Nae Chingu (My Friends) Chapter Three

Nae Chingu (My Friends)

Chapter Three

True to his word, Jong Hwa walked me all the way to my apartment door before he went home. Like always, I was home before my dad was and the apartment was dark and quiet. It used to bother me but since my mom left I had grown used to the quiet at night. I placed my backpack on the couch and went to change out of my school uniform. Even though the uniform wasn't uncomfortable, nothing beat sweats and a t-shirt which was my normal attire whenever I was home. I went back out the couch to start doing homework but my conversation with Jong Hwa made me feel less determined to keep up with my studies. The window in our living room showed a view of the Seoul night sky which was really quite impressive and really illustrated the pro-technology that was part of the Korean culture. It was a busy metropolis that still managed to keep itself steeped in their historical background and made it made living here more interesting. I rubbed at my face and sighed before deciding I would just immerse myself in schoolwork because at least it would keep my mind off the potential move.

I barely had time to start before I got a call from Mae Ri.

    "Ye*, Mae Ri-ya?" I held the phone between my ear and my shoulder while I pulled out my textbooks.

    "What happened," She chirped in an attempt to sound nonchalant but I knew her too well.

    "Nothing, Jong Hwa walked me home, that's all."

    "Jeongmal*?" She sounded like she didn't believe me.

    "Yeah, really. He just waned to make sure I made it home, you know how he is." I waited for her to digest my words and decid if she thought I was telling the truth. The silence was abruptly interrupted by a distant male voice on her end of the phone.

    "Wae, Abeoji*?" Mae Ri whined and I realized it was her father speaking in the background. "Mwo! Ani, Ani, Ani*" that's when I heard the distinct click of a disconnected call. I stared at the phone wondering if Mae Ri would be able to call me back but after a minute or so it seemed her dad had confiscated her phone...again.

I really liked Mae Ri's parents and they were very accepting of me, which was uncommon of most Korean parents but her father sometimes went a little overboard about her school work. Granted, Mae Ri got into SFLHS because her father's boss's son went to the school and Mae Ri was given a good word but her smarts gave her acceptance merit so no one questioned how she was able to maintain the scholarship she received from her dad's company. Of course, her father also wanted her to come work at the same company to pay back some of the due that was owed for the tuition costs but Mae Ri had it set that she was going to be a drama screenwriter and she could be stubborn. Mae ri and her father literally gave the expression "a rock and a hard place" meaning. It was still unsure who was going to be win but my bet was on Mae Ri because as rough as her father could be, he only wanted her to be happy so eventually he would give in but he would make Mae Ri give up her pound of flesh in the process.

Two hours later my father came home and it was pretty evident he was drunk from the way he stumbled through the entryway. Although I had embraced the custom of using slippers while at home, my father hadn't which usually meant he traipsed in all kinds of debris from his shoes which I habitually swept up before going to bed every day.

    "Annyeonghaeseyo Appa*," I called out before finishing the last sentence on my outline for a paper that was due at the end of the week.

    "What did I tell you? We speak English in this house," he cursed quietly as he fumbled towards the kitchen. He was always saying that but I often found it hard to speak Korean all day and then to switch to English at night when I was home but he must not have been as drunk as I originally thought if he caught the discrepancy.

    "Yes, Sir," I replied and closed my notebook. By the time I made it to the kitchen, my father had finally made it to the kitchen table and sat down. "Do you want something to eat?"

    "No," he grumbled while he poured himself a glass of water out of a pitcher I always kept full on the table.

I decided to heat up the chicken soup I made the previous night anyway. I knew my father and pretty soon he would be jumbling around the kitchen trying to find something to eat anyway so I usually tried to save him the hassle. "I'll heat up the chicken soup," I mumbled. I was pulling the tupperware out of the fridge when my father asked me a question that made me stop mid-motion.

    "What do you think about moving back to the States," he asked.

    "Ah," I tried to stall by keeping busy around the kitchen. I pulled a pot out of the cabinet and grabbed the soup ladle, "I-I don't know."

    "I thought we could move back to Minnesota, you know," he said.

No, I don't know, I thought. My hands were beginning to shake, if he'd decided the exact location we were going, then this move had already become imminent but I wasn't ready to resign to my fate.

