Page 54 of The Way Back Home

“Yah,” I call out, stepping outside. “What happened?”

He stops when he sees me, lifts his head, and I go cold.

The left side of his face is purple, swollen and mottled with bruising that spreads from his cheekbone down to his jaw. I suck in a breath when I see the other side, a wide slash cutting across his jaw just below the corner of his mouth. It’s still red and freshly cut, blood dried in streaks down his neck where it must’ve run before he had a chance to clean it.

“What the fuck happened?” I say again, louder, rushing toward him.

Ryowoon takes the cigarette out of his mouth, flicks ash onto the pavement. He says in his dead voice, “Dad slashed me with a broken soju bottle.”

My hands ball into fists at my sides and I want to scream, want to go find his dad and do something I know I shouldn’t, but Ryowoon shrugs, shifting the bag on his shoulder like this is nothing more than a scraped knee.

“It’s fine,” he says, brushing past me into the store. “Where’s Halme?”

“In the back,” I answer weakly. I follow him inside, watching as he drops his bag by the counter and heads toward the courtyard.

Mrs. Nam is sitting at the low table when we come out, peeling garlic for side dishes, her radio playing softly beside her. She looks up when she hears us and freezes.

“Ryowoon,” she says, sharp with alarm. She drops the garlic and gets to her feet, moving fast, her cane thumping against the ground as she crosses to him. “What on earth—”

She grabs his face, tilting it, her expression whitening. Her hands tremble as she traces the air around the gash, not quite touching it, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

Ryowoon stares past her shoulder at the wall.

Mrs. Nam’s hands drop and she turns away, gripping her cane tightly. When she turns back her face is stone.

“We’re taking you to the hospital in Busan,” she says. “Now. Don’t argue with me.”

“I can’t.” Ryowoon shakes his head, his voice still flat. “Mr. Moon asked me to take a look at his work truck today. He’s paying me enough to match three days at the store. I can’t miss it.”

“You need stitches,” Mrs. Nam snaps.

“I need the money more.”

She stares at him, her jaw working. Finally she exhales hard through her nose and nods once, stiff and angry.

“Fine. Sit down.”

Ryowoon sits at the table and Mrs. Nam disappears into the house, coming back with her first aid kit. She works in silence, cleaning the wound with alcohol that makes Ryowoon hiss through his teeth, his hands fisting against his knees. I stand off to the side, useless, watching as she bandages the gash as best she can, her hands steady but her mouth still pressed into a hard line.

When she’s done she steps back, looking at him with too bright eyes.

“You should’ve gotten stitches,” she says quietly. “This is going to scar.”

Ryowoon shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the first one.”

Mrs. Nam mutters something under her breath, but she doesn’t argue anymore. She pats his shoulder once, gently, and tells him to come back if it starts bleeding again.

Ryowoon nods, gets to his feet, and walks back into the store like nothing happened.

He slings his bag over his shoulder and heads for the door without another word.

I watch him go, standing there in the empty store with the morning light spilling through the open doors, and I hate that I can’t do anything to fix this. That all I can do is watch him walk away with blood drying on his neck and a gash on his jaw that’s going to leave a scar for the rest of his life.

The wound heals over the next few weeks.

Ryowoon powers through it, showing up for his shifts at the store, working on cars in the evenings, smoking on the harbor rocks with the rest of us with no change in behavior.

But the gash closes on its own eventually, leaving behind a raised scar that cuts across his jaw below the corner of his mouth. It’s stark and visible, a permanent mark that doesn’t fade no matter how much time passes.