The sky had considerably darkened when Yunmi decided to stop wandering around. Running and walking, she worked to escape the gaping hole in her heart that came in result of the failure of her last audition and the mean words from the judge. She ran until she felt that there were no tears threatening to fall. She had ran until she could no longer feel anything.

When her legs finally decided to give up, her feet led her to a playground in the Mangwondong area. It was there she took a rest on the highest point in the playground, a combination playground structure with a roof, slides and a bridge attached.

Laying down with her legs slightly sticking out on the slides, Yunmi caught her breath from all the running that she did. In this quiet time that she took her rest, her thoughts and the reality of what was going to happen finally came back to her. In the midst of all the chaos in her head, she remembered her parents.

It’s been about three years since she came to Korea. It was hard but she gave it her all to come to this country. She remembered the arguments that she had with her parents to let her come all by herself. It wasn’t like she was one of those aspiring singers that ran away from her home to chase after her dreams. In this case, she guessed she was very lucky.

Her parents had supported her eventually with enough reasoning, despite the separation from them to such a faraway a place. But, they knew how important this was for her. This desire to make it as a singer did not come so sudden. From a young age, she had loved singing. She would sing in her free time and sing along to almost all the songs on the radio. As she grew longer, she tried to get more involved by becoming a song leader in her church and doing singing contests here and there. But for Yunmi, it just didn’t seem enough. She wanted a proper go at music.

The thing was, making it as a singer in America, especially as an Asian one, was almost nearly impossible. Yunmi wanted to give herself at least a tiny bit of a fraction of hope or chance. So, her next decision was to go back to her country where at least as a native of her country, she would have more luck. Hah, MUCH luck was that thought going for me, Yunmi snorted.

What ultimately allowed Yunmi’s parents to accept her decision and support her were due to two things: her aunt and the deal breaker. Yunmi’s aunt had been living in Seoul long before Yunmi’s parents had moved to America and had remained there, refusing to go with Yunmi’s parents in order to look after the “ancestral home” as her parents would say. She had provided Yunmi a place to stay during the given time period her parents had set with an open heart.

And the second thing being: the deal breaker. The thing that had really made her parent say “yes.”

There was an agreement between Yunmi and her parents. They would give her three years to try to be a trainee before she had to come back to America to give up her dream as a singer and study to become a nurse. They did not want her to go and graduate in Korea. Yunmi’s parents wanted her to graduate in America so that she could apply and have more chance to get into an American university. They were adamant that unless Yunmi could have a real sign/ proof that she can be debut as a singer in Korea, she could not live there forever with her aunt. She would eventually have to come back.

And now, it’s done. The reality at that moment was that she would have to go back to America. The audition that she went to sing for was the last company audition of the season and the next bout of audition dates were in the summer and by then, she would have to leave to America to prepare for her senior year.

The thought of going back to America and aiming for a job that she did not even want to do made the early sickening feel that she felt outside of the audition building come back. It felt like she was suffocating. She felt her chest give a painful tightening feeling at the thought of the unhappy life she would have doing something that she did not love for the rest of her life.

She just couldn’t do it. She loved music but what was she going to do now? Yunmi’s heart was so full of love for music that she felt like she was going to burst. How was she going to go back to America and pretend that a part of her was ripped apart from her and left in Korea?

Staring up at the sky, she tried to gain a sense of calm by focusing on the beautiful colors that came from the last rays of the sun illuminating the sky. Instructing herself to deep breathe deeply, she tried singing a song to calm herself down.

The rain wells up at my ankles

The tears I held back well up in my eyes, I cry

Yunmi gave a little sad laugh at the irony as she felt tightening up and her welling up with tears.

Wherever I go, my small rain cloud floats above me

I stand on my tip-toes and try to catch it

But I’m too short, it’s always above my fingers

She remembered singing this song during happier times with the thought that she would meet her Epik High sunbaes on the plane from America to Korea. And how appropriate this song seems to be now, not how Tablo had probably intended, but it was like her dreams were that small rain cloud, her always trying to catch it and the cloud always being out of reach.

The rain wells up at my ankles

The tears I held back well up in my eyes, I cry

You are the umbrella above my head

On nights when the cold rain falls on my shoulders

You have become a habit next to me

So I can’t live without alone in the rain

Without really realizing, Yunmi’s tears that she had held back for so long began to fall. Slowly streaming down her face, she wiped them with her sleeve and yet they kept coming. It was like her tears would not stop falling. The tears kept on coming and coming. Yunmi covered her eyes with her hands, halting mid song to let out a sob. She couldn’t hold it back anymore. She let her tears freely fall and tried to use her tears to release all these stabbing, stinging pain in her heart.

Yunmi sat up to hug her knees to her body. Her body rocked back and forth, trying to comfort herself. Relaxing from the constriction that came from her sobs, Yunmi worked to finish the song. It calmed her down in a way. There was just something about the feeling of making work in effort to sing that healed her. It allowed her to concentrate on the one thing that she could clearly feel or more particularly, want to feel among all the depressing thoughts and emotions in her heart and that was music.

Forever in the rain

Forever in the rain

Forever in the rain

Yunmi whispered the last words of the song, expecting the quiet hum of the area as the brightness of the sun disappeared when she suddenly heard someone clapping slowly.

Yunmi abruptly stood up and turned around in search of the spying stranger.

“Daebak! You got skills, girl. You really have a talent. Sajang-nim needs to hear this, you got to be part of the family.”

Ahhh, sorry for making it so depressing from the get-go. I swear it gets happier! and funnier! (maybe....) but happier for sure!

and omo, who could that be? 

xox MM