He promises to keep her updated, and he does. He keeps her updated on settling into Columbus, on moving into his new apartment and visiting his dad more often at the hospital. He fills her in on his translating jobs, the company in Korea at least understanding enough to allow him to work remote as long as he hits his deadlines. And he fills her in on the city itself, its comings and goings and which buildings he keeps revisiting and which eventually comprise his own "top buildings" list.
At first he tries texting her, but she stubbornly refuses to move on from her archaic flip phone and who can really type on those things in an efficient manner? Phone calls don't work, as she is moving halfway across the country and settling down into an ever-changing schedule of classes, extracurricular activities, and life. They finally settle on letters, the handwritten kind, the kind that takes days to send and receive but somehow make the act of tearing open an envelope that much sweeter.
It turns out that she's a prolific writer, someone who captures every detail of her life in their exchanges. She writes pages and pages about a new architect she recently learned about, or the classmates and friends that she's meeting, or how Eleanor brought up one day that she should intern over the summer at a firm in New York City. Her life is now going at a hundred miles an hour, full of new discoveries and people and experiences, she writes, and it's all because of him.
And he's happy, of course, that she's happy and fulfilled and finally pursuing what she wants in life. He's happy, but then looks around at his desk in a cramped little apartment in Columbus, Indiana, the temporary place that houses him but isn't home. He's just waiting for a man lying in the hospital to do something - anything - and he can't help but wish that he was somewhere else as well.
And she's happy, too. She's happy that she's finally able to learn more, to see more, beyond that town that she'd been in since the age of four. There is so much in the world to learn and see. She's building a life for herself here, something that could become a home. She's happy, but then she looks around at the people she surrounds herself with day in and day out and can't help but wish there was someone else there as well.
They continue writing their letters, interspersed with the occasional phone conversation when their schedules somehow miraculously line up. Winter passes, then spring. She doesn't come home for the holidays. Their conversations don't cease.
Somehow, despite all the people at school and close friends she's made, she still can't seem to truly be herself until she's speaking to him. Somehow, despite being essentially stuck in Columbus with no end in sight, he still knows just what to say to guide her in the right direction and provide her with the insight and perspective she's missing.
Their letters and conversations become one of the few thing he looks forward to in this mundane, repetitive new life: hospital by day, translating work by night. He allows himself a few times to revisit the sights they saw and conversations they had, continuously amazed by the depth and wisdom this 20-year-old whom he only really knew for a few weeks had. He remains in awe of her, when he reads her letters or hears her speak about her new learnings, of the passion she has for these topics and the never ending wonder she can find in everything. It makes him want to be passionate and wondrous too.
Eleanor visits periodically, although Casey never comes with her. It's not awkward between them anymore, just a warm familiarity of old friends coming together to reminisce and support each other. He knows that she loves his father, more than she had ever loved him - if she ever loved him at all - and respects this new, steady relationship that they've built with each other. It helps.
It's nine months after Casey leaves when Jin's dad dies. He had just started to resign himself to staying in Columbus for a long time when one early morning he receives a phone call from the hospital and all of a sudden it's all over. There's no showy, grieving funeral, no wandering ghosts. Just close to a year spent in Columbus, Indiana, and a lingering feeling of uncertainty. He knows what he needs to do to alleviate that feeling.
It's ten months after Casey leaves when Jin shows up on her doorstep, halfway across the country, with his suitcase and briefcase resting on her "Welcome" mat outside. She stares at him across the threshold, disbelief and wonder in her eyes; he stares back with the same. She launches herself into his arms, and he closes his eyes with a sigh.
It's been ten months since she was last there, and it finally feels like home.