Chapter 1: The Autumn of 2000

It was a bright autumn day when I learned of my haraboji’s (*granpa in Korean) demise. Omma called me over my office direct line, I told her to use my mobile number but she’d never listen! requesting I immediately pack my bags and head down to our ancestral province for the funeral service and the whole shebang.

I didn’t want to argue, albeit I never really spent much time with haraboji…

So that’s what I did.

I took a leave of absence, from my Godamn demanding job as a sales head for a textile and sweater company, packed my bags and rushed to catch the next KTEX train to Jeonju. 

It didn’t much came as a shocker since the old man was already a year shy of eighty, and although he pretty much kept up with exercise and a healthy diet. Or so I’ve heard. I would think isn’t that a pretty much good age to finally retire from life, and leave it peacefully?

After all he was able to work fifty years in a rice paper mill company, climb up the ranks, raise five children, who now had children of their own, and even survived wars against the invasion of foreigners in the country.

I’d say he’d led a pretty fulfilling life.

Or so I’ve thought. 

It was in those days where the winter frost was slowly creeping up summer’s , the winds picking up chill, and the gingko leaves slowly falling off trees, leaving a very pungent but definitely unique air of fall that I saw her.

Right after opening our rickety and rusted iron gate, I came face to face with a little girl I haven’t seen before. From the back I could see that she was a girl of around five or six year of age, wearing a very simple but fitted little black dress, her hair coloured in a rare honey blond (do kids this age already colour their hair?!) holding what looks to be bellflower blossoms from haraboji’s backyard.

“AH!”

Huh? Suddenly she glanced my way and as her feline eyes stared at me, it seems that only one word was processed by my mind.

Who?

“Ah?”

But then after flashing me a surprisingly blushing face, the tiny tot quickly dashed to my left and left me dumbfounded, hands still carrying my brown duffle bag temporarily forgetting the tired weight in my arms, at what I just saw.

Ugh…

W-what was that?!

Don’t tell me this place is haunted with haraboji’s previous playmates?!

Some people in college (oh how the years have passed!) have previously told me that I have an evil eye able to sense these things…

I gulped, goose bumps forming on the expanse of my body.

Ha.ha. Of course not Kim Taeyeon! Are you mental?! That must’ve been my cousin Victoria’s daughter Tiffany!

Yeah… must be Tiffany… Ha.ha.ha. Dumbo Taeyeon getting frazzled over your niece.

I knocked on my head and lightly laughed over myself as I continued into my haraboji’s traditional Korean abode, still wondering however who that strange girl was really.

“Omma I’m here” I entered the kitchen and hugged my mom from the back as she prepares some ceremonial offerings for the dead. Packets of rice cakes, treats and traditional snacks littered the shiny wooden counter.

“Hmnn? Oh Taeyeon honey, you’re surprisingly early”

“Uh-huh, duhhhh… you told me to rush here didn’t- Oh… hehehe” I let go of my mom, flashed her nervous grin and took a sit at one of the matching seats in the nearby dining table. “So… the little girl I saw outside… is she Victoria’s?”

“No, that’s not Tiffany” my mother continued flipping through sticks of sticky rice cakes, finally finishing peeling the chestnuts and arranging the dried persimmons into fancy plates. 

Hmn? Then who? My sister Hyomin never had a stable boyfriend and certainly she hasn’t given birth as far as I know. Anyway wouldn’t that be far out?! I would’ve noticed her pregnancy…

On the other hand, all my cousins are either workaholic or late bloomers in the dating scene, so I never would expect a husband/wife much less a full grown child from them… and I’ve never heard of one of them being knocked or knocking someone up…

I mean even I, embarrassing to confess, in the love-dovey department too…

So who?

“Seriously… sigh, she is another predicament… what should we do about her?”

“Of all things, at a time like this…”

?

My mom kept muttering complains upon complain as she forms stacks of more sundries, dates, fruits and offerings to the dead.

Seriously enough with this buildup! Just tell me Omma who that girl is-

“Geez! Appa!”

Huh?

“Huh? Haraboji?”

“Tsk, ahhh, why can’t these rice cakes cook like they should?!”

“It’s so hard cooking in a kitchen that’s not yours…” Omma trails as she continues to flip the traditional snack in the skillet, adding a few dashes of sugar with each turn.

“Isn’t haraboji the one who died?” I asked pressing on the subject as to the relation between my grandfather and that little girl near the entrance of our house’s gate.

Cause as far as I’m concerned I’m in cloud ninety nine confused.

“Yes dear, what are you getting confused about?” my mom nonchalantly answers before adding.

“That little girl you saw, she is apparently Appa’s illegitimate daughter.”

“Eh?!”

EH?!

Did… did I just hear what I think my ears have heard?

…

…

WHAT?!

H-HA-HARABOJI’S ILLEGITIMATE CHILD?!

“W-Why didn’t Appa say anything about it?! Oh On top of that, we don’t have a single clue of his lover’s whereabouts…

Geez… Appa…

What should we say to the rest of the family?

I don’t even know if this is embarrassing or just shameful…” My mom said, finally breaking down as she twist the stove’s lever to a close, covering her face with her hands, probably feeling how painfully ridiculous this situation is. 

“…”

Well that certainly is a plot twist in our family’s history. It seems like haraboji, who died at the age of 79, whom we always thought was living alone, had been secretly keeping a lover.

And he even managed to make a child with her.

Woah… .

