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By Root 1003 0

friendship with Jaeyun, who would soon graduate, offered occasional companionship at a restaurant or a walk in a park. It was Jaeyun who told me the story about Dean Shinohara. For hoarding an illegal personal library of Korean poetry and Chinese classics, he’d been relocated from Ewha to a rural boys’ school. He wasn’t fired, though, until his week’s “vacation” in the country had come to a close and he was packing to return to Seoul. I deduced that when I’d met the Shinoharas on the train, they were unknowingly on their way to exile. Although he was a Japanese supremacist, the girls at Ewha considered him a quasi hero because it was his love of the classics and Korean poetry that had led to losing his plum job.

I visited my beloved aunt once a month and during school breaks. A gasoline train that ran between Ewha and downtown, where I would pick up Ilsun, shortened the long walk from one side of the city to the other. My dongsaeng grew so rapidly that every season I sacrificed precious study hours to make him a new school uniform. One icy winter day I waited thirty minutes outside of his dormitory before he finally rushed through the vestibule. Shaking with cold, I said, “We’ll have to hurry now. Imo-nim is waiting.”

“Give me my money.” His voiced scratched with teenage change, and he made to grab my string purse.

“What are you doing?” I pushed him away.

“I need my allowance now!”

I retrieved a handful of won—savings from tutoring jobs that I portioned to Dongsaeng monthly. “Why? It’s supposed to last you all month.”

“Nuna, you said we had to hurry!” He snatched the cash and ran off.

Wrapping my coat tightly, I followed him to the doorway and leaned in. “That’s only half,” said a boy’s deep voice. “You better get the rest by tomorrow.” A door slammed. I stepped outside and headed toward Imo’s without looking back. Dongsaeng joined me and soon caught his breath. I could sense his agitation beside me, but I refused to break the silence. Our shoes crunched on frosty dirt pathways.

“Cold,” Dongsaeng said, his shoulders hunched, his hands buried in armpits.

“Where’s your coat?”

“Don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lost it.”

I clutched my collar around my neck, glad that I was too angry to give him my coat, something I would have typically done.

We walked half an hour more, Dongsaeng blowing on his fingers occasionally. “Hey, Nuna, I got first place in my history examination last week.”

“Good.”

The sun set in a gentle fade of brilliance. I’d read somewhere that fishermen predicted weather by the color of the evening skies, and wondered what they’d say about the dark high clouds glowing with silvery trim, the far sky deepening blue, the treetops frosted with ice. Perhaps snow. I remembered at home how I’d rouse Dongsaeng to wide-eyed wakefulness on mornings when the yard was transformed by magical new snowfall. I breathed the blue-cold smell of winter and sighed.

Dongsaeng looked at me hopefully. “I wonder what Imo-nim will have for dinner.”

“Just be happy with whatever she serves and refuse seconds. Do you hear?” He shrugged. “Times are hard, Dongsaeng! I think she goes without in order to feed us.”

“But I’m famished!”

“Why do you owe that boy money?”

“None of your business.”

“Your business is my concern.” Except for the sharpness of my tone, I realized I sounded like Mother. “Especially when it comes to money, especially when it’s my money. You’re lucky to have even a few jeon. If Father knew what I gave you, don’t you think he’d want to know what you do with it?”

“Give me next month’s, won’t you?—or I’ll get in trouble.”

“Why do you owe that boy?”

“We had a bet, and I lost.”

“You’ve been gambling, haven’t you? Dice!”

“It’s just games. Who cares? He cheats, and besides, that’s not what it’s for.”

“Oh, Dongsaeng!” Frustrated and angry, I walked fast. He burst forward to keep up. “What will happen if you don’t pay?”

“His gang will beat me up.” He sounded too smug and my anger swelled.

“Why must you gamble? Why can’t you just study hard?”

“Like you? Boring old you? At least I’m having fun!”

“Where