▬ Chapter 2: Year 4: Meet ▬

Taemin was now four and he was beginning to take in the world around him. Things were lively around the Lee house and even more so now that the little one started to go to school. That’s when it started — the barge of questions and random thoughts every time he brought home something new that he learned from school.

“Daddy, what’s this?”

Jinki was in the middle of preparing dinner when Taemin came running into the kitchen. He looked at his son and with his bright, smiling face, held up something that he took home from school.

“Our teacher had us go outside to choose something to draw today and I found this weird thing outside so I decided to draw it!” He then held up the sketchpad in his other hand. On the page was a drawing that took quite the resemblance of the object he showed his father. “See, look!”

“Wow, you’re one artist, Lee Taemin! And that is what they call a pine cone.” After placing some last minute ingredients then closing the pot with the lid, Jinki went to the sink to wash his hands, dried them, then motioned his son to sit with him at the dinner table. “Before you show me your drawing again, would you like to help daddy?”

“Okay!” Taemin immediately answered. He placed both of the items he held on the table then scooted himself up the chair.

“Let’s play a game: whoever hears the pot boiling first and raises his hand, wins!”

“Okay!” He said again then without giving his father a chance to reply, he began telling him about his artwork.

“You know, your mother would have loved this,” Jinki smiled at the drawing that he now held in his hands. “She was quite the artist like yourself.”

“What was mommy like?” His usual child curiosities got triggered at the mention of a mother that he never met. Taemin only heard stories about his mother from time to time and from what he heard so far, he concluded with great pride that he loved his mother, making Jinki all the more grateful.

“Well, she was a lovely person,” he started out. “Your mother liked to see the good in everything and everyone and strangely enough, she also saw something good in me. It was shocking considering what I was like back then.”

“How did you two meet?”

A strange expression graced Jinki’s face at the thought of their first meeting. It was quite an out of the world experience for both of them, literally. At this very moment, he was determining if he should even tell his son the story after getting reminded of how horrible of a person he was back then.

[ • §§§ • ]

“What is up with all these vegetation? Humans really love these kinds of things.” A young Jinki traversed through the forest one late afternoon with both hands in his pockets. “Go cool off your head with the humans, he says.” He said in a mocking tone while he cooly ducked and evaded a tree branch. Taking a few more steps finally led him out in the open to see a view of the city from above a cliff.

He slowly paced closer towards the edge, taking in the breeze and sight. Suddenly recounting the reason for his anger from a while ago, he decided to take in deep breaths in the hopes of expunging whatev