#JK's POV…
By the time I got home, I knew it would be selfish of me to boycott the Kims' dinner party. My Papa had already spent a lot of time humming over pie recipes and going through his closet for ⁍something suitable to wear.⁌ He'd even bought a new shirt for Appa and had scrutinized what the boys intended to wear. Obviously, he (Jm) was looking forward to the dinner— not that I really understood that, but I didn't want to ruin everything by telling him about my newfound hatred of Hyung.
And Appa felt bad enough about uncle Woozi already. The last thing he needed was to hear about crackpot comments made by immature eighth graders.
So that night I went through the motions of baking pies with my Papa and convinced myself that I was doing the right thing. One dinner couldn't change anyone's life. I just had to get through it.
Friday at school I avoided the blue-eyed brat Hyung the best I could, but that night as I got dressed, I found myself staring at the painting my Appa had given me and became furious all over again. Hyung had never been a friend to me, ever! He hadn't made a stand for the tree, he'd thrown away my eggs, and he'd made fun of me at my uncle's expense…. Why was I playing along like we were jolly friends and neighbours?
When my Papa called it was time to go, I went out in the hall with every intention of telling him that I would not, could not go to the Kims' for dinner, but he looked so lovely and happy that I couldn't. I just couldn't. I took a deep breath, wrapped up a pie, and shuffled across the street behind my brothers and parents.
Hobi answered the door. Maybe I should've been mad at him, too, for telling the Kim's about my uncle, but I wasn't. I hadn't asked him not to tell, and he certainly wasn't the one making fun of Uncle Woozi.
Jin Uncle came up behind Hobi, whisked us in, and fluttered about. And even though he had quite a bit of makeup on, I was surprised to see the blueness of bags beneath his eyes.
Then Jin uncle and my Papa went off with the pies, my brothers vanished down the hall with Noona, and my Appa followed Hobi into the living room.
And wasn't that just dandy? That left me alone in the foyer with Hyung.
He said hi to me and I lost it. I spun on him, snapping, ❝Don't you speak to me! I overheard you and Wooshik in the library, and I don't want to talk to you now or ever!❞
I started to walk into the living room, but he stopped me. ❝Jungkookie! Kookie!, wait!❞ he whispered. ❝I'm not the bad guy here! That was Wooshik. That was all Wooshik!❞
I glared at him while ignoring my nickname that came out of his mouth. ❝I know what I heard.❞
❝No! No, you don't! I …I was feeling bad about, you know, the eggs and what I'd said about your yard. I didn't know anything about your uncle or what kind of situation your family was in, okay? I just wanted to talk to someone about it.❞
Our eyes locked for a minute, and for the first time, the blueness of his didn't freeze up my brain. ❝I heard you laugh. He made a joke about me being a retard, and you laughed.❞
❝Kookie, you don't understand. I wanted to punch him! Really, I did! But we were in the library….❞
❝So instead you laughed.❞
He shrugged and looked miserable and sheepish. ❝Yeah.❞
I left him. Just walked into the living room and left him. If he was making it up, he was quite an actor. If he was telling the truth, then Hobi was right—he was a coward. Either way, I didn't want to be anywhere near him.
I stood beside my Appa and tried to follow his discussion with Hobi about something they'd both read in the paper. My Appa was saying, ❝But what he's proposing would require a perpetual-motion machine, so it's not possible.❞
Hobi replied, ❝Maybe in the context of what scientists know now, but do you rule it out completely?❞
At that moment I was feeling absolutely no scientific curiosity. But in a desperate attempt to block Kim Taehyung from my mind, I asked, ❝What's a perpetual-motion machine?❞
My Appa and l Hobi glanced at each other, chuckled, and then shrugged, giving me the sense that they'd just agreed to let me into a secret club. My Appa explained, ❝It's a machine that runs without any external power source.❞
❝No electricity, no fuel, no water propulsion, nothing.❞ Hobi glanced over my shoulder and asked rather absently, ❝You think that's a doable thing?❞
What had distracted him? Was Hyung still in the foyer? Why didn't he just go away?
I forced myself to focus on the conversation. ❝Do I think that's a doable thing? Well, I don't really know. All machines use energy, right? Even real efficient ones. And that energy has to come from somewhere….❞
❝What if the machine-generated it itself?❞ Hobi asked, but one eye was still in the foyer.
❝How could it do that?❞
Neither of them answered me. Instead, my Appa stuck out his hand and said, ❝Good evening, Mr Kim. Nice of you to have us over.❞
Mr. Kim pumped my Appa's hand and joined our group, making little comments about the weather. When that topic was all dried up, he said, ❝And wow, that yard of yours has really come along. I told Appa here that we ought to hire him out. He really knows his pickets, doesn't he?❞
He was joking. I think. But my Appa didn't take it that way, and neither did Hobi. I was afraid of what might happen next, but then Jin uncle tinkled a little dinner bell and called, ❝Hors d'oeuvres, everybody!❞
The hors d'oeuvres were delicious. But when my Appa whispered that the teeny-tiny blackberries on top of the crackers weren't berries at all, but caviar, I stopped mid bite. Fish eggs? Repulsive!
