Page 24 of Heart and Seoul (Seoul 1)

After a fast, hot shower I feel marginally better. I know Boyoung is waiting so I hurry back to my room and drop the dress over my head. It falls perfectly around my shoulders and settles at my waist as if it was made for me. The neck is a simple crew but there are pleats down the front and small polished black buttons for details. The skirt is a perfectly cut A-line that swishes around my legs as I walk. I briefly wonder where Boyoung got this dress. It’s too big for the smaller Korean and it seems too early for stores to be open. The garment also feels expensive—more than I would’ve spent on a dress I’d wear once.

What does it matter, though?

I close my eyes and inhale and exhale until my breath steadies. I guess now I’ll find out what a Korean funeral is like. It’s ironic in that sort of horrible what-if-you-met-your-soul-mate-only-to-discover-he-was-in-love-with-someone-else way.

CHAPTER NINE

“Here. I got this for you.” Boyoung hands me a small plastic card as we clamber down the steep hill. “It’s a T-money card. You can use it on the bus and subway. You can even buy some stuff with it at convenience stores.”

“Okay.” I tuck it into the black purse that I found in the bottom of the shopping bag. Boyoung had thought of it all—black dress, black purse, black hose, black flats.

“Was the ride okay? From the airport,” Boyoung clarifies when I don’t answer right away.

“Yeah.” I don’t explain the airport mix-up because all of that feels as if it happened in another life, maybe to another person—one who didn’t have two fathers die within the space of weeks. “How did you find out about this?”

“When I returned to Seoul, I went to your father’s address. He wasn’t home but I gave my phone number to his landlady. She called me when he died.”

“I see.” I don’t really, though. I suppose Boyoung went to check out if my dad was a grifter, and that sends a minor ping of irritation down my spine. She should’ve told me or asked me if that was okay, but at this point, complaining would be silly. If she hadn’t gone to visit, I wouldn’t have known he’d died.

She grabs my hand and pulls me down into the subway station. After a twenty-minute ride, we transfer onto a crowded bus. No one speaks. I want to ask where we’re going, but the bus is eerily quiet. No one is talking. Thinking back, I realize the subway car was similarly silent except for the sound of the train moving on the tracks. Everyone’s head is buried in their phones except for Boyoung’s. She’s looking worried and distracted.

I’d say the scenery was interesting, but unlike yesterday, when I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the window because I was drinking in the sights, today I don’t see anything but a blur of one building after another. Nothing is registering. I see things, but they’re only shapes, not things. My brain has stopped working.

The bus is half-empty when Boyoung reaches up and presses a button to signal the driver to stop. There’s something comforting about the universality of buses and subways. Swipe the card upon boarding. Press a button to get off. At least I’ll be able to navigate my way around the city.

We walk down a paved street with tall buildings on either side. The sidewalks are narrow with barely room for two people to walk next to each other. Several times, I have to step off the sidewalk to make way for oncoming traffic. People do not move for us. Boyoung mutters something under her breath and I assume she’s irritated. I don’t really care. It’s not as if I’m in a hurry to reach my destination. No matter how slow I walk, though, I end up at a gated entrance. Beyond the iron fence is a plain midsize glass-and-concrete structure and behind that looms a much larger building that sports a green plus symbol next to a few Hangul characters in black. The symbol tickles my memory bank but I can’t quite make the connection. My efforts to decipher the meaning are interrupted when a camera crew nearly knocks the two of us over. There’s a flurry of bowing and apologies before the crew rushes off into a van idling down the street that I hadn’t noticed before.

“What’s that about?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Perhaps there must be a celebrity who is having a funeral. This is a funeral hall”—Boyoung gestures with her hand toward the shorter building—“and behind it is the hospital. Many people hold their funerals here, in separate rooms. There isn’t one room, not like in America.”

Boyoung buys two white flowers from a vendor situated just to the left of the entrance. She hands one flower to me along with a thin rectangular white envelope. It’s exactly the same as the one she’d given me at my father’s funeral—my other father’s funeral. It’s a money envelope.

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