Page 58 of Heart and Seoul (Seoul 1)

“No romances? I’m disappointed in this Kim Boyoung-nim. We have the best dramas,” he boasts. “Where did you meet?”

“She’s taking a gender studies course for international graduate students at the college in my town. I ran into her at the coffee shop.”

“And she’s from Seoul?”

“Yup.”

“We should share a meal. When we have dinner, you bring Kim Boyoung-nim and I will bring Sangki-ah.” Yujun looks pleased at this development.

“A regular matchmaker, are you?”

“We’re a romantic people.” He proves it to me when we arrive at the tower. The sun has fully set but there are still quite a few people about, taking selfies in front of the skyline, getting on and off buses, throwing coins into a fountain. Yujun bypasses all of it and walks me down a bridge. “It’s the locks of love,” he says. “Couples buy padlocks, write their names down, and fasten them to the bridge.”

There are quite a few hanging on the metal railings, but not as many as I expected with a city of this size. “It looks like only a few of you are romantics.”

“Wait and see.” His eyes twinkle. As he leads me down a short set of stairs, the locks grow in number. We turn a corner and I gasp. On either side of the walkway, the padlocks line a railing that’s chin-high. They’re full of color, like confetti on the top of a cake. I run my hands along the metal locks and listen to them clink quietly against one another. The lettering is tiny, with the three-syllable Korean names fitting easily but the longer Western names running off the sides.

“There are more above.” Yujun points his finger upward in the direction where we just were.

“How many of these are yours?”

“None. You can’t put a lock up here until you’ve met your soul mate.” He says it simply, as if it’s a universal truth.

“I don’t know that I believe in soul mates.” I fiddle with a lock that says Christina + Namjun. I’d put money on the fact that they aren’t still together.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe. Soul mates exist regardless.”

I peek at him under my eyelashes, trying to gauge if he’s joking or serious. “You are romantic.”

“It’s the red string of fate, Hara. The gods tie the strings together and you can’t ever separate them. Come. Let’s go to the top of the tower.”

I leave the locks behind as well as Yujun’s statements. I won’t rain on his sweet parade with my cynical point of view—that’d be like telling a kid at Christmas who is ripping into his presents that Santa did not deliver them. A crowded elevator takes us to the top. We spill out onto the observation deck, which isn’t as busy as I thought it would be given the crowd outside. Yujun is quiet as we approach an empty window. I can see the skyline and the giant black ribbon that is the Han River snaking through the city. Down on the street, it’s easy to forget how massive Seoul is.

“I want you to see something,” Yujun says quietly. He leads me away from the windows to a bank of LED screens where I see people standing on a viewing platform, much like the one I’m on.

“What am I looking at?”

“It’s Busan’s observatory. There’s a camera there and it broadcasts the interior of that tower to ours here. They can see us in real time.”

Yujun waves and then smiles, poking a finger into one of his dimples. My knees nearly buckle at the cuteness. He turns to me and makes a V with his fingers and places them over my chin.

A couple on the screen do the same thing. It’s adorable. The girl says something to the boy. At first, he shakes his head, but ultimately, after some cajoling, he gives a wildly exaggerated hand kiss. The girl folds over in laughter, covering her mouth. I bring my own hand up to muffle a giggle. I turn to see if Yujun is laughing, too. He’s not. Instead, his face holds the fondest expression. My breath catches and then shudders out.

“Busan is three hundred and twenty-five kilometers away from Seoul. Not as far as Seoul to Iowa, but still there’s distance, and yet, in the right place, it’s as if you’re right next to each other.”

It makes sense when Yujun says these things. There’s no distance in this world that can exist. Not with phones and planes and the internet. That’s what he’s saying. That my short stay doesn’t have to be a barrier. Not if I don’t want it to be.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I thought it’d take forever to fall asleep after Yujun drove me home from Namsan, but I was out the moment my head hit the pillow. I didn’t even dream, which, I suppose, is par for the course. We relive our nightmares, but the special moments are fleeting. When I wake, I replay our last moments together in an attempt to embed them in my memory bank. He drove me home in his Audi SUV because he wasn’t about to have my experience in Seoul ruined by some drunk ahjussi on the subway. His hand rested on the gearshift for most of the drive and I spent an inordinate amount of time staring at his long fingers. If I’d been braver, I might have covered his hand with mine; instead I just fantasized about interlocking our fingers.

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