Chapter Text
"Mom, how could you never have told me about Sana?"
"The truth is even more complicated, believe it or not."
"Don't you think I deserve answers by now?"
"I do agree. But first, can you tell me what happened? How far has this gotten?"
As the first rosy rays of the rising sun tickled her cheeks, Dahyun stirred from her sleep. She checked the time on her phone, which was lying beside her pillow. 5:11 A.M. Her alarm was going to sound in 4 minutes, but luckily her natural body rhythms allowed her to wake up on her own. Whenever she needed the alarm, that also woke up her sister Jieun, with whom she shared the bedroom. Jieun was always crabby the rest of the day whenever the alarm woke her up early.
A few brief seconds were all that Dahyun allowed herself to stretch her arms above her head. After, she folded both her futon mattress and the comforter with Rilakkuma's beady-eyed stare emblazoned across. She stuck the bedding into the closet while Jieun continued to snore gently.
Dahyun bundled her bleach blonde hair into a utilitarian bun atop her head. She had only gotten it dyed to win a wager against her sister (Jieun claimed Dahyun was "too chicken to make any kind of change"), but Dahyun has recently found the look growing on her. She also tied a red and white polka dot bandana to restrain any stray strands. Finally, she dressed herself in a modest outfit of denim capris and a button-down cotton blouse the same vibrant color as Yamagata cherries.
She made her way down the stairwell which led into the restaurant (called "Poppy's") operating on the ground floor of her family home. One of the boards was creaky. She made a mental note to call the carpenter soon. If she offered him some of her devil's food cake, he surely would hurry.
She lit the gas stove to start cooking the day's rice. Of course she was aware of the myriad modern appliances that she could use for the task, but her clientele consistently praised the earthy flavor of her rice, which she believed could only be achieved through cooking in her hefty stone pot, the same one that had been feeding her family for generations.
While the rice came to a boil, she filled a new glass with fresh water from the tap and replaced the glass of water from the previous day that had been set out in front of her father's portrait.
"Miss you, papa," she whispered.
Kim Jihoon returned his trademark stare, steely and rugged but somehow still soft and soothing. She remembered his mentioning that as a child, he'd often be teased for not having double eyelids. Admittedly, it was one of the more minor challenges he had faced during his life, but she remained acutely thankful for all he had done, all the obstacles he had to surmount, in order to give the best life possible for his family.
The lilies in the vase next to the photo were starting to wilt. Item no. 2 on her mental to-do list: replace the flowers.
Stepping out into her backyard, which overlooked the Port of Yokohama, she raised two signal flags high on the pole. The top flag was a checkered pattern of red and white squares. The bottom flag consisted of three concentric squares: a red square within a white square within a blue square. The message of the two images: "I wish you a safe voyage."
She took the binoculars hanging around her neck and placed the lenses to her eyes. The usual suspects were spotted as they piloted their boats across the water. Mr. Koyama brushed his teeth, rinsing the toothpaste out of his mouth with coffee. Mr. Kobayashi was eating a pack of pocky, or rather simply licking the chocolate frosting from the biscuit sticks. Mr. Kume gripped his steering wheel in one hand while poring over a guidebook of conversational English phrases held in the other hand. Dahyun wasn't sure how wise that was, but she found it charming the lengths he was going to in order to connect better with his British daughter-in-law.
But then she saw one new person. Aboard the deck of the Corn Rose, the vessel which she recognized as belonging to Mr. Minatozaki, there stood a woman, leaning her slender figure forward against the railing. Her hair was the same golden hue as a field of wheat kissed by the afternoon sun. She used her gracefully dexterous fingers to bring a cigarette to her ruby lips, smoke dancing in dainty wisps around the alluringly angular features of her face. She was wearing a check-print tweed pinafore dress on top of an off-white blouse with slightly ballooned sleeves. Her shoes were a pair of cream leather kitten heels.
The woman switched her glance, seemingly to stare directly at Dahyun. This made Dahyun immediately lower the binoculars. She wasn't sure why she got so startled. Everybody was out in public. It wasn't like Dahyun was peeping on someone's intimate, private moments. But still, when the woman's chocolate brown eyes darted over, Dahyun felt like she had previously been getting away with mischief, only to have been caught red-handed. That sensation left Dahyun feeling shaken in a way she couldn't easily explain.
But OK, that was quite enough time with diversions. This was only ever meant to be a small part of her morning routine.
