Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim
To my mom and dad.
PART I
Back when tigers used to smoke tobacco, there was a fisherman who lived at the edge of the sea. It was widely known that the shore was a boundary like those between nations, and underneath the waves there was a kingdom of water spirits. Therefore, to dive to that kingdom was to risk the separation of the self from the self.
But one day, the fisherman met a water spirit, who beckoned him through the water.
—Korean version of a coastal folktale
SOYOUNG
“Do you think it’s emotionally equivalent to murder?”
Yujin chokes on his latte. You take a smooth sip of your Americano. In retrospect, that was a morbid thing to say. It doesn’t fit the setting. You’re sitting in the basement of the Shinsegae Department Store, waiting for your instance in the cafe near the rotating displays that guard the entrance. The salespeople are loudly promoting dried persimmons in fancy gift boxes (Half off! Today only!). Commuters in nice clothing hurry past, using the food hall as a shortcut to the subway. Tourists examine the stalls and malinger.
The Shinsegae Department Store basement used to be your favorite place in all of Seoul. Your mom always took you through when you visited her at work, and you’d pick out something delicious (twigim, mandu, jun) to augment dinner at home. But these days, the physical reality of the basement always disappoints you. Everything is smaller, shabbier, too loud and not as wondrous. The jun don’t taste the same. They got rid of the ice cream stall you liked. You wonder if your instance will feel the same way, or if the years between visits will preserve some sort of magic when she returns. You kind of hope it will feel perfect for her, because you’d like to experience that perfection again. If and when she agrees to reintegrate. Or else for you, the memory will stay bittersweet and choked forever, because Harabeoji is dead and you’re never going to eat dinner with him again.
You feel regular about that. By regular, you mean very bad. Bad enough that you’re blithely asking Yujin about whether reintegration would be murder. That’s an awful thing to say to Yujin specifically, because Yujin talks about his other self like his instance will save him. But you can’t help yourself.
You want to stop talking about death but it keeps seeping out through the seams. You’re angry about that. Things shouldn’t matter to you so much; Harabeoji’s death shouldn’t be affecting you so greatly. It was a foregone conclusion, and it’s not like your mom or your fiancé or any of your friends or anyone young has died. This wasn’t a surprise death. So you’re in your twenties and your grandfather dies. So you knew it was coming. So you still feel like shit about the whole thing, and worse than shit, you feel guilty, because there’s the relief mingled in with the sadness—the relief of foregone conclusions. He’s dead and gone and you aren’t waiting for the drop anymore. What a terrible grandchild you are! Except, no. You’re allowed to feel however you want. Maybe you shouldn’t even feel bad. You visited him every other week in the house you grew up in, choked with slowly advancing vines. And you’re pretty sure he loved you the best, even if he called Minsoo his favorite, because Minsoo was the firstborn son. That love: another foregone conclusion.
“Murder?” Yujin says, and then in English, “Murder? Like, killing people?”
“Yeah, murder. Emotional murder.”
You’ve been thinking a lot about reintegration and how it relates to death. Ever since you called your instance. But you’re now feeling really awful for bringing this up to Yujin. You know instancing is a sore spot for him. And maybe you’re also a coward, needing moral support for a meeting with your other self. You knew that without a friend’s presence, you probably would’ve let the sick feeling in your stomach win, and you would have let your instance be someone else’s problem. Not yours.
Except, no. You wouldn’t have called your instance if you were a coward, even if you did call her at a terrible time—1 PM in Korea, which was 1 AM in New York.
She had picked up with a scratchy, sleep-sodden voice.
“Hello?” she said, in English.
“Is this Soyoung Kang?” your own voice said, in Korean.
“Yes.” You were surprised that she had an American accent.
“Harabeoji’s dead,” you had said, and there was a thump as she dropped her phone. You told her the bare facts. You didn’t know what else to tell her. You had almost wanted to laugh, during the conversation—her incredulity, contrasted against your own emotionless voice. How absurd. Harabeoji is dead, and he wants you here, even though you’ve never come back to visit. Even though you don’t call him, anymore. Harabeoji’s dead and he knew that I always wanted to know what you know, and I think telling you to return was his idea of a gift.
Your instance had been silent for a long moment. Then she had said she would come for the funeral.
You scratch the black cuff on your wrist. The raised letters MERGEBREAK are cool and rubberized against your fingers. Yujin had bought it for you with his instance’s employee discount. The matching cuff for your instance is in your purse.
“Sorry,” you say to Yujin. “I don’t mean that. I guess I’m just nervous about meeting her? I don’t know. You should go, she texted me she was on the subway. I bet she’ll be here any minute.”