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It's spring and Elijah can't wait for it to start getting warm. She's tired of short days and cold, miserable evenings. The weather here leaves a deep chill in her bones.
They've burrowed themselves away in a small cottage with wooden shutters and window boxes. Low ceilings and bright airy rooms surround them, the opposite of where they came from. As though Yohan is trying to purge all the tears, worries and lies out of them.
"Yohan, where are you?" she calls as she makes her way down the corridor. She's just come back from physio and the ache in her body leaves her feeling satisfied. Progress is slow going. She knows it will take time and many tears of exhaustion, but Elijah knows it will be worth it. It's nice to have a goal to work towards after all this time wasting away like a husk. She'll get there; she just needs to be patient with herself.
She spots Yohan in the main room on the sofa. He has the TV playing in the background--a man walking around with his dog--but he's engrossed in his book.
"How was your session?" he asks.
"It was OK. We're taking it nice and slow. He doesn't want me to overexert and hurt myself," she explains as she heads towards the kitchen. "Do you want any snacks?"
Yohan hums in agreement and carries on flipping through his book. She hears the volume go up slightly when she comes back with some chocolates and crisps. It's only when she's taken a seat, a crisp halfway to her mouth, that she realises exactly what Yohan is watching.
It's a gardening show. Monty, or that's what she thinks his name is, is walking around talking about his aubergines and how he prefers chard to spinach as it can bolt quite easily. His golden retriever lazing about in the sun as he gives tips on how to grow vegetables this time of year.
She looks over at Yohan who is pointedly ignoring her and reading, or pretending to read his book.
"You're not thinking about doing some gardening are you?" she asks incredulously.
"Why not? I might just be good at it." He finally looks up at her. "The garden needs some work and these window boxes need to have flowers planted in them," he says.
Elijah stares at him. "But you could hire someone to do it."
"Where would the fun be in that?" he says and then raises the volume even higher, no longer pretending to not pay attention.
*
They go shopping every weekend like clockwork. Before, when their life was a tangle of poisoned thorns, they never did these simple, mundane things. Whatever she wished for would be ordered and delivered the next day, sometimes the same day. Anything that needed doing was looked at by Ms Ji. They never had to lift a single finger.
Now Yohan insists they take part in all household activities regardless. He's firm and unyielding in this, arguing that their privilege of the past should not completely carry over to the present. He is adamant that she learns how to take care of herself because they can do it together and learn.
Elijah understands what he means and goes with it. She gets it. They were lucky. Yohan got to escape and they had the luxury to carve something new for themselves. Not everybody is fortunate.
Yohan will tend to stock up on the necessities but Elijah loves to linger in the world food section. Korean food is hard to come by but Yohan says there's an Asian supermarket nearby which they'll try next weekend.
She's looking at the little biscuit boxes. "Hey they have these here t-" but when she turns around, Yohan is nowhere to be found. It's jarring. Her heart clenches and for a moment she thinks something terrible has happened to him.
It takes her a good five minutes before she spots him. She even contemplates getting them to announce it over the speakers, like she's the adult who's lost her too curious toddler.
She finds him inspecting some flowers. "I think these would be good to go under the windows. What do you think?" He stares at them and lets out a sigh, nostalgia etched over his face.
For a moment she thinks Yohan has lost his mind. That perhaps the cold weather and shock of leaving everything has made the real Yohan melt away, only to be left with the remnants of a useless wick disguised as Yohan. He's so neurotic. He would never leave her out of his own violation and yet he's done exactly that.
Until she looks at the all too familiar flowers and recognises them from the one time she ate food at Gaon's house.
She stares at the petunias and then at Yohan and doesn't know what to say.
"I think I'll buy them," Yohan answers for her, fingers gently stroking the petals, a ghost of someone else.
*
Yohan hasn't been quite the same since they left. Neither of them have to be fair. She understands why they had to leave, after Yohan filled in the blanks in his vague way. It's safer for him and a chance at a future filled with possibilities.
