Almond Read online

  But I didn’t ask him. Why are you smiling? How could you smile with your back turned on somebody in such pain? I didn’t ask.

  Because I’d seen everybody else do it. Even Mom and Granny, when they flipped through the channels. Mom would say, A tragedy that’s too distant cannot be “your” tragedy.

  Fine, let’s say that’s true. But what about the people who did nothing as they just stood and watched Mom and Granny being attacked that day? They saw it happen in front of their eyes. They were too close to use the excuse that it was “a distant tragedy.” I remembered one of the witnesses, a choir member, giving an interview. He said that the man was thrashing around in a craze, so the witness was too scared to get any closer.

  People shut their eyes to a distant tragedy saying there’s nothing they could do, yet they didn’t stand up for one happening nearby either because they’re too terrified. Most people could feel but didn’t act. They said they sympathized, but easily forgot. The way I see it, that was not real.

  I didn’t want to live like that.

  * * *

  A strange sound slipped out of Gon’s body. A deep, intense howl that rose from the pit of his stomach. It sounded like an old, rusty cogwheel creaking into motion, or the wail of a wild animal. Why was he trying so hard to do what he was never good at? The word “pitiful” kept tugging at the tip of my tongue.

  “Is this all you’ve got? All right. Then don’t you regret it,” said Steel Wire, his eyes locked on Gon.

  Steel Wire snatched something lying next to Gon. It was the knife he had handed to Gon earlier. Before either of us could do anything, Steel Wire brought it to Gon’s throat. But he didn’t get a chance to hurt Gon. Because it was me who took the blow of the knife. Because that was the end of it all.

  73

  The moment I pushed Gon aside, Steel Wire’s knife dug deep into my chest. Gon kept screaming the word “demon” at Steel Wire. Steel Wire pulled out the knife. Red liquid, the warm, sticky essence oozed swiftly out of my body. I passed out shortly.

  Somebody shook my shoulders. Gon was hugging me in his arms.

  “Don’t die. I beg you. I’ll do anything for you . . . anything . . .” Gon whimpered. He was covered in blood. I glimpsed Steel Wire lying facedown on the floor. I don’t know why those words came out of me. But it was then I just whispered, “Say sorry. To everyone you’ve hurt. To the butterfly you killed. To the bugs you’ve stepped on carelessly. Say you’re sorry.”

  I had come here to apologize to Gon, and now I was telling him to apologize. But Gon nodded.

  “I will, I will, I really will. So please . . .”

  Gon held me tight as he rocked me back and forth. Then I couldn’t hear his voice anymore. My eyes slowly closed. My body felt lethargic, as if I were letting myself sink into deep water. I was returning to a primordial place where I had lived before I was born. A blurry scene started to come into focus as if someone were playing a movie in my head.

  A snowy day. My birthday. Mom is sprawled out on the floor, her blood soaking the snow. I see Granny. Her face is as fierce as a wild beast’s. She screams from outside the window, Go, go, get out of the way! I’d learned the phrase usually meant I hate you. Like when Dora shouted at Gon, “Get lost.” So why? Why was Granny telling me to go?

  Blood splatters. It’s Granny’s blood. Everything turns red before my eyes. Had Granny been in pain? As I was now? Had she, nevertheless, been relieved that she was the one in pain, and not me?

  Plop. A teardrop fell on my face. It was hot. So hot that it burned. Just then, something inside my heart exploded. Strange feelings flooded in. No, they didn’t flood in, they flooded out. A dam that had existed somewhere inside my body burst. A sudden surge. Something inside me broke free, forever.

  “I feel it,” I whispered. Whether it was grief, happiness, loneliness, pain, fear, or joy, I did not know. I just knew I felt something. A wave of nausea hit me. I wanted to throw up the disgust that was surging into me. Yet, I thought it was a wonderful experience. Suddenly, an unbearable drowsiness overcame me. My eyes were heavy. The face of Gon, all wet with tears, vanished from sight.

