Heart Abroad, 16.1
Title: Heart Abroad
Pairings/Characters: Jaejoong/Yamapi
Rating/Warnings: T for language and (eventual) making out
Disclaimer: I own nothing; written just for fun
Summary: Road trip fun times. Find the duck ;)
A/N: For kicks.
Heart Abroad, Part 16
Jaejoong’s not supposed to pick him up until after 10:00 on Saturday but Yamapi is showered and ready as early as on a school morning, although he’s in a comfortably broken in pair of jeans instead of fitted dress slacks for once.
After finishing a bowl of rice in less than three minutes and then fidgeting on his bed in front of some cooking show on TV until his plaid button down is hopelessly wrinkled Yamapi decides to take a walk.
Walking helps calm his nerves, fresh air and all that, plus there’s usually something interesting to see as he lets his feet follow his wandering mind: a few birds fighting over an empty plastic ice cream cup some elementary kid or college kid chucked into the bushes on the walk home from school, old men squatting in shady alleys to smoke hand rolled cigarettes and spit gobs of well meditated phlegm between the feet of passersby, delivery boys on scooters with red plastic crates strapped to the fenders veering around corners and around games of chase and kick ball that inevitably spill off sidewalks and out of side yards and into the street.
Today he only makes it to the end of the first block, not even to the 7-Eleven, before realizing that his phone is at the edge of the sink and he will totally miss Jaejoong’s arrival call if it happens to come an hour and forty minutes early. Slightly panicked (but not really, since Yamapi tells himself he definitely would have seen Jaejoong’s car pull up since he hasn’t even turned the corner from his own street), Yamapi speed walks as fast as his sandals and dignity will allow, not even turning his head to smile at two preschoolers who shyly wave from their porch as he stalks by.
By the time Yamapi trots up the stairs and jiggers the lock open he can feel the slick sheen of sweat coating the underside of his bangs and the tendrils along the nape of his neck. Shit, that means his shirt is probably damp too. Yamapi snatches his phone from the kitchen counter and checks for messages as he jogs into the bathroom to assess the sweat and wind damage to his freshly washed and painstakingly mussed hair. It looks about the same as when he left. Zero new messages.
Yamapi fishes his oil removal blotting sheets from the bottom of his backpack and carefully lifts his hair away from his face to dab the traces of moisture from his eyebrows. He lets out a deep breath through his nostrils and gently lowers the strands back into place, lock by lock, before blotting the creases of his nose and the edges of his self-esteem.
Ok, collar straightened, check; skin moisturized, check; hair in place, check; smile calm and natural, check; he’s all ready to go.
Yamapi sits back down on the bed but tries not to move or touch anything this time, second guessing his fashion choices and wishing he had the foresight to do his laundry; only 72 minutes more to wait, he notes from the time stamp in the corner of his still empty phone mail inbox. Ok, maybe the issue wasn’t lacking foresight, more like motivation, but Cookie Run had been so much more fascinating than the inside of his washer promised to be two nights before and by the time he considered tackling his laundry basket again it was already Friday evening, most definitely too late in the game for the clothes to actually dry in time to for Saturday. Probably.
Yamapi picks at the last button of his shirt and sighs. Despite their running stream of light banter and bitchy life commentary on kakao, it’s been two whole weeks since he’s seen Jaejoong in person. What if it’s awkward without Erika there to make fun of their hair and order one more round? What if Jaejoong realizes an hour into their visit that he doesn’t like hanging out with Yamapi, just the two of them? What if Yamapi makes a mistake and accidentally says something horrible in Korean and Jaejoong kicks him out of the car and he has to walk back to Jeongeup? And the jeans he has on are totally dumb, aren’t they. Shit.
Technically, Yamapi knows he’s probably being a little silly. He won’t have to speak Korean to Jaejoong, for one thing, and they’re just going apple picking, like in a field with dirt and earthworms and whatever else lives in the mud. Jaejoong is probably going to be wearing jeans too, he tries to reassure himself as he loads Cookie Run on his phone just to keep his fingers busy.
Jaejoong is, in fact, wearing jeans when he rings the bell an hour later--designer jeans. Yamapi smiles and quickly turns away to grab his bag, his mind suddenly shorting out on him when the digitized Beethoven doorbell tune cuts as the door swings open past the threshold.
“Tomo-kun~!” Jaejoong grabs the door before it can slam in his face, hopping over the ledge into the genkan and arching forward on tiptoe to pull Yamapi into an awkward side hug without bothering to remove his shoes.
Yamapi pats his back and pulls away to kneel by his bag, scrambling to stuff his wallet and cap and bottle of suncream he thought he had packed the night before into the front pocket of his backpack.
“Is that the extra moisturizing kind?” Jaejoong smirks, patting the suncream bottle shaped bulge in the front of the bag with a loose fingered fist.
“So I take care of my skin,” Yamapi shrugs, squirming into his sneakers. It would be easier if he put down his bag to pull them on with his hands but he doesn’t want to risk bending over and flushing a darker flustered red than he already has. He hates not being ready when someone shows up.
“Mm hmm.” Jaejoong’s hand is propping the door open but it’s only cracked. Yamapi feels a tangle of nerves relax at the base of his neck at the patient gesture and gratefully takes an extra moment to wiggle his shoes into place with his toes.
“You don’t need to moisturize?” he teases, grinning as the perimeters of Jaejoong’s eyes narrow and pulse back open into widened innocence.
“With a face like mine? Hah!” he scoffs, throwing the door open to the warm October sunlight. “Hurry up~! We’re supposed to get there before lunch hour!” This time Jaejoong doesn’t wait for Yamapi to catch the door before releasing his grip and bounding down the steps. Well, he’s been as patient as Jaejoong can be, Yamapi thinks with a smile as he quickly locks the door and follows Jaejoong down to the curb. His car is running, the emergency brake pulled and his rubber Ponyo key ring dangling from the ignition.
“Did you eat?” Jaejoong asks as they’re buckling in, suddenly remembering the customary Korean greeting five minutes past due.
“Yes!” Yamapi assures him with a thumbs up, tucking his bag between his knees and the floor of the car. Jaejoong has a nice car. It’s practically new, traces of chemical undertone clinging to the soft leather upholstery, although he must have been driving it for at least a few months Yamapi surmises from the layer of wadded kleenex and crumpled sandwich wrappers littering the floor. Department store shopping bags spill stacks of print outs and faded receipts onto the seats in the back. Yamapi saves a stack from sliding off the dash as Jaejoong makes a sharp U-turn at the end of the street.
“Sorry about those! Just throw them in the back,” Jaejoong apologizes with a wave as if he were inviting Yamapi to help himself to some cake at a tea party. Yampi shuffles the papers into a neat pile and leans between their chairs to place them in the middle seat on top of a Korean-English dictionary spread open to “Q”. February 23, 2013, the top page is marked. There’s a note in the margin in a sprawling hand inked in purple, “I think the basis of your research shows promise...”
“Why are you wearing flannel?” Jaejoong peels one hand off the white leather steering wheel cover to flick at Yamapi’s shoulder. Yamapi straightens back up with a start.
“Because it’s cold?”
“No it’s not! There’s hardly even a breeze!” Jaejoong’s wearing a thin T, long sleeved but nearly sheer in the places where his shoulder blades and elbows rub. Yamapi’s not sure if the shirt is just well loved or if it was bought that way; he could see Jaejoong going for either look, to be honest. It seems soft enough to have been gradually worn into comfort, though.
“It was cold this morning!” Yamapi pretends to pout out the window. They’re speeding past the 7-Eleven, though the darkened windows are too reflective for him to see into the shop.
“Pthhl!”
Yeah, Yamapi can’t really insist on that one either. Despite it being too cold to sleep with the windows open anymore he had been sweating by the end of his short lived neighborhood stroll.
“Don’t tell me you wore flannel because you have some weird stereotype of rural citizens,” Jaejoong sighs, his thumbs rubbing soft circles into the steering wheel. Yamapi tries to keep his mind on the conversation and not let it veer off into dangerous territory. Like how nice a back massage would feel right now. No.
“Um, maybe? I don’t know!” Yamapi shakes his head. “It’s just a shirt, Jaejoong. It was in my closet, so I wore it.”
“Do you think they have, like, a provincial dress code or something?”
“You tell me, I’m not from the countryside. I just thought it would be...comfortable.” Yamapi’s rolling his eyes out the window but he’s pretty sure Jaejoong can hear the smile creeping into his voice.
“I am not from the countryside!” Jaejoong protests, gripping the wheel to pull his posture upright. Yamapi’s only sat with him a few times but he’s already noticed Jaejoong’s tendency to start slouching the moment his shoulders hit the backrest. “I did not grow up on a farm, so therefore I am not from the countryside.”
“Oh, is that how it works?” Jaejoong ignores the warm jibe and adjusts the sunvisor with his long fingers.
“So, you haven’t been to Chungnam yet, have you? Or has Eri-chan already started dragging you out on missions with her?”
“Um, no? Is she...planning to?” Yamapi raises an eyebrow in question but Jaejoong is focused straight ahead, eyes fixed on the narrow highway out of town. He just shrugs in answer, his shoulder blades slicing ridges through the clingy material of his shirt that Yamapi’s eyes can’t help but trace. “Chungnam is north of here though, right? Maybe I’ve driven through on the way to Seoul.”
“Ah, that’s right! Of course…” Jaejoong fluffs the hair trailing the nape of his neck with an annoyed huff. “It’s a little out of my way coming from Daegu, so I forgot.” Yamapi just nods, not sure if Jaejoong can see the movement in the mirrors or not.
“So what are the features of note?”
“Well, I grew up in a city but most of the province is pretty rural. Cows, rice fields….”
“Apple orchards!” Yamapi fills in, leaning back to flip both index fingers like guns in Jaejoong’s direction. Jaejoong tosses his head in a laugh.
“Yes sir! Have you been to an orchard before? In Japan?”
“Well, my Aunt’s neighbor had a persimmon tree in her yard in Kobe. We visited her one summer and my cousin picked one for me.” Jaejoong levels Yamapi with a calculating glare.
“That does not count. That is not even close to counting!”
“Could you, maybe, look at the road?” They are coming to a bend and Jaejoong has been taking the curves on the highway a little fast. Jaejoong laughs but snaps his attention forward again.
“Sorry! I get distracted when people talk to me,” he whines. “And also, you are so Japanese!” His shoulders quiver in silent laughter until his wrists are bouncing above the steering wheel.
“I’m pretty sure you talked to me first,” Yamapi mutters. Jaejoong doesn’t say anything. “Sorry, I’ll be quiet.”
“Since you’re not gonna ask….it’s because you’re so polite, even when you feel threatened. A Korean would probably be shrieking their head off in hysteric rage right now.”
“Really?” Yamapi rearranges his feet around the bulk of his backpack, wincing at the sharp crackle of something greasy and plastic beneath them.
“Wait, no. Never mind. Everyone around here is used to reckless driving.”
“I see.”