    "We'd move back closer to your mom and the rest of the family, you'd like that wouldn't you?" Most of his questions were rhetorical, I knew that but I had to try anyway.

    "Well, yeah, but," I took a deep breath. "Whe-when would this happen?"

    "Well if I put my transfer papers in at the end of the week, we could be outta here by..." He stopped to think about it and I mechanically put the soup on the kitchen burner. Hardly breathing as I waited for an answer. "By the end of the month, I'd say. Probably sooner," he tacked on as if that was even more reassuring.

    "Bu-but what about school? It's my last year, I mean, couldn't we stay--" I tried to reason calmly even though my head felt light.

    "Well, to be honest, I'm glad you brought it up. You deserve to get an American diploma," he cut in. "They mean more and you could even get your diploma from the high school your mom and I went too!"

As if I should be ecstatic about that! What does he mean 'they mean more'? I'd read enough about American schools to know that their diplomas were certified presents they gave out to studens for surviving to the age of eighteen! I took a deep breath, "Bu-but Dad, if I transfer now I'll have to restart my senior year, I mean, that's seven months from now."

    "Ok, so you'll be slightly delayed but it's no big deal, you'll have rank because you're older," he chuckled and I barely withheld screaming at him. I'd tried that before in Germany and it only made him close up. I never got another peep in on the matter after that discussion and we'd moved soon after.

    "Dad, I had plans," be logical, I told myself. Give him logical reasons, those he'll understand, I kept repeating this in my head."I mean, plans to graduate and you know, go to college here. I--"

    "What? Absolutely not, college?" He swung around to look at me as if I'd told him I planning on becoming a plumber. His face was distorted in annoyance.

    "Why not? I mean, Korea's known for it's higher education, people come from all over the world to--"

    "No, no no," he shook his head repeatedly. "You're going to college in the States, I don't care which college but no, you're not going to college in Korea!" His voice had started to raise which meant I was loosing a grip on this conversation.

    "Don't you care what I want?" I tried to hold the tears back but unwittingly they started to pool in my eyes. Crying did absolutely nothing to soften my father's heart, I knew that but I couldn't help it.

    "You're still a child, you don't know what you want." The words stung, almost as if he'd slapped me. It was the same words he'd said to me in Germany when I had been fifteen. Of course, back then I was still very young but now, now I was eighteen and knew exactly what I wanted.

    "Bu-but dad," I had nothing else I could say but he cut me off anyway.

    "No, this discussion is done. We're moving back home," he shouted which made me jump. "And turn the damn stove off before you burn this place down," he pointed his long index finger the pot of boiling chicken soup I had completely forgotten about.

Almost on auto-pilot, I turned off the stove and move the pot over to the sink to keep it from burning. I took one more look at my father who was sitting at the kitchen table with his head resting on his hand in annoyance before I took off for my bedroom. I barely got the door shut before the tears started falling. I had to cover my cries with my pillow in order to keep quiet. My dad thought tears were a weakness and absolutely abhorred them. My mom hadn't even cried when she left, she knew better, despite still loving my father when she filed for divorce. I could never do what my mother did so instead, I hid my tears from my father and cried myself to sleep that night.

***

I didn't go to school the next day. I was totally giving myself a pity-party and I knew it. Normally, I hated those but since I'd had a restless night and could barely make it out of bed to use the bathroom, I decided to give in to my pitiful state and call it what it was--a pity-party. A well deserved one, at that. I ignored the texts my friends had sent me during the day and the subsequent calls after school was finished and just lazed around my apartment. I didn't eat very much, mostly because my stomach was tossing and turning all day but by dinner time, my body was very much aware of it's starved state and I finally decided to make something.

A quick scrounge around the kitchen showed me I didn't have much of anything and that we needed to go shopping this weekend and by 'we', I meant myself and a local grocer, Mal Nyeon, because my father never went shopping. My first time had been a terrible experience but luck had been on my side that day.

***

Three Years Earlier...

Who shops for groceries at ten'o'clock at night? Apparently Korean people because the supermarket was absolutely bustling with people! I had hoped there would be no one here this late but much to my complete dismay there were a ton of people which made shopping even more awkward for me. Up until now, I had been getting food at the convenient store a block from my apartment but I could only feast on so much ramyeon before thoughts of the plain noodle soup made me gag.

