Oppa says...
Who: Mazie and Jun-he When: 9 am Where: Library
Mazie was perfectly happy with how her night had gone, but not exactly thrilled about the option for clothing that Autumn had put her in. She’d spent most of it with Autumn and when she wasn’t snuggled up with Autumn on the couch or on the bed, she was at Autumn’s computer, working on her own little project. A project that had seen a great success over the night. All of this was leaving her with a pretty substantial smile on her face that morning...until she realized it was close to 9 am and she was still sort of not in real clothes. And all her real clothing was back at her own room.
But then Autumn was picking out something for her to wear and it was just so damn hard not to let that girl do whatever she wanted, so Mazie left to be social with Jun-he in a flouncy, white halter sundress that she would have never worn under normal circumstances, but was wearing because Autumn picked it and she said she looked cute in it, which Mazie doubted but whatever. At least the dress had pockets that she had stored her post-it note news in.
She found the library after a while and headed inside, hands in her dress pockets as she searched around for Jun-he.
It was a rare thing for Jun-he to find himself rather restless during an attempt to sleep. His thoughts about yesterday’s discussions had him rather full of unwanted thoughts. He just wanted to pretend like there was nothing going on, nothing bothering him and just... soldier on. This place was really different than anything he had ever experienced, he decided easily while managing to roll out of his bed with minimal sleep.
He had emerged from his room freshly shaved, showered, and all. Though he had been awake since nearly five in the morning, he felt like nothing about his day really started until his date with Mazie. Well, his meeting of minds.
It took him awhile to find his way to the Library, arriving an hour earlier than he had informed Mazie to meet him. Having worn nothing but a pair of black jeans and white tank top, he poked around the large room for certain things he had hoped to find. While he found a mountain of blank notebooks, he had opened each and every one until he came upon a couple with graph paper instead of the standard lined and took one. The only other thing he really needed for the time being was a pen, which he had easily come upon.
While he waited for the girl to arrive, Jun-he took to the shelves out of curiosity. He did quite a bit of reading in his down time back in Korea, much more than one would expect for someone with only a year of middle school education to their name but quickly he found that it was a much more difficult task in America. Everything was in English, and though he did not expect it to be any different it gave him a greater realization that no matter how long he was going to be there for, he would have to do something about his poor verbal skills. Kyle had been easily confused by him, and he could recall someone each day in the last few weeks who had been equally perplexed by him. Lost in translation was hardly an understatement at times.
As he picked through a couple of classics that he had managed to read through back in Busan, he noticed from just beyond his bookshelf that a ray of light had entered the room. His sunshine, he joked to himself, making a smile erupt on his face.
In all honestly he rather liked comparing her to the sun, and her hair was a little bit of a reminder of who he was before arrest. He was once notoriously well known among his friends for his bright blonde hair but now it was nearly black as night, something he tried to hide in order to protect himself against the reminder of who he was. It was strange seeing her in such an unexpected dress. Jun-he had not yet actually met Mazie, but she just hardly seemed the type. The way she carried herself seemed that her thoughts were just about the same.
Taking a side step, and placing The Count of Monte Cristo down, Jun-he took a small bow before her. “Annyeong,” he said to her in greeting. He figured her first word in Korean might as well be the easiest one of all languages; Hello.
Oh, so maybe he taught by immersion. That was going to be really difficult. She had started off with a smile to Jun-he, her bruised hand hidden in her dress pocket, but he was bowing which had Mazie faltering for a second. That plus the new word, Annyeong had her taking a minute just to wrap her head around what she was supposed to do. Bow, yes, so maybe the word was a greeting.
Giving it her best shot, Mazie gave a bow that was far from practiced but pretty genuine in effort, thinking she remembered somewhere that her hands shouldn't be in their pockets when she did that so she pulled them out before she tried it. "Annyon," she tried back, doing the best she could to keep the hints of a Southern accent from her voice, but even still the word wasn't quite correct. It hadn't sounded like Jun-he's and she wondered why, playing it over in her head again. "Annyeong," She tried again.
Jun-he laughed softly to himself. “Remember I told you...” he paused for a moment, picking up the thin blank notebook and pen he had left on the shelf, “I am older than you so, maybe you won't like it but in Korea it is normal to talk differently to people older than you. Most times you will greet me with ‘Annyeonghaseyo’.” Feeling a bit silly by that statement, he shook his head, “but I don’t really care... it’s good though you try to remember it that way still. Some people, especially if they are much older... Mmm they can get offended.”
