A Brush with Magic, page 7
“Stop,” said Yumi.
“Why?” asked Dodo.
“You can’t cross when that light is red.”
“Ugh, I forgot about human rules,” said Dodo. “So boring.”
“Yes,” said Yumi. “But it keeps us from getting run over.”
“Keeps you from getting run over,” said Dodo. “I’d be fine. Wow, are those cars? They’re so big and fast now! And so many of them! What’s that over there?”
Dodo pointed across the street at a covered entrance.
“It’s a subway station,” said Yumi.
“What’s a subway?” asked Dodo.
Yumi thought about how best to describe it to someone who had never heard of a subway before.
“It’s like having one of those buses underground,” she said. “But instead of running on streets they run through tunnels. So a station is like a bus stop.”
“A bus below the ground,” said Dodo. “You have to show me!”
“To be honest, I haven’t ridden the subway here yet either.”
“Then it will be a new adventure for both of us,” said Dodo cheerfully.
When the light turned green they ran across the intersection and down the steps into the subway station. It was the middle of the day and people streamed past them from all directions.
Yumi tightened her grip on Dodo’s hand. She had ridden subways when visiting San Francisco and New York, so she knew they needed to get passes somehow.
She tentatively led Dodo toward the machines in the center of the station that resembled the ones she had used in New York. They got in line for one.
“We need passes,” Yumi explained to Dodo.
“What’s that?”
“A kind of ticket,” said Yumi. “I think one of these machines will have them.”
The woman in front of them turned back and smiled. She was about the age of Yumi’s mother and held several shopping bags.
“Oh, you’re twins,” she said in Korean. “So cute.”
Yumi was confused for a second until she looked at Dodo and saw her mirrored self. Dodo didn’t hesitate and grinned while linking arms with Yumi.
“Yes,” said Dodo. “Identical.”
The woman laughed. “I can tell. I heard you talking about how to get subway passes. You need to get a T-money card. See, like mine.”
The woman showed them a plastic card the size of a credit card, bright yellow and with a cute cartoon character on it.
“You can get them at that machine over there and then you can fill it up with money at any of these other machines,” said the woman. “And it’s not just for the subway, you can use it for buses and taxis too.”
Dodo nodded her head as she pulled Yumi toward the card vending machine. Yumi bought them each a T-money card that they promptly filled up with enough money for several trips.
With the swipe of their cards, they finally made it to the subway platform. Yumi had never seen such a clean and organized subway station. And the tracks were blocked off with safety screen doors, something she had only seen with airport shuttles back home.
“Wow,” whispered Dodo. “All of this right under the streets where we were just walking.”
Just then a rumble announced the arrival of the subway. The people on the platform started to gather at the screen doors. A train rushed past and then slowed until the doors of the train matched those of the screen doors.
“Let’s get on this one,” said Dodo.
“Where are we going?” asked Yumi.
“We’ll figure it out as we go!”
Yumi wasn’t used to all this unplanned chaos.
“Sure,” she said with a laugh. “Why not?”
The doors opened and people rushed off of and onto the train. Yumi tried to hold her ground as she was bumped into, and then struggled to keep her balance as she was nudged forward by the crowd behind her to get into the car. Yumi and Dodo were lucky enough to get two seats next to each other.
“What should we do?” asked Yumi.
“What do you want to do?” asked Dodo. “For now, you know more than I do about all this.”
Yumi pulled out her phone to look up the subway map.
“What’s that?” asked Dodo loudly.
Yumi hushed Dodo and looked around. The man sitting across from them gave them a strange look.
Yumi said to Dodo in a low voice.
“It’s a phone.”
“A phone?” asked Dodo. “That doesn’t look like any phone I’ve seen. What is it connected to?” Dodo picked up the phone and turned it upside down.
“It’s new technology,” said Yumi. “You know computers?”
“Computers?” Dodo raised her eyebrows. “No, what’s that?”
Yumi bit her lip. How was she going to explain a smartphone to an ancient creature that didn’t even know what a computer was?
“Well, it’s hard to explain,” said Yumi. “But this works as a portable phone, and a computer, and basically everything else. You can talk to people through it, you can look things up, you can take photos and send messages.”
Dodo held the phone at arm’s length and studied it. “Wow, I didn’t think you humans were capable of ever mastering some magic of your own.”
Yumi shushed her. “Keep your voice down! And it’s not magic. It’s technology.”
“So how is this technology going to help us?” asked Dodo.
“Well, one of the things it has is a map,” said Yumi. “And we can look up information about places we might want to go to. See?”
Yumi took her phone back, opened up a browser, and searched for places to visit in Korea. She scrolled through various options on her phone.
There were so many things she wanted to do and so many places she wanted to see. It was so rare for her to be the one making the decisions. It was always either her parents or Minji. As the youngest, she usually just followed along. It felt nice to be able to do what she wanted to do for once.
Dodo peered at Yumi’s phone and pointed at an image.
