Sixteen Again

5

Just one cup of ice cream was enough for the little girl. Her daughter dug through the ice cream with her spoon happily as her bright eyes looked up at her.

“Mama, why did you pick me up today?”

Jiyeon opened her mouth to answer, but her words were caught in her throat. She doesn’t know what Juyeon calls Hyunjung. So how should she call her ‘wife’ in front of this child of hers?

The technology that allows same-sex couples to have children was invented early on in 2005. Similar to IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization), the process uses the eggs from two women and then extracts DNA from the two eggs before combining the DNA to finally form life out of the two eggs. With this artificial embryo created, new life is born. Then the embryo is put back into the mother’s body and goes through the regular stages of pregnancy before being birthed by the mother’s body.

Using this technology, the child born from this process is always a girl.

This technology was still in the early stages of development back in 2008 and had a high failure rate and was very expensive. However, even with its high failure rate, lots of people rushed forward to try out this new technology. This technology caused quite a sensation and was another explosive step forward for the LGBTQ+ movement after following the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Jiyeon naturally knew about this technology, but she had never seen children born from this technology before, let alone how these children called their ‘parents’. After a long period of silence, she acted quickly and decided to keep the title as vague as possible.

“She had something to do.”

Juyeon tilted her head slightly, and asked her in a milky tone, “Mama, why aren’t you calling Mommy ‘that bastard’ today?”

Jiyeon: “…..” What do I usually call her??????

Juyeon had just asked without thinking much about the matter. In her heart, currently, the ice cream in front of her is the most important thing. Small talk with her mother is only secondary compared to her ice cream. Therefore, she didn’t think much about her mother’s strange reactions and lowered her head again to work hard and dig out a large spoonful of ice cream which she then promptly swallowed in one bite.

The two of them sat beside a window. The sun was still gleaming brightly in the sky as it was only a little bit after three. A large amount of sunlight poured through the window, like a layer of golden mist, and fell lightly on her daughter’s hair. Juyeon's hair color is very light, a natural sandy, almost golden, color. The child’s hair looked soft to the touch and the tips were slightly curved, some of it sticking to her cheeks. Under the sunlight, from a distance, it looks like she was shining under a golden spotlight.

Two young women, who stood at the register to buy their treats, suddenly screamed like they had seen a cute little dog when they saw her.

“Ah! What a cute little mixed-race child!”

Juyeon's features are indeed more foreign-looking and not as flat as compared to her Korean counterparts. Her eyes, instead of a black or dark brown color, is a crystal-clear gray color. When she blinked her eyes innocently, it captured the hearts of everyone in the store. The two girls’ hearts were practically bleeding from her cuteness. They chippered loudly in excitement and then waved goodbye excitedly at Juyeon as they left the shop. (Just imagine it like that)

Jiyeon watched the two girls leave when Juyeon started up another conversation with her, “Mama, what does it mean to be a mixed-raced child? The kindergarten teacher also said that I am a mixed-race child.”

“It means that you come from two different ancestries.” (ancestry used here can also mean “lineage”, “descent”, etc.)

“What does ‘ancestry’ mean?”