Chapter 1: Campus Encounter
The courtyard hummed. Plastic chairs scraped against old stone. The air, thick with the greasy-sweet scent of tteokbokki and the burnt sugar of hotteok, clung to Kenji’s skin as he threaded his way through the after-class clutter. He kept his head down, eyes on the cracked paving stones, a silent figure moving against the current of laughing students. A neon sign flickered above a stall, its Hangul characters sputtering a weak pink light onto the ground.He heard her laugh before he saw her. It was a sound that cut through everything else—bright, unselfconscious, a trill that seemed to grab the sunlight and hold it.His stomach tightened.He knew that laugh.
He looked up.
There, under the lone ginkgo tree, its fan-shaped leaves just beginning to blush gold, his mother sat on a bench.Haruka. Her long, dark hair was swept over one shoulder. She was leaning into the space of a boy—a man, really, probably Kenji’s age, with a sharp jawline and that careless slouch of the athletic. He was saying something, his face animated. Haruka laughed again, throwing her head back, the line of her throat exposed.Kenji froze.His backpack felt suddenly heavy, an anchor.
His mother’s skirt, a fitted navy thing, had ridden up her thighs as she sat. It was now a band of fabric barely containing the curve of her legs. The young man’s hand rested on the stone of the bench, his fingers just brushing the bare skin of her thigh. It wasn’t an aggressive grip, just a casual, proprietary touch.His thumb moved, a small, slow stroke.
Kenji’s breath hitched. The noise of the courtyard—the clattering dishes, the mingled Korean and Japanese, the distant whine of a saxophone from the jazz bar near the dorms—all dissolved into a dull roar in his ears. He could only see the sun on her laughing face, the easy confidence in her posture, and that single point of contact: the student’s thumb on his mother’s skin.A wave of heat, sick and sour, washed through him. It was a familiar cocktail—shame, a sharp and unwanted jealousy, a flicker of something else he refused to name.He stood rooted, a statue of dismay.
Haruka’s gaze flickered, then found him across the milling bodies.Her smile didn’t fade, but it changed. It softened at the edges, turning into something more knowing, more intimate. She gave him a small, almost imperceptible nod.Acknowledgment. Then her attention swung back to the young man, her hand coming to rest atop his on her thigh, her fingers lacing with his briefly.
It was a dismissal.A gentle one, but a dismissal all the same.
The young student followed her gaze, his eyes landing on Kenji. There was a flash of confusion, then a slow-dawning assessment.He didn’t see a peer. He saw a awkward boy with glasses, standing alone. A faint, smug curiosity passed over his features before he turned back to Haruka, leaning in closer to whisper something that made her smile widen.Kenji’s face burned. He felt transparent, stupid. He forced his legs to move, turning sharply away, shouldering past a group of chatting freshmen. The image was seared into his mind: her skirt, his hand, the dappled sunlight through the ginkgo leaves.
He didn’t stop until he was through the stone archway, out of the courtyard, the sounds muffled behind him. He leaned against a rough brick wall, the coolness a shock against his back. He yanked his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose.“Damn it,” he whispered to the empty alley.
The walk back to their apartment was a blur of concrete and noise. His mind replayed the scene on a loop, each time adding a new, torturous detail: the precise shade of her lipstick, the way her knee had bent, the student’s laugh—a low, confident rumble. He let himself into the small, quiet unit.It was dark, still holding the morning’s silence. He dropped his backpack by the door.Their living space was neat, minimalist. A photo on the bookshelf showed a much younger Haruka holding a toddler Kenji, both smiling in a different world.He avoided looking at it.
He went to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and drank it staring out the small window at the adjacent brick wall. The familiar sounds of the building filtered in—a toilet flushing, a muffled TV, the faint thump of bass from someone’s stereo.Normal sounds.Safe sounds.
He heard the key in the lock just as dusk began to stain the sky outside. The door opened, and Haruka swept in, bringing a wave of cool outside air and the faint, lingering scent of the courtyard—spice and perfume.
“Kenji!You left so quickly,” she said, her voice cheerful. She kicked off her heels, the clack loud in the small entryway.He didn’t turn from the window. “I had studying.”
“On a Tuesday?” She padded into the kitchen, coming to stand beside him.She peered at his face.“You look pale. Are you eating?”
“I’m fine.”
She reached out and smoothed a strand of his hair away from his forehead. Her fingers were cool.“You work too hard.You should go out.Meet people. There’s a whole campus out there.”
“I meet people,” he muttered, pulling away slightly.
“Hmm.” She opened the refrigerator, the light casting a white glow over her. The navy skirt was still on, though she’d pulled on a loose sweater. In the domestic light, she looked like any other mother. But Kenji could still see the ghost of the courtyard on her—the vibrancy, the ease. “I ran into Min-jun,” she said casually, pulling out ingredients for dinner.“From my Poli Sci seminar.He’s quite brilliant. And very kind.”
Min-jun.So he had a name now.Kenji said nothing. The silence stretched, filled only by the tap of a knife on the cutting board.
Haruka glanced at him, her expression unreadable. “It’s just a friendly conversation, Kenji.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.” She chopped a carrot with precise, quick strokes.“Your shoulders are saying it for you. They’re all the way up by your ears.” She paused, setting the knife down. When she spoke again, her voice was lower, matter-of-fact.“My life is my own.You understand that, yes? This… this is my time.For me.”
He finally turned to look at her. The youthful face, the sharp intelligence in her eyes.She didn’t look forty-two.She didn’t look like just his mother. She looked alive, in a way that felt dangerous and utterly foreign to him.
“I understand,” he said, the words tasting like ash.
She held his gaze for a moment longer, then nodded, satisfied.She resumed cooking.“Good. Set the table, please.”
He moved mechanically, laying out two placemats, two bowls, two sets of chopsticks. The domestic ritual felt like a fragile performance.As he placed her chopsticks down, he pictured Min-jun’s hand. The casual stroke of a thumb.His own hands trembled.
Later, in the quiet dark of his bedroom, he lay awake.The wall between his room and his mother’s was thin. He heard the soft rustle of sheets.Then, the distinct, quiet ping of a phone notification. A low, soft laugh from her room. The rhythmic, gentle tapping of a thumbs-up on a screen.A conversation beginning.
He pulled his pillow over his head, pressing down until he saw sparks behind his eyelids, trying to drown out the sound of his mother’s other life as it unfolded, relentlessly, just a few feet away.