Ganghwa Island (3)
Ganghwa Island (3)
"Should I just go to the mart..."
The market wasn't far from the mart. If I turned that dark curve just ahead, I'd be right there — maybe five minutes. It wouldn't take long, but the hot weather and the thought of walking into that dark stretch just made me lazier.
"Let's just sit quietly..."
I didn't even know if A-ra was at the mart. If I went there and we missed each other, it would only cause confusion. She might even be driving around the village in the Bugatti.
"If I had known, I would have gone with her."
There was no point adding 'if' to something already over, but I sighed, sitting on the bench and looking up at the sky. Even being apart for just a few minutes felt so precious, it amazed me how I usually endured it. Sitting on a bench on this quiet island, swinging my legs, it felt like I was spending a day out of the ordinary.
Why did I feel this way?
"When is she coming..."
I was starting to get sleepy, and I wanted to hurry and grill the meat and have fun. Maybe I got too carried away playing at the beach...
***
"Excuse me, student!"
"Sseup....Oooh...."
Did I doze off for a bit?
I wiped the drool that had dripped around my mouth and stretched. But it seemed someone had woken me. I glanced around and saw two ajummas in blue uniforms, holding flashlights. Next to them was a car painted in a color similar to their clothes...
Ah...
It was the police.
"Student, you're not a local, right? You're a tourist, aren't you?"
"I'm sorry. I think I dozed off for a moment."
I jumped to my feet and brushed the dust off my butt. And I bowed to the police aunties and tried to leave. No, I tried to leave. I picked up the bag of shrimp I had left on the bench and tried to stand up, but I was stopped.
"Wait a moment. Student, how old are you?"
"I'm twenty-one..."
"You don't look it. Seventeen? Somewhere around there."
"Our son is just like you, and he's seventeen. How about you come with us to the police station?"
"Uh...."
It seemed they'd mistaken me for a runaway or something. While I stammered, they put me in the back of the police car. I was flustered for a moment, but it was a police car, so there was nothing to fear.
"Student, you must have been surprised. Have one of these."
"Thank you..."
What the police aunties handed over was a cold can of coffee. It seemed they had bought coffee and were on their way back to the station when they discovered me.
"You must have fought with your mom, huh? Running away all the way out here to an island."
"No... It's not that I fought..."
"Ehe-hey, I understand. When you're a student, you fight with your mom or dad and run away sometimes."
Forgetting all about me, the person they were talking about, the two aunties laughed heartily and started reminiscing about running away after fighting with their parents when they were young. I sighed at the sight, then opened the can and drank it down.
"And so, I got beaten terribly by my mother when I was young."
"You deserved a bit of that."
"What?"
It seemed they were real sisters.
For sisters to both become police officers and work at the same station... Judging by their story, their mother's discipline had been intense.
"I... I'm really not a minor... I'll show you my Qtube channel..."
"Ah, you're on Qtube too? So you didn't run away; you came to film a video?"
"No, that's not..."
They didn't understand.
We were definitely all speaking the same Korean...
***
The sound of keyboards tapping echoed inside the police station. Maybe the atmosphere was different from police stations in Seoul. In the very quiet atmosphere, only the faint sounds of typing and yawning could be heard. Where was the typing sound coming from? It was from the computer of the auntie sitting in front of me. She hadn't said anything in particular, but what was she typing so much about?
The auntie typed away for a long while.
After I yawned, she finally began to open her mouth.
"Student, age?"
"Twenty-one."
"Ehe-hey, you mustn't lie to your aunties."
"It's true..."
"If you keep this up, we can't send you home."
I didn't want to go home; I wanted to go to my wife. How many times had I already said that from the car?
"
"Can I make one phone call?"
"Hm? Of course. Go ahead."
Since they didn't seem inclined to let me go, I decided to call A-ra. I'd kept quiet because I didn't want to bother her, but now I was scared they might call my mom. No, why was I scared when I hadn't done anything wrong? I took out my phone and entered A-ra's number.
No... I saw something before I could enter it.
There were a lot of missed calls piled up.
All of them from A-ra...
"That's a problem."
"Well, you're at the police station — of course it's a problem."
"I mean....Haah....Never mind."