  At last, I became a human. And at that very moment, the world was drifting far away from me.

  In fact, this is the end of my story.

  74

  So, what follows is a sort of postscript to my story.

  My soul slipped out of my body and looked down at Gon, holding me in his arms, crying. The hairless patch on his head was shaped like a star. I realized, I had not once laughed at it. Hahaha. I laughed out loud. That’s the last thing I remember.

  When I came to, I was back in reality. Meaning, I was at the hospital. I dozed on and off for hours. It took several months for me to fully recover and start walking again.

  In my sleep, I had the same recurring dream. In it, it’s sports day in the schoolyard. Gon and I stand in the sun among clouds of dust. It is blazing hot. A track-and-field event is taking place in front of us. Gon grins and slides something into my hand. I spread out my fingers to find a translucent marble rolling in my palm. A red curved line through the middle looks like a smile. As I roll the marble around in my hand, the red line keeps flipping, making a sad face and a smiley face by turns. It’s plum-flavored candy.

  I put it in my mouth. It is sweet and sour. My mouth waters. I roll the candy around with my tongue. Sometimes it knocks against my teeth, making click click sounds. All of a sudden, my tongue prickles. Salty and sharp, pungent or bitter. Amid it all wafts up the sweetest scent that keeps me sniffing hungrily.

  Bang! The sound of the starting pistol shakes the air. We push off the ground and break into a run. It is not a race, it’s just running. All we need to do is simply feel our bodies splitting the air.

  * * *

  I woke up to find Dr. Shim next to me. He told me what had happened.

  That day, right after I passed out, Professor Yun rushed to the scene with the police. It would’ve been a lot cooler if we had solved everything by ourselves, but to grown-ups, I guess we were still just kids. Dora had called our homeroom teacher and some kids had explained Gon’s relationship with Steamed Bun to the police, who then sought out Steamed Bun. It was not too difficult to track Steel Wire from there.

  Steel Wire was stabbed by Gon. But he was not severely injured and recovered faster than I did and was awaiting trial.

  The things Steel Wire had done were beyond imaginable and it’s hard to list everything here. I heard later that he smiled throughout his trial, even when he was receiving a very heavy sentence. How on earth was his mind—no, the human mind—constructed? I hoped that someday in his life he’d be given a chance to be able to wear a different expression on his face.

  Dr. Shim said Gon’s stabbing of Steel Wire would be considered self-defense, and that Gon was receiving therapy but wasn’t ready to see me yet. Professor Yun took a leave of absence from his college to change his life and live solely for Gon. Gon still didn’t talk to him much. But Professor Yun said he would never give up trying.

  Dr. Shim said Dora had stopped by several times, and gave me a card she had left. I opened it to find a photo instead of any writing; that was like her, she hated letters. Dora was running in the picture. Both her legs up in midair, she looked like she was flying. She had transferred to a school that had a track-and-field team, and as soon as she did, she’d won second place in her district. I supposed she had found her dream again, the one she’d said had evaporated. Dorai, her parents must’ve still called her, but with a smile.

  “You have more colorful expressions now,” Dr. Shim told me. I shared with him the wonderful thing that had happened on that terrible night. The strange changes that my body and mind had suddenly undergone.

  “Let’s take an MRI when you’re fully recovered,” Dr. Shim said. “And redo all your clinical tests too. It’s time to check how much your brain has changed. To be honest, I have always doubted your diagnosis. I was a doctor myself once, but doctors like to put labels on
patients. It helps them treat abnormal symptoms, or even abnormal people. Of course, labels can often be clear and useful. But the human brain is rather a strange thing. And I still truly believe that the heart can prevail over the brain. What I’m trying to say is that you might have just grown in a way that’s a little different from how other people grow.” He smiled.

  “Does growing mean changing?”

  “Probably. For better or for worse,” he replied.

  I briefly recalled my last few months with Gon and Dora. And I hoped Gon would change for the better. Although I should first think about what “for the better” exactly means.

