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Complex

      I turn in the leave of absence form, so a long break is ahead of me. School break, banghak, letting go of the learning. Does it always feel this light when we let go of the things we’ve been holding on to? I walk quickly across the campus, blowing on my cold hands to warm them. I suddenly feel melancholy, thinking that I might not be able to see all this again—the school library as warm as a greenhouse, the frozen winter trees on campus. I watch the small creek that winds through campus. The cold wind cuts through my body. I’ve been wearing this thin reversible coat the past few months.

      A while back I stopped at my dad’s place to pick up some of my winter clothes, but he changed the lock, so I couldn’t get in. I kicked and shook the door, but it didn’t budge. A boy, the son of the renters next door, said hello. He kicked the soccer ball over, so we passed the ball back and forth for a little bit, but I eventually turned around to leave, feeling defeated, my hands in my pockets. The boy must have wanted to continue; he stood in front of me to keep me from leaving. I looked at the soccer ball and its crooked shadow. I ruffled the boy’s hair and forced a smile.

      I walk into the alley and a scooter almost hits me. Bitch! The man on the scooter spits on the ground, and starts the engine again. With a metal delivery case on the back, he speeds away like he’s racing someone. I doubt his shitty scooter can keep up with the speed of his yearning.

      When I get into the apartment, Jimin Sunbe is eating sweet and sour pork as though she’s been starved, her face half-buried in the bowl.

      “It’s so unlike you to order this expensive dish!” I sit next to Jimin and split the wooden chopsticks, and she runs to the sink and vomits.

      “Yeoul, don’t you smell mugwort incense from this? It’s foul.”

      “I haven’t started eating yet, so I don’t know.”

      “I ordered it because I was craving it, but now I can’t eat it.”

      I finish the sweet and sour pork, and watch Jimin lying on her side. Her eyes are swollen, and her skin looks rough under the bright light. “Sunbe, come sit over here. I wanna draw you.” Jimin smiles. Even when I showed off my paycheck, or got into a handstand and circled the room with my belly button showing, she didn’t smile. Even when I told her I finally finished Thus Spoke Zarathustra like she asked me to, and even when I told her I liked her poems she didn’t smile, but here she is, smiling slightly. It’s been a long time since I saw her pretty pink gums. On the back of the page ripped from the calendar, the last month of the year, I draw her. The face that aches, the lovely face slowly building on the white space. The pencil keeps slipping off the slippery paper. I feel like I am ruining her beautiful smile with my terrible drawing. Should I stop here and leave it unfinished?

      “I went to the café the other day.” The smile disappears and her face is filled with grief. She always looks so serious. It scares off some of the underclassmen from approaching her, but she doesn’t know that.

      “Oh yeah? When was that? Why didn’t you come in to say hi?”

      “I … It was last month. I went there around midnight, because I know that’s when you’re usually done with work. The person who was there told me you stepped out briefly, and invited me to wait for you inside. He offered me a drink … You didn’t come back. You must’ve gone home by then.”

      “Hmm. Was this person a man or a woman?

      “A man.”

      “That must be Sungyun. Why didn’t he say anything to me?” Jimin says she’s tired and lies down. She turns toward the wall. Her shoulders seem to tremble. Is she crying?

      * * *

      I don’t want to go to Instant Paradise. I hate Instant Paradise. I swing the door open, thinking about quitting. I’m not really late, but Eunyong chastises me, “What took you so long?” An unfamiliar girl in a school uniform politely bows.

      “You have something other than the school outfit, right? Get changed and wipe down the tables,” Eunyong tells her, then explains that the café owner hired another part-time employee because it’s summer, and when school is out we get more customers.

      “But a high schooler?”

      “I know, right? Sungyun chose her. She came by a few days ago to inquire about the job opening.” I notice a blue notebook on the counter, and without thinking much of it, I open it. The notebook is filled with dates and names.

       … (oral)/1987.3.24. Kim Sora (Donduk Female Merchant University. Sophomore. Tall-ish)/1987.4.1. Yeonsook Park (middle-school dropout. Fat. Bad body odor)/1987.7.25. Name unknown. (College student. Failed)

      Sungyun snatches the notebook out of my hand. He is furious. What the hell was that? It looked secretive like North Korean spy codes. I think I saw Eunyong’s name.

      Today is turning out to be the worst. Sungyun constantly barks at me like an angry dog. Wipe down the toilet seats. Why are these plates dirty? Who ate the fruit for sale? Smile at the customers, will ya? It gets to the point that I throw down the rag and scream at him.

      “Stop with all the nagging, Jesus Christ! Why are you so riled up? Fuck, you’re acting shitty!”

      “What? Shitty?! I know my aunt is spoiling you, but how dare you to keep calling me Sungyun. I’m way older than you, you know. Don’t you notice everyone else calls me Oppa?” He goes on forever spewing this kind of nonsense. As he listens to his own case he seems to get angrier. He trembles, his fist curled tight. It looks like he’s about to hit me. Eunyong pulls us apart, and the high school girl pretends not to watch us. You fucker, you’re some sort of pervert, aren’t you? I know you invite women here after we close. Are you a serial cheater? A rapist? What would happen if I started yelling all this? What would he say? What would he do? You can’t judge a book by its cover—I used to scoff at the saying, but I think in this case, it really might be true.

      * * *

      “Do you like working here? The owner said you’re majoring in German Literature, right? How many years in are you?” the toothbrush salesman asks.

      “I just finished my first year. I started working here a few months ago. I plan to quit soon though.”

      “Oh good! I need a German tutor. I was looking into getting a tutor or registering at the German learning institute.”

      That would be a great gig for me. Today has been shitty, but maybe things are looking up. The toothbrush salesman laughs loudly for some reason. He clarified earlier that he is a dentist, not a toothbrush salesman. He opened his office near Gupo, but there haven’t been many patients. He thought it might be good for business if he had a few more certificates on the wall, so he is prepping for the German certification exam. He tells me he studied a little German in high school, so he’ll be able to catch up quickly with my help, and playfully begs me to say yes to his proposal.

      I don’t really care about his back story. Tutoring is a good gig, much better than working at a café. And instead of tutoring some sniffling kids, I get to tutor a real man.

      The shithead seems to be glaring at me—Sungyun, no, segyoon, a virus, a fungus. When I lift my head he makes a gun shape with his thumb and index finger. He pulls the trigger. He sends me the message through his body language: You’ll regret what you did. I will destroy you.

      I feel my belly grip with an ache. No one knows how much pain I’m in. There are many people who are actually sick inside even if they look alright. My uterus feels like it’s been bombarded. It’s my period. I wish I wasn’t a woman …

      Saved by the dog. The café owner stops by with Nana and immediately starts rambling about her fever. When I ask her if I may be dismissed early today, she lets me go without hesitation. Person or animal, we all should take care of ourselves. I thought about telling her I quit, but Sungyun, that virus in human form, butts in to talk to her about the grocery and alcohol delivery, so I decide I’ll wait a few days.

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