“See? You’re still being polite,” Jaejoong glowers, his brows hardening across the slope of his forehead. It’s more of a sulk than a scolding. “You dropped the honorifics, but you haven’t loosened up at all around me, Tomo-kun!”
“Sorr--”
“Quit apologizing!”
“Jerk.” Yamapi manages, just barely, to keep the smirk off his face.
“Much better!” Jaejoong is grinning now, tapping his thumbs against the wheel in a smug tattoo.
“Do you really want me to be quiet though?”
“Noooo….just talk to me about really boring things and I won’t get distracted,” Jaejoong explains slowly, as if teaching a fifth grader how to tie their shoes for the first time.
“For example?” Yamapi knows that sepia prints of brick buildings and rum flavored chocolate enamor Jaejoong, but he has no idea what the other man considers boring (not that he’s opposed to finding out though).
“Hmm…” Jaejoong shifts in his seat, the thin material of his T-shirt riding up his spine in soft folds. “Bananas,” he finally announces decisively. “Bananas are really boring.”
“That’s just ‘cause you don’t know anything about them!” Yamapi starts, ready for the challenge of charming Jaejoong off his feet armed with nothing but his knowledge of the boring topic of choice. Such battles of wit with Ryo are his favorite road trip pastime. “Did you know that there are about 1,000 species of bananas in the world? The most popular commercially exported variety, by far, is the Cavendish group of cultivars...”
By the time he finishes summarizing the nefarious history of the United Fruit Company and the influence of bananas on the development of sociopolitical establishments in the western hemisphere, they are deep into the spread of plains south of Iksan and Jaejoong has actually been listening with both ears, intent enough on Yamapi’s narrative not to interrupt the monologue with more than a few soft hums and the occasional sharp side glance. Yamapi thanks his lucky cellphone that his adviser forced him to take that “Economy of the Banana Republic” lecture Junior year, as obtuse and utterly useless it had sounded in the course catalog.
After finishing Yamapi breaks off abruptly, his throat dry and not sure how to transition into the next dull topic. He settles back for a breath of air, eyes catching on the blur of scenery out his window, ripening fields of grain alternating with stretches of already harvested muddy stubble like mangy bald spots on the rich landscape.
“So, bananas,” Jaejoong ventures, rubbing his thumbs together, “...is this, like, a personal obsession, or are you one of those internet addicts. You know, click, click, can’t fall asleep, up all night on Wikipedia?”
“Haha, no,” Yamapi laughs awkwardly. “It was part of this lecture series I was forced to take.”
“Ah. You did seem kind of knowledgeable about 20th century history for an Econ grad.”
“Hmm?”
“That was your major, right? Shit, has Eri-chan been lying to me again.” Jaejoong shakes his head, the partition of hair cut at an angle over his ear swishing forward to reveal a small black stud through the cartilage above the lobe Yamapi hasn’t noticed before.
“You’ve been asking Eri-chan about me?” Yamapi is a little impressed.
“Don’t flatter yourself. Only under duress.”
“Oh,” Yamapi sighs, pretending to himself he’s not sure why that answer disappoints him. “Wait, that doesn’t make any--”
“What’s it like, being a econ student.” Jaejoong turns his head, looking Yamapi straight in the eye. It’s not cold or scrutinizing, just pure curiosity for a flash before he looks back to the road.
“We study history too,” Yamapi insists, this time actually surprised at his defensive reaction. “And politics, and interna--”
“Yeah, whatever, but what’s it like?” Yamapi really has no idea where he’s supposed to go with this question out of the blue.
“Like….every other humanities student’s life? Except with more formulas?” Jaejoong laughs, little tissue paper creases at the corner of his mouth.
“But you don’t actually know? Are you sure you’re not a philosophy kid who got lost the first week of college and was too chicken to admit it.”
“Haha, very funny.” Yamapi crosses his arms, the loose flannel bunching at his armpits. “What is it like in the Lit dept?”
“What?”
“That’s what you studied, right? Japanese language or lit or something?” A sudden suspicion crawling under the flap of the doggie door at the back of his brain, Yamapi slowly swings his head around to face Jaejoong’s profile. “Wait, you’re not one of those creative writing people, are you?” He can almost see Jaejoong slaving over a chapbook of free form poetry locked away in an airtight, darkened chamber, or maybe on a script for one of those TV dramas where everyone is in love but doesn’t realize it until the 16th episode when the dangerous concentrations of highly volatile pheromones combust in one great supernova of unrequited feelings (the kind Ryo pretends he doesn’t sneak over to watch with Tegoshi on Wednesday nights).
But no, Yamapi can’t actually. As much as Jaejoong would make a convincing vampire for Halloween if he slipped into a blousy white top and borrowed some of Baekhyun’s eyeliner, he probably couldn’t sit still in a dark room long enough to write his full name and street address without typos. By the third line his dialogue would devolve into a pidgin of emojis and one liners that would only make sense to Jaejoong while tipsy.
“Hell no. The only writer I knew in school was a complete asshole, and that was just in high school anyway.” Jaejoong smears a wrist across his mouth as if to wipe away a lingering bitterness from his lips. His hand freezes midair “Oh shit, you’re not a writer are you.” His hands tighten around the wheel until his knuckles are pressing white through the skin.
“Hehe, no!” Yamapi chuckles at the suggestion. “One of my best friends writes on the side, but it’s probably safe to confide that Ryo’s a bit of a jerkface, too.”
“Hehe!” Jaejoong covers his lips with his cupped fingers.
“So what did you study? What are required courses to be a Japanese teacher here? I mean, if you’re not, um, Japanese…” Sometimes Yamapi feels a little inadequate to be teaching something he didn’t specialize in, despite the fact he is a native speaker. He never learned Japanese grammar in school after all, not the way he spent years dissecting English syntax (or at least his teacher did on the black board while he groomed a tamagotchi under his desk).
“I’m not a Japanese teacher.” Jaejoong sounds almost surprised.
“What?” Yamapi is surprised. What? “But the...you...the conference...what?”
“Do we need to stop for some coffee, Tomo-kun? You seem a little out of it.”
“Mmmf.” Yamapi has always consumed a lot of coffee, especially back when Koyama was always around to hand out coffee milk at shoots and late night study sessions, but he is not one of those bleary-eyed zombies who can’t croak out a proper good morning without first unsticking their lips with something caffeinated. Yamapi always greets the VP before heading to the coffee table, thank you very much. “I’m fine. So spill.”
“Fine. I’m a history teacher.”
“Oh?” That was not what Yamapi was expecting to hear but it kind of...makes sense, after all.
“Erika really didn’t tell you?”
“Well...no. Or if she did I guess it didn’t stick ‘cause I just assumed…”
“It’s ok! I’ll forgive you this time. But yes, I studied history, specialized in Korean-Japanese relations during the colonial era, and now I have the glamorous job of babysitting adolescent girls and reminding them to write their full names on their homework and to keep their nail polish to themselves.”
“You sound like Ryo!”
“Why? Because I’m a jerkface or because we both work at girl’s schools.” Yamapi jerks a little at Jaejoong’s snappish reply.
“Um, neither. He’s just made the babysitting comparison before, that’s all…”
“Oh.” Jaejoong knocks his head against the headrest. “Tell me all about your first day of school!”
“I don’t really remember kindergarten!” Yamapi laughs, not quite sure how to keep pace with the flow of this conversation.
“No, I mean your first day of teaching, idiot!” Jaejoong sounds like he wants to smack Yamapi affectionately on the back of head for his stupidity and Yamapi is very glad his hands are stuck to the steering wheel. Just one night of drinking together was enough for him to realize that even Jaejoong’s affection can sometimes hurt.
“Well, they asked me to tell them the story of my first love! The students did.” Yamapi swipes at his nose and pinches the bridge. “I mean, out of all the personal questions they could ask, huh?” Jaejoong doesn’t laugh, not even a breathy snort.
“Did you tell them?”
“Yes.”
“Is it a good story?” From the lilt in Jaejoong’s voice he sounds impressed for some unclear reason.
“I made it good!” Yamapi says, suddenly a little defensive.
“Do I get to hear it?”
“Uh...maybe? Later?” Yamapi generally likes to feel prepared for these things. Not that those third graders hadn’t asked him on the spot.
“Ok.” Jaejoong pries a hand off the wheel to mask a delicate yawn. Maybe he’s the one who needs coffee; his careful indifference is making Yamapi itch under his collar.
“Ok fine, I’ll tell you! But it’s not actually that exciting, so don’t get your hopes up.”
“Ok.” Jaejoong’s detached interest is almost more intimidating than if he had jumped all over Yamapi for the story.
“So there was this girl, in fifth grade,” Yamapi starts, pausing to inhale a deep lungful of new car smell and stale seaweed.
“Uh huh.”
“From Class 6F. And she--”
“Wait, you already told me this one!” Jaejoong interrupts, his tone demanding an explanation, but of what Yamapi’s not sure. Yamapi
sighs.
“No, Eri-chan did. And she didn’t tell it like I told my kids.” Jaejoong nods meekly, tucking his chin to his collarbone and waiting for Yamapi to continue.
“And she was popular. Like the kind of girl who doesn’t have the highest class ranking but ends up as class captain every year because everyone loves her. Everyone. The kind of girl with little creases in the corners of her eyes when she smiles…”
Yamapi tells the whole story, aiming for exactly as he spun it to a room full of 17 year olds, complete with nervous laughs and long pauses at what were supposed to be comedic timings, not trimming any of the cheesy descriptions even though he cringes against the car door as phrases like “a pure girl in the spring” and “love offering” come tripping out of his mouth.
He’s just narrated them all the way to the bike rack under the sparse shade of the newly budded magnolia tree when the phone rings. Jaejoong’s phone.
“Hello?” Jaejoong drawls in Korean, holding his phone a centimeter away from the curtain of dark hair covering his ear. “Imo! Long time no see! Yes, we’re coming in…”
Yamapi glances away and tries not to eavesdrop. He’s more relieved than annoyed by the interruption. He was fast approaching the climax of his epic romance without having decided whether or not to omit the sorry ending in this retelling. Technically Erika had already blurted it to Jaejoong but Yamapi hadn’t included the distasteful bits in his classroom performance, so…
“...yes, thank you!” Jaejoong slides over until his sharp elbow nudges into Yamapi’s arm painfully. “We’ll...soon, bye Imo!” Jaejoong finishes the call in a loud voice that echoes against the windshield. “Did you catch all of that, Tomo-kun?”
“What? No! I was raised not to listen in on private calls.”
“It’s ok if you can’t understand Korean perfectly yet,” Jaejoong coos. Yamapi flicks at his armrest.
“Watch it, or you might just graduate from jerk to asshole before noon.”
“That’s fine by me. Impoliteness is indicative of a close relationship, you know.” Yamapi tries not to choke on his spit. “That’s an economics thing, right.” Jaejoong’s smug little smile slides into a frown. “Or is it sociology.”
