From Seoul to You

---

Minjae sure outdid himself this time.

The view from the terrace of the pension* he booked for us was nothing short of breathtaking. Gentle waves of deep blue water rolled toward the beige sand below—a perfect summer vacation getaway.

I only got one week of vacation in the summer and one in the winter. When I told Minjae, he immediately said he could take a couple of days off so we could go on a pension trip together.

Pensions, I had learned, were part resort, part Airbnb, and part vacation home. They usually came fully stocked with cooking supplies and outdoor BBQ setups because a lot of people came to drink soju, eat meat, cook ramyun, and enjoy whatever natural environment surrounded them.

“I love the water,” I sighed, leaning against the terrace railing. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Eung*, just like you,” Minjae said, wrapping his arms around me from behind.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the sensation.

Almost three months had passed since our cherry blossom outing, and I was standing at an oceanside getaway with my boyfriend.

My boyfriend.

I’d never had a boyfriend before.

I’d gone on a few dates, but there had never been a love connection. It also didn’t help that most of the guys I was interested in didn’t seem particularly interested in me.

More than once, my weight had been alluded to as the reason why.

I never understood why it should be such an impediment to my dating life. It’s not as though everyone else was a perfect magazine model, right?

“Imperfections,” to me, were simply unique physical characteristics. They had nothing to do with how I felt about another person. Attraction was important, of course, but I often felt that my own net of attraction was much wider than the rather closed-minded nets of my peers.

And yet, for everything I’d heard about Korean beauty standards being more rigid than those in the West, I was finally in a relationship.

And it was with someone who had grown up in a country where physical beauty seemed to be regarded as a gateway to success in nearly every path of life.

Minjae was definitely more open-minded than I’d given him credit for.

That much was certain.

“Let’s go to the beach,” Minjae said excitedly, tugging on my hand.

We walked along the water, people-watching and listening to the sounds around us.

Seagulls squawked overhead, fighting over food.

Children squealed with delight as they chased each other near the waves.

Mothers and fathers lectured naughty children.

Grandparents cooed over their newest and littlest grandchildren.

Groups of friends laughed loudly together, while couples walked hand in hand along the shore.

“This place is so perfect,” I said, beaming. “I wish I could live here.”

“You want to be away from me already, huh?” Minjae teased.

“Haha, no.” I tapped his arm playfully. “How could I live without you helping me all the time?”

“You should learn Korean really well if you want to leave Seoul,” Minjae said thoughtfully.

I nodded.

“Actually, you should try harder anyway.”

I looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because sometimes I am really busy, so…” He paused. “It is a burden.”

A burden.

“Oh.”

The word hit me harder than I expected.

I blinked quickly, suddenly aware of how bright my eyes felt.

“You’re right. Sorry. I will try harder, Oppa.”

Minjae smiled at me, seemingly not noticing anything strange about my reaction.

“You can do it! Hwaiting**!”

We spent another hour at the beach. This time, we sat together near the water beneath a rented umbrella.

Minjae took a nap with his head in my lap while I read a novel on my Kindle.

I stroked his hair absentmindedly as I read.

His silky, soft hair had become one of my comforts.

When I finished the chapter, I lowered my Kindle and looked down at him.

The top of his chest peeked out from his white button-down shirt, which was tucked neatly into his beige linen shorts.

He always dresses so well.

I moved my fingers through his hair again.

Minjae really does help me a lot.

He had even gotten rid of the mold in my one-room apartment and showed me how to keep it from coming back.

A big part of it really was airing the room out, it turned out.

I could rest easily in my apartment now.

And that was where Minjae and I had started spending more and more time together as we grew closer.

Once the mold was gone, Minjae began staying over a couple of times a week.

I blushed at the thought.

For someone who had never had a boyfriend before, I was certainly getting the full experience.

Being intimate with Minjae had felt natural and easy.

I didn’t have much to compare him to, honestly, but if this was what other people experienced in relationships, then I understood why they wanted them so badly.

Minjae opened his eyes and tilted his head to look up at me.

“Did you enjoy your reading time?”

I smiled and nodded.

“Good. Let’s go back and make dinner.”

He stretched luxuriously before getting to his feet.

---

The fat from the meat crackled and popped against the wire mesh.

The smell drifting around us was tantalizing enough to make my mouth water.

The table was covered in small dishes: kimchi, bean sprouts, lettuce, onions, sesame oil, and salt.

Beside us, a yellow aluminum pot sat on a portable gas burner while ramyun noodles boiled chaotically in a red, spicy soup.

This was shaping up to be the best meal I’d had since arriving in Korea.

“Wa, massitgettda***!” I exclaimed, rubbing my hands together in anticipation.

Minjae laughed appreciatively as he placed a couple of pieces of meat onto my small circular dish.

I picked up the meat with the flat metal chopsticks we’d found in the kitchen drawer.

First, I dipped it into the sesame oil.

Then into the salt.

I grabbed a lettuce leaf and placed the meat inside before adding some of the onions soaking in a soy sauce mixture whose name I still hadn’t managed to learn.

With the meat and onions secured inside the lettuce, I popped the entire wrap into my mouth.

The savory flavor burst across my tongue.

I gave a satisfied moan.

Minjae chortled.

“Do you like it?”

“Oh my God, that is so good,” I said, rolling my eyes back for effect.

