s just going to get you wet.”

          Dongwoon just grins and doesn’t let go. “C’mon, hyung,” he says lightly, “you know me better than that.”

          Kikwang laughs, and she tries to stop crying at least long enough for the rain to let up so they can get back to the car without being drenched again (she doesn’t want them to catch colds since there aren’t any towels and the drive to Seoul is long). She tries, but even when her husband is smiling against the top of her head and patting her back, the rain keeps pouring.

          She’s just so glad—so ing happy—so relieved—so, so, so thankful and grateful and—

          That finally—finally, there’s someone else who knows how amazing Kikwang is.