#ncjeah

With her birth, there’s the quiet, desperate hope that as the secondborn, she’ll turn out to be absolutely nothing like their troublesome first.

Naturally, Jeah rises to the occasion: fulfilling her parents’ one wish, filling in the gaps that her brother has no stakes in, filling out the blueprints of her own trajectory—tip, tip, then pour.

Much to her relief, the addition of her baby brother does not mean another thickskulled moron to deal with. On the other hand, the adopted one ends up only getting some credit for his loyal sensibilities.

Over the years, she grows to become a master of the balancing act: flipping between cello sheet music and Chinua Achebe, extracurriculars taken back to back with measured shots of spiced tequila, the pull of filial piety without the push of total, soul-crushing compromise.

It takes only half an hour in the company of her father’s pruny, overtly sentimental cronies for young Jeah to decide no ma'am, this is not the hill she wants to die on.

As planned: a B.A. in Architecture, a gap year split between Colombia and Jordan, and a couple months more at home before it winds down to a close with an acceptance letter from SNU School of Law.

“Work hard, play hard” turns to “work hard, work harder” in a blink of an eye—not a surprise by any means, but by god, what a pain in the ass.

When word of Yuripa’s torch getting passed off yet again reaches her ears, there’s not much to do other than laugh at the future prospects of the Ohs’ male-centric familial drama doubling in size.

Her drive is equal parts infallible enthusiasm and ego: money’s good, but it’s even better when it has her name written all over it—like father, like daughter, so they say, except Jeah likes to think she’s using a much more reasonable means to reach such ends.

Now past the two-thirds mark in the J.D. program, Jeah’s remaining milestones include graduation and passing the bar exam.

December

Cherries, she gets that much on the first sniff. Cherries, ripe holiday plums, and a spoonful of white sugar from the bowl. Heady, and headache-inducing. She gives it a swirl, sips, gets a soak of saccharined ruby nausea. Her tastebuds and fruit wine have never gotten along, not even with the likes of a classic 1990 Domaine Leroy. It's time corked in a bottle, sloshing violently as it made its journey: eastern France to middlemen ports to the glass held by Cartier-studded fingers itching with the temptation to tip it over into the kitchen sink. 

If she can get away with it, that's a little over half a century down the drain, without so much as a flinch. 

"Oh that's smooth."

She catches the last word with a frown. Smooth—what the hell is that supposed to mean? Later on, it'll be found that no one really quite knows. A result of fervent overuse by aficionados and non-aficionados alike, transcending texture, taste, whatever else they seek at the bottom of the bottle—

"Jeah?" 

Fuck. "It just hits the spot you know?" She says it as if the referred spot isn't her gag reflex, seemingly oh so eager to please.

When the family chauffeur arrives to pick her up two hours later, Jeah slides out of the winter chill and into the backseat of the sedan. Minutes pass without a word. Then:

"Mr. Kim, do you have a bag?"

"A what, Miss?"

"A paper bag." She puts a hand over her stomach and groans. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

 November

The nightly news entails the same old, same old—yesterday, a headline on an embezzlement scandal, the next a press conference held by the SMPA. One draws indifference, the other ire. 

Take your pick.

Eyes trained to the screen, Jeah searches for a singular face, all deaf ears to the murmuring at the dining table. Earlier her mind had been set adrift, floating in cerulean salt water, a phantom boat set for the Caribbean Sea mid-peak Colombian summer. The residual wanderlust continues to sting.

The mementos from her year abroad sit in various points around the house—a small lantern from Día de las velitas rescued from the festivities clean-up, an olive green porcelain vase purchased in Amman. The candle on the end table flickers, but the scent doesn't bring a wave of comfort this time. 

She keeps watching. Looking. There’s that gaze somewhere, the characteristic sharp-nonchalance that is a shared trait between the three of them. Whether this is out of spite or something softer is a thought where she doesn’t care to mark the difference. 

“Jeah.” Her father’s voice cuts through like a clap of thunder. “What does this mean?” This meaning the pretty embellished acceptance letter received just this afternoon. This meaning the step taken towards a slippery slope. 

It’s the first time Jeah’s moved a muscle all evening, and it’s to turn to confirm what she’s been expecting: the stiffened stance, lips a firm, thin line. Calm before the storm, one that she knows how to prolong, disaster held away at an arms’ length. 

“It means,” she sits up on the sofa, “Appa shouldn’t worry because I’m not going down that road.”

Left unsaid: Like I’d walk down a path already taken. 

Left unsaid: Like I’d know disloyalty.

Left unsaid: Like I’d end up like him. 

And she smiles in a way that means to reassure, perhaps even extend a promise of sorts: history may repeat itself, but not in the way that they had first witnessed it.