The Korean Word For Butterfly

by James Zerndt

  In the past he hasn’t been invited to Hyo’s parties, but for some reason his wife made an exception this time. Moon even bought a guitar for the occasion. It’s nothing fancy, just something cheap and simple for him to keep practicing on. And, besides, he wants to play a song for Hyo and the kids today. What better place to test the waters than a children’s birthday party after all?

  The kids are waiting for cake and quietly playing a game of gonggi on the floor. Moon was pretty good it at as a kid. He wonders why people stop playing games once they get older. How much longer before Hyo will grow out of gonggi, too? Another year? Two? And then it’ll be video games. Or online gaming. Whatever all those kids do in the PC bangs.

  The thought sends a chill through Moon.

  Four years old already.

  And how much of it has he missed?

  How much more will he miss?

  No, he chides himself. Not now or you’ll miss this, too.

  “Will you be entertaining us later?” one of the mothers asks Moon. She’s an old friend of Min Jee’s. Just about the only one who stuck by her side. “Your guitar? I saw you bring it in, Moon.”

  “Yes,” he stammers. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking about...”

  “How fast he’s growing up?”

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “It’s a birthday party. It’s what every parent thinks about during birthday parties. How was your Seol Nal by the way?”

  Moon knows what she’s really asking is, “Did you stay sober during New Year’s?”

  “Uneventful,” Moon replies, not hiding a smile.

  He thinks about New Years Eve and walking the girl back to her shop. Then staying when the madam insisted. She’d put a drink out on the counter for Moon, but instead of telling her “no” like he normally would have, he’d just let it sit there. It had been such a strange and wonderful night, he hadn’t wanted it to end.

  So he let the drink sit there, beckoning, while the festivities continued outside. It was a dangerous thing to do, he knew that, but he’d been tired. Of being sober. Of being lonely. Of feeling like a failure. And he liked the girl. There was something soft about her, something broken that made Moon ache for her. And he knew all he had to do was take the drink and, later, walk behind the partition where she would give herself to him. It would be easy. And the drink would soothe everything that had pained him these last couple of years. It would round off all the edges, make smooth all the sharp memories that liked to stab him from the inside.

  And the girl...

  How long had it been since he’d been with a woman?

  How long since he felt another’s touch?

  As they watched the children play, Moon remembered the smiling faces outside the small shop, the people running about and the snowballs flying everywhere, the laughter. It was beautiful. But he hadn’t really felt any of it.

  He’d leaned forward on the counter, his face hovering over the glass. He breathed it in. Felt his nostrils flare at the old familiar smell. Home. It smelled like home to him.

  That’s all it had taken for him to falter.

  The smell. The opportunity.

  And just like that his mind, his body, had decided.

  The drink was as good as inside him already.

  But then, behind the counter, Moon spotted a photo.

  It wasn’t something the customers were supposed to see, but it had fallen down and was lying there on the mat staring up at him. The photo was of the girl he’d helped. She was holding a little boy in her arms.

  Her boy.

  It stopped Moon cold.

  The thirst, along with the desire for anything else, had disappeared immediately...

  The cake is ready.

  The kids all gather around the table, shoveling it in with silver chopsticks. There wouldn’t be a better time than this, so Moon grabs his guitar, takes a seat beside Hyo.

  Min Jee seems wary but gives Moon a small smile anyway.

  Here goes nothing, Moon tells himself, and begins to play what he considers to be their silliest song...

  There was once an elephant named Chin

  He made a mistake and ate his kin

  His bones were made of jelly

  And he was also quite smelly

  Oh, poor poor Chin the Elephant

  He got hungry and ate up all his kin

  Now he was all alone

  His only friend his long, smelly trunk

  Everybody run! Everybody run!

  Here comes Chin the smelly elephant

  He ate up all his kin

  And now he has no fun

  Everybody run! Everybody run!

  Or Chin will chew you up like bubble gum!

  Hyo is giggling. The others are, too.

  Even Min Jee and the other moms are smiling.

  Moon feels good. Light.

  Like he’s just lost a hundred pounds.

  Like all the rocks and pebbles have been excavated.

  If he stands up, he might start to float away.

  Remember this, he tells himself. This is feeling.

  “Can you play it again?” Hyo asks, his cheeks smeared with frosting.

  “Yes. Did you like it?”

  “Again, please.”

  Moon sings it again, and again the kids squeal with delight.

  He’s a hit.

  They scream for another but Moon doesn’t want to press his luck with Min Jee, doesn’t want to be accused of stealing the show. So he lies, says he only knows the one song, and puts the guitar away.

  Five seconds later, when the ice cream and fruit are brought out, they’ve already forget all about him.

  “I think your Chin is going to come down with a bad case of gastroenteritis.”

