1. Chapter One #4
There aren’t many of us. Maybe ten people total, mostly the elders who just greeted me, along with the young woman who used to help run the register at Mrs. Nam’s store on weekends.
I remember her vaguely, a shy girl who never said much.
Now she sits with red-rimmed eyes, twisting a tissue in her lap.
The lawyer is a middle-aged man with a tired face and reading glasses pushed low on his nose. He waits until everyone’s settled before clearing his throat and opening the folder in front of him.
“We’re here today for the reading of the last will and testament of Nam Jangsook,” he says, his voice carrying easily through the small room.
“As many of you know, Mrs. Nam had no living children, and her closest relatives passed some years ago. Given that, she made her wishes known to those she considered close, which is why you’ve all been asked to attend. ”
A murmur passes through the small gathering, a few soft sniffles from Mrs. Cho beside me.
The lawyer continues, reading through a list of possessions, most of them small and sentimental.
A jade hairpin to Mrs. Cho, something Mrs. Nam apparently promised her decades ago after admiring it too many times.
A set of brass cooking pots to a woman I don’t recognize, described only as a longtime customer who used to help carry deliveries.
A framed photograph of the harbor at sunset, taken back when the store first opened, given to Mr. Song because he’d always said it reminded him of his late wife.
Each name draws a small reaction, a nod, a quiet thank you, sometimes tears. It feels like Mrs. Nam reaching out from wherever she is now, handing pieces of herself to the people who loved her, making sure no one leaves empty-handed.
I sit through it quietly, my hands folded in my lap, waiting for my name, not entirely sure I’ll hear it at all. Maybe she left me nothing. Maybe that’s fair, considering how little I gave back these past years beyond the occasional visit that always felt too short and too far apart.
Then the lawyer’s gaze lifts from the folder and finds me.
“Heo Seyeon.”
My stomach drops. Every head in the room turns.
“Yes,” I manage quietly.
The lawyer reaches into the folder and pulls out a sealed envelope, plain white. He doesn’t hand it over right away. Instead, he holds it for a moment.
“Mrs. Nam left specific instructions regarding this envelope,” he says. “It was to be given to you, and you alone, at the reading of her will. However, she was clear that its contents come with certain conditions.”
I frown, my fingers curling around the edge of the folding chair beneath me. “What conditions?”
The lawyer clears his throat, adjusting his glasses before glancing back down at the folder. “This part of the will is sealed. It can only be accessed by both Heo Seyeon and one Cha Ryowoon.”
My head snaps up. “Excuse me?”
Around me, the small crowd shifts in their seats.
Mrs. Cho stops sniffling into her tissue long enough to glance at me, then quickly looks away, suddenly very interested in the hem of her cardigan.
Mr. Song shifts his cane between his hands, staring hard at the floor.
Even the young woman who worked the register won’t meet my eyes anymore, twisting her tissue tighter.
I shake my head, a short, disbelieving laugh escaping. “Why on earth was I even asked to come here? What’s in this?”
“That’s not for me to say.” The lawyer’s voice stays even. “Mrs. Nam specified that this part of the will be delivered to you directly. But she was also explicit. It cannot be opened without both you and Mr. Cha present.”
I stare at him, waiting for something more, some explanation that makes this make sense, but he just watches me with a patient, tired expression.
My eyes drop to the envelope now resting in his outstretched hand, plain and white, unremarkable except for the two names stamped across the front in dark, official print.
Heo Seyeon.
Cha Ryowoon.
The letters blur for a second before sharpening again, my own name sitting there beside his like the years between us mean nothing at all, like Mrs. Nam just reached across a decade and yanked the two of us back together with nothing but ink and a legal formality.
I close my eyes.
Of course.
There was no coming back to Haemok without his name surfacing eventually.
I should’ve known that. I did know that, somewhere in the back of my mind, the part that still flinches every time I hear his name in passing, still turns toward the sound of a motorcycle engine on the highway even now, out of habit, out of some deeply ingrained instinct I’ve never managed to unlearn no matter how far I ran.
