Epilogue 3.1

Epilogue 3.1

Stunned, Juran closed and opened her mouth like a fish, and let herself be dragged by Miran into the living room. Miran sat her down in a chair at the dining table, then opened the rice cooker and scooped steaming rice into a bowl. She took out the side dishes from the fridge one by one as she explained the situation.

Only after hearing everything did Juran slowly get to her feet. She returned carrying a bubbling clay pot of doenjang stew and carefully set it on the table. Then she walked over to Miran, who was putting the side dish containers back into the fridge, and smacked her square on the back.

“You should have started by explaining that! You scared the life out of me!”

“Ah! That hurts! Miss Juran Kang, your hands are way too spicy. Forget chili powder, you could just wash your hands in the pot.”

Miran dodged away, joking as she scurried to the other side of the table.

“You little…!”

Still giggling, Miran took a spoonful of stew.

“Kya, nobody makes beef brisket doenjang stew like Juran Kang!”

Juran fished out a piece of brisket from the pot and set it on top of Miran’s rice.

“The boss said a marriage visa takes a long time and the process is complicated. Still, hearing that Andre is handling everything makes me feel a bit more at ease.”

“Me too. And by the way, I almost died when I thought I was getting married before you. Even cold water has an order, you know.”

Miran teased, and Juran shot her a look before glancing away, embarrassed.

Once Miran returned from her OJT flight, two days later would be Juran’s wedding. She had insisted she was too old for a wedding and that they should just have a simple meal, but Miran, backed by Yeongran and Geumran, had stubbornly persuaded her otherwise.

“Miran, are you really not going to live with us?”

“I said no. Why do you keep trying to make me move in with a newlywed couple? You two should enjoy your cozy time together.”

“At least stay with us until you go to New York. The boss said he’d like that too.”

Miran waved it off.

“I lived alone for three years in college, remember? I’m used to it.”

“It’s just… the day you leave is getting close, and the thought of letting you go and leaving you alone makes my feet feel glued to the ground.”

The bridge of Juran’s nose turned faintly red.

Miran quickly turned her head toward the TV screen, afraid that if she met Juran’s eyes now, she would start crying.

「Following the bankruptcy of Hanbo Group and Sammi Group, rising interest rates and falling stock prices are signaling a deepening liquidity crisis among corporations. With rumors of a financial meltdown spreading for April to May, social anxiety continues to grow……」

Watching the news, she swallowed down the tightness rising in her throat and tilted her head.

“Why are there so many bankruptcies these days? Every time I turn on the TV it’s another bankruptcy. Our country isn’t actually going to collapse, right?”

Juran pointed at the remote on the table with her chin.

“Don’t watch the news while eating, it ruins your appetite. Switch to something else. A few companies going under doesn’t mean the whole country will. Stop worrying and just eat.”

“I guess so? Anyway, this gat-kimchi is really good.”

“Yeah? I’ll get you more, wait.”

Juran took out a round stainless steel kimchi container from the fridge. As she opened the lid with a metallic clack, her eyes drifted to the TV commercial playing on the channel Miran had switched to.

“These days that guy in the Cityphone commercial cracks me up the most. ‘Hello? Hello?’”

She mimicked the catchphrase and laughed.

“One of my classmates at the training center bought one with her first paycheck.”

“It must be nice not having to stand in line for a pay phone. The world… really. It’s getting impossible to keep up.”

Juran set the neatly plated kimchi in front of Miran and murmured to herself.

In the past two years, the world had changed as if heaven and earth had flipped. Every other day something brand new appeared.

Back in ’95, when she first met Andre, she used to go to the post office, send an international letter, and wait endlessly for a reply. Now she exchanged emails with him every day and chatted with him in real time through a messaging program.

She felt a small pang of regret for the disappearance of the old romance: choosing pretty stationery, copying out poetic lines by hand, tucking a pressed rose petal into an envelope to send her heart along with it.

But even though the physical distance between her and Andre remained the same, their emotional distance had grown unimaginably close.

Every time Miran hesitated to embrace some unfamiliar new technology, Andre would lecture her that technological progress had only just begun and she needed to adapt quickly.

“Anyone who can’t keep up with this shift will fall behind. This isn’t something you can avoid just because you want to, Miran. So adjust.”

She had installed ICQ only because he insisted, but once she used it, it was so convenient that she couldn’t imagine going back. Just as no one could return to the era before pagers and cell phones.