Mum had finished her radiotherapy, now we just got on with it – as she kept saying. Much of the country was back to an approximation of normal.
Perhaps by Christmas…
Jihoon’s voice brought me back from where my mind had wandered to.
“You are the only thing I have ever wanted so much,” he said in a voice thick with some unknown emotion. I watched his eyes slide closed, and I pulled my straps back up, slightly self-conscious. Perhaps I’d been right to speculate the tease made the absence worse.
The silence expanded for a few moments, until it grew unbearable.
Needing to fill the void, I feigned a cheerful voice as I said, “Did you get the actual gift I sent? Please tell me you did, I sent it weeks ago, but you never know with international mail at the moment…” I forced myself to stop, biting my lip to keep from flinging words around.
Jihoon inhaled deeply, and it was like watching his soul refill his body. He sat up straighter and opened his eyes. He took a second, but when he looked at me again, it was with the softness I’d come to associate with assurance.
I pushed aside the lingering anxiety, telling myself I didn’t feel the twist in my belly.
“Yes, Ky, your mysterious box arrived this morning. I am so curious to see what’s inside. Is it supposed to rattle?” He made a shaking motion with his hands.
“Rattle?” I said in alarm. “No! Oh my God, where is it–”
Jihoon started laughing, waving his hands in front of his face and halting my spiral of concern for the package I’d spent a not-insignificant amount of time carefully preparing.
“I’m joking,jagiya, just a joke. It is not rattling.” He pursed his lips in a way that said he was trying not to laugh.
I furrowed my brows and poked my tongue out. “Tease,” I accused.
“No,jagiya, that was you.” Jihoon winked, and I groaned, hiding my face in my hands.
“Let me get it.” He stood up from the chair and walked out of frame, but came back seconds later holding a very well-packaged box that was probably more tape than actual cardboard. He held it carefully, looking down at it in bemusement.
Besides chaos, and a thirty-second peep show, I’d gotten Joon something far more normal for his birthday.
“Open it,” I urged.
He smiled at me indulgently, and for the next couple of minutes, I watched with glee as he tore through the layers upon layers of tape.
“Kaiya, were you expecting this box to travel under water?” He grumbled, resorting to ripping a particularly stubborn bit with his teeth.
Eventually though, he broke through the protective layers and was able to open the box. I watched him carefully as he took in the contents. A myriad of emotions crossed his face, morphing through expressions too quickly for me to catalogue.
I’d sent him a box full of memories.
I watched as he pulled out a ring-bound scrap book. It wasn’t large, about the size of a greeting card. Jihoon’s eyebrows furrowed as he flipped it open, and I watched with fascination as his face shifted with every page turned.
“You kept all this?” He asked, thickly.
“Of course I did,” I said, smiling softly.
The book was filled with little bits and pieces of the life we’d had before – well, before.
Bus ticket stubs from West Hollywood, a copy of the photo strip from the Photo Booth, my ticket from the Jingle Bell Ball, a walking map I’d picked up from Myeongdong. A pressed sprig of rosemary from the rooftop garden the night we’d first kissed. I’d kept it all.
Becka had called me a magpie, and with good reason. The little book was bulging with scraps of memories. And on the final page, a pressed rose from my garden, carefully preserved.
Everything was annotated, pages littered with doodles, anecdotes, or phrases I’d learnt.
It had taken me weeks.
Jihoon flipped through the pages carefully, occasionally laughing, or pulling a face that gave me a good idea of what he was looking at.
