Chapter 11: Earplugs

On Saturday they went to the Mangwon market, because Jin-woo said he had never been to a market in his life.

"You are thirty-three," Yeo-reum said.

"I had a cook."

"You've said that three times."

"It remains true."

The market was packed, hot and loud, with the smell of frying dough and sesame oil.

Vendors shouted prices from both sides of the lane.

A woman with a cart of dried squid hit a pan with a ladle to call customers.

Jin-woo walked on her left with his right shoulder angled toward her, and his dark eyes moved from stall to stall.

He stopped at every stall that sold something fried.

He bought a bag of sweet potato fritters and ate six of them standing in the lane.

"They are good," he said gravely.

"They're the cheapest thing in the market."

"Then I am very good at markets."

She laughed so hard that a passing grandmother turned to look at them.

At the corner of the next lane, a street band had set up in a clearing.

It had a row of big drums and a crowd of children.

The drums began all at once, a huge slamming roll that rattled the metal roofs of the stalls.

Yeo-reum jumped.

The crowd cheered.

But beside her, Jin-woo had gone stiff as a post.

His face was white, and his jaw was set, and his left hand closed around hers so tightly that it hurt.

"Jin-woo?"

He did not seem to hear.

She tugged him backward into the next lane, away from the drums, until the noise dulled behind a wall of hanging dried fish.

He let out a long breath, and some of the color came back into his face.

"Sorry," he said. "It is the low ones. They go through me."

"Loud noise bothers you."

"Some of it."

"The earplugs," Yeo-reum said, and it all clicked into place. "The case on your shelf. You sleep with them because of noise."

He opened his mouth, and shut it.

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