The Things We Cannot Say

.8.

My arms ache for two days from washing and carrying this blankets. As I clean tables and chairs, even as I mend clothes, every twitch and pull of my fingers, run tremors up my arms, and my toes remember nudging the edge of the stream where I watch the greyness sieved from the blankets, swallowed and disappear.I also remember the White Tiger's footprint, solid in rock, and I am glad that my pain is not for nothing, that this year will bring me better luck.

My final job is to wipe the planks of all our beds- first Grandmother's and Baekhyun hyung's, then Father and Mother's, and lastly mine, in the smallest roombeside the cowshed. When splinters run through my hands and I pick them out with my teeth, I think of Jungkook doing the same, so I don't cry. Splinters aren't too bad; once they're out, they don't hurt much anymore.

On the night before New Year's Eve,my father goes off with other village man to fish as usual and in the morning of New Year's Eve, the women and older boys go to shore and help pick fish from the nets into wicker baskets. Two by two everyone comes back, some hauling nets, the long wooden buoys and iron sinkers swishing against the ground.

I help spread the nets on the field right behind the village, near the foot of the mountains for them to dry. Every family chooses a fish or two for their reunion dinners, then my father and the men go off to Daegu to sell the rest.

They don't have to go to sea after dinner tonight, since it is New Year's Eve, so their voices are lighter, free from the nets and rocking darkness of the sea.

Fishing is difficult at this time of the year; the better catch is in the deep; which means going the whole night and returning in the morning.

Soon, in the spring, fish can be caught in shallow waters, and nets can be set without night watching, tied with rope to stakes in shore, free-floating but secure.

In the afternoon, when my father gets back, he heads for the bedroom to take a nap.

"Must be refreshed for dinner!" He says.

My grandmother, who is cleaning sweet potatoes, tells me to sweep the floor.

"Make sure it's all clean. I don't want to have to sweep during the first few days of the New Year. I don't want to sweep away any good fortune the New Year will bring."

When I finish with the floor, my mother and Baekhyun hyung come back from the fields. Mother starts gutting the fish, and Baekhyun hyung,like father, heads for his room to take a nap. I pluck vegetables, rinse them and slosh the water out the front doorstep.

By my bedroom wall, where grass bundles are stacked dry and springy, I hug an armful for fire. The dried leaves and stalks of harvest smell of rain and sun.

//A/N idk why but I went into a writing spree for this story. Do expect some updates

Any readers from my other story, I will try uploading there too.
:D//