Episode 14: Buddy-Buddy
“Areum?”
At first, I wasn’t sure, but I recognized her quickly.
Gim Areum.
She was a friend who had been in the same class as me in middle school.
Of all my middle school friends, I had been closest to Areum. We were in the same class for all three years, so we had seen each other almost every day.
When we entered high school, Areum went to a humanities-track school and I went to a technical high school, so we drifted apart. As time went on, we saw each other less and less, and by the time we went to college, we barely kept in touch at all.
The last time I saw her was probably at a middle school friend’s wedding, but even that was already five years ago.
“Yeah, you’re I Minu, right? It’s really been a long time.”
Areum greeted me cheerfully, and I felt glad too.
“I know. Didn’t you say you were in Seoul?”
After graduating high school, Areum had gone to a university in Seoul, which made it even harder to meet her.
“Ah, I came down here last year. I’m working at Haenam County Office now.”
“Really? That’s great. You used to want to become a civil servant.”
Areum and I had yet another connection—her mother had been my homeroom teacher in elementary school.
Her father had been a civil servant at the Haenam Tax Office, and because of that, Areum had said since she was young that she wanted to become either a civil servant or a teacher.
“I did. But what about you? What are you doing here? Didn’t you say you were in Gwangju?”
“I returned to farming and came down here to live.”
“Really? Are you living in that same house from before?”
Now that I thought about it, Areum had once come to visit me in Bonghwang Village.
“That’s right.”
“I remember your father caught a chicken for us back then. Is he doing well?”
Come to think of it, I hadn’t contacted her to tell her he had passed away. He had died so suddenly, and I had been so overwhelmed that I hadn’t been able to reach all my acquaintances.
“Father passed away from liver cancer last year.”
“Really? Why didn’t you contact me?”
“Sorry. I was just so out of it.”
“So you’re living alone now?”
“Yeah. I came down in March, and I’ve been living alone since.”
“You must have had a really hard time.”
For some reason, Areum’s words made me choke up.
Because right after he passed away, being alone had truly been very difficult. But compared to then, I was much better now.
“It was hard at first, but I’m okay now.”
Looking at Areum, who was worried about me, I smiled to show her I was fine, and Areum smiled back at me too.
“But were you eating tteokbokki alone?”
“I heard it was market day, so I came to look around, and I stopped by because it reminded me of old times.”
Just then, the tteokbokki lady, who had been listening to our conversation, chimed in.
“You two know each other?”
“Auntie, she’s the friend who used to come here with me all the time. Don’t you recognize her?”
The lady spoke to Areum in a friendly way, as if she knew her well, but after hearing her words, she looked me over carefully.
Then, as if she remembered, she clapped her hands and said,
“That short friend?”
“Yes, that’s right. The two of us used to come here often to eat tteokbokki.”
“I remember, I remember. But you’ve gotten so tall. I couldn’t recognize you.”
It seemed the lady finally recognized me now. Come to think of it, up until middle school, I had been about as short as Areum.
I had started growing after entering high school, and now I was over 180 centimeters tall.
“Hello.”
I greeted the lady, and she spoke as if she found it fascinating.
“Now that I’m seeing your face like this, I think I remember. And I think you’ve gotten handsomer than when you were young…”
I smiled unconsciously at the lady’s muttering. Who in the world would feel bad about being called handsome?
It wasn’t something the lady had said just to make me feel good.
In reality, no matter where I went, I never heard people say I was ugly.
Just then, the lady handed me the tteokbokki I had ordered.
“Here’s your tteokbokki. Areum, you came to eat tteokbokki too, right?”
“Yes, please give me some tteokbokki too.”
Areum was about to order tteokbokki, but I spoke to her.
“Don’t order separately—let’s eat this together. It’s too much for me to eat alone anyway.”
I had ordered a mix of tteokbokki and fried sides.
We used to order it like this and share it between us back in the day, and I was planning to eat jajangmyeon later anyway, so I suggested we share.
“Should we?”
At my words, Areum immediately sat in the seat next to me, picked up chopsticks, and started eating. I was bewildered by how fast she moved, but then I remembered that this had always been Areum’s personality.
“Mmm. It’s delicious. This is exactly the taste that keeps me from quitting tteokbokki.”
Areum ate the tteokbokki deliciously, but I felt a strange sensation.
Maybe because we had been so close when we were young, there had been a time when I wanted to see Areum again.
But I hadn’t contacted her separately because I thought it might be awkward if we actually met. Yet now that we had met like this, it didn’t feel so awkward.
I felt as comfortable as if I had been seeing her all along, and I thought it might be because she treated me so comfortably.
We ate tteokbokki together, and I asked about how she had been.
“How is your mother? Is she still working?”
“Mom? She’s still working. She transferred to Dong Elementary School, and she’s the vice principal there now.”
I had asked about her mother, who had once been my homeroom teacher, and I was surprised to hear she was still working.
“Really?”
“She’s actually asked about you a few times. I’ll tell her I saw you today, so stop by the school sometime. She’ll be thrilled.”
My mother had passed away early, and I had struggled a lot. At that time, my homeroom teacher had been Areum’s mother, and she had taken great care of me.
When I was in Haenam, I would visit her sometimes on Teachers’ Day, but after moving to Gwangju, I had never gone to see her.
I felt sorry, and I thought I should go visit her now, even if it was late.
“Okay, please tell her I’ll visit next time.”
“Why did you suddenly decide to return to farming?”
I had decided to return to farming because of a mental illness.
