A Small Revolution

by Jimin Han

  I felt like I was in my own personal bubble, filling up with fog. I told my friends what Lloyd’s parents had said. I could see, even in my foggy bubble, that they were suddenly frightened of him.

  “You can’t let him stay in your room anymore,” Faye said to Daiyu, and Daiyu nodded.

  “He obsesses about people: the girl from his high school, and Jaesung, and now you,” Daiyu said to me.

  Faye said, “Everything he’s said to us is a lie.”

  94

  When Tuesday came around, I called my mother and told her I would not be home for fall break. I told her I had too many assignments overdue. That part was true. I didn’t tell her I’d be taking a bus in the opposite direction on that Friday and couldn’t quite manage turning around and being on the bus for another six hours that same day to go to Lakeburg for the long weekend. I saw it as a fresh start.

  I went by Professor Wong’s office later that day, and he waved me in. Did I tell you he looked as if he was only a few years older than us? He wore long gym shorts most days, even when it was cold, and flip-flops and long-sleeved T-shirts with video game graphics on them. Today it was Space Invaders. It was easy to talk to him because he seemed less formal than the other professors on campus. He told us to call him Julian, so when I walked in I said, “I’m sorry, Julian, I’ll get you two papers before I leave for break.”

  He reclined in his beat-up leather desk chair, his hands behind his head. “Things overwhelming you?”

  I tapped the edge of his desk, which had piles of paper on it as if they’d been dumped there. I’d had to walk around short pillars of stacked books on the floor. His office looked as if he’d moved in without boxes and deposited things in a hurry. “There’s a lot going on.”

  “I know how it can be. I was given a warning after my first semester.” He straightened up in his chair again and leaned forward, his elbows on piles of paper.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t ready for college. High school had been intense. Racing to the end of it. A year between was what I needed. Maybe you should consider it.”

  “It’s not the workload.”

  “Well, okay, talk to me. Not the workload—is it the social scene?”

  “Is there any reason the Chun regime would kidnap an American student?”

  “You’re talking South Korea, President Chun?” He leaned back again, his hands on the armrests this time.

  “I’m saying what would be the point?”

  “If the student is thought to be a spy, North Korea might kidnap people they think are spies. Well, South Korean spies.”

  Lloyd was right. Could it be North Korea who took you? “If they thought he was South Korean because he’s Korean American. I mean he was born here in the States, but he looks Korean. Speaks Korean.”

  “It’s not likely, because what would be the motive? As soon as they found out, they’d give him back. Kim Il Sung doesn’t want an all-out war with the United States, and with all the troops at the DMZ, South Korea would love an excuse to start one.”

  “They’d give him back? Say it was a mistake?” I pressed him for more.

  “It’d be pretty fast. If it was a mistake, they’d know immediately. They’ve kidnapped fishermen and South Koreans, but an American citizen? It wouldn’t be in their best interest to try something like that.” Julian began shuffling the papers on his desk and looked as if he’d like to read a few of them at that very moment.

  “So you think it couldn’t happen.” I let out a breath.

  “Not really,” he said and seemed satisfied that he’d put his papers in order. He looked up at me.

  “Is there anyone you’d call to find out?”

  “Is this about political persecution of journalists in Korea? Are you focusing on KBS and the National Security Law?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You can’t get much information about the Blue House. Maybe in a few years.”

  “So you’re saying there isn’t any reason to lie about an American student if anything happened to him in Korea?”

  “You okay, Yoona? You should take a seat.”

  I stayed on my feet. “Thanks, but I’ve got to go.”

  “I’m not one of those who stick to a tight schedule. I told everyone in class I want six papers this semester in addition to the final. If you need more time for these two, you’ll just have to do a lot of work at the end of the semester. We’re going to get to more censorship issues as the semester goes on, so maybe you’ll want to write about a topic you can find more information on then. Don’t sweat it. I mean it, okay?”

  I nodded and turned to leave.

