Goodbye, Summer
Jinyoung's bedroom was mostly hooks and furniture by now. He had gone through his things, looking for anything that he might pack up and bring with him the United States. He wasn't sure when he would be coming home again, and he thought he'd save his parents the trouble of having to ship his belongings across the ocean to him.
Those boxes were pushed against one wall and labeled: books, knick-knacks, clothing, winter wardrobe, photo albums and picture frames, more books and more knick-knacks. He'd heard the phrase "packing away childhood" before, but this was putting quite a literal spin on it.
It was almost noon, but Jinyoung was still in bed. He'd awoken hours ago, but he couldn't seem to get himself out of bed. That would mean having to start the day, and today happened to be the day he was set to leave.
He was lying in bed, staring at the blank spots on his wall where there used to be posters of 80's bands and promotional posters of movies he liked. He knew that his father planned on taking his bedroom and turning into his, so Jinyoung took them down and stored them in the closet. He looked at the boxes and mentally putting the things inside them back into their original places around the room.
Time to get up, he told himself.
There was knock on his door, and his eldest sister, Miyoung, let herself in. She was dressed in a long skirt and black turtleneck, glasses nearly falling off the tip of her nose. She was carrying a plate with both hands, and on it was a slice of chocolate cake with a single burning birthday candle.
"Hey, kiddo," she said. "You should get out of bed, it's your birthday."
He laughed out of embarrassment and then sat up on the covers. Miyoung lowered herself on the foot of her bed and passed the plate to him.
"Chocolate cake for breakfast?" he asked. "A few years ago, you would have punched me in the face if I even asked for a cookie before noon."
"This is the one day a year that I have to let you off the hook," she said.
Jinyoung scoffed. "All those Ph.D's are making you soft, Noona."
"Shall we honor tradition?" Miyoung said. Jinyoung laughed again, knowing where this was leading. Miyoung started singing 'happy birthday,' but in the ugliest, most off-key rendition she could come up with, and she switched each line between Ancient Greek and Klingon. Jinyoung cringed.
"Alright, alright, enough," he said. Then, he shut his eyes, made a wish, and blew the candle out. Miyoung clapped her hands.
"You're getting so old," she said. "Twenty-three? Ew."
Jinyoung brought the plate closer to his face and bit straight into the cake. It was sweet and moist and delicious. Miyoung hit his forehead with the flat end of a fork and chastised him for eating it like that. He took the fork from her and started eating his birthday cake. That's when he noticed that Miyoung was giving him a weird look.
"What?" he asked, mouth full of chocolate cake. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
She shook her head, but he could clearly see her fighting a frown.
"Oh, come on, Noona," he said. "Let's not do this today."
"You're leaving today," she said. "My little baby brother's going off to the United States to live all alone, and he's turning twenty-three and leaving home."
Jinyoung shook his head. Miyoung Noona moved out practically as soon as she turned eighteen. Even when she graduated college, she went straight into post-grad and wasn't home much. The last time Jinyoung had really lived with her was when he was eleven, right around the time that he first became friends with Jisoo.
Now, it seemed like the roles had been switched.
It was an odd feeling, waking up on the day he was set to leave his childhood home, perhaps for good. Jinyoung finally got himself out of bed and changed into his outfit for the day. He followed Miyoung downstairs to have a proper breakfast, thought at this point, it was more like lunch. He looked around the house and practiced thinking of it as no longer his. The one-bedroom walk-up apartment in Brooklyn, that was his now. A strange new place that he'd never even been to. That was his now.
He checked the traffic on the roads he would need to take to drive back up to Seoul. About four hours, though Jinyoung knew a way to cut that into three-and-a-half. He would have to leave soon, though.
After scraping down his late breakfast, he hopped into his car to get a head start on his errand list. Each time he thought of all the things he had to do before he could pack up his car and leave, he got overwhelmed.
First, he had to run to the store to pick up some food to have along the journey. Then, stopped by a station to fill up his car. He picked up his tuxedo from the dry cleaner's. Once all that was out of the way, he turned to important things: there were quite a number of people to say a proper goodbye to.
He went over to the school district office first and thanked Jennie for a great summer. Jaebum was there visiting, so Jinyoung bade him a farewell, too. Mrs. Kim had also been in the office, so Jinyoung gave her a deep bow and thanked her once more for teaching him music. He asked her to extended his well-wishes to her husband.
His mother and father were a good deal more emotional than he expected they would be. They had just sent their daughter off to live in Japan a few weeks ago, though, so he imagined that they were going through another bout of empty nest syndrome.
