Stary (2)

It felt like several blinks later when she was elbowed awake by someone to her right. The pole railing was to her left. She grumbled indistinctly and opened her eyes. Someone was settling in the seat next to her with an enormous sloppy backpack that was refusing to get arranged properly on its owner’s lap.

The owner said “Aah, I’m sorry. My backpack” when he saw Yuri wake.

Yuri said “it’s okay, I wasn’t really asleep” but she didn’t do it very convincingly and she couldn’t help yawning before she finished the sentence. She felt bad because the boy raised a dark eyebrow and made a disbelieving sorry kind of face, so she said “no, really, anyways I have to get off soon” in a reassuring way. She’d seen him somewhere.

He nodded and grinned. “Ah. Okay. Uh, were you on this subway last week?”

Yuri said “ye” and suddenly recognized him. “Hey, you too, right? You had headphones...”

“Ye- wow, you remember well.” The backpack lolled onto the floor. He jumped up and heaved the thing onto the baggage shelf, then gripped the bar, sighed, smiled, and sat back down.

Yuri smiled. “Nah, you recognized me first. You’re in high school too?”

“Behmyung high second year. See, uniform. You?”

“Me too second year. Yewon, see, badge... you look really different in uniform.”

“Wwwell I’m not wearing it properly anyways. See like my tie’s loose, and my pants aren’t school pants, and stuff.”

“Yeah but that’s done a lot. Messing up uniform.”

“Yeah.”

There was a small silence as the car ka-chunked and people slept or read things while the tunnel brightened and the car steadied up onto ground level. Yuri smiled when the sun slanted in and tinted his nose red.

“I’m Min Yuri. What’s your name?”

“Oh. Me? I’m Yi Jiyu.”

“Ye...”

“Ya, we’re in the same grade and all, let’s drop the polite talk?” A half-question. Yuri sidled a look.

“You realize it sounds like we’re hitting on each other?”

Yuri laughed and so did Jiyu. “I guess it looks that way but don’t worry, I already have a person. Left her back at my old place.”

Yuri nodded “Me too I have someone, he’s in my class. But the way we were talking and the situation and all” and smiled.

Jiyu pretended he was annoyed. “Mass media ruins innocent encounters. I look like a casanova?”

There was a sort of relieved well-that’s-settledness that cuddled up the laughter and wove it into friendly little blankets. Yuri paused a moment and looked out the window.

“I like it when the subway goes above ground, see you can see the Han river.”

Jiyu looked out the window and squinted in the dying sun. The world looked like a carpet of bleeding daffodils. “Yeah. It’s really wide, you notice... sunset’s pretty.”

“River is too.”

“Mm, and it’s been here so long! I drown in thoughts and stuff every time I see it.”

Whenever Jiyu talked he made sweeping gestures with his big hands. His fingers were long and dark and they looked like intricate phantasms under the red sun and the deep voice. Yuri felt like she was being woven into the crimson.

“Are you from the outskirts?”

He cocked his head. “Outskirts....describe.”

“Well, you have an accent and you’re dark. Not Seoul?”

Grin. “Ahh. That."

"Yeah, that."

"Well, my grandparents ran down from up North during the War so I guess in a way that makes me ‘from’ there. The accent’s probably because I lived with them when I was learning to talk,  'cause I was born and bred in Seoul, yeah."

 Grin. The car submerged itself back into the tunnel.

“Oh. My dad’s parents were from up North too... Hwanghaedo.”

“Hey, ours too.”

“Not Sariwon?”

“Wow, Sariwon!”

“Well, what do you know. Same old town.”

Jiyu nodded. “Interesting very.”

“Kim Jungil’s portraits all over the place now.”

They both nodded solemnly.

The car halted. Yuri looked up and noticed she had to get off and told Jiyu. He looked up almost alarmed.

“Ah what? Aii... Name me a random anybody you know that goes to my school, quick.”

“Someone that goes to Behmyung? Uh...”

The doors opened. Jiyu tapped a foot and his eyes darted.

“No one? What about, uh, Kim Jongsuk in your school? You know him?”

“Ah- Okay!”

Yuri ran out just before the two doors slid into each other and rattled with the impact of closing.