  “I’ll see you in class tomorrow, right?” he called after me.

  I told him I would be there, but it was an automatic response. Julian had said there was no chance you were kidnapped, and I believed him. I’d hoped he’d convince me that Chun or Kim Il Sung, one of them, had taken you. And offer a way to find you.

  95

  I called the number on my ripped piece of envelope, and Lloyd’s father answered. I told him Lloyd was headed back to New York, threatening to kill himself on the way but heading back. He thanked me and hung up without another word.

  Lloyd was in my room on Wednesday afternoon, sitting on my bed. He had a light-blue folder on his lap. It was familiar, but I couldn’t remember why.

  “You should be more careful about locking your door,” he said, answering the question I was about to shout at him. Something about him made me nervous. It was like that time in the mandu shop when he smashed that cup. He swept his arm across my bedside table and knocked the lamp to the floor, the phone and the receiver, knocking everything off, the mug, a spoon. I steeled myself. Not in my room, I thought, not the way my father raged at home, but this time I was more nervous than when I’d been firm with him at my house. This time I stayed quiet and let him talk. All about how much he trusted me. Had trusted me. Had never thought I’d betray him this way. That he’d gone with me to my parents’ house and had been polite. Not let on all the things I’d told him about them. But not me. Me, I’d told his parents all the things he’d said. I’d made them think he was crazy. I’d told Faye and Daiyu and Heather that he was crazy. He knew because they wouldn’t let him in their rooms anymore, and he knew because they walked away when he approached them.

  “Were there ever people following you?” I said. “Was any of it true? Is Jaesung alive?” I could hardly get your name out.

  “How can you ask me that?” he said, and he fell on his knees and pulled me down to the floor beside him. “Yoona, you and Jaesung, you’ve been the only two people in the world who I knew were my friends. True friends. I’ve never lied to you. I’d never lie to you. I mean, I don’t know what’s happened between us. I’ve been trying to figure it out, but you just changed.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I pulled my hands away and began righting the things he’d upended. I put the receiver back on the phone, but left it on the floor, because he reached for my hands again. I had to figure out a way to get him out of my room.

  “Your parents want to help you,” I said.

  “My parents? Are you kidding me? They want to lock me up.”

  This time I was firm. Here was my opening. “They’re really worried about you. Lloyd, you need to see your doctor and get help.”

  “Are you really pregnant with Jaesung’s baby?” he said. Half his breath must have been held as he spoke. His heart must have felt to him as if it had paused. I saw the stillness. He waited for confirmation.

  I had to protect October 22.

  He opened the folder. “You wanted official, I got official—just not about Jaesung. The clinic is easy to break into.”

  I saw my name at the top of the document.

  “Don’t you see?” he continued. “They’ll never win now. Even though they have Jaesung, they’ll never have his son.”

  I backed away from him. “I’m calling the police.”

  “The l
ove you two had was so powerful you made a new life. Even when they tried to stop him, they couldn’t, don’t you see? And when he’s released, he’ll have this child to come home to. Don’t you see?”

  “That’s confidential, Lloyd. It’s illegal to look at someone’s files.”

  “You’re in shock, and they’ve convinced you—when did you find out? Is this the reason why you’ve shut me out? Because I’m Jaesung’s best friend, and you want to pretend this baby isn’t real? It all makes sense now. Your feelings for me changed because they convinced you not to have this baby. They turned you against me. Who was it? Was it your father? Your mother? Willa. It was Willa, wasn’t it?”

  “No, no, no, no, no,” I repeated. I walked to the door and held it open. It had worked before, and I was counting on it again. I had to get him out of my room. A week, my head reminded me. Seven days and I wouldn’t be standing on this precipice anymore.

  “If we make an announcement, a public one, they’ll know Jaesung has a son,” he said.

  “Get out, Lloyd.”

  “What if I convince Willa and your mom? Your dad too, because they’d want a grandchild if they really thought about it. What if I convince them that you must have this baby?”

