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“Sometimes it felt like she was the only person in the world who wanted me to live the life I wanted,” he said. “I want you with me, Kaiya, but I understand if this is too much. You do not need to come in.”

I held his eyes and searched for any uncertainty, but all I saw was grief, and that was more important than my discomfort. I took a fortifying breath.

“If you want me here, then I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

I let Jihoon lead me into the one-storey building and tried not to be obvious with how out of place I felt. There was a sign-in book at an unmanned reception desk, and Jihoon signed both of our names. He wrote our names in Hangul, and I tried not to stare at how mine looked next to his like that.

We took off our shoes and moved further inside to where the low hum of voices filled the plain space like background noise. I immediately recognised his parents. Not because I’d seen them before, but because of the way their eyes fixed on Jihoon. Not in the same way so many people’s did, with that instant shock of recognition, but something more like the moment where you go, ah, there you are. The way you looked at a person you’ve known for their entire life.

He bowed to his parents, and his eomma reached out her hands to his jacket, automatically straightening out invisible creases with a look on her face that felt almost desperate. His father stood by with an impassive look on his face, his features so carefully constructed into stern lines that, to me, it had the opposite effect. I tried not to stare. I stood by as he spoke to them quietly, deliberately not inserting myself, but then I heard my name. He didn’t reach for me, but his eyes landed on me with a silent sort of request, and hesitantly I approached the three of them. His parents’ attention slid to me, and because I didn’t know them, I couldn’t even begin to guess at what their expressions meant. They didn’t seem hostile, at least.

He introduced them to me in English, but when it came to explaining who I was to him, he faltered, and I took over.

I greeted them in formal Korean. “My name is Kaiya. A colleague of your son's. I am so sorry for your loss.”

‘Colleague’ wasn’t strictly untrue, and it seemed like the safer option. I saw Jihoon’s attention fix on me from the corner of my eye, but he didn’t correct me.

His parents exchanged glances, and Mr Baek inclined his head.

“Thank you for coming,” he said in a clipped tone. His face remained impassive, but his tone was not difficult to interpret.

It threw me for a moment, because his voice was so much like Jihoon’s, that with my eyes closed and maybe listening to him from across the room I could have been confused for a moment. But the neutrality was wholly his own. Jihoon’s was always full of fire, or ice, but never nothing. I smiled awkwardly, bowed my head and stepped away.

I followed Jihoon through the room, making sure I copied each of his movements exactly while also being careful not to stare too much. I repeated the way he bowed twice to the portrait on the altar, surrounded by white flowers. I recognised his halmeoni. She was younger in the picture. More vibrant, perhaps, but her smile was the same I’d seen on the woman I had met in February.

My eyes dropped from the photo and snagged on something lying in front of the frame. A flash of soft colour, almost out of place amongst the white chrysanthemums.

A delicate little pink enamel peony and jade butterfly brooch.

I felt an unexpected tickle behind my eyes, and my face crumpled for just a moment, because looking at it now, I could hear her voice, telling me how it had been her mother’s. I wondered who it belonged to now.

I swallowed hard and turned around to see Jihoon. From the hard lines of his shoulders, I did not need to see his face to know what expression I would find there, but I looked anyway. Stoic. Closed off. A mask, but not the one the public saw so often. This was the kind of mask we all wore from time to time, and I couldn’t fault him for wanting to keep some emotions to himself.

Chapter 42

After paying our respects, we walked through to the adjoining dining room, which was full of people, and the source of the low-level hum of background noise from quiet chatter. People stood or sat eating together all throughout the sizeable room. No one was on their own, and if it wasn’t for the fact everyone was dressed in black, it wouldn’t look any different from any other social gathering. This was something I’d been loosely prepared for, having read it in my hasty research, but it still surprised me to see how sociable it was. I’d been to a couple of wakes in my life, and there was always the feeling that no one knew quite how to react in light of the reason for the gathering. This felt a little like that.

At my side, Jihoon scanned the space before guiding us over to a table with a variety of dishes and banchan. Without a word, he filled up a small plate with a few different things before he passed it to me. I glanced down and had to suppress some kind of shaky emotion when I saw he’d filled it with the things I liked, even as he’d barely seemed to think about it. Even though it had been years since we’d last eaten Korean food together.

I pushed the feeling down. This was absolutely not the time. Instead, I focused on him as we sat together. He ate mechanically, eyes occasionally running over the room, reading faces and looking at each new person as they came in. I could tell he recognised some, and I wondered what this must be like for him, to be here surrounded by friends and family and yet be so apart from them. No one seemed to pay us any attention, until he pushed his barely-touched plate aside, and leaned back. A middle-aged woman approached and sat down beside him, putting a hand on his arm.

“We didn’t know if you would come,” I heard her say quietly.

Jihoon just nodded. “Of course I would come,” he said roughly before falling into silence, occasionally looking up at me.

He said nothing else for so long that the woman looked up, finally seeming to notice me. She bowed her head hesitantly, smiled awkwardly and murmured a greeting, which I returned with equal awkwardness.

We both looked to Jihoon, waiting for him to jump in, but he wasn’t looking at either of us. My heart clenched at the desolate look on his face. I sat up straighter in my chair.

“I’m a colleague of Jihoon. Kaiya,” I said, to fill the silence and take the attention off him.

The woman smiled politely before replying. “Min Soomi. I’m his aunt.”

I made a polite noise of understanding as my mind darted about to remember his family tree. This must be his maternal aunt. His family wasn’t large. His halmeoni had had two sons, one – the uncle that Jihoon had lived with in New York – had died a number of years ago, alongside his wife. I knew next to nothing about his mother’s side of the family. I think there were a couple cousins in there somewhere, but he’d always been so hesitant to talk about his family.

Just as I was struggling to recall any instances where he’d willingly brought them up, a tiny voice called out – “Jihoon-samchon!”

The tiny voice preceded an equally tiny person – a little girl in a black dress – as she threw herself at Jihoon, who caught her with a muffled ‘oof’ as he was battered with a pair of pigtails.