2. Noah
2
NOAH
This is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.
That’s the only thought running through my mind as I stand in the bathroom attached to my new bedroom. The room is bigger than I expected, the bed tucked against one wall and a long desk fixed to the opposing one with a few shelves lined above it. There’s a small closet too, already organised with my clothes, thanks to Appa.
I’ve lucked out coming to Coates—there were definitely worse options—but I still feel like coming here was a mistake. Maybe I would have been better off staying home for my final year and taking my exams at a test centre. I’m smart enough to teach myself everything I need to know, and my parents are aware of that, too. But they didn’t want Mina coming to a new school alone, especially after what happened at the last one. So, here I am.
I’ve already felt the stares of the other students on the walk back and forth from my room to Appa’s car. If that’s anything to go by, my plans of flying under the radar and going unnoticed for the year have already failed. I have no intentions of getting close to anyone here, and I’m determined to keep to myself so I can get through the year unscathed.
“Adeul.” Appa’s voice drags me out of my thoughts. He hardly ever calls me by my name, choosing to call me son instead. “Let’s talk.”
I step out of the bathroom to see him perched on the edge of my desk, his ankles crossed over each other and his hands folded in his lap. He stares down at his hands, his thumbs twisting together. He’s started getting some grey streaks in his hair recently, a stark contrast to the black on the rest of his head.
I steady myself and approach him, taking a seat in the chair next to him. I’d hoped we could continue avoiding a conversation like we did on the journey here, but it seems there’s no chance of that. In my mind, there’s nothing left to discuss now that I’m already here.
I keep my gaze focused on the floor, on his leather shoes, his black trousers, his cashmere grey jumper—anywhere but his face. He takes my silence as a cue to start speaking, switching to his mother tongue.
“I know the past few months have been hard,” he says, his voice deepening as he speaks in Korean. “It can be stressful to start over at a new school but keep your head down, focus on your grades, and it’ll be over soon.”
I nod, pursing my lips together to stop myself from speaking. I’ve been finding it difficult to talk to him kindly recently, so I’ve settled on not saying anything at all.
“Your mother and I love you a lot.”
But you don’t love each other.
He lets out a deep sigh and I realise I’ve said it out loud. I let myself glance up at his face for a second, just so I can see his reaction to hearing it. His eyes are closed as he shakes his head ever so slightly, and I find myself mimicking the action.
“I didn’t mean to say that,” I tell him, my voice coming out croaky from not being used for a while.
“But you meant it,” he says. “You’ve always been intentional with your words. Your mother is the same. It’s one of your best traits.”
“I just…”
I just want you to be honest with me.
I just want to know if what I did really was the tipping point.
I just want us all to be normal again.
My hands clench into fists as I struggle to figure out what to say. When I tilt my head to look at him again, he’s staring at me.
“I know,” he says as if he can read my mind by looking at me. “And I’m sorry for how it’s been. Give us some time. We never wanted you or Mina to deal with this along with everything else, and I’m sorry for that, too.”
My fingers uncurl as I press my palms flat against my thighs. I feel the roughness of my jeans as I drag my hands up and down, wiping my hands like I can wipe away the past few moments.
Seconds pass in silence, the two of us taking each other in. The small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes seem more pronounced, as are the smile lines that frame his mouth. We’ve both got the same small curves at the corners of our lips.
People have said plenty of times that I look exactly like Appa did when he was younger. I used to take pride in that, looking just like my favourite person in the world. But now we’ve gotten to the point where the person I was closest to seems like a stranger. His actions over the past few months make it hard to reconcile the man in front of me with the father who raised me.
“Knock, knock.”
We both turn our heads to see Eomma and Mina standing in the open doorway. The two look like sisters standing side by side, Mina very clearly her mother’s daughter, taking her long, straight black hair and wide brown eyes.
“We’re all finished in Mina’s room. How’s it going in here?”
Appa pushes off the desk, rapping a closed fist against it once and dusting his hands off as if he was the one who actually built the desk. He makes his way toward the door, and I follow after him, smoothing my hand over the wood he just touched.
