“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, embracing him for the first time.
“Jade!” JungHo said in a low voice, then craned his neck around her to glare at the black car. “What’s the matter? Whose car is that?”
Jade knew that JungHo would do anything to protect her, or even just to defend her honor. “It’s no one,” she said.
“You know, if anyone ever tries to harm you, all you need to do is say a word.” JungHo clenched his jaw, shooting deadly glances at the car. He looked back into her eyes as though begging for the chance to prove his loyalty. Jade was beginning to fear that Ito would get out of the car and the two men would come face-to-face, when the maid finally heard the bell over the downpour and opened the gates.
Jade said with relief, “Come inside. Let’s have some tea.”
*
INSTEAD OF THE SITTING ROOM, Jade led him to her bedroom. JungHo took this as a good sign; and she had embraced him so intensely just now that he had to try hard to maintain his composure. After the maid left them alone with some tea, they sat facing each other with their pruney hands around the steaming cups.
“So why did you come by so late at night?” Jade said, then paused. “No, I didn’t say it right. I was thinking earlier how we haven’t talked to each other in a long time. I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Jade,” JungHo said. “I always miss you.”
She laughed, putting down her cup. “Well, then come see me more often! You know how to find me.”
“Yes, but I wish sometimes that you’d want to find me too,” JungHo said with difficulty. “I feel like I’m not that important to you.”
“Of course you are important to me. You’re one of my two oldest friends. You even saved Luna’s life!”
JungHo was beginning to feel a bit more encouraged, and at any rate, he was tired of hiding any longer.
“Jade, what I mean is that I love you. And I wonder if you also love me.”
As he said those words, Jade cast her eyes down on her lap. Her fingertips were still red from being in the rain.
“I love you too, of course, JungHo. I’ve always admired you even when we were little. Do you know why? Because you weren’t afraid of anything. I was just in awe of how fearless you were even when you had nothing. When we were little Lotus used to tease that I was a coward. You helped me become more courageous—like you.” Jade laughed a little. “But I’m in love with someone else. I’m truly sorry.”
Even though he had somewhat expected this all along, he inwardly keeled over at those words. “Who is it?” he asked without thinking. “Some rich playboy?”
“His name is Kim HanChol. He’s just a repairman at a bicycle shop.” Jade smiled faintly.
JungHo had difficulty processing that he’d spent all these years trying to improve himself for her and that she was in love with some mechanic. He let out a confused laugh and she took it to mean that the tension was over, that they could go back to being friends.
“I guess poor guys are my type,” she joked. “I don’t ever have to talk about HanChol with you. It would just kill me to lose you over this. As life goes on I’m realizing more and more that it’s impossible to replace very old friends. Hold on, let me show you something.”
Jade got up, went to her sideboard, and brought back something in her hand. She dropped it into JungHo’s palm.
“See, this is the sea glass you tossed over the wall all those years ago. I kept it.”
JungHo stared at the smooth green pebble and felt all the ways people keep each other in their lives through material and immaterial means—words, memories, gestures, meaningless objects that become tokens and then turn back into meaningless objects—resting snugly in the palm of his hand. It was both unfathomably heavy and light as a feather. He gave it back to Jade.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” he said to her.
19
Hoarfrost
1934
ALL THE MEN IN THE WORLD FALL UNDER ONE OF TWO CATEGORIES. First—and far more numerous—is the man who discovers at some point in his life that he cannot and will not succeed any further beyond his present state. Then he must find some way to rationalize his lot in life and learn to become content with it. For the poorest of the poor, this point is reached remarkably quickly—before the age of twenty. Those who have had the benefit of education eventually come to the same realization between thirty and forty. Some, by virtue of birth, ambition, and talent, arrive at the reckoning around fifty, at which point the winding down does not seem so appalling.