“You definitely are a girl who likes to eat,” Minjae said casually as he popped his own lettuce wrap into his mouth.

“Hey, be nice!” I joked, already loading another lettuce leaf.

Minjae had explained to me that Koreans were more direct about physical appearance than Westerners.

I shouldn’t stress whenever he said something about my weight, he told me. He didn’t always mean things the way I thought he did.

English was his second language, after all.

Sometimes things simply didn’t translate correctly.

“I like girls who eat a lot,” Minjae said with a laugh. “I can be a pig and eat a lot too.”

A pig and eat a lot too?

“I said to be nice,” I pouted playfully while assembling another wrap.

“I am dwaeji*,” Minjae said, pushing his nose up with his pointer finger until it resembled a pig’s snout.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said dismissively, turning my attention toward the ramyun.

The rest of dinner passed peacefully.

Minjae and I cleared the table and washed the dishes together.

After we finished cleaning, we decided to walk down the street to the pyeonuijeom*—the convenience store—to buy more soju.

We had already gone through two bottles at dinner, but the night was still young.

At the CU, I grabbed my go-to pale blue bottle of Jinro soju from the refrigerator.

I also picked up pineapple juice to chase it down.

Minjae grabbed two bottles of Chamisul Fresh—the famous green ones.

He didn’t need a chaser, he’d told me the first time we’d drunk together.

I was simultaneously impressed by his tolerance and deeply concerned about the state of his liver.

---

We played games and took shots on the beach beneath the stars.

We weren’t the only ones drinking. The summer night was still alive around us, with people talking and laughing as they enjoyed their own vacations.

Minjae showed me how to play the Korean fast version of rock, paper, scissors.

We immediately began arguing about his version of scissors.

“That’s not a scissor,” I insisted. “That’s a finger gun!”

“In Korea, this is scissor too! It’s faster!” Minjae retorted.

“Ah, bbali bbali* culture strikes again.”

I laughed.

“Fine. It’s scissor gun.”

Minjae patted my head the way he usually did when he wanted to move past a point of contention.

“Okay, okay.”

Ten minutes before midnight, we gathered our bottles and tossed them into the recycling bins near the entrance of the pension.

We stumbled a little as we climbed the four flights of stairs back to our room.

Trying—and failing—not to make too much noise, we finally made it inside.

“I will shower first,” Minjae declared as the door shut behind him.

“Nooooo,” I whined. “I want to go first. It takes you longer than me to shower.”

Minjae gave me a devilish smile.

I knew what that meant.

“I guess we go in together,” he said, placing his phone on the table in the middle of the room, as he usually did.

Then he started undressing.

“I guess so,” I said, placing my phone beside his and quickly tugging off my dress.

The shower was steamy in more ways than one, but I still managed to finish before Minjae did.

Showering, that is.

I left him to his complicated shower routine and went to my luggage to grab my pajamas.

Just as I pulled my nightdress over my head and smoothed the fabric down, a notification sounded from the middle of the room.

That’s strange.

Both of our phones should have been on Do Not Disturb by now.

Minjae had a strict bedtime.

He was either in bed by nine o’clock, or he simply didn’t want to be disturbed by work notifications between nine and the time he woke up.

I usually stayed awake until midnight reading or otherwise enjoying my own company, so I didn’t mind.

On the nights Minjae slept over, I figured we weren’t sleeping at nine because we hadn’t exactly established limits on how we spent our evenings together.

The following mornings at work, Subin Teacher would sometimes offer me concealer because I “looked tired.”

So why was Minjae’s phone the one lighting up?

I reached toward the table to shut off the screen.

Then I saw the heart emoji.

And my hand stopped.

MJ Oppa, When are you coming back from your business trip? 🩷

Minjae was an only child.

MJ Oppa?

What the hell?

I heard the bathroom door open.

Quickly, I shut off the screen.

My heart pounded as something hot and angry began to rise beneath my skin.

“Ready to sleep?” Minjae asked with a yawn.

I grabbed my phone and headed toward the bed.

“Yes, but I think I’m going to read a little bit more.”

Minjae let out an amused laugh and dropped onto the bed, stretching his arms out for me.

I climbed in beside him and let him wrap his arms around me.

Normally, his embrace made me feel warm.

Tonight, it felt like I was being stung all over.

A few minutes later, Minjae turned away from me.

His breathing slowed.

I waited until I was sure he was asleep.

Then I opened my phone again.

But I didn’t open my Kindle.

I opened KakaoTalk.

I scrolled down to the name of the person responsible for me learning so much about Korea.

🎀 SBT ♍

I tapped open our chat.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard for only a moment.

Then I wrote:

Subin Teacher, I am having a problem at the pension.

---

*Pension (펜션) — A type of Korean vacation accommodation. Despite the English name, a Korean pension is typically a private vacation rental or resort-style accommodation, often outside the city and popular for group trips and BBQs.

*Eung (응) — An informal way of saying “yes” in Korean.

**Wa, masitgettda! (와, 맛있겠다!) — Literally, “Wow, it looks like it will be delicious!” Often used when reacting to food that looks especially appetizing.

***Dwaeji (돼지) — “Pig.”

Pyeonuijeom (편의점) — Convenience store.

Hwaiting! (화이팅!) — A Korean expression of encouragement, similar to “You can do it!” or “Go for it!”