Healed by Him

A Fresh Start

March 18th, 2023

Seventeen year old Park Seo-Jun awoke to the turbulence of an unpaved, unfamiliar road- signaling to his half asleep brain the long car ride was soon to come to an end. Even with his mind still foggy, Seo-Jun's heart leapt from its uneasy position in his chest. He slowly sat up in his seat and stretched his stiff neck.

Seo-Jun glanced over at Park Dong-Won- an unimposing, slightly graying man who drove the shaky Kia SUV responsible for carrying the pair to their new life. The familiar sight of his father made Seo-Jun smile, and the tightness in his chest eased slightly. Swallowing, Seo-Jun turned his attention to beyond the slightly yellowed car window and into the bustling neighborhood their vehicle slowly drove through.

Gazing out of the glass, Park Seo-Jun spotted several hunched over street vendors chatting loudly; both amongst themselves and to anyone who would listen. The workers were no doubt awake and laboring long before Seo-Jun was, and would pack up their makeshift pojangmachas late into the evening, long after the teenager's eyelids had already started to feel heavy. He noted the stalls as a good place to pick up food with a warm, homemade feel that Seo-Jun's cooking never seemed to capture. 

Another glance around the neighborhood informed Seo-Jun of several men emerging from their various transportations, all carrying leather briefcases and fitted in gray and black, nondescript suits. Presumably, office workers just returning from a nameless company job they spent their whole youths studying for and stressing over. The tired workers greeted each other with a forced enthusiasm, asking about their wives' gossiping, what they were having for dinner, or how their business was faring. Although the answers were not appreciated enough to make it past an hour in their memories, the men still asked- trying to stall the inevitable reunion with their overbearing families they took for granted.

Family.

Seo-Jun sighed. Maybe a new start wasn't so bad, he mused. Maybe this was the nudge his dwindling, broken family needed to start to put itself back together. A glance back over to his dad prompted Seo-Jun's smile to grow. 

For him, I can do this, he thought to himself. Seo-Jun liked to think of himself as an optimist, giving himself confidence that he could start a new school, form new friendships, and make new memories. Maybe he could even enjoy it.

Finally, once Seo-Jun's ass couldn't get any more stiff, Park Dong-Won turned onto a newly paved, concrete road- revealing the colorless apartment complex the pair would now call home. It was a stark contrast from the three bedroom country home they had left behind in Busan.

"Well," started Seo-Jun's dad, breaking the comfortable silence they had fallen into early in their journey. The two looked at each other, then back to the building.

It all felt a bit anticlimactic.

Where was the fan fare? The theatrics? Their lives had just been changed forever; leaving behind the only home they had ever known, Seo-Jun found himself wanting to yell.

I guess that's the morbid fact about the world, Seo-Jun thought. It goes on, unbothered, regardless of just one individual's life. He had learned as much two years ago, when he thought his world had ended.

"Well." was all Seo-Jun replied.

That seemed to be the cue Dong-Won was waiting for. He carefully hopped down from the driver's seat, landing on the colorless pavement and began the tedious task of unloading their car. The silver SUV was overflowing with the Park's haphazardly packed belongings shoved into cheap moving boxes a week prior. 

God, was it really just a week?

Just one week from when his dad and Seo-Jun had decided to finally leave the painful memories behind in the country in an attempt to start fresh.

Just one week from the two year anniversary of-

"You gonna help, or make the old man do all the heavy lifting?" Dong-Won's playful voice yelled from the trunk.

"Coming!" Seo-Jun shouted, shaking away the flood of thoughts that had began to suffocate his mind. Unbuckling his seatbelt, Seo-Jun opened the car door and prepared to start his new life.

***

Sweat dripping down both Seo-Jun and his father's backs, the pair panted as they took in their new home. While only being on the fourth floor, that small number of stairs started to feel like triple their size after awkwardly lugging heavy moving boxes from the car all the way to apartment 416 for an hour straight.

Feeling exhausted both physically and emotionally, Seo-Jun took a deep breath and turned to his dad.

"Hey," Seo-Jun started.

"We did it. We're here, in our new home. Together." Seo-Jun declared with a smile. The optimist. 

He locked eyes with Dong-Won's sparkling green eyes that felt like an older, wiser reflection of his own. After the words left his mouth, Seo-Jun realized they had felt...good. It felt good to remember that through it all, Seo-Jun had his father's warm and solid presence to support him, even when he was struggling to support himself. A presence that would always feel more like home than any concrete and brick structure ever could.

A smile lit up Dong-Won's weary features.

"Damn right, we did it," He replied with a playful pat on Seo-Jun's golden head. Batting his dad's hand away, Seo-Jun felt his stomach clench, his cheeks reddening slightly at the vocal display of hunger.

"Right ahead of you," his father bragged as he drew a wrinkled folded up pamphlet from his khaki pants and threw it at his son. Looking down, Seo-Jun couldn't help but smile at the cheap, faded images of various rice cakes printed onto a take-out menu. It seems his father had already staked out the neighborhood restaurants, something Seo-Jun wasn't ungrateful for after a long day- a day that produced a beastly appetite only another teenage boy could understand.

"Now, order us something good before we meet the neighbors. I need energy before socializing." Dong-Won announced.

Smiling at his introverted father's words, Seo-Jun glanced back down at the menu in his hands and started the tedious task of deciding on their hard-earned dinner.