Sunlight was only just beginning to creep through the blinds onto the kitchen floor when Jiyong dragged his feet across the cold tile that morning, his eyes still nearly glued shut.

It was 7am – seven ing AM he thought – which gave him about three hours before he would even need to worry about Eunjung waking up.  She took after him in that.

Flipping the “on” switch on the coffee maker, he reached for the can of Folgers and wiped his eyes.  But it hardly helped, and he still had to squint just to make sure he hadn’t grabbed the peanut butter.  He sighed and the kitchen faucet, wetting his hands and vigorously rubbing his face in desperation.

“When was the last time I even saw 7am?” he thought.  The first drips landed inside the pot and sizzled on the hot glass.  “It must have been when Jungie had the flu,” he decided, grimacing at the memory of lost sleep and vomit.  More vomit than you would even think could fit in a four year old, but there you go.

He the radio mounted in the windowsill and spun the dial, looking for music.  But it was all talk radio in the morning so he settled on the weather.  Seemed like it was going to be unseasonably warm that day.  Good, maybe he wouldn’t be stuck inside all day with a gaggle of pre-schoolers loaded up on frosting and ice cream.

Jiyong opened a few cabinet doors before he found what he needed: one of his hidden stashes of birthday party supplies.  He pulled down a box of Funfetti cake mix, reading the ingredients needed and instructions for at least the third or fourth time.  Jiyong was no baker, but he wasn’t partial to half-assing things either.

He assembled the eggs, vegetable oil, non-stick spray and other equipment he needed and spread it out over the kitchen table, giving himself ample room.  But that was a mistake, and the array suddenly made a task as simple as baking cupcakes seem insurmountable.

“This family lives on take-out and Chef Boyardee…” Jiyong bit his lip.  “What was I thinking?”

Last year he had simply bought the damned cake, a fondant-laden masterwork that had set him back nearly $70.  And by the time Eunjung’s birthday rolled around, she didn’t even like the cartoon character that inspired the cake anymore.  So he swore never again.

What a bunch of bull.

But it was too late now, and he cracked an egg into the mixing bowl with a tired sigh.  Then another, then the oil, then the cake mix.  It was white, with flecks of rainbows.

And it only cost a $1.50.  That made him smile.

~~~~~

Seunghyun’s alarm clock had been beeping at near deafening levels for three minutes before he finally rolled over to face it with a groan.  He slapped carelessly around his nightstand before landing on the “off” button with the palm of his hand.  But he hit half a dozen other buttons too, and a chipper woman on the radio informed him that it was unseasonably warm for late March.

Sitting up against the pillows, he peered at the glowing red time display – 7am.  “Seven AM?  Why the hell did this go off at seven—“

“Daddy!!!”

Oh, that’s why.

“I’m up!” Seunghyun called in a deep voice down the hall to his daughter’s room.  It wasn’t long before soft footsteps reached his door and it opened with a creak.

Minhee stepped into the room fully dressed, save for her untied tennis shoes.  Her long black hair was combed and adorned with the same purple barrette as the doll in her hand.

“I must have the only five year old who can match her socks at the crack of dawn,” Seunghyun mumbled to himself.  “I don’t even think I could button a shirt until 4th grade.”

“Daddy are we ready to go yet,” Minhee asked, soft but impatient.

“Honey, the zoo doesn’t even open for another two hours,” Seunghyun whined, sounding more like the child than the parent.

The little girl sighed and leaned against the bed, her Disney Princess backpack exhaling with her as it was smooshed to the comforter.

Seunghyun tossed back his blankets and swung his legs over her head to place his feet on the floor, hunting for his slippers with his toes.  “Go back to your room and play for a bit, sweetheart.”  He stood and headed for the robe hanging from the back of his door.  “Daddy’ll make you some breakfast.”

“I already ate some cereal.”

He stopped with one arm halfway through the sleeve of the robe.  “Was it the cinnamon toast stuff?”

Minhee nodded and her father cocked an eyebrow.

“Did you save any for me?”

She rolled her eyes and left the room, headed back down the hall.

Seunghyun peaked around the doorway as he finished tying his cotton belt.  “The animals aren’t going anywhere you know, they’re all in cages!”  He heard quiet giggles in response, and that made him smile.

~~~~~

By the time 9:30am rolled around, Jiyong found himself ahead of schedule.  He had baked and iced two dozen cupcakes and stored them away in his least transparent tupperware, somewhere in the back of the fridge behind a head of cabbage and tub of yogurt.  Even the dishes were mostly done; he was rinsing off a wooden spoon when a knock at the door called him over.