Then my Appa pointed out that I ate chicken eggs all the time, so why get squeamish over fish eggs? He had a point. I hesitantly finished the cracker, and before long I was having another.
Hyung was standing all by himself across the room, and every time I happened to look his way, he was staring at me.
Finally, I completely turned my back on him and said to my Appa, ❝So who's trying to invent a perpetual-motion machine, anyway?❞
My Appa laughed. ❝Mad scientists all over the world.❞
❝Really?❞
❝Yes. For hundreds of years.❞
❝Well, what do they do? What does one look like?❞
It wasn't long before Hobi was in on the discussion. And just as I was finally starting to catch on to magnetism, gyroscopic particles, and zero-point energy, I felt someone standing behind me.
It was Hyung.
I could feel my cheeks flush with anger. Couldn't he see I wanted to be left alone? I took a step away from him, but what that did was open up the group and allow him to move forward. Now he was standing in our circle listening to our discussion!
Well! Surely he was not interested in perpetual motion. I barely was myself! So, I reasoned, continuing our discussion would drive him away. I dove back in, and when the conversation started to peter out, I came up with my own ideas on perpetual motion machines. I was like a perpetual idea machine, spinning ridiculous suggestions right out of the air.
And still, he wouldn't leave. He didn't say anything, he just stood there, listening. Then when uncle Jin announced that dinner was ready, Hyung held my arm and whispered, ❝Kookie, I'm sorry. I've never been so sorry about anything in my whole life. You're right, I was a jerk, and I'm sorry.❞
I yanked my arm free from his grasp and said, ❝It seems to me you've been sorry about a whole lot of things lately!❞ and left him there with his apology hanging wounded in the air.
It didn't take me long to realize that I'd made a mistake. I should have let him say he was sorry and then simply continued to ignore him. But I'd snapped at him in the middle of an apology, which somehow made me the rude one.
I sneaked a peek at him across the table, but he was watching his Appa, who was asking my brothers about graduating and their college plans.
I had, of course, seen Mr. Kim many times, but usually from a distance. Still, it seemed impossible that I'd never noticed his eyes before. They were blue. Brilliant blue. And although Mr. Kim was set further back and was hidden somewhat by his eyebrows and cheekbones, there was no mistaking where Hyung had gotten his eyes. His hair was black, too, like Hyung's, and his teeth were white and straight.
Even though Hobi had called Hyung the spitting image of his father, I'd never really thought of them as looking alike.
But now I saw that they did look alike, though where his dad seemed kind of smug, Hyung seemed… Well, right now he seems angry.
Then from the other side of the table, I heard, ❝Your sarcasm is not appreciated, Appa.❞
Uncle Jin gave a small gasp, and everyone looked at Noona. ❝Well, it's not,❞ she said.
In all the years we've lived across the street from the Kim's, I've said about ten words to Noona, and she's said fewer back. To me she's scary. So it wasn't a surprise to see her glaring at her Appa, but it was uncomfortable.
Uncle Jin kept a smile perched on his face, but he was blinking a lot, glancing nervously around the table. I looked from one person to the next, too, wondering if dinner at the Kims' was always this tense.
Suddenly Noona got up and dashed down the hall, but she was back in a flash with a CD in her hand. And when she put it in the player, I recognized one of my brothers' songs blaring through the speakers.
We'd heard this song, ❛Candle Ice,❜ pouring out of my brothers' bedroom at least a million times, so we were used to it. But I looked over at my Papa, worried that he might be embarrassed by the distorting guitars and the gritty lyrics. This was definitely not caviar music.
He (Jm) seemed a little uncertain but in a happy way. He was sharing secret smiles with my Appa, and honestly, I think he even giggled. My Appa was looking amused, although he was very reserved about it, and it took me until the end of the song to realize that he was proud. Proud that this noise came from his boys.
That surprised me. Appa has never been really big on any rendition of my brothers' band, although he's never really criticized it either. But then Mr. Kim started grilling Yeonjun and Beomgyu about how they'd afforded to record their own music, and they explained about working and saving and shopping for good deals on equipment, and that's when I realized why my Apps were proud.
My brothers were feeling pretty good, too, you could tell. And it was no wonder, with the way Noona was carrying on about how great ❛Candle Ice❜ was. She was positively gushing, which seemed very odd, coming from Noona.
As I looked around, it struck me that we were having dinner with a group of strangers. We'd lived across the street for years, but I didn't know these people at all. Jennie noona did know how to smile. Mr. Kim was clean and smooth on the outside, but there was a distinct whiff of something rotten buried just beneath the surface. And the ever-efficient Uncle Jim seemed flustered, almost hyper. Was it having us over that was making him nervous?
Then there was Hyung—the most disturbing of all because I had to admit that I didn't really know him, either.
And based on what I'd discovered lately, I didn't care to know any more.
