If I Had Your Face(38)

“I don’t know anyone here,” I said. “Except for the friends I came with, I mean. Is that the person who lives here?”

“Yeah, this is Byung-joon’s apartment,” he said, taking a swig of his whiskey. “Who are you here with?”

“Ruby and Hanbin and Minwoo? I don’t know if you know them.”

“Yes, I know them,” he said. “I went to middle school with Minwoo and elementary with Hanbin. They’re dating again, right? Hanbin and Ruby?”

“Yes,” I said. “They’re dating again.” I stared into my drink and took a sip.

“They’re always on and off, those two,” he said, smiling, as if it was a joke between us. With that smile, his face suddenly looked warm—like that of an elegant vampire that had drunk his nightly fill.

“So, where did you go to high school?” he asked. My heart sank. It was probably the most common question I received when I met new Korean study-abroad kids in the city. There were only a handful of possible answers in their circles and the answer immediately established background and context for each other. While most of them had gone to boarding school on the East Coast, there were a few who had gone to the foreign-language high schools in Korea. The boarding school kids were much wealthier and spoke better English, while the foreign-language school kids were geekier. The boarding school kids tended to avoid the Korean school kids. I was neither, obviously.

I had two choices—telling them the name of my high school, which included the province I was from, would immediately label me as some gawk-worthy hick. I chose to go with a more vague answer.

“I went to a small arts school in Korea,” I said, hoping that would be enough. Not that I really cared what he thought of me, but I had come to dread the moment of the raised eyebrows, if not actual derision. Too late, I remembered that he went to SVA, so of course he would ask the name of the art school.

“Seoul Arts?” he asked knowingly.

“No,” I said, and then after a pause, “It was in Cheongju, actually.”

“Cheongju? Oh wow,” he said. “That’s so interesting! I’ve never met anyone from Cheongju. Apart from, you know, distant relatives or something.” He looked at me with great interest. “Cheongju,” he said again.

I smiled weakly.

“You don’t have, like, an accent or anything,” he said. “Actually, I have no idea if people from Cheongju have accents. Sorry, is that rude?” He smiled again and shook off his jacket, and from the redness of his neck I realized he had probably drunk a lot. The flush of his neck contrasted sharply with his white face.

“What’s your major?” I asked. Not fine arts, I was guessing.

“Design. But I’m taking a lot of film classes this semester actually. Wondering if I should switch. How did you end up here?”

“Hey, Jae, it’s been a long time.” The boy and I turned to see Hanbin sliding onto the barstool next to me. He nodded to Jae, who looked a bit surprised, then pleased.

“Hanbin! A really long time. At that poker game in Boston, right? That was the last time I saw you?”

“Yeah, man.” Hanbin gestured to the bartender and ordered a whiskey.

“I was just talking to your friend here, who turns out to be at SVA too,” said the boy. “I’m Jae Kong by the way.”

“I’m Miho,” I said.

“You know each other through Ruby?” he guessed. I nodded.

“Yes, Miho’s a really good friend of ours,” said Hanbin. I may have been imagining it, but his tone sounded like it had a steel edge to it. “She’s one of Ruby’s best friends, actually.”

“Oh wow,” said the boy, looking at me again. “Cool, man.”

Hanbin started talking to me about a Japanese movie we had seen at Ruby’s apartment the previous week. It was odd that he was talking about it—since it hadn’t been particularly interesting and he’d fallen asleep almost halfway through. After a few minutes of being ignored, Jae saw someone else he knew and sauntered off.

“I’m sorry if he was bothering you,” said Hanbin abruptly, swirling his whiskey. “He’s kind of annoying. I think Ruby went to school with him in Korea.”

I shook my head. “He wasn’t bothering me.”

“You know, even before I heard about the orphanage, I knew you were different,” he said, not looking at me. “I didn’t realize that was why, though. It must have been really hard, going through all that. It makes you think. Like, everyone I know is kind of the same—they’ve had the same sort of life growing up,” he said. “It’s different getting to know you, you know what I mean?” He ran his hand through his hair absentmindedly and I thought again how handsome he looked.

“You’re so normal too,” he added.

I frowned uncertainly. “What does that mean?” I asked. He sounded as if he wanted to be congratulated for this observation.

“I don’t know, I feel like I would be all kinds of messed up if I’d had to go through what you went through—no offense,” he said quickly.

I felt a hot embarrassment searing into my stomach and took a quick sip of my drink. But he was talking to me in a more intimate way than he ever had before, and for that I had no choice but to continue in this moment as if it were like any other.