A short dial tone rang, then a quick click — the call connected. She must have been holding her phone.
"...Hello? Noona?"
- Yoo Seong-hwan! Where are you!
A-ra shouted in a voice that sounded slightly choked up. From the constant sniffling, it sounded like she'd been crying.
Maybe because I'd been scolded by A-ra not long ago, it was less scary than that time, but
still, when A-ra yelled, it was quite scary.
So this is what it feels like to be scolded by your wife.
"Uh... the police station?"
- What?! Did something happen?!
"If I say yes, yes; if no, no..."
- Just wait! Noona is coming right now!
Click....
Before I could say anything, the call ended, and my phone screen went black. I put my phone in my pocket and sighed. The auntie sitting opposite tilted her head.
"Is that your mother?"
"No, my wife."
"Wife? Are you married?"
"Yes..."
"Kkeu... kids these days are precocious."
"Haah...."
It seemed best to just sit quietly without saying anything until A-ra arrived.
*
"Yoo Seong-hwan!"
"Noona..."
A-ra came in looking like she didn't know whether to be angry or worried. Outside, the Bugatti Chiron was sitting there with its engine running. She hadn't even parked in the lot; she just came straight in. Even if she got a ticket, she couldn't complain. No, this wasn't the time to be thinking that.
"Noona, I'm sorry."
"No, what did you do wrong?"
"Umm..."
I did doze off on the bench, so that was wrong of me... It felt awkward to say that, so I decided to keep quiet.
"Uh-oh..."
"Isn't that Song A-ra?"
"I think so... Why did she come here..."
"Come to think of it, don't you feel like you've seen the student the inspector brought in somewhere before?"
"Yeah... now that I look, I feel like I've seen him a lot somewhere..."
Suddenly the station went quiet. As the police officers thought it over, one or two of them got an 'Ah' look on their faces.
They had just thought I was a runaway student and hadn't given it much thought,
but it seemed they had seen my face somewhere on Qtube.
"Student, what did you say your name was?"
"It's Yoo Seong-hwan."
"Huh... So you're that Yoo Seong-hwan."
"That's what I've been telling you... I'm not a minor."
Haah...
I sighed in A-ra's arms.
***
We left the station without a word. We decided to just chalk it up to an incident and move on.
Thinking of A-ra wandering around crying and shouting as she looked for me was heartbreaking. But the police hadn't meant any harm.
They explained that runaway youths sometimes came to the island and caused trouble. They apologized, so we had no intention of making a big deal out of it.
"Noona."
"Huh?"
"Did you cry?"
"I didn't cry."
Seeing that the area around her eyes was red and swollen, I could tell at a glance that she had cried. Still, maybe because she was a woman, the way she denied it out of pride was just cute.
"Okay."
"Hold my hand."
"Here."
Teasing her further was meaningless and might make her cry more, so I decided not to. Instead, I held out my hand as far as I could for A-ra, who wanted it.
"Now, let's go to the hotel, check in, and grill some meat."
"Noona bought a ton of delicious cuts."
"Pork belly too?"
"Without pork belly, barbecue is meaningless."
Since we mainly ate pork belly rather than beef, we could skip beef, but we absolutely could not do without pork belly.
And she seemed to have bought a ton of various vegetables as well.
"It's rare for you to buy all the vegetables, Noona."
"Huhu, it means this noona has grown too."
"Good job, good job."
I gently stroked her head. She laughed without a care for a moment, then went to the driver's seat, picked up the things she'd left in the passenger seat, and came back. Then she opened the trunk and started putting the things in one by one.
"The trunk isn't very big."
"It said 44 liters."
"That's tiny!"
The small fridge in our bedroom for water bottles is 75 liters. 44 liters is barely usable.
"This is why trunks need to be big."
"It can't be helped because of the structure."
"Why don't you just sell this and buy an SUV, Noona?"
"Th-that... I can't do that..."
A-ra stammered, flustered, as if she didn't want to do that. I hadn't meant it seriously, but she seemed to have taken it seriously.
"Noona, do you think I'd say that seriously?"
"No? But... still, if I don't like it, I don't like it..."
I reassured her that I'd never tell her to sell her car, and stroked her head once more. For some reason, she seemed to smile even more happily than usual when I stroked her head.