Even though it was just a simple greeting, he felt like he was getting ahead of himself yet. He was by far doing something entirely new and never really studied much in anything himself. Jun-he was still rather beside himself on doing something other than brooding in his room.
“But I was thinking,” he added, “maybe if you want to learn Korean like this you can help me with something too...”
Yeah, she'd heard somewhere that there might be cultural differences that she'd have to accept and learn if she was going to really learn and understand Korean. And she wanted to, pretty seriously actually. Korea was one of the only places she really did want to go and she had a wealth of knowledge right here in Jun-he, and he was willing to teach her. "Not something that bothers me. I want to learn it for real, so learning these things is helpful too, Oppa" She promised, smiling.
It was a lot to take in, all the differences and the second word Jun-he had said, but if she was doing this, she was doing it right. Mazie had never been one to half-ass anything so if she was learning Korean, she was going to learn properly. Bowing again, she attempted the more proper greeting of "Annyeonghaseyo," before righting again and looking his way. "I think that was part of the plan originally, right? You teach me and I help with something some other time? What're you thinking I can help with?"
He laughed her open willingness to actually call him Oppa. Girls always liked to try and be cute with it in Korea, but here it was something different. It was amusing and, he thought, actually kind of cute. He appreciated it for what it was worth then moved to lead her to a nearby table. “Ah well, it seems that I need to learn better English,” he informed with another bit of a laugh. “Maybe you can help me with that.”
As he came upon the round table, he put down the notebook and pulled out a chair. “Sometimes I can’t express what I think clearly, and it is difficult... but today I will teach you how to write and read in Korean.. ah Hangeul, I don’t know if there is an English word for it but I don’t think so. It is what we call our writing,” he grinned, “and maybe I’ll teach you some funny things to say.”
All work and no play, he thought. Well, he wasn’t quite sure what else to talk about than their intention of having a Korean lesson. In some way he half hoped that it wouldn’t be more complicated than that, but then figured it would not have been so bad. She seemed alright enough of a person. In fact, she seemed entirely the opposite of what she expected from everyone in the facility... not that he really ever assumed he knew a damn about what it would be like at all.
Mazie followed him and sat at the table beside him, thinking it might be easier if he was planning on teaching her how to write and read in Korean. "That's a big undertaking, you know, teaching me all this today. I'm a quick learner but definitely not that quick. Figured this would be more like an…extended tutoring thing. Is that ok with you?"
Glancing back his way, she smiled at him, listening as he explained what he wanted in return for his tutelage. "Seems fair, language for a language. I can help with that, sure. Love to. And I can teach you some funny things to say in English too. Wanna shake on it, make a deal that we teach each other Korean and English respectively? Though from where I'm sitting, your English is already pretty great." She asked, holding her left hand out to him to await a handshake. "By the way, this is..the wrong way to shake. We're supposed to shake hands with our right hands, but my right hand is kind of out of commission right now so sorry about that."
Staring at her hand for a moment, Jun-he nodded. He was never one for handshakes anyway, so whether or not they were doing it wrong was not really an important detail. “I will remember, thank you,” he said, shaking it and mentally scoffing at himself. Sure, he would remember it, but would he really so willingly shake that many people’s hands?
“But it is easy for me to talk to you now,” he explained, “because it is not very difficult conversations. Expressing myself more fully when I want to... that becomes difficult and people often get confused.” Withdrawing his hand, he turned his attention to the book and opened it to to the first blank page.
“I chose to teach you reading Korean because actually it is really easy,” he picked up the black ballpoint pen and began writing out different symbols in a vertical line, one in each square, “Different sound for each.” Jun-he paused only for a second as he furrowed his brow. It would have been less complicated for him if he knew how to tell her about consonants and vowels but... that kind of thing was beyond his level of English proficiency. “When you remember what each one is in English sound, you will be surprised how easy Korean is to read,” he added, writing an equal sign beside each letter and then it’s associated English letter, “You will just have to take time to remember them.”
"Fair enough, I can understand how it might be more difficult if we were talking about the specifics of rocket science or...lines of computer code or something." Mazie watched him write, getting quiet while he spoke and wrote on the paper. The symbols made zero sense to her, right up until he equated them to English letters and then she nodded.
"Ooh, ok, I see. You're already a good teacher, reassuring me that I'll be able to read Korean easily. I'll try not to let you down, Oppa," Mazie said, smiling back at him before she held her right hand, puffy and reddened from small bruises, out. "Can I try to write them?" Sure, it wasn't going to be the best feeling in the world, she knew that already from the post-it note she'd written, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to suck it up and just write anyway. "Sometimes it helps me to write down things I should remember."
