Chapter 2: A Surprising Artistic Endeavor – August 3 – 12, 2019
The week flew by for Jungkook. He was so busy that the hours passed quickly, but he thought of Yunyeong constantly and anticipated her reaction when she finally discovered what the past six weeks had all been devoted to. Finally, Monday dawned bright, beautiful, and hot. It was the middle of August now. The smell of roses was in the air.
He rang her doorbell with excitement stirring in his heart. He had missed her. But he couldn’t wait for today! This was the goal he’d been working towards for half the summer.
The door swung open, and she gave him a big smile.
“Hi, Kookie.”
He stepped through the doorway and slipped his arms around her, drawing her close to him. He whispered into her ear, “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too,” she murmured as he stepped back.
She was nearly bouncing up and down. “I finished it!” she exclaimed.
He quirked a dark eyebrow, but then a wide grin spread across his face. “Your art project?”
She nodded.
“Can I see it?”
His surprise would have to wait. As eager as he was to show it to her, he was equally excited to see what she’d been working on. The secret she’d been hiding from him.
She nodded and reached for his hand. Inwardly, he gasped as her palm slid across his and her fingers wrapped around his own. She drew him down the hallway towards her room. After they’d stepped through the doorway, she shut the door. Jungkook raised his eyebrows in surprise. Apparently, their trust level had gone up several notches since the first time he’d set foot in her room. She would never have shut the door then.
She walked across the room and opened the bottom drawer of her desk. She pulled out a book. Then, turning slowly, she faced him. He took in the apprehensive expression on her face. He felt his heart shift in his chest. She was nervous.
“Hey, whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll love it,” he attempted to calm her.
Her eyes met his, and she smiled at him tentatively. “You’re always so nice to me, Kookie.”
“Your boyfriend should always be nice to you,” he murmured with a very sober light shining from his eyes.
She swallowed as her eyes widened. Kookie considered himself her boyfriend?
She tore her eyes away from him and thrust the book into his hands.
He glanced down at it. He was looking at a book cover. It was the garden he’d seen a few weeks ago. The one whose sketch she’d shown him the first day they’d gone jogging together. She’d sketched the garden with three of its walls visible. It was resplendent with roses. Their apple tree was vibrant; its hanging fruit appeared so inviting. She’d painted the entire garden in such a way that it almost looked like a photograph; the images were so crisp.
“It’s stunning,” he muttered. “And so exactly perfect.”
His face was suddenly split by a wide grin, and all his teeth came out to play with her eyes. She stood, captivated by that gorgeous grin. And the light of adoration in his gaze. She loved him. In that moment, she knew for certain. She loved Kookie.
His eyes perused the cover for a few more moments. “So perfect,” he mumbled before turning the page.
It wasn’t what he’d expected. He was shocked. He stared down at the words on the right page before his eyes traveled to the beautiful painting on the left. This was a book! Not a sketchbook. But an illustrated story. His eyes met hers briefly.
“You wrote a book? It’s beautiful!”
Then he reached out and grabbed the back of her chair and pulled it towards him. He sat down in it and settled in to read her book. But before he began, he glanced up at her.
“Can I take you somewhere today? For several hours?”
She hesitated. What had he planned? Was it safe for her to go with him? She barely knew him.
He read the hesitation in her face, and his heart sank. “I have a surprise for you. Something I’ve been working on for weeks. If you want, I can tell your parents where we’re going and why, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise for you by telling you what’s going on.”
Her eyes slid over his face. He appeared innocent enough. She sighed. Would her whole future always be shadowed by her horrid past?
“If you’re willing to tell my appa, then I’ll go with you,” she whispered.
His eyes filled with sorrow. He really didn’t want to take anyone else with them, or else he would offer to bring her sister too. He swallowed.
“I’ll tell your appa. Can I call him at work? I’d offer to bring Yunseong, but I don’t think you’ll want her with us. This is something private, between just you and me.”
He was trying to calm her, but her anxiety had just flown through the roof. Something private? Between just the two of them?
“I want her to come with us!” she exclaimed suddenly.
Jungkook sighed. Yunyeong didn’t trust him. Not fully. Not yet. And somehow, his carefully chosen words had triggered her fear again.
“Yunyeong, what am I up against here? I feel like I keep scaring you. Even when I’m trying so hard not to.”
She turned away from him. She could not tell him. She hadn’t ever told anyone. She could never tell him. He’d either pity her or scorn her. Either way, she couldn’t handle his reaction.
“Is it all right if we bring Tae too? So she has someone to hang out with?” he asked when she ignored his question.
She nodded.
“Do you still want me to call your appa?”
She bobbed her head again.
“All right. Can I call him on your phone right now? Before I read your book?”
She handed him her phone after dialing the number.
