The sun edged up toward its noontime peak, its light hazy through the wooded ceiling of the forest. Sung-Ki wondered what he was missing at school — if his absence had even been noticed. He considered that it was possible that his class had been tasked today with taking their bowls to the industrial riverbanks, to pick corn kernels from the mud — and with that in mind, he found it hard to regret taking a day for himself. Still, the long walk uphill he was taking now was not what he would have chosen for his free day, given the option. The skin beneath his shirt was slick with sweat, and his head swam in the mounting heat. With increasing frequency, as he ambled clumsily over the occasional stone half his height with his hands, his vision was drowned in a fuliginous silver fog as dizziness took over, his blood flow laboring to keep up with the day’s unusual demands and failing at every other turn. With the straps digging into his shoulders, he wished he had thought sooner to find a place to leave his backpack for later retrieval. He wouldn’t chance it now — the hillside was all unknown, and the trees all looked too similar.
“It’s not much farther, now,” said Woo-Yung, still heaving his baseball in the air at every pause in his step, not at all obviously tired.
“I wish you’d told me how far this would be,” Sung-Ki protested. “I would’ve left my bag at home.”
“No, no, we’ll need it,” said the other, his meaning ambiguous. “Give it here, though, I’ll carry it.”
The lightened load was welcome, if too late to keep a creeping ache from setting in to Sung-Ki’s back. “How much farther?” he asked.
“We’re almost there. Trust me. You’ll be glad you came.”
It was hardly five minutes later that Woo-Yung halted his advance, slinging Sung-Ki’s bag onto the ground and spinning, eyes up, searching for something. Sung-Ki halted just below him, hands on his knees, unhappy. If this was the place, Sung-Ki thought, then he would have to seriously consider reevaluating his friendship with the older boy. There was nothing remarkable here to his eyes; the same brown trees, the same stony ground — not even a decent view of the city below. He felt a bead of perspiration form on the tip of his nose, and followed it with his eyes as it slipped and fell onto the ground between his feet.
Within the leafy detritus, something orange caught his eye.
“This is it,” said Woo-Yung. “We’re here.”
Sung-Ki knelt, not immediately responding, and gingerly brushed away the dirt and dust from the flesh of the rounded fruit, lifting it delicately from the earth between two fingers. It was small, small enough to fit fully in his dwarfish hand, and soft enough that even his wary grip was strong enough to make its skin give just a little, seeping pungent juice. A trio of ants darted across Sung-Ki’s fingers, and he gently shook them off.
“It’s an apricot,” he said.
“They’re all apricots,” Woo-Yung replied. And for a moment, Sung-Ki took the comment with confusion, looking first between his feet to see if he’d missed many more on the ground around him. Then he cast his eyes at Woo-Yung, and followed his pointing finger toward the nearby trees, up, up into their branches, into the leaves, high up near their very tops where dozens more were nestled, swaying by their stems in fruiting bloom.
Sung-Ki’s expression said more at that moment than any words could muster, and Woo-Yung leapt the distance between them with a grin on his face, clapping the young boy on the shoulder. “See? See? I told you you’d love it,” he said.
Though his mouth watered, Sung-Ki paused before taking a bite of the fruit in his palms, raising it first to Woo-Yung. The older boy leaned over and sank his teeth in, spurting juice upon his face and onto Sung-Ki’s hair. “Oh, god,” said Woo-Yung. “It’s so ripe.”
“I think it’s rotten,” said Sung-Ki, bringing the fruit to his lips for a bite of his own. Its innards were all goo, hardly the firm shapeliness he figured a fresh one, right off the vine would have.
“They might all be rotten,” said Woo-Yung, licking his lips and fingers. “Still, open your bag up. I’ll climb the tree and see.”
Sung-Ki darted up the rocks and grabbed his backpack, dumping out the heavy books inside it to make room for what he hoped would be a bounty large enough to fill up the entire space within. At the same moment, lean and slender Woo-Yung made an effortless leap up to one tree’s lowest branch, and the leaves rustled loudly at his touch. Sung-Ki looked up, and squinted, unsure if he could see any fruits in bloom immediately above him, where Woo-Yung would be able to reach.
But below the branches — that was different. His eyes open with renewed focus, Sung-Ki scanned the stony ground, its piles of brittle wood and dying leaves. As his gaze adjusted to the patterns of the forest floor, the fruits revealed themselves to him. One, two, two more — he dropped to his knees, and scooped them toward his bag, leaves and dirt and all. One squished entirely at his touch, so he balled it up and ate it there, on his knees, instead.
“I’ve got one,” said Woo-Yung. “Sung-Ki, I’ve found one, catch it.”
He looked up just in time to see the falling fruit before it hit him square between the eyes, and unlike the ones down on the ground, this one was firm, fresh, and painful. “Oops,” Woo-Yung said, a chuckle in his voice. Sung-Ki picked it up and took a spiteful bite out of it, intending to save the rest for the older boy — but the fruit tasted so delicious, that he devoured it down to the pit instead.
“Are there more, down there?” called Woo-Yung, advancing ever higher into the ceiling of the forest. “They must have all fallen… There were so many more on the lower branches, last time I was here.”
“There are some,” said Sung-Ki. “But they’re all soft, and old.”
“Get them anyway. I’m going to climb higher… There are dozens, higher up, but I can’t reach them yet.”
“Shake the branches,” Sung-Ki suggested, digging around for the squishy fruits already fallen. He looked around toward the other trees, wondering what was hidden in their branches, if anything. “Maybe you should climb another one,” he said. “I can’t tell if there are any others, any lower. But maybe.”
About Sarah Szabo