Jun-he eyed Mazie’s hand for a moment. She had done a good job hiding it, and he figured for the moment she clearly did not want to talk about it... and in truth he wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to at all either. “Okay,” he said, “Obviously you know that these are not the only symbols in Korean language... but when you know them, you can put together ahh... syl la ble?” Looking a little confused, he struggled with the word, and was not even entirely aware of whether or not it was the correct word for what he was trying to say. Still, he soldiered on. “When you write korean, they stack like a box. You can never start with letters like... ah, e, o, u... you know those. But if a word starts with one you can write a blank letter in first,” he drew a small o like symbol, “it means nothing at the beginning or “ng” at the end... that’s all you need to know for now.”
After talking about the language, he did wonder more about her hand. “Where did you get it?” he questione vaguely.
She did nod when he said the word 'syllable' and smiled at him to make sure he knew she understood what he meant, that he had used the correct term. Looking back down at the paper, she squinted her eyes in concentration, wondering how they'd managed to say the first word, the greeting word, when it had an 'ah' sound. But maybe there was an 'o' in front of it if she had been writing it.
Working her fingers around the pen, Mazie found the discomfort she felt and started to try and write the first symbol. She managed to get about halfway through it before she stopped, looking back and forth between his, a much nicer, fluid, beautiful looking symbol, and hers, a near trainwreck on paper.
Sighing, she sat back in her chair to glance his way again. "My hand? I punched someone," She answered, shrugging a little. "He put his hands on someone he shouldn't have, so I punched him. It's been…I don't know, a kind of big deal apparently. The Man," She started, then stopped, wondering if he would understand the term, "The people who are running this place…don't know how they'll react to this, but whatever. Me and the guy, we're being cordial I guess, so it's all they can really ask for."
"Ahh," Jun-he responded first, reaching over to her for the pen, "Can I borrow?"
Taking it, he began to write out the word in Korean 안녕하세요 "See like blocks. An nyeong ha se yo. You have to put that 'ㅇ' letter before 'An' because the.. Syllable," his accent still gave him trouble with that word, "Starts with an 'ah, e, o, u'... I don't know how to say it in English they are different from 'b, c, d,' and so on." He tried to explain it the best he could.
Yet not all his attention was solely fixed on the lesson he was giving. Jun-he found himself feeling a little bad about having made her write with a pen while her hand was in a bit of an awful state. "If you hit them for a good reason, then I don't think it matters," he said, "In Korea I see a lot of people hit for no reason, sometimes really hurt. Even I did such, but even though there are no reasons to hurt, sometimes there are reasons to protect something or someone and you just have to." He gave what little philosophy he could on the matter in English without looking at her and kept his eyes focused on the paper. For some reason he didn't want to seem too interested in the personal ongoings of the place, though it might have been that he was just afraid to really make a friend and have to care about them. It would have been a nice change but... He was just too lost in America to bother giving it any piece of himself. Perhaps it would change. He already had a conversation with Kyle he never thought he would have to.
"Oh, they're vowels. ah, e, o, u, i in English, sometimes y…they're vowels. B, c, d, all those other ones are consonants." She watched him, pleased with herself when he put the o in front of the symbols. "I thought it might go there…" She said gently, smiling at the way he formed the letters. "You write beautifully."
Even if he wasn't looking at her, she was watching him through small glances his way and beginning to wonder more about Jun-he's past in Korea as well. "Yeah, this was as good a reason as I think I could have had. Not sorry I had to punch him, just hate that the whole situation even happened really."
She watched him again for a second and then ran her good hand through her hair. "So..I'll just say this once because this isn't really my thing, but if you want to talk to someone or something…I'm here and can listen or whatever." She definitely felt awkward, more because she didn't do this and it was sort of surprising to even herself that she wanted to, but just the surface-level issues of her awkwardness probably didn't help either.
Then, so as not to feel like they had to dwell on it and also, partly yes, because of the awkward, Mazie looked back at the paper and held her hand out for the pen. "Let me try again. One day, my writing will look better. Probably not as good as yours, but it won't look like a monkey did it."
Jun-he laughed nervously, something he definitely do often. Her offer came at a little bit of the left field of his expectations and so he ignored it at first, turning his attention back to the Korean he was teaching again.
"If you want to..." He waited for a moment, "I requested a Korean and English keyboard so it has Korean written on it. I think it is not nice for you to write too much with your hand like that. So if I get it, you can come use it and practice. It will actually help I think because the computer will put them in blocks for you and you will even learn some things just from that". In his offer, he began to feel even more out of tune with his usual self. It was hardly a bad thing, but Jun-he appreciated the privacy. For some reason he found it easy to give her that opportunity.
