Goodbye, Hello

by dimsumofallthings

  "That's easy for you to say," I mumbled under my breath, knowing that she and Sun Woo celebrated her birthday just a few days ago.

  "That's right." Appa frowned at me across the table. "You're so petty."

  "I'm not petty."

  "You're in a bad mood, Noona," No Eul said, helping himself to a generous portion of galbi. He placed a whole fish, one from the mountain in front of us, on his plate and licked his lips. "I don't know why, when there's so much food around."

  "I'm not in a bad mood," I argued. "I'm just mad that you people always ignore what I say."

  Technically Noona's birthday had already passed and today was actually my birthday. Even as I protested I knew I was being unfair. My bad mood wasn't so much about the joint celebration (though in the past it had been,) but the fact that on my birthday, my boyfriend was nowhere to be found. Nor any of my friends.

  Sun Woo was doing an overnight shift at the hospital. Dong Ryong was also working and Taek was abroad on another baduk tournament.

  And Jung Hwan... I sighed. Jung Hwan said that he had some flying exercises at the base and couldn't leave, promising to come up next week.

  I knew it was unavoidable, but still... next week was no longer my birthday.

  Omma was putting some food on a plate just as I took a reluctant bite of fish, following it up with a spoonful of rice so large it almost didn't fit in my mouth. I was still chewing when my mother spoke.

  "Deok Sun-ah," she said. "Go bring this across the street to Sun Woo's Omma's house."

  "WHAT?" I asked indignantly. "I haven't even finished eating! Send No Eul."

  My mother clucked her tongue at me. "Sun Woo is your friend. You do it."

  "Sun Woo is her boyfriend," I said, pointing at my sister. "Why can't she bring it?"

  "I don't want to," my sister said, looking at her plate.

  "And I do?" I cried out. "We haven't even had cake yet!"

  "We'll have cake when you come back," Appa said, his face softening and I wondered at the expression in his eyes. Within a second it was gone and I was convinced I must have imagined it. For a second he looked as if he was tearing up.

  It wasn't that serious. Feeling guilty I stood up, already in my pajamas, and took the plate that my mother prepared.

  "Don't eat the cake until I get back," I called out as I slipped my feet into my sneakers and marched out the door.

  I ran up the stairs and noted curiously that Jung Hwan's parents’ house was dark. I slowed my pace, wondering where they were. Usually at this time everyone was home.

  I opened the gate and almost dropped the plate I was holding. Jung Hwan was sitting on the platform outside our house, a lit cake in front of him.

  Jung Hwan

  She looked so surprised I thought she would pass out.

  I stood up and took the plate from her hands before she dropped it. She remained silent as I led her towards the wooden platform, where her favorite cake was waiting for her.

  As soon as I sat her down she looked at me, her features stunned. "I don't understand," she began, "I thought you weren't coming home?"

  "I'm sorry I'm late," I said. "But I made it just in time."

  She may just think that I was referring to tonight, but little did she know that I was referring to all our lives. It seemed like I was always one step behind, but no longer. We were both finally side by side. Just as we will always be.

  "I would have found a way to come home tonight, no matter what."

  "But you said..."

  "I know what I said." I slid the cake until it was right in front of her. "I also know how much you hated that you never got to celebrate your birthday by yourself."

  "How did you know?" She asked, her voice small.

  "Your Appa told me," I answered. "He told me how much you hated your birthday because you never felt like it was just yours. I wanted to give you something to be happy about today."

  She smiled and my heart shifted and squeezed. She stared at the cake in wonderment, her eyes glistening. "Jung Hwan-ah..."

  "Well?" I said. "Do you want me to sing? I might sound bad but I'll give it my best shot."

  She nodded.

  I sang softly, words only meant for her and me, and watched as her smile grew. It was then that I vowed to keep her looking like this... to remember this moment in my memory for the rest of our lives.

  "Make a wish," I urged after I finished. She closed her eyes slowly, her forehead lined in concentration.

  When she opened them again she leaned across the cake and kissed my lips, hers pillow soft against mine.

  "Deok Sun-ah," I said as she pulled away. She dipped a finger in the icing and licked it off, oblivious to my apprehension.

  "Hmm?" I tried to calm my racing heartbeat, wondered if I will be able to do this right. "Did you want to say something?"

  "Uhmm."

  "What?" She asked, concern marring her features. I placed my hand in my pocket, touched the box that was there.

  I was still trying to find the right words when it seemed she came to a conclusion she didn't like and now appeared as if she was about to cry.

  "Oh my God," she said. "Are you breaking up with me?"

  "What?" Trust Deok Sun to arrive at the worst possible conclusion. "Why would you think that?"

  "I knew it!" She exclaimed. "When you said that you were busy and then you show up. That's not even like you. You're breaking up with me!"