  “That’s not going to change my mind,” I said. “Get out or I’ll call campus police.”

  “Daiyu and Heather? They must have known all along. That’s what Faye meant when she said you had big decisions to make. That’s what Serena said when she said you were switching majors. She meant this. She meant you were going to be a mother. You’re having Jaesung’s child.” He jumped up and down in place, spilling the contents of the folder to the floor. He swung his arms as if he were punching ghosts. “What will you name him? It can’t be too close to Jaesung’s name, but maybe he’ll look like him, and I’ll take care of him. I’d be his godfather, of course, until Jaesung comes back. He’ll be so happy, and he’ll know we never forgot about him. We kept his memory alive. I’ll tell his son all about the things we did over the summer, how great his father—”

  “Lloyd, what about me?” I was becoming furious. “This is about me. It’s happening to me. Inside my body, Lloyd. I’m not doing it. I can’t do it. I won’t ruin my life.”

  “You?” He stared at me. “Is that what this is about? You’re only thinking about you? I’m not going to let you kill Jaesung’s child. No one is going to hurt Jaesung ever again.” He lunged at me but then jerked back like a dog on a leash, turned, and ran out of the room.

  I was shaking and breathing hard. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. With my head hanging over the toilet, I knew I would never make it to the clinic. I just didn’t know how it would happen.

  I missed the next two days of classes, going only to the dining hall or food truck and then returning to my room, nervous about running into Lloyd on campus. I finished two papers. And now I had to deliver one to Professor Wong’s office. It was six forty-five on Friday, and most students were in the dining hall for dinner. Leaves had fallen almost overnight, blanketing the grass in rusty shades, and it was dark, dark as the middle of the night. An owl hooted somewhere in a tree behind me. An oddly persistent owl whose hoot became a wolf’s howl. It was an eerie sound, and when I looked at the expanse of the empty quad I had to traverse, I had second thoughts about delivering my essay. In the next minute, the wolf was in front of me on the walkway. Lloyd howled, his hands in his pockets, wearing a long gray coat. I turned around and began walking back to my room, but he ran around to face me from that side. So I turned again, and this time he ran right up to me, and I flinched.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.

  I sucked in my breath and tried to appear as if he didn’t rattle me.

  “I’m busy, Lloyd.”

  He peered at me. I held up my hand to shield myself. He looked ecstatic, with flushed cheeks and a smile that couldn’t contain his teeth. I attempted to walk around him, but he mirrored my steps and remained an obstacle, hopping in some sort of wild dance.

  “Leave me alone,” I said.

  “Why should I?”

  “I’ll scream.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I have to hand in these papers.”

  “I don’t like the way that Professor Wong looks at you.”

  “Get out of my way, Lloyd.”

  “Not until you cancel your appointment in Scranton.”

  “How do you know about that?” I hadn’t told anyone, not Serena, not Heather or Faye or Daiyu.

  “You just told me,” he said. He laughed up at the sky.

  I tried again to walk past him, but he moved with me and grabbed at my arms, which I pulled out of his grasp. “You disgust me, you know that?”

  I was aware of how ridiculous we looked, twisting as we did, in one direction and then the next, but I had to get away from him. I fought the impulse to lose control entirely.

  “It could be mine. What if it’s mine?” he taunted.

  That sent ice down my throat. And I forced myself to talk to him. “Listen to me, Lloyd. Lloyd Kang, are you listening to me?”

  He looked expectantly into my eyes. He was pleased with himself. “I’m all yours,” he said. “It could be mine, there’s a chance. You have to admit there’s a chance.”

  “We never came close to it, Lloyd. I love Jaesung.”

  “See? You think he’s still alive.” He smiled triumphantly.

  “Stop saying it could be yours.”