“Chae?”

“Yeah!” a familiar voice answered on the other side.

He opened the door, expecting a blonde woman, but all he saw was a wrinkled hairy face coming straight for him.

“Take him, take him, take him!” Chaerin begged, and as soon as the pup was out of her hands, she darted for the bathroom.

“What’s the rush?”  Jiyong scratched the wriggling dog behind the ears to calm it.  Chae wasn’t much of a dog person, but who could resist such a cute little thing?

“Look in your hallway, and you tell me!” she yelled back over the running water. Sure enough, a small puddle of damp carpet remained right in front of his door. “Like a piss welcome mat, how quaint,” he thought.

Jiyong booped the pup lightly on the nose and told it “no!” but kissed its wrinkled head and set it on the floor, its nails clicking on the hardwood.  There would be time for stricter discipline later.

Chaerin reappeared, shaking her hands dry.  “That little bastard chewed up three of my best shoes last night, just so you know.”

“I’m sure they’re still on the clearance rack at the mall, don’t worry.”  Jiyong dodged an open fist coming for his ribs.  “I’ll pay you back, alright?  Let me go hop in the shower so we can get moving.” 

He left down the hall, and Chaerin planted herself on the couch.  She crossed her legs and tapped the end of her long high heel on Jiyong’s coffee table.

“So how did those you-know-what’s turn out?” she called after him.

“Great!” he bragged on himself from the doorway of the linen closet. “I was expecting them to taste like… S-H-I-T, you know?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just not curse in the first place, Mr. Father of the Year?”

Jiyong returned briefly to the living room to grab his phone.  “-Y-O-U!”

“You’re mature.”  Chaerin picked up the remote and flipped through the channels, but saw only a black screen asking for a pass code on most everything but the kids’ networks.  “Why is everything blocked on here?!”

“Yesterday I caught Eunjung watching Discovery Channel.”  Jiyong left the bathroom door cracked to continue the conversation and let out the steam.  “I don’t want her getting any ideas about stuff on there.”

“What, are you afraid she’s run away and become a crab fisherman?”

A shirt hit Chaerin in the back of the head unexpectedly.  Jiyong was standing behind her in a towel.  “She was watching something about pregnancy,” he explained.

Chae nodded.  “I guess that story about her hatching out of a meteorite would look pretty flimsy in the face of that, huh.”

“Not a meteorite!”  Jiyong returned to the bathroom and the water.  “It was an egg.”

“From space?

“From heaven!  She made up the space part.  All I said was it was a magic egg.”

“Oh it was magic alright,” Chaerin muttered, and found herself with her hand absentmindedly placed over her C-section scar.  “Magically horrific.”

“What’s magic Aunt Chae?”

Chaerin nearly screamed, lunging against the arm of the couch at the sound of the little girl’s voice.  “Where did you come from?!” She instantly regretted her phrasing.  “I mean, when did you get up?”

Eunjung sat down beside her, pulling her crossed legs under her.  Her pajama bottoms were white with green frogs’ faces, but the top was orange and yellow and teddy bears.  “I don’t know.”

“Of course not…”  Chaerin remembered suddenly why she was at Jiyong’s apartment this early in the first place.  “Hey, happy birthday, kiddo!”  She mussed Eunjung’s short black hair before being batted away.  “I brought you something!”

The child’s eyes lit up.  “Oh yeah?  What is it!”

Chaerin looked over the back of the couch, then scanned the living room.  “Uhhh, I guess a better question is where is—”

A slew of curse words and indistinguishable angry noises wafted out of the bathroom through the steam.  “CHAE! THE DOG IS IN THE BATHTUB!”

“It’s a dog?!” Eunjung leapt from the couch and flew down the hall before Chaerin could stop her, but Jiyong was already out.  He held his towel around his waist in one hand and the soaked puppy in another, making it impossible to stop his daughter from grabbing the latter from him.

“It’s so cuuute!” she squealed and squeezed while the poor dog struggled against her.  It broke free, making a mad dash for the kitchen, stumbling and sliding along the way.  “Thank you thank you thank you, Daddy!”

“You’re welcome, now go get a towel and dry him off.  If he stays wet too long his wrinkles get moldy, or something…”

Eunjung furrowed her brows, looking at Jiyong’s legs.  “Are you sure?”

