Present Day, Seoul

Traveling with the Wild Hunt should have taught me to have some caution when it came to overdrinking, but after reading the message that had undeniably been from Yun Seo to me, I’d been eager to drown out my feelings before they had the chance to drown me first. Luckily – or unluckily given the massive hangover I woke up with the next morning – Mason had been eager to experience Korean drinking culture. Little did he know that it was mostly toxic, all about competition and overindulgence. 

I hadn’t drank that much in one sitting since my early days of drinking when I had no understanding of my own limits and my friends were just as dumb. We balanced soju shots on top of beer glasses until we lacked the motor skills to stack them properly, and by the end of the night our table was a forest of green bottles and sticky puddles of alcohol. As Mason’s impromptu host in the city, I escorted him back to his hotel and took one of the last trains back to my neighborhood, weaving my way up the front steps and nearly falling into the front door before I could unlock it. That was the last hazy memory I had before waking up with a nauseating drumbeat echoing through my skull. 

The thump turned out to be my heart laboring hard as it pushed blood through a system mired in poison, and after realizing this, I simply existed for a while in misery waiting for the pain to ease and my vision to clear. I’d fallen asleep on top of my bed and was still fully clothed. I must not have moved all night, my body stiff as I rolled onto my back, limbs creaking with resistance. Groaning involuntarily, I attempted to catch my breath, my bladder full and screaming for relief in a way that refused to be ignored. 

Once I was up, my thirst became the next dominant need insisting on my attention. Shuffling into the kitchen, I squinted against the bright light and managed to fill a glass with water and then drained in one draft. I imagined I could drink the Han river and still feel dry as I drank another glass of water right after the first, my stomach protesting at all the liquid and recoiling in a way that made me worry I wouldn’t be able to keep it down.

Leaning back against the counter, I took a few slow breaths while I waited for my stomach to settle and my vision finally focused enough for me to notice the covered bowl on the table with a note on top. Chan Wook’s handwriting was a little looser than I remembered, but still neat and easy to read. 

“I heard you stumble inside last night and suspect you’ll need this.”

I knew the bowl contained hangover soup before I lifted the lid, and I sat down to eat it cold, hoping it would be just as effective in that state. It was delicious, a flavor I hadn’t tasted in a long time. I knew it would have been even more comforting if it had been warm, but I was already aching enough at the gesture and didn’t want to give myself any more reasons to feel guilty for staying out late without texting Chan Wook when he’d been disappointed by my need for space in the first place.

Pulling my phone out of the pocket of my crumpled hoodie, I texted Chan Wook to thank him for the soup and suggest we go out for dinner, my treat. He didn’t respond right away, so I assumed he was busy, but I kept my phone out a little longer, staring at the text string with Mason and trying to resist the urge to read Yun Seo’s post again. I’d asked Mason to send me his screen capture, making some excuse that I knew someone who worked at Liminal who might have more insight. Mason had been eager enough to comply, either not picking up on my reaction to the message or too excited by the idea of insider knowledge to second-guess my motives.

I sighed and tapped on the string, opening up the message full-screen. The words were the first I’d heard from Yun Seo in more than a year, and yet as I read them I could hear his voice in my head as clearly as if he were in the room with me. My imagined version of him sounded tired, a little rough around the edges, his gaze weary enough to be open and real in a way he rarely allowed himself to be. 

I’d always wondered how he really felt about me. If his post could be believed, he cared far more than I could have ever hoped, but instead of filling me with hope, this reality only soured my stomach because he’d waited too long to share his feelings. I had no idea if he’d actively felt this way while we were together or simply rewritten history after the fact. The way he’d tried so hard to take care of me after my father died seemed to indicate the former, but his retreat at the end still made me wonder. He claimed he hadn’t intended for me to ever read these words and that assertion was supported by the fact he’d taken it down shortly after posting it, likely after he saw it was getting attention. I wondered if he would ever have been willing to admit his feelings to me directly and concluded he wouldn’t have. 

