the livelong june
the livelong june
2,693w; pg (jaeseop/jiyeon)
i'm amorous but out of reach.
He takes the seven o’clock train to Seoul smelling stale from a fourteen hour flight. People crowd around him anyway, briefcases knocking into his knees, three other hands clutching the pole he is stationed at. He has not taken any form of public transit for a while, and when the doors sigh to close, he is suddenly stricken with the fact that he can barely breathe.
A mother and her children sit behind him, stubby legs kicking the back of his shins every now and then. Dirt marks turn his black jeans a bit ashy but the kid does not take any notice, small fingers having a choke hold on her mother’s hand phone. The train skids forward, phone hitting the floor next to his feet. He picks it up and hands it back as the wheels grate against steel.
Chubby hands grab it back. Thank you, the mother tells him instead. Her children sitting to her sides seem to not hear this. But kids are like that, he thinks. They don’t know any better.
She wakes up to the sound of something sizzling on the stove, the smell of marinated meat flooding through their apartment. She can hear her mother garbling loudly on the phone, laughing too loud for nine o’clock on a weekend. Is it even ok to be up at this time? Her feet stick on the laminate floors, sweaty and sticky from early summer humidity. What are you doing? she asks her mom as she bends over to stir the stew. Her father sits at the dining room table, reading the newspaper and shielding his eyes from the sun. It is atypical to see him at home so late so she can’t help but stare. The Kim’s son is coming back from America today, he tells her. You remember him, right?
Yeah, she echoes, eyebrows knitted together. What was his name? He was older than her by a few years. Tall. They took the same bus to school each morning. What was his name? Her mother laughs on the phone again and she cannot remember the last time she had seen her so happy.
I remember. (but she doesn’t, really.)
His father picks him up at the train station. He still wears the tell-tale old red jacket and grey sweatpants, shameless threadbare slippers with white socks. His weathered hands insist on taking the suitcase but he does not give in, clinging onto the handle until his knuckles turn white.
Traffic suffocates them in the midst of humid air and car exhaust, all lanes blocked. Welcome back to Korea, son, his father jokes. He concedes a laugh and wonders when his father got so many white hairs.
She’s in the bathroom when the front door opens, mothers exclaiming and fathers laughing heartily. She dries her hands and sits down on the toilet seat cover, wondering if she could hide there forever. Unfamiliar footfalls echo through the apartment, soft enough to be sneakers, loud enough to be formidable. She buries her face in her hands and wishes she was someone else, someplace else.
They exchange greetings, father mother family friends. He is good at this, hears him reply to small talk, crack a joke for himself. She is not, footsteps creaking on old hardwood floors down the hallway.
You remember our Jiyeonnie, her mother says. He looks at her then, all tall and sharp eyes, all state-of-the-art American. She moves to stand next to her father, eyes focused on a spot behind his head. You guys went to the same school.
His lips pull up into a smile. Hers do not. Yeah, he says. I remember. Your birthday just passed, didn’t it? He faces her and she smells public transit clinging onto his clothes. It makes her nose crinkle.
Yeah, it did, she clears her throat. He makes it sound strange, like she’s not allowed to be born in June. He laughs a little, maybe at her awkwardness, maybe at everyone’s overall, maybe at something else. Mine too, he smiles, (maybe) a little expectantly. Mine too, it sounds like he expects her to remember something but she doesn’t.
He overeats at lunch because he cannot pass up a good, home-cooked meal, because one of the mothers keeps placing more food into his bowl. It must have been a while since you ate food like this, his mother says and yes, yes it really has he realizes a little late. The smell of meat replaces the scent of airplanes and gasoline and a shower suddenly comes to mind.
They ask him questions. What did you study over in America? Jiyeon’s father asks. He almost chokes on his rice before he can answer. His mother pipes in for him. Psychology, and she sounds proud. Jiyeon watches from the last seat of the table, where the head of the family usually sits, but she does not look the part of stern matriarch.
They ask him about his future, about his plans, where will you get a job, when will you raise a family? I’m only twenty-two, he laughs several times to no avail. His degree suddenly seems worthless when they ask him about his career prospects, about getting a job in America when the economy’s like that.
