WHEN I WAS 15 :: seungjin ✔︎

57

When I was fifty-seven, Jungwon graduated from university, and Seungmin and I moved to a beach house.

The house, of course, was close enough to where we'd previously lived, since we had to commute to and from work. Seungmin had his magazine company, and I had my dance studio.

On the topic of jobs, my children had also found some, or something like them. After studying nothing but medicine, medicine, and medicine, Minseo had technically graduated from university, but her education would lead her through many more years of medical school, and many more graduation ceremonies. Jungwon, having studied dance, just like I did, refused to work in my studio, preferring to find employment elsewhere.

With both of them now living away from home, Seungmin and I had decided an empty house wasn't what we wanted. I'd spent too many years of my childhood in an empty, large house. The beach place we chose was its own unit, but sort of small, having a cabin-like feeling. Each morning greeted us with the scent of salty spray and a view of the ocean, glimmering and sparkling with an orangey sunset glow.

"Morning, love," I greeted Seungmin on a Tuesday, joining him on our back porch to look out on the water. "What pulled you out of bed so early?"

He hesitated before taking a sip of his coffee and responding. "Bad dream."

I frowned. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Sort of," he said. "It was sort of about what happened last week."

My frown only deepened with understanding. Last week, Seungmin and I had gone to a café to pass the time. There, a woman—she looked around our age, maybe a few years younger—had approached us. She asked for my signature, and presented a photo of myself to sign. Not too uncommon. That did happen every now and then, and I'd learned how to hide my flusteredness at being recognized.

I asked Seungmin if he had a pen, and the woman looked over at him, almost as if she hadn't realized his presence. "Oh, is this Seungmin?" she'd asked.

"Yep," I'd replied with a fond smile.

She raised an eyebrow. "He looked nicer on camera. You could do better." Then, completely switching moods, she'd spat on him. Well, not on. At. She'd spat at my husband, missing him, but a solid glob of saliva made a new home on top of his pastry. Extremely random. Extremely uncalled for. Extremely, extremely, unbelievably rude.

Shocked, Seungmin had slowly stood up. "And I suppose you're the better that you're talking about?"

An indignant huff, then: "Your words, not mine."

I'd passive-aggressively edged her away, not giving her the autograph she desired, and ushered Seungmin back home after quickly paying with the smallest scene possible. We both knew of and acknowledged haters—no one in the world is liked by everyone—but nobody had ever addressed either of us rudely in person, and Seungmin seemed more than a bit rattled by the encounter.

Now, I wrapped my large hand around his, prying his cup of coffee out of his tremulous grasp with my free hand. "That lady was stupid," I reminded him. "People who aren't men aren't my type—at this point, men in general aren't my type. You're my type. I couldn't do better than you, no matter what some rando says, and I think I'm lucky even to have you."

I paused, rubbing circles onto the back of Seungmin's hand with my thumb.

"And besides, think about how sad it is for a middle-aged woman to go up to two married men and tell one of them that he's made a mistake. It's disrespectful. It's just plain dumb, too. Don't listen to those people."

Seungmin absently nodded. A long silence stretched out, and I could tell he was processing and organizing his thoughts to help him understand his feelings. I just sat there with him, feeling the coffee go cold in one hand as the other continued to move in a steady rhythm around Seungmin's.

"The dream," he finally said, "was that you realized your mistake and left with her. But when I think about it, it sounds insulting to you. Like I'm doubting your faith, which I don't at all. I think my brain was just being weird." Seungmin turned to look at me, his expression softening. "On the bright side—no pun intended—I'm not usually up this early. Usually you watch the sunrise alone before heading to the city for the early morning classes, but today we can watch it together."

His head swiveled again, and I followed his gaze. Rays of sunshine peeked out from around the horizon, almost like they were shy to illuminate the day. After a few moments, they broke free, spilling light onto the ocean, casting the world in a warm, peachy glow.

My eyes drifted back to Seungmin. His lips were parted slightly in wonder. I ignored the infinite rays of sunlight coming from the sky, focusing on the singular ray of sunshine who say next to me, his hand clasped in my own.

Leaning toward him, I left a fluttering kiss on his cheek. I turned away to watch the sun detach itself from the horizon, smiling. And when I stole another glance in Seungmin's direction, I saw him smiling widely, too.