She returned to the kitchen, but before opening the refrigerator door, she grinned upon seeing the Polaroid which had been fixed to the surface with a Hello Kitty magnet. It was a picture of her mother, Jiyoung, who was working as a nurse in New York. The photo featured Jiyoung looking out from the deck of the ferry en route to visit Liberty Island. Dahyun took the picture in her hands and turned it over to read the note on the back. It read, "Lady Liberty ain't throwing us a wink, or is she?"
Dahyun laughed to herself. Her mother was becoming an Owl City fan too.
Well, it was now time to start on breakfast. Reviewing the provisions on hand, she settled on a menu of fried ham and eggs over easy to go with the rice. By the time she wrapped up the first few servings, the bell hanging above the front door jingled, signaling the arrival of her first guests for the day. As was usually the case on Wednesdays through Saturdays, the first guests were Nurse Hokuto and her son Hideshi. On Sundays through Tuesdays, Hideshi stayed with his father. Nurse Hokuto brought the boy here for many of his meals, as she was often too tired to cook.
"Night shift again?" Dahyun asked upon hearing Nurse Hokuto's hearty yawn.
"Tonight again too," Nurse Hokuto replied wearily.
"Should I save you some dinner?" Dahyun offered.
"Much appreciated."
"Dahyun-noona," Hideshi addressed her in Korean. Dahyun found it endearing when the elementary schooler would try to speak in her native tongue. "Make mine a jumbo breakfast, please."
"Don't you eat enough already?" Dahyun teased.
"What's the point of a fast metabolism if I don't use it?"
Dahyun laughed. "Can't argue with you there."
From upstairs, Dahyun could hear Jieun plucking away at her Gibson six-string. Bless her heart, Jieun had been trying to learn this song for months, but her attempt to play it was still riddled with errors. Sometimes it was as if she was using all thumbs to make the chords.
"Jieun," Dahyun called to her, "Come down for breakfast. Don't wanna be late for school."
Jieun's groan was audible, even from all the way up there. Her plodding footsteps resounded above.
"Another one of my socks has a hole," Jieun announced upon descending the stairs.
"Again?" Dahyun asked in disbelief.
"The socks keep shrinking!" Jieun protested.
"No one's gonna marry Sasquatch," Dahyun japed.
"Remind me again who was your last boyfriend?" Jieun countered. "Kim Taehyung from junior high? He gave you a chocolate on Valentine's Day but only because he dropped it on the floor?"
"Someone wants to go to school hungry today, huh?" Dahyun flaunted the breakfast plate in front of her sister.
"Can you just patch it for me?" Jieun pleaded.
Dahyun chuckled. "Leave it by my sewing machine." And she set the food down on the table.
"By the way..." Jieun rifled through her ash gray Swiss army backpack. "I've been meaning to show this to you."
Jieun took some time to smooth out the sheet of paper, which had been carelessly crumpled beneath piles of textbooks and half-empty bottles of Pocari Sweat. When she handed it to her sister, Dahyun could make out that it was a page from the school newsletter.
"Check out the poem," Jieun stated. "At the bottom left."
Dahyun read aloud:
"Fair girl, why do you send
Your thoughts to the sky?
The wind carries them aloft
To mingle with the crows."
"It's gotta be about you," Jieun stated. "Sending thoughts to the sky must be talking about your flags." With her chopstick, she pointed at the sketch of two flags which accompanied the text. Surely enough, there was one flag of a checkered pattern in red and white and another flag of three concentric squares (red inside white inside blue).
Dahyun took note of the author's name: Minatozaki Sana. "Minatozaki? Like Minatozaki Akio, the steel worker from across the bay?"
Jieun nodded, her mouth now full of ham and rice. "Yup, his daughter. She recently moved back from Osaka, took over as English teacher after Mishina-sensei went on maternity leave."
How amazing, Dahyun remarked inwardly, this lady with the cigarette and the golden hair and the chocolate brown eyes was so steeped in mystery just barely one short hour ago. Yet now, Dahyun had managed to stumble across a few pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of her life. Dahyun felt this longing to uncover more pieces, so that she could get a more complete look at this Minatozaki Sana.
Perhaps even more exciting of a prospect was that Sana seemed to have noticed Dahyun as well. Or rather, Sana had noticed this one gesture of Dahyun's, and Sana's response was to write this poem. What other reactions could Dahyun coax out of her? She wanted to see more ways in which Sana could respond, to each and every little thing Dahyun could think to do.
Her imagination became unwittingly unbound as Dahyun read and reread those simple few lines on that crumpled piece of paper.
"Fair girl, why do you send..."