There’s no work here for that kind of profession, his father professes. He tries to keep smiling. Maybe I’ll find a job here one day, he smiles. They laugh and he wonders if that was supposed to be funny.
She lies in her bed that night staring at the ceiling fan. The spokes cycle once twice three times, forty-six times and it suddenly hits her. It’s June. Her arms fold across her stomach and she blinks slowly, deliberately. Then: the thought dissipates from her head. She replaces it by wondering if she looks dead.
He is waiting outside her door when she leaves, haphazard sunscreen smeared over her face, old shorts fraying a bit at the ends. She has to squint at him for a while before realizing that he is standing there for her, waiting for her, smile on his face too bright for one in the afternoon. She’s suddenly embarrassed, and she doesn’t know why.
Where are you headed? he asks as she unlocks her bicycle from the side of their apartment. It usually blocks the stairwell. Today, it blocks him. She eyes him warily before deciding to answer, placing her bag in the basket. The library, she says and wishes he would leave her alone.
Mind if I join you?
She does.
They say nothing the whole bus trip there. She fiddles with the air conditioning, switching it on and off repeatedly until he thinks it’s broken. It is like she does not remember and he is just clinging onto some notion of the past, (which he is) like he is someone she should not bother with anymore. (which he also is)
She has the window seat and he pretends that he is staring at the cars passing by and not her. You didn’t smooth out your sunscreen very well. A lethargic hand wipes her cheek nonchalantly.
She attacks back. How’s Yoonji? He stiffens, fingers flicking his own air conditioner now. We broke up a few months after I started college. She looks at him suddenly, looks back out just as soon and whips him with the ends of her ponytail.
Her fingers press the stop signal and the bus slides to a halt two minutes later. The sticky June air clings onto their skin as soon as the bus drives away. It covers him in a sheet of silence and sweat before they walk into the library.
She digs through her bag for her library card. I have to shelve books today, scans the card and the restricted area gate pops open. She closes it after her quickly - like he is a threat to breaching the area - and digs through her bag.
Read this. He finds a collection of Dickinson in his hands.
He sits near the section she shelves. Sometimes he watches her, sometimes he reads, it is a back and forth of both that makes time fly by. She is working on a top row at three when his phone suddenly starts ringing - it is an accident - and it makes everyone around him stare.
She nearly loses her balance on her stool. Her ponytail bobs as she regains her footing, stays there and does not stare at him like everyone else. He looks back down and Dickinson flies before his eyes, short stanzas in small black print starting to blend together in elongated horizontal lines.
And then he reads it: the livelong -
Some days he follows her to the library, some days he won’t. It’s a Monday when she begins feeling extremely aware of his presence, that he is some towering twenty-two year old while she is just a twenty.
He has Dickinson, Salinger, and Orwell under his belt after two weeks. (she tries to give him Plath but he scrunches his nose after an afternoon with it) Are you really going to spend your summer like this? she whispers one day as she wipes tables free of the eraser shavings and broken lead of focused high school students. He sprays more cleaning solution for her.
What else do I have to do with my life? he just laughs back. She hears the empty echo of truth in it. A good question with no answer, she realizes as she wipes down the front desk.
She never seems to see her Dickinson book anymore.
His mother clicks her tongue at the way he uses his time. He pretends the electric fan and television can drown out her words - you need to get out more, you should go find some of your old friends, you shouldn’t just limit yourself here - though nothing can drown out the persistent hand slapping his shoulder.
His father flips through five news channels. They all switch to the same story. I hang out with Jiyeon, he says and pretends this is enough to keep her satisfied. She pretends it is enough, too.
The bus crowds on their way back. It is a gradual collection of people who need to get places: home, late-night shifts. The congestion reminds him of the first train he took seventeen days ago. He counts the people who exit - not enough - and the people who get on - too many - and squeezes around accordingly.
She readjusts her strap on her shoulder. What are you going to do when you get back? and it is slipping again. He thinks about it, America, and tries to remember how speaking English everyday felt. Did it twist his tongue? Did he hold his vowels out too long or too short?
The bus lurches to a stop. Everyone sways like reeds. I don’t know, and he really doesn’t, hoping the slam of opening doors swallows his voice. I don’t know, thinks about Dickinson, Salinger, Orwell, Bradbury, state-of-the-art America and all that lies for him there.
