He’s sitting close to the door of the train, gazing through the window as it chugs around the bend. When as it pulls into Daegu station, he’s the first passenger to their feet as the train begins to slow- every step to the door is one closer to home. The last hiss of steam coincides with the opening of the door as the train finally shudders to a halt, and he’s stepping onto the platform and into the crowd. “Kiku, hold my hand-“ “-Damn, the city stinks,” “Hey, can you move? I need to get in-“ The hum of Japanese surrounds him, adds to the chaos of the station as he makes his way through the station, steps purposeful and quick with anticipation. The man walks out of the station, into the new residential housing district. At night, the neon lights of the shops might be alluring- during the day, the glass fixtures are unnoticed by the man as he strides beneath them. The midday sun beats overhead as he walks, until the imposed modernity of the city center is behind him. The roads now turn winding and narrow, pressing against stone-paneled houses crowded roof to roof. It is much quieter here, but what can be heard is hushed in the region’s thick Korean dialect as people pass by the man hurriedly. Here one can feel the neglect of the old city, as though a child had become successful and left his mother to grow old alone and uncared for. Daegu’s Jongno district is the discarded parent of a newer time. The man walks past the houses in silence, stopping when he comes to a cart standing outside a house. A horses is tied onto its front. For a moment he makes to continue back down the road, but soon stops and walks closer to the cart. The horse whinnies anxiously as he approaches, stamping at the ground. “Shhhhh,” the man whispers, petting the head of the horse. “It’s okay.” Slowly, the horse’s tail lowers. The man frowns, thinking. Taking care to stay in front of the horse where the animal can still see him, the man walks around it and squats on the road beside the cart, facing the house it is parked beside. He doesn’t look older than twenty; a boy still, really. His eyes are a dark brown, small and sharp, with a gentle, rounded face, though thinned with malnutrition. His features are child-soft, mouth small, lips thin and pursed in nervousness, but his expression is blank; and his hands are hard and broad-fingered, shiny with callous. He is wearing a Western style button up shirt, tucked into pants. Both are faded and dirty, baggy on his thin frame. The man is short, and as a result his pants are rolled up to hang around his ankles, sleeves folded to end just at his wrists. Squatting there on the dirt road, the man picks at his shoes. They are even more worn than the rest of his dress, the sole of the left shoe peeling from under his toes. He picks at the ripped seam between the rubber and the leather. Soon, a figure exits the open doorway of the house before the cart. The man squatting looks up as it approaches, and their eyes met. The man standing looks over the other, eyes narrowed in suspicion as he files away assumptions. He stares at the thin face, moving down to the too big, rolled up shirt and pants and finally to the worn down shoes. His gaze makes the one squatting conscious of his inferiority, and he tries to be casual when he stands from the dirt and and dusts off his pants. Even standing, he is a head shorter than the other. “Could you give me a lift, mister?” The shorter man asks, looking the other in the eyes. The man who owns the cart sighs. “Where do you need to get to?” “You know Donghwasa Temple? Nearby, in Daegum-ro.” The driver climbs onto the cart, and scoots over to the other side of the wooden box on top. He motions for the other to get in, and so the smaller man swings his legs over the side of the cart and sits next to him on the box. The driver grips the reigns, and the horse starts off towards Palgong Mountain, the wagon kicking up dust behind it and the wood creaking as it rolls. “Your family’re farmers?” The driver starts again, staring ahead at the road. “Yeah, we’ve been here a long time. All of us together, got one-fifty pyeong.” The cart is just passing the last of the houses now, and soon comes to the open stretches of paddy land, which in its post-harvest state is home to only the cut stubs of brown grass that have died after harvest. The driver looks out over the land as they road along. Long, and devoid of people. The driver says, quiet enough to pass off as though he hadn’t mean for the other to hear- “Farmers with two hundred acres of paddy land this close to Deagu, and the Japs haven't tried to drive them off?” The passenger looks away sharply, turning his gaze to the other side of the cart. “Well, we haven't spoken in a long time,” he says stiffly. “Hmn,” the driver hums. “Well, tenants are going fast now. Japs upped the tax for landlords, so they’ve gotta raise the cost of land for the tenants- if they can't pay it, they get kicked and the landlord hires some jap family to take their place. It's cheaper for them, japs don't have to pay the tax. Only reason I'm still here is we're a tiller family. Can't tax us like that. How’s your family doing it?” “Well, the land’s our own,” He starts, with no small pride. “And, I told you we haven’t spoke in awhile. Never was a writer. Nor my family- We could though, if we wanted,” he adds quickly. “Must be a damn long while. You've been working?” The driver asks, with his careful investigating. “Yeah.” The man responds. “Thought so. Can see it in your hands. Been on the railway, maybe? I heard they're gonna extend it into Hamgyong-do-” The man stares at him, eyebrows raised. He cuts the driver off, bluntly. “If you want to ask me something, do it. I'll tell you. You don’t have to pretend to not want to know.” “Well, I wasn't- I wasn't being nosy-” the man blusters, surprised to have been caught. “My name’s Gyeong. Gyeong Haeok. You can leave me at the end of the paddies here.” “Hey, don't get upset about it,” the driver says. “I don't mean anything bad by it.” “Well, I don't either,” Haeok responds. “I’m just trying to be clear.” They sit in silence for a time, each watching the paddies go by. They are all dried up, and the plants had turned yellow