she’s eight when she finds out she doesn’t want to be a mother. the realisation comes to her in between mother’s swelling head as her impassioned lectures fall as spittle on nara’s cheeks, and her choking up mid-sentence, face in her palms as she’s overcome with tears. in hindsight, nara understands her mother’s anger. after all, she wasn’t the sort to see value in being on her best behaviour, always known to be as inflexible as her sister was malleable. so perhaps it is better that she comes to the conclusion that she doesn’t want to be a mother when she’s still so young, a decade shy of the age in which she’s wise enough to ponder on the cognitive dissonance between understanding mother’s anger, yet still feeling resentful for the way she raised her voice.
but the point is that kang nara had abandoned any fantasies of being a mother early on, so much so that her maternal instinct is akin to a limb suffering atrophy from lack of use. you can spot its tells here, from the way her arms give way when she first holds the lost cat she finds in jinah’s backyard, to the way she’s staring helplessly at the animal as it folds itself into one corner of the cage and nara, at the other, far corner of her room. day two and she’s desperate to wash the cat off her hands, thinks to bring it to the police station or a neighbourhood shelter—just wherever—until the ‘have you seen momo?’ poster nailed to a tree near sunset catches her attention. a few hours later and she’s here, some ways from home, cat carrier in hand.
some may say it’s dangerous for her to be here, standing by a neighbourhood bench alone and so close to dusk. but there was a familiarity in the cat owner’s baritone, the same soothing quality that she’s certain she’s heard before. and it’s this curiosity that gets to her, causes her to strain her neck like she’s peering amidst a large crowd. she doesn’t stop until she catches him round the corner, and she taps a finger awkwardly against the carrier’s handle if only to find something to do as he closes the distance. “hi…” she scans his features, tries to place him in the supercut of her memories but her shoulders fall when she comes up short, “are you min haru?” tight smile on her lips as she hands him the carrier, “i think this belongs to you.”
PAW PATROL / @minhru