“What about that?” she asked.
Yumi read the description. “Cheonggyecheon Stream.”
“That’s Cheonggyecheon?” Dodo exclaimed. “Wow, things have changed a lot since I was last here.”
“What do you mean?” asked Yumi.
“It did not look that clean and nice before,” said Dodo. “Not even close. Let’s go there. I want to check it out.”
Yumi nodded. She was glad to have a plan to follow now.
“We can get off here.” Yumi pointed at the subway map. “That’s only a few more stops.”
“Perfect!”
Within a few minutes they were at their stop. Yumi and Dodo ran out the doors and made their way up the steps. Yumi had forgotten how many steps they had gone down when they had entered the subway station, and it felt like an endless number going up. They were like fish swimming upstream against the crowds of people hurrying to the train. Finally, when the dull tile walls began to bounce with reflected sunlight from above, they knew they were close to the entrance.
When they came out of the subway station, Yumi was disoriented at first and stopped to take in the new environment. They were surrounded by numerous tall and modern buildings, so different from Harabujee’s neighborhood.
After getting her bearings, Yumi checked her phone for which direction to go.
“This way,” she said. She checked her phone again. “I think.”
She looked back and saw Dodo spinning in slow circles as she gazed up at the tall buildings around them.
“Wow,” said Dodo. “You humans have done a lot since I was last out.”
Yumi’s cheeks flushed at the people giving them weird looks, and she grabbed Dodo’s hand and dragged her down the street.
“When were you last out?” asked Yumi.
“Oh, a long time ago,” said Dodo. “Wow, look at that building!
They walked past a wide variety of people, from office workers in suits to tourists stopping to take photos of every little thing. At one point they were stopped in their tracks by a small white bunny that hopped by. People stopped to take pictures and pet it as its owner stood nearby watching like a proud father. It was a beautiful sunny day and it seemed like everyone in the city was outside.
It wasn’t long until they reached a large open plaza. Yumi immediately knew they had the right spot, as she recognized the giant red and blue sculpture shaped like a twisty horn that she had seen during her search on her phone earlier.
“This is it,” she said. “We’re here!”
They had made it to Cheonggyecheon Stream all by themselves!
While her parents weren’t super overprotective, they probably wouldn’t have let her go on the subway by herself. She also didn’t usually go to new places on her own. That was mostly because she never really felt the need to go exploring back home, but she felt different in Seoul.
Not only did she find an art store in Harabujee’s neighborhood on her own, she was out exploring in a big city. She was in a different country and navigating around a different language. Even though she was pretty fluent in Korean, she’d never had to use it so much outside of family. And she had done everything without Minji’s help too. She was pleasantly surprised that it turned out she could do plenty on her own without the help and guidance of her older sister. She could even have fun without Minji.
With this new feeling of pride, Yumi happily walked with Dodo into the plaza. As they approached the sculpture, the faint sound of rushing water hummed underneath the sounds of traffic and people talking.
Yumi turned away from the sculpture and toward the sound of water. Across the plaza, a set of stairs led down to the beginning of the stream, sprouting from an artificial waterfall and cutting through the city like a knife. The water was clear and sparkling, winking with reflected light from the bright sun. Trees and various plants and flowers decorated the upper street level, so the view looking up was one of greenery instead of just steel buildings. Tourists stopped to take photos, exclaiming over the beauty of the stream.
It felt like a spot of nature in the middle of a bustling city. While cars and buses zoomed past and people rushed on at street level, just several feet below was a hidden getaway. It reminded Yumi of Harabujee’s inner courtyard where he painted among trees and plants.
Yumi and Dodo hopped down the steps and onto a wide paved walkway that bordered the stream on both sides. Steps led down to the water where people sat. Workers ate their lunches and gossiped together, a break from the stuffy offices. Some of them even had their shoes off and dangled their feet in the water. There were also large stones that crossed the stream so that you could go to one side or the other. Kids hopped across the stones, laughing as they tried to balance themselves and not fall into the water.
“Wow,” said Dodo. “This is definitely not the Cheonggyecheon I remember.”
“What was it like back then?” asked Yumi.
“Well, none of these walkways and steps for sure,” said Dodo. “You have to remember that Korea wasn’t always so modern. It was just the stream. And the water here wasn’t clean at all. It was really polluted. I wouldn’t have wanted to put my feet in it, that’s for sure. There was just lots of sand and trash and some shacks along the waterway.”
Yumi gazed at the clean water and neat walkways and couldn’t picture it. It must have taken a long time to change all this.
“Korea went through a lot not that long ago,” said Dodo. “It struggled through Japanese occupation and a war that split it apart. Back then, when people were struggling just to survive, something like this would have been unimaginable. I’m surprised your harabujee hasn’t told you about all that?”
Yumi shook her head. She had never thought to ask Harabujee about the past. She had seen old photos in family albums, but she didn’t think about what else was going on in the country at the same time.
