179 — Under the Stars

When she realized I wasn't going to do something crazy—like suddenly announce I was joining a celibate monastery on Mount Athos, a place about as removed from the bustling streets of South Korea as you could imagine without needing a passport—Mom's anxiety level slowly descended from Defcon 1.

Ah, but she knew that we'd be hiking uphill to watch the comet, and the countryside wasn't a monastery. I could still see a flicker of something in her eyes. A wariness.

She watched me, and I watched her.

She was trying so hard to be normal.

She was trying so hard to be Mom.

To her credit, she was doing a good job. After her fever broke, she was in higher spirits and seemed ready to take on the entire world with rubber gloves and an army's worth of bleach.

We were standing by the door. Mom hovered by the doorway like a hummingbird, fussing with an invisible speck on Su Ah's collar.

"Are you sure you have everything? It gets cold at night. You have warm socks?" Eun Ha checked, patting Su Ah's shoulder one last time.

"Mom, I'm not five." Su Ah said, giving me a look. Why me? Did she expect me to do something about it?

"And you!" Uh oh. Eun Ha's gaze landed on me next, her worry now a more general broadcast, less focused. "You be careful. Not just... you know. But falling. Those trails can be tricky. Oh, look, his laces are untied."

Before I could protest she was there, her quick fingers working on my hiking boots, tying them into perfect, symmetrical bows.

"He has perfectly tied laces, Mom..." Mia called from the living room. "I did them. Unneeded maternal intervention is hereby nullified."

Mind you, I could do it myself, but Mia insisted she took care of any wrinkles and creases in our hiking backpacks as the proverbial master of the art and science of packing. I'm no novice backpacker; however, Mia somehow found the hidden pockets I had previously overlooked and managed to stuff a few extra essential items, and a few things she insisted we had to have—an extra first-aid kit, some mosquito repellant wipes, two spares for the spares and so on and so on.

"Just be safe. Both of you."

There, tied back up with professional precision.

"So... you'll try to keep my dearest brother from walking off a cliff while he's too busy thinking about football, Su Ah?" Mia came to join the farewell brigade. She leaned against the doorframe, inspecting her nails. "We need him in one piece for our family trip."

"He managed to survive fifteen years with you as his older sister, Unnie..." Su Ah replied, a faint, amused smile gracing her lips. "I think I can handle a few hours in his company."

"Hey, hey, let's not get nasty." I quipped dryly, and they both rolled their eyes, but Mom giggled. Her eyes crinkled the way they did before her mood took a turn for the worse. "Anyway, if that's everything..."

"That's everything." Su Ah answered for me.

I hefted Su Ah's telescope case again, testing the weight. It was more manageable now that I'd secured the tripod to my pack.

"Alright, let's go then." I gave both women a quick smile, but my gaze lingered on Mia. Her gaze, all too eagerly, lingered on mine too.

And from behind Eun Ha, she made a jerking motion with her hand, her mouth open, and her eyes lolling in a way that I'd seen her do only when she gave me the real thing.

Of course, the blissfully unaware Eun Ha hadn't seen a damn thing, but I did, and so did Su Ah next to me, whose face became a chip of ice.

Something twitched in my pants, but my composure was absolute iron.

"......"

"I packed thermos of herbal tea for your throats. There's one with plain water and another with ginseng." Mom produced three metallic canisters, like a magician pulling doves out of a hat. I was impressed.

I juggled them for a moment. "Tea?"

"It's a special blend! Warms you up." She patted my cheek with the back of her hand, before quickly withdrawing the limb, as if I'd burned her somehow. "Now go on, or you'll miss sunset."

And with that, we were off, stepping into the brilliant, heat-heavy afternoon sun.

The asphalt shimmered slightly.

I wished we had a car. Then we could be driving towards the mountains instead of riding the bus. Then again, even if we had one, neither of us had our driving licenses.

No problem. The public bus system had enough service to reach even the most remote corners. Besides, the thing I enjoyed about being on foot and without a time limit was that I could stop to soak in my surroundings, linger at whatever caught my eye.

Mom and Mia watched us from the gate of our house.

As we walked side by side along the hot, empty street, I saw a cluster of moms, wives and auntie heads, bobbing from the windows, as if the little ecosystem that made up our neighborhood was watching our every footsteps.

Well, the truth was that they were watching me. The prodigal football neighbor boy coming back home from stardom.

Stardom. A big word for what I had accomplished so far, but being on the news multiple times, having been interviewed on TV, scoring goals for our country, and winning the AFC surely counted as 'making an impression'.

