I am back in Seoul after a fourteen-hour flight, fresh off the airport shuttle and into the city center, at the Nine Tree Hotel check-in desk. It’s a square area on the fifth floor of the building, with moon jars balancing stems of white orchids, their swirling shapes reflected on the marble floors.
I had left my condo, a haven of peace in Montreal, frantically clutching my iPhone. For two weeks, I had waited for a message or a call from Jun. But he’d ghosted me.
Once I parked the carry-on in the tall, walnut-panelled wardrobe, I message Hanna. She and Jun had been our counterparts in the six-month negotiation leading to the Kim-SM Group’s acquisition of Voelsom Inc., which I represented.
“See you tomorrow, Melanie!” Her reply comes with a sticker in tow — a cheerful, obese calico cat. I perceive it as a flitting caress, a comforting conclusion to the muffled TV sounds around me.
And I sleep. A deep slumber akin to a complete brain shut off.
—
The morning finds me bus-hopping to Changdeok Palace. The palace is a large compound, at times labyrinthic; its walls, trees, gardens, bridges, and ponds morph into one another and come into view on the pea gravel paths that snake throughout the hills. Tall red pillars and the green, upturned eaves filter out the fading summer light. Here and there, an array of five small creatures appended to the roofs mark the presence of royal dwellings.
It hasn’t been that long since the Saturday Jun and I spent here, biding our time on a bench by the palace entrance, holding hands.
“No one can know about this,“ he’d said, giving me a meaningful look from his almond-shaped eyes. “About us, I mean.”
I nodded, barely suppressing the ‘why’ that had begun to creep in my mind.
—
In retrospect—some of it just happened. It had started with the weekly Zoom calls during which Hanna and Jun, on one side, and Gilles, my boss, and I, on the other, poured over the Kim-SM Group and Voelsom Inc. contract details.
It was the crack of dawn in Montreal and late evening in Seoul, yet the four of us muddled through drafts in a congenial manner, laughing at the odd joke. Soon, formalities were cast aside, and we were on a first-name basis.
Jun’s appearance on the screen mesmerized me: a hint of detachment in his eyes and a dimple that kept appearing and disappearing on his right cheek—the flicker of a grin. He was always well dressed in a shirt and tie or a turtleneck and had a propensity for sarcasm (mild) and pontification at times (annoying). I began to observe him closely.
There is something unfathomable about the way we fall in love. More than anything, love is a learning exercise—incrementally forcing us to absorb the random minutia about the subject of our affection. The back of his head. The texture of his palms. The way he imperceptibly frowned, fidgeting in his chair when Gilles took a long time revising a no-frills paragraph. How the word “phase” sounded when Jun pronounced it, the “ph” veering off towards the ceiling into a light “p”. And so on.
—
As work had progressed, Gilles called me into his office. “I have some news. Do you want to go to Seoul for two weeks to complete the Kim-SM/Voelsom business? Normally, I should take care of it, but my wife is at a conference then, and I have to look after the kids.”
Initially, anger swelled inside me. Gilles was dumping the remaining work in my lap, ignoring that my capacity had already been reached. But then I thought, “Wait, hold on. Let’s not scream our head off just yet. Here is a door swinging between imagination and reality, with Jun’s name on it.”
—
I met him and Hanna at the Kim-SM Group’s headquarters. Jun was different in person—even more handsome and distant. Still, surreptitious currents flowed between us.
At the end of the first work week, he dropped by my desk and placed a ticket, resembling a bookmark, on the keyboard.
“Well, then, the two of us—shall we visit Changdeok Palace tomorrow together?” Unusually choppy for him, I could tell that his invitation was translated on the fly from Korean. “I can pick you up from your hotel at 10 a.m. We won’t be able to visit the Secret Garden, though. Available timeslots for it are maejin. Sold out,“ he explained.
Thus, the next day rolled in like a massive breaker crashing against the shore.
—
My solo, second visit, to Changdeok Palace wraps up late, and Hanna is waiting at a café near her office. She waves to me from a table by the window, and we hug.
“I can’t believe you’re here, Melanie. You must have missed Seoul.”
“More like I missed you guys! And the city, too. Seoul my Soul,” I mindlessly recite the local tourist slogan. “How have you been?”