He decided to save Jisoo for last. She would be the hardest.
Jinyoung finished loading up the car around 3:15 pm, but the sky looked like it was an hour later than it was. He was amazed at just how fast things could change in the space of a few hours. He took a look at everything he'd managed to pack into the backseat of his car and sighed.
There was just one thing left to do.
He bade his final farewell to his family, and then he began the five minute drive over to the Kims' hanok. He switched off the ignition as he pulled up in front of the house, but he made no move to get out of the car just yet. Grass grew up in the cracks of the gravel. Flat stones had been laid on the ground as a makeshift path to the front door, which had finally been fixed and replaced. The tiled roof used to be a vibrant blood orange color, but years of sunlight and weather had turned it brown.
He spent so many afternoons here as a kid, learning to play piano and read music. He remembered that once had to help sneak Jisoo back into her room through a window because she was too drunk to use the front door. They once set off some fireworks right here in the front yard.
This, too, was home, he thought.
The front door slid open and Jisoo emerged from inside the house. Jinyoung stepped out of the car and walked over to the stone base. Jisoo met him there.
"All packed up?" she said when he got close enough. He looked back at his car and then nodded.
"Looks like that's everything," he said. "Except the bed and the furniture and the kitchen sink."
She grinned. "I guess it's really happening," she said. "You nervous?"
Yes.
He shrugged. "A little," he said. "Mostly stressed, thinking about how much work is going to be waiting for me once I land. I'm hoping I did enough this summer to make the moving-in smoother."
"I hear you," she said. "Moving in was a bitch when I went to LA, too. Is someone meeting you there?"
"The company is sending someone to pick me up at JFK," Jinyoung answered. "Other than that, I'll be on my own."
Jisoo smiled. "I guess this is goodbye, then."
Jinyoung frowned. "I guess it is."
"Oh, before you go," Jisoo said, then she turned and went back into the house for a minute. When she came back out, she handed him a slim white device. His Nintendo DS. Jinyoung laughed as he reached out to receive it.
"I'm sorry I lost your charger," Jisoo said with a chuckle. "I turned my room upside down to find it. Then, I realized I didn't even finish that level I was on. What a waste."
"Now we'll never know if you could have beaten it," Jinyoung said, looking up at her with a fond smile.
Jisoo fidgeted with her hands. "I want to say that I'm sorry, again," she said softly. "What I did was uncalled for. All that confusion you went through because I suddenly cut you off, I'm sorry."
He wasn't hurt by it anymore. It was like the pain had just packed its things and slipped away. But if apologizing would help Jisoo forgive herself, then he accepted it anyway.
"You know that you're my best friend, right?" Jisoo asked. Jinyoung sighed and gave her a soft nod.
"And you're mine," he said. Their eyes met, and for a moment Jinyoung felt that he was ten years old again. Seeing her for the first time. He swallowed a hard lump in his throat and then put his arms around her. Jisoo wrapped her arms around his chest and breathed in his scent.
This, too, was home.
"Don't be a stranger," Jinyoung said, forcing himself to put on a smile. He could feel her shaking her head against his shoulder.
"I'll call and text," she said. "And video calls are a thing, too. I don't know when I'll be able to visit or when you can make it back here again, but... I'll stay in touch. I promise."
Jinyoung nodded and sighed. "Good," he said. When they finally pulled away, Jisoo's eyes were pools of unshed tears, and Jinyoung silently hoped that they wouldn't spill over. If she started crying, he wouldn't be able to stop himself either.
"Be safe," she said with a trembling voice. Jinyoung nodded.
He heard someone say once that the particles that made up the bodies of human beings were the same things that made up the stars and the universe. Somebody speculated that perhaps the reason some people's lives were inexplicably drawn together was because once upon a time, their molecules sat side by side and were suddenly scattered when an explosion set time on its never-ending forward course. And now their molecules would do anything to be together again.
Jinyoung wasn't sure he believed that, but... if he did, it would explain why he felt so strongly, even as they bid farewell, that he and Jisoo would see each other again.
But for now, he let his eyes linger on her face a little while longer. He was trying to remember every dip and curve of her face, trying to make this moment enough to last him the next however many years it would be until the next time they could be together.
"Goodbye, Jisoo," Jinyoung leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
Then he got back into his car and began the long journey back to Seoul. Above them, another day cycled into twilight, and summer said its goodbyes, too.