“Hello, Mr. Choi.” Jungkook wandered into the hallway and shut the door behind him. He walked out to the kitchen before explaining the details of his plan. “I think she’s a little leery of going with me, so I told her I would call you. I can give you my parents’ phone numbers if you’d like to speak with them too. And I told her that I’d bring Yunseong and Tae with us too.”
“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble for my daughter, Jungkook. Is there something I need to know?”
Jungkook swallowed before admitting, “I love her, sir. I just want to see her happy.”
“I guess you do! This is the most elaborate gift I have ever heard of! You’re what, nineteen? My wife is going to melt when she learns of this. I’ll be in the doghouse for a whole year now. So thanks a lot, young man!” But then he laughed. “You do realize you have now ruined all other men for Yuni? She’ll never look at anyone but you ever again. You have my permission to take her as long as her sister and Tae go with you. Put her on the phone, and I’ll do my best to set her mind at ease.
“She hasn’t had a boyfriend in a very long time. I’m not sure why. She’s such a pretty girl. I guess she’s just taken school more seriously than friendships. She’s been a very serious student for the last few years. Not really had any close friends for a long time either. I’m glad she found you, Jungkook. I trust you’ll treat her right.”
“I will, sir. I promise you.” Jungkook had walked down the hall. Now he opened the door to her bedroom. “Here she is, sir. Thank you.”
Jungkook handed her the phone. He sat down to read as she talked to her appa.
––
Jungkook opened the book again. He began to read the words that had flowed from her heart onto a piece of paper as she’d dreamed of Kookie.
“Jangmi had always loved The Secret Garden. In book form. Movie form. Play form. It didn’t matter. She loved it thoroughly. From start to finish. She had often felt like she and Mary Lennox were twin souls. Oh, it hadn’t always been so. But ever since her sixteenth year, she’d felt a kinship with the bitter girl.”
The sketch on the opposite page was in shades of black and white. His eyes slid over that sad page, clothed in tones of gray. A grimacing Jangmi stood alone in the middle of a busy street. People were passing her by. Not a single one noticed her pain.
He turned the page, and his eyes took in a similar scene. This page was split. Jangmi, who could have been Yunyeong’s twin, was still standing on that lonely street corner in her black-and-white world. But Mary Lennox stood a few inches away in a colorful garden, surrounded by two smiling boys, a busy gardener, and a tiny bird. The last thing Jungkook noticed were the footprints that flowed from the gray world to the left into the glistening garden on the right. The footprints faded from black to gray to white before transforming into the colors of the rainbow as they entered Mary’s enchanting world.
He read the words on the opposite page.
“Jangmi understood isolation. She hadn’t ever had a true friend. She marveled at Mary’s journey into wholeness. Aided by a tiny bird, a kind gardener, a friendly young man, an invalid boy, and a secret garden. Jangmi dreamed that one day a miracle would occur for her, like Mary had received her miracle.”
“But three years had passed, and no one had ever gifted her a garden. Jangmi continued to float from day to day in her solitary world. She buried her eyes in books, her brain in studies, and her fingers in sketching. But her heart still longed for more.
“To be healed from her painful past. To be able to trust someone again. To find a true friend. Someone who would cherish her heart.”
This page was accompanied by a sketch of a young girl with long hair bent over her desk, buried in her books. Jungkook turned the page to find another split scene. Her slender fingers holding a pencil as she sketched in a book, Jangmi was still seated at her desk in that gray environment. Across from her in a technicolored world sat a girl who appeared nearly identical to her. Her long, golden brown hair flowing down her back, this girl was sitting in her own room on her floor with a beautiful, laughing boy. The happy girl’s head was thrown back in amusement as her joy left her mouth so prettily that Jungkook could almost hear her giggling.
The boy in the sketch was larger than life. More colorful than anything else. His eyes were deep and dark and sparkling. His hair was so black its sheen was blue. His tan skin leapt off the page. But it was his glowing countenance that drew the eye. His joy was tangible.
Jungkook was humbled as he stared at his own reflection sketched upon that page. Was this how Yunyeong saw him? He gazed at it in awe for a few moments. Then he read the words that accompanied this picture.
“Jangmi had a sister who loved her. Nari had often tried to drag Jangmi into the land of the living. But Jangmi preferred to hide in her room. Under her books. Within her sketches. The worlds she created were so much kinder than the world she had been born into.
“Then one shining summer’s day, Nari brought a boy home. A golden boy with gorgeous, obsidian eyes. Midnight locks. And the brightest grin Jangmi had ever seen. She was instantly drawn to him.
“But this sudden connection scared her. So she hid away in her room. His smile was the first one to touch her heart in a very long time. But her frozen heart didn’t want to thaw. Melting was painful. Terrifying. Hence, she entered her cave and rarely came out to see the sunshine that glowed in his eyes. On the rare occasions when she was forced to sit near him, she hid behind her long, dark gold hair. But her green eyes still flashed at him every time his searching gaze found hers.”
