Can love transcend time? Jeon Jung-kook asked this very question himself when he looked at himself in the mirror as a middle-aged man. His daughter was planning to elope with someone considered not "fit" for the Jeon household. Somehow he heard hims...
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Eun-hye glanced at her father, wisps of silver-charcoal hair framing his creased face. It was the first time she had seen him this way, vulnerable and with pain glistening in his eyes. She wasn't sure if she spied tears threatening to form beneath his lashes, so she broke the silence and encouraged him to go on.
"Dad... please.... you can trust me." Eun-hye implored.
As if on cue, Jung-kook continued. "What if.... what if what you did in the past... causes you to lose the person you love? Like what happened to your mother? You assumed that I didn't hang on to her before, that made you grow up without one."
Eun-hye recalled what she had told him recently. "Dad... I never meant it when I said those words. Or maybe I did, but I shouldn't have spoken in anger...."
".... But you also have to understand where I'm coming from. I see a father who looks like he's not willing to let me live my life, and when he doesn't tell me why I can't, I can't help but come to that conclusion."
Jung-kook nodded in agreement. "I guess so. I was trying to protect you from the hurt you would suffer when you go ahead with this. You know how your grandmother is...."
"No, I don't see the problem or how you think I would end up hurting. Is it because I'm young? Is it because of Alex?" Eun-hye challenged.
"No... no... it's not because of you, definitely not because of you," Jung-kook assured her. "It's because Alex....... how shall I put it.... Alex.... he's.... different..."
Jungkook's words surprised Eun-hye. "What do you mean, different?" she asked suspiciously. "Is it because... he's black?"
"No! No! I didn't mean that!" Jung-kook said defensively. "He's just.... not Korean."
Eun-hye couldn't believe it. She had never pegged her father as a racist, so she inquired again, making sure she heard him correctly. "So, what exactly are you implying? Because that's pretty much the same thing, isn't it?"
She noticed Jung-kook looking upwards, seeking for answers.
Seeing how he made his daughter upset again, Jung-kook tried to supplicate her. "If I was so against you being with Alex, I wouldn't have allowed it in the beginning. Perhaps... perhaps I never imagined your relationship becoming this serious... talking about marriage and all."
Eun-hye huffed indignantly at hearing her father's explanation. "Allowed?! What!? You supposed I was just playing around? That it's only a phase people go through!?" she demanded.
"Please... Eun-hye.... try to calm down," Jung-kook implored, "I do like Alex. He's always welcome to our place, and I never turned him away... you know that."
"So, you're saying he is passable to be my boyfriend, but not to be my husband?" Eun-hye questioned the man who's aware he's losing another battle. "Good enough to come into our house, but not enough to join our family!?"
Jung-kook acknowledged what Eun-hye just said was close to the truth. He realized there's no legitimate reason why "being different," because of race, of colour, of religion, of gender, or of anything in that regard, should be an issue when it came to matters of the heart.
