Free I'll Be Right There by Kyung-Sook Shin Page B

road, the road was with me. When it rained, I found myself wondering whether the straw tray had been taken inside. I even enjoyed the small pleasure of exchanging greetings with the girls who passedme on the street. I lowered my head when I saw a man mixing concrete. He had taken off his shirt and was dripping with sweat, and the tan lines from his undershirt made me aware of the difficulty of his labor. I discovered that if I took just a five-minute detour on the way from school back to my apartment, I could pass a street lined with used-book stores. I had to take an underpass and detour around a baseball stadium to get there, but it was worth it. I would stroll past the towering stacks of used books and pause to peruse the titles at the very bottom. When I got to know that street, the feeling of being a runaway, which I had had ever since I started walking around the city, finally started to soften.
    During the nearly three weeks that I spent exploring the different paths to school, I did not see Miru once. I didn’t see Myungsuh, either, except in Professor Yoon’s class. Whenever I walked into the classroom, the first thing I did was check to see if he was there. He was always sitting by himself in the back, where he had sat next to Miru on the first day of class. Always in the same seat. I would glance back again at the end of class, but he was usually gone by then. Sometimes while walking, I got so distracted by my feelings toward him and Miru that I lost all track of where I was.
    I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get Miru off of my mind. She haunted me. And when I was not in Professor Yoon’s class, I wandered around the school wondering where Myungsuh might be. I didn’t have anything to say to him, but I looked for him all the same. After a while, I couldn’t tell whether the person I was really curious about was him or Miru.
    Then one day, Professor Yoon distributed copies of the course reader that I had typed up. Myungsuh was not in class that day. Professor Yoon set the stack on the podium so everyone could grab a copy on the way out. I stared at the black letters of the manuscript that I had typed, then took two more copies and put them in my bag. I was thinking of Myungsuh and Miru. When Professor Yoon announced to the class that I was the one who had typed the manuscript, I unconsciously glanced back at Myungsuh’s seat. I hadn’t seen him when I first got there, but he might have come in after me. His seat was still empty. I was disappointed that he wasn’t there to hear Professor Yoon tell everyone that I had done the typing. Though that was all I had done, I felt proud to see the printed and bound copies. On the cover of the finished book was the title, We Are Breathing . It was in Professor Yoon’s handwriting.
Do not write a single sentence that abets violence.
    That was the first sentence of We Are Breathing .
    The first time I pulled the manuscript out of the envelope and read that sentence, I felt my spine straighten. I typed the sentence over and over, once for every year of my age, changing the paper as I went. I became so absorbed in typing that I felt like I was no longer the same person who had brought the manuscript home. Reviews of poems and stories personally selected by Professor Yoon filled the sheets of paper. I started to understand what he meant when he said he was sorry to put me up to it but that maybe it would help meas I studied. The notes tucked between the pages appeared to be an appendix. Post-it notes and arrows indicated where he wanted memos and other brief texts to be added to the manuscript. There were even poems copied down in Professor Yoon’s handwriting that I felt I should look up on my own.
    The next day I went to a shop that loaned out typewriters. I had seen the shop on my way to the bookstore on Jongno Street. The shortest rental period was one month. I rented a typewriter and lugged it home on the bus. After that, I found myself eager to get home from