He suddenly feels small.
She is smaller.
Her mother marks another day on the calendar as she eats breakfast. The cereal grows soggier with each neglected bite, with each well thought-out spoonful. The hum of the fan emanates from the corner, slight spurts of cool air tangling her hair. June is almost over, she hears her mother say from down the hall.
It’s June. The morning casts white squares across the linoleum. June, Dickinson, Jaeseop.
Her spoon clanks against the bowl.
He is waiting outside her when she leaves, sunburnt skin from walking without sunscreen flushing her pink. She nearly trips over her bicycle. He helps her prop it back up. They squint at each other through the glare of the summer sun, washed out grey walls reflecting the brightness, too bright for eleven AM. Hey, he says. Hey, she replies, picking at the frayed ends of her old shorts.
I can’t go to the library today. He hands back Salinger, Orwell, and Bradbury. She fingers their worn covers, waiting for him to leave.
Why not? because he doesn’t. A bird flies by the staircase window, a fleeting shadow. Then they are blinded once again. He twists the toe of his sandal into the welcome mat.
I’m leaving tomorrow, he looks down and doesn’t have to squint anymore. Oh, and doesn’t say anything more.
The ride on the bus is quiet that day, even with children fighting in the backseat, even with elders bickering over each other. Her fingers fiddle with the air conditioning and she pulls the knob back and forth painstakingly until she’s not sure if the cold air even comes through anymore.
The library comes into sight. She lingers over the stop signal, loops her bag around her shoulder and it feels heavy, heavier than last week, heavier than the week before, but lighter than the first trip. Why? She rummages through her bag. They are there - Salinger, Orwell, Bradbury, and -
The library flies by.
June is dying, a sick old man impaled on the spear of July. He imagines the scent of rain splatting on the road, creating potholes on the streets. Typhoon season, he remembers. The idea feels foreign to him.
A bus passes him before he can cross the street. The exhaust sticks to the back of his shirt, a sticky layer of sweat covering his arms. People crowd around him, waiting for the crosswalk sign to go green, and he thinks of state-of-the-art America, what lies there for him, Korea and right now down to his father’s old sandals. The dam breaks, people begin flooding across the streets until he remains like a car, waiting for nothing in particular but an engine to tell him where to go.
(but there are no engines in life. there are no iron and steel devices created to run - away, forever, thoughtlessly - for us. there is only us, so small, so tiny, enough to fit into the hard-to-reach crevices that others may not see unless they squint into the sun.)
She’s waiting for him in front of his door when he comes back, a sticky sheen of sweat turning his forehead shiny in the late afternoon light. It makes him orange and her pink, burning but not enough to make them squint. He moves her bicycle aside to make it up the stairs.
You never gave back my collection of Dickinson. The plastic bag from the bookstore rustles as he tucks it under his arm. He takes out a book and hands it to her - face down, sticky note beneath - smiles and walks into his apartment.
He’s leaving at four in the morning, she hears at dinner. She lies awake in bed at three, hears the clacking of his suitcase as he places it down at fifty-five past and thinks about racing out to say goodbye, or see you soon, or maybe I’ll miss you. (that would be pushing it) It strikes her that she’s no good at this, hellos or goodbyes or the in between.
He trips over her bicycle, the crash echoing down the stairs. The suitcase stops rolling for him to prop it back up. And then it bumps down the stairs, one two three four five six seven until she can only hear the faint clack of wheels and the loud unbolting of the apartment door.
Then: he is gone.
She reaches over to the book he handed her last night, still face down on her desk. Other worn covers litter her desk - Salinger, Orwell, Bradbury - but no Dickinson. (she never gave him permission to keep it) But this one is new, fresh scent of the book store stuck to its plastic wrapping. She takes a deep breath and flips it over.
To Junebug,
Happy livelong June.
(he’s good at this - hellos, goodbyes, the in between.
she’s not - hellos and goodbyes - but she just might be okay at the in between. smiles. she just might.)
to: june boy
the angry grapes? seriously?
to: june bug
it’s the grapes of wrath. ㅠㅠ
to: june boy
you better give my dickinson collection back someday!
to: june bug
we’ll see ;)
2,693w; pg (jaeseop/jiyeon)
i'm amorous but out of reach.
