“The old man’s dead?”

Sunny couldn’t believe her ears. Was that why he hadn’t been returning her letters recently? She felt slightly relieved for not going all the way down to see him only to be knocked off her feet at the news.

Her mother continued telling the story through the phone and Sunny just couldn’t sit still.

She couldn’t believe it. A man who she once thought was immortal passed away a month ago.

Her mother seemed devastated. Of course she was, the two were close since she was in her early teens and actually lived in his village for quite some time. Sunny had only met the old man once when she was a kid and her mom wanted to visit him. He lived way down south, approximately 5 hours away from where they lived. It was a lengthy trip and she had stayed for about a month in the summer time.

It was fun, more than fun actually. Every task, every chore came to her so easily. She happily weeded the fields, fed the animals and harvested what was finished. The old man called her the best worker he’d ever had and she was only 10 at the time.

After she left, they decided to exchange letters since she wouldn’t be coming over again any time soon. The letters went on, back and forth at least once a month.

It wasn’t until now when Sunny found out why her last letter wasn’t returned.

“Who’s going to take care of his farm now?” Sunny asked, her hands gripped her chair tightly. A part of her wanted to ask her mother if maybe she could do the job? She was fresh out of high school and was told that she could take a year off before going off to college.

“He has no family, so I don’t know,” her mother responded. Her words only made Sunny grip her chair tighter.

Her mother continued to rant about the poor animals and the poor village who relied so much on his farm. She ranted about how she wanted to go visit him soon but alas, it was too late. As her mother went on and on, Sunny’s itch to ask the question only got stronger until she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Hey mom?” she asked, her voice low and almost a whisper.

“Yes Soonkyu?”

“What if I took over the farm?”

Silence. Sunny sighed, just as she thought her mother was going to answer no. She always complained about how Sunny was too masculine, of course she would never let her become a farmer.

“Could you repeat that?” her mother finally said, “Sorry, I dropped something so I couldn’t hear you for a second.”

Sunny rolled her eyes and braced herself to repeat the question a second time.

“Mom, what if I took over the farm?”

Sunny didn’t even have time to pull the phone away from her ear as her mother shrieked in surprise.

“What?!”

The small girl shuddered as she tried to shake off her mother’s obnoxiously loud voice from her ear drums. She’s surprised she didn’t do deaf in the right ear.

“I’m serious mom, I can do it you know. And I want to do it, for the old man!”

Sunny subjected herself to an hour long lecture on the difficulties of farming. All things that Sunny knew beforehand. She learned a lot from the old man through their many letters and Sunny was even inspired to get a puppy from him since she craved the company of animals so much.

Her mother’s voice only became more and more shrill with each sentence, but her words didn’t discourage Sunny at all. If anything, they inspired her to take on the job even more.

“Are you done?” Sunny asked boredly when she heard her mother taking deep breaths.

“Are you really serious about this, Soonkyu?” her mother asked for the hundredth time since Sunny first asked.

Taking in a deep breath, Sunny exclaimed a long and exaggerated “Yes!” just so her mother would get the point.

Ever since hearing about his death near the beginning of their conversation the girl had thought about it. A life on the farm seemed somewhat ideal for Sunny. Living in the city always seemed too cramped for her. And no experience was even close to being as fun as that one summer on the old man’s farm. She was determined and she was ready.

“I can do this,” she repeated, nodding even though her mother couldn’t see.

“Alright then, love. I’ll talk to the mayor of the village and we can set things up.”