I grabbed a cart and slowly headed to the first aisle; not only was it hard to shop when everything was written in another language but it was made even worse when everyone stared at you. It wasn't the first time I was an outsider but that didn't make it any less awkward. Thankfully I brought my iPod so it was a little easier to tune everyone out.

I placed things in my cart based off the pictures and whether or not I could figure out what they were used for. I mostly bought foods I knew like fresh vegetables, fruits and ramyeon -gag- and some random items here and there but the most upsetting part was buying meat. Between having to choose between whole chickens, pigs feet, hearts, livers and something called bull-go-gee which I could only assume meant some kind of bull meat--which I learned later is the actual Korean word for meat--I ended up not buying anything from the meat aisle.

After about an hour, I finally made it to the front and entered the shortest lane. When my turn came up, I started piling things onto the conveyor belt and tried not to be embarrassed. I hated my father for making me go through this alone but since my mother had always done the shopping, it never even occurred to him how embarrassing or scary this was for me.

    "Annyeonghaseyo," the woman behind the counter said to me happily. I knew just enough Korean to know this meant hello. She looked older but she had kind eyes and an open smile. Her salt and pepper hair was pulled back in a tight pony tail with glasses atop her head.

    "Ah, hi," I muttered to her and tried to make myself busy by pulling out my money.

    "Hangukmal hal jul ani*?"

I just stared at her. What did she say? My chest seized up and I looked around but all I got was stares of the people behind me in line. "I-I-I don't know what y-you are saying," I told her slowly with my normal nervous stutter.

    "Du yu speag Engrish?" She asked with the same smile on her face.

    "Oh, oh yes," I gave her a nervous smile of my own and nodded. She made an "ah" noise and continued to ring up my purchases. She gave me the total but since I'd had very little experience with the higher amounts of won--Korean money--I didn't know how much to give her so I just handed her my wad of money. I wouldn't even care if she took more than she was suppose too, I just wanted to get out of the store as fast as I could.

She smiled nicely at me before turning off her aisle light and making shooing movements to the people lined up behind me. She spoke very quickly in Korean, not that I would have been able to pick up any of it anyway, but based off the annoyed looks on everyone else's face as they began leaving the lane one by one, I could tell it wasn't good. Oh god, did I not have enough? My palms were sweaty and I started picking out items to be taken off of the total price but she grabbed my hands to stop me.

    "No, no," she said in a heavily accented voice. "Ret me show yu," she put all of the money I handed her on the now open conveyor belt and piled it in order of amounts. That was my first lesson in Korean money.

***

Present Day

I learned that day that her name was Shim Mal Nyeon and she would become my grocery buddy. For the last three years we did all of our grocery shopping together. Of course, now I could speak the language and read the labels but her inner-grocery knowledge was invaluable. She helped me buy my first meats at the grocery store and although I'm no longer an amateur, I still feel slightly uncomfortable haggling the price of a whole chicken without her help. She also gave me recipes to try on my own and she kept me supplied with Kimchi--spicy, fermented cabbage that Koreans added to almost every meal.

The thought of Mal Nyeon made me even more depressed as the realization that my shopping days with her were limited and I closed the cupboard I had opened in my quest for food. I went back to bed and decided that tomorrow I would pull myself together but for today I would just wallow in my self-pity.

***

Yeah, by the second day I still hadn't made it out of bed. I skipped school again and lazed around. My father barely even noticed me since he was gone most of the day and neglectful at night. I had received so many texts from my friends that I finally just turned off my phone, ashamed to face them and wanting to delay the conversation I knew was coming for as long as I could.

Earlier in the day I pulled my old anti-depressants out of my desk. The same ones I had stopped taking after my first year in Korea but now, I was seriously giving them their due consideration. I knew this feeling all too well, it was the same feeling I'd had before I moved from Germany. Utter despair, or clinical depression as the military doctor deduced after my father dragged me in to see him. He prescribed me the meds and my father, to his utter shame, forced fed me pills for the first few weeks.

The bottle sat on my desk untouched...for now.

