𝙁𝘼𝙇𝙇𝙄𝙉𝙂 || [JINKOOK FF]

[1]

𝐊𝐢𝐦 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐤𝐣𝐢𝐧:

I’m drowning, but I feel okay about it.

Some people are fated to drown, just like some people are fated to get struck by lightning or fall into the Grand Canyon. I like the idea of fate, a world with rules where everything happens just the way it’s supposed to. Even if it means I’m on the losing end.

If I open my eyes, I can see the hard-on straining against my grass-stained cargo pants. Hopefully erections go away after you die, or fishing my body out of this pool is going to get really awkward. I should have Googled that question drunk at 3am instead of ‘do bisexual penguins or gay; know they’re gay’. (Answer: inconclusive)

My life can’t flash before my eyes because I’m busy picturing a team of coroners standing around my bloated body, speculating whether I was a deviant who jacked off at the bottom of celebrities’ swimming pools. I’ll end up in one of those warning pamphlets about autoerotic asphyxiation they hand out at high school PTA meetings.

The black-tiled floor of the pool presses into my hip. I close my eyes again, pretending I’m a teenager at Hoedong-suwonji with my cousin Ji-Hoon. A deep lake surrounded by dry hills where we played Marco Polo and shook off water like puppies in the last carefree day I ever had in my life.

I want to breathe now. It’s going to hurt so bad. And suddenly, I’m scared.

****

Three hours earlier

Never gonna give you up, never gonna—

I punch my alarm so hard my phone flies into the crack behind my nightstand, where all the spiders live. Irene must have guessed my passcode again when she brought over a load of clean laundry yesterday. My groan sounds more like a sob as I rub my aching eyes into my pillow. It’s just as dark now as it was two hours ago, when I got home from my night shift at the Qwik N’ Go.

Grabbing a sponge, I stumble into the shower and alternate rinsing myself off with scrubbing hair plastic walls. I polish the mirror as I brush my teeth, struggling to keep my eyes open. I don’t look at myself in the clean mirror, because no one wants to see that shit.

My Emerald Lawncare polo doesn’t stink too much, so I pull it on and hide my messy hair with a ball cap. I unhook the rod that opens and closes my curtains and use it to fish my phone out of spider land before heading to the kitchen.

Listening to the gurgle of the coffee pot, I crack eggs into an Olympic National Park mug with the handle missing and stick them in the microwave. “Good morning,” I mumble at Luna as her fat tortoiseshell body weaves between my legs.  Her purr vibrates against my calf like she’s trying to give me a deep tissue massage. “Thanks, girl.” When my eggs are done, I drop a bit on the floor, just to watch her foggy old eyes light up.

The wireless pager clipped to my belt loop beeps, so I pad toward Eomma’s room as I shovel down eggs too hot to taste. My heart sinks when I get to the door. Eomma has an open box on the floor, an album sitting in her lap, pictures scattered across the bed. I need to move this stuff to my room so she stops finding it. “Who is this?” She holds up the album.

“Morning, beautiful.” I kneel down by the bed and open her medications one by one, dumping them into my palm. Fetching her a glass of water, I sit next to her and rub her back gently while she takes the pills, watching to make sure she doesn’t miss any. Then I start gathering up handfuls of pictures and throwing them back in the box, careful not to look at them.

“Wait,” she protests, her brown eyes full of anxiety. “What are you doing?”

“Tidying up so you can get dressed. It’s all good.” I keep my voice upbeat. When I try to take the album, she tightens her grip on it. “Who is this?”

My head throbs when I see the little boy she’s pointing at. It’s always him. Some part of her remembers that he’s important. “That’s Ji-Hoon . He’s your sister’s son.” I’m very careful never to say was.

“He must be big now,” she muses. “Can we have them over?”

Back when she was diagnosed with early-onset dementia, the hospital made me go to some class full of shit I didn’t understand and referrals to grief counselors I couldn’t afford. They said a dementia patient’s world has its own rules and reasons and structures, a sacred piece of their personhood, and the worst fucking thing you could do is twist reality or hide the truth.

I lie to her every day.

The truth is too brutal to repeat, and if we’re both broken, then I can’t take care of her.

“He got a job in London, and imo Ae-Cha is too busy. It’s ok. They know you care about them.” 

Finally, I nudge the album out of her hands and throw it in the box, slamming the lid. I’m tempted to take the thing out back and burn it.

I pull her into a tight hug. Her hair smells of lemon and baby powder as I drop a kiss on it. It has barely started graying at the roots, but her life’s practically over. Maybe if I had taken her hiking every weekend, or to the symphony instead of buying records from the thrift store, maybe the enrichment—another dementia buzzword—would have helped. If every day was different, maybe she’d forget fewer of them.

“Check this out.” I swallow past the lump in my throat and pull open her dresser drawers, pointing to the piles of clothes my friend Irene helped me coordinate. “Each of these is an outfit, remember? Created by your personal stylists.”

Her face brightens as she studies the row of tops. “Did you fold these?”

“If they’re good, yes. If they’re bad, then it’s Irene’s fault.”

“They’re perfect. Did I teach you that?” When I smile in spite of myself, she puts her arm around my waist and points to a blue cardigan. I hand her the tidy stack of clothes. “Get ready and I’ll make your cereal.”

Her favorite bowl goes on the table. Box of Cheerios on the right, spoon and oat milk on the left. I don’t know if the routines are for her or me anymore. Collapsing in a chair, I check the time on my phone, wondering why the nurse is late.

“Where are your scrubs?” Her voice cuts through the headache banging against the backs of my eyes. I blink at her as she sits and pours her cereal, before glancing down at my shirt.

“They’re in my locker at the clinic. I’ll change when I get there.” Liar, liar.

“Don’t let your boss see you all dirty like that.”

“It’s ok, Mom. I won’t.” I stare at my feet, twisting them around until I can fit all my toes in one of the squares patterning the faded linoleum. The summer before I was supposed to start studying biology at Seoul University, I had a great internship at a local veterinary clinic. They said I could work for them every summer and break until I finished vet school. Eomma ironed my navy-blue scrubs about fifty times, and we went out for steaks and ice cream after my first day.

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