Almond(24)

“You make a good point. I’ve been trained to say I’m sorry in proper situations.”

He clicked his tongue. “You’re beyond me. Crazy dude.”

“I’m sure everyone thinks of me that way, although they don’t say it out loud. That was what Mom used to say.”

“You idiot . . .” He shut his mouth. A beat of silence passed, during which I replayed in my head my earlier conversation with Gon. This time I struck up a conversation.

“By the way, you seem to have a limited vocabulary.”

“What?”

“Most of them are swearwords, but they are also limited. Reading books will help you expand your vocabulary. Then you can have better conversations with people.”

“So robots give out advice now, do they?” Gon smirked. “I’ll take this. I’ll stop by again next time I’m bored.” Gon shook the magazine he chose and headed out. The breasts of the woman on the motorbike shook too. Gon turned around at the door. “Oh, and don’t bother calling that douchebag who claims to be my dad, ’cause I’m headin’ home now.”

“Yeah, and I hope that’s not a lie because I wouldn’t be able to tell if it is.”

“Acting like a teacher now, huh? Just listen to me.”

The door slammed shut, pushing a gust of wind into the store. It carried a subtle scent of summer.





39


The pizzeria didn’t report to the school. Professor Yun must’ve compensated them well. Back at school, that incident only existed in a form of rumor among some gossiping kids. Cold tension was in the air, but after a few days, everyone realized that nothing else was going to happen. Gon kept his head low, not meeting anyone’s eyes. His two sidekicks hung out with other groups and came nowhere near him. Eventually, Gon sat eating alone in the corner of the cafeteria and slept through classes instead of glaring at others. It didn’t take long for him to be downgraded from a troublemaker to a nobody. As Gon received less and less attention, so did I. The kids’ attention was always shifting to weirder, more exciting things. Nowadays, everybody was talking about a girl who’d passed the first round of a televised talent audition.

Officially, according to how the kids grouped us, Gon and I were each other’s “enemy.” It wasn’t a stretch, given our history. So, by unspoken agreement, Gon and I ignored each other at school. We neither talked nor made eye contact. We were just two of the components that made up the school, like pieces of chalk or erasers. No one could be truthful there.





40


“Fuck, this shit’s too artistic for my taste. Can’t see a thing with those clothes covering everything.”

Gon tossed the magazine he had bought earlier down on the counter, muttering to himself. His speech and demeanor were almost the same as before, but somehow weaker. He no longer threw books on the floor, and his voice had lowered by a few decibels. But his posture was more upright, his shoulders straightened.

I had no idea why, but for some reason, I was invaded by Gon’s frequent visits—or his raids—against my will. He started to stop by nearly every evening. The duration of his visits was different each time. Sometimes he tossed a couple of meaningless words and took off, sometimes he skimmed through the books quietly or sipped on a canned drink. Maybe his visit was so often because I never asked him anything.

“I’m sorry you didn’t like it. But our policy doesn’t allow refunds, unless the item was damaged to begin with. And you bought it a while ago.”

Pah, Gon said out loud. “I’m not saying I want a refund. I brought it back because I just can’t leave it lying around my room, you know? You can keep the money, take it as a rental cost.”

“It’s vintage, you know. It has hard-core fans, I think.”

“Did I just read a classic? Maybe I should add it to my book-list, then.”

He chuckled at his own joke. But when he saw I wasn’t smiling, he quickly wiped the smile off his face. Laughing along is one of my hardest acts. I could force my lips to twist upward, but that’s the best I could do. A kind of smile so forced, that could easily be misunderstood as a mean sneer.

My problem with smiling was what had earned me the reputation of being a coldhearted kid since elementary school. Even Mom had to give up, after tiring herself out from repeatedly explaining the importance of a natural smile in my social life. She proposed different solutions. She suggested that I pretend not to have understood or paid attention. But even if I did that, it was often followed by a long, awkward silence. As for this conversation with Gon, I found it unnecessary to worry about these things. Because we just carried on talking about classics.

“It was published in 1995, so it’s like the grandfather of magazines. It’s a rare issue. Not many people recognize its value, but it’s a real classic.”

“Then give me another recommendation. Another classic.”

“A classic in that category?”

“Yes, ‘a real classic’, as you say.”

Such classics are usually kept hidden in a secret place. I led Gon to a bookshelf in the corner. I took out a book from the innermost, dust-filled end of the bookcase. It was a collection of pornographic photos taken at the end of the Josun dynasty. An aristocrat hugging a kisaeng in different positions. They were blatant and explicit pictures, some of them actually showing their genitals. The only difference from present-day was that the people in the picture wore hanbok.