The thought made me angry. He could have reached out to me at any time during the months I was gone and apologized. He could have told me how much he missed me. The fact that he’d done neither threw his apology into doubt. If he couldn’t find the motivation to share his feelings with me, then how much did they really matter? Missing me from afar wasn’t the same as risking everything to chase me down and tell me how he felt. Feeling regret over his choices wasn’t the same as going out of his way to make up for them. The more I read the post, the more it sounded like self-pity. He’d put his feelings out in the public domain to give them legitimacy, maybe in the hope that having others react to them would ease some of his guilt, but sharing them with strangers was an empty act and utterly pointless if the subject of those feelings never learned about them.

Putting my phone down, I closed my eyes against the brilliant morning sunlight and rubbed my temples to ease my headache. If nothing else, the post had confirmed my theories about what had really happened. Yun Seo was still alive. I was certain of that fact now, and I strongly suspected that In Ho and Na Rae both knew the truth as well; In Ho because Yun Seo would have needed his help in setting up another false life, and Na Rae because as strained as their relationship often was, Yun Seo would never keep something like this from his sister.

Not in the way he’d kept it from me. He must have asked them to lie for him. Otherwise I couldn’t imagine Na Rae could have watched me fall apart on the threshold of her brother’s bedroom without telling me the truth. Yun Seo probably even thought he was being kind, that by removing any possibility of reconciliation from my mind he was setting me free. All he was really doing was protecting himself from the consequences of his actions, in an emotional sense in addition to a legal one.

Exhaling a breath with a frustrated groan, I shook my head and stood up to carry my dishes to the sink. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do now. I knew Yun Seo was still alive and that he wanted me to think he was dead. Where did that leave me? I could force Na Rae or In Ho to tell me the truth and try to track him down, but did that make me a fool for trying to find a person who didn’t want to be found? I now knew he cared about me in the way I’d longed for from the beginning, but if he was so willing to give up on those feelings then they must not count for much.

Stomach full and thirst temporarily satisfied, I decided to go back to bed and ignore my feelings while I tried to sleep off my hangover. My phone buzzed as soon as I took it out of my pocket to put it on the bedside table, announcing a message from Na Rae, as if she’d felt me thinking about her. 

Do you have time to go to the museum with me today?

Sitting down slowly on the edge of my bed, I tried to decide how to respond. I wanted to refuse. I wasn’t sure I could hold myself back from demanding answers after what I’d learned, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answers she might give even if I got them. So I delayed the inevitable, at least for one more day.

Maybe tomorrow? I have plans with my brother today. Technically this was true even if the plans weren’t until dinner.

I’m not used to rejection, but if it’s for family, I suppose I can let it slide. Tomorrow it is. Have fun!

Relieved that she had taken my refusal in stride, I dropped the phone on the table and crawled under the covers. When I woke up again, it was late afternoon and I had a message waiting for me from Chan Wook. 

Where do you want to go for dinner?

Combing fingers through my greasy hair, I tried to think but didn’t accomplish much. I felt a little better after more sleep, but my stomach was still uneasy and the thought of eating anything at the moment seemed questionable. 

You choose.

While I was gathering clean clothes and shuffling toward the bathroom for a shower, Chan Wook sent me a link to a restaurant, a barbeque place not far from his university. Smiling at the fact that Chan Wook always knew how to help, I realized the thought of grilled meat sounded more appealing than anything else did at the moment. I told him I could be there in half an hour and he gave me a whole hour instead, so I took the opportunity to take a long shower, grateful for the house’s hot water heater, one of the few things about the old home that was better than average.

I felt a little more human once I was clean, dressing in a pair of slacks and a lightweight summer sweater that were both nicer than anything I’d worn in a while. The clothes had been hanging in my closet, remnants of my life working for Yun Seo I’d left behind when I went traveling, not expecting to need anything that dressy wherever I ended up. Tying my hair back, I frowned when several strands still fell forward to brush my cheeks. Maybe it was time to get a professional haircut. 

