내 곁에 있어줘

For the tenth time, I turned around in my mirror to look at myself, to examine every bump and bulge. This shirt made my boobs look huge. I tossed it aside. This one made me look like a linebacker. I balled it up and threw it on the floor. Another one fit awkwardly in the chest. I threw it somewhere away from me and looked back at what was left in my closet. I couldn't wear a t-shirt to church! Ugh!

The floor around my mirror was cluttered with blouses and tops of all different colors and styles. I'd been trying on tops for the past 45 minutes with nothing to show for it. I didn't like shopping, but all of my relatives loved making me into their human Barbie, especially after I'd started losing a lot of weight. I didn't mind trying out different clothes now and then, but until recently, I'd never actually worn anything decent. I wasn't into mainstream fashion and I didn't know which types of clothes fit my body best. I didn't know half of the crap in my closet existed, either. Most of the time, I hid my body under a shirt that was meant for men two sizes bigger than me, but I couldn't wear bummy clothes for church, so I was forced to the back of my closet for something appropriate.

I sighed and went back to the depths of my closet, rummaging around for anything I may have missed. I pulled aside an old hockey jersey when my hand brushed against something light and soft. Intrigued, I grabbed it for a better look. It was a long white dress with blue detailing and a neckline that would definitely show off too much cleavage. Despite that, it was beautiful and the material was lovely. I tossed it on my bed and dug around for a tank top to put under it. I was delighted to find a plain white tank top with lace along the neckline.

With the dress on and the tank top underneath, I turned in the mirror. It didn't look bad. My pudge didn't stick out too much and my arms didn't make me look like a mutated flying squirrel. I decided to put a cardigan on over it just in case the sleeveless look wasn't conservative enough. Then, I gathered all the discarded tops and threw them in a big pile on my bed to put away later. As soon as I began putting on some foundation, the doorbell rang.

"Emiko, it's your friend! He's here!" my mom yelled from the kitchen as though I had no idea.

"I know, mom! I'm hurrying!"

I put on some mascara but decided to skip everything else. I tossed the makeup on my bed to accompany the mountain of unloved shirts I'd scrounged from my closet. Smoothing my hair a little, I opened the door.

"Wow," Jinyoung said, surprised, from the other side of the screen door. I followed his eyes down a little and pulled my tank top up even though nothing was showing.

"Good morning to you, too," I said, slipping my feet into a pair of soft foam sandals.

He adjusted his plain button-down shirt. It wasn't much different from his normal clothes, but it seemed to suit him. "You look... good."

"Thank you. I'm not very used to seeing myself in girls' clothes, either," I said a little sarcastically, hoping that my foundation would hide my furious blush. I waited for him to laugh, to cough awkwardly, to do anything really, but he didn't. We just stood there at the door for a few seconds like he was scared of moving. "So..." I said uncomfortably, "should we go?"

"Y-yeah, let's go," he said quickly, hurrying down the stairs toward a silver SUV parked in my driveway.

To my surprise, one of the back doors flew open as I neared the car. Seonyeong was sitting inside with a little girl who smiled at me happily, waving a cute and chubby hand. He gestured for me to come sit by him. I hopped in and closed the door, trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt in the seat behind their mom. The car pulled away from my house and suddenly I was immersed in a totally foreign land.

The radio was playing some kind of gospel music in Korean with moments of rushed speech almost like rap but not as raw. Jinyoung was quiet and a little tense in the front passenger's seat. Seonyeong tapped his feet on the floor and waved his head to what I guessed he thought was the beat of the song. Their younger sister began telling me all about church and her family and her school... anything she could seem to think of to talk about really. I listened to her and asked questions, smiling at how cute she was, when suddenly their mom spoke over me in Korean. Her voice was rich and feminine, almost sweet, but there was this sort of acetic bite to it... an undertone that colored her words. It was really unsettling.

"My mom wants to know if you're American," Seonyeong said. I was surprised that Jinyoung hadn't translated for me, but considering the awkward moment we'd shared less than a few minutes ago, I didn't blame him for not wanting to say anything else.

"Oh, um... yeah. I was born here."

Seonyeong translated for her. I caught her black-brown eyes staring at me in the rear-view mirror and looked away quickly. "She says you look Asian."

"My parents are immigrants. I'm the first generation," I said, feeling all on-edge suddenly. It seemed like a normal enough conversation so far, but I felt like I was going through some kind of interview. Why couldn't she just ask her kids these questions after church or something? I tried to hide a little by pulling my purse up onto my lap.

"Where did they come from?" Seonyeong asked for her.

"China and Japan."

