8. Chapter Eight
Mrs. Nam stands in the doorway of the store with her arms folded, looking at us like she’s about to give us a military briefing. It’s barely past sunrise, the cool air making me rub at my arms through my t-shirt, beside me Ryowoon yawns so wide I can count his molars.
“You boys have been loitering around here since you were knee-high,” she says, tapping her cane against the doorframe. “Time you made yourselves useful.”
Ryowown blinks blearily at her. “Halme, we’ve been helping out for years.”
“Helping out,” she snorts, waving her hand dismissively. “That’s different from real work. You want real money? You do real work.”
I glance at Ryowoon. He looks more awake now, interest sparking in his eyes. Money means something different to him than it does to me. For me it’s college fund contributions and helping Mom with bills. For Ryowoon it’s survival.
“What kind of work?” I ask.
Mrs. Nam gestures us inside. “Running the store. Opening, closing, restocking, manning the register. Everything I do, you’ll do. I’ll pay you fair wages, not just scraps and side dishes.”
Ryowoon straightens up. “You’re serious?”
“Do I look like I joke?” She narrows her eyes at him. “You’ll work in shifts. One of you mornings, one evenings. Rotate weekly. On your days off, I’ll teach you something useful.”
“Like what?” Ryowoon asks.
She smirks. “How to drive.”
The first week I take mornings, which means dragging myself out of bed before the sun’s up and walking down to the store while the streets are still quiet.
Mrs. Nam shows me how to unlock the roll-down doors, how to count the register at the start of the day, how to check inventory and restock the shelves with the deliveries that come in before noon.
It’s not complicated work, but it’s steady and consistent.
I like the pattern of it, the way the morning regulars come in at the same time every day.
Mr. Han grumbling about his newspaper being late, the construction workers buying canned coffee and triangle kimbap before heading to the sites up the hill, the ajummas buying vegetables and gossiping about whose son got into which university.
Ryowoon takes the evening shift, which means he’s there when the kids get out of school, when the factory workers stop by on their way home, when the street gets rowdy and the drunks wander past. He tells me about it sometimes, the weird customers, the ones who try to steal, the ones who linger too long staring at the liquor shelf like they’re contemplating their life choices.
“Some guy came in last night trying to sell me a watch,” he says one afternoon when we’re both sitting in the courtyard eating lunch. “The joker said it was real gold, but it looked like something out of a claw machine.”
I snort. “Did you buy it?”
“Fuck no. Told him to get lost.” He grins, picking at his rice. “Halme would’ve skinned me alive.”
Mrs. Nam’s voice drifts from inside. “Damn right I would’ve.”
Ryowoon laughs, and I do too, shaking my head.
On our days off, Mrs. Nam makes good on her promise. She takes us out to the back roads in her beat-up short cab truck, the kind with a flatbed and an engine that rattles ominously over every pothole. The first time she tells me to get in the driver’s seat I freeze.
“Halme, I don’t have a license.”
“You think the rice paddies are going to report you?” She waves me toward the door. “Get in. You’re learning.”
Ryowoon sits in the passenger seat, grinning like this is the best entertainment he’s had all week. I glare at him and climb in, gripping the steering wheel like it might bite me.
Mrs. Nam walks me through the basics. Clutch, gas, brake. How to shift gears without grinding them into dust. How to check the mirrors, how to turn without veering into a ditch. The truck lurches forward when I first try to move, stalling out immediately, and Ryowoon cackles beside me.
“Shut up,” I snap, my face burning.
“You’re doing fine,” Mrs. Nam says calmly from where she’s standing outside the truck, watching. “Try again.”
It takes me half an hour to get the hang of it, but eventually I manage to drive in a straight line without stalling. By the time Mrs. Nam tells me to pull over and switch with Ryowoon, my hands are cramped and my shoulders ache from tension.
Ryowoon slides into the driver’s seat and adjusts the mirror, looking infuriatingly at ease. He starts the truck on the first try, shifts smoothly, and takes off down the road like he’s been doing this his whole life.
“Show-off,” I mutter.
He grins at me, one hand draped lazily over the wheel. “Not my fault you drive like a grandma.”
“You’re going to crash us into a ditch.”
“Relax. I’ve got this.”
He doesn’t crash us into a ditch, but he does take a turn too fast and nearly sends me slamming into the door. Mrs. Nam yells at him to slow down, smacking the side of the truck with her cane, and Ryowoon laughs, easing off the gas.