“It’s--” Yamapi clutches at the door handle to pull himself upright in his seat, “it’s a linguistics thing. What?” The frown has melted into a neutral expression but Jaejoong’s brows are raised past his hairline. “Side interest,” Yamapi explains with a vague wave. “So was that your aunt who called?”
“So you were listening!” Jaejoong flashes him a sharp grin in the mirror and the corner of Yamapi’s mouth twitches in annoyance. “She’s not really my aunt, more like an old friend of the family. But anyway, she owns the orchard and we’re eating at her place when we get there in...twenty minutes or so.” Jaejoong glances up from the clock, his eyes finding Yamapi’s in the mirror again with an unspoken question reflected in them. Yamapi just nods. He would be more than ok with food in the near future.
Imo, otherwise known as Mrs. Lee, lives in a large old farmhouse at the end of a narrow dirt lane with her husband Mr. Park, Jaejoong explains. The driveway is long, and bumpy, Yamapi soon discovers. A large yellow dog bounds up to them before Jaejoong’s car has even rolled to a stop. It kind of looks like an oversized Akita, maybe crossbred with a golden retriever, Yamapi notes as he climbs out of the car with stiff legs. The dog noses under the door before Yamapi can close it, black tongue lapping out to lick at the grease saturated bottom of an empty paper bag on the floor.
“Hey there,” Yamapi murmurs, gently pushing the dog away with a palm to his wet nose. The dog backs up calmly, tail hitting the side of the car in a slow, easy rhythm.
“Hurry up, Tomo-kun!” Jaejoong is already on the front step, punching the lock button on the remote as soon as Yamapi shuts his door. “Have you had jajangmyeon before?”
“Yup.” Yamapi slings his bag over one shoulder and jogs across the yard, gravel studded sand and mud already caking the bottom of his shoes. “With a coworker, in Jeongeup.” Jaejoong catches him by the plaid flannel sleeve as soon as Yamapi comes in reach and pulls him onto the rough concrete step beside him before rapping on the door.
“Oh! You came?” A stooping woman with a blacker than black perm throws open the door and hustles Jaejoong into the house. Yamapi ducks in behind him with a polite bow.
“Nice to see you, Imo!” Jaejoong drops his bag to the scarred linoleum curling up from the utility room floor.
“Oh, your hair! You look like...Korean again!” Mrs. Lee reaches clenching fists to grab at Jaejoong’s fringe. He ducks away but allows her to pinch and prod at his cheeks.
“You look Korean?” Yamapi echoes, looking around for a place to stash his shoes.
“I dye my hair a lot,” Jaejoong explains with a rolling shrug.
“Oh, who...?” Mrs. Lee drops her probing fingers to stare at Yamapi. Yamapi fights the urge to fold into another bow just to avoid eye contact and tries to smile back. “Is this...foreigner...friend?”
“Annyeonghaseyo!” Yamapi says with another bow, what the hell. It can’t hurt to be polite and he’s not sure how Jaejoong’s explained his existence to his aunt; Yamapi tries to avoid the where are you from? questions as much as possible until he’s sure he’s not in anti-Japanese territory.
“Nice to meet you!” Mrs. Lee grabs him by the wrist to pump his hand. “Oooh, so handsome...Jaejoongie!”
“You’re looking very beautiful yourself, Imo!” Jaejoong leans in to wink.
“Ah, don’t say...this old woman!” She whacks Jaejoong on the shoulder but flushes happily at the compliment. “Come on, I know...hungry! I made some…”
“Where’s--”
“Uncle went fishing, grmmf!” she cuts Jaejoong off with a full body scoff. “Even though I told him...come before noon, and that we had plenty enough food already.” She leads them through a narrow kitchen into the next room. Plenty enough food is an understatement, Yamapi thinks with an incredulous laugh as he takes in three lacquer tables sagging under the weight of two dozen dishes spread across them.
“Imo!” Jaejoong whacks at her hand wrapped tightly around his bicep. “You didn’t have to cook all this for us! You’re...rest, let me do the cooking!” Mrs. Lee laughs, deep in her throat.
“It’s a wonder... haven’t found a lovely girl...settled down yet, Jaejoong-ah. Handsome, smart, and you even...cooking.” Jaejoong’s smile tightens momentarily under the unwelcome attention.
“I have settled down, Imo. I have...job!”
“But a job...other side of the country.” She eases onto her knees in front of the largest table with a soft groan. Jaejoong drops to a crouch to pass her a kneeling cushion, steadying her by the elbow as she settles into it. Yamapi sits in the seat across from her that Jaejoong waves him into. “How could I not cook for you...never come to see me? I...you some reason to come back again soon!” Mrs. Lee pouts, deep lines creasing the smooth layer of her too-pink lipstick.
“You know I’m busy, Imo.” Jaejoong fidgets on his cushion next to Yamapi, tugging at the seam of his pant leg.
“I know, I know!” Mrs. Lee throws up her hands and starts ladling out soup from a steaming iron pot. “Your poor Mother, Lord bless her, can’t--”
“Imo, let me...for you! You shouldn’t--”
“Don’t...change the subject, you--!”
“I’m home!” a gravelly voice shouts, followed by the dull thud of the door slamming.
“Honey!” Mrs. Lee and Jaejoon both hop to their feet and race towards the kitchen, bottlenecking gracelessly in the doorway to the entryway before Mrs. Lee elbows her way victoriously to the front. Yamapi gets up to follow, hanging back in the doorway to the dining room.
“Look, Look! I…” A man who must be Mr. Park, Yamapi assumes, holds up a large bucket shaped more like a trough actually, with dozens of small river fish piled into it.
“Go wash up, we…!” Mrs. Lee pulls the bucket away from her husband and nudges him towards the kitchen. He sighs, pushing a pair of polarized sunglasses up onto a thinning patch of hair plastered above his forehead.
“Oh! Who is this?” He stops short, a few steps away from the kitchen sink, when he catches sight of Yamapi in the doorway.
“Annyeonghaseyo!” He nods in acknowledgement of Yamapi’s bow, flicking on the sink to rinse his hands under the spray.
“Samcheon, this is my friend...Japan...Daegu after that time...and…!” Yamapi loses track of Jaejoong’s explanation, his quick stream of words getting lost in the sound of the running water.
“Oh, welcome! Call me uncle,” he says as Mrs. Lee starts to nudge him towards the dining room.
“Oh, thank you, Samecheon,” Yamapi says slowly, trying to pronounce the title correctly.
“Ah! So refreshing!” Mr. Park gasps after gulping half the chilled tea from the glass his wife presses into his hands.
They eat quickly, not talking much, which Yamapi knows now to be proper etiquette so he tries not to squirm at the silence. Mrs. Lee has made six kinds of greens, lightly steamed and dressed in oil and a dash of soy sauce, braised potatoes, chewy steamed squid, sticky green rice cake infused with wormwood, crumbled beef soaking in a pool of brine, but the star of the show is a deep tureen of spicy stewed fish that Mr. Park had caught in the river the day before and simmered overnight in pepper sauce with a few dozen garlic cloves thrown in. It’s delicious, though Yamapi feels like a fire breathing dragon by the end of the meal.
Mrs. Lee refuses any help from them to clean up after dinner, rushing to stack the dishes into the sink before Jaejoong can finish his last mouthful and try to beat her to it. She leaves them unwashed for later, pushing her guests to the door with a firm hand on each of their hips. She holds the door for them as they pull on their sneakers, stepping into a pair of yellow rubber boots before she follows them out.
She hands them each a tomato as they’re heading across the yard, pulled from the front pocket of her faded cotton print apron. Jaejoong grins and Mrs. Lee plops a wide brimmed sun hat over her perm and trots ahead. Yamapi looks up to find that the hill next to the house is actually the base of a mountain, the slope stretching up past his line of sight into the trees. Jaejoong saunters slowly towards the beginning of the trail up mountainside.
“What’s this for?” Yamapi asks, turning the soft red globe over in his hands and wondering where the knife and chopsticks are if they’re supposed to eat the tomatoes now.
“Fruit, for dessert.” Jaejoong sinks his teeth into the side of his until the thin juice runs down his wrist, soaking into the cuff of his shirt. Yamapi blinks and takes a bite.
“Good tomato, heh?” Jaejoong licks the slick juice from the heel of his hand, starting up the steep incline after Mrs. Lee. Coarse white gravel, limestone maybe, is tamped into the path between the rows of apple trees. The mud drying on the bottoms of Yamapi’s sneakers comes off against the rough rocks and smooth streaks of trodden grass with every step. “They have green houses too. Strawberries at the end of winter.”
“Yeah, delicious,” Yamapi sighs into the next bite. He used to be amazed at how slicing a tomato into neat wedges, thin cross sections, opened it up like an illustration in an anatomy textbook. You can tell a lot from squeezing a tomato, massaging the smooth skin, assessing the evenness of the tone for ripeness, but you don’t really know that tomato til you slice it open, or pry it apart with sharp fingernails like Jaejoong is ripping at his right now.
Now Yamapi knows that he was all wrong; neat little diagrams are always deceiving, just take Geography and try to wrap your head around the slippery shortcomings of map projections and how warped your concept of the world literally is.
Now he knows: the only way to get it right is by feeling, pulling apart the flesh with probing lips, tonguing along the way the slick seeds cling to the aortas and juice filled cavities, the perfection of the 3D form ingraining itself into his sensory consciousness, his muscle memory and the backs of his retinas.
“It’s not that you didn’t know and now do,” Jaejoong says thoughtfully after a moment, after Yamapi’s given up trying to elucidate another one of those things that make sense in his head but he can never explain just right. “It’s more like the difference between knowing and experiencing.”
“But no it’s--” Yamapi starts to protest but snaps his mouth back shut. Hmm. Maybe. He’ll have to save that thought for another day though. His head suddenly aches too much right now to debate that until the point of agreement or dissension, the nerves and anticipation of the morning finally catching up with him in a flash of fatigue. Besides, they’ve reached the crest where Mrs. Lee is waiting for them, wringing a soft yellow cloth between her hands and hollering for them to get a move on.
Jaejoong stretches both arms skyward and lowers them halfway before swinging them in wide arcs as he circles his shoulders.
“Ah! Don’t you feel on top of the world!” he shouts. A clump of tomato seeds splatters onto the side of Yamapi’s neck.
“Hurry up and pick something!” Mrs. Lee is waving a large blue plastic pail at them, suspended from a length of nylon rope in lieu of a handle. Jaejoong catches it away from her, half his tomato balanced in his other hand.
“Over here!” Jaejoong jogs around the terraced mound of dirt built up around the base of a nearby tree.
“Pick the big ones, they taste the sweetest!” Samcheon urges, toiling up the path behind them and rubbing at the lime green and black spandex of his hiking top stretched across the slope of his potbelly. Everything about him is round, the bulb of his red nose curving past the end of his sunglasses, the line of his wiry shoulders under his folded collar.
Jaejoong drops the bucket to rest in a nest of dead leaves at his feet and starts to snap sun warmed fruit from the branches, Samcheon picking into a matching blue bucket at the next tree up the incline.