I should’ve known Mrs. Nam wouldn’t let either of us off that easily. She never did. She always found a way to pull us back into line, to remind us we were stuck with each other whether we liked it or not.
I blow out a slow breath, the tightness in my chest doesn’t ease at all, now it feels sharp with dread and the aching pain of a wound never healed right. My hand reaches out, taking the envelope from the lawyer’s fingers.
The paper feels unnaturally heavy. My eyes trace over Ryowoon’s name again, the ink dark.
The room stays quiet around me, waiting, the weight of a dozen curious, careful stares pressing against the back of my neck.
I can feel Mrs. Cho humming beside me with the urge to ask questions she already knows better than to voice out loud.
No one in this town has ever needed things spelled out for them, not when it comes to me and Ryowoon.
Everyone here already knows what we were to each other, and why we both left.
The night settles over Haemok with the deep blue that clings to the hills, then the true dark that swallows the water below until the harbor lights are the only proof the sea is still there at all.
I sit on the wooden platform in my mother’s gateyard, my back against the post, one knee drawn up, the top three buttons of my shirt undone against the sticky warmth still clinging to the air even this late.
Somewhere past the wall a cicada starts up, stops, starts again.
The envelope sits between us on the worn wood, plain and white, my name and his side by side in dark print. Neither of us has touched it since I set it down an hour ago. It might as well be a coiled snake for how careful we’re both being not to brush against it.
My mother sighs from where she sits beside me, her legs tucked beneath her, a cup of barley tea cooling untouched in her hands. She’s been quiet since I explained the terms, turning the words over in her head.
“What was that woman thinking?” she finally says, shaking her head, more to herself than to me. “Making you come all the way down here just to sit next to an envelope you can’t even open.”
“Because she knew I’d come,” I say calmly, almost detached from the ache still sitting in my chest. “Out of the two of us, she knew I’d be the one to answer.”
My mother frowns at that, her mouth pulling down at the corners. “Still,” she says, the word alone argument enough.
I don’t try to explain further. There’s no explaining Mrs. Nam to anyone. She knew both of us better than either of our own parents did, in some ways. She’d have known exactly which one of us would show up when called, and which one would need to be dragged.
I tip my head back against the post and look up at the sky.
Out here, away from the light pollution of the city, the stars shine in all their glory.
There are more of them than I remember, scattered too thick to count, and for a second the size of it all makes the knot in my chest loosen enough to breathe.
“Have you heard anything about him?” I ask quietly, my eyes still on the sky. I don’t need to say his name. There’s only one him between us that matters tonight.
My mother’s silence stretches out until I lower my chin and look at her. Her expression has softened with a look sadder than sympathy.
“No,” she says finally, with obvious regret.
Her gaze drifts past the low wall of the yard, out toward the dark shapes of the neighboring roofs, like she’s looking for an answer somewhere out there in the night instead of in her own memory.
“Not really. Not since he stopped answering anyone’s calls. ”
I say nothing. I already knew that answer before I asked, but some stubborn part of me kept hoping the question might get a different answer this time.
“Many of us tried reaching him,” she goes on, her voice has a note of caution, approaching the subject gently. “When Haeil … well. You know.”
I know. I remember where I was when I found out, six years ago now, sitting in my apartment grading vocabulary quizzes when Yoohan called, his voice cracking before he’d even said his name.
I remember staring at the stack of papers in my lap for a long minute after we hung up, not seeing the words on them anymore, just white noise and Haeil’s laugh from some memory I hadn’t touched in years, suddenly louder in my head than it had any business being.
I didn’t go back for that either. I told myself it was the distance, the timing, the fact that I hadn’t spoken to Haeil in years beyond the occasional holiday message anyway, so what right did I have showing up at his funeral like I’d been some close friend all along?
I called his mother instead. Sent flowers, the biggest arrangement the florist had, like size could make up for absence. I told myself that was enough.
I didn’t come back for Jinwon either, but then that had been a few years before and then I had an excuse, I was in Japan for a teaching conference when it happened, three days of workshops on modern pedagogy that I don’t remember a single detail of now beyond the fact that I was there, conveniently, an ocean away, when the call came through.