Jihoon sighed. “I think it’s both. How are you?”
I shrugged. “The same. You’re in the gym.”
Normally, he only ever went in the mornings. It had been a habit he’d imposed on himself so he maintained a balance between his personal time, and anything he considered a part of his job.
“It’s the only thing I can do,” he said, “I don’t have to think in here.” His lips quirked, but it was a shadow of his usual, cocky smirk.
“You’ve always had more motivation than me. All I want to do is lie in bed and eat biscuits.”
For a moment, the clouds seemed to lift as we laughed. This would pass. We would be okay.
But, the laughter faded and we were still just staring at screens, a whole world between us.
“How’s youreomma? You said she was home?”
I’d texted him yesterday to let him know that my mum was back, but that pesky time difference… In the beginning of our relationship, when thousands of miles had separated us, we’d fallen into the habit of staying connected by sending regular messages throughout the day. Little snippets of inconsequential minutiae, like what we ate for lunch, what one of his membershad done, or what we wanted to eat for dinner. It was silly, but when your entire relationship took place between two phones, the little details mattered.
When I’d moved to Korea, the timing of each call and text hadn’t been important. Now that we were thousands of miles apart, again, our routine had shifted. Time zones had shifted. We were off-kilter, and out of practice.
“She’s better than I expected her to be.” I leaned back against my pillows. “But she’s in a lot of pain, even if she won’t admit it.”
She’d been up a lot last night; I’d heard her moving around, regularly accompanied by the soft rumble of my dad’s voice, though I hadn’t been able to make out the words.
“That must be upsetting.” Jihoon’s voice pulled my attention back to the screen.
“It’s worse for my folks,” I replied. “They live and die for each other. They’ll be upsetting each other with their different kinds of pain.”
Jihoon was silent for a time, regarding me in the way he sometimes did. Being silent in a moment where I needed to just be.
Eventually, he said, “I love you. I miss you. I want to say ‘I wish you were here’, but you need to be there.”
I sighed, because I understood. It was complicated. It had always been complicated.
“I wish we lived in a world where I could be there, with you.” As the words came out of my mouth, I realised I wasn’t just talking about a world where my mum was okay, I was also talking about a world where it would be okay for us to be together.
But we didn’t live in that world.
We lived with the world between us.
Chapter 6
Time seemed to have slowed since I’d come home. I wouldn’t say ‘moved home’. Moving seemed an antithesis to what I was currently doing, which was variations of waiting.
Waiting for it to be a good time to call Joon.
Waiting to not feel guilty about leaving.
Waiting to figure out what the hell I was going to do once everything settled down.
It felt like I’d been part of a story that had ended, a character in a book that had gone off chapter. I was paused. Off scene, in the margins of my own life.
I was beginning to realise I wasn’t very good at taking things one day at a time. I always wanted a timescale to work with, a set amount of days to endure something before I could move on. But there was no timescale here. Mum would take as long as she needed to recover. This global virus would probably complicate everything until it no longer did, and I would have to learn patience.
It frustrated me because it felt like I was starting again – again. I’d already done the long-distance thing with Jihoon. I’d already endured a job I didn’t enjoy, and my reward had been Korea, with Jihoon, and yeah, admittedly I didn’t particularly enjoy the role I’d had at ENT, but it was part of the bigger picture.
Or, was it? Had it actually given me anything?
On reflection, I wasn’t really sure what I’d gotten out of it. I supposed it might look relevant on my resume.
