Chapter 3

The next weekend though Eunsook tried again. “Dad, I was thinking.”

“Well, don’t hurt yourself Sookie.” He chuckled

She sighed “Dad” while rolling her eyes; Minho snickered. She shot her husband a look.

“What? Your Appa is funny.”

Jinki patted his shoulder. “Such a great son in law”

“ANYWAYS, What I was going to say was. Would you like to sign up for the senior center? Hang out, make some new friends? I heard Mr. Kim goes there to play checkers. Isn’t Mr. Kim one of your friends from work? You haven’t hung out in a while. You need to socialize more dad. Gwiboon and us can’t be your only fri..”

Jinki interrupted her. “pfft. Jonghyun. I call him on the phone once in a while. Dude is old. I don’t want to hang out with old people. And, no, before you ask, we’ve talked about this before Sookie, I am not going to hang out with them old ladies either. They are so old, one lady coughed and I swear I saw dust come out of .”

Minho had lost it, he was laughing so hard at his father in laws words, tears of laughter were streaming down his face. “Shut up Minho” she shot him a look.

“Sorry baby” He tried to stop laughing but couldn’t’ so he gave up trying and left the room.

Eunsook returned her attention to her father “um dad, hate to break it to you but you’re ..”

“I’m not old. And Jonghyun cheats at checkers and any other game.”

“Well, they’re not old either then dad. But I wasn’t saying anything about dating, like we discussed. I’m over that. I just think maybe I could invite Mr. Kim over?”

Minho came back still with a chuckle in his throat. “Sook, Dad is right. What he needs is fresh air, no old farts. How ‘bout just you and me hang out? What do you think dad? Grab some beers, go down to the park and go taunt teenagers.”

Jinki laughed and Minho was quick “Ok it’s a deal, you didn’t say no.”

 “Minho be nice. But yes, I think it’s a good idea for you to get out of the house dad, that was all I was sayin’. It will be fun. Maybe go down to a bar, gets some drinks and pizza, catch a movie. AND do not taunt teenagers.”

Jinki piped up “I had a busy day planned though.”

“Like what?” They asked

“I was going to make paper airplanes with Gwiboon today.”

“Aw, come on dad. Beers, I’m paying.” Minho whispered into Jinki’s ear… “And steak, what sookie and the doctor don’t know what kill them.”

“Might kill me though.” Jinki chuckled.

“naw, not you. You’re too tough to go down by steak. And if you do die of bad diet what an awesome way to go.”

Jinki laughed and whispered back. “I swear if Eunsook makes me eat one more damn salad.” They both cracked up.

“What are you guys discussing?” Eunsook folder her arms and taped her foot.

“Nothing, guy stuff.” Minho shrugged.

With another roll of her eyes she said. “You two are going to be the death of me. Well, this works out well. I didn’t mean today but this will work out perfect. I wanted to get this house cleaned anyways and it will be easier if you “boys” weren’t here. BoonBoon will help me out. You two just shooo and have fun.” She waved her hand for them to start going. Her father was in a good mood and all of a sudden he felt up to it; he walked to the front door to put on his shoes and yelled for Gwiboon to come give him a goodbye kiss. Eunsook kissed her husband “Take care of my dad. I love you both.” She met her dad at the door and kissed her father’s cheek “be good dad, love you.” Eunsook “beeped” his nose before ushering them out. A playful habit she got from her father and can never break… pretty sure Gwiboon won’t be able to break it either being raised by Jinki. She picked up Gwiboon, sitting her on her hip as they waved goodbye to the pair walking down the street.

……………

While Jinki and his son in law were taking a stroll through the mall making fun of the way kids dress today Eunsook was busy cleaning house. Gwiboon fell asleep wearing a long bath towel wrapped around her as a cape. She was a super hero today. Super power: mama’s little helper. Followed mom around all afternoon with the broom before wondering off and began playing with things instead.  After mopping the kitchen floor Eunsook went to the living room and found Gwiboon had fallen asleep on the floor near grandpa’s chair.

Eunsook carefully pealed Gwiboon’s fingers from the broom handle she was still holding then took off her “cape” so she wouldn’t get tangled and choke in her sleep. She carried her over to the couch for nap time. After leaning down and kissing her little forehead she looked up and her eyes landed on her mother’s photo. She sighed softly and whispered “I miss you too, umma. I’ll make dad happy; I promise.” 

She sat there a moment; she chuckled at the huge mess Gwiboon made in the living room while “helping” her clean. She saw the dustpan had been knocked over and dirt was all over the floor again and how did a candy wrapper get in Grandpa’s chair? She looked back down, she saw a tiny bit of chocolate on her daughter’s cheek. “Sneaky ” She her thumb and removed the chocolate from her chubby little cheek just like her mother use to do to her when she was a girl; she giggled. She looked back up to her mom’s picture “oh god, I’ve turned into you.” She went over to the picture. “It’s cool, I’m honored to have turned out like you, umma.” She kissed her mother’s smiling image. Then suddenly Eunsook got an idea and ran up stairs, taking the photo with her.