  How did I mess this up so badly? One minute she was so happy and now she looked like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

  "I'm not breaking up with..."

  "Of course you are," she said, sniffling, my words falling on deaf ears. She began to cry and I was so panicked for a second I didn't know what to do. "Why else would you be nervous and looking like you're about to throw up? I can't believe you would break up with me on my birthday. I can't believe that you..."

  She was still speaking, saying a lot of things that made no damn sense. I realized that the only way to shut her up once and for all was to just ask. She would never calm down otherwise.

  I pulled the box out and opened it even as she continued with her tear-filled monologue. "Marry me."

  "I don't know why you would do this," she continued, my words not registering. Then, she stopped. Hiccuped. "What?" She asked. "What did you say?"

  I slid the ring towards her, the diamond blinking in the light. "Marry me."

  "You..." She paused, as if not believing her ears. "You weren't breaking up with me?"

  "No," I answered. "I was trying to ask you to marry me. Apparently I wasn't very clear."

  She fell silent, as if not knowing now how to respond. It made me even more nervous.

  "I don't have a lot," I said, my voice lowering. "In fact I don't have much, but everything I have is yours."

  Her mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish, her eyes still tear streaked.

  "I'll make you happy," I said. "I'll find ways to make you smile every day, I swear it. I'll fight with you but I'll let you win every time." I coughed. "Well, maybe just most times." She continued to say nothing and I found myself doing what I've never done before. I started blabbing. "You might get aggravated with me sometimes, maybe even angry, but I'll always apologize. Maybe I'll say things I don't mean and I can't promise that I won't be grumpy at times, but..."

  "Jung Hwan-ah," she interrupted.

  "What?"

  "You know what I wished for?" I shook my head and she smiled. "That you and I be together forever. Just as we are now." She took a deep breath and I saw that she was still wearing the chain that held my ring. "We're not perfect but we're happy. We're us, and that's enough for me. I love you as you are and you love me as I am... no pretense and no lies. How many people can say they have someone who loves them just the way they are?"

  I hazarded a guess. "Not many?"

  "Not many."

  I looked at the ring, still sitting on the platform. "You still haven't given me an answer."

&nb
sp; "Haven't you been listening?" She sounded so frustrated.

  "I don't know," I said, genuinely confused. "You were happy and you were crying and then you're happy. Forgive me, jagiya. I'm only a man. I need to be told clearly."

  She sighed at me then held out her hand. "Ask me again."

  "What?"

  "Ask me again," she said, pointedly looking at her outstretched hand.

  I picked up the ring and looked into her laughing eyes. "Marry me?"

  "Yes, please."

  As soon as she said yes, I wanted to shout out a whoop of relief. It took everything in me to remind myself that I was Kim Jung Hwan and that I wasn't one to show my feelings.

  She grabbed me to her as soon as I slipped the ring into her finger and gave me noisy kisses over my face before stopping as she was about to graze my lips.

  "She said yes!" I heard my Omma yell as she exited Sun Woo's house, followed by all of Jung Hwan's family and Sun Woo, Taek, Jin Joo and their parents.

  "Oh, thank God," Dong Ryong said as he came out of his house. His father and mother were behind him, smiling happily.

  My family opened the gate and filed out, my sister wiping what looked like tears from her eyes and going straight to stand on Sun Woo's side.

  "That was the most painful proposal I have ever seen," Sun Woo joked.

  "You guys were here the whole time?" Deok Sun asked.

  "Of course," Taek said. "We wouldn't have missed this for the world."

  Before I could even embrace Deok Sun fully, my mother beat me to it. Wrapping her arms around her, I could barely hear the words she whispered in her ears.

  "You've made us the happiest parents, Deok Sun-ah," Omma said, her voice tight with emotion. She sent me an affectionate glance. "He's a handful but he's not so bad." I was about to object when she continued. "Welcome to the family."

  November 2015

  Deok Sun

  "So we'll do this interview as if you don't know me," my high school friend Ja Hyun said as she fixed the camera. I straightened my black sweater as she fiddled with the lenses, amazed that for someone who once only dreamt of being a hairstylist, she somehow managed to get the most glamorous job amongst all of us.

  When she called me a while back asking for a favor, I never thought it would involve giving an interview on screen. As one of the top PDs for one of the channels in Korea, she was doing a special on dating and marriage.

  "And who," she had said, "would be a better interviewee than you and your husband? You have been married almost twenty years."

  I almost busted a gut laughing, just imagining how cross Jung Hwan will be. Though he has not been in the military in years, he was still the same Jung Hwan that I have always known, meaning, that he doesn't warm up to strangers that easily.

  "Are you sure your husband is coming?" Ja Hyun asked. "I can't do this interview with just you."

