In the kitchen, you’re always sitting in my mother’s seat.

-

When you arrive, you leave your Mary Janes in the shoe cabinet. The leather on your shoes is cracked and the platform is getting shorter. The only pretty thing left is the metal flowers on the buckles.

As I chop up the vegetables in the kitchen, you turn on the TV and make notes on the film’s mise-en-scene, muttering how it shouldn’t be that deep. The blood orange and blue hues interweaving through the scenes — love spilling through the spaces, leaving us needing the other more.  

I throw the julienned carrots, aehobak, and cubed potatoes into the chicken stock.

“I could never make that. I would mess something up, even if everything was prepared. That’s why I only make cup noodles,” you say, facing me. 

“I don’t get it,” I throw the dough into the pot, mixing the broth with chopsticks.  “ I can send you that recipe of the french crepes I found. They’re good,” 

Later, we eat the sujebi. I give you chopsticks that aren't half peeling. I drink the broth too fast because in this weather, scalding heat is somewhat soothing. 

When we finish eating, I put the dishes in the sink and stay in the same spot next to you.

-

The soviet-green wallpaper in my aunt’s apartment peeled in tiny shavings; she had been living there since my parents got married. 

It was early in the morning, The Parent Trap playing on TV as I ate fried eggs. Outside, the clouds scrunched up into faces and people were dressed in wool coats.

The only elevator in the building creaked loudly so I hobbled down the stairs, instead, bundled up in my ski jacket and red knitted hat with pom poms.

When I opened the door, my brother was already outside, waiting for me. We threw snowballs at each other before returning home in the evening.

Everything here watched itself grow out of weeds and rot, hoping to be remembered, to be wanted, to be alive again. 

-

A couple of years ago, we chose a different spot to hang out in. The noodle place we frequented carried rusted memories: when you first moved here, you ate here periodically because it was close to your school and I had ballet lessons in that building. My ballet teacher kept telling me that I should have memorized the choreography already.

At that age, I swallowed a truth which was almost part of me, yet, at the same time, completely foreign: I was bad at ballet, even though I looked like I was made to dance on stage.

So we went to the other spot instead; our order identical every time: tteokbokki and pink strawberry macaron bingsu.  Here, nobody knew us and understood our language. We were always going to be strangers, in a way, to this city. 

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In the evening, I tell my mother everything: how I spent the day with you,  how in a couple of months, I’ll turn twenty, and how desperately I’m clinging onto words because even though I got prettier over the summer, I still can’t draw.

Next morning, I see the cherry blossom trees blooming and for a moment, I let the petals fall over me.