So even if they didn't follow football itself—as very few were actually inclined or interested in keeping track of anything regarding it—they were certainly aware that the Cha's had a successful fifteen year old son already lifting trophies for the nation. Who wouldn't be proud?

Su Ah and I walked up the sloping avenue of the suburban neighborhood at an unhurried pace.

At the crossroads, a crowd of girls—almost a dozen or so of them, middle school aged and uniformed—gawked at us and, once we passed, the giggles and hushed whispers followed like the tide following the moon.

"See, Noona? Even kids recognize me." I said, puffing up my chest. "Ah, I'm becoming too famous..."

Su Ah raised an eyebrow, not even sparing a single glance in their direction. "They're not gawking at you like that because they recognize you, dummy."

"Oh?" I tilted my head, staring at her impassive profile with a teasing smirk. "Then why~?"

A flicker of something caught my eye, a quick rush of red on her ears.

Was that... was she embarrassed?

"Shut up and walk faster! I swear, if we miss the bus because of you..." Su Ah growled, but not angrily, really.

"Ahh, the summer's sun sure brings the sass out of our little Su Ah..." I pretended to wipe a tear from the corner of my eyes. "Jae-il will always carry you on his back, Little One."

I meant that as a joke, but one moment Su Ah was rolling her eyes at me and the next I was staggering forward under her unexpected weight. "Hmph!" She turned her nose up. "If that's the case, then you won't mind carrying me to the bus stop, do you? I don't really feel like walking in this heat, it's quite awful..."

"Sure." I laughed. I adjusted the weight of her gear and caught a faint whiff of strawberries and laundry detergent, Su Ah's usual scent. "Then I'll carry you all the way to the top of the hill as well."

This body of mine had way too much energy. I felt like I could carry this lithe, stoic chihuahua to the comet itself if I wanted to.

She rolled her eyes, a faint smile on her lips. "Stupid boyish pride... you better not drop me and give yourself a concussion on the mountain. Or me, for that matter!"

"What concussion, Noona? You're gonna be fine with me~" I muttered, shifting her weight to my other shoulder. "Anyway, you're so light, what are you, a bag of feathers?"

Su Ah just scoffed and buried her face against my neck to hide the blush. This made me laugh even more.

Her warmth and weight were... nice.

We reached the bus stop, and I gently set her down, and the bus arrived a few minutes later, slowing to a halt with a familiar hydraulic hiss. The interior was blessedly cool. We made our way to the back, claiming the last empty row. The bus filled up quickly.

As the bus lurched away from the curb, Su Ah settled against the window, her gaze fixed on the receding suburbs. The city slowly thinned out, the concrete and glass replaced by green rice paddies and low-lying hills.

She was quiet.

For a long stretch, she didn't say anything, her profile a serene visage that I couldn't help take multiple glances at. What? I was totally comfortable in this mud of immorality I was drowning myself in. So? Sue me, or whatever.

It wasn't like she wasn't making herself a comfy home inside my head anyway. Oh, what a life. Should I go to a therapist and explain this? Would they consider this borderline obsession the normal signs of a teenage crush, or send me to rehab for treatment?

I know, I know. Whatever, man. My brain wasn't functioning on a logic loop with perfect rationalization and deniability. I was a teenager. A fifteen year old boy, despite the supposed brilliance in sports and an entire past life's worth of memories.

When Su Ah turned just at the right time, at the right angle to catch that specific light hitting her eyes at the perfect, synergetic reflection for that color to shift, and soften, I found my stomach doing this thing again, this tightening that was beyond my control.

Of course, on the surface I was a mask of pure innocence or maybe playfulness, because, yeah, as Su Ah said... boyish pride and machismo.

"What are you looking at, Jae-il?" Su Ah asked, humming. Arms crossed. Her face zoomed in on mine so sharply that I knew, from one glance, I had just been caught. "Are you looking at your sister?"

"Is it a crime?"

Her lips lifted into a smirk, and her face came closer. Too close. "And what's your reason?"

I almost didn't register her words at all, my attention shifting entirely on those cherry red lips. My eyes flicked down, then up, to meet her eyes—to see the smug satisfaction of a homeowner catching the thief with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

"Do I need a reason? You clearly don't need one to do the same, right…?"

She stilled, an imperceptible, perhaps offended blush, coming to her cheeks from the accusation.

I grinned, shrugging. "And, well… you're beautiful, Noona. I can't help it."

"......!"

It was cute, the swirling heat slowly seeping off her face. The fluttering lashes and that tiny squeak that got stuck in her throat.