When he relayed he information to her, she nodded and smiled a little to me in the mirror. Although many of her features had been passed onto her kids, her smile was not one of them. While Jinyoung and Seonyeong had charming, infectious smiles, hers was hollow and fake. Maybe she realized that she was making me uncomfortable, and she was trying to ease my discomfort with a smile... but it had the opposite effect. The smile didn't reach her eyes. It was a lot like the way Richard smiled when I made a mistake or failed at something I'd worked hard on. I shifted in my seat.

"Japan, China, and Korea have a long history," Seonyeong said, I was guessing, for his mom again.

"Oh," I said, not sure what else to say. I knew about it, of course. My parents made sure to teach me their own versions of the story, which were obviously very different.

Their mom said something again, but Seonyeong didn't translate for me. I supposed it wasn't meant for me. After a long and heavy silence, she began to sing along with the radio. Other than her singing, we were all quiet.

She turned off the main street and into a neighborhood I'd never been in before. Behind the first row of houses was an odd, yellowish building with big Korean letters on it. I'd never heard of or seen the place before. She pulled into the parking lot, where only two other cars were parked, and found a spot on the side of the building. Some older ladies were standing outside talking with some bulging plastic bags on the ground between them.

Everyone started opening their doors, so I followed them, standing around awkwardly while their mom dug around in the back of the SUV. Jinyoung and Seonyeong hurried over to where the old ladies were and picked up their bags, bowing briefly and saying hello before taking the bags inside. Their little sister stood next to me, tugging on my hand.

"Let's go in!" she said excitedly. "I can introduce you to everyone."

"Okay," I said, smiling. "Thank you."

The two ladies standing by the door were staring at me already, their conversation left behind like the plastic bags they'd set on the ground. Jinyoung's sister led me to them and said something in Korean. The old ladies looked surprised and happy, and they started talking to me. I looked helplessly at my new translator.

"They say you're very pretty," she said, smiling hugely. "I think so too."

I blushed. "That's too nice of you... but thank you."

She started to lead me away from the old ladies by my hand. She pulled open the glass door and held it open for me. "Um, is it okay if you braid my hair sometime? My big brother told me that you braid your hair a lot, and it's really long, so you must be good at it."

"Sure, I can braid your hair whenever you want me to."

I smiled and followed her inside. It was a plain-looking room with a set of stairs going down and a hallway next to it that led to a set of restrooms and an office. A set of double doors stood slightly ajar, but I couldn't see inside from where I stood. The room was bare except for a single long table, where an old man with gnarled-looking fingers was folding what looked like fliers. He turned at our arrival and smiled down at my tour guide. While they talked, I got a closer look at the papers he had been folding. The text on the front was written in Korean with some English below the characters. It looked like a schedule, detailing the time of each event today. Apparently, there was a breakfast before the main sermon began. After the sermon, there would be lunch and then youth group. The paper had been folded neatly into three equal parts, with an envelope sticking out of the top just slightly.

"Emi," my tour guide said, handing me one of the folded pamphlets, "those are the schedules and offerings envelopes! You should have one in case you want to come back." I couldn't rightly resist her, especially when she was so adorable, so I took one and stuffed it into my purse. "Let's keep going."

She grabbed my hand and led me down the stairs. We had to take a sharp turn once we reached the bottom, but the room that it opened up to wasn't much different than the first. A fold-up table sat in the middle of the room and a bunch of cheap folding chairs surrounded it. Seonyeong sat at the table reading a thick book, which I could only guess was a Bible. A few bookshelves lined one of the walls, but they were only half-full and most of the books were children's books, English textbooks, or encyclopedias. A blank white board was situated on the opposite wall, and an ancient desktop computer sat unused in the corner nearest the stairs. The room had two hallways on the opposite side, one going left and the other going right.

I was led past Seonyeong and the library room into the hallway, where we almost ran into three older women, who looked too young to be grandparents but much older than my mom. They bowed and said hello to me, but what they said beyond that, I had no clue. My tour guide introduced me, bantered a bit with the ladies, and continued past them toward what looked like a cafeteria or some kind of dining hall. I followed her again, surprised to see a group of white men sitting together at a far table. Jinyoung was also waiting for me.

"Did you introduce her to everyone, Jaemin?" Jinyoung asked, surprisingly not talking down to her as many of the adults had. Although that warmed my heart a little, he didn't look like his normal self. He looked tense, like he was expecting something to happen.

"Mhmm!" she said, nodding vigorously. She let go of my hand and turned to me. "I'm going to wait for my friends now. I'll come check on you again, though!"

"Okay," I said, but I felt bad making her worry about me. "I'll be okay, so... just have fun and don't worry about me."

She giggled and ran away. I turned back to Jinyoung, who was staring down into a bowl of rice sitting in pinkish-red sauce. "Your sister is really cute. I wish I had a younger sister like her."