Yamapi gets to work, pausing between selections for bites of his tomato. It tastes like the end of summer. Good tomatoes always do though, like the heat of August at midday and the sweet dusk of tiny frogs serenading the rice paddies after dark.
When their bucket is full, firm round fruit stacked a hand’s breadth past the brim, Jaejoong lugs it over to Mrs. Lee, sneakers dragging through the damp grass.
“Oh, good job!” She hefts herself from her seat and sidesteps the low canvas stool to snatch another bucket from a stack of tools and plastic tarps. “Here.”
“Thank you, Imo!”
“Wait!” She tugs on his shirt sleeve as she sinks into the backless chair. “...your foreign friend, too!” Jaejoong jerks his head at him and Yamapi stumbles down the gravel pathway to where Mrs. Lee has been sorting fruit and removing wayward stems and leaves. “Here,” she says again, peeling an apple until the dark red skin falls away in curls. She slices chunks of white flesh away from the core and feeds them to Jaejoong and then Yamapi.
Yamapi parts his lips in surprise a second too late, Mrs. Lee’s fingernails grazing his upper lip. She cackles and pats his cheek with sticky fingers.
“Mmm! Imo! So delicious!” Jaejoong moans around his mouthful. Yamapi can only nod, his grin stretching painfully across his bulging cheeks as he tries to chew. It is a good apple, tart and sweet at the same time with a hint of autumn rain in the bits of skin that cling to the flesh.
“So!” Mrs. Lee turns to him, knife blade singing under the skin of another apple, “Which...better? Japan apple? Korea apple?”
“Um,” Yamapi chokes, trying to swallow. “They’re both good?” Not that this apple isn’t delicious, but the fuji apples Ryo’s aunt in Nagano sends them every winter at New Year’s are fucking amazing, mellow and sweet but with a bouquet of flavors that lingers on your tongue an hour after the last bite.
“But which one...better? Best? Number one?” She stands up again, folding back the floppy brim of her hat to stare expectantly into Yamapi’s eyes. Jaejoong muffles a snicker into his shoulder, not attempting to help at all.
“This apple is delicious!” Yamapi says with a loud smile, hoping to just skirt the whole subject. He starts to feel kind of claustrophobic when someone forces a decision like that on him. How are you supposed to choose the best between two different things? It’s easier to just appreciate each one for what it is.
“Ahah! It’s delicious! This...most delicious?” Mrs. Lee’s smile is sharp edged with victory, the lines at the intersections of her eyes crinkling up with glee like wadded wrapping paper on Christmas morning.
“Delicious,” Yamapi nods again with an internal sigh. He doesn’t want to offend her or start an argument or anything. She slaps him on the shoulder and shoves an even wider wedge of apple between his lips.
They fill three more buckets before Mrs. Lee walks them back down to Jaejoong’s car.
“You sure...stay for tea?” She latches onto Jaejoong’s arm again as her husband packs their fruit plus the bucket he picked into two cardboard boxes stamped with a stylized watercolor rendition of pale green apples.
“Daegu...tonight, you know it’s...late...faraway,” Jaejoong pouts through the brush of fringe across his eyelashes. Mrs. Lee’s pursed lips melt into an indulgent smile.
“Drive safely then, Joongie-yah!” She pats his as he pulls away to help Mr. Park load the boxes into his trunk, nestled into the layer of empty coke cans and styrofoam bento boxes rattling around back there. Jaejoong slams the trunk lid before Mrs. Lee can peek inside as she comes around for one last hug.
“It was nice to meet you, Jaejoong’s friend! You’re always welcome in Yesan if you’re…!” Mr. Park ruffles Yamapi’s hair as Mrs. Lee dives to squeeze him around the middle.
“Thank you, it was nice to meet you too!” Yamapi bows, almost tripping over the dog as he straightens up. “Annyeong~!” He stoops to scratch between the dog’s ears, his strong jaws parting with a yawn of contentment as Jaejoong starts the car.
Yamapi climbs in and turns to wave at the couple standing in the driveway as they pull away.
“They’re really nice, your aunt and uncle,” he yawns as Jaejoong adjusts the temperature controls. It’s only three o’clock but the sky is darkening with the incoming roll of a stormfront, the warmth outside fading with the light.
“Mmmhmm!” Jaejoong speeds up as they turn onto a wide dirt road. The first rain drops start to fall as they cross a low bridge between two rice fields. “Ugh, I hope the rain isn’t so heavy there are traffic delays. I’m already gonna get home after 9:00 as it is.” Jaejoong slouches a few inches further into his seat, elbows sagging as he handles the wheel.
“It should be fine,” Yamapi murmurs through a yawn, turning to watch the slow plash of raindrops into the silver sheet of the irrigation canal beneath the bridge. “Hey, how come they harvest the rice here so early?” he asks as pass another stretch of stubble.
“Because of the rain, I guess. I don’t know.” Jaejoong wriggles in his seat, twisting the AC knob on the dash again. “Some farmers start right after Chuseok.”
“Oh.” Yamapi always associated harvest with the end of October, the steady curl of thick smoke winding skywards against a backdrop of brilliant maple leaves as farmers set torch to each row of broken off stalks and slowly follow behind with damp towels. It always seemed like a painfully slow process, although Yamapi admits to himself he’s a little hazy on all the ins and outs of it, now that he thinks about it. “What do you think of the--”
“Hang on, I just gotta answer this…” Jaejoong swipes a thumb across his vibrating phone screen to take the call and holds it up to his ear, the black silk curtain of his hair ruffling.
“Hello,” he answers in Korean. Jaejoong’s voice sounds a little sleepy in a comfortable way, but Yamapi sees his jaw tighten out of the corner of his eye. Jaejoong grunts noncommittally at a few pauses in a rapid stream of Korean from the other end. It sounds like possibly a woman’s voice, but it’s hard to tell.
Yamapi looks out the window, trying to give Jaejoong as much space as he can in the closed quarters, although it’s not like he can understand Korean anyway; he just wants Jaejoong to know he respects his privacy, and stuff.
Jaejoong sniffs loudly and speeds up the car a little, the cloud of dust outside the windows flying thick as inside Rina’s flour sifter during one of her infamous failed baking adventures. Yamapi’s fingers clutch at the safety belt across his hips and chest as he wills the rain to fall faster, to clear up the haze of dust swallowing them.
“I see,” Jaejoong growls suddenly and the voice on the other end rises in pitch and volume, impossible to pretend to ignore anymore. Yamapi’s almost sure now it’s a woman. It’s not Imo, though, because Jaejoong isn’t speaking politely. Girlfriend? Ex-girlfriend? Coworker?
Bits of gravel are spewing off the road from under the tires to hit the undercarriage with a steady chink, chink, chink. Yamapi closes his eyes and rests his cheekbone against the slant of the nylon belt held taught in his hands.
“Fine. Ok. Hanging up now.” And Jaejoong does, shutting off the phone completely without waiting for a goodbye. A galaxy of virtual stars flashes across the screen before it fades black and then blank. Jaejoong drops the phone into the cup holder. Yamapi stifles another yawn against the back of his hand. It still smells faintly of tomato juice.
“So,” Jaejoong says to the rain streaked windshield, “that was my sister. Do you...have siblings, Tomo.”
“Yeah…” Yamapi tears at a cuticle, waiting for Jaejoong to say something, change the subject, start in on a rambling joke that isn’t funny or another outrageous anecdote about his students that Yamapi probably shouldn’t believe but totally will, if for no other reason than he’s already met the infamous anomaly that is Krystal Jung (well, at least over the phone, he has).
Jaejoong doesn’t say anything though, staring straight ahead and staying more still than Yamapi’s ever seen him, except asleep, as the numbers on the dash clock drift upwards, change three times. So Yamapi says,
“I have a younger sister. She’s still a student.” He sucks in a deep breath as Jaejoong lets out a shuddering exhale and continues, “She’s a huge brat, but my mother loves her to death, so I suppose I do, too.”
Awkward. Oh god, why did he explain it like that? Jaejoong’s gonna think he’s a horrible brother, an unfilial bastard for not bragging on Rina and--
“Sometimes I wish I had a younger sister.” Jaejoong shifts in his seat as if he were sitting in a puddle of something sticky and not on an expensive cushy leather seat which heats up with the press of a button. “Only sometimes.” Yamapi nods.
“She gave me this watch.” He pushes his shirt sleeve up his forearm to expose the dark band cutting across his wrist although Jaejoong’s well familiar with it (he toyed with the buckle on the walk back from Mrs. Gunito’s izakaya on Chuseok) and needs to focus on the road, anyways. “Sometimes I miss her on Saturday mornings.” Yamapi falls silent, memories of his mom leaving for work before sunrise, of cold rice and hot milk stirred with a spoon shared for breakfast in front of cartoon reruns on their clunky old TV flitting by in the flashes of reflected light across the dirty window glass.
It’s been a long time since they spent Saturday mornings together, Yamapi and Rina. She doesn’t get up early on weekends anymore, hasn’t since the last year of middle school when she started staying up late, first to mail her high school boyfriend under the covers and then to sneak out down the fire escape when she got braver. But then again, he hasn’t had weekend mornings free since he was 16 and started working part time, either. A Saturday road trip like this is something of a rare occurrence. Unusual, but really nice.
“Did Erika tell you how many siblings I have.” Yamapi shakes his head, not sure if that’s a question or a rhetorical question or just Jaejoong thinking aloud. “Guess.”
“Oh.” Jaejoong laughs at his soft exhale of not-exactly-surprise.
“It’s not a trick question, dummy. How many siblings do you think I have.”
“Uh, an older brother and an older sister.”
“No.” Jaejoong shakes his head til his earring peeks through again.
“Two older sisters.”
“Nope.”
“An older sister and three younger brothers?” Yamapi asks, a bubble of frustrated laughter sticking in his throat. No one’s made him
work this hard for an answer since Tegoshi refused to tell them the name of his new girlfriend in February. He was a cryptic bastard for all of winter break, just ‘cause he could be, Yamapi remembers with a sigh.
“No, not even close!” Jaejoong’s bright laugh shatters the quiet streaks of tension hanging in the air ever since the phone rang and they fall like dust in a fine layer across the bottom of the car floor rugs, still palpable but shifting into a more subtle presence.
“Oh.” Yamapi suddenly doesn’t feel like guessing anymore but he feels like if he says it, says I give up, it’ll mean something more, something important that he can’t put his finger on, and he can’t do that to Jaejoong, can’t do that to himself, can’t--
“What?” Yamapi just shakes his head again, not bothering to lift his gaze; he knows Jaejoong can see his movements in the mirror.
“So…” Jaejoong puffs out his cheeks for a long sigh. “My sister said--you know what, never mind. But it looks like we have to make a brief stop in Gongju.”
“Ok,” Yamapi nods, fighting a yawn with a bite to his lower lip.
“I’m gonna turn on the radio. You can take a nap if you want.” Yamapi nods his agreement into the headrest, his eyes already drooping closed. He falls asleep to the pound of rain on the window and the distorted beat of some rapper mumbling along at an incoherent volume on Jaejoong’s radio.
