Yujun stretches out his hand to cup my face but, perhaps realizing the fragility of my emotions, lets his arm fall to his side.

“I . . . I’ll go first, then.” He knows, as always, that I need time alone. And I know he’ll sit in his car parked along the street and wait for me. This is how it will be for us. We will go to the same place of work—him on the fourteenth floor and me on the ninth where the marketing team is lodged. We will sit across the table from each other, within arm’s reach. We will be together, but not in the way that either of us wants.

I came to Seoul to find myself, and instead I found everything I could ever want—a family, a love, a life. Yet it’s not what I envisioned—that perfect life just out of my reach.

Not wanting Yujun to stay out too late or too long, I force myself to leave. There’s a car waiting for me at the top of the stairs. Yujun must’ve called for it the moment he got in his car. I keep my eyes straight in front of me, not allowing myself to look in Yujun’s direction for fear I’ll lose control of myself and dash to his car, demanding that we run away together. Each foot moves forward until I reach the taxi.

“Address?” the taxi driver asks when I climb into the back.

I mumble the Four Seasons Hotel low because my voice is hoarse from unshed tears, the syllables slurring together, and for once, I sound like a proper Korean. The man nods and pulls away.

None of the pretty skyline registers. There is only Yujun. And then he is joined by Wansu and Lee Jonghyung and Ellen and Pat and Kwon Hyeun and Ahn Sangki and Jules and Bomi. Korea is all of these people just as I am not one thing or the other. I am complicated and contradictory and I don’t know how all of it can coexist, but it has to because these versions are all me.

I lean my head against the window and let the tears fall, reciting the refrain of my heart over and over and over again. I love you. Saranghaeyo. I love you. Saranghaeyo. Saranghaeyo. Saranghaeyo.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When I first started writing, I never imagined that there would be a market for books like this, but the world changes and so do opportunities. These past few years have been a challenge from a writing standpoint and there were so many times during the course of this story that I looked at my keyboard and wondered what I was trying to attempt here. My fingers were forming words on my screen but I’d lost my ability to judge whether those words were good, whether they made sense. I’d really lost myself.

I don’t know who said this but you can never make anything great from a place of fear. It’s not a universal truth but it was a truth for me. I had been holding myself back. When you write about a culture not entirely your own, you stand the chance of misrepresenting that culture. The Korea that I’ve written about is one tiny viewpoint, as is the story of this one adoptee. This book is not intended to portray all adoptees or all Koreans. If I write another adoptee story, it will not have the same storyline or the same characters because no one story can portray all people. While there still exists a fear that I will make a mistake and offend someone through my portrayal, I did my best. I took creative license at some points to tell the story that made sense. I appreciate the reader’s understanding in those parts.