3. Chapter Three #3
Ryowoon peeks around the corner of the shelf, and even out of breath and sweaty, there’s a look on his face like he’s having fun. Like he’s not scared at all, even though I definitely am.
“Probably,” he says, too calmly.
“This is your fault,” I hiss.
“How is it my fault? That one kid shoved me.”
“You’re the one who’s been throwing rocks at them for a month!”
He shrugs, but somehow he manages to look proud of himself. “They deserved it. Nobody gets to be mean to you and get away with it.”
I want to argue with him, but the bell over the door jingles and both our heads snap toward the sound.
Through the gap in the shelf I see the six of them crowding into the doorway, panting just as hard as we were, their faces red and furious.
I recognize the boy in front right away, the one who lost to me at the contest last month, his ears sticking out and his mouth twisted into a scowl that’s been aimed at me ever since the judges read my name out loud instead of his.
“We saw you go in here,” he snarls, stepping further inside. “Come out, you little coward.”
Ryowoon’s fingers close around my wrist, I don’t know if he’s trying to keep me still or keep himself from jumping out to fight all six of them at once, which honestly wouldn’t surprise me.
“Where’d he go?” the boy demands, looking around the shop.
“Look with your eyes, doofus,” Ryowoon mutters under his breath, I have to slap a hand over my own mouth to keep from laughing, even scared as I am.
Before any of the boys can take another step, a voice booms out from the back of the store that makes even Ryowoon flinch.
“What in the world do you think you’re doing in my shop?”
Mrs. Nam comes storming out from the back room, her old reed broom gripped in both hands like a sword, the bristles worn down from years of sweeping the front step every morning.
Her eyes narrow on the group of boys crowding her doorway, and her face twists into anger I’ve only seen a handful of times, the look that makes grown men on the street straighten up when she walks by.
“You,” she snaps, pointing the broom at the boy in front, “get out of my store this instant.”
“We’re just looking for—”
“I don’t care what you’re looking for!” she shouts, advancing on them, the broom swinging up like she means business.
“You think you can come storming into an old woman’s shop like a pack of wild dogs?
I’ll call every one of your mothers myself, and don’t think I won’t, I know exactly whose sons you all are! ”
The boy who lost the spelling contest tries to hold his ground for about two more seconds before Mrs. Nam swats the broom at his legs, getting him with a healthy smack.
He yelps and stumbles back, and the rest of them scatter after him, tripping over each other trying to get out the door fast enough.
Mrs. Nam chases them a few steps into the street, still shouting, still waving that broom over her head like she’s considering catching one of them to give them the beating she’s promising.
Ryowoon and I peek out from behind the shelf just enough to watch the whole thing, and I can’t help it, I start giggling, pressing my hand harder over my mouth to keep it quiet. Ryowoon’s shaking beside me, laughing so hard no sound comes out at all.
By the time Mrs. Nam turns back around, we’re both standing up, grinning, ready to thank her for saving our lives. She marches back inside, and before either of us can get a single word out, the broom swings and smacks Ryowoon on the top of the head, then me, right after.
“Ow!” I yelp, grabbing my head.
“You two,” she says, jabbing the broom handle between us, “are more trouble than every stray cat in this town combined. Dragging fights right to my doorstep now, is that it?”
“It wasn’t our fault!” I say, rubbing the spot on my head where it stings. “They started it, I swear!”
“He’s telling the truth,” Ryowoon adds, nodding hard, no trace of the laughing from a minute ago left on his face now that the broom’s aimed at him again. “That kid’s just mad Seyeon beat him in the spelling contest. He’s been trying to jump us for weeks.”
“And whose idea was it to go throwing rocks at them every time you saw them near the docks?” she asks, her eyes cutting right to him.
Ryowoon’s mouth snaps shut, and I watch his ears go a little pink, which is the closest thing he ever gets to admitting he did something wrong.
Mrs. Nam humphs, but she doesn’t hit us again. She shakes her head, mutters something about hooligans and how she’s too old for this, and turns to walk toward the back of the store.
“Sit,” she calls over her shoulder, not looking back to check if we’re following. “Since you’re both here anyway, might as well eat something before you go running off to cause more trouble.”
Ryowoon and I look at each other, and even after getting smacked twice with a broom, I feel my stomach do a happy little flip at the mention of food.
