Page 46 of The Way Back Home

Someone will come eventually.

And either it’ll be him or it won’t.

But I’m not leaving until I know.

The lights start going out in the neighboring buildings. One by one, windows turn dark as people settle in for the night. I check my phone for the time. It’s nearly eleven.

I’ve been sitting outside this convenience store for hours and no one matching Ryowoon’s description has walked past.

My ass is numb from the plastic chair. My back aches. The clerk inside has changed shifts twice, each new person giving me a curious look when they arrive but never saying anything. I must look pathetic, camped out here like I’m waiting for a bus that never comes.

I stand up finally, stretching my legs. The cold’s seeped into my joints and I wince as I roll my shoulders. My breath comes out in visible puffs now that the temperature’s dropped.

I walk back toward the Haneul Apartments, stopping at the curb in front of the building. Looking up at the rows of doors, balconies stacked one on top of another. Somewhere up there, maybe, Ryowoon’s behind one of those doors. Sitting on a couch, or lying in bed, or smoking on his balcony like the forum user described.

Or maybe this is all wrong. Maybe the guy who helped that stranger at the convenience store just happened to have a scar in the same spot. Maybe I’ve driven four hours north for nothing.

I shove my hands in my pockets and stare at the building, chewing on the inside of my cheek. How much longer should I wait? I could find a hotel, come back tomorrow morning, try knocking on doors. Ask around more. Maybe go looking for car factories nearby, see if anyone recognizes his description.

Or I could stand here like an idiot, freezing my ass off, hoping for a miracle.

I turn to head back toward my car; parked halfway down the hill.

Something makes me stop.

I don’t know what, just a prickling at the back of my neck, an old instinct rising up. I look toward the crest of the hill, toward the top of the street where it curves out of sight past the last streetlamp.

There’s someone there. A shape coming up over the rise, shoulders hunched, walking slow like his legs are tired.

I don’t move or breathe. A part of me already knows, recognizes the shape of him even at this distance, even in the dark, even before I can make out a single feature of his face.

He gets closer. Passes beneath the shadow of a tree, out of the light for a second.

Then he steps into the light of the streetlamp and it spills over him, illuminating the line of his jaw.

The years have carved into him. His face is harder now, the softness of boyhood long gone, cheekbones sharper, the line of his jaw squared with tension worn permanently into the muscle. There are shadows beneath his eyes, they look bruised even from a distance. But I’d know that face anywhere, in any light, at any age. Even with all the years stacked on top of it, even with all the ways time’s remade him, I know it.

The scar sits right where I remember, a pale thin line beneath the corner of his mouth, highlighted in the lamp light for just a second before he tips his head down to drag on the cigarette between his lips.

He’s dressed in some kind of dark work uniform beneath a thin denim jacket, his shoulders look bigger than I remember, filled out, broader than the lean, wiry frame I used to know. His legs eat up the distance in long strides, a bag slung across one shoulder, and even from here I can see the ink curling along one forearm, dark lines disappearing beneath his sleeve, winding over the wrist that never healed right after his father broke it.

My heart starts and stops several times in quick succession, takes the breath from my lungs and makes my limbs feel frozen in place.

He’s maybe fifteen feet away when he lifts his head.

His eyes land on me. Just a stranger standing on the sidewalk outside his building, probably, someone he doesn’t recognize, someone he has no reason to look at twice.

He stops walking, one foot coming down and staying there, weight caught between steps. His head jerks up all the way, bangs sliding over his forehead.

He freezes.

His eyes flicker, sweeping over me where I stand on the curb, narrowing as they take me in piece by piece.

I hold my breath, frozen, every word I’d planned to say lodged in my throat. All the reasons I came here that felt so logical and necessary hours ago evaporate in the face of actually seeing him again.

Ryowoon, I think. Finally.

He takes the cigarette out of his mouth, lets the smoke curl out with his exhale, and says in a low, growly tone, “What the fuck are you doing here?”