There's always room for another

Chapter 11: 2.4 - The waves

IMPORTANT: trigger warning for suicidal thoughts. that starts towards the middle till the end of the third chunk. like Yongsun, Byulyi is figuring shit out.

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2.4

For all of Yuna's misgivings about Lala, she was heartened that Ahjumma seemed to share them as well. Sometimes, when Ahjumma got really cranky and tired from working, she would sit in the living room, doing the accounts and mutter to herself about her granddaughter.

"It's not that I'm not proud of her being a doctor," she would say, fingers making scratches on the paper in a shorthand only she understood. "But it would be nice to have some help around here."

"Is moving to the city a big deal?" Yuna asked, because she had heard the other workers talking about it. Sometimes they whispered about her, when they thought they were safe, talking about how she was from the city, and how she wasn't what they thought city people were like.

"Don't listen to them," Ahjumma said, waving her hand carelessly. "They have everything they need here. Lala though - this village bored her." Yuna sipped at her tea as she listened intently. It wasn't often that Ahjumma was in a sharing mood. "She stayed with me for awhile after her parents fucked off and left."

Hearing such a casual swear leave the woman's tongue used to make Yuna cringe with how harsh it was. But she was so used to it now she barely registered it. "I didn't know about her parents. That they left, that is. Lala doesn't talk about them much."

"I'm not surprised." Ahjumma tried to sound stern, but Yuna could see the statement bothered her. "They were useless, if you asked me. Not ready to be parents at all." Yuna blinked. Wasn't Lala's father Ahjumma's son?

The woman barely talked about her family either, but Yuna deduced from the two photos hung up around the house that that was how Lala was related to her. She wondered what it was about this family that made them so reluctant to remind themselves about each other.

(Yuna wonders if her family - if she ever had one - did the same to her now.)

"My son was a violent man," Ahjumma would later open up to Yuna, on another day much later on. When Yuna learned how to brew the tea exactly how Ahjumma liked it, to be precise. The woman drank deeply from the cup, as if it were hard liquor instead of jasmine tea. "Always was. My husband used to beat him, you see? But everyone beat their children back down. If you're lazy, you get the belt. Talked back? A smack. I don't blame him." Yuna thought about asking which him Ahjumma was referring to, but decided better of it when she saw how wet the woman's eyes were.

(Ahjumma didn't express emotions much.)

(Yuna pretended not to notice.)

On another night, Ahjumma asks for Yuna to pull out a photo album she'd placed too high on a shelf. Dutifully, she did, and joined Ahjumma on the floor by the couch. "I wanted to show you my old wedding dress," she said, because they had attended someone's wedding in the small town and Yuna had been in awe of the spectacle of it all. "It took my husband two years to save up for it. It wasn't anything fancy, but we were waiting for each other a long time." Yuna liked it when Ahjumma talked about her husband. She was softer, and kinder, and more willing to share. Yuna knew the older woman was lonely without him.

"When did he die?" She asked, taking in the many photos showing a kindly man with a beautiful smile. "If you don't mind me asking."

"Four years ago. Lala used to stay with us till then. And then she moved to the city to join her brother." Yuna blinked. Lala had a brother?

And sure enough, in some of the photos, there was another baby, another boy. Yuna had just assumed it was a cousin or something. "His name is Sehyun."