Chapter 24: Fourth of July, Seoul

On the fourth of July, a year to the day after I landed at Incheon, the studio held a party on the roof.

Nobody in Seoul was celebrating the holiday.

We were celebrating that the farming game had been downloaded two million times, and that the sheep had a fan club.

Someone had hung paper lanterns from the water tank.

The woman in red glasses was running the grill with a pair of tongs and enormous authority.

The shy engineer had brought his girlfriend, who turned out to be shyer, and they sat in a corner sharing one plate with great concentration.

The director stood by the stairs in his gray cardigan, handing out tangerines to anyone who passed.

I sat on an overturned crate with a paper cup of makgeolli and watched the sun go down behind the apartment towers.

My life had a window in it now.

It had a desk by that window, a spare toothbrush in a sixth-floor apartment behind a bakery, and a standing Sunday dinner at the orange tent.

It had a key on my ring to a door that wasn't mine, and a name plate on my desk that was.

"You are doing the thing," Dojin said.

He had come up behind my crate with two plates.

"What thing?"

"Looking at the view like you are expecting someone to take it away."

"I'm not."

"You are a little."

I took the plate he held out.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Boyfriend Traveled with My Bestie from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.