Stranger

It was my first time in the airport and my first time on an airplane. At the airport, I followed Yeon Woojeong around, and finally, we boarded the plane. Yeon Woojeong seated me in a window seat and then sat down next to me.

Yeon Woojeong sat comfortably in his chair, but for some reason, I couldn’t stay still. I fiddled and looked around, and when the announcement for takeoff was made, I squeezed Yeon Woojeong’s wrist as the plane took off. He looked at me and smiled softly.

“Nervous?”

“No.”

“Excited?”

I nodded once. I felt a little embarrassed for fidgeting alone while Yeon Woojeong didn’t, so I leaned back in my chair. Yeon Woojeong released my grip on his wrist and linked our fingers.

As the plane made its way down the airstrip, I could feel it gradually rise. I fixed my gaze out the window and watched the landscape recede into the distance. When it finally took off, I looked back at Yeon Woojeong with a feeling of exhilaration in my heart. His eyes were closed. He must have been very tired after working overtime to take a day off.

After squeezing his hand, I looked out the window again. I couldn’t believe I was in the sky, the place I looked up every day. It was a clear day outside and I could see all the clouds. I stared out the window for a while, then I looked at Yeon Woojeong. It was exciting to see the view outside the airplane for the first time, but that was it. Yet with Yeon Woojeong, I couldn’t get enough of looking at him.

He wore a light blue thin shirt and navy blue pants today. I wore a jean jacket, and I liked it because his and my colors were similar. I tightened my grip on Yeon Woojeong’s hand. I kept watching him, who didn’t wake up even when I squeezed his hand.

Yeon Woojeong was a grown-up man, but looking at him like this made me be careful around him, and it amazed me. Sometimes it felt enough to just stare at him. Of course, I hated to only stare, doing nothing else. I continued to watch him, and when a flight attendant walked over, I released my grip slightly and turned to the window.

Yeon Woojeong opened his eyes an hour later when the airplane landed.

“We’re here.”

“Yeah.”

He replied in a hushed voice, then patted me on the cheek. When the airplane stopped completely, we got up from our seats and walked out. 

Yeon Woojeong rented a car, and he said it was a convertible car. One of the things I was most looking forward to on this trip was the car.

As I stepped outside the airport, I saw palm trees. The weather was warm enough that I didn’t mind taking off my jacket. It felt so real to be on Jeju Island. Looking around, I followed the rental agent to the parking lot. There was one white car. Yeon Woojeong accepted the car key from the agent. We put our stuff in the car and got in. He pushed the button, starting the engine.

The wind blew in as the roof of the car gradually lowered. I never imagined I’d get to ride in a car like this. My eyes took in the view of the surroundings without the cover and windows. The car soon drove out. 

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah.”

The mere “like” couldn’t do justice to how I felt right now. The wind brushed my cheeks as the car moved.

The car we were in raced alongside the ocean. The blue sea stretched out in front of us as far as the eye could see. I just had to turn my head to see it, but Yeon Woojeong was driving, so it might be hard for him to see it, so I kept looking back at him.

“Mr. Yeon. Can you see it?”

“Mhm. I can.”

The convertible car was cool and nice, but it was a minus that we couldn’t hear each other’s voices clearly. Still, I liked to see the naturally disheveled hair and the smiling face with a clear view as background. He, with the arms of his shirt rolled up and his hands on the wheel, was a good driver.

I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached into the back of the car. I ignored the soft warning, “It’s dangerous.” and pulled a camera out of the bag in the backseat. It was a new one that Yeon Woojeong had bought for this trip.

I had gotten the basics of the manuals down and had taken a few pictures of Yeon Woojeong at home, so it wasn’t hard to take a picture of him now. I lifted the camera to get a good shot of the landscape and Yeon Woojeong holding the wheel. He glanced at me and smiled. I had taken pictures of him several times. However, it was clear that even a photo would never capture the whole of this moment, so I put the camera down and saw him with my own eyes.

The first place we went was the beach. The movie reminded him of Jeju Island, and we both wanted to see the ocean, so we put the beach first on our itinerary.