  “Gastro who?”

  “A tummy ache,” Min Jee says with more kindness in her voice than Moon has heard in years.

  “Oh, yes. I was actually thinking halitosis maybe.”

  “I’m impressed you even know what that means. Anyway, it’s a cute song, Moon. When did that start?”

  “A few months ago. With one of the English teachers.”

  “You’re full of surprises lately, aren’t you?”

  “How so?”

  “The shoes you bought for Hyo? Not exactly your usual style, are they?”

  Moon had gotten Hyo some shiny, orange shoes for his birthday. The same kind Joe had worn.

  “No, I suppose not.”

  He’d also gotten Min Jee a gift, but he chickened out and left it in the car. It’s a stuffed animal. A shark. He ordered it from the Busan Aquarium gift shop, but he doubted she’d even remember anymore.

  And besides, he doesn’t want to push.

  Not just when the door is starting to creak back open.

  Moon’s trying to think of something more to say, something to keep them talking to each other, when Hyo walks over and grabs Moon by the finger. It’s something he used to do when he first started to walk. It means “follow me.”

  Moon shrugs helplessly at Min Jee and lets himself be dragged down the hallway. Once they’re away from the others, Moon asks, “Where are we going?”

  Hyo stops just outside the bathroom, his face deadly serious. “I have to go to the potty. Will you stay with me?”

  His wife had mentioned it earlier, how Hyo was having problems with potty training again. Having accidents.

  Moon stays and when Hyo finishes and washes up, Moon tries his best not to smile.

  “Good job,” Moon says, offering a handshake. “I’m very proud of you.”

  Hyo nods his head gravely, staring Moon in the eye as they shake hands. “I’m very proud of you, too, Appa.”

  It’s the longest, and best, sentence Moon has heard in twenty-eight months and six days.

  Yun-ji

  Yun-ji chopped vegetables in the back of the restaurant.

  She’d already taken her leave from the English school. With all the kids running around, and the constant questions from the parents, it
had gotten to be too much.

  She’d go back someday. At least, she hoped she would.

  Her father still wasn’t speaking to her.

  No surprise there.

  When they found out the baby’s gender, she noticed the flicker of a smile pass over his face once they officially announced it was a boy. Again, no surprise there either. Her father had always wanted a boy. It hadn’t exactly been a secret.

  But Yun-ji’s mother was surprising her.

  Nearly every time she walked by Yun-ji in the kitchen, she’d find some excuse to talk to her, to place her hand on her shoulder or stroke her hair.

  In the past, it would have annoyed Yun-ji.

  She would have cringed, moved away from her.

  But it was different now. She wanted to fold up in her arms and listen to the beating of her heart like did as a child.

  “How long will it keep going?” she would ask her.

  “For as long as you need it to, Ji-Ji.”

  That’s what her mother used to tell her every time. Even then she knew it was a lie, but she loved the lie. Loved the idea behind the lie. And now it was the same thing. Every time Yun-ji started to have doubts, to wonder aloud how she was going to raise the baby without a father, her mother would say, “In a place where there is will, there is a road, Ji-Ji.”

  Another silly lie, more or less, but it still made Yun-ji feel better each time her mother said it.

  The lunch rush was nearly over now, the dining room half-empty, when Yun-ji heard his voice.

  It was easy to pick out among the Korean.

  Like a cod among koi.

  “I need to speak with Yun-ji. Is she here?”

  Shaun was speaking to her father, but her father didn’t speak a word of English. There was no way any good could come from the two of them speaking. Ever.

  As if her mother had just read her mind, she stalked past Yun-ji and out into the dining room.

  Yun-ji could hear father’s voice as the doors swung open.

  “Didn’t you see the sign out front? It says ‘No Americans Served Here!’ Can’t you read?”

  He’d put the sign in the window last week. A lot of restaurants were doing it these days. Which was kind of funny, Yun-ji thought, since there were only a handful of Americans in the area. Sort of like placing a sign in the window that said ‘No Siberian Tigers Served Here!’

  What was the point?

  “Are you her father?”

  “No megooks! We don’t want you in our restaurant or in our country! You are all devils! Devils who prey on innocent young girls!”

  Yun-ji didn’t know what to do. If she went out there, who knows what her father would do. His face was so red, she worried he’d have a heart attack or something.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Korean, sir. I’d just like to speak with Yun-ji for a few minutes. That’s all.”

  Yun-ji peeked through the door and watched as her mother walked to the front window, grabbed the sign from out of the window, and proceeded to toss it out into the street. When she came back inside, she smiled at Shaun and stopped beside a table, patting one of the pillows for him to sit on.

  Shaun bowed to Yun-ji’s father, then slowly backed away and sat down at the table her mother had offered him. His knees towered up awkwardly over the table.