Yumi looked around and tried to picture the peaceful modern world as it once was, and she couldn’t.
“Come on,” said Dodo. “Let’s see what else has changed with Cheonggyecheon! It seems like the rest of the city will be as new to me as it is to you!”
Dodo grabbed Yumi’s hand and they skipped across the large stones dotted across the gurgling stream.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cheonggyecheon Stream
AS THEY SLOWED TO A WALK farther down the stream, Yumi looked around in awe, watching as the water changed from still to cascading over small rocks over and over again in a recurring pattern. The farther they walked the wilder the stream appeared and the rougher the trail became.
Instead of the smooth paved surfaces from earlier, they came across larger, more rugged stones. And instead of the manicured appearance near the plaza, the walkways were surrounded by grassy banks and trees. The roar of the waterfall and people talking faded as they walked on, replaced with the peaceful sounds of running water and rustling leaves. The wind that blew by the stream was cooler and more refreshing than it was up at street level, tainted by the fumes of cars and motorcycles.
“It’s so beautiful here,” Yumi whispered.
Dodo nodded. “I never thought I’d say this about Cheonggyecheon, but you’re right. It’s beautiful.”
“Look!”
Yumi pointed at a white bird that stood like a mini stork where the water rushed over the rocks.
The farther they had walked, the more wildlife they had spotted. At first it was just regular city birds and ducks, but this stork was more unique and elegant. It was the kind she would never see back home in the suburbs of Los Angeles, where ordinary small birds flitted about her backyard and the only water birds she saw were the usual seagulls on the beach.
Yumi loved this delightful balance of nature and city life that she had never experienced at this scale anywhere else. They could still see buildings and sculptures if they looked up to the street level. They just were a bit more removed, as if she were peeking through to a different world. Even in Central Park in New York, the line between nature and city was starker. Here, they were more intertwined.
Yumi and Dodo ran along the walkways and hopped across the stepping stones to cross sides. Eventually Yumi grew hot and tired and wanted to take a break.
“Let’s sit for a bit,” she said to Dodo. “We can rest our feet in the water.”
Yumi sat down on a rock bordering the stream and took off her shoes.
“I don’t know,” said Dodo. “I mean the water looks clean, but is it really clean? You wouldn’t be so quick to dip your feet in if you remembered Cheonggyecheon the way I do. It was so polluted and filled with trash.”
“It’s fine,” said Yumi. “You saw all the other people putting their feet in the water earlier. Parents were even letting kids go in it!”
Dodo crouched down and inspected the water.
“Okay,” she said.
Dodo sat down next to Yumi and together they dangled their legs over the edge of the rock and dipped their feet in the water. It was so cool and refreshing, it instantly revived their tired feet.
Yumi’s stomach growled loudly.
“Ugh, I’m so hungry,” she said. “I wish I’d remembered to bring some snacks.”
Her gaze wandered to the brush poking out of her bag and an idea started to form.
“Oh, wait,” she said as she pulled a piece of paper from the bag. “Can’t we draw something up? Let me get the brush.”
As soon as her fingers touched the handle of the brush, a tingle went up her arm like lightning. She shivered and adjusted her grip. A wave of possessiveness washed over her, and for a moment she didn’t want to do anything other than clutch the brush to her chest and never let it go.
Yumi shook her head to bring herself back to the present moment and set the paper on the ground. She got the brush ready to paint until she realized that she was missing something.
“Oh no,” she said, her shoulders dropping in disappointment. “I forgot to bring ink.”
“Eh, don’t worry,” said Dodo. “My brush doesn’t need ink. Just paint with it as if it’s already been dipped in ink. You’ll see.”
“Oh,” said Yumi. “Nice.”
She thought about what snacks to draw up. She figured it should be something Dodo would recognize. So instead of drawing some modern snacks, she decided to paint two apples and a pile of yakgwa, traditional honey cookies.
Yumi took a deep breath before starting. This would be her first time really using the brush. Her fingers tingled as she adjusted her grip on the handle. She tried her best to remember Harabujee’s advice as she drew up the food as best she could.
Even though she hadn’t used any ink, the brush floated across the paper as though it was saturated with just the perfect amount of ink. There were no splotches or rough transitions. It was like drawing with a really smooth pen but with varying levels of thickness as she turned her wrist and changed the angle.
“Look!” She proudly showed her painting to Dodo. “You can bring these to life for us to eat!”
“Yeah,” said Dodo. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“What do you mean?” asked Yumi.
“Here, I’ll show you.”
Dodo focused on the drawing, and the lines Yumi had painted slowly rose up above the paper. Yumi watched in fascination as bright red shot through the apples and a honey yellow crept over the cookies. When Dodo was done, their snacks sat atop the painting of them.
“Try it,” said Dodo.
Something about the way Dodo was grinning made Yumi hesitate. But her curiosity won out as usual, and she tentatively picked up a cookie. She took a tiny nibble from the edge.
She quickly spat it out.
“Blegh! What is that?”