"Really? I didn't think you'd like a younger sister." He patted the folding chair next to him, so I sat down and tried not to look as awkward as I felt about this whole adventure. "Are you hungry? You didn't get to eat breakfast, right?"

"No, I'm fine, actually."

He smiled and seemed to relax just a little, enough to make my heart swell. "You don't have to be nervous around me. I'll get you some soup, okay?"

"Okay," I said, watching him go into the kitchen. This place was definitely a church, but it didn't really feel like one. It felt awkward, sure, but I attributed it more to the foreign atmosphere and less to the fact that it was a place of worship. Everyone was nice so far, and they weren't pushing me for information like people in other churches had. They were curious about me, but they kept their distance for now. It was nice, in a way.

Jinyoung reappeared, setting a bowl of red soup and another bowl with rice in front of me. He sat in his original place again, eating his rice quietly. He took some pickled vegetables from a dish over the counter and arranged them on top of his rice. I pulled the soup a little closer to me and peered inside. The broth was dark red, but it was clear enough that I could see the bottom of the bowl and the pieces of orange-ish cabbage floating along the surface. I felt my stomach lurch at the smell. It was something I would recognize anywhere.

Kimchi.

My mom loved the stuff. She couldn't get enough of it. Every time we had a family party or even just visited another family member, out came the kimchi. The smell was so potent that I could still catch a whiff now and then at the other end of the house. Cucumber, cabbage, fish... there were so many types of kimchi, and I'd smelled them all. My mom ate the rankest of them all, so this one wasn't nearly as offensive, but still...

"Is something wrong?" Jinyoung asked innocently. "Do you not like it?"

"N-no! Not at all!" I said, hurriedly taking a sip to prove my point. But I made a bad show of it, since the taste was not at all what I was expecting and I almost choked from surprise. Jinyoung jumped up to get me water as I coughed up a lung, spraying a few drops of kimchi soup across the table. I sheepishly drank the water and tried to suppress more coughing while I wiped soup off the table.

"Are you okay?" he asked, looking worried. "Do you need more water?"

"No, I'm good... I think..." I said, feeling so embarrassed that I could have crawled under the table and stayed there all day.

He watched me take another sip of the soup, followed by a bite of rice. The soup wasn't as bad as kimchi itself, since the flavor was much milder, but it had a kind of fishy aftertaste that didn't sit well in my stomach. I didn't want to refuse his hospitality, though, so I tried to finish it all. About halfway through the bowl, he started to shift around like he wanted to say something.

"What's wrong?" I said, putting the spoon down.

"It's just... isn't it too bland like that?"

I looked down at the soup and the half-finished rice. "No. Why?"

"Oh," he said, shaking his head and turning back to his meal. "No reason, I guess."

I watched him eat his rice, realizing that the pink-red liquid in the rice was probably the kimchi soup. I looked at my own two bowls, but I decided to continue eating the way I'd been eating. Maybe it was weird, but I didn't like soggy rice.

"What do you think of the church?" he said between bites of rice and kimchi. "Is it bad?"

"No, not at all! I like it. I just feel a little... out of place." I found myself blushing, but I didn't really know why. "Everyone is really nice, though."

He nodded but didn't say anything else. Soon, someone called him away to do something. He took our dishes to the kitchen and followed someone unfamiliar out of the dining hall. I sat in the chair, unsure of what to do. Seonyeong came to me some time later.

"Emiko, come here!" he said, nodding his head along with his gesture. I stood up and followed him into the library room. A very thin and somewhat nerdy-looking girl with thick-rimmed glasses sat at the table with a thick book open in front of her. She looked up from her reading to wave at me. I waved back.

He sat next to her with an identical book. "We're studying before the youth group. We have to read this passage," he explained, pointing at a page in the book. I leaned over to see the page better. As I had predicted earlier, the book was indeed a Bible, but I'd never read the Bible closely and I had no idea what part this was or what it was about.

Seonyeong seemed to understand that I didn't really know what it was about, and he pointed to a chair across the table. I sat down. He pushed a Bible toward me. It was a chubby black book with a soft leather cover and golden lettering on the front. It was a bilingual edition, with both Korean and English. I opened up the book to a random page. Each page was split into two columns, one with Korean text and the other with English. I felt awkward asking either of them which page to go to, so I just began to read at the random part I started on.

A while later, someone sat down next to me. "Are you the new girl?" I looked up, surprised that someone actually spoke directly to me this time.

It was Jinyoung. At my surprised face, he started laughing. "That was kinda creepy, you know," I said, turning away with the book.

"That's so mean," he said, looking hurt. "I'm not creepy."

"I'm not going to fall for the puppy eyes," I said, waving away his no doubt adorable face. "I have two dogs, you know. I'm immune to that trick."

