4. Chapter For #5
The tide’s out when we get down to the water, leaving a wide stretch of wet sand and rock exposed, gulls picking through the shallows for what the retreating water left behind.
Ryowoon crouches at the edge, sorting through pebbles with focus, tossing aside anything too round or too rough until he finds the flat ones he likes.
We don’t talk. He skips the first one and it goes four bounces before it sinks, and I try to beat it and only manage two, my stone plunking straight down. He doesn’t gloat, which isn’t like him, he just picks through the rocks for another one and hands it to me without looking for a second try.
We stay down there a long while, the sun climbing, the bruise on his jaw looking worse in the full light than it did in the shade of his gate.
By the time we make it up to Mrs. Nam’s, my stomach’s growling so loudly that Ryowoon snorts at me.
Mrs. Nam’s behind the counter when we push through the door, mid-sentence about the delivery truck being late again. I watch the moment she sees him. Her mouth stays open, but nothing comes out. Her eyes go over his jaw, down his arms. Her jaw sets, color rising up her neck.
She doesn’t say a word about it. Not one.
She comes around the counter and puts a hand on the back of each of our necks, steering us both toward the courtyard.
She feeds us more food than we can eat, plate after plate, side dishes she wasn’t planning on serving today, seaweed soup she must have had simmering since dawn, pouring it into Ryowoon.
She keeps him close all afternoon. Has him sit near her while she rings up customers, sends me to fetch him a cold drink from the case when he starts looking pale, finds small chores to keep his hands busy, restocking the gum, wiping down the counter, anything that keeps him near her and out of the street.
When evening starts to settle and I get up to head home, she stops me at the door with a hand on my shoulder.
“Ryowoon’s staying here tonight,” she says evenly.
I nod. I don’t argue. I look back at Ryowoon sitting on the low stool by the register. He won’t meet my eyes, staring at the floor. I leave without saying anything else.
I’m almost to the gate when I hear her on the phone in the back room, her voice pitched low but carrying anyway, sharp and furious. I make out enough and shame and if he shows his face here, and I stand there a second longer than I should, my hand on the gate latch.
I don’t get far. I’ve barely reached the corner of the street when I hear Ryowoon’s dad’s voice carrying up the hill, slurred and loud, calling Ryowoon’s name like he’s looking for a lost dog instead of a son.
My feet stop moving. I turn back.
By the time I get to the storefront Ryowoon’s dad is already stumbling up the road, shirt untucked, one hand braced against Mr. Han’s wall to keep himself upright, shouting for Ryowoon to get his sorry backside home.
Through the window I can see Ryowoon rigid on the stool, his body curling in on itself, shoulders up around his ears, eyes locked on the door.
Mrs. Nam comes out of the back room. She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t even glance at either of us, she grabs her old reed broom from beside the register and marches out the front door into the street.
I press myself against the window to watch. Ryowoon’s dad sees her and stops short, swaying a little on his feet, blinking at her like he can’t quite believe she’s standing in his way.
“Cha Sungkyu.” Her voice is so loud that I bet half the street can hear it. “You get your sorry self home right now, or I’ll whoop you same as I did when you were a boy running wild up and down these streets stealing eggs out of my coop.”
He opens his mouth, a slurred defense starting to come out, but she cuts him off, jabbing the broom handle at his chest, making him take a step back.
“Don’t you dare try anything. You want to come near that boy tonight, you’ll go through me first, and believe me, I’ve got more fight left in me than you’ve got sober left in you.”
He stares at her. His mouth works, but nothing comes out, just a low mutter, it might be an apology or might just be him giving up, but then he turns unsteadily, and shuffles back down the hill the way he came, muttering the whole way like a scolded child.
Mrs. Nam stands in the street a moment longer, broom gripped tight in both hands, chest rising and falling fast, watching him go until he’s out of sight around the corner.
Then she turns back toward the shop, her face softening the second she catches sight of Ryowoon through the glass, still frozen on the stool.
She comes back inside and sets the broom against the wall and goes straight to him, pulling him against her without a word. He doesn’t fight it. His shoulders start to shake silently, and she just holds on, one hand cupped at the back of his head, murmuring something too quiet for me to hear.
I stand by the door, not sure if I’m allowed to be part of this, but eventually she looks up and waves me back in with her chin, and I go, sitting close beside them both until his shaking stops.
He stays with her until the swelling along his jaw fades to yellow, until the marks on his arms lighten enough that they don’t look so much like handprints anymore, then she sends him home with a bag of rice cakes and a look on her face that makes it clear this isn’t over, that some new understanding has settled into her, something that doesn’t go away even after Ryowoon’s bruises do.
From then on, every time his father passes anywhere near the shop, I watch her follow him with her eyes the whole way down the street, jaw tight, one hand never far from where she keeps that broom leaned up against the wall.