We follow her out into the courtyard, dropping down onto the low bench beside her table, and a few minutes later she comes back out with rice and side dishes and a plate of grilled mackerel between us.
“Eat,” she says, settling down across from us with a sigh, watching as we both dig in without waiting to be told twice. “And the next time you decide to make enemies with half the boys in the next town over, you’d better think twice before running straight to my front door.”
“Yes, Mrs. Nam,” we say together, mouths already full. She shakes her head at us again, muttering under her breath about troublemakers, but she reaches over anyway and piles more rice into both our bowls.
The hills above Haemok turn green and thick with summer, cicadas screaming from every tree so loud we have to shout over them just to hear each other.
Ryowoon leads the way, pushing through the brush without hesitation, and I follow behind, complaining about the branches scratching my arms and the bugs that keep landing on my neck.
“Stop being such a baby,” he tells me over his shoulder, not looking back to see if I’m keeping up.
“I’m not a baby,” I say, swatting at a fly. “I just don’t want bug bites all over me.”
His loud cackle echoes off the trees, and he doesn’t slow down one bit.
We find the creek bed following the sound of water trickling over rocks until the trees open up to where it sits shallow and clear, trickling over moss-covered stones. Ryowoon crouches at the edge, flipping over rocks with his bare hands, looking underneath.
“Found one!” he shouts, and I splash over to see, my sandals soaked through in seconds.
He has a small, slippery frog cupped between both palms, its throat pulsing as it stares up at us with bulging eyes. Ryowoon holds it out toward me carefully.
“Look how tiny,” he says, grinning. “You want to hold him?”
I do, even though I’m a little scared it’ll jump out of my hands.
He passes it over slowly as it wriggles against my palms, and I laugh at the tickling sensation, its skin slightly damp.
We let it go a minute later, watching it hop off into the grass, Ryowoon already moving on to the next rock, hunting for more.
We spend whole afternoons like this, wading deeper into the creek until the water soaks through our shorts, chasing dragonflies that flit just out of reach every time we lunge for them.
Ryowoon’s faster than me, but even he can’t catch one no matter how many times he tries, coming up with empty hands and cursing under his breath the way he’s heard his father do, even though neither of us really knows what half those words mean yet.
“You’re supposed to sneak up on them,” I tell him, even though I’ve had just as little luck as he has.
“I am sneaking,” he says, annoyed, creeping toward another dragonfly perched on a reed, moving so slowly it’s almost funny to watch. He gets within an arm’s length before it darts off, and he yells after it.
By the time the sun starts dipping low we’re both soaked through, our shoes ruined, mud caked up past our ankles, but neither of us wants to head back yet.
We flop down on the bank, the grass cool against our backs, and we watch the water move for a while, not saying much, tired from running around outside all day.
I don’t remember falling asleep. One second I’m looking up at the sky through the leaves, watching them shift in the breeze, and the next Ryowoon’s shaking my shoulder, carefully quiet, nothing like his usual shouting.
“Seyeon. Seyeon, wake up, look.”
I blink my eyes open, groggy, the sky dim and orange above us. I follow where he’s pointing, down toward my own hip, there’s a dragonfly perched on the fabric of my shorts, its wings glinting even in the fading light.
“Don’t move,” Ryowoon whispers, and for once he actually listens to his own advice, both of us frozen still, holding our breath like even breathing too hard might scare it off.
We stay like that for what feels like forever, watching it rest there, wings flickering every so often, until finally it lifts off on its own, disappearing into the dark trees around us.
“Whoa,” I say, sitting up slowly.
“Told you,” Ryowoon says, grinning like he had something to do with it, even though he didn’t. “You’re just lucky like that.”
We race home after that, realizing how dark it’s gotten, both of us getting yelled at when we finally show up, mud-streaked and soaked, way past when we were supposed to be back.
Some days we go to Ryowoon’s house instead, when his father’s shift at the factory keeps him away until evening.
The second we come through the gate, Nuri, the Cha’s jindo dog, starts barking, straining against her chain outside the dog house, tail whipping so fast it looks like it might fly right off her body.
Ryowoon always runs to her first, dropping to his knees to unclip her.
“Hi, girl. Hi, Nuri-ya,” he coos, voice soft the way he never talks to anyone else, scratching behind her ears while she licks at his face, whining with excitement. “Were you good today? Yeah? Good girl.”