Chapter 2: The Basic Necessities

“Good?” Looking to my side I spotted Sooyeon, gracefully lifting her chopsticks, chewing down the simple breakfast of omurice, seaweed soup and kimchi.   

“Yup”

Satisfied with her response, and apparent appetite! Damn did I take in a six year old kid or a pig? Talk about burning holes down my wallet! Hehehe.. Just joking haraboji~ don’t go sending thunders down at me! Hearing nothing, I concluded that heaven’s wrath won’t rain down on my humble abode so I resumed eating my serving of the same dish.

“Humble” IS the appropriate term to describe my place. A two… okay let’s push it to two and a half- bedroom small apartment a few blocks from the green line in Mapo District, Seoul, my neighborhood isn’t what yuppies like me would consider a very hippie place like Hongdae or Myeongdong, nor was it full of life and extravagant like the ones in Gangnam and Appujeong but I got it cheap from an expat friend emigrating and it was near, relatively, roughly 12 stations away, from my workplace. So it was all good.

Speaking of workplace, I go back to my work-life imbalance tomorrow as it was the last day of my bereavement leave, so I was thinking maybe Sooyeon and I should go shopping today to get basic essentials like, I don’t know, a new pea pod bed set, jumpers, minion life-size rulers… Yeah! The one that measures your height? Was embarrassed to get one but damn, I really lusted for it. Oh… let’s see, what else?

My breakfast “date” then kept flagging her empty bowl at me effectively getting my attention.

“Hmn?

You want seconds?”

The little girl just nodded in response while resuming waving her bowl about.

Gosh… where do you stash those carbohydrates? Good to be young I guess.

Only…

“Umn, I’m sorry Sooyeon, there’s rice left over but there’s no more egg, soup nor side dishes”

We literally wiped everything clean… I don’t know if I’m going to be proud of that, or… scared.

On second thought, maybe we should drop by the grocery also?

“It’s o-kay, I’ll make a Jumokbab (a form of korean rice ball) with it.”

Huh?

The kid knows how to cook? Well how convenient.

“but even for jumokbab we don’t have any fillings…”

“Salt is okay!”

Salt? Is it okay to make rice balls with just salt?

I cringed at the idea.

Umn… Nevertheless, like many times in the past, the kid won me over.

“O-kay, here you go” I handed her the leftover rice and immediately using her small hands, she rounds them up to jawbreaker size, what mini jumokbabs!, (please note that jumokbabs are usually fist sized) and sprinkles them with some salt.

She then bites one to test her little eyes turning slightly turning into crescent slits, making me believe it actually turned out well.

Well good for you kid.

“Haraboji~ here for you! AHHHH” the proud kid says, pushing to feed me one and I melt on the inside over the gesture.

AWWWW No woman, except my omma…, has tried feeding me like this before! I guess I’m experiencing several of my first with living with the little girl as well.

Wait…

HARABOJI?!

“Hey! I’m not haraboji! Don’t call me that!”  Apparently haraboji, told Sooyeon to call her “haraboji” even if she was his daughter.

“Oops, sorry Taengoo.” She giggles slipping the food over my mouth as I pouted.

TAENGOO?! Where did-

“So? Good?”

…

…

IT WAS ING SALTY!!!!

My eyes bawled over the explosion of sodium on my mouth.

But I can’t tell the little kitten that right? With eyes hopeful like that I can’t shatter dreams! So instead I just forced myself to return a smile, a thumbs-up sign, while muttering “Yeah… good”

Seems Sooyeon needs A LOT of training in the kitchen before she should cook again, that was my ultimatum.

Hearing me praise her creation however, her lips turn upward, then she says “Oh good, I thought I put too much salt in Taengoo’s piece”

YOU DID! Now she tells me!

I cry.

…

…

Sigh…

Kids.

Forgive, Taeyeon, Forgive.

Forgive, Forgive, Forgive.

After chugging a whole glass of water to flush the saltiness out of my tongue, I lost no time, or more jumokbabs, and proposed the idea of shopping to Sooyeon receiving twinkling eyes in return.

Ugh… I sense something bad…

Should I be scared about this more?

That was the first meal I had with Sooyeon.

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Walking towards a nearby clothing outlet, Sooyeon tugged at my hoodie, have lots of them Huzzah! then held my hands, saying in an authoritative tone, “Hands, it’s not safe if we don’t hold hands”.

“Right…”

Somehow she’s saying it like I’m the one in danger.

Ugh… I’m supposed to be the older one right?

After that however, we slowly settled into a comfortable pace, making me relax and think back to the afternoon of haraboji’s funeral. The time when I snapped and was trying to take Sooyeon home with me…

Flashback:

Omma handed me Sooyeon’s clothes and belongings…

“Taeyeon, here take Sooyeon’s luggage.”

but it turned out to be just a small paper bag, that’s all.

“These are all that I could find in this house, I’ve included the Maternal and Child Health Handbook and some other important documents as well….

If you ever feel like you can’t manage. Just give me a call right away alright?!! Taeyeon-ah? YAH! Are you even listening?!”

“Yeah, Yeah I promise Omma…” 

“Aigo, until now I still can’t believe as rashly like that you took in the responsibility of raising a child! Seiously it’s not an easy task even if you are only filling in temporarily!!!”

Omma was nagging at me again for being impulsive, I do so sometimes especially on particularly big scenarios such as this, but I couldn’t blame her. I could tell she was worried as hell for me even if she didn’t particularly mention it.

“Umnn… but Omma, the one who has it harde