Blood Sisters. Kim Yideum

get in.” Jimin tapped my chin and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. She spoke as though she was speaking to herself, rubbing my disheveled hair. “If I wither and die like this geranium, you’ll be a floating seed with nowhere to go. Go float somewhere nice and sprout, okay?”

      “Why do you imagine me floating? Do you think I’m some sort of insect? A bee or butterfly or fly buzzing around?” I wrapped the toilet paper around my knuckles like a boxer and threw a punch at her. She giggled, swaying like a reed.

      “I don’t know when I might die, but when it happens, take all my books, okay?”

      Did a white butterfly fly by at that moment? Did any of this even happen? The world is an impersonal space that keeps reminding us how small we are. When one organism disappears another takes its place. Everything just keeps on going, nothing matters.

      Despite the calamity, no houses are collapsing. No hurricane flings people, struggling to hang on to the door, up into the sky. Not a single devastating epidemic circulates. The world doesn’t come to a silent halt. I’m still breathing—in, out. I’m nothing but a breathing, grotesque death mask.

      Alibi

      “One ticket to Sanchung, please.” This is the first time in the past few days I let a peep out of my mouth. I pull off my mitten with my teeth to count the coins.

      “Same, please.” As though she’s been waiting for this moment the whole time, someone emerges from behind and nods as we make eye contact. It’s Sol, my friend. “I was here the whole time, but you didn’t seem to see anything. You look like a blind person. What are you going to Sanchung for?”

      “Nothing, really.”

      “That isn’t your hometown, is it?”

      “Why are you going?”

      “I’m trying … to go see … Jimin. It’s been almost two months since she died, and I didn’t make it to her 49th-day mourning.”

      “Yeah …”

      “After stopping at Sanchung, I’m going to go home to Hadong. My mom’s been sad that I wasn’t coming home for Sul,³ but the gas station I work at is busier during the holidays.”

      “We can go together then. I’m going the same way.”

      Silence hangs between us. In any other situation, say, if we unexpectedly ran into each other on our way to the same concert, we’d be so ecstatic about the coincidence we’d jump up and down together. Well, we probably can’t jump together. She has a bad leg, and she limps. Okay. We could’ve whistled a song together. On our way there, we might have bought a box of crackers, torn it open, and pasted them onto a messy sign to hold up at the concert. But instead … what is this distant chill that I feel? Her wistful gaze stabs at me like an ice pick.

      I lean into the bus seat and close my eyes. The bus starts with a rattle. An announcement declares that it takes two hours and fifty minutes to get to Sanchung via Jinju. A soldier who looks younger than I do sits across the aisle from me. He takes his boots off and eats some gimbap rolls. The intense odor of his feet, his food, and the mildewy mopwater from the floor wafts up, making me nauseous. The driver blasts the heater and I’m suddenly claustrophobic. On top of that, the conversation between the couple behind me is unbearable. The man insists that now that an average Joe like Roh Tae-woo has become the president, the world is gonna get better. He calls the previous presidents, Kim Yongsam and Kim Dae-jung, country-ruining bastards. His wife throws around words like gukwisunyang (nationalist pride) and gold medals, excitedly speaking of the ’88 Olympics that will open in September. She speaks as though Roh Tae-woo single-handedly made the Olympics take place here this year. Don’t they know Roh Tae-woo is not really that far off from the mass murderer, Chun Doo-hwan? I keep my eyes shut tight. I wish my ears had covers that opened and shut on command like my eyelids.

      “Yeoul, are you asleep?”

      “Yes.”

      “Very funny. Don’t be like that. Listen to this song.” Sol places her headphones over my ears. Kim Hyun-shik’s song is playing from her CD player. “Isn’t that nice?”

      “Not really.”

      “He went to jail for smoking pot. The Wildflowers’ Jeon Inguon and Huh Seongook were also arrested. There was a concert at the 63 Tower when they all got out ten days ago.”

      “Oh yeah? Did you have fun squealing like a stupid fangirl?”

      “Well. I’m just trying to say … everybody goes through shit. People bounce back from it.”