He feels truly sad today and isn’t worried about sparing Soon his pain. His friend killed himself, he repeats, and now he uses his friend’s clothes when he has nothing to wear. In the past, when he brought his clothes to the cleaners, he didn’t leave the house until he got the call letting him know he could pick them up. You can’t go out in public looking like this, he says; no man should ever wear jeans! But things are different now. I can’t miss seeing you just because of this, right?, he says, pointing to his clothes. No, of course not, replies Soon, though it’s true that she prefers him in his suit: in a suit, he’s a distinguished and even mysterious old man, a man of decadent elegance. Like this, he just looks like a poor old man, almost a bum.

Soon never liked to go to school. When she was little, her father rewarded her with candy if she walked the whole way there without complaining. If she also smiled and looked happy—that is, if she faked it—she could get two candies. Candy as bait: she liked the lemon ones with a soft filling, sweet but also slightly tangy. They were big and you sucked on them for several minutes until your tongue filled, suddenly, with an explosion of flavor and a strange, viscous effervescence. Her mother said they weren’t healthy—too much sugar in that candy!—and that’s why her father gave them to her on the sly, though now she thinks all that secrecy was something the two of them planned to make it more exciting—extra motivation for Soon. But what happened was that she ended up despising those candies. She associated their taste with the forced walk, with the kids standing on corners with backpacks, waiting for each other, looking at her from above or below, never head on. She especially hated having to walk past a group of kids. She still hates that.