Recoil

Anti-thesis

Fall in Seoul is not at all like the way it is advertised on television.

It is the intermediate between the blazing summer and the freezing winter, and water falls down on the earth without purpose, a failed product of two opposite elements: the delicate frustules of the cold unable to stand the uncontrollable heat of the summer.

Seulgi is waiting for the rain to stop under the tin protection of the bus stop, each of the thousands of raindrops pinging loudly on the roof.

The wind blows hard, making the tears fall slant ward to the earth. The heavy rain knocks leaves from their stems, like well-buried memories triggered by a familiar song, or an old crusty photo. They crowd the drains, their own impatience foiling their escape. Minimum wage slaves in their thin street cleaner uniforms cannot attend to the backlog right now, and happily sit out their duties. The water collects, and it shrouds the road with a misty veil, gray from upturned silt.

Everything is darker than it should be, opaque cumulonimbus swallowing up the sun, blocking its warmth. The rain flows over car windows, the rate of wind shields unable to keep up with the never-ending assault of the weather. Over the radio DJs warn of minimal visibility in between the top ten songs of the week. Pedestrians outside are no better. There is no way to keep them out of your eyes when you stand directly under it, water swirling over and past and through you. It pushes down on plastic umbrellas, the hands that cling to its steel metal canes still wet despite their best effort. The sour scent of soaked metal stays on the human hands longer than some memories.

Seulgi sighs angrily, frustrated at her luck. She eyes the ground, eyeliner black. There is a big test today, the kind that they tell you will haunt you for the rest of your life.

She glances at her watch, dotted with water like a perspired nose. She wipes the face with her thumb and brings it closer to her face. She squints. She woke up too late to put on contacts, and she was too cool to wear glasses that weren't meant for the beach.

It was 10:20. The bell must have rung twenty-minutes ago, and the test handed out nineteen. Their teacher, a strict boring man whose only joy in life was seeing those who had not yet lost their youth squirm, was a very punctual man, and did not believe in last minute reviews, or second chances. Or, as if by extension, in Seulgi.

Might as well, Seulgi thought dismissively. And already all the distress that occupied her heart just a while ago dissipates. Not that there was much, but still. It takes a lot for Seulgi to care. That is how she dealt with most things. With a resigned apathy. With a lettinggo attitude, except lettinggo would mean that there was some concern to begin with. Kang Seulgi has no concern, no worries. That wouldn't be very cool.

She opens her handbag, an expensive thing that did not deserve to get wet and deserved getting a better owner. Her long manicured fingers dance above their options momentarily, like the tentacles of an octopus choosing fish among a school. With an almost serious concentration, she takes out a cigarette, deciding that it was the tallest one among its friends. Seulgi believed that cigarettes had height discrepancies, no matter how slight they may be. And that she, Seulgi, a cigarette connoisseur, had developed a natural talent for detecting these factory errors over the many years that she consumed them. And when she shared so among her friends, they agreed. At least, Seulgi thinks so. You can never really tell what as sincere of them.

She strikes the match, and for that second it was the warmest thing under that roof. She wraps her pink matte-d lips around the brown end, indulging in what she usually couldn't enjoy in her pleated skirt.

And then, a running. A girl with a book over her head, sprinting through the rain. The book was covered in plastic, in the pressed-down sort of way that tells you immediately that a good student owned it. She ran against it, so for the most part, Seulgi couldn't see her. Not that she would. Acknowledging strangers wouldn't be very cool.