Pairings/Characters: Jaejoong/Yamapi
Rating/Warnings: T for language and (eventual) making out
Disclaimer: I own nothing; written just for fun
Summary: Road trip fun times. Find the duck ;)
A/N: For kicks.
Heart Abroad, Part 16
Jaejoong’s not supposed to pick him up until after 10:00 on Saturday but Yamapi is showered and ready as early as on a school morning, although he’s in a comfortably broken in pair of jeans instead of fitted dress slacks for once.
After finishing a bowl of rice in less than three minutes and then fidgeting on his bed in front of some cooking show on TV until his plaid button down is hopelessly wrinkled Yamapi decides to take a walk.
Walking helps calm his nerves, fresh air and all that, plus there’s usually something interesting to see as he lets his feet follow his wandering mind: a few birds fighting over an empty plastic ice cream cup some elementary kid or college kid chucked into the bushes on the walk home from school, old men squatting in shady alleys to smoke hand rolled cigarettes and spit gobs of well meditated phlegm between the feet of passersby, delivery boys on scooters with red plastic crates strapped to the fenders veering around corners and around games of chase and kick ball that inevitably spill off sidewalks and out of side yards and into the street.
Today he only makes it to the end of the first block, not even to the 7-Eleven, before realizing that his phone is at the edge of the sink and he will totally miss Jaejoong’s arrival call if it happens to come an hour and forty minutes early. Slightly panicked (but not really, since Yamapi tells himself he definitely would have seen Jaejoong’s car pull up since he hasn’t even turned the corner from his own street), Yamapi speed walks as fast as his sandals and dignity will allow, not even turning his head to smile at two preschoolers who shyly wave from their porch as he stalks by.
By the time Yamapi trots up the stairs and jiggers the lock open he can feel the slick sheen of sweat coating the underside of his bangs and the tendrils along the nape of his neck. Shit, that means his shirt is probably damp too. Yamapi snatches his phone from the kitchen counter and checks for messages as he jogs into the bathroom to assess the sweat and wind damage to his freshly washed and painstakingly mussed hair. It looks about the same as when he left. Zero new messages.
Yamapi fishes his oil removal blotting sheets from the bottom of his backpack and carefully lifts his hair away from his face to dab the traces of moisture from his eyebrows. He lets out a deep breath through his nostrils and gently lowers the strands back into place, lock by lock, before blotting the creases of his nose and the edges of his self-esteem.
Ok, collar straightened, check; skin moisturized, check; hair in place, check; smile calm and natural, check; he’s all ready to go.
Yamapi sits back down on the bed but tries not to move or touch anything this time, second guessing his fashion choices and wishing he had the foresight to do his laundry; only 72 minutes more to wait, he notes from the time stamp in the corner of his still empty phone mail inbox. Ok, maybe the issue wasn’t lacking foresight, more like motivation, but Cookie Run had been so much more fascinating than the inside of his washer promised to be two nights before and by the time he considered tackling his laundry basket again it was already Friday evening, most definitely too late in the game for the clothes to actually dry in time to for Saturday. Probably.
Yamapi picks at the last button of his shirt and sighs. Despite their running stream of light banter and bitchy life commentary on kakao, it’s been two whole weeks since he’s seen Jaejoong in person. What if it’s awkward without Erika there to make fun of their hair and order one more round? What if Jaejoong realizes an hour into their visit that he doesn’t like hanging out with Yamapi, just the two of them? What if Yamapi makes a mistake and accidentally says something horrible in Korean and Jaejoong kicks him out of the car and he has to walk back to Jeongeup? And the jeans he has on are totally dumb, aren’t they. Shit.
Technically, Yamapi knows he’s probably being a little silly. He won’t have to speak Korean to Jaejoong, for one thing, and they’re just going apple picking, like in a field with dirt and earthworms and whatever else lives in the mud. Jaejoong is probably going to be wearing jeans too, he tries to reassure himself as he loads Cookie Run on his phone just to keep his fingers busy.
Jaejoong is, in fact, wearing jeans when he rings the bell an hour later--designer jeans. Yamapi smiles and quickly turns away to grab his bag, his mind suddenly shorting out on him when the digitized Beethoven doorbell tune cuts as the door swings open past the threshold.
“Tomo-kun~!” Jaejoong grabs the door before it can slam in his face, hopping over the ledge into the genkan and arching forward on tiptoe to pull Yamapi into an awkward side hug without bothering to remove his shoes.
Yamapi pats his back and pulls away to kneel by his bag, scrambling to stuff his wallet and cap and bottle of suncream he thought he had packed the night before into the front pocket of his backpack.
“Is that the extra moisturizing kind?” Jaejoong smirks, patting the suncream bottle shaped bulge in the front of the bag with a loose fingered fist.
“So I take care of my skin,” Yamapi shrugs, squirming into his sneakers. It would be easier if he put down his bag to pull them on with his hands but he doesn’t want to risk bending over and flushing a darker flustered red than he already has. He hates not being ready when someone shows up.
“Mm hmm.” Jaejoong’s hand is propping the door open but it’s only cracked. Yamapi feels a tangle of nerves relax at the base of his neck at the patient gesture and gratefully takes an extra moment to wiggle his shoes into place with his toes.
“You don’t need to moisturize?” he teases, grinning as the perimeters of Jaejoong’s eyes narrow and pulse back open into widened innocence.
“With a face like mine? Hah!” he scoffs, throwing the door open to the warm October sunlight. “Hurry up~! We’re supposed to get there before lunch hour!” This time Jaejoong doesn’t wait for Yamapi to catch the door before releasing his grip and bounding down the steps. Well, he’s been as patient as Jaejoong can be, Yamapi thinks with a smile as he quickly locks the door and follows Jaejoong down to the curb. His car is running, the emergency brake pulled and his rubber Ponyo key ring dangling from the ignition.
“Did you eat?” Jaejoong asks as they’re buckling in, suddenly remembering the customary Korean greeting five minutes past due.
“Yes!” Yamapi assures him with a thumbs up, tucking his bag between his knees and the floor of the car. Jaejoong has a nice car. It’s practically new, traces of chemical undertone clinging to the soft leather upholstery, although he must have been driving it for at least a few months Yamapi surmises from the layer of wadded kleenex and crumpled sandwich wrappers littering the floor. Department store shopping bags spill stacks of print outs and faded receipts onto the seats in the back. Yamapi saves a stack from sliding off the dash as Jaejoong makes a sharp U-turn at the end of the street.
“Sorry about those! Just throw them in the back,” Jaejoong apologizes with a wave as if he were inviting Yamapi to help himself to some cake at a tea party. Yampi shuffles the papers into a neat pile and leans between their chairs to place them in the middle seat on top of a Korean-English dictionary spread open to “Q”. February 23, 2013, the top page is marked. There’s a note in the margin in a sprawling hand inked in purple, “I think the basis of your research shows promise...”
“Why are you wearing flannel?” Jaejoong peels one hand off the white leather steering wheel cover to flick at Yamapi’s shoulder. Yamapi straightens back up with a start.
“Because it’s cold?”
“No it’s not! There’s hardly even a breeze!” Jaejoong’s wearing a thin T, long sleeved but nearly sheer in the places where his shoulder blades and elbows rub. Yamapi’s not sure if the shirt is just well loved or if it was bought that way; he could see Jaejoong going for either look, to be honest. It seems soft enough to have been gradually worn into comfort, though.
“It was cold this morning!” Yamapi pretends to pout out the window. They’re speeding past the 7-Eleven, though the darkened windows are too reflective for him to see into the shop.
“Pthhl!”
Yeah, Yamapi can’t really insist on that one either. Despite it being too cold to sleep with the windows open anymore he had been sweating by the end of his short lived neighborhood stroll.
“Don’t tell me you wore flannel because you have some weird stereotype of rural citizens,” Jaejoong sighs, his thumbs rubbing soft circles into the steering wheel. Yamapi tries to keep his mind on the conversation and not let it veer off into dangerous territory. Like how nice a back massage would feel right now. No.
“Um, maybe? I don’t know!” Yamapi shakes his head. “It’s just a shirt, Jaejoong. It was in my closet, so I wore it.”
“Do you think they have, like, a provincial dress code or something?”
“You tell me, I’m not from the countryside. I just thought it would be...comfortable.” Yamapi’s rolling his eyes out the window but he’s pretty sure Jaejoong can hear the smile creeping into his voice.
“I am not from the countryside!” Jaejoong protests, gripping the wheel to pull his posture upright. Yamapi’s only sat with him a few times but he’s already noticed Jaejoong’s tendency to start slouching the moment his shoulders hit the backrest. “I did not grow up on a farm, so therefore I am not from the countryside.”
“Oh, is that how it works?” Jaejoong ignores the warm jibe and adjusts the sunvisor with his long fingers.
“So, you haven’t been to Chungnam yet, have you? Or has Eri-chan already started dragging you out on missions with her?”
“Um, no? Is she...planning to?” Yamapi raises an eyebrow in question but Jaejoong is focused straight ahead, eyes fixed on the narrow highway out of town. He just shrugs in answer, his shoulder blades slicing ridges through the clingy material of his shirt that Yamapi’s eyes can’t help but trace. “Chungnam is north of here though, right? Maybe I’ve driven through on the way to Seoul.”
“Ah, that’s right! Of course…” Jaejoong fluffs the hair trailing the nape of his neck with an annoyed huff. “It’s a little out of my way coming from Daegu, so I forgot.” Yamapi just nods, not sure if Jaejoong can see the movement in the mirrors or not.
“So what are the features of note?”
“Well, I grew up in a city but most of the province is pretty rural. Cows, rice fields….”
“Apple orchards!” Yamapi fills in, leaning back to flip both index fingers like guns in Jaejoong’s direction. Jaejoong tosses his head in a laugh.
“Yes sir! Have you been to an orchard before? In Japan?”
“Well, my Aunt’s neighbor had a persimmon tree in her yard in Kobe. We visited her one summer and my cousin picked one for me.” Jaejoong levels Yamapi with a calculating glare.
“That does not count. That is not even close to counting!”
“Could you, maybe, look at the road?” They are coming to a bend and Jaejoong has been taking the curves on the highway a little fast. Jaejoong laughs but snaps his attention forward again.
“Sorry! I get distracted when people talk to me,” he whines. “And also, you are so Japanese!” His shoulders quiver in silent laughter until his wrists are bouncing above the steering wheel.
“I’m pretty sure you talked to me first,” Yamapi mutters. Jaejoong doesn’t say anything. “Sorry, I’ll be quiet.”
“Since you’re not gonna ask….it’s because you’re so polite, even when you feel threatened. A Korean would probably be shrieking their head off in hysteric rage right now.”
“Really?” Yamapi rearranges his feet around the bulk of his backpack, wincing at the sharp crackle of something greasy and plastic beneath them.
“Wait, no. Never mind. Everyone around here is used to reckless driving.”
“I see.”