I was lying in bed when the door to my apartment dinged announcing someone was coming in. Thinking it was my father, I pulled the covers up over my head and pretended to be asleep. It wasn't until my bedroom door burst open that I realized it wasn't my father at all.

I jolted up in bed as my three friends came bursting through the door in a jumbled mess of limbs and winter wear.

    "Lily!" Mae Ri charged into the room and nearly toppled us both off my bed when she launched herself at me. At least, Ji Soo and Jong Hwa had the decency to stay back by the door.

    "Ma-Mae Ri?" I awkwardly hugged her back but since her winter coat was thick and she still had her backpack on, it was a little hard.

    "Ya!" She pulled back and immediately started hitting me. Not full blown smacks but enough that it hurt a little and annoyed me at the same time.

    "Ya, Neo*!" I pointed my finger at her and glared. "I'm older than you are!"

    "You aren't Korean so it doesn't count," she replied snottily.

    "Mwo!" It wasn't until after my outburst that I heard the snickering in the background. Mae Ri and I both looked at the boys at the same time only to find them hysterically laughing behind their mittened hands. Ji Soo actually looked like he was going to collapse from laughing so hard and it only fueled my annoyance, Mae Ri's too.

   "Mwo-ya*!" We both said in unison which only made the boys laugh harder. We looked at each other and realized how ridiculous we looked. Mae Ri, in all her winter glory, was straddling my legs which were still under my bed covers and I must have been looking disheveled as all get out from being in bed all day. Just like that, the tense atmosphere was gone and soon we were all laughing hysterically.

When we were able to pull ourselves together we gathered in my living room around a bowl of popcorn because I didn't have anything else in the apartment to cook up. Ji Soo offered to pay for delivered fried chicken but I didn't feel comfortable with him paying for our food and I didn't have enough of my allowance left to pay for the extra expenditure. As soon as we were settled, everyone got quiet and looked at me expectantly.

    "Mwo?" I asked around the popcorn in my mouth.

    "Why haven't you been in school," Mae Ri asked and instantly checked my forehead. "And don't tell me its because you're sick because you feel fine!" She put her hand down and grabbed more popcorn.

    "Ahh," I blanked out. I guess while I was ignoring their calls I should have also been coming up with excuses. Well hindsight is twenty-twenty, I guess.

    "Does it have anything to do with you moving," Ji Soo, in his usual brutally honest way, blurted out.

I shifted my eyes to Jong Hwa and glared at him. Well so much for secrecy among friends, I thought.

    "Don't blame me, you're the one who missed school for two days," he shrugged. "What was I suppose to tell them?"

    "Are you serious," I asked in English. Jong Hwa was the only one who was fluent in English, in fact, we were studying our respective languages together; he taught me Korean in exchange for me teaching him English and he'd gotten much better since we first met.

    "I'm sorry, Lily. I wasn't going to tell them but then you were gone today too, what was I suppose to think? I thought your dad had moved you already." He shrugged again and I had to really try hard to understand his logic. At least it explained Mae Ri's reaction when she burst through my bedroom door earlier. She must have expected it to be empty. I sighed, this was a conversation I'd been wanting to put off and now I was faced with having to tell my friends the whole truth of my situation.

    "Ya, look at you two!" Ji Soo, who's second language was actually French, pointed a finger at Jong Hwa and I. "Why aren't you speaking in Korean," he looked at me. "What aren't you telling us?"

    "Nae Abeoji*," I gave one final glare at Jong Hwa before continuing in Korean. "He's moving me back to the States. He's putting in the transfer papers this week and at most, I'll have a month before..." I trailed off, unable to finish because my throat closed up. I was trying really hard not to get emotional again.

    "Before what?" Mae Ri asked, apparently not taking the hint.

    "Before she's gone," Jong Hwa finished. "Pabo*," he called her stupid which resulted in Mae Ri fake punching him.

    "Bu-but you're in your last year, school just started!" Mae Ri exclaimed and I realized that she did most of the talking for the group. Mostly everyone just sat back and let Mae Ri take charge, which she did very well but it was funny how I noticed that only now, right before I had to leave them all. The little things you take for granted, I guess.

    "Alayo*," and I did understand that, it was the same argument I used against my dad the night of the argument but it hadn't mattered. "It doesn't matter, I go where he tells me to go."