Yet he could not help but think of how unusually nice she was being (in contrast to what he was used to). "My writing is nice I guess," he replied to her comment, "Much like my sister... Ah but you will have it nice too, I'm sure, Sunshine."
He was hardly aware of how silly calling her Sunshine might have sounded, but he liked it, and decided he was keeping it.
"Talk," he added quickly, thinking about it, "Maybe... Maybe if you drink soju with me." He laughed again, this time without any nervousness.
"You'd let me use your computer? That's really nice. I do love computers," She said with a grin, looking back his way. "Yeah, I'd like to do that if you're offering. My hand will be ok but computers are…a safe place for me, I guess. I might even learn quicker with that keyboard to help sometimes."
He still called her that, didn't he? She wasn't sure she should try and stop him because honestly, as weird as it might feel to have someone call her that, she was actually enjoying their time together and maybe asking him not to do that would make it more awkward than she'd already almost done. "Maybe it'll look nice someday. For now, it's probably going to not look so great, especially compared to yours and probably your sister's."
"Sure, I'll drink soju with you. Haven't done it before but there's a first time for everything, right? Not sure if the bar carries it or not, we might have to request some.”
Nodding, Jun-he held a brighter smile at her last statement. "Actually," he began, feeling a lot more at ease now, "When I first got here I went looking... There was a bottle in the back of the storage, with some Sake."
He felt much more like himself. It was refreshing and he definitely appreciated her company. "I drank some of it to remind myself of things from before," he explained, "But there is enough to enjoy, you and me, later maybe?"
His enthusiasm was not entirely unusual, but it was new for him here. Maybe it was her, he wasn't quite sure, but in thinking about it he finally turned his gaze away from the notebook and looked at her. He gave her a soft smile in a way that to himself was telling her he already enjoyed her company. Whether he had to actually tell her or not, he didn't seem to think about.
It was kind of surprising how at ease Mazie felt around Jun-he, especially when this was the first time they’d met in person. The Sunshine thing was a little weird, but not a dealbreaker by any means. Though they had come together of a mutual agreement and she was here to learn from him, she was kind of caught off guard at how much she wanted to add Jun-he to the list of people she’d probably throw a punch for.
“Sounds like a plan to me, but if you have a specific kind you want, I bet you could request it and they’d give it to you. I’m gonna stay away from requesting anything for a while, I don’t think they’ll give me anything quite yet.” When he smiled at her, she smiled back, a similar soft smile that echoed the same sentiment; that she too was enjoying this. “Hey, how do you write your name? Not sure we could write Mazie in Korean but I’d like to see how you write yours.”
Pressing his lips together, Jun-he returned his attention to the paper before them. “Okay,” he began, reaching for the pen, “my name is not so hard, of course.” At the top right corner, he used three squares to write out his name, 최전해 and next to it Choi Jun-he“Ahh,” he made a funny face, “but in English I spell it wrong because I did not know it well at the time how to. Anyway names are silly in English, always you will see them a bit off from what they should be. As long as you say them right, it does not matter.”
Without hesitation, Jun-he moved to the next line and wrote 마씨 upon it. “Mazie is not so hard when you know the sounds in Korean. You just have to put a double ‘s’ sound... it will never sound the same to Koreans for English names, but close. So like Ma Ssi. But see my family name has a difficult letter in it, it should sound like ‘choeh’,” he made effort to really drag out the sound, “it goes before Jun-he.”
She watched, entranced by how easily he could just pen the symbols and how much nicer they looked. She knew it was a long shot to believe she’d get to have penmanship like his, but maybe hers would be passable at some point. Smiling as she watched, she listened and nodded, laughing a little. “You’re right, English is weird. Nothing’s ever really spelled like it should be. Even my name probably isn’t.”
Watching again as he wrote hers, or the equivalent of it, down underneath his, she nodded again. “So it’s more like Ma-ssi,” She repeated, trying to repeat the way he said it, “Ok...I can work with that. So...If I were in Korea and I met someone, how do I address that person? Like if I met you and we didn’t know each other, I would say Annyeong, Mister Choi? But without the ‘mister’ part, what does there instead?” Did this make any sense? She wasn’t positive she made sense to herself now that she was thinking back through it again.
