Almond(29)

“So what do you want to know exactly? Why he reacted that way? Or what he must have felt?”

“Well, both, I guess.”

Dr. Shim nodded.

“It sounds like Gon wants to be friends with you.”

“Friends,” I repeated without meaning anything. “Do you tear up a butterfly if you want to become friends?”

“No, of course not,” he said, clasping his hands, “but it seems that killing the butterfly in front of you has really hurt his pride.”

“Why would he feel his pride was hurt? He’s the one who killed it.”

Dr. Shim let out a deep sigh. I quickly added, “I know it’s not easy to help me understand.”

“No, I was actually thinking about how I could put this more simply. So, it’s like this. Gon is very interested in you. He wants to get to know you, and he wants to feel what you feel. But after hearing your story, it seems like he was always the one initiating contact between you two. How about you initiate once in a while?”

“How?”

“There are a hundred answers to one question in this world. So it’s hard for me to give you a correct answer. And the world is even more of a puzzle at your age, when you have to search for answers yourself. But if you still want my advice, let me answer by asking you this: What did Gon do most often to get close to you?”

“Hit me.”

Dr. Shim shrugged. “Sorry, I forgot. Let’s leave that one out. What’s the next thing he did most often?”

“Uhm . . .” I thought for a while. “He visited me.”

Dr. Shim tapped the table and nodded. “It seems you’ve found one answer.”





46


Gon’s housekeeper peeled an apple for me while I waited. A plump woman, she had soft eyes and a mouth that made her look like she was smiling even when she wasn’t. She managed to peel the apple in one long, unbroken spiral. I sat waiting at a dining table in a stranger’s apartment, with the apple before me. By the time the apple turned brown, Gon had arrived. He seemed surprised to see me, but the housekeeper struck up a conversation to make things less awkward.

“Welcome home, Gon. Your friend’s here to see you. He’s been waiting for half an hour. Your father says he’ll be home late. Did you eat?”

“No, I’m fine, thank you,” Gon said, wearing an expression I had never seen him wear before. His voice was polite, low and calm. But as soon as she disappeared, Gon was back to his usual, gruff self.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Nothing, I just came by to see you.”

Gon pouted. The housekeeper brought two bowls of hot noodle soup. He must’ve been starving actually, since he began to noisily slurp the noodles at once.

“She comes here twice a week. I like her. At least it’s more comfortable having her around than that guy who calls himself my dad,” Gon muttered. It seemed he still wasn’t getting along with his dad. Their apartment was far away from the school. A clean, luxurious penthouse that overlooked the Han River and almost every landmark in Seoul. But Gon said he didn’t feel like he was living that high up.

It had been a long time since Gon and his dad last talked. Professor Yun exhausted all his energy in the beginning, trying to connect with Gon, and had soon given up. His classes and seminars gave him a good excuse to spend most of his time outside of the house, and so the gap between father and son remained unbridged.

“That guy . . . never asked me what my life was like before. Or what I’d been through in juvie, or what kind of kids I hung out with. Never asked what I longed for or what made me despair . . . Do you know the first thing he did after we met? He put me into some stuck-up school in Gangnam. I guess he thought I would behave well there, study hard, and go to a good college. But on my first day, I realized it was not the place for a fuckup like me. I didn’t belong there. It was written on the faces of every kid and teacher. So I raised hell. Of course the school wasn’t having it. They kicked me out after just a few days,” he snorted.

“Then that guy somehow managed to transfer me to our school. At least it’s a decent humanities school, so he saved face. But basically, all he plans is to pour concrete over my life and construct a new building of his own design. But I’m not that kind of a person . . .” Gon stared down at the floor. “I’m not his son. I’m just some junk that came his way by accident. That’s why he didn’t let me see that woman before she died . . .”

*

Mom. Whenever the word came up, Gon lapsed into a sudden silence. Whether it was mentioned in a book or movie or by a passing pedestrian, Gon would stop talking as if he were mute.

Gon remembered only one thing about his mother: her warm and tender hands. He couldn’t picture her face, but he could still remember the moist, soft texture of her hands. He remembered holding those hands to do shadow plays under warm sunlight.

Whenever life pulled brutal pranks on him, Gon would think that life was like having your mom hold your hands one moment, warm and safe, then suddenly drop them with no explanation. No matter how hard he tried to grab hold, he was always abandoned in the end.

“Between you and me, who do you think is more miserable? You, who had and lost a mom, or me, who suddenly met a mom I didn’t even remember, only to have her die right after.”