Things She Left Behind

1994 | Gunsan

The knowing came before the waking. In the liminal space between worlds, in the silent, weightless drift of transition, Jisoo’s consciousness assembled the clues like a detective reviewing a familiar case. The smell: old wood, lemon polish, and the faint, ever-present scent of paper that seeped up through the floorboards from the shop below. The feel: the soft, well-worn cotton of sheets that had been line-dried, the particular give of the mattress that cradled the new, insistent weight in her middle. The sound: the distant, rhythmic creak of the shop sign’s bracket as a morning breeze nudged it, a sound as much a part of this place as the walls themselves.

She opened her eyes. The floral curtains, faded from years of sun, glowed with the soft, peach-gold light of a Gunsan morning. A hairline crack in the whitewashed plaster ceiling traced its familiar diagonal path from the corner. Five months. Five months of this body, this life, this bed.

The other side of the bed was empty, but still warm. She could hear him downstairs—the metallic scrape of the deadbolt being drawn, the heavier thud of the wooden shop door being pushed open, the faint, off-key humming that drifted up through the floor. Today’s tune was slow, a ballad she didn’t recognize, his voice a low, comforting rumble beneath the melody.

This was no longer a shock. It was a routine. A bizarre, impossible routine, but a routine nonetheless. The five-second panic of dislocation had condensed into a single, steadying breath. You are here. You are Sooya. For now.

She dressed with practiced efficiency, selecting one of the three neutral, comfortable outfits she’d identified as ‘safe’—a loose, high-waisted denim skirt and a simple, short-sleeved striped knit top. Sooya’s clothes. They felt less like a costume today and more like… well-worn armor. She brushed her teeth at the small sink, meeting her own eyes in the mirror. Sooya’s eyes. They looked back at her, calm and brown and holding secrets she was only beginning to understand.

Downstairs, the shop was cool and dim, the morning light slicing through the front window in dusty, tangible beams. Suho was at the far end, his back to her, carefully aligning a display of fountain pens in the glass case. He was already dressed for the day in pressed trousers and a light blue short-sleeved shirt, his hair still damp from his shower.

“You’re up,” he said without turning, his voice warm. “I was about to bring you tea.”

“I beat you to it,” she said, her voice still thick with sleep. She moved behind the counter to the small hotplate and kettle he kept there. The routine of making tea—his tea, the barley tea he preferred in the morning—was another stitch in the fabric of this life. She poured the hot water into the pot, the steam warming her face.

“The wind chime is tangled again,” she noted, glancing at the door where the delicate brass tubes had knotted themselves around each other in the night breeze.

“It has a mind of its own,” Suho said, finally turning. He offered a small smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. There was a carefulness in his expression, a hesitation that had become their new normal. “I’ll get it after I finish this.”

“I’ll do it.” The offer was out before she could think. She set the tea to steep and walked to the door. Her fingers, Sooya’s slender fingers, worked deftly at the knot, separating the cold metal tubes until they hung freely. She gave them a gentle tap. A soft, discordant chime rang out.

When she turned back, Suho was watching her, a strange, wistful look on his face. He quickly looked down, fussing with a box of rubber stamps.

“You’ve been helping a lot lately,” he said, his tone casual but the observation weighted.

Jisoo returned to the counter, pouring the now-amber tea into two cups. “Is that bad?”

“No. It’s nice.” He accepted the cup she handed him, his fingers brushing hers. A static spark, tiny and sharp, jumped between them. They both ignored it. “You just never wanted to before. You always said the shop was my thing and the house was your thing. You liked the separation.”

She leaned against the counter, cradling her own cup. The warmth seeped into her palms. “Maybe I changed my mind.”

A real smile touched his lips then, softening the careful distance in his eyes. “Pregnant women are allowed to change their minds?”

“Pregnant women,” Jisoo said, echoing a phrase she’d once heard Jiyoon declare with immense authority, “are allowed to do anything.”

He laughed, a short, warm sound that seemed to surprise him as much as it did her. It filled the quiet shop, bouncing off the shelves of notebooks and boxes of pencils. “Fair enough.”

He took his tea and went to unlock the stationery cabinet, beginning his morning inventory. Jisoo took her place on the stool he’d placed behind the counter for her—the one with the slightly wobbly leg he’d shimmed with a folded piece of cardboard. Her stool. The thought was a quiet, terrifying surrender. Every morning she did this, every small task she assumed, was another root she put down in soil that wasn’t hers. She was building habits in someone else’s life, making herself comfortable in rooms she had not been invited into. And the terrifying part was how easily it was happening. The terror was being slowly drowned out by the simple, mundane pleasure of a morning routine, of shared tea, of a job to do.

She opened the large, leather-bound ledger on the counter. Suho’s handwriting was neat and precise, columns of numbers recording every sale and purchase. She’d started cross-referencing it with the receipt book, her CEO mind instinctively seeking patterns, inefficiencies, opportunities. The numbers told a quiet, desperate story. The profit margins were razor-thin. The ‘brisk’ days he’d mentioned were barely covering the slow ones. She ran a finger down a column, her stomach tightening with a concern that felt both professional and deeply, alarmingly personal.

