Chapter 4 - Mino

“You’ll burn a hole in your stomach, drinking all that coffee,” the gallery curator said.

“Right, thanks for the warning,” I said, pouring out my fifth cup. Just thinking about the night ahead was enough to give me ulcers.

Jiwon’s stubbornness exasperated me. I was practically begging him, but he didn’t budge an inch. All I was asking him to do was to pretend he couldn’t make the party.

“Mm-hmm,” Jiwon’s voice came through the receiver. Laughter. “You want me to stay away that bad, huh?”

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s partly that Jihoon and others are coming too. You never liked them much.”

“Oh yeah?”

“We’ll have you over some other time. I promise.”

“Being engaged is no laughing matter,” Jiwon threw out as casually as ever, “but I don’t like this.” Weren’t we the ones who had invited him, after all?

“I know. That’s why I’m begging you.”

Jiwon’s face was aglow. I didn’t need to see him to tell, the phone line could not but transmit such smugness. 

“I’m not coming if you don’t want me to, but make sure your fiancée knows exactly why. Some misgiving of yours, not mine, will be responsible for my absence.” Jiwon was clearly enjoying himself.

“Seven o'clock, right?” He told me to say my prayers, had a good laugh and hung up.

Jennie had been in unusually high spirits when I left home that morning. “I’ll get us some chicken and fries and kimchi fried rice and veggies and ice cream, so you can pick up some tteokbokki on your way home? That should be enough.”

“Sounds like the menu for a kid’s birthday party.

Jennie agreed and laughed happily. “Tonight at seven,” she double-checked for one last time as she walked me to the door. 

“Oh, and…” she added, her voice suddenly flat, “I’ll be ready to go out on a moment’s notice if and when you feel like it. Don’t worry about that.”

“About what?” It took me three seconds to get it. “Give me a break, Jennie, and don’t be so absurd.” It was too much. Homouality was mixed up in her mind with ersion. 

“We’re not maniacs, you know,” I explained, weirdly flustered. Having to spell things out was nearly making blush. “Listen, Jennie. A few friends are getting together for dinner, that’s all. You don’t have to concern yourself with anything like that.”

Her thin eyebrows knit close, she heard this out meekly.

“Now I see,” she said, and nodded slowly, as to a profound thought. 

I stopped by Jopok for some tteokbokki and picked up Jinwoo at Sinsadong intersection. A brain surgeon who worked at a general hospital in the neighborhood, Jinwoo was Seunghoon’s boyfriend. Pale, thin, quiet, and handsome, he was said to be in his late thirties but looked more like twenty-five or thereabouts.

“Are you sure I can come too?” Jinwoo asked as he got into the car.

Sitting shotgun was Seunghoon, the last person a driver would ever want there. Not happy with merely fidgeting, Seunghoon made infuriating clinking noises with the seat belt once every three minutes, buckling or unbuckling. The radio he tuned constantly, changing stations as soon as a song ended. Adding to all the noises was his running commentary–telling me not to drive too close, making sure I had seen a speed limit sign.

He asked if Jennie was a sweet-tooth and whether there would be a bakery near the apartment.

“Can we drop by on the way? Watch, light’s gonna change.”

I know, I told him.

We met Jihoon and Jiho at the driveway and arrived home to find some guests had arrived early: Jennie’s parents and Jiwon. The idea of them bunched together–it gave me a chill.

“You’re late!” Jennie accused. The clock told seven sharp.

You’re late, you’re late, you’re late, she muttered the words over and over like a chant, glaring hard at me and the freshly arrived guests. The guests that came with me quailed at this.

“Sorry, we arrived early!” Jennie’s mother piped.

I could feel Jinwoo tense up next to me, whenever he was confronted with an ‘older person', he felt intimidated and clammed up.

“Man, he’s autistic."

The remark was Jiwon’s, who continued, “so I guess seven was it, huh? I don’t know how I got that wrong!” The brazen liar laughed innocently. “I could have sworn we had said five.”

I was aghast. The smell of hot tteokbokki was meeting Jennie’s mother’s perfume in our cramped living room. I felt suffocated. Chaos was in the air.

“Mino tells me you have a sweet tooth,” Jinwoo practically whispered. As he handed Jennie the cake box. 

“Oh, thank you! You’re so thoughtful.” It wasn’t Jennie, but her mother who said this. I felt weak.

“Well, what a gathering,” said Jennie’s father. Why was everyone being so jolly? “All artists, are you?”

I made the necessary introduction.

“Jiwon-oppa’s been telling everyone all about you, Mino,” Jennie said. My fingers tingled, and I broke into a cold sweat.

“Very nice, very nice!” Said Jennie’s father, thumping me on the shoulders, leaving me to wonder what was so very nice. Then he got up and said, “well, I guess we’d better be on our way, then.”

My future mother-in-law looked as though she wanted to stay a little longer, but Jennie went and got her coat, so she had no choice but to get up too.

We all got up to see them at the door. Jiwon saw them off with more warmth and energy than anybody else, but when we got back to the living room, he was the one who murmured, “well, now we can breathe easy at last.”

“Sit anywhere,” I said, clearing away the tea things. Jennie was pouring the leftover tea into the potted plant.

“Nice place you got here,” Jihoon finally spoke. So this is the bedroom, closet, workspace, right, and this must be the bathroom, he said, looking around the apartment before settling on the sofa. “Very nice, very nice.”

Jennie had made mint juleps, and she set one down in front of each of us. She placed a bottle of bourbon in the middle of the table. “Help yourselves!”

It really did feel like a children’s party, what with the tteokbokki, fried chicken, and kimchi fried rice all lined up on the table. And then Jennie brought in a huge basket overflowing with raw vegetables, and everyone’s mouth dropped open. The carrots and radishes, at least, had been cut into chunks, very large chunks, but the cucumbers and lettuce hadn’t been touched at all. She had risen them under the faucet just before carrying them in, and they were still dripping with water. 

“Well, don’t you feel like snacking on vegetables when you’re drinking?” She said, by way of excuse. I took a closer look and noticed that the basket she was serving the vegetables in was actually the kitchen strainer. 

Normally Jiwon would have smiled disdainfully at this kind of behavior, but tonight he was