Wrong surname, right audience

The waiting room smelled the same as every Chuseok I've sat through — old coats, barley tea, somebody's menthol patch. I knew four of the six faces by their hands, by how they hold their purses on their laps. The auntie in the lavender cardigan I know by the mole under her left eye. She used to tell my mother I had good cheekbones.

The nurse said Im-ssi three times and I stood there. I have a whole body trained to stand there — lobby posture, concierge posture, the posture where you do not flinch when someone is wrong about you in public. I used my hotel posture for a tetanus booster in Ansan.

She slid the paper across the counter. Someone else's birthdate. Someone else's blood type. The lavender auntie did not look away from me for the entire minute it took me to read it and slide it back. She was measuring something. I could feel her measuring. I walked out without the shot and felt her eyes between my shoulder blades the whole way down the corridor.

I keep thinking she already knew things about my family I never told her. And now she knows I was denied a shot I didn't even need, in front of her.

I sent the photo to Yerin tonight, encrypted, the screen going dark after. Tomorrow I bring a copy to Bae Yu-jin. I am collecting. People, pages, proofs. This is what my life looks like now and I hate how calm the word collecting sounds.