You are sinking, she thought, not for the first time. And you don’t even want to swim back to the surface.

The mid-morning lull settled over the shop like a thick blanket. Suho had left for the post office to mail a supply order, a task that had sent Jisoo’s 2026 brain into a brief spiral over the sheer physicality of 1994 logistics—the paper forms, the carbon copies, the licking of actual stamps. The memory of him carefully wetting the back of a stamp with his tongue was oddly intimate, a tiny, anachronistic vulnerability.

Now, she was alone. The silence was complete, broken only by the lazy drone of a fly bumping against the window and the occasional sigh of a truck passing on the street outside. Sunlight pooled on the worn wooden floorboards in perfect, warm rectangles. She sat on her stool, the ledger closed before her, and found her gaze drifting downward.

The denim skirt was stretched taut over the curve of her belly. Five months. It was no longer a suggestion, a subtle thickening. It was a declaration. A firm, round planet of life suspended in the galaxy of her body. She placed her hands on it, one on either side. The skin was warm through the fabric.

A strange self-consciousness washed over her. This was Sooya’s ritual, not hers. Suho did it all the time—chatting to her belly while he cooked, singing off-key lullabies to it while he sorted mail. He had every right. He was the father.

What was she?

The silence pressed in, demanding something. A confession. An acknowledgment.

She took a slow breath. “Hey.”

Her voice sounded absurdly loud in the empty shop. The fly stopped buzzing.

“I know you can’t answer. And I know this is objectively deranged. Your dad talks to you all the time, but he’s got what we call ‘biological legitimacy.’ I’m… I’m the subletter. The weird aunt who showed up with a suitcase and won’t leave.”

She paused, as if waiting for a response. The baby was still.

“Let me try to explain the situation, since you’re a captive audience. Your mom—your real mom—she was… spectacular.” Jisoo’s throat tightened unexpectedly. The memory of the diary’s pages, the neat, heartfelt script, was suddenly vivid. “She noticed things. She counted the number of times your dad said ‘thank you’ when she told him about you. Seven. She wrote that down. Who does that? Someone who treasures moments. Someone who was so full of love for you both that it spilled over into the margins of a notebook.”

A small, fluttering movement beneath her left palm. A ripple, like a fish turning in deep water.

“And then,” Jisoo continued, her voice dropping to a whisper, “she was gone. And I was here. I don’t know where she went. I don’t know if she’s okay.” The fear she usually kept locked down bubbled up, sharp and acidic. “I don’t know anything. And I’m a thirty-one-year-old woman whose most demanding physical skill is hitting choreography in six-inch heels. I can’t cook ramyeon without setting off a smoke alarm. I negotiate multi-million-won contracts but I’m scared of your grandmother’s pressure cooker. And somehow… I’m supposed to help bring you into this world.”

The baby kicked. Not a flutter, but a proper, deliberate thump against the wall of her abdomen, right where her hand lay.

Jisoo stared at her belly. “Was that criticism? Because that felt like criticism.”

Thump-thump. Two more, in rapid succession.

A helpless, slightly watery laugh escaped her. “Okay, okay. Point taken. You’re dealing with it, so I should deal with it.” She smoothed her hands over the curve. “But I’m here. Every day, like clockwork, I’m here. And I’m not leaving you. We’re stuck with each other, kid. So here’s the deal: I’ll do my best. I’ll try to learn. I’ll try not to mess this up too badly. And you… you just keep growing. Be stubborn. Be strong. Take after your mom.”

The baby settled, the activity subsiding into a gentle, rocking stillness. A sense of calm, profound and unexpected, settled over Jisoo. It was the same feeling she got after a long, honest talk with Jennie or Rosé—a burdensome weight shared, if not lifted.

The wind chime jangled. The shop door opened, bringing with it a gust of warmer air and Suho. He had a small paper bag in one hand.

“The postal clerk tried to charge me extra for the parcel being ‘irregularly shaped,’” he announced, rolling his eyes. “It’s a box of pens. How many shapes can a box of pens be?” He placed the bag on the counter. “I got tangerines. The old lady at the market cart was practically giving them away.”

“You negotiated?” Jisoo asked, quickly arranging her face into its usual mild expression, trying to erase the vulnerability of moments before.

“No, I smiled charmingly and said her grandchildren must be very handsome. Different strategy.”

“That’s not a strategy, that’s a personality flaw.”

“My flaw is a strategic asset.” He grinned, pulling a bright orange tangerine from the bag and beginning to peel it with his thumbs. The citrus scent burst into the air, sharp and clean. He offered her the first segment.

She took it. The flesh was sweet and slightly tart, exploding on her tongue. A simple, perfect thing. She watched him pop a segment into his own mouth, his eyes closing briefly in satisfaction. The simple joy on his face was disarming.

You are not supposed to be charmed by him, she reminded herself sternly. You are supposed to maintain a respectful, guilt-ridden distance.

She was failing. Spectacularly.