I get dental work done in Thailand before travel—there is a wisdom tooth that has to be removed and is replaced by a tender gap. I occasionally send a shiver of satisfying pain dancing down my neck and vibrating across my clavicles with the touch of my tongue in the space where the tooth was.
I board the plane in Bangkok.
A man is in the seat next to 6D, hunched over his phone, posture like an abandoned slinky.
I had been hoping for an empty middle seat, but I try not to hold it against him.
Overhead storage and takeoff.
Attendants go through the motions, instant coffee is served.
Turbulence sends cups flying, and I repress hysterical pleas to god(s). I look at the slinky in the middle seat, and he looks at me.
He bursts out laughing at the expression on my face. His laughter is kind and I laugh too, and my tension fades enough to allow for deep, calming breaths.
He tells me his name is Som Pal.
At Inchon, we pay to go into a lounge that looks like a North American high school cafeteria but with K-pop music blaring. We drink wine, and he wants to clink glasses and say chul muy before every sip. He fills up on bulgogi beef, and I pile plate after plate with four kinds of kimchi and spiced bean sprouts.
Tipsy, we go to the airport's Cultural Center where examples of South Korean folk art are being displayed.
We look for the free massage chairs I read about online and we find them, but they are unplugged in a hidden corner of the airport, piled up like so many pulled teeth.
We talk about Cambodia, where Som Pal is from and where I now live, and about the USA, where I was born and he now lives. We sit stretched out on padded lounge chairs looking through broad glass at the busy tarmac.
He is flying to Boston; I am going to Seattle.
We have only bulgogi and bean sprouts; we have tarmac views, shared drinks, and unmassaged shoulders.
When goodbye comes it feels like we've spent an eternity avoiding it, dancing over its toes like children tiptoeing across make-believe hot lava.
Goodbye is a tongue in a tooth-gap.