  “There was that one night, remember? You were drunk, my god, so drunk, and so sad. You were so sad and lonely. You said I should stay because you didn’t want to be alone. You were soft and warm, and it was such a cold night, no heat in the room, remember, and we even talked about how guilty we felt, you know, afterward, about Jaesung. You told me about your dad. It makes sense, but don’t worry, I’ll explain to Jaesung how it happened. I don’t love you, so that’s okay—you’re not my type, honestly. I need a much older woman, and he knows that. Miss Ahn on the tour, she liked me. Jaesung knew about that. So he’ll forgive us. We were trying to help him, and we didn’t mean any of it, just like that.”

  “It’s not yours in any way. It can’t be.”

  “Well, that clears it up. It said so in your file, but, then again, it’s an approximation. Since you’re nauseous, the baby doesn’t have the placenta to feed off of yet, so that could put you at six weeks, which might make me the father.”

  “Still wouldn’t work. Forget it. Do the math.”

  “You’re making me suffer, but that’s okay. That’s what you do. You made Jaesung suffer, and now you’re making me. I forgive you. Look, we could raise the baby here. Until we find Jaesung, of course. My parents would help us with money. My mother cried. I called her from Daiyu’s room, and she said she wants to help us raise this baby. I’ve never heard her as excited about anything before. I think this baby is going to change everything.” He opened his arms. “I’ve been thinking it over, and my plan would work. Of course, if the baby is Jaesung’s, I’d step aside. He’d want me to. But if it’s mine, then he’d have to step aside. And after all he’s been through, he might prefer if I raise the baby anyway. I’m better for this. He’s going to be a world leader, but I could be his adviser, part-time. Being a father is a full-time job. I’d make him understand, and even if it was his child, maybe he’d let me. I think he would. The more I think about it. He’d say, you’re the only one who didn’t give up on me. You can have this child.”

  I couldn’t hear any more of this. He was crazy.

  I hadn’t seen how delusional he was before. He wasn’t going to go away. Every few feet in this part of the quadrangle, there was a blue light on a lamp pole marking the emergency telephones. I was close to one. “I’m warning you.”

  “You mean, kill our baby.”

  “It’s not yours.”

  “So you admit it’s a baby?”

  “No, it’s not. It’s none of your business. I can’t.”

  “We have to be saved from
ourselves sometimes, Yoona.”

  “I’ll cancel my appointment in Scranton. I’m going home first.” The lie came as a desperate attempt to get away from him.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  I felt a surge of hysteria rising in me, and I ran, and he came after me. I saw, out of the side of my eyes, a pole with a blue light at the top, and I ran toward it. But before I got there, I saw a couple of students with blue T-shirts on standing near a building, so I changed direction and ran toward them. I could hear Lloyd behind me. I stopped in front of the pair.

  “What’s going on here?” the girl said.

  “He’s threatening me,” I answered, my hands on my knees. I bent forward to try to catch my breath.

  “I’m going to be the father to her baby,” he yelled out, and the smile on his face transformed it into something grotesque.

  “It doesn’t matter who you are if you’re trying to hurt her,” she said.

  “Yeah? You think I want to hurt my baby?” Lloyd lurched toward her.

  She stood her ground and stared at him, ignoring his stance.

  “Back up,” the boy said and took a step toward Lloyd. Lloyd seemed startled at his presence, as if he hadn’t registered another person had been there all along. The girl unclipped the walkie-talkie on her hip and requested backup. The sound of static and an official-sounding woman’s voice saying, “Situation?” seemed to startle Lloyd even more.

  “You’ll regret this. I know who you are,” he shouted at the girl. Then he raised a fist toward the boy and said, “You too.” The boy didn’t flinch, and Lloyd backed away, spinning around on his heels and running diagonally through the quad. Relief rose in tears to my eyes as he disappeared into the distance.

  “You okay?” the boy asked.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You should report him,” the girl said.

  96

  “You’re right. We have to save the baby,” I tell Lloyd and shake Faye off. Faye looks at me with hurt in her eyes.