Not wanting to let the thick atmosphere in this kitchen linger, I just opted out to joke with my mom.

“So, Omma… that makes her your little sister then?! Nhahhaa

Which makes her my imo (maternal aunt in Korean)…?”

“TAEYEON! WHY CAN’T YOU BE SERIOUS AT TIMES LIKE THESE?!”

“YOU ARE ALREADY 25 YEARS OLD ACT LIKE IT!”

“OUCH!”

My mom hit me with a spatula in the head. Argh…

I was just trying to help lighten things up...

I mean, if it was my Appa who had the illegitimate child, or kept a lover, I’d probably feel the same way Omma does, but…

Well I guess haraboji’s’s old so his actions are understandable.

I could even congratulate him “Great job old man!”

Finally leaving my mom to her devices in the kitchen, I slowly went to haraboji’s temporary shrine in the main room of the house, before it gets transferred to the family cemetery, got on my knees, burned him three incense sticks and prayed.

My condolences…

In more ways than one.  

Ting*

And that officially heralded, unbeknownst to me, my first morning with the little girl in our family.

##########################

So that little girl, who apparently turned out to be my aunt, is named “Jessica”, I asked Omma why haraboji had to pick a hard to pronounce English name J-E-S-H-I-K-A when he himself didn’t really speak good English, but my mom just shrugged her shoulders because she didn’t know why either.

She however suggested I call her “Sooyeon” instead, cause apparently cool kids of the 21st century now had the option for one official Korean and English name for international purposes.

Yey for civilization…

And my y Englrish.

Sigh… language proficiency bitterness 101.

…

…

ANNNNYWAYS, and we’re back.

That girl Sooyeon, doesn’t talk much. She’s generally staring blankly out in the yard OR playing cat’s cradle. Something I never got to be good at when I was a kid having short and stubby fingers at that age.

OR when she’s not doing those two, she’d be found busy,

Following after my very steps…

Err…

When carrying the futons into and outside each room,

Helping mom out in the kitchen,

Feeding the cat,

Sitting at our veranda…

I’d find her trailing me religiously, like a shadow around the house.

…

…

When in the world did I buy a pint sized three dimensional shadow again?

Tell me?

Sigh…

I wanted to pull my highlighted hairs out and stick em to my nose so I’d suffocate to death.

Despair.

Nevertheless I just let it be, be calm and patient Taeyeon… , she’s just a child. And most of the times, kids do the most annoying things adults can think of unconsciously.

What I don’t understand however is that… I don’t exactly have the kind of looks that could make a little girl want to come near me. Yes, I do look young but after 25 years and all, it’s obvious to me, being baby-face just doesn’t cut it in attracting the female species. Especially since I’m pasty skinned and lacking well defined eyebrows making me look like an extraterrestrial juvenile. So as to why she, barely aged but definitely exuding an air of femininity, would just follow me around was a mystery to me.

This however is making me feel awkward.

Nonetheless…

The mystery was solved very quickly.

“EEEEEEK!”

“GYAAAHHHHHHH TAEC-GYU!!!!”

Taec-Taec gyu? Ugh… was this ajumma calling after my haraboji?

But…

“E-excuse me-”

BLAG!

At the mention of the two words, the poor lady stumbled on her back, throwing her coin purse in the process and hitting me square on the nose! OUCH! Rudolf alert! Damn it! I hope it clears up by the time I get back to work else I won’t hear the end of it from my colleagues!!!

“Ah-Ah Ouchhhh aigoo that hurts…” Feeling sorry for the permed ajumma however, I tried approaching her to help but she kept trembling and screaming at my face! “AHHHHH!!!” Ugh… wow new level of hate being felt here… Thankfully for ajumma though, the two other oldies she came with sort of cushioned her fall, and eventually helped her up to her feet.

“Calm down Changmi, she’s Taeyeon, Kim Taeyeon, Taecgyu’s granddaughter…”

“B-but really… The more I look at her, the more s-she seems to resemble him!”

 “… From head to toe, the statute, the midget height...”

YAH YAH!

“… really… “

Ugh if only they weren’t old and my haraboji’s friends to boot.

Nevertheless I just tried to let it be, be calm and patient Taeyeon~! They’re just oldies…. And most of the times, oldies do the most annoying things adults can think of unconsciously.

“Ugh are you okay ajumma? Want me to get you a futon to sit down on?”

“Hick… Hick… TAECGYU!!!! WAHHHHHHH HUHUHUH”

OUMF!

Err… Rest assure I spent the next few minutes hugging and consoling ajumma in my arms, her tears soiling and heavy lipstick staining my grey hoodie, leaving an inch thick smudged mark in the process,

sigh… We stayed in that position until she calmed down and smiled at me gratefully saying “Thank you so much dear, you’re really your grandfather’s kin”

After that little misunderstanding with three of haraboji’s old crew however, I finally got it.

It appears that I look JUST like haraboji when he was young. From my looks, to my physique, my resemblance to haraboji was uncanny. Like sibling dookongs in the same pod! Swear! I browsed through some old photos of haraboji and felt chills run down my spine… Brrr. I asked Omma, how that could be since I was obviously female, but she just said that my grandfather’s blood must run thickly through me.

My Omma and her snappy reasoning...

After hearing that however a light bulb quickly flashed through my brains understanding why Sooyeon must be so attached to me.

Simply put, she must’ve seen haraboji in me.

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Another thing I realized after spending a few days in the