Regarding myself in the mirror, I noticed how differently the clothing looked on my frame now than it had before, the sweater clinging to my chest and arms like a second skin, the fitted slacks highlighting the muscular curve of my thighs and the contrast between my waist and shoulders rather than simply hanging limply on narrow hips. I hadn’t really paid attention to how much I had changed in my time with the Wild Hunt, but even I could see the difference in my face, the angles of my jaw and cheekbones cut more sharply than before. Not that any of it mattered. I might have changed on the outside, but I still felt as vulnerable and uncertain as I had when I left.

Chan Wook waved at me from a table in the back as soon as I stepped inside the restaurant. When I reached the table, Chan Wook was cutting vegetables with a grin, the grill at the center of the table sizzling expectantly. “You look better than I thought you might after the way you came home last night,” he said, his gaze making a quick assessment of me before he returned his attention to the food. 

“When I suggested we go out to eat, I was trying to save you the work of cooking for once,” I protested, holding out my hands to take the scissors and tongs from him.

Laughing, he offered them up with a little bow. “Thanks.”

“How was your day?” I asked, spreading the marinated pork across the grill. 

Chan Wook perked up, telling me about the faculty member he worked with as a graduate assistant. The eccentric professor wore shorts and flip flops year-round and liked to jog around campus shirtless on hot days. When Chan Wook showed up early for class that morning, he’d assumed the sweaty, unshaven man in the corner of the room was homeless until he saw his face and recognized his professor. “I couldn’t believe it,” Chan Wook told me with wide eyes. “He looked like a wild man who’d wandered in from the mountains, but then he started writing formulas on the whiteboard.”

I laughed, placing a few pieces of meat and scallion on Chan Wook’s plate. “How does someone like that survive in the hallowed halls of academia?”

“Are you kidding?” Chan Wook asked, blowing on the meat for a few seconds and taking a bite too soon. Waving a hand at his mouth as if he could lower the temperature that way, he settled for taking a drink of water instead. When he’d cooled down, he finished his thought. “Academia is full of people even weirder than that. Just look at dad.” 

“That’s true,” I said, unable to argue with that point. “I could tell by the eager look on Chan Wook’s face that he was hoping to use this reference to dad as a segue to things I wasn’t yet ready to discuss, so I changed the topic. “How’s your internship going?”

Chan Wook’s sigh told me everything I needed to know, but he proceeded to sketch out a scenario that was as disappointing as it was frustrating. He’d hoped the internship might turn into a job, but after finding out how toxic the workplace was, he was now simply biding his time until he could escape. 

“Better to know now than find out after you’re committed,” I said, adding more meat to the grill.

“I guess,” Chan Wook said after swallowing another bite. “But it’s making me rethink some things. I’m not sure I want to actually do this kind of work for a corporation. Maybe I’d rather teach it and do research instead.”

I studied him for a minute, thinking about how I’d always assumed his talent for math and coding would eventually lead to a lucrative career. Now that I’d paid off our family debt and given him enough savings to pay for most of what his scholarships didn’t cover, I realized it no longer mattered what he decided to do. He didn’t need a high paying job to dig out from underneath his debt. He could follow in dad’s footsteps and become a teacher without regrets. “Whatever makes you happy,” I said, meaning every word.

Somewhere between the marinated pork and the short ribs, Chan Wook brought up the weekend with a sheepish look. “A few friends invited me camping, but it’s no big deal. We go out once a month or so. I can skip this one.”

“Why would you skip it?” I asked before I realized I already knew the answer: because of me. “I’ll be around awhile,” I said, stacking kimchi with meat and veggies on a lettuce leaf and wrapping it into a delicious package for him. “You should go.”

Chewing awkwardly around an enormous bite, Chan Wook gasped as soon as he swallowed, “You will?”

Laughing, I nodded. “I promise. I’ll be around a few more weeks, at least.” 

He looked relieved and his smile was so broad I wondered how he would be able to eat anything else without making a mess. I felt a little guilty that such a tiny promise could bring Chan Wook so much joy. After the way we’d left things and the stilted conversations between us during our year apart, I had expected Chan Wook to give up on the bond we once had. I didn’t feel worthy of his forgiveness when I’d done nothing to earn it. I’d stopped taking responsibility for him, but I’m not sure I was any better at taking care of myself than I had been when I left.