It's the price they had to pay that hurts. That Yohan grabbed their future and left Gaon behind in their past is hard to reconcile with. It pains her. It's probably killing Yohan slowly.
*
The days are getting warmer and Yohan is no longer hiding his new hobby of gardening anymore. There are Gardeners' World magazines all over the place that Elijah translates for Yohan. How he got a hold of them she doesn't know. He's filled the window boxes with all sorts of flowers: pansies, sweet potato vines, vinca, zinnia and the list goes on. There are small potted plants all over the kitchen windowsill and he's planted ivy around the front gate. He's slowly working on the back garden. Lining the edges of the cobbled pathway with flowers that were leftover.
She isn't sure if Yohan is self aware enough to realise what he's doing and why. It took Elijah a while to figure it out. To turn it around every which way and realise exactly what's going on.
Yohan misses Gaon. Pines away and aches for him but doesn't know what to do about it.
If you had told Elijah months back that Yohan would be gardening one day, she would have laughed at the whole thing. The spectacle of it all. Yohan with his prim and proper suits getting down on his knees and letting his fingernails get filled with mulch. No, she would have thought you were a fool.
But here they are, in this unforeseen future, a galaxy away from their reality. Yohan in old trousers, a jumper and gardening gloves on. With Elijah helping him as well. The yearning for what could have been makes people do all sorts of things. Except she wouldn't have pegged Yohan to be one of those people. He'll sit sometimes staring at the scar on his left hand, tenderly tracing the lines like a language of a lost world he never got to explore
She understands though. She misses Gaon too. When she thinks of it like that her body aches because all she can see is Gaon. He would fret and worry about his plants all the time. Whenever he went back to his house it was always because of them. Elijah thought they should have just brought them over. That way he would never have to leave.
She wishes he was here with them. No matter what Yohan said in the past, Gaon did become her family. He was like an older brother and after a while he was like a father. Yohan is Yohan but Gaon was…..well he was her dad in many ways. She's had a taste of what it would be like and she wants him back. She suspects so does Yohan.
He probably wants to storm back and grab Gaon by the scruff of his neck, dragging him here where he belongs with them.
Except for the fact that neither one of them has kept in contact with him. Elijah isn't sure where to start. She's still angry with Gaon for leaving them in the beginning and furious that he was the reason why Yohan was taken away.
Yohan has explained that it wasn't really Gaon's fault. How can he be blamed when he was slowly poisoned for so long by the one person who was like a father. Elijah understands that. She can't help but be angry though. Why couldn't Gaon believe and trust what they had shown him when he lived with them?
So no, she doesn't know how to start a conversation. Despite all of that the guilt is still there. No matter how upset and hurt she is, Elijah still misses him and wishes desperately that Yohan had brought Gaon with them. Elijah's heard all the excuses about how Gaon has more important things to do but that's absolute bullshit. Fixing the system was Yohan's crux to bear, not Gaon's. Truth be told, it wasn't even something Yohan cared about, it was a means to an end for whatever he was doing.
Why Yohan hasn't spoken to Gaon isn't something she knows for certain. Maybe it's the bedrock of guilt and uncertainty that's stopping him.
*
Spring is making way for summer. The air is warm and she no longer has to get home in the dark. The front of the house has become a bright cacophony of colours. Yohan has filled the boxes beneath the windows with flowers and somehow succeeded in keeping them alive. The back garden now has a greenhouse. Yohan is growing tomatoes, aubergine, peppers, red chillies and cucumbers. He watches Monty with the subtitles on, engrossed in everything the man says.
It's endearing and Elijah is filled with a foreign feeling of fondness when she watches him listening avidly to all the advice. He even keeps a notebook and it's surreal. Is this what missing somebody does to you? Change you until you're something brand new? Because that's what's happening and she realises she's changing as well. They both are. Their anger and hatred crumbling away like sediments sinking into the bottom of a river, packed and pressed into something new.