…………

Eunsook was sitting in her father’s room rummaging through old photo albums. A surprise she had thought of. “Oh how he’ll love it!”  She said aloud, proud of herself; she gathered a few photos she liked already, the idea was coming together. Eunsook decided to text Minho for the rest of the plan…

From Eunsook:  “While you’re out, can you go to the store and buy one of those photo frames that has a USB port, hold lots of pix, scrolls through them like a screen saver thingy? I got an idea. Do not tell my dad!”

Moments later the phone rang she picked up instantly and explains further. “Hey, so I got this idea. I’m finding all dads favorite photos of mom. And the picture frame will always have a different picture. I think Dad will like it, a surprise and his birthday is coming up soon anyways and since he has been down a lot lately I think this will be the best picker-upper for him. What do you think?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen those. A digital photo frame, right? I know where to buy it. He’ll love it yeobo. He is in the bathroom at the moment by the way. I’m in line waiting at the food court. We’re at the mall, so we’ll get it right after we eat. I’ll have him sit in the massaging chairs in the middle of the mall, he loves those. I’ll then go in the store but I’ll tell him I have to take a leak, so I can leave him there without him being suspicious.”

“Ew, don’t say that.”

“Pee?”

Smiling, she sighed “Minho.”

“Just teasing honey. I’ll say restroom. Here he comes. Bye.”

“You’re such a dork. Love you, bye.” She smiled and hung up the phone and got back to work….

Albums open, photo boxes with the lids off, photographs scattered around her where she sat on the floor and plenty on her lap as well as she searched for the best of the best photos of her parents. Black and white photos, colored, and some where the parents were together and some of Umma alone and even ones with Eunsook in them to, smiling happily in the arms of her mom and dad.

A few tears slipped from Eunsook’s pretty ebony eyes while going through her past. She wiped her cheek and picked up a photo of her 1^st birthday, her dad kissing her cheek: Mom must have taken the photo for she wasn’t in it.  Next photo, Jinki’s first nose “beep” to his daughter- Baby Eunsook had a glob of frosting on her nose and her daddy had a bit left on his finger as he smiled big and bright for the camera as Baby Eunsook was making a goofy face with her white tipped sugary nose.  Eunsook Laughed and wiped another tear before placing the photo aside to add to the pile she was making to scan later to put on the thumb drive for the frame.

She had chosen her parents wedding photo, one she had assumed was her parents on a date. A photo of Jinki standing behind Mom, his chin on her shoulder and his arms wrapped around her front with his hands on her lovely round pregnant belly, her parents grinning so happily.  Another picture: photo of her mom kissing Jinki. She had about 65 really good ones, but she knew she had room for some more. She lifted her head, and rolled her head back, it was getting achy from being bent down looking at the pictures. Jinki’s bedroom closet caught her eye while she was stretching…

The ones she had been looking at from the photo boxes were from under her mother’s side of the bed and the albums had come from the bookshelf on Jinks’ side of the bedroom.  She carefully removed the pictures and albums from her lap and stood up, made her way to the closet to see if there were more photos.

She looked on top of the shelf in the closet. She did see 2 shoes boxes labeled “Photos” She got them down and saw a few boxes that weren’t labeled hidden under a pile of old sweaters. She got them down as well just in case they were also photos.

The first three boxes that weren’t labeled were photos…. some weren’t; they were old love letters……  She read a few of her parent’s old letters and poems to one another. “Aww, this is so sweet.” She said as she picked up another letter to read.

Finished snooping through her father’s things she closed that box and put it away on the shelf. She sat back down on the closet floor and opened the next box.

The first thing she saw was paper, letters again? Lots of them.… She gently moved her hand about, sliding things around inside, sifting through the things… It was a mixture of photos and letters. Her brows knitted in confusion as she picked up a very old black and white photo of a young man with a shy but yet bright smile. “Who’s this?” She flipped the card over - there was no name. No date. “hmm.” Curious, she dug deeper…

Seeing a corner of another picture she mumbled “Dad?” She saw his smile; she moved a letter out of the way and saw the full photo. She smiled; it was a picture of her father as a young teenager, with his arm wrapped around… “Wait is that the same kid?” She picked back up the other picture and compared. “Yep that’s him.” She flipped it over: No date. No names only a sentence. “The rabbit hopped into my heart.”

