1995
The day I met her she left like the wind. I didn’t have enough time, or energy, to catch up with her. I remember, so very clearly, when she stared up at me and I looked into her eyes for the first time. She was writing something foreign in the mud that was still soft from that morning’s rain. When I asked her what she was writing she wouldn’t respond to me. I remember kneeling down, touching her frail shoulder, and asking her again. Yet she wouldn’t respond to me. There was a mischievous, unearthly smile that if she had looked up at me, would have lit up the entire stretch of road that we were both standing on.
“What are you doing?” I asked, kneeling down closer to her level.
“Writing,” she said. “I’ve written lots of things in the mud.”
“Why?” I asked, cocking my head. “Paper has to be better than mud!”
She looked up at me. It was then that I noticed how mature her eyes were for someone in such a young body. Sighing, she slumped her shoulders. I stood there hoping for a response from her, but never got one. It was like an invisible line was above both of us — and with her uttering a simple word, it would come down, collapsing at both our feet.
“Are you going to tell me?”
She shook her head. Instead, we both sat in silence. It was like she was breathing in the air, everything around her. She took a deep breath in and extended her hand out. I was expecting her small body to have hands of equal size, but they were not. They looked like artist’s hands. Or hands of an accomplished pianist.
“You have big hands.” I had to break the silence.
“Appa thinks so too,” she said. “I have his hands. Working hands. I wish I had eomma’s hands, though. They were the hands of a model. But I never met her.”
“Is she dead?”
She shook her head. “No. She left me. I don’t remember her. Maybe she’s a famous model in Seoul.”
“Then why do you wish you had her hands if you’ve never met her?”
“Because of the pictures appa showed me. You ask too many questions. I don’t even know you! Besides it’s time for me to go back home.”
Her eyes looked up at me and I could see the kind of longing in them that I would see in a drama. Except for the drama, this was reality. I was standing in front of a girl who, for being so young, possessed so much maturity in the way we looked at everything surrounding her. Though both of us were young, I wished that at that moment, I asked more about her. She had walked away from me too soon and I didn’t know when I would see her again.
“What’s your name?” I shouted across the distance.
She turned around and smiled as she shouted back, “Park Eun Ha!”
I walked away too and began making my way towards my home. I could see the picture in my mind. Eomma was in the kitchen getting the final preparations of our family dinner. My appa would be on the couch watching his news program and screaming his political disagreements at the television. It was like that almost every night with my family. Being the only child, my parents noticed when I was late. It was always a hot button topic at the dinner table when such things happened, so I made sure that my walking pace was fast so that I could make in on time. Walking faster turned into running, letting my mind melt into my surroundings. Soon, I was one with everything. The trees. The wind. The sun. The ground. My soul, in that moment, was gone from my body. The moist air smelled like after-rain. It was pure intoxication. But in one moment, it came crashing down, when that girl sneaked her way into my mind. Park Eun Ha.
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Several years later
Today was graduation day. The biggest day of my life. I had worked so hard to achieve one of the highest honors a university student could. I smiled to myself as I looked in the mirror. Today was the day I would finally become a man. I was going to get my degree and make something of myself.
“Hyun Soo…” A voice carried into my room. I turned around, noticing that I was staring at my mother.
“Eomma,” I said. “What is it?”
“I just… can’t believe that my son is growing up. It was just like yesterday you were an infant.”
She was right. I smiled to myself as I looked in the mirror. Today was the day I would finally become a man, at least to myself and my family. I took a deep breath in and prepared myself for the activities of the day. When I turned around and saw myself in the mirror on my door once more, I said goodbye. Goodbye to the kid that would sit for hours at the desk beside his bed. Goodbye to the kid who would watch Star Wars and drink a bottle of soju. Goodbye to the kid who laid for hours in bed, staring at the ceiling…wishing that a single breath would bring his father back. When the door shut behind me, everything in my past shut with it. The sunlight from the
As we proceeded to drive to the graduation site, I began to think about heavier things that had been weighing down on me for the past few years. When my first semester of college began, I received news that my father had stage IV pancreatic cancer and only had a matter of time before he was going to pass away to the spirit world. I didn’t want to think of the day of his death— today. I remember… the look in his eyes as he laid on his deathbed. He refused to die in the hospital. His last request burned into the deepest parts of my mind, shaking me to my core.
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Incheon
The windows had teardrops on the panes as I walked into my father’s room. I couldn’t bear to look at the emaciated figure on the bed. That man wasn’t my father. The cancer had stolen him from me. I couldn’t connect with him. He was already dead as he barely spoke a word. Usually when I would walk into a room, he was the first to speak and the one who had to have the last word. His abdomen was barely moving up and down. I had to check — several times, just to make sure.
