the agent.

Adonai, he was too fucking stoned for this — He could barely reach back into his head to figure out what the fuck he’d asked Stella to do at the carnival ( based on her texts, and he probably could’ve waited until he’d expelled a hearty what the fuck are you talking about in reply initially prior to connecting the dots it had something to do with the Bombers ), nor did it help that his grasp on a foreign language was considerably less prevalent to the forefront of his cognizance when he was all floaty and surreal. “I want, uh…” His fingers raked through long, ginger tresses, straightened layers mussing back into curls gradually as the fogs encroached around the shoppes’ legs and curled themselves like a siren’s ginger, seductive call. Shifting his weight to his other foot, Cyrek’s brows furrowed with indecision ( and it kind of, sort of felt like he was bending his fucking brain to use his critical thinking skills as if to solve Pythagorean Theorem ) and he raised a hand to scrape long fingernails against the jagged scar along his cheek. “Do girls usually like the colors red or orange more?” On second thought, he couldn’t denote which of his daughters’ favorite colors belonged to who under a roof of seven, or rather, the four that were capable of understanding the conceptualization of iridescence. ( Without his farsighted glasses, too, standing right at the pop-up shop stand the Curiosity Shop had moved to for the evening was not helping the megalopa of colors. ) “Um… Wait, is that one a… a, uh,” the vocalist pointed in the general direction of the rooster mask, snapping his fingers to will the word in English, articulating it as he began to move his wrist and twirl his palm, “A… cuckoo. My twin has one of those — cuckoo farmin’… businesses. Chicken. No… A roaster?”

When Julian was offered a fair sum of money in exchange for their services at the carnival, their brother was quick to agree for them — ‘He’ll do it. Do we get free ride tickets?’ If it weren’t for a desire that technically hadn’t even belonged to them to give Isidore as much as they could, they would’ve likely skipped out on the prospect of work so they could enjoy the festivities without the stress of carting all their memorabilia to a squalid stand situated in the beating heart of the event. At least there had been plenty to observe; a kaleidoscope of colors obfuscating across the vendor and his tiny assistant’s faces as fireworks shot up and illuminated the sky that’d already been choked by light, sweeping away the remnants of stars that would intermittedly twinkle above. Throughout the night, he’d grown increasingly distracted by the attendees whose alcohol consumption only worsened as the night carried on, and at some point a ginger sauntered up to their ramshackle establishment and was very evidently struggling to ask for what he wanted, except they weren’t under the illusion that he had partaken in anything less than marijuana. Weed. Mary Jane. Devil’s lettuce. And, truthfully, it earned a chuckle from the raven-haired hawker. “Red’s like pink, so, I think that’s a safe enough bet, boss,” he offered, dark hues observing the figure that stood adjacent to them; scrutinizing each feature he may have mistakenly believed favored those he similarly inherited from their shared mother. “... A rooster, that’s right. But I like the sound of cuckoo farmin’ better.” The usage of slang did sound a little forced and unnatural in his northern accent, which his brother picked up on, giggling not-so discreetly beside the elder. “We’ve got roosters, owls, peacocks, doves... Lots of birds. It’s my trademark. My business partner said I needed to branch out, so if you aren’t into birds, I have some foxes and bunnies. Those go quick. Kids tend to like pecking their parents with the beaks.”

STEVEN YEUN as Jacob in MINARI / 미나리 DIRECTED BY LEE ISAAC CHUNG, 2020.