"Maybe we can get something to eat after the performance if you aren't busy," said Sang Huin.
"Maybe. They're probably ready to start." Sang Huin and the blind Saeng Seob returned to their seats.
Then, after the performance, he cornered him in the ambiguity of a "maybe" which a strong will could distort to affirmation. Such enthusiasm could not easily be negated especially if it came from an American and soon he was with the blind Seong Seob answering questions about his life in the US and eating some cold noodles in soup that was as flavorless as water. The meal tasted like a cold and bland version of Ramen noodles ("Ramyen" in Korean) but he was told that it was not Ramyen. He didn't like the food and yet his closed lips twitched up smilingly as if the opposite were true. Deferential deception seemed the most cordial solution. Through children observing it in his society in various forms it was passed down through the generations by imitation. And as humans had and in interactions proliferated these tactics of coexistence to the young that were successful enough to keep the species, so far, from self-destruction, what did he in his short life know that was a better substitute? In reinventing etiquette, it was hard to know if the new behavior was better or worse than the old one in the abstract. The only measurement would be the reaction of others. To eat and smile while hating what was being eaten and to succeed at it pleased him. It made him feel that he was a decent person. In that minute it picked him up on a wave of optimism that distracted the lonely, mundane, and stunted life that he chartered for himself. Sang Huin spoke frankly about why he had come to Korea. He had been so lost after his sister's death, his father's suicide, and the exacerbated disconnection from the robotic and perfunctory movements and rambling of his mother month after month. He had to break away and become acquainted with his heritage the way Seong Seob, as much as he was capable of, had to flee from the cousin and then him, as perverted as he was, to end those 20+ years of disparaged containment. Both had to chart independent lives exempt of family and without the possibility of ever having one; but really was that so bad - to be ungrounded and to float on winds of circumstance. In the right perspective it was liberation.
Sang Huin wondered what this name, Seng Seob, meant (not that he knew the meaning of his own) and why he was so excited to be with him. They agreed that they would just be together for an hour. That hour became two and then it was the rest of the evening. They drank soju, a mild equivalent of sake. Late into the evening Sang Huin had the waiter calculate the tab and then suggested that they continue drinking elsewhere. Both were drunk at this time and drunkenness was making them thirsty. He and Saeng Sob returned to the yogwam with a case of beer they purchased at a convenience store.
They slept together. Naked and awakening from sleep, Sang Huin listened to the breathing of his friend. For the first time since his sister's death he did not feel alone. Later on in the morning when the light began to shine into the room he continued his prose, every now and then looking at the presence that slept there as well as the imposition of his dog.
Book Two:
The Book of Gabriele and Sang Huin
"Thought is the idea of extension and extension the embodiment of thought"
—Baruch Spinzoa
"Mind+entity=truth Sensory perception+things=opinion" —Parmenides