10. Chapter Ten #2
I hear him open the back door, the click of Yuro’s leash, the scramble of paws on leather as the dog launches himself out of the car. Ryowoon grunts, bracing against Yuro’s enthusiasm. “Alright, alright. Calm down.”
I get out and head for the gas pumps, filling the tank while I watch them disappear around the side of the building toward the grass median that separates the rest stop from the tree line. Then I go inside.
The rest stop canteen is fluorescent and crowded with the usual mix of families and truckers and couples stretching their legs.
I grab a tray and load it up without thinking too hard.
Two bowls of jjamppong, a couple of triangle kimbap, bottled water, a pair of canned coffees.
I almost grab a pack of shrimp chips out of habit before I stop myself, my hand hovering over the rack.
I stare at the bag for a second too long, remembering a bus to Busan and two boys splitting a bag between them, and then I grab it anyway and throw it on the tray.
I pay and shoulder through the glass doors back outside, plastic bag swinging from one hand, and stop.
Ryowoon is out on the grass thirty meters away.
Yuro trots toward him with a stick clamped between his jaws, his tail going in wide sweeps, backend swaying with the force of it.
Ryowoon crouches down and Yuro barrels into him, dropping the stick at his feet, and Ryowoon grabs it.
Yuro lunges, clamping his teeth on the other end, and they wrestle for it, Ryowoon pulling one way and the dog digging in and pulling the other, Ryowoon’s grip slipping as Yuro twists his head with a playful growl.
Ryowoon yanks it free and tosses it in a long arc across the grass.
He claps his hands twice, sharp. “Go, go!”
Yuro tears after it.
I stand there holding the bag of food, watching.
Ryowoon straightens, pushing hair off his forehead with the back of his wrist, and when Yuro comes bounding back with the stick he bends again and this time Yuro doesn’t wait, launching upward and planting both front paws against Ryowoon’s chest and nearly knocking him backward.
Ryowoon catches himself, one hand on the dog’s side, and laughs.
The tension drains from his jaw and the corners of his eyes crinkle and for a second he looks like someone I used to know so well I could finish his sentences.
He ruffles Yuro’s ears with both hands, lets the dog lick his chin, doesn’t pull away.
He looks relaxed and unguarded and so much like the boy who used to crouch in the dirt and cup frogs in his careful hands that my lungs can’t pull in a full breath.
I stand there until I’m sure the feeling has passed. Then I clear my throat, walk over, and hold up the bag. “Food.”
We eat on a bench near the car. The jjamppong is too hot to hold, so we blow on our chopsticks and eat in small bites, the bowls balanced on our knees.
Yuro parks himself at Ryowoon’s feet, chin resting on Ryowoon’s shoe, his brown eyes following every movement of chopsticks to mouth with hyperfocus.
Ryowoon pinches a piece of squid between his chopsticks and drops it. Yuro inhales it.
We finish eating in silence, toss our trash in the bin, and get back in the car.
Ryowoon settles into the passenger seat, shifts around for a moment, and then rolls down his window.
The afternoon air comes flooding in. He rests his tattooed arm along the door frame, elbow bent, his fingers hanging loosely outside.
Then he reaches back and rolls down the window behind him too, and Yuro pushes his nose into the gap, ears flapping as I pull back onto the highway.
For a while we just drive.
When we hit the expressway proper and the speed picks up, the wind becomes too much. My hair whips across my forehead and I can barely hear myself think. I glance over to tell Ryowoon we should probably close up, and stop myself.
The wind has torn through his hair, blowing the dark strands across his forehead and into his eyes. His cheeks are flushed from the air, his jaw relaxed, his lips parted slightly. His eyes are half shut against the rush.
My heart squeezes in my chest.
The memory of him straddling his motorcycle outside the shop with the engine still ticking, his helmet under one arm, his hair windswept from the ride, cheeks pink, eyes bright and alive flashes through my mind. The way he looked free.
“Do you still have your bike?” I blurt out impulsively.
Ryowoon startles. His arm draws back from the window, his head turning. Our eyes meet for a second. The looks in his eyes shifts, I see the same memory flickering across his face. He looks away, out the windshield.
“No,” he says tonelessly. “Sold it a long time ago.”
I nod once. Roll up the windows. Neither of us reaches for the radio.