Seonyeong laughed a little, but he tried to cover it up. Jinyoung sulked as he grabbed another Bible for himself and began to read. "You're on the wrong page, baka," he said, like a little kid trying to get one last insult in.

I blushed. "S-so what? Maybe I like this part better."

He laughed and flipped to another page. I could safely assume this was the correct page. I began to read, but I didn't get very far when an older man sat down at the table and began to talk to a passing woman. Seonyeong pointed at the man.

"That's our teacher."

He looked exactly like a stereotypical teacher. He was tall and thin with prim and proper everything. His clothes, which consisted of some grayish-black slacks, a plain button-down shirt with a sweater vest over the top, a bright red tie, were simple yet formal. He had plain black hair that was neither especially long nor short and a set of glasses with thin steel rims. He looked like the kind of guy that designed motherboards and did theoretical math for fun, which is to say he fit in with the other people at the table.

After my assessment of him, he sat down and looked around for a Bible. There were none, so I handed him mine. He smiled and thanked me graciously.

"Oh, you must be our newest member," he said in almost perfect English. His voice and expression matched in kindness and openness. I got the feeling he was popular with his students as well as with the adults. "What is your name?"

"I'm Emiko," I said with a smile. "It's nice to meet you, teacher."

"Emiko..." he said, scribbling something on a piece of paper. "Here! You should know how to write your name in Korean." He handed me the paper. His writing was clean and precise, as everything else was about him. "We will have a discussion when the other members arrive, but since you just got here, why don't you practice writing your name?"

It was really thoughtful of him to give me something to do other than try to focus on a class that I might never come back to, but the fact that I was practicing my name over and over made me feel a little stupid.

I took a pencil from the table and began to try and draw something that resembled the lines he'd drawn on the paper. I wasn't doing so bad, I thought. At least it looked like what it was supposed to. And considering my experience with Chinese and Japanese, two languages that required stroke-order to create the proper shape, I shouldn't have too many problems. When I filled the page, two new boys arrived. They both looked like high school kids, just like the rest of us.

One of them was gargantuan, definitely past six feet tall. He was thin but athletic-looking. He had a plain haircut and thick glasses like the girl sitting by Seonyeong. He wore a polo shirt that looked a lot like the kind Jinyoung wore at school. The other was not much taller than me and his face still had baby fat on it. It looked strange considering he was definitely thinner than I was. His hair was a curly mess on top of his very round head.

Seonyeong introduced me to them. The tall one's name was Kim and the short one's name was Jay. Kim had better English than anyone I'd met at church so far, and he was born in America, making him different than everyone else in the church. He seemed friendly and understanding, so I felt a little more comfortable around him. Jay's family brought him here when he was still a baby, so he was also a bit different than the others, but his English was a bit awkward since he spoke Korean at home and with friends. I thought he seemed okay at first, but as the lesson went on, he kept looking at me and it was starting to creep me out a little.

Suddenly, everyone stood up and began to shuffle up the stairs. Jinyoung stayed behind, picking up stray papers and pencils and rearranging the chairs. There wasn't much to do, so I guessed it was mostly so that I wouldn't have to be alone. When everyone else was upstairs, he took my hand. After all the awkwardness of meeting new people and barely understanding anyone, it felt nice to have something familiar to go back to.

"The sermon will start soon," he said quietly, "we should go."

But neither of us moved.

"We should go," I repeated, my heart beginning to beat faster and faster in my chest. My stomach began to twist nervously, but my feet wouldn't move.

Jinyoung came closer and closer until his breath fanned across my face. I could smell the kimchi on his breath, matching the flavor that stayed trapped on my tongue. His fingers gently brushed my cheek, my jawline, my lips. The trails they left across my skin, etched in my memory, sent electricity through me. My head was so full of these feelings that I couldn't think. I couldn't do anything, even if I wanted to. He dipped his head lower and lower until our lips were about to touch...

"Jinyoung-ah!" someone called from upstairs, making us both jump. More Korean followed. Jinyoung took a quick step away from me and responded. The person yelled something back and trotted off with heavy steps. Jinyoung turned back to me and his eyes were soft but guarded.

"I... I think you should come to the library again," he said. It sounded like that wasn't what he was really trying to say, but he couldn't make himself say what he wanted to.

"Of course I will... but why are you saying that?"

He looked thrown off by my question, but he recovered quickly. "There are some things I want to say... but I can't do it here." He smiled a little, that smile I'd come to love. He reached out his hand to me, the bilingual Bible tucked under his other arm. "The sermon is starting soon. We can't miss it."

"Okay," I said, taking his hand. It was warm and soft, but it made me feel a little bit less alone.