They swap places, Eomma approaching me as Appa stands next to Mina. It’s reminiscent of the swaps that happened at the beginning of summer as we went back and forth between Eomma’s house and Appa’s new apartment.
It only took a few weeks before I got tired of it and booked a flight to Korea to spend the rest of the summer with my grandparents. I landed back in England a few days ago, leaving myself just enough time to pack my stuff up and get ready to move in here.
Eomma reaches up to hold my cheek. She’s over a foot shorter than me, so I bend my knees slightly to make it easier for her.
“It’ll be okay. Just keep your head down-“
“And focus on my grades. Yeah, yeah, I know.”
I wish I could find more comfort in her words, in her soft voice, which has never been anything but gentle, but I can’t. I step away from her, sitting at my desk again as I wait for this ordeal to end. My parents have barely looked at each other, and I’m growing tired of pretending I don’t notice.
“Take care of your sister,” Eomma says before going back to the door. She gives Mina one last hug, whispering something to her that I can’t make out. Appa hugs Mina, too, and then stands next to Eomma in the doorway. Their arms are so close to touching, but it’s like there’s an invisible force field between them.
“We’ll get going now,”Appa says, trying to get a goodbye from me, but I keep my mouth closed. I turn to stare at my desk instead and hear his small sigh as Mina ushers them out of my room. She returns a few moments later.
“You okay?” she asks, hopping up to take a seat on my bed.
“I should be asking you that.”
“I’m good,” Mina says, and I turn to look at her and see a wide smile on her face. “Excited, actually. I already made a friend!”
“You did?” I try my best to seem enthusiastic as she tells me about the girl in the room next to hers. It helps me to feel a bit more optimistic about how her time at Coates will be.
“We’re going to dinner together later, too!”
“That sounds like so much fun,” I say, my voice going higher like it usually does when I talk to my younger sister.
She’s five years younger than me, and I’ve always been fiercely protective of her. But seeing her smile like this, such a contrast to how she was last year, makes it hard to regret the actions that led to us being here. I’m glad she gets a fresh start.
Her phone pings, and she turns it over in her palm. Her smile grows wider as the screen illuminates her face.
“It’s Daisy.” She bounces on her heels as she types something. “She said her parents have left, so she wants to hang out.”
“Have fun. Text me if you need anything.”
She’s already halfway out the door before I can even finish my sentence, but at least she remembers to close it behind her.
I’m alone for the first time today. I sit in the quiet, the only sounds coming from outside: muffled chatter, car doors slamming, and engines running as students move in.
I glance out of my fourth-storey window, a perfect view of the edge of the car park and the field in between the two dorm buildings. For a few moments, I watch students saying goodbye to their parents before finding their friends, settling into clusters on the grass as they catch up with each other after a long summer break.
I don’t expect to ever join one of the groups I see below. I used to be part of one, thinking I’d met the people I’d be friends with for the rest of my life. But once everything happened and I left school, they all stopped talking to me. Apart from Ravi, who I’ve been forgetting to reply to all day. We were always closest within our group, and I’m glad I didn’t lose him.
Ravi
Text me when you can
Gonna miss seeing you around school
Hope everything went okay today
Noah
Just finished moving in
I’ll miss you too
The message status changes from delivered to read right away, and I feel the corner of my lips tugging upward. Even though it took me a few hours to reply, he won’t keep me waiting for that long.
I swipe out of the thread, closing the app as his name pops up at the top of my screen. I open up the messenger I use to talk to my grandparents, Halabeoji pinned to the top—his message in Korean stares at me, waiting for a response.
Halabeoji
Everything will be okay. I love you.
My face drops instantly, a sigh escaping me. I want to reply to him, but I know once I start talking, the walls I’ve spent the past few days building up will come crumbling down. Spending the summer with him and my Halmeoni helped me forget everything that happened, that I was going to start at a brand new school in my final year, and that my old school decided I should leave when all I did was defend my sister.
I start trying to type a reply, a short message to tell him I’m okay and I appreciate everything he’s done for me. But the words don’t seem to come out in a way that sounds like I’m fine.
Because I’m not.
And I don’t know when I will be.