We pulled into the parking lot and walked to the beach. My eyes widened at the sight of the white sand and greenish-clear water. It felt different from the sea I had seen in Gangwon-do Province. It was a snowy winter, and now it was late spring, so the sea breeze felt different on my skin.

There was a crunching sound under my shoes. I wondered if it was because it was morning or if we’d picked a good time, but there weren’t many people. We walked side by side until Yeon Woojeong suddenly stopped, took off his shoes, and stepped barefoot into the sand. His white toes wiggled and sank into the sand.

“Don’t you want to step barefoot on something like this?”

Yeon Woojeong laughed playfully. Contrasted to his look, there were so many different sides to him. After checking to make sure there weren’t any rocks or shards of glass around, I took off my shoes as well.

When I set my bare feet down, Yeon Woojeong lightly stepped on mine and then walked away. We walked along the beach side by side. The sound of the waves lapped coolly into my ears.

Yeon Woojeong walked backward and held the camera around his neck.

“Walk slowly. Looking here.”

With the camera pointed at me, I naturally found it hard to look ahead. I ducked my head, and he urged me to look at the camera. When I finally did, Yeon Woojeong pressed the button. The lips seen under the camera were drawing a rounded line.

“You too.”

As I approached him and held out my hand, Yeon Woojeong, who kept taking pictures of mine, took the camera off his neck and took away the tripod I was holding.

Yeon Woojeong stood and looked at the camera naturally. I didn’t know how he could be so natural when he didn’t even enjoy taking pictures.

I checked the photo on the small screen after taking it. It came out well. I looked up after seeing Yeon Woojeong’s face in the tiny image and saw that he had stuck the tripod in the sand.

“Let’s take another one.”

I handed the camera over to Yeon Woojeong. He put the camera on the tripod, set it up, then grabbed my hand and ran.

We made our way to a place away from the camera. He put his arm around my shoulders, and I wrapped my arm around his waist.

“One, two, three.”

There was a shutter sound right after Yeon Woojeong counted “three.” The sound rang one after another. A gust of wind blew me away as I looked at the camera with the corners of my mouth raised. As my hair fluttered and my eyes squinted, the sound from the camera stopped.

Yeon Woojeong reached for the camera first. The wind had slowly died down. He was smiling as he looked into the camera. I walked closer, and he held out the camera.

“You look like an emoticon.”

Emoticon? On the screen, I squeezed my eyes shut. Yeon Woojeong, on the other hand, smiled normally despite the wind.

Yeon Woojeong stroked me on the screen with his fingertip, looked back and forth between me and the photo, and laughed to himself.

After organizing the tripod, he sat down on the sand and patted his side. I sat down next to him. Yeon Woojeong curled up and down his toes, playing with his feet. The sand peeked out from between his toes. I stared at his white feet and the protruding ankle bones atop them, then turned my gaze to the ocean.

Yeon Woojeong’s head rested on my shoulder. He let out a low breath.

“This is good.”

His voice carried on the wind. Waves came and went, carrying white foam. That’s right. Good. Yeon Woojeong’s words made me think about my current mood.

“Suddenly, I want to study as quickly as possible.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. I thought I was a bit fed up with it…”

It just felt like the time I thought was tedious became valuable. That was a process, after all.

“We all get bored at one point or another.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve been there. I was so tired of my job, and when I told people, they said I had burnout, and that I would feel better if I went on a trip, so I went alone, but it didn’t work. I just felt empty.”

“Where did you go?”

“Where was it? I just went wherever my feet took me. I stopped by the lake and sat there for a while.”

“What about now?”

As I waited anxiously for his answer, Yeon Woojeong patted me on the cheek with a laugh. I turned my head to look at him and reached out to rub his ankle bones gently.

“I don’t want to work. I guess I’m really born a slacker.”

“Are you? Oh, I know what you are. A workaholic.”

“I’m not a workaholic. Think about it, why would I leave work on time if not to see you?”

Yeon Woojeong and I argued about whether he was a workaholic or not. He kept pointing out why he wasn’t a workaholic, and I couldn’t win against him with logic, so I simply kept insisting on my opinion. We spent time having inane conversations.