  * * *

  Dr. Shim said he had to go somewhere. Just before leaving the hospital ward, he first hesitated but said with a significant smile, “I don’t usually like people who ruin surprises when they give out presents. But sometimes, like now, I am itching to tell you. I’ll just give you a hint. You’ll meet somebody in a bit. I hope you like the surprise.”

  He then handed me a letter from Gon.

  “I’ll read it after you go,” I said.

  I opened the envelope when Dr. Shim left. A white piece of paper was folded into a square. I slowly unfolded the letter. There were a few crude letters, written with care.

  Sorry.

  Thanks.

  Truly.

  I stared at the period after “Truly” for a long time. I hoped that period could transform Gon’s life. Would we ever meet again? I hoped so. Truly.

  75

  The door slid open. It was Dr. Shim again. He was pushing a wheelchair. The person sitting in it beamed at me. A familiar smile. Of course it was, I’d known it ever since I was born.

  “Mom.”

  As soon as I said the word, Mom burst into tears. She stroked my cheeks and touched my hair, crying all the while. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t sure if it was because my emotional range wasn’t that wide yet, or because my head had grown too big for that crying-in-front-of-Mom thing.

  I wiped her tears and hugged her. But strangely enough, she cried even harder. While I’d been asleep, Mom had woken up, like a miracle. She had done what everyone thought was impossible. But she put it differently. That it was me who had done what everyone thought was impossible. I shook my head. I wanted to say more and tell her everything that had happened, but where would I begin? Suddenly, my cheeks felt warm. Mom wiped something off my cheeks. Tears. Tears were streaming down my face. I cry. And laugh, at the same time. So does Mom.

  Epilogue

  It is my eighteenth spring. I’ve graduated from high school and become what you call an adult.

  A relaxing song is playing on the bus. People are dozing off. Spring passes by the bus window. Flowers are in bloom, whispering, Spring, spring, I am spring. I pass by those flowers to see Gon. Not for any particular reason or because I have something to say to him. Just because. Just to see a friend. A good friend of mine whom everyone called a monster.

  From now on this is an entirely different story. Completely new and unpredictable.

  * * *

  I do not know how this story will unfold. As I said, neither you nor I nor anyone can ever know whether a story is happy or tragic. It may be impossible to categorize a story so neatly in the first place. Life takes on various flavors as it flows.

  I’ve decided to confront it. Confront whatever life throws at me, as I always have. And however much I can feel, nothing more, nothing less.

  Author’s Note

  Four years ago in the spring, I gave birth to my baby. There are a few funny anecdotes about it, but they are not particularly emotional because I did not have a hard time giving birth. Everything just felt strange and new. But after a few days, whenever I caught sight of the baby wriggling in its cradle, I would automatically tear up. Even now, I still cannot explain why. My tears could not be explained by any single emotion.

  It was just that the baby was so small. If it were to fall off from its low cradle or be left alone even for a few hours, it would not make it. This creature, who could do nothing on its own, had been thrown into this world, and was floundering toward the air. The fact that this was my child did not sink in, and if I ever lost the child and then found it again I was not confident that I would be able to recognize it. Then I asked myself, Would I be able to give this child unconditional love no matter what it looked like? Even if the child grew to be someone completely different from my expectations? Those questions led to the creation of two characters who prompted me to ask this question: If they were my children, could I love them? That’s how Yunjae and Gon were born.

  Children are born every day. They all deserve blessings and to have every possibility open to them. But some of them will grow up to be social outcasts, some will rule and command but with twisted minds. Some, although very few, will succeed against all odds and grow into people who touch hearts.

  I know this may be a clichéd conclusion to draw. But I have come to think that love is what makes a person human, as well as what makes a monster. That’s the story I wanted to tell.

  I wrote the first draft of Almond for a month in August 2013, when my daughter was four months old. Then I revised the draft heavily for a month at the end of 2014 and another month in early 2016. But throughout those years, the story of the two boys never left my mind. So I could say it took me over three years to write this story from start to finish.

