fearless? then speak now ♔

Ep. 8 had me bawling probably just as much as ep. 6. It’s the dad traveling from far away and waiting for hours just to see his daughter, it’s him waving goodbye from the bus and seeing her as a little kid, it’s the mom and dad willing to sacrifice everything to make their daughter’s dreams come true. It’s how Geum-myeong understands all of this and bursts into tears whenever she thinks of them.

It’s how both Aesun and Gwansik keep asking Geum-myeong whether she really really wants to study abroad because she lied before saying she didn’t care. How Aesun keeps pressuring her to answer because it’s not something she can dismiss, her daughter must have everything she wants.

It’s how Geum-myeong’s dream is actually Aesun’s dream because they’re the same and the whole metaphor about swallowing the dreams and soaring high.

Also how Aesun fulfilled her mother’s dreams (seeing her daughter go to college and succeed, getting a pearl necklace) and Geum-myeong achieved Aesun’s dreams (going to college, studying abroad, flying on a plane).

I keep thinking about my own parents and what they’ve done for me and it makes me cry even more.

I like how, when you finish the fourth episode in the volume, it feels like all the weight and meaning of them come crashing down anew.

Mr. Park, you need you to sign a consent form in case one of them- I choose my wife. I choose my wife.

[translated by me]

Day after day, abalone, abalone. Even as typhoons rage, it's abalone, abalone. More cherished than her own daughter, still abalone, abalone.

When she dives below, shouldn't she surface soon? Why then does silence stretch, leaving no news? Is it because the abalone hides, refusing to come forth, or because her breath falter, holding her under the sea?

Her dear child’s heart burns with worry as that darn abalone scorches Mother from within.

A hundred hwan earned by selling abalone. I would pay them to buy a single day’s rest for my mother.

My mother, with her aching back, my mother, coughing and weary. If only, for a hundred hwan each day I could let my mother take a rest.

"Then grow up fast. Grow up fast, and give me a hundred hwan every day."

ㅡ