He laughed softly, not at her, but the question in itself. “Actually, it is very complicated,” he explained, propping his elbow on the table and leaning his chin on the palm of its hand, “There are many way someone can greet another and many times there are proper ways to do so and sometimes it won't matter how you do it. Sometimes you can just come in to a room without addressing anyone and say annyeonhaseyo.”
Jun-he then turned his head slightly to look at her. “I’ll tell you some funny things, maybe when we drink soju because then I will want to talk like that anyway,” again he laughed, “in English it is more common to say things like slang but in Korea it’s different. Though I really don’t mind teaching you anything. I think this is good.” Truthfully, he really did the unexpected; enjoying being productive... well enjoying teaching. He was productive in his own ways in Korea.
So what she took from that was that she had a ton more to learn just about greetings alone. Which was fair, she was trying to learn a completely different language and soak up any cultural details Jun-he wanted to pass along in the process.
Nodding, she smiled back at him, something brighter when he mentioned drinking again. "Ok, you teach me some funny things to say and I'll teach you some funny things to say in English too, though I'm curious as to what English slang you already know."
Waiting a moment, she glanced back his way and then fished for the post it note in her pocket. Taking it out but keeping it deftly tucked inside her hand, she made a point of slipping it by his hand near his notebook when she went in for the pen. And thankfully her hair was down so she tried to hide behind it as much as possible, speaking in a low tone. "Try to read that in private. There's not a lot of privacy in this place to begin with but read it and if it's something you're interested in, come find me. I can help with that also."
Cocking an eyebrow, Jun-he hesitated at first. His first instinct was to see what was on the note, but thinking about her words clearly, though rather quiet, he decided to leave it where it was for the moment. After a couple of seconds, he slipped his hand over it and held it there for the time being.
“I know a lot of English slang,” he informed, with a less amused tone, mostly because his thoughts were distracted on the note, “In prison everyone thinks they are a gangster and needs to talk like one... so you know my first English is taught to me by them as I listen.” Although he did not have the greatest grasp on English, he knew well enough about what acting cool about something was, and so he decided not to say a word about the note at all. He figured she would have prefered it that way.
“I think today you should try and remember these letters. If you have time later today... maybe come by my room for some Soju,” what he definitely did not want to do was share the Soju more than he already had to and therefore making a point in making their drinking a more private matter. “I don’t have the keyboard yet but I can still use it now for Korean, maybe I’ll show you.”
Good. She was depending on people to act exactly like Jun-he had in order for this thing to work. Thankful, she gave him a small smile, not saying another word on the matter but hoping that he could understand that they were on the same page about the note.
She listened to him speak about learning his English from prison in America and was yet again blown away by him. He just kept surprising her. At no point had she ever thought Jun-he was not intelligent, but learning a language just by overhearing it at prison? That was some sort of genius level stuff. "That's really impressive," She said. "No way would I ever be able to learn something just from hearing other people say it. That's pretty awesome."
Looking back down at the letters, Mazie nodded again. "I think that works. I'll work on the letters and then come find you later for Soju and jokes." Maybe she'd make some flash cards too, once her hand didn't smart so badly, for both herself and him. They'd always helped her learn things when she was being homeschooled.
“Ahh, but for four years in the same place, you can learn anything by hearing enough of it,” he added before sitting upright, taking the note with him under his hand. “It shouldn’t take you long to learn the letters but eventually you can read Korean text for practice. I will send you a message of something written in Korean, and you can write it down in English letters... then maybe I will tell you what it means. It should help, I think.” Maybe was right. He liked to leave people wondering, as he had with Kyle. It was in many ways for his own personal amusement at times. Though he figured there would only be a real point in doing that if he really wanted her to figure out translating something on her own. Perhaps it was a good strategy in the end. Well, he had no idea what the right way was for teaching someone his language...
He might have a point and even though Mazie prided herself on being a pretty quick learner, she still wasn’t sure she would be able to pick up a new language like that. Maybe she would have surprised herself, but luckily she didn’t seem to have to approach it that way, not with Jun-he offering to teach her.
Gathering up her notebook and the pen he’d brought for them, she nodded again. “I think once I know the letters, that seems like a fair thing to do. I like a challenge,” She said about the message she may have to translate. Mazie smiled as she stood up. “I’ll see you later, Oppa,” She said before heading out towards the exit for the library. All in all, a very successful first lesson.
Jun-he watched her as she got up to leave. “Ne,” he simply responded with a smile. With her gone, the Korean simply sat at the table for a bit, thinking briefly before he remembered about the note she had handed him. It was apparently of the utmost secrecy... so he figured it was time to return to his cave.