  "Yah..." I answered. "I told you he would come." Though he mumbled and grumbled before he left for work this morning, I knew that my husband will do just as I ask. Because he always has. He may not be the most gracious person about having to do it (some things never change,) but he'll still do it because I asked.

  "Where are the kids?"

  "My Omma and Omonim are watching them through tomorrow night," I answered. "Jung Hwan and I are spending some quality time after this."

  I smiled and my eyes drifted to the family picture in front of me, where Jung Hwan and I were surrounded by our two boys and daughter. Our first son, almost fourteen years old now, reminds me so much of Jung Hwan when he was a kid, all rebel without a cause and staying in his room, listening to music. Our second son, eleven years old, was a bit more

  like both our brothers; generous like Jung Bong Oppa and extroverted like No Eul. Our seven year old daughter... was probably the combination of every woman that Jung Hwan has in his life. Soo Hyun had the fiery personality of Jung Hwan's mother, my mother's kind nature, and my aegyo. But she had inherited something else: her father's mind... a fact that I am eternally grateful for, since the whole reason she was named thus was to avoid the misfortune of having a name that would give her my lack of talent for studying.

  I've been very lucky to have been able to do a career I liked until I chose not to anymore, with our growing children. And my husband... my husband left the military just as we were expecting our second kid and began a career in commercial flight, giving him a bit more flexibility and allowing our whole family to move back to Seoul, just minutes away from mine and his parents' houses.

  I sighed inwardly, immensely proud of him. I always knew that he would do the right thing. I could never stay angry at him because he does things like this.

  "Shall we begin?" Ja Hyun asked, straightening her spine and stretching before plopping herself down on a stool next to the camera.

  "Sure."

  "When did you first meet your husband?"

  I had my head down, my face hidden behind my hair. I thought that Ja Hyun asked a question, but didn't quite hear it, and so I lifted my head. "What was your question again?"

  "When did you first meet your husband?"

  "Oh," I said sheepishly, then thought about it. "When we first met..." Ja Hyun nodded, urging me to continue. "I'm sorry. When I was young I inhaled too much carbon monoxide." I took a deep breath. "Actually it's been a couple of decades since we met," I answered, "We grew up on the same street, but I never imagined that I'd end up marrying him." Ja Hyun smiled and I kept on speaking. "I think I went crazy for a minute or something. Honestly, I inhaled the most carbon monoxide in Ssangmundong. It was constant... I probably inhaled it for twenty years straight. I think something happened to my head because of that." I wrapped my cardigan closer around me. "That's the only explanation." I looked at her pointedly. "My husband got lucky. Where else would he have found such a pretty wife?"

  "And cut..." Ja Hyun motioned with her hands.

  "How was that?" I asked. "Was I too honest?"

  She chuckled. "No," she responded. "It's fine. People who watch these documentaries love that. You with your bubbly self, your husband all intense and grouchy. It's perfect material for television."

  "You think so?" I asked and she nodded. "Jung Hwan will love being described as intense." I got up from the couch and looked at my phone just as a text came through. As expected, my husband, asking me if I wanted coffee. I sent a quick answer, amazed at the fact that so many years later, Jung Hwan still would rather that people think of him as this distant, unapproachable man when he was really the opposite. Even after seventeen years of marriage, he still never fails to surprise me.

  "Are we going to film the next part?" Ja Hyun asked me. "Are you ready?"

  "Nah," I said. "Let’s wait for my husband.”

 

 

  Author’s Bio

  Retired city girl transplanted to the heart of the American South, dimsumofallthings went from being one of a handful Asian girls in town to being the only Asian girl in town (or, at least, within the immediate twenty mile radius). A registered nurse by day, part time fangirl, and sometimes writer.

  In the two years since A Moment’s Choice was released, she has almost completed another story before starting Goodbye, Hello. She has also since then got a new job (no longer in the hospital), gotten the roof of the house fixed, and lost her father.

  She loves baking and cooking almost as much as she loves eating what she makes. She loves all animals though could never have the determination or perseverance to be a vegetarian for any length of time (a fact that she mourns and regrets every single day… and she has tried.)

  Her K-drama journey began with Boys Before Flowers, a slightly surreal sleepless 36 hour marathon, and she has never looked back.

  Goodbye, Hello is a free standing story among her works, having made the exception to write something completely different after her heart was broken by a drama ending, yet again. A Moment's Choice, published in 2014, along with its sister stories, A New Beginning (currently on hiatu
s) and A Leap of Faith (currently being edited and will be published in 2016 as well), makes up her limited fan fiction body of work. You can find her nowadays chatting and squeeing with her international and domestic friends, when she's not beleaguered by "real life” and “adulting.”

  For the Web original version of Goodbye, Hello, please visit:

  https://dimsumofallthings.wordpress.com/goodbye-hello-a-reply-88-fan-fiction/