Eighth Verse

The storm has passed
and I'm still holding you...
Do I dare to believe
that this is real?

-translated from “You and Me”
from Future Colors' debut album Future Colors

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After Minha finished singing, the rain slackened, and soon more relatives arrived. T'yo Art remarked that it sure was different when a famous singer sang, because then the rain stopped instead of continuing. Minha looked blank; Bea had to explain the backhanded compliment to him. It did break the ice though, making everyone laugh.  The porch and living room grew crowded, and quite a few people were coughing or sneezing. 

The uncles and cousins had been going to tend the dikes around the rice paddies in preparation for planting rice the next month, but now they wondered whether they had better check the ditches for blockage and overflows instead. While they discussed what to do, Bea slipped away to the kitchen and began washing cups and spoons. The chore made her feel calmer and more like her usual self again. Somehow the things Minha were doing today kept making her feel flustered and off-balance.

Someone came in and put more cups and spoons beside her on the bamboo ledge. She automatically washed them.

“That big white house over there behind the trees looks familiar,” Minha said. Bea jumped and dropped the spoon she was soaping. She turned to look accusingly at him. He was staring out through the grilles to what was beyond the yard. “Isn't that Jae sunbae's house?” he added.  “We walked so far I had no idea it was so near.”

“It is near,” she said, getting a grip on herself. Now that she knew that it was him standing behind her, she felt very aware of the small distance between them. “If I were alone, I'd have taken the path through the orchard. It's shorter.”

“Then why did we go around by the front gate?” He slanted a questioning look down at her.

“First, because the path between the rice paddies is too narrow for two people with only one umbrella; second, because I didn't know if you could walk over it; and third, the dike is more slippery in the rain.”

“Huh. Of course I could walk over it,” Minha scoffed. “It's wide enough.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Then do you want to go back that way?”

“Cool.”

Biboy and Ana went back with them, bringing a message from T'yo Art to Bea's father. Bea and Minha soon fell behind, as Minha was still testing his footing on the narrow path on top of the dike between two rice paddies.  It was not more than one foot wide, built of clay loam that was sticky-soft and slippery at the same time, made even more tricky by the lush grasses that lined it on both sides so that one couldn't see the edge of the actual dike. 

“It isn't that bad,” Bea said, turning around and walking backwards, using the umbrella to point with one hand like a cane. “Just keep walking in the middle, in the part without the grasses. Watch where I put my feet.”

* * *

Minha stopped walking. 

“Bea,” he said in exasperation. “I can do this. Stop worrying.”

“But...”

“Also, you're making me worry, walking backward like that.  Just turn around and walk normally.”

“You? Worry?”

“Yes. Me. Worry. Why can't I?”

“Mm... because this is where I live and I've been walking these dikes almost all of my life? While you-- obviously you've never been on one before. Don't they grow rice in Korea?”

“I was born and grew up in Seoul. I've never lived on a farm.” Minha took several rapid steps, his arms spread wide for balance. His foot sank into the clay with an audible squelch and he had to tug rather hard to get it out.

“Need help?” Bea asked sweetly.

“No, I've got it, it's cool.” He finally got his foot free and looked beyond her. Her cousins were almost to the orchard now. “How about... we walk faster?” he suggested. “It might start to rain again and we are out here in the open.”

“Hurry up, then.” Bea turned around again and began walking, but not very fast.

“I said faster.”

“This is fast.”

“No, it is not.”

“I don't want you to fall off the path, okay?”

“I'm not going to! Why are you so worried!”

“Because you're here in my country, in our barrio, and you're a guest of my family. I can't let anything bad happen to you!” she flung over her shoulder. “I already couldn't keep you from getting left behind at the beach! Gosh, why are you so stubborn?!”

Minha stood still. For a long second, he wondered whether he'd suddenly been struck by lightning, standing in the middle of a large open field with another rainstorm coming on. When he didn't say anything for a while, Bea looked over her shoulder and saw him.

“What's the matter?” she asked, turning around again and walking back to him. “I thought you were in a hurry.”

