Autumnal Equinox (JinJi)

Eight

Jinyoung That I Met

"It's just one evening," Jinyoung said to Minji. They were in his Lexus and were on their way over to the Kims' house, which meant he had just about five minutes to get his girlfriend back onto his side.

At the end of his and Jisoo's piano duet in the rehearsal hall about a week ago, Mrs. Kim, his old piano tutor walked in and scolded him for neglecting to practice. Then, after a brief catching up, she invited Jinyoung over to their house for dinner the following weekend. Jinyoung had asked if he could bring his girlfriend.

"Just for a couple of hours," Jinyoung said. "We've gotten dinner with a bunch of our friends before, it won't be any different."

Minji looked up from her phone and sighed. "It will be fundamentally different, though," Minji said. "Yeah, we get dinner with our friends back in Seoul, but they're our people. These people don't like our people."

Jinyoung blinked in confusion.

"What do you mean by 'these people'?" he asked.

"You know, like—" Minji put her phone down for a minute and made a vague gesture which Jinyoung took to refer to everything. "You and I, we're city people, we're not used to this... sleepy, claustrophobic small town vibe. If you stay too long in a small town, you start thinking small thoughts."

He furrowed his brows at her. "Are you saying that just because these people—through no fault of their own—were born in a small town that they're simple-minded?"

Jinyoung turned onto a dirt road. "Not going to lie," he said. "That's a little bit offensive, Minji."

"Oh, never mind," Minji said, sighing and turning away from him. "Sometimes I feel like you purposely misconstrue my words, like you derive some kind of pleasure from misunderstanding me."

Jinyoung scoffed. If anything, she was the one who was always misunderstanding him, always sending him mixed signals. He used to like it. Back in the early stages of their courtship, she played hard-to-get, and Jinyoung thought it was kind of thrilling, kind of sexy, having to decode her messages and find out what she was hinting at. He played along.

It was less attractive now, though, almost six months into the relationship. He just wanted to talk to her, plainly, without guile or hidden agenda or cryptic innuendos.

The Kims didn't have a driveway. The front of the house had a stone path leading to the stone base of the hanok, and there was grass shooting up from between the pebbles and the gravel. Jinyoung pulled the car up there and parked.

"Minji, I don't want to fight with you," he said gently as he switched off the ignition. "You know I love you, and you're like family to me. So are these people. There is no 'our people' and 'their people,' there's just people. You just have to... find what's similar in the differences and use that as a point of connection."

Minji didn't answer him. She looked out through the windshield at the sagging old house and sighed. Jinyoung turned a soft gaze on her, silently begging her: Please do this for me. Please love the people that I love. They'll love you, too.

She didn't say another word, and Jinyoung didn't know what to make of it. They both got out of the car and approached the house. The door slid out of its frame again when Jinyoung pulled it. He tried to balance it against the wall.

"Hello?" he called. "Sorry about the door."

They were greeted by Harabeoji, who was wearing hanbok and pacing the floor with his hands behind his back. He stared blankly at Jinyoung and his girlfriend.