OCEANS & ENGINES | Sunsun

Part 2 | Hope New York holds you, Hoon.

Sunoo hates crowds. He hated crowds.

He watched his sister picked some random book from the store beside the market building in town. He sighed and muttered some words after he read the title of the book that she had in her hands.

Sunoo looked down after he felt someone tugged his sleeve. It was his niece, his sister's first daughter who can't stop whining to her Mom earlier to take her also to the market. Dahee- his sister, can't argue no more so she asked her brother, Sunoo to come along to accompany her daughter, A-ri. Sunoo's plan was to sleep all day since it's his day off but being a good brother he always has- and A-ri was his second favorite person after his cat, yes Sunoo would call his cat his own child, so he said yes to his sister. In fact, he'll get his free lunch in the first week so he could save his payroll more for the rest of the month. Yes, Dahee promised Sunoo to treat him a lunch after they're done with their groceries.

"You know, I can read that." A-ri said and Sunoo just nodded along with her.

She wasn't wrong when he heard his niece said something that probably most of 6 year old girls can't understand. For as long as he knew, A-ri was the smartest kid in her class. After she finished kindergarten, he remembered that his sister bragged about how much A-ri's teacher proud of her own daughter. She told him that A-ri passed her reading test, and she could make sentences from the picture that her teacher provided during the test. It was really nice to hear that for Sunoo. He remembered that all he did was cry when he was in kindergarten.

"How to be a billionaire. Aren't we rich enough, Uncle Sunoo?"

Sunoo chuckled, he bent down to reach the cotton candy that she held in her hand. "We're rich enough, honey. But you know, I'll support your Mom if she wants to be a billionaire."

Who doesn't? Really.

Working 8 hours a day was hard for Sunoo. As an Elementary Teacher, working and dealing with kids, and an average minimum wage, he was exploited. He spent most of his time at school, teaching, working with the administration, making modules, writing reports every week for the parents- yet he can only rent a studio apartment in the suburb. Bonuses from the parents such as gifts that they'd like to give during the Teacher-Parent meeting at the end of the semester, doesn't make him rich. Yes, he wore the designer bag- a Messenger bag from Coach, the one that he got from the parents last year, no one could tell that he was struggling with the bills every month.

"This is sweet. I love it." He added after he put that cotton candy into his mouth.

"I love sweet." A-ri replied and pulled Sunoo to get closer to her Mom.

"I'll take this." He could hear his sister talked to the seller.

She turned around after A-ri called her with Sunoo by her side. She smirked and arched her brow to Sunoo and showed the book to him. "Made it to my newest collection."

Call him and his sister geeks. But it's true, in their old house there's one small room that Sunoo and Dahee turned it into a library room. At first, they only had one small shelf but as soon as their Mom acknowledged that her child had a special heart for books, she bought the new shelf for them, a big one. After Dahee got her first job in the city, she bought another shelf for her and Sunoo.

Now they lived separately, Dahee had to move to Seoul with her husband and Sunoo had to move to Seoul also for his college, leaving their parents in Suwon. But Sunoo remembered that Dahee still kept her old books in her new house.

And for Sunoo, he also kept it. It was there, in his house, their house, down the stairs, where he could find peace and joy while waiting for his lover every evening.