and brown- the only green here comes from the trees between the plots and the hills in the far distance. On his side of the cart, Haeok can see a big house in the distance- the big house, the landlord’s house. It stands in sharp contrast to the short straw-roofed houses where the farmers live, standing at the edge of their paddies. “I worked for the Japs. They had me coal mining,” Haeok purses his lips after he speaks. “Was there for a few years.” The driver averts his gaze, his now figure tense. A chasm had opened between them, the tension palpable in the air. “You can stop right here,” the miner says suddenly. Immediately, the cart stopped. Haeok quickly swings his legs over and over the cart, jumping onto the dirt. The cart starts moving again the second he’s off it, turning up dust in its wake. The dust clouds Haeok’s eyes. His nose scrunches up, and he coughs once. He turns away from the receding cart, facing the side of the familiar road that leads to his village. To home. He moves forward- pace increasing with anticipation as the path narrows and begins to incline, heading higher into the mountain. The way that the thin trees of the forest surround Haeok as he hurries onwards is a welcome embrace, their leaves swaying in the wind. The soft chirping of birds, the slow trickle of a stream, increase as he heads deeper in, the mossy, age-darkened stone wall that lines the path he walks- the only barrier between him and the forest. But the sounds, the smells- they carry over. He had missed that gentle, fragrant breeze of the mountains. It’s a welcome improvement, so much better, than where he returns from. Even the way that the patches of sun, breaking through the canopy above, shimmer on the ground before him- the child who had last walked this path would have never known, could have never imagined the way that in four years he would long for the beauty of natural sunlight, for the warmth of open air, for- Haeok sets his jaw. Not now. Never again. He falls forward, deeper into the familiar pass of the forest. Eventually, the path opens. Two steps, and he walks from under the canopy of the boughs above and into the clearing made by the fields. Before him, stands the archway that marks the entrance to his hometown, curved roof and peeling red paint; and Jangseung and Soldae, protecting the village from harm. He looks up into the carved wooden faces of the Janseung, and smiles. As a child, he remembers hiding from behind his mother’s skirts, afraid of the way that they stared in anger, as if at him- but today, he greets them with ease, and continues onwards. Daegum-ro is to Palgongsan Mountain like a water is to a cup, a town cradled by the hills which surround it. Rice fields and thatched homes surrounded by stone walls- beyond and around them only green and blue, as the sun colors the late afternoon. Dust follows Haeok as he treads the path, winding through the fields of his neighbors. As he goes along, he hums softly and tucks his thumbs into the pockets of his pants. The occasional spruce tree waves in the wind as he passes, and dirt plumes around his ankles- the broken sole of his left shoe drags against the dirt. Finally, the gate. The wall which hinges it is an old, stone thing, surrounding the house of his father, and before him his father, and his father before him. The painted wood is chipped, and not nearly as tall as Haeok had remembered it, but just as welcoming. He pushes it forwards, slowly stepping through. “Hello?” Haeok calls. He licks his lips, and takes another step forward. “Jungok?” The home before him looks as it always did, although maybe a little worse for wear. Aged wooden walls, the same thatched hay roof Haeok knows they replace every summer. The same small peach tree growing inside the courtyard, braided hay tied to the trunk, leading to a pot to collect rainwater. Haeok shifts slightly- his clothes feel scratchy, imposing. He sees the straw jipsin shoes by the door, glancing to his own worn rubber pair. Should he wait outside the gate? He doesn’t know where Jungok might be, but Suok is likely still in Baegan-dong, at school. He shuffles awkwardly. Maybe he should wait outside. Then, the soft tapping of feet from inside. Inhaling sharply, Haeok waits with bated breath as the door swings open, softly. It’s pulled inward, and he sees his sister- Frozen at the door, looking just as shocked as he feels. “Oppa?” She whispers. When Haeok left home, his sister was thirteen. Still a child, in every way that mattered to an older brother. Short with a slight frame, her chima skirt perpetually dirty from running through the hills with Suok and their cousins— uneven smile and all, her loud laugh open and unashamed, facing the sky with her nose scrunched up. Expressive, loving. The Jungok who peers at him now from behind the half open entry is hardly shorter than Haeok, if at all. Gone is the wiry figure of childhood- she looks like their mother, he thinks wryly, her chima a clean, worm white. Her hair is pulled back, not the twin braids he remembers from their childhood- and her hand is cupped against her mouth, fingers pressed together as though the only thing preventing something from falling out. But, still- the almond eyes wide with shock are the same light brown, above them the same tall forehead. The high eyebrows, the same hair that was never entirely tamed, small baby-thin wisps brushed behind the ears. And then- she falls forward through the entry, door swinging open behind her. Haeok, still rooted where he stands, feels the air rush out of his lungs as she clutches him tightly. From her head on his shoulder, Haeok hears her whimper. He realizes he’s been gnawing at his cheek when his jaw tightens. Slowly, he moves his hands to her back, returning the embrace. Leans forward. This is real. Jungok is here. Haeok exhales. “When did you get so tall, Jung-ah?” He breathes. Against his heart, Haeok feels his sister’s laugh. Eventually, they pull apart. Jungok grabs his hands, wide almond eyes staring into his for a long moment. Haeok wonders who she sees. She smiles slightly at him, crooked tooth peeking from under her lip. She turns, leading him towards the door. “Come inside,” she beckons.