Chapter 7 - Jennie

It was years since the last time I’d been to an amusement park. I was standing next to the ticket booth by the entrance waiting for Chaeyoung, watching the families, couples, and noisy schoolgirls. Mino was supposed to have come too, but someone had ringed him early that morning and he’d dropped everything to run off to work.

Mino was an artist, so he hardly ever got ringed, in most cases, things were already scheduled in advance for him. Most of the time when Mino was called, it meant that something really wrong had happened. Like a particularly difficult customer request or a critic about this work. Mino was like a zombie for days whenever that happened. He lost his appetite, too. He felt bad about it as if it were his fault that he didn’t deliver to expectations. He used to go on about how ashamed he felt that he couldn’t even bring the requests to life. My reaction was the opposite. I blamed the customers. Making a decent, kind-hearted person like Mino feels so terrible about himself. It was probably wrong of me to think that way, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like summoning the person over, whoever it was for a few serious words behind a school gym. If you don’t like something, that’s your business. Just don’t go dragging Mino into it!

Anyway, as soon as I realized Mino wasn’t going to be able to make it, the whole amusement park idea started to lose its appeal. I wanted to cancel too, but Mino begged me not to. It wouldn’t be fair to Chaeyoung, he said. And so, in the end, I had agreed to turn up and now here I was waiting for her. Maybe the day out would do me good, I figured. Maybe it would help me forget unpleasant things for a short while. My mother was driving me nuts recently. Mino’s mother, too, for that matter. But now I was already starting to regret it. What was I doing there anyway, standing next to the stupid ticket booth? On the other side of the fence, the amusement park seemed to stretch on forever, a huge expanse of colorful steel. The cheerful music blaring out of the speakers everywhere just made things worse. It was so forced, so unnatural.

“Jennie-yah!” Someone was calling me. A voice from about a million years ago. I turned around to find Kai standing there waving at me. 

“It’s been a long time.” He was wearing jeans and a black shirt, a light jacket thrown over his tall, lanky frame. Next to him was Chaeyoung. She looked uncomfortable as if she didn’t know what to say. “We just happened to bump into each other… I thought it might be nice if we all…” 

Yeah right. As if anyone just randomly decides to go to an amusement park alone. 

“How are you!” Taehyun exclaimed. For some reason, the brat’s hellos were always really formal. A formulaic politeness oblivious to the ambiance of the moment. No sense of timing. 

“How are you!” He said again, loud. He was obviously not going to give up until I gave some kind of response. His innocent self-confidence got on my nerves. When I returned his greeting, he grabbed my right hand and gripped hold of my fingers. 

“You haven’t changed,” Kai said quietly, averting his eyes and looking down at the ground for no apparent reason. He was always doing that. His hair was blown back in the breeze, exposing his forehead, as care-worn and worried-looking as ever. Strange to think that I had once been so in love with the wrinkled old forehead of his. 

“I still get that feeling, you know, like your body is here but your soul is off on a trip somewhere else.”

“You haven’t changed either,” I said. I felt like telling him I didn’t have a clue what he was trying to say but held my tongue. I threw Chaeyoung a look as if to say ‘what the hell were you thinking?’

“I heard you’re engaged now."

I looked down at Kai’s shoes. I had to smile. He hadn’t changed a bit. Black leather ankle boots. He used to wear them all the time. I had told him a million times what I had thought about them, but he never paid any attention to what I said. It was already summer, a hot Sunday afternoon at the amusement park, but he was wearing them anyway. His feet must have been going through hell.

“And what about Seungyoon?” I said, turning towards Chaeyoung. What was it with everyone’s husbands today? 

“Decided to stay at home. Said he was too exhausted to move. You know what they’re like, those poor overworked models.”

“Hmm.”

We bought our tickets and went into the park. Chaeyoung didn’t ask about Mino. 

Amusement parks are strange places. Even if you don’t feel like going at first, you often wind up enjoying it in spite of yourself. You don’t really have any choice in that matter. It’s not like it’s particularly fun or anything, but there’s something about an amusement park that pretty much forces you to play along. It demands 100% of your energy and concentration. We fell in line and conquered the rides one by one. Surprisingly enough, Kai and Taehyun seemed to get along really well and the two of them went running happily together from one ride to the next. 

“I always used to think of him as this decadent young theatrical type, but he’s actually pretty cheerful,” Chaeyoung said. Decadent? Where did she get that one from? I was taken aback and I looked her straight in the face. 

“He is cheerful,” I said, in a voice so forceful and insistent it came out sounding more resentful. As if I were really saying, ‘how come you never realized it until now?’ This time it was Chaeyoung’s turn to look surprised.

She was wearing sunglasses and orange lipstick and had more make-up on than usual. Her beige hat was pulled low over her eyes as if to show the world that she at least wasn’t taking any chances with the evil UV rays.

“Hey, look!” Kai and Taehyun had found someone dressed up like a big, furry animal, and they were jumping up and down, shouting and waving at us. I hate those stupid mascot characters, but I guess they’re pretty much inevitable in an amusement park. The wobbly out-of-proportion three-part bodies, the artificial smiles, the weird way of talking–it was just plain creepy to me. I knew Chaeyoung went the same way, but that didn’t stop her from fishing a camera out of her straw shoulder bag and running over to them, waving frantically.

We sat at a table underneath a big umbrella and had pizza and soda for lunch. Believe it or not, there wasn’t a single can of beer to be had in the whole park. As if spending the day with a child in tow wasn’t enough of an achievement for me.

“Okay, a joke’s a joke. Don’t you think it’s about time someone told me what’s really going on here?” I said, stabbing a toothpick at the olives I’d been saving over from the pizza. Neither of them said a word. I figured my best strategy was to try Chaeyoung first. “You knew Mino wasn’t coming, didn’t you?” I said, trying to sound as light-hearted and so-what about it as possible. “And you asked Kai to come instead.”

Chaeyoung had this really serious look on her face. “Yes, you’re right,” she said. She had taken off her hat and sunglasses. Sunlight shone back at me from the rim of the table.

“Why?”

“Why? Where’s the harm in it anyway?” Kai spoke up. “I mean, it’s been so long, and aren’t we having a good time?” He looked down over at Taehyun for support, but Taehyun seemed not to notice him. He had pizza sau