“Most people haven’t had the misfortune of meeting foolish, brave men,” I countered smoothly. “I grew up completely surrounded by them.”
Something shifted in Eun-ji’s compressed features. It wasn’t quite a smile. Her face didn’t seem to have the spare room for a real smile just yet. But the rigid lines softened.
“You’ll do,” she murmured.
I started the job that very afternoon. My grandmother had suffered from polio. Because of that, I had been lifting women who couldn’t walk since I was six years old. I knew the intimate, quiet routines of survival. Bathing, dressing, feeding, carefully braiding hair, and pushing heavy wheelchairs down dirt roads to church on Sunday mornings. My grandmother passed away when I was twenty-two. Her final words to me were a quiet command. You have strong hands. Use them to hold people up.
That was the real reason I took this job. I didn’t cross the world just for the paycheck. I took the job because I intimately understood what it meant to care for someone the rest of the world had decided to stop seeing.
It took less than a week for Eun-ji and me to find our rhythm. Our mornings were dedicated to Korean poetry. Eun-ji would read the verses aloud, translating the emotions for me, and with every stanza, I could hear the old professor’s voice steadily returning, scraping off the rust of three silent years.
The afternoons belonged to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I would sit by the massive window and read, and Eun-ji would fiercely argue with every single sentence. We fought about literature with the intense, crackling energy of two stubborn women who had been waiting their entire lives for someone actually worth arguing with.
“She writes like she is constantly arguing with the reader,” Eun-ji complained one afternoon, waving a thin hand at the book.
“That is because she is arguing,” I replied, not looking up from the page.
“About what?”
“About who actually gets the right to tell the story.”
Eun-ji went entirely still. She opened her dark eyes and looked at me. It was the look of one avid reader seeing another.
The hair braiding started midway through my second week. I was gently combing through Eun-ji’s hair after her morning wash. It was incredibly thin, stark white, and hopelessly tangled at the ends.
“I could braid this,” I offered quietly, my fingers hovering over the delicate strands. “Small braids. Kept close to the scalp. My grandmother always told me that braids made her feel exactly like a queen.”
Eun-ji let out a dry, raspy breath. “I am seventy-one years old.”
“My grandmother was eighty-three,” I countered smoothly.
A heavy silence stretched between us, thick with the weight of unsaid things. Finally, Eun-ji offered a barely perceptible nod. “Do it.”
I took my time, sectioning the fine white hair into small, neat cornrows. For an entire hour, the only sound in the room was the soft rustle of my hands working and our synchronized breathing. When I finally finished and held up the silver-backed hand mirror, Eun-ji reached up. Her trembling fingers traced the neat rows of hair like she was reading Braille.
“I look like a queen,” I murmured, watching her reflection.
“I was going to say ridiculous,” she shot back, though the harshness was entirely gone from her tone.
“Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Eun-ji laughed. It wasn’t her usual dry scoff. It was a full, real, resonant sound that bubbled up from deep within her chest. It filled the cavernous room like something wild that had been locked in a dark closet for years and had finally kicked the door completely off its hinges. Right as the sound peaked, I heard the distinct click of footsteps out in the marble hallway. Someone had been listening. Someone walking briskly away.
The jollof rice tradition began the following Tuesday. I took over a small corner of the massive, industrial penthouse kitchen right after Chef Lim packed up his pristine knives and left for the day. I chopped sharp onions, ripe tomatoes, sweet peppers, and fiery scotch bonnets. When the rich, heavily spiced scent permeated the air, I carried a steaming bowl into the east corridor.
“What on earth is this?” Eun-ji demanded, eyeing the bowl as I set the tray across her lap.
“Jollof rice,” I said, handing her a silver spoon.
“It is bright orange.”
“It is exactly supposed to be.”
Eun-ji leaned closer, taking a slow, tentative sniff. “It smells like it is already arguing with me.”
“In Nigeria, polite food is bad food,” I told her, pulling up my chair.
Eun-ji picked up the spoon and ate the entire bowl. It was her first full, unassisted meal in months. As she scraped the bottom of the dish, she looked up at me, her dark eyes clear and focused.
“Tuesdays,” she announced softly. “Every Tuesday.”
From that exact moment onward, Tuesday officially became jollof rice day. And in that small, quiet space between a Nigerian woman cooking and a Korean professor eating, a solid foundation was being meticulously laid down. It was something heavy and permanent that had absolutely nothing to do with food.
But not everything in the penthouse was warm. Eun-sara arrived every single day precisely at eleven-thirty in the morning. She was undeniably stunning, the pristine face of a massive lifestyle brand. She was Seoul’s undisputed It Girl. She breezed through the front doors carrying expensive bouquets of flowers, flashing blinding smiles, and immediately snapping perfectly lit photos with Eun-ji for her massive social media following.
“My beautiful Eomeoni,” Sara would coo, adjusting her designer handbag. “My absolute inspiration.”
I stood quietly in the corner and watched. Something was deeply, fundamentally wrong. Real warmth is inherently messy. It stumbles over its own words, it laughs at entirely the wrong time, and it rarely looks perfect on camera. Sara’s warmth was completely choreographed. Every single gesture, every sigh, every gentle pat on the shoulder landed exactly where it was supposed to for maximum effect. My grandmother used to warn me about people like that. When someone is too careful with their kindness, she would whisper, it usually means they are desperately trying to hide the exact opposite.
On my ninth day, I walked back toward the east corridor carrying a tray of afternoon tea. The heavy oak door to Eun-ji’s room was cracked slightly open. I stopped. I could hear Sara’s voice. It wasn’t the bright, musical tone she used for the cameras. It was low. A harsh, chilling whisper.