Blood Sisters by Kim Yideum

Author:Kim Yideum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Published: 2019-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

8. Galaxy Express 999 is an animated sci-fi series broadcast in Korea during the 1980s. The series follows an orphan boy traveling to the Andromeda galaxy on a space-train called the Galaxy Express 999. He runs into Maetel, a woman who looks exactly like his dead mother.

Hey Hey Hey

“How are you? Isn’t it nice to be out of the hospital? Congratulations!”Jihyun seems elated as if he were the one who just got released.

I take a step back like a piece of glass was kicked up into my face. “The sun feels super bright.”

“It feels good though, right?” Jihyun touches my face, and lightly hugs me.

“Yes.” Deep breath. The air is fresher out here. The wind is blowing.

“The wind is rising. We must try to live.” Jimin said on one windy day.

“That was pretty, Sunbe, what you just said.” I watched Jimin’s face, feeling full of love and admiration for her. She seemed embarrassed at the sight of my enthusiasm and curtly replied, “That’s from a Paul Valéry poem. I can’t take credit for that.”

“Regardless, I like it.”

Regardless, the wind is rising. Ah, I want to live, I’m going mad with the desire to live madly. When I push open the door to exit the hospital, I’m no longer the same me from yesterday. The wind blows away those tangled threads of thoughts that I had woven, unwoven, and woven again, and while I’m absorbing my surroundings a sleek black car pulls into the hospital’s gate, so close that it almost hit me, and comes to a stop. A man exits the driver’s side, and walks around to open the rear door—shiny high heels emerge first, then black stockinged legs, then a violet skirt—a woman in a fancy outfit gets out.

“Oh? Jihyun! So good to see you. How are you do—” The woman pauses midsentence and scans me.

“Oh, hi Yuna.” Jihyun replies, “What brings you here? Are you feeling sick?”

“No,” she laughs, “I’m fine. Just visiting my cousin. Good to see you. Let’s grab coffee sometime.”

“Yes, let’s.” Jihyun opens the door for the woman as she brings her fist to her ear, her thumb and her pinky extended, gesturing him to call her sometime. She unfurls her hand and waves before she enters.

“Who’s that?”

“Someone I had a blind date with last year.”

“She’s so pretty. Is she Miss Korea or something?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Whoa.”

I notice a man holding a cigarette in his lips. He lifts his chin in my direction, and a man next to him crumples a paper cup in his hand and throws it to the ground. They watch me intently. I feel paranoid. Maybe they were just checking out the woman who went into the hospital. Today, I coach myself, I’m not going to try predicting the future. Not gonna try anything stupid. Please. The wind is rising today.

Jihyun holds my hand with one of his and pulls my suitcase with the other, guiding me to the parking lot. Early in the morning he arrived at the hospital, pulled out all the stuff I’d been keeping in paper bags, and transferred them gently into the suitcase.

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