He takes the seven o’clock train to Seoul smelling stale from a fourteen hour flight. People crowd around him anyway, briefcases knocking into his knees, three other hands clutching the pole he is stationed at. He has not taken any form of public transit for a while, and when the doors sigh to close, he is suddenly stricken with the fact that he can barely breathe.
A mother and her children sit behind him, stubby legs kicking the back of his shins every now and then. Dirt marks turn his black jeans a bit ashy but the kid does not take any notice, small fingers having a choke hold on her mother’s hand phone. The train skids forward, phone hitting the floor next to his feet. He picks it up and hands it back as the wheels grate against steel.
Chubby hands grab it back. Thank you, the mother tells him instead. Her children sitting to her sides seem to not hear this. But kids are like that, he thinks. They don’t know any better.
She wakes up to the sound of something sizzling on the stove, the smell of marinated meat flooding through their apartment. She can hear her mother garbling loudly on the phone, laughing too loud for nine o’clock on a weekend. Is it even ok to be up at this time? Her feet stick on the laminate floors, sweaty and sticky from early summer humidity. What are you doing? she asks her mom as she bends over to stir the stew. Her father sits at the dining room table, reading the newspaper and shielding his eyes from the sun. It is atypical to see him at home so late so she can’t help but stare. The Kim’s son is coming back from America today, he tells her. You remember him, right?
Yeah, she echoes, eyebrows knitted together. What was his name? He was older than her by a few years. Tall. They took the same bus to school each morning. What was his name? Her mother laughs on the phone again and she cannot remember the last time she had seen her so happy.
I remember. (but she doesn’t, really.)
His father picks him up at the train station. He still wears the tell-tale old red jacket and grey sweatpants, shameless threadbare slippers with white socks. His weathered hands insist on taking the suitcase but he does not give in, clinging onto the handle until his knuckles turn white.
Traffic suffocates them in the midst of humid air and car exhaust, all lanes blocked. Welcome back to Korea, son, his father jokes. He concedes a laugh and wonders when his father got so many white hairs.
She’s in the bathroom when the front door opens, mothers exclaiming and fathers laughing heartily. She dries her hands and sits down on the toilet seat cover, wondering if she could hide there forever. Unfamiliar footfalls echo through the apartment, soft enough to be sneakers, loud enough to be formidable. She buries her face in her hands and wishes she was someone else, someplace else.
They exchange greetings, father mother family friends. He is good at this, hears him reply to small talk, crack a joke for himself. She is not, footsteps creaking on old hardwood floors down the hallway.
You remember our Jiyeonnie, her mother says. He looks at her then, all tall and sharp eyes, all state-of-the-art American. She moves to stand next to her father, eyes focused on a spot behind his head. You guys went to the same school.
His lips pull up into a smile. Hers do not. Yeah, he says. I remember. Your birthday just passed, didn’t it? He faces her and she smells public transit clinging onto his clothes. It makes her nose crinkle.
Yeah, it did, she clears her throat. He makes it sound strange, like she’s not allowed to be born in June. He laughs a little, maybe at her awkwardness, maybe at everyone’s overall, maybe at something else. Mine too, he smiles, (maybe) a little expectantly. Mine too, it sounds like he expects her to remember something but she doesn’t.
He overeats at lunch because he cannot pass up a good, home-cooked meal, because one of the mothers keeps placing more food into his bowl. It must have been a while since you ate food like this, his mother says and yes, yes it really has he realizes a little late. The smell of meat replaces the scent of airplanes and gasoline and a shower suddenly comes to mind.
They ask him questions. What did you study over in America? Jiyeon’s father asks. He almost chokes on his rice before he can answer. His mother pipes in for him. Psychology, and she sounds proud. Jiyeon watches from the last seat of the table, where the head of the family usually sits, but she does not look the part of stern matriarch.
They ask him about his future, about his plans, where will you get a job, when will you raise a family? I’m only twenty-two, he laughs several times to no avail. His degree suddenly seems worthless when they ask him about his career prospects, about getting a job in America when the economy’s like that.
