Seolmeari and Sesangbit visit a photo booth to take something other than pictures of their food. They choose four shots to keep, but each sister has a different favorite.
I was scrolling through my photos, looking for a photo of my older sister, Sesangbit, and me. Three pictures of tteokbokki. Two of drinks. Then a photo of her hand, holding her chopsticks while she waited for me to photograph the plate.
After scrolling a while longer, I sent her a message.
‘What time are you free tomorrow?’
She replied a little later.
‘Around two. Why?’
‘Let's go take some pictures. Just us.’
‘What kind of pictures?’
‘Pictures of us. All we ever photograph is food.’
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘I'll pick.’
‘Okay.’
I put down my phone and opened my wardrobe.
The next day, I was the first one ready. I'd tried my hair up, then down, and ended up leaving it down, the way it had been to begin with. I messaged her to say I was ready, and heard her call from the other side of my bedroom door.
“So am I.”
When she came out into the entryway, she pointed at the top of my head.
“What?”
“Your hair clip.”
The claw clip I thought I'd taken out was still sitting on top of my head. I removed it and set it on the shoe cabinet. She checked the mirror and folded back a sleeve of her cardigan. The sleeves were uneven now, so she unfolded it.
“Are you just going to pose normally?”
“Yeah. I want one where I look good.”
“Isn't that a bit boring?”
“I'd like one normal picture.”
I looked at her, then tugged on my bag strap.
“All right. One.”
Inside the small self-service photo studio, hats and glasses hung along one wall. I picked a pair of yellow star-shaped glasses. In the mirror, they looked much bigger than my eyes.
She pointed to the booth with the gray background.
“This one looks better.”
“I want orange.”
“With yellow glasses?”
“Exactly.”
She looked from one booth to the other, then went into the orange one. I adjusted my glasses in the doorway. I was about to pick up a hat, too, when she called from inside.
“Meari? Where do the bags go?”
“There's a hook on the side.”
We hung up our bags and stood side by side in front of the screen. She looked at my face and laughed.
“I can't see your eyes.”
I lowered the glasses a little.
“How about now?”
“So they're for your nose, then?”
The glasses slid off the tip of my nose. I caught them, but now she was pressing her lips together, trying not to laugh. I saw her face on the screen and started laughing first.
“Wait. Don't start yet.”
“I haven't pressed anything.”
We'd been laughing for ages, and we hadn't taken a single picture.
We could take eight photos and choose four. While she read the instructions, I took off my glasses and put them on the shelf.
“Let's make the first one normal.”
“Okay.”
“But after that, I'm doing whatever I want.”
She moved half a step closer. Once I could see us both on the screen, I pressed the start button.
As the numbers counted down, I went to tuck my hair behind my ear and bumped her elbow. She was fixing her hair too.
“The other side—”
The first photo was taken. I was looking at her with my mouth open, and she had her eyes closed.
“Next one.”
She got into position right away. I lowered my hand and faced forward. This time, we both had our eyes open and smiled at the camera.
“Got it?”
“Yep.”
Before the third photo, I put the glasses on and held one hand under my chin. I told her to choose something to wear, too, but she shook her head.
“I'm fine like this.”
Beside me, she put a hand under her chin too. I'd meant for us to rest our fingertips lightly against our chins, but she propped hers on her fist.
Click.
“Are you sleepy?”
“Isn't this what you meant?”
I laughed, and the glasses slipped again. I scrunched up my nose, and my lips stuck out too. That was when the fourth photo was taken.
The glasses fell to the floor anyway.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I didn't step on them.”
Another photo was taken while I was picking them up and getting to my feet. This time, the back of my head filled the middle of the screen.
The remaining photos kept coming before we could get into position. When she told me to move over a little, I went too far. When I pulled her toward me, we both ended up crowded into one side of the frame. For the last photo, I just faced forward with the glasses in my hand. She stopped changing her pose, too.
When the session ended, all eight photos appeared at once.
I chose the second one first. It was the picture she'd wanted, with both our faces looking good. The last photo was nice, too. We were a little disheveled, but we were both smiling.
She pointed to the first one.
“Not that one.”
“The one with your eyes closed?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
I skipped the first photo. At the fourth, I stopped. The glasses were perched on the tip of my nose. My nose was scrunched up, and my lips were sticking out. Beside me, she was looking at me with her chin still resting on her fist.
It looked even stranger zoomed in. The glasses were sliding down anyway, and there I was with my lips sticking out.
I'd been laughing for a while when she leaned closer to the screen.
“You're okay with this one?”
“Yeah. I want it.”
“We can take them again.”
“No. I couldn't do that again if I tried.”
I stuck my lips out the same way. She shook her head.
“No. They were sticking out more.”
“How much more?”
“More than that.”
We laughed again in the cramped booth.
Once I'd added the photo of us both with our hands under our chins, all four spaces were filled. Us smiling at the camera, us propping up our chins, me about to lose my glasses, and us smiling at the end. We left out the back of my head.
Two identical four-photo strips came out. I hung the star-shaped glasses back on the wall, and we took one strip each. Outside the shop, she looked down at hers.
“I like the top one.”
It was the one where we were both smiling at the camera.
“I like this one.”
I pointed to the frame where my glasses were about to fall.
“I know.”
She tucked her strip inside her bag so it wouldn't get creased. I walked along holding mine. I kept looking at it instead of where I was going, so eventually I put mine in my bag, too.
Back home, I'd just downloaded the photo files when a message came in.
‘Send me the pictures.’
It was her. I sent the second photo first, the one where we both looked good.
‘Not that one. The one with all four together.’
I went back through the files I'd saved and sent it. A laughing sticker arrived a moment later.
I went to her room and poked my head around the door.
“Are you looking at it again?”
Instead of answering, she turned her phone toward me. My face filled the screen, lips sticking out.
“Don't zoom in on my face that much.”
“You picked it.”
I went back to my room and found the photo of her resting her chin on her fist. I zoomed in and sent it. I heard her laugh from the room next door.
The four-photo strip I'd just saved was now at the top of my camera roll. I added it to my favorites, then sent her the same laughing sticker she'd sent me.
