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Starcraft, and best, she listened to him recite his favorite words from the dictionary and asked him how to use
nascent
and
numinous
in a sentence.
    The first time they kissed, Chanhee and Mark were in his room, Spartan clean the way he liked it. Library books (so he didn’t kill more trees) on one long shelf were organized by shape, color, subject. He allowed himself a few possessions. One puppet, one cape, one abacus, a ­life-size poster of all the U.S. presidents squeezed together, with the younger George Bush’s face whited out to make room for Mark’s head shot; one knapsack in case he ever had somewhere to go.
    “Why American presidents?” she asked. “You’re not American.”
    He said, “We
live
here.”
    She said gravely, “But will they let us stay?”
    “Someday,” he promised, “when I have a lot of hair on my chin, I’ll make lots of money, be made president, and I’ll marry you, and no one will ever make us leave.”
    She said, “What if you never grow hair?,” ungrateful for his generous gesture.
    “My father shaves twice a day,” he said. Which wasn’t entirely true.
    “You promise?” She puckered her lips and said fiercely, “Remember, you promised.”
    She was waiting for him to kiss her. The only girl he had ever kissed was his mother, and his mother was not a girl. He picked up his Burmese puppet and hugged it.
    She said, “Turn your face to me,” so he did.
    “Close your eyes, silly,” she said, so he did.
    A moment later, he felt her hair feathery against his lips full with the taste of blackberries, then he felt her lips. There was a summery dryness to them, as unsentimental and careful as she was.
    “Okeydokey!” he said, and wiped away the kiss.
    The day of their second kiss, it was August, the streets shimmered with heat, and being outside was a punishment. Chanhee’s house had a cool underground feeling, less like Los Angeles and more a ­long-lost world from the other side of the ocean. Her mother had brought that world with her in carved masks, silk scrolls of horned demons and men with titanic bellies, and celadon vases with tiny painted cranes, which made Mark want to get his markers and fillthe vast white spaces that the artist had neglected. The incense snaking through the hall was familiar, as was the smell of Chanhee’s shampoo and the tinning of drums and wailing songs he’d gotten used to, now even enjoyed.
    Once in her room, all frills and bright cushions, she said, “Well, future husband, we have to practice.”
    So they did. He was dizzy. She said they had done a better job than the first time. She brought icy cans of Coke from the kitchen, and though the evil company had used slave labor in Nazi Germany and murdered trade union leaders, Mark pretended it was delicious.
    They became energetic.
    “Can you do this?”
    After jumping to his favorite K–pop CD that he’d brought, she slid into the splits.
    For Chanhee, he pushed his legs apart as far as they would go. Which was not very far. Chanhee was pulling one of his legs, and he was holding on to her bedpost and groaning, when he heard his father’s voice.
    Chanhee rushed to the door and blocked it with her arms and legs in an
X
shape. She said, “We shouldn’t.”
    “Why’s my
appa
here?”
    She looked nervous, guilty.
    “I’m staying here,” she said, “the way I’m supposed to when Omma’s working.”
    Mark tickled her until she balled up on the floor, then left. What was his father doing? He wanted to know and he didn’t want to know.
    He pushed the door open.
    There was the shaman pacing, her pale face shimmering with sweat. “We invite you to come and enter me,” she said, her face raised to the ceiling. “Your little brother, Choecheol Ra, misses you.” His father was listening so intently, he didn’t notice Mark. She jumped violently as if possessed, and her ramie
hanbok
and headdress trembled. The few people present were shadows. An altar was loaded with candles, and swords