.twenty-nine

                                    

                                          
"I think I almost died last night." 
                          
Nayeon didn't look up from her book. "Aw, good for you, baby!" 
                          
Minho frowned. "Did you even hear what I said? I said I almost died last night." 
                          
His aunt dog-eared her page and moved her glasses from the bridge of her nose to the top of her head. "Nearly everybody here has almost died, whether they know it or not. It's almost a rite of passage," Nayeon said. "So I said 'good for you' because you almost died but you didn't."
                          
"How did you almost die, then?" 
                          
Nayeon thought for a moment. "Couple times. Barn collapsed on me once while I was hiding in the hay bales. If I was anywhere else I would've died, but I was surrounded on all sides." 
                          
Minho nodded solemnly. "That's really lucky. What about Jeongyeon?" 
                          
"I'll let her explain it herself." She turned over her shoulder and shouted for her wife, who came down the stairs quickly and took a seat. "I told Minho everybody's almost died," she explained, "He wants to hear your story." 
                          
Jeongyeon chuckled, shaking her head. "You ever play chicken, Minho?" He stared blankly, so Jeongyeon assumed not. "We used to play chicken down at the railroad track. You know, you stand on the tracks or right next to them, and you wait for a train to come and you see how close you can let it get before you have to jump to not get hit." Jeongyeon was clearly nostalgic about the dangerous game. "The track was at the bottom of a hill, and I liked to put things on the track to see them get flattened. And when I played chicken, it was jump straight across in front of the train." 
                          
"That sounds dangerous," Minho said, "Don't people die doing that?" 
                          
His aunts both nodded, and Jeongyeon continued her story. "I was gonna jump straight in front of the train and I was going to see if the train could break a rock I found. The train was coming in fast, and I was running late, so I was sprinting to get in front of it." She paused. "I jumped. My shirt caught on a tree branch and yanked me back, and my rock fell out of my hand. It rolled down the hill onto the track and got bumped up in the wheels. It shot out on the other side and put a hole in the fence from how fast it was launched." She made motions with her hands of a rock bouncing around, complete with sound effects. She finished, "So I could've died two ways. If I jumped, I would've got hit. If I jumped and somehow made it, I'd have got shot in the head with that rock." 
                          
This was strange. Minho didn't think people actually did this sort of thing. But it was so casual for his aunts. He wondered if Jisung had a story. Or Chan. Or Seungmin. Or any of the kids. 
                          
"Yeah, I got my life saved by hay, and Jeongyeon got hers saved by a tree," Nayeon concluded. "How about you, Minho? What happened? What saved you?" 
                          
Minho felt uneasy. His aunts both looked at him expectantly, probably hoping for an interesting story like theirs. "Jisung saved me," Minho mumbled, looking down at his hands. 
                          
"Say again?" 
                          
Minho sighed and repeated himself louder. "Jisung saved me. If Jisung hadn't been there, I never would've come home." 
                          
Jeongyeon's expression softened. "We're grateful he saved you," she crooned, "Is it okay if I ask what exactly he saved you from?" 
                          
Yikes. "Drowning." 
                          
Nayeon jumped in her seat. "Jisung said last summer that he had a bad feeling. Said he knew he needed to learn first aid." She continued, "So he did odd jobs around town and made himself enough money to go into the city and attend a class for it. He's certified for CPR."
                          
"I guess it paid off," Jeongyeon said, "Because Minho's still with us. And I couldn't be happier." She hugged him and patted his head.