“Of course I do. Have you forgotten everything I said to you?” he teases gently.
No. I remember everything. I remember his first words were, “You’re American,” and the first sight of his dimples almost put me on the floor. I remember the way he carried my suitcase up the mini mountain over by Cheonggyecheong-gu. I remember when he first brought me to the river, fed me gimbap and beer, and kissed me so thoroughly I had stars in my eyes for days. I remember peering through the Namsan Tower camera to the cute couple in Busan and Yujun telling me that distance is a construct. I remember the last time we went to the river after Wansu said she’d acknowledge me as a Choi but that meant that Yujun would be my stepbrother and we could not be together.
He stretches his arm across the table and fishes out the red cord of my necklace, on which the jade carved duck hangs. I remember when he gave this to me and said ducks mate for life.
“We will find a way, Hara. Trust me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The first trust test comes in the form of a cousin or, more specifically, Yujun’s cousin’s family. Choi Juwon is the eldest son of Yujun’s aunt, an older sister of Choi Yusuk. He has two children—a girl and boy under the age of five. These are the kids that Yujun borrows when he wants to play laser tag or ride the roller coasters at Everland. Today, we’re taking the two children on a playdate while the parents have some adult time. We will then all have dinner together as a pre-Chuseok event. Tomorrow, the entire extended Choi family will descend upon Wansu’s house, and Yujun thought it would be nice for me to meet some of them before. That his cousin agreed to this knowing that I was Wansu’s biological daughter cheered me considerably. It meant not everyone was going to react negatively to our pairing.
We pull into the parking lot of the Hello Flour café and grab the gifts from the back seat. One bag has a large blue koala with a purple nose and the other is some indeterminable animal with yellow plushie fur and big black floppy ears. Yujun said it’s a dog, but I’m not sure I believe that. He has a few smaller items as well—jelly bracelets, paper craft airplanes, and sweets. It’s obvious that one never arrives at a Korean event empty-handed, not even a breakup.
“These feel like a bribe,” I joke as I heft a bag into my arms.
“It is a bribe.”
I stop short. “Seriously?”
He laughs at my naïveté. “Of course. Why else do we say, ‘Please take care of me in the future,’ whenever we give a gift? We want them to look at the present and remember us with warm feelings. And for little children, the bigger the gift, the warmer the feelings. Trust me. My cousins love me.”
“For your gifts?”
“And my great personality.” He grabs my hand and pulls me toward a short flight of stairs leading into the café. Before we can even place a foot on the granite stairs, two kids burst out the doors and launch themselves at Yujun. He drops his bags and catches the tiny tots and spins them around.
The air is filled with shouts of laughter, and my knees grow weak at the appearance of his deep dimples. The little girl in his arms, Choi Nayeon, loves them, too. She pokes her finger into the right one and then presses a kiss in the same spot. The boy, Choi Nara, is already wriggling free. He wants to go inside. “Milgaru! Milgaru!” he chants.
“He wants to play in the flour,” Yujun explains, his face creased with the biggest smile. He loves these two little ones.
“You don’t say.” I can’t help but grin back.
What’s the saying? Happiness looks good on you? Yujun is at his sexiest when his dimples are deep wells of joy and his eyes are crinkled tight. I love how the eye smile is celebrated here. Plushies’ expressions are stitched with upside-down crescents, cartoons are purposely drawn like that to portray extreme pleasure, people pose like that for their life shots. There’s not enough appreciation for the eye smile in the West.
Inside, there’s a bustle of people obtaining locker keys and suiting up their children in tan-colored jumpsuits that will protect their clothes while they frolic in the flour.
Yujun introduces me as his “Yeoja chingu, or girlfriend, Hara-nim,” and something else in Korean that sounds a little like “as I told you before.” He explained earlier the children don’t speak much English, but as my vocabulary level is around that of a kindergartener, I feel like I’ll be a good companion.
I hand out the gifts and am rewarded with squeals and baby hugs, which I find are the best hugs second only to the Yujun hug. There’s something endearingly sweet about being embraced by small arms that are barely long enough to wend around your neck. The parents bow and smile and wave goodbye, taking the bags of gifts with them, although two bracelets get left behind—one for each of the children.
Yujun helps the kids off with their shoes and their jackets, which I stuff into the lockers. Once the kids are in their protective clothing, bigger aprons are produced for us. We are then shown to a small room filled with flour, a slide no higher than my chest, and a plastic kitchen stowed against the wall. The two kids dive in—literally—and Yujun isn’t far behind.
He takes a shovel and dumps flour over both kids’ heads. They get their revenge by attacking him from both sides and taking him down. I help by filling small containers with flour that the kids use to fling all over Yujun. It’s not long before we’re coated like a set of vegetables ready for our tempura bath.
Our time in the flour sandbox speeds by fast, and soon the clock above the door says we have to go.
“Aaaani,” cry the children, or maybe it was Yujun. No one wants to leave.
“Beiking.” I pretend to hold a bowl and stir. The English loan words in the Korean vocab are helping me communicate with these adorable babies.
“Mmm, cookies.” Yujun rubs his stomach, and that’s enough to convince the other two to move on. We meet in the corner and take turns blowing the flour off with the pneumatic air hose. Yujun sticks the air blower up the sleeve of Nayeon’s shirt and then pushes her arm at the elbow so it looks like she’s flexing. I pull out my phone and take several photos, smearing flour all over the screen and not caring one iota.
The afternoon with the kids might be one of the best ones I have had here in Seoul. We spend the next hour mixing, baking, and then decorating cookies. While they cool, the kids eat a kid tart, which consists of white bread, cream cheese, and assorted fruits. They each make their own. Nara offers me a bite and I take a small one although he’s poked holes in the bread with his sweaty fingers. He could’ve smothered the sandwich in spit and I would’ve gladly eaten it. These two children are precious, and I can see why Yujun is so attached.
I would also never want to separate him from them. Fingers crossed, though, everything is working out well.