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Yang Kwam was wearing a shirt with the American flag on it. Dizzy and disoriented, Sang Huin had followed that American flag in subways, underground transfer corridors, exits, and sidewalks. He was acting the same way now only he wasn't sick. He was following Seong Seob into a relationship blindly to have concrete experiences and happiness that could only be obtained in shared experiences.
Still, the isolation had its beauty: mountainous green hills near lush, green rice fields, and some good times such as when he and Yang Kwam made their way down a trail in the forest and then spent the night at the Umsong Stadium sleeping on the vast green Astroturf in the midst of empty yellow seats and stars.
The only vestige rural traditions in Seoul were the traditional weddings at the Korean Folk Village and traditional dancers no longer on the street corners but contained in a theatre. He thought about once when he and Yang Kwam were shopping for clothes in Itaewan Dong of Seoul on that same street where he worked at a convenience store. It was raining and cold and his sickness was getting worse.
It was Kim Yang Kwam, the friend who had labeled him as dirty and had abandoned him for that one touch, that one weak moment of wanting to celebrate the beauty of the friendship and the beauty of the man to its fruition. The two were in the bedroom of that apartment in Umsong as they had been before, and Yang Kwam was pulling out a CD from its plastic holder. "Yes, lovely.
The bus was becoming full now. Still, no one was standing. Maybe, he thought, he should have been proud at the restaurant. Instead, when Yang Kwam said that he never wanted to see him again Sang Huin said, "I understand," but was thinking "Well, then why are we eating together?" Yang Kwam's eyes were stern. Indeed, it was the end.
They both ate sparsely in thorough silence, Yang Kwam paid the bill, and then he was gone. Sang Huin's instinct was to follow his former friend to the ends of the earth on the public bus system and to harass him in the bus by making him feel miserable for his declaration that he was a dirty person. No, he told himself, he had handled the situation the best that he could.
He dreamt it was Buddha's birthday and that Yang Kwam was under a huge canvas canopy on a university campus where the ground was a hard sandless desert. Those under the canvas were resting and drinking as the others played soccer; but Sang Huin was alone on a dry and grassless bluff that overlooked the activity.
After sitting himself on a bench in front of the pool, a sadness at the loss of his friendship with Yang Kwam made him feel age that he did not possess. He watched a couple young men stretch out in motion. He watched their splashing, their excitement, and their frenzying limbs with the awareness that this tousling around had no higher significance. He got a vision in his mind.
Yang Kwam was asleep with his hand in his underwear when Sang Huin awakened. Sang Huin touched him. It was the end of the closest Korean friendship that had been his life support in the six months he resided in this foreign country, South Korea, which was his birth home and the source of his nationality. Now it was Kim Yang Kwam he kept thinking about in the bus.
I'm not sure how listen, I killed my sister, my father hung himself, and I was struck down into such a depression like being slapped into a tsunami. Ever since this I've been drifting into the Pacific like a corpse." "You want to eat salami?" "No, are you listening to me?" Yang Kwam chuckled.
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