Jinyoung slammed his foot down on the brakes. The wheels whined in protest as he pulled the Lexus off the road and onto the shoulder. He paused to catch his breath as he stared at the sign above:
Now approaching county limit.
After saying his goodbyes and packing up his car, Jinyoung hit the road. He turned up his playlist on the car stereo and tried to drown out the doubts that rushed him as soon as his wheels were on the pavement. With the volume on high and his focus on the road, he had successfully blocked out every nervous thought and every anxious feeling, but after an hour on the road, as soon as the county limit was in sight, he lost all his resolve.
What is wrong with me?
It was just a line, an imaginary line dividing one county from the next one. But as soon as it came into his view, he was gripped by a sudden, harrowing fear. He couldn't cross it. It was like there was an imaginary force holding him back and physically stopping him from leaving. Like his body inside the car was going forward, but his heart had turned into an immoveable stone that refused to cross over that line.
Every time he thought about leaving or getting any further than where he sat in his car staring at the sign, he felt like throwing up. That feeling you get when you leave home and realize that you left the oven running? It was like that, only ten times worse. Jinyoung's hands were shaking as they gripped the steering wheel. The color drained from his face when he realized that he knew this feeling.
No. Not again.
It was back. The awful stuck feeling that had gripped him for five years before that summer. He could feel it sinking its cold, terrible claws back into his body. And it was stopping him from leaving.
Jinyoung switched off the ignition and then leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.
Why did this happen every time we left home? He never pegged himself as someone who suffered from separation anxiety before. All children eventually leave him, and a good majority of them could do it without a single problem.
Why this? Why now? Why me?
He was going away to chase after his dreams, goddammit. Why was he hesitating?
A stupid question, of course. He knew why, he was just afraid to admit it, afraid to give it a name. To name something was to make it real. And it was already hard enough to leave without admitting it.
Stuck. Words stuck in his throat. Feelings stuck in his gut. Dreams stuck in fantasy. That was him. He gripped the wheel so tight that his knuckles blanched. Damn it. Damn it.
In the middle of his anguish, her face came to mind. And like always, the thought of her was a balm that soothed his pain and made the tangled thread of his thoughts straight again. A full stock of a scattered dreams pulled together by just the thought of her. She made his dreams come true, and there would be none to chase after if he left them there.
Jinyoung started to laugh. He looked out at the empty road and realized that it was the same one he'd taken the first time he left home. The same wrong road that he took the first time.
He twisted the key and the engine roared back to life. He put the gears into 'drive' and started back up the road.
An hour later, he was back at the Kims' house, and Mrs. Kim had just arrived home from a piano tutoring session in town. She was confused and a little bit concerned when Jinyoung emerged from the car and practically hobbled toward her.
"Jinyoung?" she said. "Are you still here? I thought you had left."
"Can I talk to Jisoo?" he asked, bypassing the niceties altogether. Mrs. Kim blinked, still taken aback.
"Jisoo isn't home," she said. "Are you alright? You look terrible."
He felt terrible. But in a good way. He felt like he could rush up a mountain, but at the same time, he felt like any minute now he could collapse from exhaustion. Did that even make sense?
"I feel a little sick, actually," Jinyoung said, hyperventilating.
"Oh god," Mrs. Kim said. "Do you want to come inside and wait for her? Maybe you should lie down a while?"
"No," he breathed. "Where is she? I need to find her."
His voice was urgent and frantic. He was sweating buckets. Mrs. Kim was worried. He felt like the words were going to tumble out of his mouth any second now, and he was afraid to let his emotions spill without Jisoo to receive them.
Mrs. Kim shrugged. "I don't know, I guess she could be with Jennie. Are you sure you're alright?"
Jinyoung thanked Mrs. Kim and then immediately got back into his car to drive back to the school district offices. He couldn't breathe. His stomach was in knots. If he didn't find her soon, he might actually hurl.
He intercepted Jennie just as she, too, was leaving the offices. Jaebum was with her, and there were a crowd of school children around. Both Jennie and Jaebum were alarmed to see Jinyoung sprinting toward them.
"What happened to you?" Jennie asked, brows crinkled in concern. "You don't look so good."
"I know," Jinyoung said, pausing to catch his breath. "Where's Jisoo? Have you seen her?"
Jennie and Jaebum exchanged looks. "Uhh, no," Jennie said. "I haven't seen her?"
"Are you sure you're alright, man?" Jaebum asked. "You look like you're about to keel over and die."
It felt that way, honestly. Jinyoung shook his head and then looked around at the front lawn of the offices. Where could she be? Where did she run off to now?