They go to their local garden centre and pick out tools, pots and everything Yohan and Elijah think they'll need. Sometimes the old lady at the checkout, familiar with them from their repeated trips, will jokingly flirt with him. Yohan always gives her a charming smile and says how he's married to someone back home. Elijah knows he's playing it up but his voice rings with the truth of his desire.
"Buy the kneeling pad, you're getting old now," she says as they peruse the tools aisle.
"You wish I was getting old," he says with a smile but he has a faraway look in his eyes, like he's remembering something or someone.
*
Yohan moves on to cooking next. Some of the fruits and vegetables he planted are ready to eat. She finds out about this surprising venture when she wakes up one morning to the smell of something being burnt. When she opens her bedroom door, the smoke hits her right in the face.
"What are you doing?" she yells down the corridor until she spots him standing in the middle staring at the open oven pitifully. Counter tops are covered with an assortment of spatulas and bowls and she has to avoid bits of egg and butter on the floor.
There's flour smudged over his forehead and a piece of egg shell stuck to his cheek.
"I thought I'd bake a strawberry tart." His shoulders droop slightly and Elijah doesn't have the heart to be cross with him. She's patient with him now. Regret is a heavy thing and Elijah wishes she could go back and stop herself from all the misery she gave Yohan. What she can do is be kind and patient with him. They are both learning.
"Come on. Let's tidy up and we can think of something easier to begin with," she says as she grabs some of the dishes.
"God, how did you make such a mess? You've even got food all over your face."
Yohan gives her a dirty look and before she knows it, he's smeared flour all over her face.
She shrieks in annoyance and they spend the next few minutes trying to cover each other with whatever leftover ingredients they can find.
They both look at each other afterwards, face flushed with delight and out of breath and she wishes Gaon was here too. He deserves this happiness.
*
Yohan succeeds with baking. He tries some main dishes but never gets far. He can cook some of the simple dishes but that's it. It's the baking that he makes leaps and bounds of progress and soon every other day he is concocting some new batch of cookies or sweet bread or anything that catches his fancy.
It's at this point she decides that something needs to be done.
"You need to call Gaon," she says one evening after finishing her classes for the day. Yohan and her have never been normal which is why she knows they need to have this conversation. If not her then no one will. Yohan can be very good at burying himself in denial and pretending.
Yohan freezes in the middle of watering the plants at the windowsill, fingers clenched white around the little water spray bottle. God. Even the bottles are the same as the ones Gaon used to have.
"What?" he says but doesn't turn around.
"You heard me the first time. How long are you going to ignore him? How long are we going to ignore him?" she corrects because they are both in this mess together. "Don't you think he deserves to hear from us? From you? You left him back there on his own with an impossible task to complete. Something he didn't even ask for."
Yohan finally turns to look at her, a determined set to his face. "He's busy. The last thing he needs is us --me-- to distract him."
"How do you know that? Gaon has nobody left there. All his family is gone. He lived with us, cooked for us and took care of us for months and now he's left alone."
Yohan looks away and she doesn't know if it's out of guilt or denial.
"Yohan," she says softly. "He should be here with us."
Yohan shakes his head. "He should have a choice. He should have his freedom."
"Then give him the choice. Let him know we're an option. He must be so lonely."
Yohan sits down at the kitchen table and collapses, a roof folding in under the weight of a miserable winter's snow.
"You miss him. Don't try to deny it. It's why you've started all the gardening. You built a greenhouse, not for you or me, but for him. You're even cooking. All this time you never learnt but now look at you. You want him here. So do I." She rests her hand on his shoulder.
"I want him to be happy," he says finally.
Eijah gently places his phone on the table. "He could be happy here."
Yohan stares at the phone and for a moment Elijah thinks maybe she's pushed too hard. He looks at his hand and strokes the scar there before coming to some sort of decision.
With a shuddery exhale Yohan picks up the phone and opens his contact list. His fingers hesitate before he dials Gaon's number.
They both hold their breath.