part ii. family (less than is usual)

Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Ha-Neul; sky; endless possibilities and broad horizons. Her family was not rich, and she was not excessively pretty - but she hoped, and drove herself to realise them, those spiralling dreams which awoke her every morning.

She submerged herself in the intricacies of language; played with words like breathy art; studied those cultures, some of which seemed so absurdly far removed from her own mundane life.

Ha-Neul may have dreamed; but she was practical and driven, and thus they became reality.

Once upon a time, there was a young man named Kazuo; quiet, not particularly remarkable, with dark eyes and a grudge against the world. For him, his childhood had passed by in an unpleasant blur; ignored at home, bullied in school - Kazuo wanted to make something of himself.

The world was twisted, and black to the core. He knew it; shouldn't everyone else know it, too? It was too far gone to do anything about; he had grown up stifling under the malignant pressure of their rotten society - and now he had risen to the top; presiding, ruling over a part of the thing which had once controlled him.

Kazuo had no desire to be a boyfriend, husband, lover, father. Kazuo was himself, alone, and did not care to pander to the needs of others, whatever they may be.

He was not an evil man, whatever you may take that term to mean - but from the moment he'd had that first tattoo burned into his skin; that hot, searing needle engraving into him what it meant to be Yakuza - he knew that he would not let others hurt him, or overlook him, again.

Once upon a time, there was a child. Small (slightly on the scrawny side, the nurses had said) wide-eyed and scruffy-haired.

He was a quiet child, little Jung.

And he met his father once. He couldn't remember now, of course, but the day after his mother had returned from the hospital, a man had come to visit her, and peered down at him with a strange expression, and he'd stared right back.

Then the man had mumbled something, and left.

No, Jung lay cradled in his mother's arms for those first days, those first weeks, those first months. But sometimes, when he'd be lying against her breast, tiny hands searching out and holding onto the edges of her blouse, he would hear talking; there was another familiar presence.

The voices were soothing and sounded in pretty patterns of syllables and melodic tones; he enjoyed these times greatly, and settled down quietly to drowse, unconsciously absorbing.

In his infancy, he was happy.

But this is not a fairytale. His parents were not in love, and never would be. There would be no cosy apartment together; no family photos (any photos at all?); no sitting around the nabe pot in winter; no competing with other families for the best spot under the gently spiralling sakura blossoms in the park in spring; no heated arguments and tearful apologies...

No, Jung would never know any of this.

What is it like, to have a family? What is it like, to know your parents?

He would have a vague recollection of his mother. Of those long, quiet afternoons they would spend together, frequently with Mr Wammy. Sometimes they would go out together, too, but rarely. The soft-faced, hazy-voiced mother would stroke his hair and smile at him sadly - he would ask her what was wrong, in his thick, childish voice, still learning to articulate the sounds. He would ask her first in Japanese, and then in English, because he knew it would make her smile again, but this time with pride, and faint happiness.

Because that was what they all did together; talked. Or rather, his ghostly mother-figure and Mr Wammy talked, and eventually he began to pick them up, those oh-so-strange words - piecing together the language forms like puzzles. Jung noticed that Mr Wammy seemed very impressed with his speech (though he couldn't work out why; wasn't it something everyone could do?), and began to teach him to read.

By the time Jung was four, he sensed that things were going to change. His mother withdrew into herself, and Mr Wammy seemed sad. He couldn't really understand what went on between adults - especially these two, who had been the center of his life thus far, and nearly all he had known.

One day, they had sat him in another room with one of his books, so all he could hear were the hurried whispers and urgent discussion. And crying. The woman who would have the kind face in his memories was crying, sobbing, sounding happy and sad and everything in between.

And then the door burst open and she ran to him, holding him tightly and whispering choked up sounds to him that he couldn't decipher. Her hot, wet tears slid down onto his cheeks, and there was a tightly-coiled nervous feeling pooling in his stomach; she had cried before, but never like this.

Because this is something that stuck in his memory. The scent of her; earthy and warm and comfort; a jumble of English and Japanese spilling out - but not the other language, never the other language he had heard her desperately whispering in, praying in before - her tears on his face, her breath on his neck; clutching hands bunching up the back of his shirt as he held on to her shoulders in confusion.

Behind her by the doorway, he could see Mr Wammy. He wasn't crying, though he looked a bit sad.

Jung wondered what was going on.

Some people might have called this - what they had made for themselves, the three of them - a family.

But it wasn't a fairytale, and wouldn't - couldn't - have a happy ending. And though he didn't yet know it, Jung would never, ever call what those two had created with him a family.

Because of that single agreement they had made - because of what had happened next.