“See? You’re still being polite,” Jaejoong glowers, his brows hardening across the slope of his forehead. It’s more of a sulk than a scolding. “You dropped the honorifics, but you haven’t loosened up at all around me, Tomo-kun!”
“Sorr--”
“Quit apologizing!”
“Jerk.” Yamapi manages, just barely, to keep the smirk off his face.
“Much better!” Jaejoong is grinning now, tapping his thumbs against the wheel in a smug tattoo.
“Do you really want me to be quiet though?”
“Noooo….just talk to me about really boring things and I won’t get distracted,” Jaejoong explains slowly, as if teaching a fifth grader how to tie their shoes for the first time.
“For example?” Yamapi knows that sepia prints of brick buildings and rum flavored chocolate enamor Jaejoong, but he has no idea what the other man considers boring (not that he’s opposed to finding out though).
“Hmm…” Jaejoong shifts in his seat, the thin material of his T-shirt riding up his spine in soft folds. “Bananas,” he finally announces decisively. “Bananas are really boring.”
“That’s just ‘cause you don’t know anything about them!” Yamapi starts, ready for the challenge of charming Jaejoong off his feet armed with nothing but his knowledge of the boring topic of choice. Such battles of wit with Ryo are his favorite road trip pastime. “Did you know that there are about 1,000 species of bananas in the world? The most popular commercially exported variety, by far, is the Cavendish group of cultivars...”
By the time he finishes summarizing the nefarious history of the United Fruit Company and the influence of bananas on the development of sociopolitical establishments in the western hemisphere, they are deep into the spread of plains south of Iksan and Jaejoong has actually been listening with both ears, intent enough on Yamapi’s narrative not to interrupt the monologue with more than a few soft hums and the occasional sharp side glance. Yamapi thanks his lucky cellphone that his adviser forced him to take that “Economy of the Banana Republic” lecture Junior year, as obtuse and utterly useless it had sounded in the course catalog.
After finishing Yamapi breaks off abruptly, his throat dry and not sure how to transition into the next dull topic. He settles back for a breath of air, eyes catching on the blur of scenery out his window, ripening fields of grain alternating with stretches of already harvested muddy stubble like mangy bald spots on the rich landscape.
“So, bananas,” Jaejoong ventures, rubbing his thumbs together, “...is this, like, a personal obsession, or are you one of those internet addicts. You know, click, click, can’t fall asleep, up all night on Wikipedia?”
“Haha, no,” Yamapi laughs awkwardly. “It was part of this lecture series I was forced to take.”
“Ah. You did seem kind of knowledgeable about 20th century history for an Econ grad.”
“Hmm?”
“That was your major, right? Shit, has Eri-chan been lying to me again.” Jaejoong shakes his head, the partition of hair cut at an angle over his ear swishing forward to reveal a small black stud through the cartilage above the lobe Yamapi hasn’t noticed before.
“You’ve been asking Eri-chan about me?” Yamapi is a little impressed.
“Don’t flatter yourself. Only under duress.”
“Oh,” Yamapi sighs, pretending to himself he’s not sure why that answer disappoints him. “Wait, that doesn’t make any--”
“What’s it like, being a econ student.” Jaejoong turns his head, looking Yamapi straight in the eye. It’s not cold or scrutinizing, just pure curiosity for a flash before he looks back to the road.
“We study history too,” Yamapi insists, this time actually surprised at his defensive reaction. “And politics, and interna--”
“Yeah, whatever, but what’s it like?” Yamapi really has no idea where he’s supposed to go with this question out of the blue.
“Like….every other humanities student’s life? Except with more formulas?” Jaejoong laughs, little tissue paper creases at the corner of his mouth.
“But you don’t actually know? Are you sure you’re not a philosophy kid who got lost the first week of college and was too chicken to admit it.”
“Haha, very funny.” Yamapi crosses his arms, the loose flannel bunching at his armpits. “What is it like in the Lit dept?”
“What?”
“That’s what you studied, right? Japanese language or lit or something?” A sudden suspicion crawling under the flap of the doggie door at the back of his brain, Yamapi slowly swings his head around to face Jaejoong’s profile. “Wait, you’re not one of those creative writing people, are you?” He can almost see Jaejoong slaving over a chapbook of free form poetry locked away in an airtight, darkened chamber, or maybe on a script for one of those TV dramas where everyone is in love but doesn’t realize it until the 16th episode when the dangerous concentrations of highly volatile pheromones combust in one great supernova of unrequited feelings (the kind Ryo pretends he doesn’t sneak over to watch with Tegoshi on Wednesday nights).
But no, Yamapi can’t actually. As much as Jaejoong would make a convincing vampire for Halloween if he slipped into a blousy white top and borrowed some of Baekhyun’s eyeliner, he probably couldn’t sit still in a dark room long enough to write his full name and street address without typos. By the third line his dialogue would devolve into a pidgin of emojis and one liners that would only make sense to Jaejoong while tipsy.
“Hell no. The only writer I knew in school was a complete asshole, and that was just in high school anyway.” Jaejoong smears a wrist across his mouth as if to wipe away a lingering bitterness from his lips. His hand freezes midair “Oh shit, you’re not a writer are you.” His hands tighten around the wheel until his knuckles are pressing white through the skin.
“Hehe, no!” Yamapi chuckles at the suggestion. “One of my best friends writes on the side, but it’s probably safe to confide that Ryo’s a bit of a jerkface, too.”
“Hehe!” Jaejoong covers his lips with his cupped fingers.
“So what did you study? What are required courses to be a Japanese teacher here? I mean, if you’re not, um, Japanese…” Sometimes Yamapi feels a little inadequate to be teaching something he didn’t specialize in, despite the fact he is a native speaker. He never learned Japanese grammar in school after all, not the way he spent years dissecting English syntax (or at least his teacher did on the black board while he groomed a tamagotchi under his desk).
“I’m not a Japanese teacher.” Jaejoong sounds almost surprised.
“What?” Yamapi is surprised. What? “But the...you...the conference...what?”
“Do we need to stop for some coffee, Tomo-kun? You seem a little out of it.”
“Mmmf.” Yamapi has always consumed a lot of coffee, especially back when Koyama was always around to hand out coffee milk at shoots and late night study sessions, but he is not one of those bleary-eyed zombies who can’t croak out a proper good morning without first unsticking their lips with something caffeinated. Yamapi always greets the VP before heading to the coffee table, thank you very much. “I’m fine. So spill.”
“Fine. I’m a history teacher.”
“Oh?” That was not what Yamapi was expecting to hear but it kind of...makes sense, after all.
“Erika really didn’t tell you?”
“Well...no. Or if she did I guess it didn’t stick ‘cause I just assumed…”
“It’s ok! I’ll forgive you this time. But yes, I studied history, specialized in Korean-Japanese relations during the colonial era, and now I have the glamorous job of babysitting adolescent girls and reminding them to write their full names on their homework and to keep their nail polish to themselves.”
“You sound like Ryo!”
“Why? Because I’m a jerkface or because we both work at girl’s schools.” Yamapi jerks a little at Jaejoong’s snappish reply.
“Um, neither. He’s just made the babysitting comparison before, that’s all…”
“Oh.” Jaejoong knocks his head against the headrest. “Tell me all about your first day of school!”
“I don’t really remember kindergarten!” Yamapi laughs, not quite sure how to keep pace with the flow of this conversation.
“No, I mean your first day of teaching, idiot!” Jaejoong sounds like he wants to smack Yamapi affectionately on the back of head for his stupidity and Yamapi is very glad his hands are stuck to the steering wheel. Just one night of drinking together was enough for him to realize that even Jaejoong’s affection can sometimes hurt.
“Well, they asked me to tell them the story of my first love! The students did.” Yamapi swipes at his nose and pinches the bridge. “I mean, out of all the personal questions they could ask, huh?” Jaejoong doesn’t laugh, not even a breathy snort.
“Did you tell them?”
“Yes.”
“Is it a good story?” From the lilt in Jaejoong’s voice he sounds impressed for some unclear reason.
“I made it good!” Yamapi says, suddenly a little defensive.
“Do I get to hear it?”
“Uh...maybe? Later?” Yamapi generally likes to feel prepared for these things. Not that those third graders hadn’t asked him on the spot.
“Ok.” Jaejoong pries a hand off the wheel to mask a delicate yawn. Maybe he’s the one who needs coffee; his careful indifference is making Yamapi itch under his collar.
“Ok fine, I’ll tell you! But it’s not actually that exciting, so don’t get your hopes up.”
“Ok.” Jaejoong’s detached interest is almost more intimidating than if he had jumped all over Yamapi for the story.
“So there was this girl, in fifth grade,” Yamapi starts, pausing to inhale a deep lungful of new car smell and stale seaweed.
“Uh huh.”
“From Class 6F. And she--”
“Wait, you already told me this one!” Jaejoong interrupts, his tone demanding an explanation, but of what Yamapi’s not sure. Yamapi
sighs.
“No, Eri-chan did. And she didn’t tell it like I told my kids.” Jaejoong nods meekly, tucking his chin to his collarbone and waiting for Yamapi to continue.
“And she was popular. Like the kind of girl who doesn’t have the highest class ranking but ends up as class captain every year because everyone loves her. Everyone. The kind of girl with little creases in the corners of her eyes when she smiles…”
Yamapi tells the whole story, aiming for exactly as he spun it to a room full of 17 year olds, complete with nervous laughs and long pauses at what were supposed to be comedic timings, not trimming any of the cheesy descriptions even though he cringes against the car door as phrases like “a pure girl in the spring” and “love offering” come tripping out of his mouth.
He’s just narrated them all the way to the bike rack under the sparse shade of the newly budded magnolia tree when the phone rings. Jaejoong’s phone.
“Hello?” Jaejoong drawls in Korean, holding his phone a centimeter away from the curtain of dark hair covering his ear. “Imo! Long time no see! Yes, we’re coming in…”
Yamapi glances away and tries not to eavesdrop. He’s more relieved than annoyed by the interruption. He was fast approaching the climax of his epic romance without having decided whether or not to omit the sorry ending in this retelling. Technically Erika had already blurted it to Jaejoong but Yamapi hadn’t included the distasteful bits in his classroom performance, so…
“...yes, thank you!” Jaejoong slides over until his sharp elbow nudges into Yamapi’s arm painfully. “We’ll...soon, bye Imo!” Jaejoong finishes the call in a loud voice that echoes against the windshield. “Did you catch all of that, Tomo-kun?”
“What? No! I was raised not to listen in on private calls.”
“It’s ok if you can’t understand Korean perfectly yet,” Jaejoong coos. Yamapi flicks at his armrest.
“Watch it, or you might just graduate from jerk to asshole before noon.”
“That’s fine by me. Impoliteness is indicative of a close relationship, you know.” Yamapi tries not to choke on his spit. “That’s an economics thing, right.” Jaejoong’s smug little smile slides into a frown. “Or is it sociology.”
“It’s--” Yamapi clutches at the door handle to pull himself upright in his seat, “it’s a linguistics thing. What?” The frown has melted into a neutral expression but Jaejoong’s brows are raised past his hairline. “Side interest,” Yamapi explains with a vague wave. “So was that your aunt who called?”
