Jiyong

After dinner, I dig up the cell phone and call Seungri and mom.

“do you take care of mom?” I ask my little brother.

“Yes. I’m takin’ care of her.”

Loud pounding on my door reminds me that I lost the competition this afternoon. “It’s G.I. Joe time, Ji!” Sanghyun’s voice bellows through the door.
 

“Who is that?”
 

“The little kid who lives here. He reminds me of you sometimes.”
 

“He’s that good, huh?” Seungri says, then laughs. “How’s Seunghyun?”
 

“Seunghyun is good. He’s the same.”
 

“Ma said you got in trouble.”
 

“Yes, but everything will be fine.”
 

“I hope so. ’Cause she’s savin’ up to come there for the winter. If I’m good, she said I can come, too. Again a complete family, Ji. Won’t that be great?”

Yeah, it would be great if we could be a family again. A complete family to Seungri is the four of us—me, Mom, Seunghyun, and Seungri. Our dad was dead before Seungri could talk. I never want kids, because I’d never want to leave behind a wife struggling to put food in my kids’ mouths or
have my kids think a family is complete without me in the picture.

Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock. “You in there?” Sanghyun yells again, this time his voice coming through the bottom of my bedroom door. I can see his lips through the tiny space between the door and carpet. I should open the door with no warning and see the little kis scramble to his feet.

“It’ll be great if you and mom can come here. Let me talk to mom.”

“She’s not home. She’s at work.”

My heart wrenches. I don’t want her working, slaving away for almost no pay. I provided for the family when I was in America. Now I’m going to school while she’s working like a dog. It doesn’t feel right.
 

“Tell her I called. Don't forget” I say, knowing my little brother is so busy havin’ fun with his friends he’s likely to forget I even called.

“I won’t forget. I promise.”

 We hang up as Sanghyun pounds on the door again. “Stop poundin’, you’re givin’ me a headache,” I say as I open the door.

Sanghyun scrambles to his feet quicker than I’ve ever seen anyone move before in my life. If his swaying is any indication, I think he just got a head rush. Good.

“Sanghyun,” Park calls out as he walks by. “I told you not to bother Jiyong. Why aren’t  you in your room reading?”

“I wasn’t bothering Jiyong,” he says innocently. “He said he’d play G.I. Joe with me. Right, Ji?” He looks up at me.

“Right,” I say to Park. “Five minutes of G.I. Joe, then I’m done playing big brother.”

“Ten minutes,” Sanghyun shoots back.
 

“Three,” I shoot right back. Two can play this game, kid.
 

“No, no, no. Five’s fine.”
 

In his room, he pushes a doll in my hands. “Here!”
 

“Kid, I hate to break the news to you, but I don’t usually play with dolls.”
 

He looks offended as he huffs loudly. “G.I. Joe isn’t a doll. He’s a marine, like my daddy was.” he pulls out miniature plastic soldiers from a bucket and places them around the room. You’d think the kid was making a random mess, but I’ve got a feeling there’s a method to his madness. “Didn’t you have a G.I. Joe when you were a kid?”

I shake my head. I don’t remember having many toys . . . we pretty much played with sticks, rocks, and soccer balls. And the odd times Seunghyun would sneak into my mother’s dresser, we’d make up the craziest games with rocks inside her hose. A few times we cut the legs off and made slingshots. Other times we filled them with water balloons and whacked each other.

Top and I did get our butts bruised by mom a bunch of times for those incidents, but it didn’t matter. The punishments were worth