Sublimation(40)

Soyoung had spent a long morning, a few days after the reintegration, examining every square inch of her skin.

“And personality … I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. Like, what am I even like?”

“Did you guys get along?”

Soyoung waves her hand ambiguously. “Do you like your instance?”

“Yeah, actually. Clare-Squared is great. She sends all my breakup texts for me.”

That startles Soyoung into laughter. Breakup texts. They’re on good enough terms for breakup texts. Soyoung can’t imagine. Soyoung needs to text Taehyung and let him know that she landed safely. She still hasn’t. She forgot.

“I’m really happy for you,” she says. “It really wasn’t like that for me.”

“Me,” meaning Soyoung. “Me,” meaning Rose.

“Well, I’m sorry it was weird,” Clarissa says. “Less sorry about that than the funeral, but still sorry. Does it help if I say that I’m glad you’re back? I missed you.”

“Yeah, I missed you too,” Soyoung says. In many ways, this is the first time she is speaking with Clarissa. There is no word in the English language for nostalgia for a relationship you never had.



* * *



A popular folk song in both North and South Korea is “Arirang.” It’s an old folk song, a resistance song during the Japanese occupation, a song that is taught to schoolchildren on both sides of the border and to expatriates whose kids grow up nine thousand miles away. “Arirang” isn’t a word that means anything, though the term likely refers back to the Auraji, which is a body of water connecting Pyeongchang and Samcheok with the Han River, and the associated legend. It is the sort of song that sounds like a lament, and doesn’t explain anything about the underlying story.





YJ


You miss Yujin’s call while you’re doing an interview. A reporter from the Times who wanted to talk about Mitosis and was following you around all afternoon to add “color,” which marketing thought was a good idea. The phone rings while you’re talking with him, and you glance at your screen and shove it back in your pocket.

“Sorry about that,” you tell the reporter.

“No, by all means, if it’s important,” he says. You’ve forgotten his name and you feel really bad about it. You think it began with a W.

“It’s really not—just family.”

“Sure,” the reporter says. “Hey, speaking of your family—if you don’t mind being on the record for this.”

“Depends on the question.”

Your phone buzzes again. You glance at it. Yujin, texting you: Call me back when you get a chance?

“Did your relationship with your family, and the fact that you’re an instance, affect the way that you’re steering this project?”

“Only in that it gives me a lot of empathy for our customers,” you say easily. “Hey, I thought this wasn’t a personal profile.”

“I’m asking everyone I talk to about this,” he says.

“I miss my family,” you say. “But if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here. You know? And if I were to go back, and if I were to reintegrate accidentally with my instance, then I’d be really glad to know that Mitosis exists.”



* * *



You never expected the separation, so you never had the chance to say goodbye. Or not even goodbye, explicitly, but goodbye. You never had the chance to say thank you to your parents, or to bow at your grandparents’ gravesite, or to pack up your good summer clothes, because it was winter when you flew. You guess this is a silly thing to feel strange about, in the grand scheme of things. People have real problems. People cross borders with only the clothes on their backs. People pay mules to be transported across country lines. People instance in ICE facilities. But you feel the strangeness anyway. You would have liked to have gone to your favorite bookstore while knowing it was the last time. You would have liked to have said goodbye to your parents. You know it would have been a futile gesture, because Yujin would soon exist and they would get to keep a version of their son.



* * *



You escape the reporter by going to the bathroom. You sigh—quietly, because you don’t know if there’s anyone in the stalls. You check your phone again. No other calls. You lean against the sink. You call your instance back. He picks up. You can hear the vague sound of music behind him.

“Is this a good time? I have a minute.”

“Yeah. It’s fine.” His voice isn’t exactly muffled, but there’s a background ambience like he’s in a crowded area. Your own voice echoes off the bathroom tile.

“Are you out?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I had a favor to ask. Well, not for me. Not an us favor.”

“Sure,” you say. You lean against a sink. The back of your shirt gets a little wet.

“So, Soyoung wanted to talk to you about something. I don’t really want to get into it now—”

There’s a large burst of yelling from his side, as if to punctuate his point. You wince at the noise.

“Maybe now’s not the best time to talk,” he concedes. “But it’s kind of serious. So if you’ve got time this weekend—”