  Yun-ji was dumbstruck.

  Was this the same woman who threw her gimchi out?

  The same woman who suggested she put her child up for adoption?

  Yun-ji watched as her mother poured tea for Shaun, then gestured for him to wait, that she would be right back with some food.

  Incredible.

  When her mother passed by her father, he started to object again but her mother, in front of the remaining patrons, raised her hand in front of his face and stamped the floor.

  “Enough! This man is not Korean or American! He is the father of our grandson!”

  Again her father started to protest, but her mother raised her hand, and in a softer voice, said, “It’s time you started being a father to your own daughter. If you can’t do that, then leave us. I won’t tolerate it anymore. I can’t tolerate it anymore.”

  Yun-ji was frozen, her mouth hanging open. Never in a million years did she think she’d see her mother talk to her father that way. Not at home and definitely not in front of everybody at the restaurant.

  Her father seemed just as awestruck as Yun-ji.

  Rather than start ranting and screaming like she expected, her father looked around the room, at the silent faces watching him, and raised his head high before walking to the door and leaving. Yun-ji and her mother knew where he would go.

  Across the street. To the soju tent.

  To his second home.

  When her mother entered the kitchen, she smiled gently at Yun-ji, like nothing out of the ordinary was going on and said simply, “You have a visitor.”

  Yun-ji’s throat was tight. She knew she’d have trouble speaking so, instead, she walked to her mother and placed her arms around her. “Thank you,” she whispered, listening for her mother’s heart beat out of habit.

  “I’ll make him a bulgolgi burger. You think he’ll like that?”

  Yun-ji laughed. “No. But make it anyway.”

  She then gathered herself as best she could and walked out into the dining room, kneeling down sideways opposite from Shaun, her belly preventing her from sitting cross-legged.

  “I asked about you at the school,” Shaun said. “I hope that’s okay.”

  He looked nervous. And not because of her father or the fact the other customers were lingering just to see what would happen. He looked nervous because of Yun-ji. Because what she had been dealing with for the last seven months was just starting to become real for him.

  He’d started calling and texting again after New Year’s, but Yun-ji had tried to tell him he didn’t need to. That she was okay. That she was going to do this on her own.

  But he hadn’t listened.

  “Marry me, Yun-ji,” he said out of nowhere.

  And the way he was kneeling there on the pillow, just like they always did in the movies, almost made it seem like a real proposal. But Yun-ji knew that was only because they didn’t have any chairs in the restaurant.

  Before Yun-ji could answer, though, her mother hurried out and set a burger and a bowl of gimchi in front of Shaun. When her mother retreated back into the kitchen, Yun-ji leaned forward and said, “Marry you? Didn’t you just see my parents? Is that what you want?”

  Shaun smiled nervously, offered his burger to Yun-ji. “I don’t think I can eat right now.”

  “You don’t understand how things work here, do you? You’ll eat all of that if you don’t want to make another enemy today.”

  “Right. Okay.” Shaun took a bite of his burger, gave a thumbs-up to the kitchen where her mother was pretending to be busy cleaning something. “Your parents actually remind me of my own. Only my parents are way worse.”

  “Not possible.”

  Yun-ji watched him as he ate. He was handsome, but, more importantly, he was kind. He’d make a good father. She knew that. But was that enough? They hardly knew one another.

  “Should I bother to ask again?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Fine. But just so you know, I’m going to anyway. Later though. After some time, okay?”

  Yun-ji said nothing.

  What was the point? He wouldn’t listen anyway.

  “You know I’ve been thinking about what you said about your grandfather. How he believed Siberian tigers still existed in the DMZ.”

  Shaun looked at Yun-ji for a response again, but she remained silent.

  “I think he could have been right. I mean, why isn’t it possible that they still exist? Maybe he was on to something.”

  “Maybe,” Yun-ji said reluctantly.

  “And maybe it’s a metaphor or something. Like for love. Or marriage. Maybe people think that’s extinct, too. But, who knows, maybe it isn’
t.”

  “Maybe,” Yun-ji said again and she felt Amur kick inside her.

  Like he was agreeing. Or disagreeing. Who knew?

  She hadn’t told anybody the name yet.

  It was just what she called him inside her head.

  It was the name for Siberian tigers.

  And it wasn’t Korean.

  Or American.

  Or traditional.

  Little Amur, she thought to herself. Yes, it had a nice ring to it.

  (END)

  If you’ve read this book, please leave a short review on Amazon and let me know what you thought. Every lit bit helps as this is self-published at the moment.

  My first novel, The Cloud Seeders, is also available on Amazon.

  I can be found on Facebook or you can email me at j_zerndt@yahoo.com if you like.

  Thanks for reading…

  James Zerndt