We stop once more. Ryowoon smokes against the side of the building while I walk Yuro through the grass, letting him sniff every post and trash can he can reach.
I watch Ryowoon from across the lot, the orange ember of his cigarette flaring as he inhales, his shoulders against the brick.
The way he has one foot propped flat against the wall behind him, his head tipped back, eyes on the purple sky above us.
I call Yuro back and we load up again for the last stretch.
The sun drops below the horizon as we merge back onto the expressway heading south.
The light bleeds out of the sky and the headlights of oncoming traffic start to blink on one by one.
Ryowoon doesn’t lean his arm out the window this time.
He sits upright, both hands resting on his thighs, watching the road ahead.
When the first highway sign for Busan appears in the headlights, white letters glowing briefly before sweeping overhead and disappearing, Ryowoon shifts in his seat.
The next sign reads Yeonsan — 45km.
His fingers start to tap. Index and middle, drumming restlessly against his kneecap. His jaw tightens, muscle jumping beneath the skin. He stares out the windshield but I can tell he’s not seeing the road anymore. He’s counting down.
Busan — 28km. The sign flashes overhead and Ryowoon’s tapping stops. His hand closes into a fist on his thigh.
I keep both hands on the wheel, my eyes forward, giving him the privacy of not being watched even as every nerve in my body is tuned to the man sitting a foot and a half away from me. I can feel the tension building off of him like static charge.
The exits for Busan slide by on our right. Familiar names on green signs, neighborhoods I walked through weeks ago searching for him, streets I drove up and down until I knew them by heart.
Yeonsan — 12km.
The tendons in his forearm stand out where his fist rests on his leg, knuckles pale.
The Yeonsan exit comes and goes.
After that there are fewer cars on the road.
The expressway narrows, sheds a lane, and the landscape outside flattens and darkens as the suburbs give way to rice paddies and the long, open stretches of countryside that lead to the coast. The GPS on my phone shows thirty minutes remaining. I can smell the sea already.
Haemok — 18km.
Ryowoon’s chin lifts. His eyes fixed on the horizon where the last purple stain of twilight sits above the waterline. His face in the glow of the dashboard is expressionless, still, his features carved from stone.
I take the exit.
The car curves down the off ramp and the road tightens beneath us, the pavement rougher here where the coastal salt and weather has chewed it up over the decades.
The headlights sweep across the old welcome sign, faded and rusted, and then the road dips and Haemok opens up below in the dark, the harbor lights strung along the waterline, the stacked houses climbing the hills above it, and beyond all of it the black expanse of open water stretching south.
The town slides past in the dark. Most of the shops along the main road are shuttered for the night, metal gates pulled down, only the pojangmacha carts near the harbor still glowing with their plastic tarps lit from within.
Ryowoon’s head moves as we drive. Slowly scanning, his eyes sweeping the storefronts and the narrow alleys branching off between buildings. He’s unnaturally still in his seat, worse than the restlessness from before, it’s like he’s coiled to spring.
I take the turn away from the harbor, steering us up toward the hill roads, and in my periphery I see Ryowoon’s head swing toward the water.
His eyes move over the harbor as it passes, the dock lights, the black shapes of moored boats, the breakwater wall stretching out into the dark.
He watches it until the road curves and the view disappears behind the row of houses climbing the hillside.
The streets get narrow so I park at the bottom where there’s still room to pull over without blocking the lane, killing the engine.
The quiet rushes in. Absent of the highway noise and city hum.
Just the distant sound of water against the breakers and somewhere up the hill a television playing through an open window.
I glance over. Ryowoon is staring through the windshield at the street ahead, the houses stacked above us in the dark, their walls stained and close together, laundry lines strung between them. His throat bobs once.
I get out without a word. Open the back door for Yuro, who hops down and immediately puts his nose to the pavement, tail swinging in cautious circles.
I wrap his leash around my hand twice and grab my bag from the trunk.
Behind me I hear Ryowoon’s door open, the rustle of him pulling his bag from the back seat.
I start walking.
The hill makes my calves burn within the first thirty seconds, the pavement cracked and uneven beneath my shoes. Yuro wanders ahead of me to the extent of his leash, sniffing gutters and the bases of walls, investigating the new terrain. Behind me, Ryowoon keeps a few paces between us.