“Not MY towel!”  Jiyong stepped to the side to let her through.  He noticed soapy water pooling at his feet as she skipped back past.

“Great, now I’m just as bad as the dog,” he thought.

~~~~~

The weather lady on the radio had been dead-on about unseasonable temperatures. Seunghyun had wrapped the both of them in heavy jackets and scarves before walking out the door, but they were off again before reaching their car parked on the street outside.

“Can we see the polar bears first?” Minhee asked as Seunghyun buckled her into her car seat.

“Let’s wait and see what Minji wants to do first, okay?” He kissed her forehead and began to climb back out of the backseat, but a small hand reaching for his face stopped him.

“But we don’t have much time,” she whispered, her tone serious and fearful.

“Baby, I know the polar icecaps are melting, but I think they’ll hold for a few more hours.”  He handed her her backpack and closed the door.

Before he made it around to the driver’s side, an older model hatchback turned the corner and paused in the street near them.  Minhee’s babysitter, a teenage girl in a hoodie and pleated skirt, hopped out of the passenger seat and finished some last minute conversation about money and calling home with the driver.  They and Seunghyun exchanged waves and the car sped off as quickly as it arrived.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Seunghyun greeted Minji with a teasing gleam in his eye.

“Can we drive through somewhere for coffee?” She sounded more exasperated than sleepy.  “Please?”

They loaded themselves in the front seat and Seunghyun started the engine.  The time on the dash read 9:42am.  “So the late nights have started already, then?”

Earlier that month, Minji had begun the first semester of her senior year, and her available hours for babysitting were cut drastically on anything but the weekends.  In the last three weeks, Seunghyun and Minhee had gone through a handful of new sitters, all of whom sang the little girl’s praises as a perfectly well-behaved child.  It was Minhee who couldn’t stand any of them.

Minji took hold of the little girl’s foot and shook it gently.  “How are you doing kid?  I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“I’m fine,” she answered, nonplussed.  Minji knew her charge well enough to know that she didn’t let her excitement show very often.

“Don’t let her fool you,” Seunghyun said as he to the main street at the end of their block.  “She’s missed you like crazy.”  He fiddled with the radio dials in search of music.  A glance in his rearview mirror at his daughter showed that she was already nodding off, lulled by the white noise and vibrations of the car.  It reminded him of drives around the block to put her to sleep as a baby. 

“I don’t think she slept a wink last night,” he told Minji.

“Is this the first time she’s been to the zoo?”

“Nah, I’ve taken her once before, but I don’t think she was old enough to remember it.”  He noticed Minji yawning and frowned at the thought that she might fall asleep on him too.  “What about you, when was the last time you went?” he continued.

“I don’t know, elementary school?”  She dug around in her purse for a moment and pulled out a small device covered in multicolored rhinestones.  Seunghyun couldn’t tell if it was her phone or mp3 player or both.  “Anyway, it’s been a while,” she went on.  “I probably wouldn’t have come if Daesung hadn’t given me his ticket.”

He chuckled. “He probably never wants to see a peacock again, after what it did to his souffle.”

The restaurant where Seunghyun and Minji’s older brother worked had hosted a gala for the Seoul Zoo in January.  The free tickets they handed out to chefs like he and Daesung and the wait staff were less a thanks and more of an apology after one of their drunken chairmen had left open a cage.  Or three.

“Daesung said they were cleaning fur out of the champagne fountain for days,” Minji said.

“Yeah,” Seunghyun smirked, “That’s what I call a hairy situation.”

But Minji had put in her earbuds and either didn’t hear the joke or just ignored it.  Not that that would stop him.

“I guess you could say it was a jungle in there,” he went on, still smiling to himself at his own cleverness.

“I’m sure it must have ruffled some feath—”

“Look out!”

Seunghyun slammed on the breaks at Minji’s outburst, stopping just inches from the car in front of him that was waiting at the red traffic light.  The car behind them was forced to do much the same, and they laid on the horn in a rage.

“Is everybody okay?!” Seunghyun asked, his eyes wide and arm extended into the backseat.  Minhee had woken from the force of the stop, but otherwise seemed fine.

“I’m alright,” Minji groaned, rubbing her forehead.  “You know I can drive if you need me to…”

Exhaling slowly, Seunghyun wondered if maybe he wouldn’t take her up on that on the ride home.

“Well, at least you don’t need that coffee now, eh?”