Jungkook turned the page and read the next lines.
“And his gaze searched for her often. The beautiful boy was determined to draw her out of her shell. Armed with kindness and sincerity, he sought to uncover her heart. He once even referred to it as her ‘beautiful heart.’
“He didn’t know that such words melted that beautiful heart. And sent terrifying shards of electricity into it. She continued to brush him off. But he refused to be dissuaded. Like a hwarang of old, he was noble and persistent. He spurned giving up.
“And, having discovered she had lost the ability and the will to dream, he dreamed a dream for her. For he too believed in the power of a secret garden. And of a true friendship. And of a real love.”
The painting across from these beautiful words had a background full of shades of gray again. And Jangmi was still sketched in black and white. But the boy and the seven colors of his love had invaded this page. He had brought all the colors of the rainbow with him. They were bursting from his eyes and his mouth to swirl around her in her black and white sphere. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and purple hearts all danced together around her. They were bouncing off her white skin and seeking entrance to her frozen heart. Where his tan fingers brushed her ivory skin, a bolt of hot electricity struck her, leaving a golden sheen on that pristine surface.
The next page had a sketch of that drab gray sphere Jangmi inhabited. Everything was colorless except the beautiful boy who had entered the picture in the corner. A black-and-white Jangmi continued to sit at her desk, buried under books and papers. But across the room from her, outside her window stood that glowing guy. Once again, he was painted in vibrant colors and with evident love. And the outside world was bursting with cerulean sky and green grass.
Jungkook’s eyes found her words.
“One day, as she continued to hide away in her bedroom, he came to visit her. But he didn’t tell her. He stood outside of her window with a shovel in his hand. And he began to dig a hole in the ground. After a while, satisfied that the hole was deep enough, he returned to his car with his shovel and drove away.
“She had heard him outside her window and had peeked between her blinds to discover his dark locks gleaming in the sun. She’d watched him as his powerful arms wielded that shovel and dirt went flying to form a tiny hill under her window frame. Then, suddenly, he was gone. And his shovel with him.”
Jungkook flipped the page and read the continuation of the story.
“The next morning, she arose with the sun and peeked out her window. She saw the rising sun burnishing his midnight locks once more, and her heart yearned for him. But his eyes did not find hers. They were intent upon his task. They were assisting his hands which were carefully directing the roots of a rose bush to settle down into the hole he had dug yesterday.
“She observed him as, with one hand he held the bush upright and with the other, he pushed dirt into the hole until he had filled it up. He pressed it down with both hands until the little bush could stand on its own. Then she watched as he walked away. Again, without glancing up into her window.
“He returned a few moments later with a watering can. He tipped it until a stream of crystalline water flowed onto the bush and into the ground around it. As he stepped away, she saw the crimson bloom of one perfect rose smiling up at her. Just then, he turned and caught her eye through the blinds. That rose was no longer the only one sharing its joy with her.
“A beautiful grin spread across his glowing countenance. But it was the light in his eyes that was her undoing. He picked up his watering can and bowed his head to her before disappearing that day. But he had left his gift with her. Someone had gifted her a garden.”
The scene was divided again. But this time the window was in the center of the page. Jangmi stood to the right in her gray world and gazed out at the colorful sphere the beautiful boy inhabited. Once again, Jungkook was pictured there in vibrancy. As was a green rose bush with a rose of such deep crimson that Jungkook felt like he could reach out and touch the velvet of its lush petals.
Eagerly, he turned the page.
“A boy beautiful with a glowing grin and flashing, obsidian eyes had given her a rose garden. She stood for a long time that day staring down at that lovely, little plant. And dreaming about a marvelous man with captivating eyes. She had suddenly joined him in his dream.
“She lay down in her bed that night and imagined herself in that secret garden – the one her heart had conjured long ago. She could feel the cold stone of its four gray walls underneath her skin. She could hear the song of their own robin redbreast. She could smell the perfume of the garden’s multitudes of scarlet and pink roses. She could taste the sweetness of the crisp fruit that hung from their apple tree. She could see his smiling eyes and feel his innocent kiss on her lips. As they touched under the shade of that green tree. Enveloped by the fragrance of the deepest of crimson roses.”
Jungkook’s eyes slid over the beautiful painting opposite this final page of her book. Yunyeong had painted the two of them within the walls of that glorious garden. He and Yunyeong were standing under that apple tree, their arms embracing one another as their lips brushed each other. Once again, the picture was vibrant. Simply bursting with life and color. Only this time, Yunyeong had also been painted in technicolor. The rainbow of his love had invaded her heart and brought it back to life again. It had planted roses in her cheeks and a deep green sea in her eyes. The joy of his own laughter had filled her mouth. Just like in Jungkook’s dream.