“Abeoji,” I said. My voice was barely above a whisper and my gaze was still towards the window.
“Please,” he said, his hand trembling as he gently placed one over my own. “Open the window. I want to hear the rain before I die.”
“Yes, abeoji.”
I slowly walked away and opened the window. I stood there, still staring outside. In the distance, I saw a young boy with his father, walking hand in hand. The tears pricked my eyes and I grimaced. If only my father was well enough — that would have been him and I walking towards the lake to fish. I swallowed the large lump in my throat and turned around to face my father again. This time it was even harder. His breath was the sound of sandpaper rubbing against cement.
“Hyun Soo,” he said his voice weaker than ever before. “Get your mother…”
I ran out, but eomma was already standing in front of the door, her eyes an earthquake of sorrow.
“It’s appa…” I said, breathing heavily… “I think he’s…”
She nodded her head and walked in with me. My father was still breathing. A wave of relief swept over my body.
“Abeoji!” I dashed to the side of his bed and lost control. I rocked my body and sobbed like I was a newborn baby, longing for the touch and embrace of the strong man I put all of my trust in.
“Hyun Soo… I have one last request… This is for you…” He rasped, his eyes showing the pain of a man who had too much suffering.
“Yes abeoji. Please tell me.”
“G-Go to college. Be a successful man. Be the man you were always meant to be. Graduate at the top of your class and make your father proud.”
“Yes, abeoji.” I nodded, my voice resolute and firm. “I will. I will keep my promise.”
He smiled and expelled his last breath, his eyes closing. Somewhere else, they were taking their first opening as the day he was a newborn. He was taking his first breath in his new life. I wondered if he knew who I was. Here was his body without him in it… Where was he now? What did he look like? Was he in the room? I wished he was.
I looked up and as if my father was standing in front of me, I said, “I promise, abeoji. I will be the man you want me to be.”
“Lee Hyun Soo.”
My name was called. I walked across the stage and shook the hand of the president of the university. My handshake was firm, like a grown man’s. I couldn’t forget the rush that coursed through my veins. The happiness that I felt was bursting. It was all I could think about when I went back to sit down. Gone was the sad memory of my promise to my father. Instead, my father’s presence filled the auditorium with his ray of light.
Then I heard it. A name that was like music to my ears.
“Park Eun Ha.”
“Park Eun Ha,” I mouthed the words.
Could it have been the same Eun Ha that I had met with over the years and had lost contact with? She was at my university? How did I not know? And how… did she get into a school like this? It must have been another one of the same name. The last I heard from some of the locals, she was moving with her ailing grandmother to Busan. My best childhood friend whom I hadn’t seen in years.
But it was like time stopped altogether when Park Eun Ha walked on the stage to receive her diploma. My heart skipped a beat or two. It was Eun Ha. Of course, she had changed much in ten years, but I knew without a doubt that was her. She smiled with confidence as she shook the president’s hand. I followed her with my eyes, watching her walk off the stage and back towards her seat. She walked past me, not looking my way. Which was to be expected.
When the graduation ceremony was over, my mother found me and a few of my friends. She begged us to take pictures, but my mind was too preoccupied on finding Eun Ha. It had been too long.
“Hyun Soo!” My mother’s voice was stern.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing?”
One of my friends, Ahn Mi Ra, nudged me in the side and laughed.
“He’s looking for the love of his life… He must have seen her walking on the stage.”
Then she was there, standing near us with a group of girls.
“Eun Ha! Park Eun Ha!” I said, foregoing any of the honorifics that I had been raised to employ in society.
“Hello?” she said, her eyes becoming two narrow slits.
“It’s me! Lee Hyun Soo.”
Her face turned pale, her eyes widened. But after a moment, the Eun Ha I knew from years ago shone through and her eyes lit up. She smiled, her lips turning into a curve.
“How have you been?”
“Good. Halmeoni died a few years ago and I decided to come to university here. I didn’t know you were a student here. Funny…”
“Me either,” I said scratching my neck. “Do you want to have sushi some time? There’s a sushi place I think you would like.”
She nodded her head.
“Meet me at the Namsan Tower tonight at 8. We have too much to catch up on.”
I smiled. “I will.”
Even though I was looking forward to facing my future head on, today was also a reminder that the past was never going to leave me. I found myself even more glad that I had lived up to my promise because life had given me back Park Eun Ha. A piece of my past and perhaps even part of my entire future.
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A/N: I hope you enjoyed my long short story. I recently lost one of my grandmothers to stage IV pancreatic cancer, so it was very hard for me to write since I'm an avid fan of K-Dramas but do not understand Korean. I don't understand the honorifics 100% so please forgive me of any inaccuracies :) I hope you enjoyed my story.
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---Lexie
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