Don't be a stranger, he thought.
"Wow, the sky looks so pretty!" said a child behind him. He turned around and saw a group of young girls looking up at the sky. Instinctively, he looked up at it, too. It was a dusty mauve color and the sun behind the clouds tinged it with a gentle orange.
Twilight.
"Jinyoung!" Jennie shouted as he dipped out and ran back to his car without saying another word to either her or Jaebum.
Of course, Jinyoung thought as soon as he was back on the road and driving toward the harbor. His mouth spread into a feverish smile when the realization hit him. It was today. This day, five years ago.
Twilight on the day of the autumnal equinox. Neither day nor night, neither summer nor fall, and yet everything at once. The day everything changed, the day everything would change again. The magic hour, a mystical time.
He looked out the car window at the sun. It was setting beyond the clouds, racing him to the horizon.
He pulled to the side as soon as he reached and docks and then bolted toward the one where he knew Jisoo would be. His heart was pounding and his stomach was doing flips inside his gut, but everything went quiet the instant he saw her silhouette blackened against the purple dusk. Jinyoung let go on the breaths he had had been holding, and he walked down the pier toward her.
She was sitting with her back to him, facing the wide open sea with her knees tucked against her chest and an open beer can by her side. Jisoo turned when she felt his footsteps rocking the wooden docks. Her eyes went wide when she saw him.
"Jinyoung?" she said, astonished. She shot up to her feet.
His heartbeat slowed to a strong, steady pulse. It occurred to him all of sudden that he had been so concerned about finding her that he didn't even think about what he wanted to say once he did.
"Hello," he said gently.
Jisoo didn't know what he was doing or why he was there.
"You're still here?" she said. "Shouldn't you be halfway to Seoul by now?"
For just a moment, Jinyoung was distracted by the view. Behind Jisoo, the purple sky blended perfectly into its reflection in the ocean. It was so beautiful. Exactly the way he remembered it. A perfect moment, a moment made for crossing thresholds and righting wrongs.
"Hello?" Jisoo called. "Jinyoung? I said, what are you doing here?"
He hadn't heard her. He took one look at Jisoo and was beset by memories of the life they had shared together, and the life that they could have.
Jisoo furrowed her brows at him. "Jin—!"
"New York is almost 7,000 miles from here," he began. Jisoo blinked.
"Which is way much for anyone to cross either by land, sea, or foot," he continued, breathless and trembling. "I've been thinking, and I probably won't be able to use my two-week vacation perk for at least another year or so. Also, if you keep working at the school district on a part-time basis—considering how much a part-time educator makes a year on average, and I'm assuming you'd give a portion of your wages to your parents, plus yearly inflation—by my calculations, you won't make enough to afford to visit me for at least another two or three years."
She was still standing there, frozen. "You came all the way back here to give me financial advice?" she asked.
Jinyoung shook his head.
"No," he said. "I came to say that... that's too long for me to go without seeing you."
Jisoo's heart skipped a beat. "So," she said. "You're saying...?"
Jinyoung took a step toward her, not letting go of her gaze.
"There's a lot of things that I should have done," he said. "I should have practiced 'Liebestraum' one more time before the recital. I should've majored in Recording Arts. I should've broken things off with Minji months ago. But one regret trumps them all."
Jisoo's heart shook a little more with each step he took toward her.
He swallowed. "Jisoo, not a day goes by that I don't tell myself that I should have just kissed you that day."
Back then, he was afraid that if he kissed her back, he'd fall in love with her and be heartbroken when she left. What he didn't realize then was that it was already too late for him anyway. They had tried for so long not ruin things by introducing romance into their friendship. They put so much effort into making sure that things would always be the same between them.
But change happens. It's inevitable. Time was a cold, indifferent ruler that would keep on going despite their best efforts to stay exactly where they were.
"I should have kissed you," he said again. "I left you hanging and I regretted it ever since. Not just because it drove you away but because... even then, I wanted to kiss you."
Jisoo didn't know what to say, but her eyes were glossing over with tears again. It was everything she had wanted to hear from him five years ago, brimming out now, after all this time.
"I don't know when or how it happened," Jinyoung said. "But somewhere back there, I fell in love with my best friend."
A tear rolled out of Jisoo's eye and she wiped at it in a hurry. Jinyoung smiled.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I should've kissed you. I should've..."
