It must’ve rained overnight, because the air smelled of dust. After about ten minutes of walking, I went into a convenience store. I wasn’t hungry but wanted to buy something and ended up with seaweed snacks that had Korean idols on the packaging and a two-for-one deal on strawberry milk. Plastic bag in hand, I continued my walk on this aimless journey. Past a wall was a narrow path just wide enough for one person to pass. Right inside the alley was the hole to a sewer with rats running around below. I tried to walk without looking down until I came to some sliding doors. They were metal and had windows like the kind I used to see on old rice cake shops or general stores. When I walked inside, I realized that I was not inside a shop but in a small courtyard with houses on both sides, their sliding doors wide open without even a screen against mosquitoes, the inhabitants and their lives completely visible. I worried about the bugs they must get inside. Suddenly curious, and despite knowing this was very rude, I peered inside the houses. The people seemed too busy to take notice of me. A man washed his face in front of a basin, a woman next to him rinsed some vegetables, an old man sat on the floor and shucked corn, and another woman sat in front of her dressing table and frantically toweled her hair. At the end of the courtyard was a house with an old mattress in the middle of it. Two children, around four or five years old, were jumping up and down on it. Every squeak of the spring made a nearby cat with milky film over its eyes flinch. Think of the dust. My feet stopped of their own accord. Even though they couldn’t possibly reach it, the children stretched their hands out to the ceiling, trying to tap it with every jump. I remembered what Gyu-ho said to me once.

—I want to ride a bang-bang.

—You mean a bong-bong pogo stick?

—They called them bong-bongs in your neighborhood?

—Yeah, they call them bang-bangs in Jeju?

—I don’t know about the whole island, but it was bang-bang where I lived.

—You used to see them everywhere.