There’s no work here for that kind of profession, his father professes. He tries to keep smiling. Maybe I’ll find a job here one day, he smiles. They laugh and he wonders if that was supposed to be funny.
She lies in her bed that night staring at the ceiling fan. The spokes cycle once twice three times, forty-six times and it suddenly hits her. It’s June. Her arms fold across her stomach and she blinks slowly, deliberately. Then: the thought dissipates from her head. She replaces it by wondering if she looks dead.
He is waiting outside her door when she leaves, haphazard sunscreen smeared over her face, old shorts fraying a bit at the ends. She has to squint at him for a while before realizing that he is standing there for her, waiting for her, smile on his face too bright for one in the afternoon. She’s suddenly embarrassed, and she doesn’t know why.
Where are you headed? he asks as she unlocks her bicycle from the side of their apartment. It usually blocks the stairwell. Today, it blocks him. She eyes him warily before deciding to answer, placing her bag in the basket. The library, she says and wishes he would leave her alone.
Mind if I join you?
She does.
They say nothing the whole bus trip there. She fiddles with the air conditioning, switching it on and off repeatedly until he thinks it’s broken. It is like she does not remember and he is just clinging onto some notion of the past, (which he is) like he is someone she should not bother with anymore. (which he also is)
She has the window seat and he pretends that he is staring at the cars passing by and not her. You didn’t smooth out your sunscreen very well. A lethargic hand wipes her cheek nonchalantly.
She attacks back. How’s Yoonji? He stiffens, fingers flicking his own air conditioner now. We broke up a few months after I started college. She looks at him suddenly, looks back out just as soon and whips him with the ends of her ponytail.
Her fingers press the stop signal and the bus slides to a halt two minutes later. The sticky June air clings onto their skin as soon as the bus drives away. It covers him in a sheet of silence and sweat before they walk into the library.
She digs through her bag for her library card. I have to shelve books today, scans the card and the restricted area gate pops open. She closes it after her quickly - like he is a threat to breaching the area - and digs through her bag.
Read this. He finds a collection of Dickinson in his hands.
He sits near the section she shelves. Sometimes he watches her, sometimes he reads, it is a back and forth of both that makes time fly by. She is working on a top row at three when his phone suddenly starts ringing - it is an accident - and it makes everyone around him stare.
She nearly loses her balance on her stool. Her ponytail bobs as she regains her footing, stays there and does not stare at him like everyone else. He looks back down and Dickinson flies before his eyes, short stanzas in small black print starting to blend together in elongated horizontal lines.
And then he reads it: the livelong -
Some days he follows her to the library, some days he won’t. It’s a Monday when she begins feeling extremely aware of his presence, that he is some towering twenty-two year old while she is just a twenty.
He has Dickinson, Salinger, and Orwell under his belt after two weeks. (she tries to give him Plath but he scrunches his nose after an afternoon with it) Are you really going to spend your summer like this? she whispers one day as she wipes tables free of the eraser shavings and broken lead of focused high school students. He sprays more cleaning solution for her.
What else do I have to do with my life? he just laughs back. She hears the empty echo of truth in it. A good question with no answer, she realizes as she wipes down the front desk.
She never seems to see her Dickinson book anymore.
His mother clicks her tongue at the way he uses his time. He pretends the electric fan and television can drown out her words - you need to get out more, you should go find some of your old friends, you shouldn’t just limit yourself here - though nothing can drown out the persistent hand slapping his shoulder.
His father flips through five news channels. They all switch to the same story. I hang out with Jiyeon, he says and pretends this is enough to keep her satisfied. She pretends it is enough, too.
The bus crowds on their way back. It is a gradual collection of people who need to get places: home, late-night shifts. The congestion reminds him of the first train he took seventeen days ago. He counts the people who exit - not enough - and the people who get on - too many - and squeezes around accordingly.
She readjusts her strap on her shoulder. What are you going to do when you get back? and it is slipping again. He thinks about it, America, and tries to remember how speaking English everyday felt. Did it twist his tongue? Did he hold his vowels out too long or too short?
The bus lurches to a stop. Everyone sways like reeds. I don’t know, and he really doesn’t, hoping the slam of opening doors swallows his voice. I don’t know, thinks about Dickinson, Salinger, Orwell, Bradbury, state-of-the-art America and all that lies for him there.
