JEONJU

“You’ve been running all your life,” said Ryong-jun. “From Hoeryong to Seoul, and now to Jeonju, of all places.”

Dae-ho said, “Running toward Jeonju is more accurate.”

After a full day in Jeonju’s hanok district, he didn’t understand how Ryong-jun wasn’t enchanted by the tea shops, the community of artists and musicians, the low tables laden with seasoned mountain vegetables. They had strolled past several streets of hanok, their eaves curving gracefully at human level, and returned to the one where Dae-ho was apprenticed to a master potter. Dae-ho was proud of the hanok even though it wasn’t his, just as he was proud of the master’s pottery.

“None of this is yours,” said Ryong-jun with worry in his voice.

Ryong-jun had a car magazine tucked under his arm in case Dae-ho missed his progress parked in the rear lot. The two had fled North Korea separately, but once in South Korea they had stayed together at the Hanawon refugee centre, then studied at the same arts university. They had entered the brave new world that kept telling them the only one that mattered was yourself.

Dae-ho held up a large earthenware jar that he had made during his apprenticeship. “This one is mine.”

Ryong-jun eyed the rough, unglazed surface. Its quiet, humble beauty. “If you sell it, how much will you make?”

Ryong-jun’s eyes slid from the jar to the car framed by the window. The one he had worked double shifts at the glass factory to purchase. He didn’t understand that when Dae-ho turned the wheel and cut into clay, the nightmares disappeared. That he had finally found a home. Ryong-jun was the closest thing to family that Dae-ho had left, and he worried about him like a brother.

Ryong-jun added, “You’re burying yourself in Jeonju.”

Dae-ho gestured to the alley of studios and shops. They were all buildings of a human scale that didn’t overwhelm you. He said, “I can’t keep up with Seoul. Or Pusan.”

“Who’s going to marry you without money? Without a car, no one will look at you.”

“Who needs marriage? Or money?” Dae-ho placed the jar into Ryong-jun’s hands but it was too heavy for his loose grip. It shattered.

They were two men with a dream. A broken vase. And a used Hyundai Elantra. Krys Lee was born in Seoul, and raised in California and Washington. She is the author of Dr i f t i ng House ( Faber & Faber) and How I Became a North

Korean (Penguin). She teaches at Yonsei University, Underwood International College, in South Korea. This short story was written while she was at the artist’s residency of Civitella Ranieri ( Italy).