    "So you're just going to give up, just like that," Jong Hwa asked me in English. Everyone looked at him, it was very rare we used English in our conversations outside of studying and usually only by me which it why it was weird that Jong Hwa was doing it.

    "I'm not giving up but Jong Hwa, I've been through this before. My dad doesn't listen, what am I suppose to do," I replied in English. It would have been comical watching Mae Ri and Ji Soo look back and forth between us as if we were playing ping pong but in this situation, nothing was funny.

    "Find another way, make it work," he raised his voice a little which was probably the first time I'd ever seen Jong Hwa this upset. He was attacking me as if this was my fault. Well it wasn't!

    "It's not that easy, Jong Hwa!" I raised my voice a little too to make my point. "I don't have money, I don't have a place to stay and by Korean law I'm not even an adult yet," I took a deep breath to calm down. "Even if I could do all that stuff, Korean law requires I have a guardian."

We sat looking at each other for a long time while the other two just continued to pass glances, unsure of what to do because they had no idea what was said. I'm sure they felt the tense air in the atmosphere so they just kept quiet.

    "I guess it's a great thing that you aren't Korean then, huh?" Jong Hwa heaved out an exasperated huff of breath and stood up. I felt like he'd stabbed me in the chest. What the hell had I done to deserve such harsh treatment from Jong Hwa? He was suppose to be the most easy going of our group!

    "Neo saekki-ya*," I whispered but loud enough that everyone heard. Mae Ri sucked in air and Ji Soo's eyes got wide. I'd never sworn in Korean before but what he'd said hurt a lot. "You can leave now," I said in Korean and stood up.

    "Wait, what?" Mae Ri stood up too but looked around as if the answer to her question would be floating in the air between Jong Hwa and I. "What just happened?"

    "I don't know but they're both pretty angry, maybe we should just go," Ji Soo said while making a play for his jacket. Ji Soo didn't mind confrontation as long as he was the one confronting someone otherwise he stayed well away from conflict.

    "No, what did you say," Mae Ri jumped to my defense automatically and pushed at Jong Hwa who didn't look away from my eyes. It cooled some of my anger to see Mae Ri defend me but the way Jong Hwa was staring at me made me mad and slightly uncomfortable.

    "Nevermind, let Lily figure it out," Jong Hwa grabbed his jacket and walked towards the door. Ji Soo followed behind and Mae Ri looked like she couldn't decide if she should stay or if she should leave.

    "It's okay, Mae Ri-ya," I picked up her jacket myself and handed it to her. "Your father will be angry if you go home this late by yourself," I nodded reassuringly.

    "I told Mr. Kim that you were sick but I grabbed the homework," she rummaged through her backpack and pulled out some papers to hand to me. "I think my notes are--"

    "I can manage, don't worry," I said and waved off Mae Ri's notes for the homework. Mae Ri was such a great friend, I tried not to think about how hard it would be without her.

    "You are coming to school tomorrow, right," she looked up questioningly as she zipped up her jacket. "Right?"

    "Yeah, I'll be at school," I nodded and resigned myself to it. Regardless of how I felt in the morning, I would go to school.

    "Ok, you promise," she held out her hand for a pinky promise.

    "I promise," I laced her pinky with mine and we pressed our thumbs together--it was how Korean's did pinky promises to make them binding.

    "Ok, see you," and they were gone.

It wasn't until later when I saw the packet on the floor next to where Jong Hwa had been sitting that I realized the meaning of his words.

    "Oh my god, I'm not Korean," I exclaimed after I'd read what was in it.

To Be Continued...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Ye : Korean equivalent to "Yeah"

*Jeongmal : "Really"

*Wae Abeoji : "Why Father"

*Ani : short for Anieyo which means "No"

*Appa : "Dad"

*Hangukmal hal jul ani : "Do you not speak Korean?"

*Mwo-ya : Korean Equivalent to "What the hell!"

*Neo : "You"

*Nae Abeoji : "My father"

*Pabo : Fool, Stupid, Dummy, etc, take your pick. Ha-ha

*Alayo :  "I know" or "I understand"

*Neo Saekki-ya " "You Bastard"

As always, please feel free to leave comments in the section below! Thanks!