The rain poured down from the morning on the second Tuesday of May.
I picked up the yellow long-handled umbrella propped next to the shoe cabinet.
The tip of the handle was a little scuffed and the fabric had faded slightly, but when opened it was still an umbrella that didn’t leak a single drop of rain.
A cat key ring about the size of a thumbnail dangled from the umbrella strap button.
A white cat with its tail curled into a circle.
It was the summer of my sophomore year in college.
On a rainy-season afternoon, I was waiting in front of the department lounge for the rain to stop.
I didn’t have an umbrella, and there were only ten minutes until my next class.
After pacing around anxiously, I went to the bathroom, and when I came back this umbrella was hanging from the department lounge door handle.
There was only one line on the Post-it stuck to the handle.
Take it.
I thought I might have seen someone’s back disappearing down the hall, running through the rain.
Someone crossing the field with a bag over their head.
But they were too far away, and the rain was too heavy.
I never found out who had left it there.
I posted on the department board and asked my classmates too, but the owner never showed up.
And so the umbrella, with nowhere to return to, somehow became mine.
For years, whenever it rained, it was always this umbrella.
*
In the first-floor lobby of the company, I was shaking off my umbrella in front of the umbrella stand when the footsteps behind me stopped.
It was Assistant Manager Jeongwon.
Holding a wet black umbrella, he was looking at the yellow umbrella in my hand.
“Good morning, Assistant Manager.”
There was no reply.
Assistant Manager Jeongwon’s gaze was still fixed on the umbrella.
“……That umbrella.”
“Pardon?”
“You still use it?”
Still? I tilted my head.
“Assistant Manager, do you know this umbrella?”
Only then did Assistant Manager Jeongwon look at me.
For a split second, he looked like he was about to say something.
Then he closed his mouth.
“……No. It’s an unusual color.”
Assistant Manager Jeongwon put away his own umbrella and walked toward the elevator first.
I slipped the yellow umbrella into the stand and watched his back.
A yellow long umbrella is an unusual color, I guess...
*
At lunchtime, the rain outside the cafeteria windows was getting heavier.
“But that umbrella looks really old. Isn’t it time to replace it?”
Hyunseo pointed at me with a spoon.
I told her the story I’d remembered that morning.
The department lounge door handle, the Post-it, the owner who never appeared.
“What? That’s totally like a drama.”
“Right? That’s why I can’t throw it away.”
“Wasn’t there any clue to find the owner?”
“All it had was that cat key ring on the strap. I don’t know whether the original owner put it on there or whether it was already attached when they bought the umbrella.”
“A cat, huh.”
Hyunseo muttered with her chin in her hand.
“Maybe that person liked you? If they left the umbrella, they’d have ended up getting soaked. You wouldn’t do that for just anybody.”
“Oh, come on. They were probably just a kind person.”
I laughed it off.
Back then, I really thought that.
*
Four in the afternoon.
I ran into Assistant Manager Jeongwon alone in the break room.
It was still raining outside the window.
Assistant Manager Jeongwon was standing by the window holding a cup, and I was pressing buttons in front of the coffee machine.
The sound of the machine running went on for a long time.
“About the umbrella.”
Assistant Manager Jeongwon spoke first.
“That umbrella from earlier. It looks old—doesn’t it bother you?”
“Ah, it is a bit worn. But I’m attached to it.”
I smiled as I took out my cup.
“Someone left it hanging on the department lounge door handle when I was in college. They even put a note on it telling people to take it. If it hadn’t been for that umbrella that day, I would’ve shown up to class completely drenched. So it’s my lucky umbrella.”
Assistant Manager Jeongwon said nothing.
I could see his fingers tightening around the cup.
“……I’m glad.”
It was the answer that came after a long pause.
Blowing on my cup, I asked,
“Have you ever done that, Assistant Manager? Given an umbrella to a stranger.”
Assistant Manager Jeongwon looked out the window.
The rain was running down the glass.
“……Yes.”
“Really? Did that person say thank you?”
“I don’t know. They probably didn’t even know who gave it to them.”
“Aw, what a shame. If they’d known it was you, they would’ve been super grateful.”
Assistant Manager Jeongwon turned to look at me.
His expression seemed somehow wistful.
“I hope so.”
Assistant Manager Jeongwon poured the rest of his coffee into the sink and rinsed the cup.
Then he looked back from the break room doorway.
“Yeoju…….”
I blinked.
“……Ms. Kim Yeoju. Check the email I sent earlier.”
“Ah, yes.”
Assistant Manager Jeongwon left just like that.
Only after the door closed did I realize what that had been.
Yeoju. Not Kim Yeoju, just Yeoju.
The email was just a shared meeting schedule, not something that needed checking at all.
*
By the time I was leaving work, the rain had stopped.
I went out of the company’s front entrance holding my umbrella.
Evening sunlight was spreading over the wet sidewalk blocks.
As I wound up the strap and fastened the button, I unconsciously looked back.
Assistant Manager Jeongwon was standing beyond the lobby glass door.
He wasn’t leaving even with his bag on; he was looking at the yellow umbrella in my hand.
Maybe he noticed I’d turned around, because Assistant Manager Jeongwon took out his phone and looked at the screen.
The screen was off.
I tilted my head and walked toward the subway station.
An unusual color, huh.
The voice asking, You still use it?
The face that went silent at the words lucky umbrella.
And the mouth that stopped after saying Yeoju.
I sat down on the subway seat and rested the umbrella on my lap.
The cat key ring on the strap caught on my fingertips.
A white cat with its tail curled into a circle, the paint chipped off here and there.
I slowly rubbed the cat’s head with my thumb.
I’d been seeing that face for years, but today it kept sticking in my mind.