But it was somewhat difficult to tell Areum about that.
“Since Father passed away, leaving the house and land empty felt wrong, so I came down to look after them as well.”
I gave her an indirect answer, and fortunately, Areum didn’t ask any further.
“I became a civil servant too and worked in Gyeonggi-do, but I wanted to live with my parents, so I came down here last year.”
We asked each other about our recent lives while eating tteokbokki, and since we were talking, we were able to finish it in no time.
“Come again next time. I’ll give you lots of extras then.”
“Yes, I’ll come often from now on.”
Areum and I left the market together, and now it was time to part. That was when Areum asked me,
“What are you going to do now?”
“Me? I’m going to buy some cat food and then go eat jajangmyeon.”
Nabi liked plain rice, but I was thinking of feeding her some tasty cat food as well, for nutritional balance.
“You raise a cat?”
“Her name is Nabi. She was originally a stray cat, but now she lives at my house.”
“I like cats too. I’d love to see her sometime.”
“Come over to my house next time you have time. I’ll show her to you then.”
“Really? Is your contact info the same as before?”
“It’s probably the same.”
She took out her phone and checked my contact info, and it was the same as my current number.
“I had your phone number, but we lived without contacting each other. We’re both so thoughtless.”
“You’re right, and we used to be buddy-buddy with each other.”
Buddy-buddy.
Areum muttered quietly, and it was a word I hadn’t heard in a really long time.
In middle school, we stuck together so much that our friends used to tease us, asking if we were dating.
Back then, Areum had told our friends that we were buddy-buddy—closer than just friends—and I learned later that it was a word meaning a very close relationship.
I was about to say goodbye, but for some reason, I felt reluctant to part ways like this.
She was a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time, and I wanted to hear a little more about what she had been up to.
“Areum, do you want to go eat jajangmyeon too?”
****
“Get home safely.”
“Yeah, I always have weekends off, so call me if you’re bored. Noona will hang out with you.”
“Okay.”
I bought cat food with Areum, and we ate jajangmyeon together. We even had a cup of coffee before parting, and we dredged up all our old childhood memories to talk about.
Before, when Gu Sangho had suggested that the young folks get together to talk and hang out, I had just gone along with it, but it was definitely true that hanging out with a friend created a sense of camaraderie and was fun.
We promised to meet and hang out again next time we had time. I didn’t know when that would be, but I looked forward to it.
“Nabi.”
When I returned home, I looked for Nabi, and the little one poked her head out from under the wooden porch.
I tore open the cat food I had bought for her and poured it into a bowl, wondering if she would eat it well.
I was worried that, being used to the taste of rice, she might not eat the cat food, but fortunately, she ate it well without being picky.
“If you eat all of that, I’ll give you a treat too.”
I had bought a lot of treats for Nabi while buying the cat food, and judging by how well she was eating now, I thought she would really like them too.
As I watched Nabi eating, I sat on the wooden porch, and Areum’s words came to mind.
“I remember your father caught a chicken for us back then.”
When Areum had first come over to our house to play, Father had caught one of the chickens he was raising at home, saying he would cook something delicious.
It had been a baeksuk simmered for a long time over a hot fire, and the three of us had sat here on the wooden porch and shared it.
It was a memory I had forgotten, but perhaps because I met Areum, it began to resurface bit by bit.
Come to think of it, there had been a time when we raised chickens in a small chicken coop that was gone now.
I had liked eggs, and every morning, Father would bring freshly laid eggs and make a rolled omelet for me.
Now that I thought about it, after I left, there was no longer anyone to eat the eggs, so it seemed Father had stopped raising chickens.
When I thought that, I somehow felt strange, but after a moment, an unpleasant feeling began to creep in.
Thump-thump.
It felt like I could hear my heart beating in my ears.
It was a precursor symptom of my anxiety disorder. I thought I had been fine for a while, but suddenly my heart started racing.
Thump-thump.
My heart began to beat even faster. If this continued, my breathing would quicken and it would become hard to breathe.
I placed my hand over my heart, got up from my seat, and went inside the house.
“Where is the medicine…”
I rummaged through the kitchen shelf, looking for the medicine. I had been prescribed tranquilizers for situations like this, and if I took the medicine, I would be okay.
After finding the medicine, I took out some water from the refrigerator and drank it down.
And then I waited for a moment.
Thump-thump.
I could still hear my heart beating, but unlike what I expected, it didn’t calm down easily.
I worried that it might have gotten worse, but then I remembered a sound I had recorded a few days ago.
I went to my room, found my earphones, and began to listen to the sound of water I had recorded in the vegetable patch.
Swoosh.
I had recorded it to listen to when I had insomnia, but now I wanted to divert my nerves elsewhere.
I closed my eyes and focused on the sound. As I heard the cool sound of water, I could imagine myself sprinkling it.
I could almost see water droplets falling from the various vegetables, and after some time, the pounding of my heart began to subside.
Still, just in case, I sat quietly listening to the sound, and after a while, I could tell that the pounding symptoms had completely stopped.
“Thank goodness.”
The doctor had said that if the pounding got worse and breathing difficulties came, it would be dangerous. He had told me to take my medicine before that happened, and it seemed I had gotten through it safely.
I opened the shelf to put the medicine packet away again, but for some reason, the packet felt a little light.
When I looked inside, the medicine had decreased quite a bit, and thinking about it, it had been a while since I had been to the hospital.
“I should make a trip to Gwangju before the medicine runs out.”