“What does that mean?” She laughed. It seemed it was just an old school friend. As she saw more pictures of this young man, in some photos he was by himself and in others he was with her dad. Jinki looked so happy in all of these photos, and who ever this boy was he looked just as happy. Some of the pictures with dates, others without: happy moments that would have been lost in time if not for the photographs. “Maybe an old best friend? What happened to him?” She shrugged and opened one of the millions of letters in the box.

“To my dearest tokki: I miss you already. It without you. Is the army treating you good? Think of me. I think of you. I bet you look handsome in your uniform. I’ll always wait for you.

Love, Banana.”

“Banana?” Eunsook folded up the little letter; she couldn’t remember her mother ever calling him that. And didn’t mom meet him after the army? She opened another to find out who this mysterious woman was. Letter after letter there were no names. Not even her dad’s name. Just “tokki”, and “banana”. And there was no photo of this woman anywhere in the box just dozens of photographs of his childhood friend…. “Wait a minute.” She dug in the box and got all of the photos out; maybe she missed it. “It has to be in here.” but there was never a photo of a women. She didn’t read all the letters just skimmed through them but now she felt she wanted to read more. Something was odd about this but in the end decided against it. “Nope, not going to do it. It’s none of my business” She left the box in the closet on the floor and went to put all the other photos away that were strewn across the bedroom floor as she thought… she couldn’t think of her digital frame surprise anymore. All thoughts were around that shoe box filled with mystery love letters in the closet. “What’s her name? Is it mom? Is this woman still alive? How did they meet? Why’d they break up? What’s with the cutesy names?... Where they code names? The rabbit that hopped into my heart?........ Wait… wait. No.” she said as she remembered the first photo of her father with his friend. “It’s not?.. No couldn’t be. Is that kid the one that wrote the letters? Has to be if dad is the tokki rabbit.”

 She hurried and finished putting away all the albums back onto the shelves. She checked her phone for the time. She went down stairs; Gibbon was still sleeping like a log. She went back up stairs and walked back into the closet and shut the door behind herself. Hidden away she sat back down and before reading more she looked at the young man’s photo again. “Handsome.” She said, with a faint smile then placed the photo down in the box and picked up another letter.

She felt nervous of what she was going to find but had to continue before Minho and Jinki came back home.

……………………………………………

“My dearest Tokki

I’m still working at my father’s shoe store, Shiny Soul. Need a cobbler? How are your army boots? hahaha. I’m just his apprentice, but I’m really good so far, I could shine your shoes better than any solider. Are you smiling? I hope so. I miss you tokki. A letter everyday for 21 months as promised! Only 12 months left and we can be together again. When I enlist you must write me everyday too!

Love always,

Banana <3<3”

She put the letter down and looked at the side of the shoe box it read Shiny Soul.  “Who are you Banana?” She read another…..

…………………

Dearest, Tokki

That letter you sent last week. Oh my, I think I’m blushing. You miss me that much? I miss you just as much my darling and I can’t wait to do those things to. My cheeks are blushing madly again just thinking about it. I’ll make it up to you a thousand fold when you get home and we’ll fall asleep in each other’s arms in our secret getaway just like we use to do.  Love always, your sweet banana. <3

……………………

Dearest, tokki

“Beep” Gosh I miss your cute nose. My Dad made me meet his friend’s daughter the other day. I’m getting sick of this. I do not want to date. (sighs) well, unless its you of course (wink). I know you told me to be patient and remain calm but I am not strong like you. One day I fear I will blurt it out that I am taken, that I am yours. I wish I could just tell them about us…..

…………………………………………

Dearest tokki,

Today father says I should settle down. I’m only 17! I’d surely settle down with you if you asked me. … If we were allowed…. I’d be the best spouse.  I’d send you to work with a lunch box and a kiss to your cheek. I’d greet you every day after work with dinner ready on the table. I can keep a clean home. You’d never have to worry with me cheering you on in life. I know you’d make the best husband and support me and our family, If only I could give you children. Maybe we could get a puppy instead. I know it’s not the same but for us I don’t see what other choice we’d have. Maybe one day it will be different for people like us. We aren’t’ the only ones are we?”

……………………………….

My dearest tokki, I write to you even though I shouldn’t. I have grave news. They know! Please do not be mad at me but I couldn’t deny it any longer. My love is strong but now my heart is breaking into millions of pieces. They told me I am never to talk to you again. I won’t, I can’t stop being with you….

 “Oh no.” she gasped, feeling sad for the young person but before she could read on and make out what it said under the smeared tear stains, tears from either the sender or her father, she heard the door open down stairs. “Oh , their home.” She scrambled up and put the stuff back in the box and quickly put it back under the pile of things on the shelf where she found it hidden. She opened the closet, walked out and grabbed her photos for her present and stashed them in her room before walking down stairs to join them……