By the third week, Ryowoon’s driving laps around me. Mrs. Nam has him practice parking in the empty lot behind the store and he nails it on the second try, backing the truck in perfectly while I’m still getting the gears confused.
Usually I’m the one who picks things up faster, who studies and absorbs and applies what I’ve learned with expertise flawlessly.
But watching Ryowoon behind the wheel is a whole new person.
His hands move over the controls knowingly, adjusting the mirrors without looking, shifting smoothly through the gears.
He takes to it the way he takes to fighting: instinct over instruction.
“You’re a natural,” Mrs. Nam says, nodding approvingly as Ryowoon brings the truck to a neat stop.
Ryowoon ducks his head, but his mouth curves, a faint flush of pride creeping up his neck.
The next week, Mrs. Nam’s delivery truck won’t start. She turns the key and nothing happens, just a sad clicking sound and the smell of something burning. She curses under her breath, smacking the dashboard.
“Damn thing,” she mutters, climbing out. “I’ll have to call someone to look at it. Lessons are off until I can get it fixed.”
Ryowoon leans over the open hood, peering inside. “What do you think it is?”
“How should I know? I’m not a mechanic.” Mrs. Nam wipes her hands on her apron, shaking her head. “Could be the battery. Could be the starter. Could be the whole damn engine for all I know.”
Ryowoon’s quiet for a second, staring at the engine quizzically. Then he says, “I could try.”
Mrs. Nam and I both look at him.
“Try what?” I ask.
“Fixing it.” He straightens, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I mean, I don’t know if I can, but I could take a look. See if I can figure it out.”
Mrs. Nam studies him for a long moment, then shrugs. “Couldn’t hurt. Worst case, I’m calling a mechanic anyway.”
Ryowoon spends the next three days elbow-deep in that truck.
He borrows tools from Mr. Han, scrounges up spare parts from the junkyard on the edge of town, sits cross-legged on the pavement with grease smeared up to his elbows and his brow furrowed in concentration.
I’ve never seen him focus on anything the way he focuses on this.
Not schoolwork, not fights, not even the cigarettes he swipes and sells for lunch money.
I sit nearby sometimes, pretending to study, but mostly I watch him.
The way his hands move over the engine, testing wires, unscrewing bolts, pulling pieces apart and laying them out in neat rows like he’s conducting surgery.
He talks to himself under his breath, muttering about starters and alternators and battery terminals, half of it going over my head.
“Where’d you even learn this?” I ask one afternoon, looking up from my textbook.
He doesn’t glance at me as he keeps working. “I didn’t. I’m just figuring it out.”
“You’re just figuring it out,” I repeat, skeptical.
“Yeah.” He sits back on his heels, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “It’s not that different from anything else. You look at what’s broken, you figure out why it’s broken, you fix it.”
I stare at him. “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.”
He grins, looking at me over his shoulder. “Just focus on your textbooks, Einstein.”
I flip him off, and he laughs, turning back to the engine.
On the third day he succeeds in getting the truck to start.
Mrs. Nam nearly drops her cane when Ryowoon turns the key and the engine rumbles to life, steady and clean. She stares at him like he just pulled a rabbit out of a hat.
“I’ll be damned.”
Ryowoon climbs out of the driver’s seat, looking sheepish but pleased. “Yeah. Battery terminals were corroded, and the starter was shot. Swapped it out with one from the junkyard and cleaned everything up.”
Mrs. Nam shakes her head slowly, then reaches out and ruffles his hair. “You’ve got a gift, boy.”
Ryowoon ducks away from her hand, grinning. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“It’s a big enough deal.” She pats his shoulder, her voice softer than usual. “You did good.”
Ryowoon stands a little taller, his shoulders straighten just slightly, and the corner of my mouth curves just as slightly.
Word spreads fast.
Mr. Park from down the street stops by the store a week later, asking if Ryowoon can take a look at his old Datsun. The engine’s been knocking for months, he says, and every mechanic he’s taken it to quotes him a fortune.
Ryowoon shrugs and says he’ll try.
He gets it running in two days.
Then Mrs. Yoo from the next street over brings her family’s minivan, complaining about the leaky oil pan and the air conditioning that stopped working sometime last summer.
Ryowoon fixes both, and when she tests the AC and cold air blasts out, she nearly cries.
She presses a handful of cash into Ryowoon’s hands, thanking him profusely, and Ryowoon just stares at the money like he doesn’t know what to do with it.