Page 45 of The Way Back Home

Sokcho appears in pieces. First the outskirts, then the denser clusters of buildings, then finally the harbor and the city proper spreading up into the hills. It’s bigger than Haemok but not by much, the same salt smell in the air, the same narrow streets winding upward from the water.

I follow the directions on my phone, navigating through intersections and side streets until I reach the base of a hill. The Haneul Apartments sit partway up, visible from where I park the car at the curb. I turn the engine off and sit there for a minute, hands still on the wheel.

This could be nothing. Some guy who happens to have a scar in the right place. A stranger who looks a little like someone I used to know.

But my hands are shaking when I get out of the car.

The walk up the hill takes a while. The streets are steep, winding, lined with older buildings and small shops. By the time I reach the address the sun’s sinking low, the sky turning pink and gold over the water. I stop at the base of the building and look up.

It’s exactly what the forum user described. An older mid-rise apartment complex, nothing fancy. A place where people live quietly, work their shifts, keep to themselves. The units face outward with open walkways running along each floor. I can see laundry hanging on some of the balconies, potted plants on others. A few people moving behind windows, shadows against the light.

I stand there on the sidewalk, staring up at it. My chest feels tight again.

I don’t know which unit I’m looking for. The person who messaged me didn’t know either. Just that the guy lives here somewhere.

I chew on my lip, thinking. I could knock on doors, but that feels insane. Hi, I’m looking for someone I haven’t seen in ten years, does anyone here match this description?

The street’s quiet and there’s no one around to ask, just the distant hum of traffic from the main road below. I turn and spot the convenience store on the ground floor of the neighboring building, exactly where the forum user said it would be. Light spills out through the windows onto the pavement.

I head over, pushing through the door. The clerk behind the counter glances up from her phone, a girl maybe nineteen or twenty with her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.

“Hi,” I say, trying to sound casual. “I’m looking for someone. A man, maybe mid-thirties, tall, scar at the corner of his mouth. Tattoos. I heard he lives around here.”

She blinks at me, then frowns slightly, thinking. “Oh. Yeah, I think I know who you mean. He comes in sometimes, usually late. After work, I think.”

My pulse jumps. “Do you know where he works?”

She shrugs. “Some car factory maybe? He mentioned it once. I don’t know which one.”

Car factory. Of course. Of course it’d be something like that.

“Does he come in often?” I ask.

“Sometimes. Like I said, usually late. After his shift ends, I guess.”

I nod slowly, my mind racing. “Thanks.”

She goes back to her phone, clearly uninterested now that the conversation’s over. I linger for a minute, then grab a canned coffee from the fridge and a packaged sandwich from the shelf. At the counter I add a bag of honey butter chips on impulse, then pay and take everything outside.

The table out front faces the street. I sit down, crack open the coffee, and unwrap the sandwich. I eat the dry, tasteless sandwich, washing it down with the coffee and chasing it with the chips. The sky darkens as I sit there, the streetlights flickering on one by one.

I watch the building across the way. People come and go, none of them the right height or build. A woman with a stroller. An older man with a cane. A couple of teenagers laughing and shoving each other as they head down the hill.

The air gets colder. I finish the chips and crumple the bag, shoving it in my pocket. My coffee’s long gone but I keep holding the can, turning it over in my hands.

This is ridiculous. Sitting here like some kind of stalker, waiting for a ghost.

But I don’t move.

The lights in the apartments flicker on as night settles in. I lean back against the chair and tip my head back, staring at the sky. Sokcho’s far enough from the bigger cities that I can see a few stars, faint pinpricks against the dark.

I think about Ryowoon at eighteen, the way he used to lean against the wall on the school roof and smoke with his head tipped back just like this. The way he’d grin at me when I showed up to bum a cigarette off him.

You’re such a poser, he’d say, laughing at me.

Shut up, I’d shoot back, trying not to cough.

I close my eyes and let the memory sit there for a minute, then open them again and go back to watching the street.