“I’m a good listener,” he reminds me.

I drop the beer onto the bench and lean my head back. There aren’t many visible stars so it’s hard to say whether the inky-dark river is reflecting the sky or whether it’s the other way around. “I’m adopted, you know.”

“Yes, you mentioned it before.”

“I came here to look for my birth parents.”

“Yes.”

I stop and twist around to stare at Yujun. “Yes? What do you mean by yes?”

“Your English is too perfect and you had no family to visit here. The pieces fit together.” He interlocks his fingers.

“What do you mean my English is too perfect?”

“Most Koreans who learn English have an accent, and even second-generation Korean Americans speak with a slight one because their parents or grandparents speak it at home. Your English is the kind that is uninfluenced by a non-native speaker. And Westerners generally don’t come here if they don’t have family. That’s changing a lot lately, but I had a feeling.” He shrugs, almost apologetic for his accuracy. “One other thing: My eomma works with adoptees. Or, not directly; she gives money to a foundation that is working to normalize it here.”

Normalize it. “Because it’s looked down on, right?”

He hesitates and then gives a terse nod.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“You didn’t seem to want to share.” He grimaces. “There is a stigma attached to it. Blood is very important to us culturally. We believe that people born in a certain year have certain characteristics. We believe that people with a certain blood type act a certain way. These beliefs are embedded in our culture like the mountains that surround us and, I suppose, an earthquake can make great changes. Until then, we can chip at its base.”

The thought that my adoptive status is an impediment the size of a mountain isn’t a comfortable one, but hadn’t I experienced some of that idiot-ology back home? From kids taunting me that I wasn’t wanted to grown adults saying I wasn’t a real child of Pat’s?

“It’s not just here,” I admit. “Back home, I once had someone tell me that they would never adopt because you never know what you’re going to get.”

He slides a hand over mine. “People will always be a surprise to others—no matter the circumstances of their birth.”

The river is so still in the early summer night that it looks like black glass. I can almost see my insecurities rippling on the surface next to the reflected neon lights of the buildings looming along the shore. “When I first came here, I would get asked why I wanted to find my biological parents, and I didn’t have any answer, but it wasn’t because I didn’t know. Rather I didn’t want to admit the reason. It’s dumb.”

“I do not believe that.”

Of course he doesn’t, but the world isn’t full of Yujuns, and I don’t know if he fully understands, but he wants to hear me. And isn’t that all I’ve ever longed for myself? To be heard and to be understood?