He suddenly feels small.
She is smaller.
Her mother marks another day on the calendar as she eats breakfast. The cereal grows soggier with each neglected bite, with each well thought-out spoonful. The hum of the fan emanates from the corner, slight spurts of cool air tangling her hair. June is almost over, she hears her mother say from down the hall.
It’s June. The morning casts white squares across the linoleum. June, Dickinson, Jaeseop.
Her spoon clanks against the bowl.
He is waiting outside her when she leaves, sunburnt skin from walking without sunscreen flushing her pink. She nearly trips over her bicycle. He helps her prop it back up. They squint at each other through the glare of the summer sun, washed out grey walls reflecting the brightness, too bright for eleven AM. Hey, he says. Hey, she replies, picking at the frayed ends of her old shorts.
I can’t go to the library today. He hands back Salinger, Orwell, and Bradbury. She fingers their worn covers, waiting for him to leave.
Why not? because he doesn’t. A bird flies by the staircase window, a fleeting shadow. Then they are blinded once again. He twists the toe of his sandal into the welcome mat.
I’m leaving tomorrow, he looks down and doesn’t have to squint anymore. Oh, and doesn’t say anything more.
The ride on the bus is quiet that day, even with children fighting in the backseat, even with elders bickering over each other. Her fingers fiddle with the air conditioning and she pulls the knob back and forth painstakingly until she’s not sure if the cold air even comes through anymore.
The library comes into sight. She lingers over the stop signal, loops her bag around her shoulder and it feels heavy, heavier than last week, heavier than the week before, but lighter than the first trip. Why? She rummages through her bag. They are there - Salinger, Orwell, Bradbury, and -
The library flies by.
June is dying, a sick old man impaled on the spear of July. He imagines the scent of rain splatting on the road, creating potholes on the streets. Typhoon season, he remembers. The idea feels foreign to him.
A bus passes him before he can cross the street. The exhaust sticks to the back of his shirt, a sticky layer of sweat covering his arms. People crowd around him, waiting for the crosswalk sign to go green, and he thinks of state-of-the-art America, what lies there for him, Korea and right now down to his father’s old sandals. The dam breaks, people begin flooding across the streets until he remains like a car, waiting for nothing in particular but an engine to tell him where to go.
(but there are no engines in life. there are no iron and steel devices created to run - away, forever, thoughtlessly - for us. there is only us, so small, so tiny, enough to fit into the hard-to-reach crevices that others may not see unless they squint into the sun.)
She’s waiting for him in front of his door when he comes back, a sticky sheen of sweat turning his forehead shiny in the late afternoon light. It makes him orange and her pink, burning but not enough to make them squint. He moves her bicycle aside to make it up the stairs.
You never gave back my collection of Dickinson. The plastic bag from the bookstore rustles as he tucks it under his arm. He takes out a book and hands it to her - face down, sticky note beneath - smiles and walks into his apartment.
He’s leaving at four in the morning, she hears at dinner. She lies awake in bed at three, hears the clacking of his suitcase as he places it down at fifty-five past and thinks about racing out to say goodbye, or see you soon, or maybe I’ll miss you. (that would be pushing it) It strikes her that she’s no good at this, hellos or goodbyes or the in between.
He trips over her bicycle, the crash echoing down the stairs. The suitcase stops rolling for him to prop it back up. And then it bumps down the stairs, one two three four five six seven until she can only hear the faint clack of wheels and the loud unbolting of the apartment door.
Then: he is gone.
She reaches over to the book he handed her last night, still face down on her desk. Other worn covers litter her desk - Salinger, Orwell, Bradbury - but no Dickinson. (she never gave him permission to keep it) But this one is new, fresh scent of the book store stuck to its plastic wrapping. She takes a deep breath and flips it over.
To Junebug,
Happy livelong June.
(he’s good at this - hellos, goodbyes, the in between.
she’s not - hellos and goodbyes - but she just might be okay at the in between. smiles. she just might.)
to: june boy
the angry grapes? seriously?
to: june bug
it’s the grapes of wrath. ㅠㅠ
to: june boy
you better give my dickinson collection back someday!
to: june bug
we’ll see ;)