“Pretty much the same, busy with contracts. My eldest daughter begins elementary school in two weeks, so that’s . . . ahhh . . . a big event. Stressful,” she shrugs. “I’m curious, Melanie, what brings you back?” she asks as we enter the ordering line.
“I told Gilles I needed a vacation. He wasn’t too happy.”
“I bet!”
“He owed me, so in the end, he conceded defeat.”
“Be honest,” Hanna teases, “you’re back for the Iced Americanos, aren’t you?”
“That and the Secret Garden inside Changdeok Palace—I did not get the chance to visit it last time. Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . how’s Jun?”
“He’s doing well. We received good feedback for our work with the Kim-SM Group. Last I heard, he was working on a new assignment . . . all confidential. Jun will make partner before I do,” she sighs.
“Or maybe you’ll make partner before he does.”
“Or maybe I’ll make partner first,” Hanna agrees, and her sunny laugh returns. She pauses and gives me a scrutinizing gaze.
“At the office . . . there is a rumor that Jun is marrying into our CEO’s family.”
My heart sinks. “Good for him!” I have to play my cards carefully. While empathetic and friendly, Hanna is more intelligent than me.
“Perhaps . . . ” I lead in, and hesitate for a second, “the three of us could get together for dinner before I leave? I’m buying!”
“Wuah, Melanie, that’s nice. I’ll ask.”
—
Our last day together keeps circling in and out of my head as if happening all over again. “I don’t know how to solve for this,” Jun had exclaimed, his accent unusually thick.
“What’s there to solve, Jun?”
“You and me, in this hotel room.”
“I am not saying it is not unusual, but . . . ”
“Not unusual? Is it the lawyer talking now?” There is a glacial edge to his tone.
“We can take it one step at a time.”
“And what would be the next step, in your opinion?”
“Us—together. Nothing else.”
“Are you thinking this through? There is an ocean between us,” he gestures, “—islands, seas . . .”
“I know; I flew over them on my way here.”
“I can move to Seoul,“ I hear myself say.
“This discussion is not happening. Let’s go out for lunch.” And much later, when I’m half asleep, he whispers: “Don’t like me too much, Melanie.”
—
Don’t like me too much – what did he even mean by it? Was this another idiosyncratic turn of the Korean language? With what yardstick do we measure infatuation?
One of my friends told me that City employees regularly visit the streets in her borough with three-colored plungers: green, yellow, and red. They bend over and measure how tall the grass is on the City’s portion of the curb. If the grass inches towards the yellow and red marks, you’ll get a letter asking that you trim the grass to the green level. Or else.
What would be a good plunger in my case? I’ve been in the yellow zone since at least the Zoom calls, and I’ve long blasted past the end of the red one. Is “too much” the no-markers space that Jun is alluding to?
—
A day goes by, and Hanna sends me another message.
I’m at the National Museum of Korea, in one of the Silla Kingdom rooms, the tip of my nose glued to glass cases filled with bronze paraphernalia and timelines of pivotal battles labeled with English and Hangeul characters.
Jun can’t meet with us. Hanna must have guessed I was not looking for an evening meal with her, so the dinner plan falls flat. And, in the context of my surroundings, I think to myself: that’s how history writes itself. Vae victis. Woe to the vanquished.
Heartache.
—
It’s Sunday again—departure day to Montreal. I board the shuttle to Incheon Airport, and moments later, another Canadian takes the seat beside me. He introduces himself as Scott—beau garçon—a sports commentator for a TV station in Calgary.
We start chatting casually about Korean food, bonding over our shared enthusiasm for it. Soon, we’re trading observations: the telltale sign of a spicy dish is any liquid pooled at the bottom of the plate, a trait shared by kimchi stew or Jeju-style hand-cut noodles. Scott extols the virtues of bibimbap.
Before I know it, forty-five minutes have passed, and I’m ready to get off the bus. Scott springs to his feet, offering to help with my luggage. “Melanie, I’ve enjoyed our conversation. Would you mind if we stayed in touch? Could I get your number?” he asks.
“Scott, I’ve enjoyed talking to you, too. But I’m going to pass on that. Safe travels,” I reply with a smile.
Don’t like me too much.
—
There is still time to wander before the flight. Once inside the terminal, I stroll toward the oversized screen hanging between several floors when the phone rings.
It’s Jun. “Where are you?”
“At the airport.”
“Terminal 1?”
“Yes.”
“I will be there in an hour. Don’t go anywhere. We need to talk.”
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