“So you were listening!” Jaejoong flashes him a sharp grin in the mirror and the corner of Yamapi’s mouth twitches in annoyance. “She’s not really my aunt, more like an old friend of the family. But anyway, she owns the orchard and we’re eating at her place when we get there in...twenty minutes or so.” Jaejoong glances up from the clock, his eyes finding Yamapi’s in the mirror again with an unspoken question reflected in them. Yamapi just nods. He would be more than ok with food in the near future.
Imo, otherwise known as Mrs. Lee, lives in a large old farmhouse at the end of a narrow dirt lane with her husband Mr. Park, Jaejoong explains. The driveway is long, and bumpy, Yamapi soon discovers. A large yellow dog bounds up to them before Jaejoong’s car has even rolled to a stop. It kind of looks like an oversized Akita, maybe crossbred with a golden retriever, Yamapi notes as he climbs out of the car with stiff legs. The dog noses under the door before Yamapi can close it, black tongue lapping out to lick at the grease saturated bottom of an empty paper bag on the floor.
“Hey there,” Yamapi murmurs, gently pushing the dog away with a palm to his wet nose. The dog backs up calmly, tail hitting the side of the car in a slow, easy rhythm.
“Hurry up, Tomo-kun!” Jaejoong is already on the front step, punching the lock button on the remote as soon as Yamapi shuts his door. “Have you had jajangmyeon before?”
“Yup.” Yamapi slings his bag over one shoulder and jogs across the yard, gravel studded sand and mud already caking the bottom of his shoes. “With a coworker, in Jeongeup.” Jaejoong catches him by the plaid flannel sleeve as soon as Yamapi comes in reach and pulls him onto the rough concrete step beside him before rapping on the door.
“Oh! You came?” A stooping woman with a blacker than black perm throws open the door and hustles Jaejoong into the house. Yamapi ducks in behind him with a polite bow.
“Nice to see you, Imo!” Jaejoong drops his bag to the scarred linoleum curling up from the utility room floor.
“Oh, your hair! You look like...Korean again!” Mrs. Lee reaches clenching fists to grab at Jaejoong’s fringe. He ducks away but allows her to pinch and prod at his cheeks.
“You look Korean?” Yamapi echoes, looking around for a place to stash his shoes.
“I dye my hair a lot,” Jaejoong explains with a rolling shrug.
“Oh, who...?” Mrs. Lee drops her probing fingers to stare at Yamapi. Yamapi fights the urge to fold into another bow just to avoid eye contact and tries to smile back. “Is this...foreigner...friend?”
“Annyeonghaseyo!” Yamapi says with another bow, what the hell. It can’t hurt to be polite and he’s not sure how Jaejoong’s explained his existence to his aunt; Yamapi tries to avoid the where are you from? questions as much as possible until he’s sure he’s not in anti-Japanese territory.
“Nice to meet you!” Mrs. Lee grabs him by the wrist to pump his hand. “Oooh, so handsome...Jaejoongie!”
“You’re looking very beautiful yourself, Imo!” Jaejoong leans in to wink.
“Ah, don’t say...this old woman!” She whacks Jaejoong on the shoulder but flushes happily at the compliment. “Come on, I know...hungry! I made some…”
“Where’s--”
“Uncle went fishing, grmmf!” she cuts Jaejoong off with a full body scoff. “Even though I told him...come before noon, and that we had plenty enough food already.” She leads them through a narrow kitchen into the next room. Plenty enough food is an understatement, Yamapi thinks with an incredulous laugh as he takes in three lacquer tables sagging under the weight of two dozen dishes spread across them.
“Imo!” Jaejoong whacks at her hand wrapped tightly around his bicep. “You didn’t have to cook all this for us! You’re...rest, let me do the cooking!” Mrs. Lee laughs, deep in her throat.
“It’s a wonder... haven’t found a lovely girl...settled down yet, Jaejoong-ah. Handsome, smart, and you even...cooking.” Jaejoong’s smile tightens momentarily under the unwelcome attention.
“I have settled down, Imo. I have...job!”
“But a job...other side of the country.” She eases onto her knees in front of the largest table with a soft groan. Jaejoong drops to a crouch to pass her a kneeling cushion, steadying her by the elbow as she settles into it. Yamapi sits in the seat across from her that Jaejoong waves him into. “How could I not cook for you...never come to see me? I...you some reason to come back again soon!” Mrs. Lee pouts, deep lines creasing the smooth layer of her too-pink lipstick.
“You know I’m busy, Imo.” Jaejoong fidgets on his cushion next to Yamapi, tugging at the seam of his pant leg.
“I know, I know!” Mrs. Lee throws up her hands and starts ladling out soup from a steaming iron pot. “Your poor Mother, Lord bless her, can’t--”
“Imo, let me...for you! You shouldn’t--”
“Don’t...change the subject, you--!”
“I’m home!” a gravelly voice shouts, followed by the dull thud of the door slamming.
“Honey!” Mrs. Lee and Jaejoon both hop to their feet and race towards the kitchen, bottlenecking gracelessly in the doorway to the entryway before Mrs. Lee elbows her way victoriously to the front. Yamapi gets up to follow, hanging back in the doorway to the dining room.
“Look, Look! I…” A man who must be Mr. Park, Yamapi assumes, holds up a large bucket shaped more like a trough actually, with dozens of small river fish piled into it.
“Go wash up, we…!” Mrs. Lee pulls the bucket away from her husband and nudges him towards the kitchen. He sighs, pushing a pair of polarized sunglasses up onto a thinning patch of hair plastered above his forehead.
“Oh! Who is this?” He stops short, a few steps away from the kitchen sink, when he catches sight of Yamapi in the doorway.
“Annyeonghaseyo!” He nods in acknowledgement of Yamapi’s bow, flicking on the sink to rinse his hands under the spray.
“Samcheon, this is my friend...Japan...Daegu after that time...and…!” Yamapi loses track of Jaejoong’s explanation, his quick stream of words getting lost in the sound of the running water.
“Oh, welcome! Call me uncle,” he says as Mrs. Lee starts to nudge him towards the dining room.
“Oh, thank you, Samecheon,” Yamapi says slowly, trying to pronounce the title correctly.
“Ah! So refreshing!” Mr. Park gasps after gulping half the chilled tea from the glass his wife presses into his hands.
They eat quickly, not talking much, which Yamapi knows now to be proper etiquette so he tries not to squirm at the silence. Mrs. Lee has made six kinds of greens, lightly steamed and dressed in oil and a dash of soy sauce, braised potatoes, chewy steamed squid, sticky green rice cake infused with wormwood, crumbled beef soaking in a pool of brine, but the star of the show is a deep tureen of spicy stewed fish that Mr. Park had caught in the river the day before and simmered overnight in pepper sauce with a few dozen garlic cloves thrown in. It’s delicious, though Yamapi feels like a fire breathing dragon by the end of the meal.
Mrs. Lee refuses any help from them to clean up after dinner, rushing to stack the dishes into the sink before Jaejoong can finish his last mouthful and try to beat her to it. She leaves them unwashed for later, pushing her guests to the door with a firm hand on each of their hips. She holds the door for them as they pull on their sneakers, stepping into a pair of yellow rubber boots before she follows them out.
She hands them each a tomato as they’re heading across the yard, pulled from the front pocket of her faded cotton print apron. Jaejoong grins and Mrs. Lee plops a wide brimmed sun hat over her perm and trots ahead. Yamapi looks up to find that the hill next to the house is actually the base of a mountain, the slope stretching up past his line of sight into the trees. Jaejoong saunters slowly towards the beginning of the trail up mountainside.
“What’s this for?” Yamapi asks, turning the soft red globe over in his hands and wondering where the knife and chopsticks are if they’re supposed to eat the tomatoes now.
“Fruit, for dessert.” Jaejoong sinks his teeth into the side of his until the thin juice runs down his wrist, soaking into the cuff of his shirt. Yamapi blinks and takes a bite.
“Good tomato, heh?” Jaejoong licks the slick juice from the heel of his hand, starting up the steep incline after Mrs. Lee. Coarse white gravel, limestone maybe, is tamped into the path between the rows of apple trees. The mud drying on the bottoms of Yamapi’s sneakers comes off against the rough rocks and smooth streaks of trodden grass with every step. “They have green houses too. Strawberries at the end of winter.”
“Yeah, delicious,” Yamapi sighs into the next bite. He used to be amazed at how slicing a tomato into neat wedges, thin cross sections, opened it up like an illustration in an anatomy textbook. You can tell a lot from squeezing a tomato, massaging the smooth skin, assessing the evenness of the tone for ripeness, but you don’t really know that tomato til you slice it open, or pry it apart with sharp fingernails like Jaejoong is ripping at his right now.
Now Yamapi knows that he was all wrong; neat little diagrams are always deceiving, just take Geography and try to wrap your head around the slippery shortcomings of map projections and how warped your concept of the world literally is.
Now he knows: the only way to get it right is by feeling, pulling apart the flesh with probing lips, tonguing along the way the slick seeds cling to the aortas and juice filled cavities, the perfection of the 3D form ingraining itself into his sensory consciousness, his muscle memory and the backs of his retinas.
“It’s not that you didn’t know and now do,” Jaejoong says thoughtfully after a moment, after Yamapi’s given up trying to elucidate another one of those things that make sense in his head but he can never explain just right. “It’s more like the difference between knowing and experiencing.”
“But no it’s--” Yamapi starts to protest but snaps his mouth back shut. Hmm. Maybe. He’ll have to save that thought for another day though. His head suddenly aches too much right now to debate that until the point of agreement or dissension, the nerves and anticipation of the morning finally catching up with him in a flash of fatigue. Besides, they’ve reached the crest where Mrs. Lee is waiting for them, wringing a soft yellow cloth between her hands and hollering for them to get a move on.
Jaejoong stretches both arms skyward and lowers them halfway before swinging them in wide arcs as he circles his shoulders.
“Ah! Don’t you feel on top of the world!” he shouts. A clump of tomato seeds splatters onto the side of Yamapi’s neck.
“Hurry up and pick something!” Mrs. Lee is waving a large blue plastic pail at them, suspended from a length of nylon rope in lieu of a handle. Jaejoong catches it away from her, half his tomato balanced in his other hand.
“Over here!” Jaejoong jogs around the terraced mound of dirt built up around the base of a nearby tree.
“Pick the big ones, they taste the sweetest!” Samcheon urges, toiling up the path behind them and rubbing at the lime green and black spandex of his hiking top stretched across the slope of his potbelly. Everything about him is round, the bulb of his red nose curving past the end of his sunglasses, the line of his wiry shoulders under his folded collar.
Jaejoong drops the bucket to rest in a nest of dead leaves at his feet and starts to snap sun warmed fruit from the branches, Samcheon picking into a matching blue bucket at the next tree up the incline.