Instead of finishing his sentence, Jinyoung takes her face into his hands and does exactly what he should have done five years ago. Jisoo had always thought their hearts and souls fit each other like two pieces of a puzzle, and her spirit bloomed to discover that so did their lips. She had none of the hesitancy that plagued him on this dock that day. She kissed him back, unlocking the door she had closed on her feelings.
The kiss broke when Jinyoung started smiling too much to be able to kiss anymore. He pressed his forehead against hers, letting their breaths synchronize with one another.
"Come with me," he whispered.
Jisoo's smile was replaced with a look of shock. "What?" she said, pulling her forehead from his.
"I said come with me to New York," he said.
Wha the fuck? she thought. Jisoo scoffed. "You're joking," she said.
He didn't say anything back, but there wasn't a trace of jest on his face. Jisoo guffawed.
"You're not joking," she said, slightly breathless. "Jinyoung, I can't."
"Why not?"
"What do you mean why not?" she said. "Because... that's crazy!"
He was aware that it was crazy. She would need to drop some money for a last minute plane ticket, and then she would have to scramble to get a work visa and then find a job once they got to America. But Jinyoung wasn't fazed by her sense of alarm, nor was he at all intimidated by the challenge that lay ahead. He would do it if it meant they could stay together.
"LA was crazy," he said. "You still did it."
"I did," Jisoo said, backing away from him slowly. Jinyoung held onto her hands.
"And then LA chewed me up and spat me back here," Jisoo said, her voice shaking. "New York is even more—what the hell am I even going to do in New York?"
He knew she was scared. He had a job and a house and a couple of friendly coworkers and connections waiting for him in Manhattan, and he was still scared. He could only imagine how daunting this must be for her. But he needed her there He gave her hands a reassuring squeeze.
"We could get a house," he said. "Or more realistically, an apartment. Someplace with a terrace or something with room for some plants and gets a lot of sunshine. We could go see a musical or something and you could start acting again. We could buy a piano and play 'Heart and Soul' on it. We could move the coffee table to the side and dance to Hall and Oates in the living room. Make waffles in the morning, talk at night. Just be together."
Jinyoung reached out and brushed her hair behind her ear. He became afraid all of sudden that she would say no. He could feel it, her sudden urge to run.
"I know it's scary," he said. "And I know that when you get scared, you run away."
That was her habit. That was what she did five years ago when he didn't kiss her. That was what she did when she failed to get her career off the ground in Los Angeles. She was runner. He knew that. Running away, that was what she did.
"Run away with me," he whispered. "Or better yet, let me be the place you run away to. Like you were for me."
Jisoo looked up at Jinyoung and she had another tear running down her face. He wiped it with his palm and begged her with his eyes.
"Run away with me," he said again. "This was our dream together. I don't want it without you."
Jisoo leaned forward and hid her face in his chest. The next time she looked up at him, she smiled.
"Can you give me a ride?"
Night had fallen. Jisoo was aware that her parents were in the house. They were in the kitchen having a late dinner and she used the window to sneak back into her bedroom. Jinyoung was there, too, helping her stuff as much of clothing as she could into the same luggage bag that she had brought back from California. She was prioritizing winter clothing since it would be mid-autumn by the time they made it to Manhattan.
She lowered the luggage bag out the window and into Jinyoung's waiting arms. He had parked the car behind the house rather than in front of it so as not to tip off her parents. While he tried to make room for her things in the backseat, Jisoo grabbed a paper and pen and began to write a letter for her mother and father to find later.
Her heart was thrumming in her chest. This was the craziest thing she had ever done. Crazier even than Los Angeles. Her hand shook as she penned her farewell. Once her parents' letter was finished, she wrote another one for Harabeoji, for him to read during one of his rare moments of clarity.
Admittedly, she was regretful that she had to leave this way. But knowing her parents and how completely against her they had been about LA, she didn't want to have to confront them about this, too.
This wasn't really goodbye, anyway. She knew that she would be back here again, but she wanted her next trip home to be a friendly, familial visit, not an exile from dream-chasing.
Once all the arrangements were made, she hopped back out the window and helped Jinyoung push the car out a little further from the house. When they were a fair distance away, Jisoo tossed Jinyoung the keys and they hit the road.
After an hour of driving, Jinyoung was approaching the county limit again. This time, however, crossing that line was easy. He kept one hand on the wheel, and with the other, he intertwined his fingers with his girlfriend's.
On either side of the road, trees shed their leaves onto the road, and they flew up in a flurry as they drove by. The wind was cold, the night was dark, and the road was long.
Summer was over.
- fin -