Last Night at the Café

20 | Kimchi Jjigae

SHE HAD JUST stepped out of the elevator with a box of her things she was bringing back from the office when she caught sight of her older sister on her doorstep. 

"Unnie? What are you doing here?" Seollal hefted the edge of the box onto her hip as she searched for her card. "You should have told me you would be coming. What about Maru and Hwan?"

Her sister used to come down to Seoul occasionally before the pandemic and before she had given birth to her second child. After leaving her job as a primary school teacher to become a full time housewife so that her children would have home cooked meals for lunch, she became busier than ever. It was a wonder she had the time to come all the way down.

She was dressed in a flower print shirt tucked into a pair of slacks, her long hair tied into a loose bun on the top of her head. A smile broke out on her face as she raised a bag of takeout boxes. 

"Hungry?"

Unnie sat on the couch with her legs drawn up while Seollal took the chair at her dining table. In her cramped apartment for one, there was barely enough space for the both of them to sit comfortably. Her gaze briefly rested on the navy blue sweater that hung over the armrest. Hurriedly casting her gaze aside, she hoped her sister wouldn't notice it.

They had laid out a plate of tteokbboki, tubular rice cakes slathered in a spicy sauce, a paper bag filled with sticky and sweet kkwabaegi, twisted doughnuts coated in sugar, a bowl of seollongtang, and a platter of jajangmyeon, noodles doused in black bean sauce and fried with diced pork.

"Eomma and appa are worried about you," unnie started. "After the incident about you finding out about the letter from your birth mother, they are afraid you would be thinking too much."

She chewed contemplatively on the rice cake, relishing the sweet and spicy taste on her tongue.

"I don't know h0w to feel about it," Seollal said. "I'm upset that eomma and appa would have hidden the fact that my birth mother has been wanting to connect with me. I thought they would at least tell me. At the same time, it's been so long. I no longer know what I feel about her. I feel so confused."

Unnie shrugged her shoulders as she dug into her food. Her unnie had always been a dependable figure, despite her aloof air and stern features. She had fond memories of sneaking into her sister's room and sitting by her bed to watch her go through the steps of her skincare routine. One time, unnie had taught her. She had also stood up to her at school when some students had teased her for being adopted. She had been fearless, swinging her school bag at them with such a ferocious yell before snapping at them to mind their own business. 

"I don't remember much of that time either," Seollal went on. "I no longer remember what she looks like. I just have an impression of her curly hair and her red lipstick. And she was beautiful, or so the neighbours always said. I did remember she always looked tired. And there's this odd memory that pops up once in a while."

It had been a warm afternoon. She had sat at her little table by the balcony, an opened workbook before her. The smell of stale cigarettes was lingering in the air, accompanied by the ever-present stench of old alcohol. Behind her, her mother was lounging on her side, the pages of a glossy magazine falling idly past her sharp nails. The flipping of the paper was a monotonous constant in the background of her mind. Her mother had on a thin nightdress, a pretty pink slip with lace at the collar. Her long hair, tousled and curled, lay over one shoulder. The night before, she had come home with a man, probably one of her customers from the club. Seollal had kept to the room she shared with her mother, stuffing her head under her quilt. She would jerk awake whenever the beep of the door sounded. She knew better than to leave the bedroom she shared with her mother.