“Thank you for all your support. What a beautiful night! We love you so much!”
I’ve seen such speeches countless times, thanks to Mom, who loved watching K-pop music shows. But for some reason, on that particular day, it made me wonder. Can the word “love” be thrown around so casually like that?
I thought of books by Goethe and Shakespeare, whose characters often resorted to death in their desperate search for love. I thought of the people I saw on the news who were obsessed with and even abusive to their loved ones because they thought they weren’t loved anymore. I also thought of the stories of people who forgave the unforgivable after hearing just three words: “I love you.”
From what I understood, love was an extreme idea. A word that seemed to force something undefinable into the prison of letters. But the word was used so easily, so often. People spoke of love so casually, just to mean the slightest pleasure or thanks.
When I shared these thoughts with Gon, he shrugged them away with a Pah. “Are you really asking me what love is?”
“I’m not asking you to define the idea. I just want to hear what you think.”
“You think I know? I don’t know either. That might be the one thing we have in common.” Gon giggled before glaring. Changing expressions in a split second was his thing.
“You had your mom and grandma, though. They must’ve given you plenty of love. Why you askin’ me?” he snapped, his voice turning bitter. He ruffled his hair from the back of his neck to the top of his head. “I don’t give a damn about love. Not that I would mind experiencing it. The love between man and woman, you know.”
He grabbed a pen and started capping and uncapping it repeatedly. The pen went in and out and in and out of the cap.
“That’s what you do every night,” I said.
“Wow, this asshole knows how to make a joke? I’m impressed. But that ain’t love between man and woman. It’s loving by myself.” Gon jokingly hit the back of my head. It didn’t hurt. He put his face close to mine.
“Do you even know what love between a man and woman is, kid?”
“I know the purpose.”
“Yeah? What is it?” Gon asked, amused.
“Reproduction. It’s the selfish gene prompting our instincts to—” Before I could finish my sentence, Gon slapped the back of my head again. This time it hurt.
“You stupid asshole. You know, you’re stupid because you know too much. Now, listen carefully to what your big bro is about to tell you.”
“I’m older. My birthday is before yours.”
“Can you cut the jokes?”
“I’m not joking, it’s the truth—”
“Shut up, asshole.” Laughing, and another flick on the head, which I dodged. “Huh, nice move.”
“Can you go back to where you were?” I said.
Gon cleared his throat. “I think love is bullshit, pretending to be all grand and everlasting and everything. It’s all a bluff. I’d rather be tough, none of that soft shit.”
“Tough?”
“Yeah, tough. Strong. I’d choose to be the one hurting rather than getting hurt. Like Steel Wire.”
Steel Wire. Gon had told me about him a couple times before, but I could never get used to the name. I recoiled a little. I felt like I was about to hear things I wished I’d never heard.
“Now, he’s strong. I mean very. I want to be like him,” Gon said, as something flickered in his eyes.
*
Anyway, it seemed pointless to expect any real serious answer from Gon. But asking Dr. Shim seemed somehow out of the blue to him.
There was this day when Mom asked a question to Granny, who was carefully writing hanja for love, 愛。
“Mom, do you even know what that character means?”
“Of course!” Granny glared at Mom, then in a deep low voice, she said, “Love.”
“What does love mean?” Mom asked mischievously.
“To discover beauty.”
After Granny wrote the top part of the character 愛， then the middle part, 心 （meaning “heart”）， she said, “These three dots are us. This one’s mine, this one’s yours, this one’s his!” Mom’s eyes teared up but she turned and went back to the kitchen.
And there it was, the symbol 愛， with the three dots of our family. Back then I had no idea what “discovering beauty” meant.
But, lately, one face did come to mind.
51
Lee Dora. I pictured what I knew of her. An image of her running came to mind. Galloping like a gazelle or a zebra. Actually, no, those aren’t appropriate similes. She was just Dora. Running Dora. Her silver eyeglasses being tossed on the ground. Her slender arms and legs whipping through the air. The sun glinting on her glasses. A cloud of dust in her wake. Her fair-skinned fingers setting the glasses back on her nose as soon as she finished her race. That’s everything I knew about her.