Chapter 12: The Han River

I told the security guard to walk Toby to a hotel.

Not the nicest one, and not the cheapest.

One with a bed and a lock on the door.

I did not hug him goodbye.

Then I went back upstairs and finished the day's work, because it was the only thing in my life that still obeyed me.

At nine that night, Dojin appeared at my desk with his jacket over his arm.

"You have been reading the same line for twenty minutes," he said.

"It's a long line."

"It is a short sentence." He held out his hand. "Come. There is a place you should see."

The place was a stretch of grass beside the Han River, lit by bridge lights.

It was warm out.

Couples sat on picnic mats with paper bags of fried chicken, and a little boy was trying to fly a kite in no wind at all.

Dojin went into a convenience store at the edge of the park and came out with two cups of instant noodles.

He showed me how to peel back the lid and fill the cup from the hot water machine by the door.

We sat on the grass with our noodles, watching the dark water slide under the bridge.

"Tell me the part you haven't told me," he said.

So I did.

I told him I hadn't hugged Toby goodbye, and that it was the first time in my life I hadn't.

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