  I would like to thank my parents and my family who, thanks to their unconditional love, gave me the gift of a full heart. I once thought, and was even ashamed, that growing up in an emotionally stable condition put me at a disadvantage when it came to being a writer. As time passed, my thoughts changed. I came to realize that the unconditional love and support I’d received throughout my ordinary teenage years was a rare and precious gift, that they served as an invaluable weapon for a person, one that gave me the strength to look at the world from different angles without fear. I realized that only when I became a parent myself.

  I want to thank the judges of the Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction who chose my work. I feel especially acknowledged to hear that there were eleven teenage judges among them. I also thank my first ever reader, H, who has read all my unpublished writings and added them to H’s reading list as if they are official works. Without H’s laid-back encouragement during my disappointments, I would not have been able to continue challenging myself.

  And lastly, thank you to my editors at the Changbi Young Adult department, Jeong Soyoung and Kim Youngseon. You are my first friends in this new, unknown world. I am sorry if I made your work difficult at any point. It was an honor to have worked with you both.

  I am not the kind of person to be actively involved in social issues. I just try to dig up stories in my heart through writing. I sincerely hope that this novel has moved people to reach out to those wounded, especially the young minds who still have great potential in them. I know this is a big thing to wish for, but I wish for it nonetheless. Children long to be loved but at the same time they give the most love. We were once all like that. I have written on the first page of this book the name of the person I love the most, the person who has given me even more love.

  Spring 2017

  Won-pyung Sohn

  A Note From the Translator

  “Luck plays a huge part in all the unfairness of the world. Even more than you’d expect.”

  When I translated these sentences from Almond back in 2018, I had no idea I would have experienced the power of luck myself, but in a completely opposite way. It’s a rarity for Korean literature to be published in English, let alone a debut novel. Translating it was purely out of my enjoyment and half out of pressure to turn it in for a workshop. Never would I have imagined that my translation would lead to a meeting with my now-agent, Barbara Zitwer, and Won-pyung herself! And the rest is history. As much as luck plays in Yunjae’s unfair world, translating his journey has given me a series of perfectly timed coincidences of luck by many helping hands who “discovered beauty” in this story
. To that, as selfish as it sounds, I am grateful for Yunjae and Gon and all their misfortunes.

  Portraying the series of horrific events in Yunjae’s uniquely detached voice was a challenge though, especially when lining up his next to those of the other characters who are full of emotion and life, including Gon. I needed to make conscious word choices that Yunjae and Gon would use so they could equally come alive in their own unique ways, based on the context and emotional distance set from the original.

  My focus for Yunjae, specifically, was ensuring he consistently sounds emotionally removed but not dull, and as a bibliophile, not less articulate in expressing his limited emotions and observations. On top of that, as Yunjae’s emotional ability develops throughout the book, I wanted to show his growth through language and bridge his emotional distance. The same goes for Gon, but in the opposite way—his complex emotions needed to be in a much simpler tone due to his lack of vocabulary, not to mention his harsh language. I remember listing different swearwords for him. Surprisingly, this clash and mix of different voices are what make Almond fascinating to read, and for me, fascinating to translate.

  In a similar vein, my other struggle was staying true to the original intent. As I made decisions between literal and liberal translation as I saw fit, I sometimes got carried away by certain word choices or phrases that might not necessarily point to the right intent. I remember having to tone down Yunjae’s description of his almond routine because of the word from the original, “climax.” I tried to stay vigilant not to read into the context more than what the original offers and sometimes this necessitated outside opinions. I am a reader of the book before a translator, and being a close reader, my take on the relationship between Yunjae and Gon was more than a simple friendship. There was a fine line between their love as friends and as something that transcends the conventions of friendship. As much as I valued my read of the original context, I needed to make sure as a translator my take was not overstepping the intentions of the original context. For that, I was very fortunate to have a support system of peer bilingual translators at Smoking Tigers, not to mention the thoughtful guidance from the very author, Won-pyung.