Yamapi gets to work, pausing between selections for bites of his tomato. It tastes like the end of summer. Good tomatoes always do though, like the heat of August at midday and the sweet dusk of tiny frogs serenading the rice paddies after dark.
When their bucket is full, firm round fruit stacked a hand’s breadth past the brim, Jaejoong lugs it over to Mrs. Lee, sneakers dragging through the damp grass.
“Oh, good job!” She hefts herself from her seat and sidesteps the low canvas stool to snatch another bucket from a stack of tools and plastic tarps. “Here.”
“Thank you, Imo!”
“Wait!” She tugs on his shirt sleeve as she sinks into the backless chair. “...your foreign friend, too!” Jaejoong jerks his head at him and Yamapi stumbles down the gravel pathway to where Mrs. Lee has been sorting fruit and removing wayward stems and leaves. “Here,” she says again, peeling an apple until the dark red skin falls away in curls. She slices chunks of white flesh away from the core and feeds them to Jaejoong and then Yamapi.
Yamapi parts his lips in surprise a second too late, Mrs. Lee’s fingernails grazing his upper lip. She cackles and pats his cheek with sticky fingers.
“Mmm! Imo! So delicious!” Jaejoong moans around his mouthful. Yamapi can only nod, his grin stretching painfully across his bulging cheeks as he tries to chew. It is a good apple, tart and sweet at the same time with a hint of autumn rain in the bits of skin that cling to the flesh.
“So!” Mrs. Lee turns to him, knife blade singing under the skin of another apple, “Which...better? Japan apple? Korea apple?”
“Um,” Yamapi chokes, trying to swallow. “They’re both good?” Not that this apple isn’t delicious, but the fuji apples Ryo’s aunt in Nagano sends them every winter at New Year’s are fucking amazing, mellow and sweet but with a bouquet of flavors that lingers on your tongue an hour after the last bite.
“But which one...better? Best? Number one?” She stands up again, folding back the floppy brim of her hat to stare expectantly into Yamapi’s eyes. Jaejoong muffles a snicker into his shoulder, not attempting to help at all.
“This apple is delicious!” Yamapi says with a loud smile, hoping to just skirt the whole subject. He starts to feel kind of claustrophobic when someone forces a decision like that on him. How are you supposed to choose the best between two different things? It’s easier to just appreciate each one for what it is.
“Ahah! It’s delicious! This...most delicious?” Mrs. Lee’s smile is sharp edged with victory, the lines at the intersections of her eyes crinkling up with glee like wadded wrapping paper on Christmas morning.
“Delicious,” Yamapi nods again with an internal sigh. He doesn’t want to offend her or start an argument or anything. She slaps him on the shoulder and shoves an even wider wedge of apple between his lips.
They fill three more buckets before Mrs. Lee walks them back down to Jaejoong’s car.
“You sure...stay for tea?” She latches onto Jaejoong’s arm again as her husband packs their fruit plus the bucket he picked into two cardboard boxes stamped with a stylized watercolor rendition of pale green apples.
“Daegu...tonight, you know it’s...late...faraway,” Jaejoong pouts through the brush of fringe across his eyelashes. Mrs. Lee’s pursed lips melt into an indulgent smile.
“Drive safely then, Joongie-yah!” She pats his as he pulls away to help Mr. Park load the boxes into his trunk, nestled into the layer of empty coke cans and styrofoam bento boxes rattling around back there. Jaejoong slams the trunk lid before Mrs. Lee can peek inside as she comes around for one last hug.
“It was nice to meet you, Jaejoong’s friend! You’re always welcome in Yesan if you’re…!” Mr. Park ruffles Yamapi’s hair as Mrs. Lee dives to squeeze him around the middle.
“Thank you, it was nice to meet you too!” Yamapi bows, almost tripping over the dog as he straightens up. “Annyeong~!” He stoops to scratch between the dog’s ears, his strong jaws parting with a yawn of contentment as Jaejoong starts the car.
Yamapi climbs in and turns to wave at the couple standing in the driveway as they pull away.
“They’re really nice, your aunt and uncle,” he yawns as Jaejoong adjusts the temperature controls. It’s only three o’clock but the sky is darkening with the incoming roll of a stormfront, the warmth outside fading with the light.
“Mmmhmm!” Jaejoong speeds up as they turn onto a wide dirt road. The first rain drops start to fall as they cross a low bridge between two rice fields. “Ugh, I hope the rain isn’t so heavy there are traffic delays. I’m already gonna get home after 9:00 as it is.” Jaejoong slouches a few inches further into his seat, elbows sagging as he handles the wheel.
“It should be fine,” Yamapi murmurs through a yawn, turning to watch the slow plash of raindrops into the silver sheet of the irrigation canal beneath the bridge. “Hey, how come they harvest the rice here so early?” he asks as pass another stretch of stubble.
“Because of the rain, I guess. I don’t know.” Jaejoong wriggles in his seat, twisting the AC knob on the dash again. “Some farmers start right after Chuseok.”
“Oh.” Yamapi always associated harvest with the end of October, the steady curl of thick smoke winding skywards against a backdrop of brilliant maple leaves as farmers set torch to each row of broken off stalks and slowly follow behind with damp towels. It always seemed like a painfully slow process, although Yamapi admits to himself he’s a little hazy on all the ins and outs of it, now that he thinks about it. “What do you think of the--”
“Hang on, I just gotta answer this…” Jaejoong swipes a thumb across his vibrating phone screen to take the call and holds it up to his ear, the black silk curtain of his hair ruffling.
“Hello,” he answers in Korean. Jaejoong’s voice sounds a little sleepy in a comfortable way, but Yamapi sees his jaw tighten out of the corner of his eye. Jaejoong grunts noncommittally at a few pauses in a rapid stream of Korean from the other end. It sounds like possibly a woman’s voice, but it’s hard to tell.
Yamapi looks out the window, trying to give Jaejoong as much space as he can in the closed quarters, although it’s not like he can understand Korean anyway; he just wants Jaejoong to know he respects his privacy, and stuff.
Jaejoong sniffs loudly and speeds up the car a little, the cloud of dust outside the windows flying thick as inside Rina’s flour sifter during one of her infamous failed baking adventures. Yamapi’s fingers clutch at the safety belt across his hips and chest as he wills the rain to fall faster, to clear up the haze of dust swallowing them.
“I see,” Jaejoong growls suddenly and the voice on the other end rises in pitch and volume, impossible to pretend to ignore anymore. Yamapi’s almost sure now it’s a woman. It’s not Imo, though, because Jaejoong isn’t speaking politely. Girlfriend? Ex-girlfriend? Coworker?
Bits of gravel are spewing off the road from under the tires to hit the undercarriage with a steady chink, chink, chink. Yamapi closes his eyes and rests his cheekbone against the slant of the nylon belt held taught in his hands.
“Fine. Ok. Hanging up now.” And Jaejoong does, shutting off the phone completely without waiting for a goodbye. A galaxy of virtual stars flashes across the screen before it fades black and then blank. Jaejoong drops the phone into the cup holder. Yamapi stifles another yawn against the back of his hand. It still smells faintly of tomato juice.
“So,” Jaejoong says to the rain streaked windshield, “that was my sister. Do you...have siblings, Tomo.”
“Yeah…” Yamapi tears at a cuticle, waiting for Jaejoong to say something, change the subject, start in on a rambling joke that isn’t funny or another outrageous anecdote about his students that Yamapi probably shouldn’t believe but totally will, if for no other reason than he’s already met the infamous anomaly that is Krystal Jung (well, at least over the phone, he has).
Jaejoong doesn’t say anything though, staring straight ahead and staying more still than Yamapi’s ever seen him, except asleep, as the numbers on the dash clock drift upwards, change three times. So Yamapi says,
“I have a younger sister. She’s still a student.” He sucks in a deep breath as Jaejoong lets out a shuddering exhale and continues, “She’s a huge brat, but my mother loves her to death, so I suppose I do, too.”
Awkward. Oh god, why did he explain it like that? Jaejoong’s gonna think he’s a horrible brother, an unfilial bastard for not bragging on Rina and--
“Sometimes I wish I had a younger sister.” Jaejoong shifts in his seat as if he were sitting in a puddle of something sticky and not on an expensive cushy leather seat which heats up with the press of a button. “Only sometimes.” Yamapi nods.
“She gave me this watch.” He pushes his shirt sleeve up his forearm to expose the dark band cutting across his wrist although Jaejoong’s well familiar with it (he toyed with the buckle on the walk back from Mrs. Gunito’s izakaya on Chuseok) and needs to focus on the road, anyways. “Sometimes I miss her on Saturday mornings.” Yamapi falls silent, memories of his mom leaving for work before sunrise, of cold rice and hot milk stirred with a spoon shared for breakfast in front of cartoon reruns on their clunky old TV flitting by in the flashes of reflected light across the dirty window glass.
It’s been a long time since they spent Saturday mornings together, Yamapi and Rina. She doesn’t get up early on weekends anymore, hasn’t since the last year of middle school when she started staying up late, first to mail her high school boyfriend under the covers and then to sneak out down the fire escape when she got braver. But then again, he hasn’t had weekend mornings free since he was 16 and started working part time, either. A Saturday road trip like this is something of a rare occurrence. Unusual, but really nice.
“Did Erika tell you how many siblings I have.” Yamapi shakes his head, not sure if that’s a question or a rhetorical question or just Jaejoong thinking aloud. “Guess.”
“Oh.” Jaejoong laughs at his soft exhale of not-exactly-surprise.
“It’s not a trick question, dummy. How many siblings do you think I have.”
“Uh, an older brother and an older sister.”
“No.” Jaejoong shakes his head til his earring peeks through again.
“Two older sisters.”
“Nope.”
“An older sister and three younger brothers?” Yamapi asks, a bubble of frustrated laughter sticking in his throat. No one’s made him
work this hard for an answer since Tegoshi refused to tell them the name of his new girlfriend in February. He was a cryptic bastard for all of winter break, just ‘cause he could be, Yamapi remembers with a sigh.
“No, not even close!” Jaejoong’s bright laugh shatters the quiet streaks of tension hanging in the air ever since the phone rang and they fall like dust in a fine layer across the bottom of the car floor rugs, still palpable but shifting into a more subtle presence.
“Oh.” Yamapi suddenly doesn’t feel like guessing anymore but he feels like if he says it, says I give up, it’ll mean something more, something important that he can’t put his finger on, and he can’t do that to Jaejoong, can’t do that to himself, can’t--
“What?” Yamapi just shakes his head again, not bothering to lift his gaze; he knows Jaejoong can see his movements in the mirror.
“So…” Jaejoong puffs out his cheeks for a long sigh. “My sister said--you know what, never mind. But it looks like we have to make a brief stop in Gongju.”
“Ok,” Yamapi nods, fighting a yawn with a bite to his lower lip.
“I’m gonna turn on the radio. You can take a nap if you want.” Yamapi nods his agreement into the headrest, his eyes already drooping closed. He falls asleep to the pound of rain on the window and the distorted beat of some rapper mumbling along at an incoherent volume on Jaejoong’s radio.