Looking across the table at him, all I got was a strange, detached, neutral feeling. No fireworks, no leftover anger or resurging flutters.
Nothing.
After we'd had dessert and it was time to go, I went up to Hyung and told him I was sorry for having been so fierce when we first came in. ❝I should've let you apologize, and really, it was very nice of your family to have us over. I know it was a lot of work and, well, I think my Papa had a good time and that's what matters to me.❞ We were looking right at each other, but it was almost as though he didn't hear me.
❝Hyung? I said I'm sorry.❞
He nodded, and then our families waved goodbye and said good night.
I walked behind my Papa, who was holding hands with my Appa, and beside my brothers, who were carrying home what was left of our pies. We all wound up in the kitchen, and Yeonjun poured himself a glass of milk and said to Beomgyu, ❝That Mr. Kim was sniffing us out pretty good tonight, wasn't he?❞
❝No kidding. Maybe he thinks we're hot for his daughter.❞
❝Not me, dude! You?❞
Beomgyu got himself a glass of milk, too. ❝That's Kai's gig. No way I'd go there.❞
He grinned. ❝But she was really cool tonight. Did she come down on Papa Bear or what?❞
My Appa took a paper plate out of the cupboard and cut a slice of pie. ❝You boys showed a lot of restraint tonight. I don't know if I could've kept my cool that way.❞
❝Aw, he's just, you know… entrenched,❞ Yeonjun said. ❝Gotta adjust to the perspective and deal from there.❞ Then he added, ❝Not that I'd want him as my Appa….❞
Beomgyu practically sprayed his milk. ❝Dude! Can you imagine?❞ Then Yeonjun gave my Appa a slap on the back and said, ❝No way. I'm sticking with my main man here.❞ My Papa grinned from across the kitchen and said, ❝Me too.❞
I'd never seen my Appa cry. And he didn't exactly sit there bawling, but there were definitely tears welling up in his eyes. He blinked them back the best he could and said, ❝Don't you boys want some pie to go with that milk?❞
❝Dude,❞ said Yeonjun as he straddled a chair. ❝I was just thinking that.❞
❝Yeah,❞ Beomgyu added. ❝I'm starved.❞
❝Get me a plate, too!❞ I called as Beomgyu dug through the cupboard.
❝But we just ate,❞ my Papa cried.
❝Come on, Chim, have some pie. It's delicious.❞
I went to bed that night feeling very full and very happy. And as I lay there in the dark, I wondered how much emotion can go into any given day, and thought how nice it was to feel this way at the end of it.
And as I nestled in and drifted off to sleep, my heartfelt wonderfully… free.
🌳🐓🌳
The next morning I still felt good. I went outside and sprinkled the yard, enjoying the splish and patter of water on the soil, wondering when, when, that first little blade of grass would spring up into the sunshine.
Then I went out back, cleaned the coop, raked the yard, and dug up some of the bigger weeds growing along the edges.
Mrs Manoban leaned over the side fence as I was shovelling my rakings and weeds into a trash can and said, ❝How's it going, Jungkookie? Making it neat for a rooster?❞
❝A rooster?❞
❝Why, certainly. Those hens need some motivation to start laying more!❞
It was true. Dubby and Minnie and the others were only laying about half the eggs that they used to, but a rooster? ❝I don't think the neighbourhood would appreciate my getting a rooster, Mrs. Manoban. Besides, we'd get chicks and I don't think we can handle any more poultry back here.❞
❝Nonsense. You've spoiled these birds, giving them the whole yard. They can share the space. Easily! How else are you going to maintain your business? Soon those birds won't be laying anything a-tall!❞
❝They won't?❞
❝Well, very little.❞
I shook my head, then said, ❝They were just my chicks that grew into chickens and started laying eggs. I never really thought of it as a business.❞
❝Well, my runnin' a tab has probably contributed to that, and I'm sorry. I'll be sure and get you the whole sum this week, but consider buying yourself a rooster with some of it. I've got a friend down on Gangnam Street who is positively green over my deviled eggs. I gave her my recipe, but she says hers just don't taste the same.❞ She winked at me. ❝I'm certain she'd pay handsomely for a supply of my secret ingredient if it became available.❞ She turned to go, then said, ❝By the way Jungkookie, you have done a mighty fine job on that front yard. Most impressive!❞
❝Thanks, Mrs. Manoban,❞ I called as she slid open her patio door. ❝Thanks very much.❞
I finished scooping up the piles I'd made and thought about what Mrs. Manoban had said. Should I really get a rooster? I'd heard that having one around made chickens lay more, whether they were in contact with each other or not. I could even breed my chickens and get a whole new set of layers. But did I really want to go through all of that again?
Not really. I didn't want to be the neighbourhood rancher. If my girls quit laying altogether, that would be just fine with me.
I put away the rake and shovel, clucked a kiss on each of the hens, and went inside. It felt good to take charge of my own destiny! I felt strong and right and certain.
Little did I know how a few days back at school would change all of that.