Epilogue 1.1

Epilogue 1.1

1997 March 21, Friday.

Miran, dressed in a neat black black skirt suit, ran up the stairs of Sunshine Villa two steps at a time, the large ribbon attached to the mesh holding her updo fluttering behind her.

She flung open the door of Unit 201 and stepped inside, kicking off her swollen legs a few times to shake her shoes loose.

“I’m home!”

Her black high heels flew off in different directions across the entryway as she rushed inside.

Juran, standing at the kitchen sink preparing dinner, turned her head just slightly.

“My baby, no, my girl is home? You must be tired. Go wash your hands and come out. I’m making doenjang stew with brisket.”

Miran grabbed the knob of her bedroom door, ready to burst inside, then suddenly whipped her head around.

“Mom! For ten minutes, no, fifteen, you can’t use the phone!”

“The phone? Why?”

Setting her knife down on the cutting board, Juran looked at her in confusion.

“I need to use the internet.”

“Huh? Right after you get home? What about dinner. Aren’t you hungry?”

Miran shook her head.

“I need to message Andre on ICQ. I have something urgent to tell him. It won’t take long. I’ll eat as soon as I’m done.”

“Eye… what?”

“I. C. Q. Ugh, I told you about it before, don’t you remember? It’s like HiTel or Chellian in the U.S., real-time chatting…”

Seeing Juran’s eyebrows knit like she was listening to utter nonsense, Miran let out a small sigh.

This was the same Juran who once said she didn’t even need a pager. Explaining the internet or chatting, this newfangled thing even Gen X struggled to keep up with, required time and patience.

“I’ll explain while we eat after I finish chatting with Andre.”

“…Oh, forget it. That ICQ-whatever, just hearing about it gives me a headache. Go finish quickly and come eat.”

Juran waved her hand dismissively and turned back to the sink.

With the lively tak-tak-tak of zucchini being sliced on a wooden cutting board behind her, Miran stepped into her room, tossed her handbag onto the bed, and immediately pressed the computer’s power button.

A faint mechanical smell, the familiar sound of booting up.

As she sat down and closed her eyes, Andre’s study came to mind.

After dinner, he would sit behind the large desk in his study and turn on the computer. While waiting for the screen to light up, he stacked the bundle of documents he had brought home from the office on the desk like a mountain.

Then he loosened his tie and tossed it onto the desk, unbuttoned a couple of the stiff shirt buttons, and removed the cufflinks from his sharply creased cuffs one by one. He rolled up his sleeves twice and lightly loosened his stiff shoulders.

In that slightly more relaxed state than usual, he went straight into work. His cool eyes and cold expression stayed fixed on the documents, yet whenever their eyes met by chance, his rigid mouth would subtly soften.

Beyond her closed eyelids, that image flickered like a scene from a movie.

Using academy homework as an excuse, she would occupy the smaller desk in the study. And every time she memorized a single English word, she would steal little glances at Andre, as if eying dried fish hanging from the ceiling.

‘I miss you…’

Her chest tightened with a sting, and her eyes prickled with tears.

The last time she saw him was the third weekend of January, when the new-hire flight attendant training was in full swing. Because the following Monday was a U.S. holiday, Andre boarded a Friday flight just to spend Sunday with her. He arrived in Korea on Saturday afternoon.

The training course consisted of six weeks of safety training and six weeks of service training, twelve weeks in total, and the entire period was test after test.

Miran had forced more knowledge into her head in the past three months than she had learned from elementary school through university combined.

Sleeping only two or three hours a day while studying for exams. Not even when preparing for the national college entrance exam had she done anything like that.