“Bea,” Minha said in a small voice. He coughed and tried again. “Is that the only reason you are being so nice to me? Because I'm your guest...?” 

She didn't meet his eyes.

“Guests are important people,” she said, which was not really an answer at all. 

“That's really the only reason?” Minha asked. And when she didn't answer, he added before he could stop himself, “I thought you like me.”

She looked up at him then.

“Of course I like you,” she said with an over-bright smile. “We're friends, right?”

Friends? That's all? Minha felt a strange, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It's just because I'm a guest? It's just because I'm a... friend?

“Even though you are all leaving next week, I'd like to think that at least during your stay here we have become friends,” she added, and held out her hand. “Now come on. We're almost to the orchard-- just a few meters more. I think the rain really is falling again soon and the house is still over there.”

Minha wondered if he had stepped on a weak portion of the dike. It wasn't just the pit of his stomach that was sinking. He felt as if the land under his feet was slowly crumbling away and he was sinking with it, unable to reach for her hand and save himself.

But I like you, Bea. 

“Minha? Are you okay?” She was still holding out her hand.

She uses my name so rarely I feel like I've been struck on the head with a hammer every time she says it. And she's holding her hand out to me right now like it's the most natural thing in the world. And I can't take it. I can't. 

All the things she just said are not really hurtful, aren't they? Why do I suddenly feel like they hurt me so much more than every bad thing Manager Oh or the press has ever said about me?

A raindrop fell on his nose. Another on his cheeks. And then his face. And another. And another. 

Bea looked up into the sky.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “We really have to go. Come on now!” 

When he still didn't move, she repeated “Come on!” and ran forward to take him by the arm, the way she did on the road from the beach. Did that happen only yesterday? It's like it had happened a long time ago. I can't believe this is only the third day since I first met her. I can't believe-- I've really come to like her.

He flinched when she touched him, and moved back instinctively-- stepping on a deceptively firm looking bunch of grass that gave way under his foot. He slipped, teetered and lost his balance. Bea grabbed his arm and tried to hold him steady, but he was already falling and taking her with him.

SQUELCH! They landed on their bottoms in the soft, muddy rice field, raindrops spattering around them. 

Bea was the first to recover. “Are you okay?” she demanded, getting up on her knees and turning to him. “Minha. Say something. Are you okay? Does anything hurt?” She gripped his shoulder and shook him. “Minha!!”

“I'm okay.” He brushed her hand away and struggled to get his feet under him. She got up first and reached a muddy hand down to grip his arm and haul him upright, then tried to brush the worst of the mud from his coat and shorts, the way she'd tried to wipe his shirt with a towel when they'd first met. All the while she was muttering “Oh my God I'm so dead I'm so dead they will all kill me.” He grabbed her wrist and held her hand away.

“Bea,” he finally said, trying to get himself back together. “Stop.  It's not helping. And stop panicking. It's not your fault that I fell.”

She looked up at him. Water dripped from her chin and off her nose; her dark eyes looked like glimmering pools and her cheeks and lips glistened. When I first met her, I thought she looked like a dowdy, fat, dark, unattractive nuisance. But right now, even when she's looking half-drowned and worried, I realize that she's one of the prettiest girls I ever met.

“I'm the person with you,” she said. “I'm responsible for you.”

He half-smiled at the familiar words-- he hadn't expected to hear them here, from this particular person. She probably didn't know what her words meant in Korean, but he couldn't help but answer.

“So you've taken responsibility for me?” he asked, bending his head and speaking very softly, so that she was forced to strain closer to hear what he was saying.

As she stared up at him in confusion, Minha, conscious of his heart beating so loudly and insistently he was sure she could hear it, touched his lips gently to hers.

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Note

T'yo Art's joke - Filipinos like to joke, whenever someone sings loudly and very badly, that they will bring on the rain. Since the rain stopped after Minha sang, it meant that he was a good singer.

Taking responsibility - In Korea, a person "taking responsibility" for another person means he/she will marry them.