Chapter 58.1

Chapter 58.1

Two months had already passed since Andre left. During this time, she had been pulling her hair out every time she saw this cryptic message. Using an English-Korean dictionary she hadn’t opened since high school to interpret the words was fine, but there was no context, no explanation. She couldn’t understand what Andre’s intention was in writing this.

Miran pouted her lips.

“He could have said ‘I miss you’, ‘I’ll definitely write’, ‘I love you too’. But ‘lost opportunity’? What does that even mean?”

Wrinkling her nose while glaring at the memo, she leaned back deeply into her chair and spun it around.

“I mean, it’s just a scribbled address on the back of a piece of paper. Am I the only one taking this seriously?”

Her gaze settled on the top drawer of her desk. Inside the drawer, locked with a key, was an envelope tucked between old diaries.

The envelope contained ten thousand dollars. In Korean won, it was nearly 8 million won. News reports said the average starting salary for college graduates was around 650,000 won, which meant this envelope held more than a year’s annual salary. It was an amount Miran had never touched in her life.

Suddenly, her heart sank with the thought of what if a thief broke in and stole the money without her knowing. Only after opening the drawer and confirming the envelope did Miran lean back in relief.

“He left such a large sum of money. I wonder if he’ll be okay.”

The day after Andre left, she went to the post office and found out that cash or checks couldn’t be sent via regular mail. The postal worker suggested that if she couldn’t hand it over directly, the safest and fastest method would be to transfer it to the recipient’s bank account. She went straight to the bank and checked the entire procedure.

Returning home, Miran wrote her first letter asking Andre for his account number.

The postal worker had mentioned that international mail from Seoul could take anywhere from three weeks to a month to reach New York.

If Andre had received her letter from two months ago last month and immediately sent a reply, it should be arriving in Korea about now. So for the past week, she had been checking the first-floor mailbox like a bear guarding its honey.

Since her first letter, Miran had been visiting the post office every two weeks. She wanted to write and send letters daily like a diary, but knowing Andre would find it burdensome, she had reduced it to twice a month.

Today was the day she would write her fifth letter.

Rummaging through a drawer full of miscellaneous items, Miran pulled out a laminated book marker from her high school days and spread it on the desk. Sophie Marceau was smiling coolly within the yellowed, faded vinyl coating.

Then she fanned out several new stationery sets she had recently purchased from Morning Glory. The pretty letter papers, carefully chosen with a fluttering heart, were wrapped in plastic and rustled softly.

“Which one will I choose? Ding-dong-dang!”

Her fingers finally settled on stationary. It was delicately adorned with her favorite beautiful, yellow freesia flower. She laid it neatly on the book’s cover and tapped her lips with the tip of her pencil.

Suddenly, she pulled out two books from the bookshelf. One was a poetry collection from the living room bookshelf, and the other was a New York travel guidebook. Inside the guidebook’s cover, a travel package advertisement clipped from the bottom of a newspaper was pinned with a paper clip.

“Complete Northeast US Tour – 10 days for 1,890,000 won”

“Northeast US Flight – 7 days for 1,390,000 won”

“New York Flight – Starting from 780,000 won”

“I’ll save up and definitely go to New York.”

Miran made this promise like a personal mantra.

She could now precisely point out the location of the United States on a globe. She could also find New York state, attached to the far right of the elephant-shaped US map. The place that once felt as distant as the moon now seemed just a little bit closer.

She had also learned that Andre’s address on 5th Avenue was located in Manhattan. The guidebook introduced it as the “Shopping Street”.