| Fan Fiction |
by Ms J Dean
The old lady walked slowly yet carefully, looking down to the path her legs leading her to. She is just few steps before the crosswalk ends, and suddenly a car driven recklessly came and turned into her. Seeing this, Dean runs into the old lady, forgetting the red light. J was shocked towards Dean’s movement cried loud her name but she didn’t look back, and without hesitation, he followed after seeing a car coming into her way. J pushed her forward, lost his control over his steps, and fell down to the road, which caused a minor injury to his wrist and elbow.
“Abunakatta! That’s was too close! Yokatta I’ve made it….” J said, still catching his breath.
“Ark! You’re bleeding!” Dean cried.
“No, it’s just a tiny hurt” J hides his injured hand and asked to the old lady, “Obasan, daijoubu?”
“Iie. Sumimasen deshita” said the old woman nearly cried. Her heart was touched seeing how the two had risks their life for her. Dean holds her hand, which is not holding the stick and J helped carrying her stuffs. The three went to the old lady’s house, which situated just a couple of meters away from Dean’s home. She introduced herself as Mrs. Yoshida. She looked older than her age due to her bad health condition. She lives alone, and was just discharged from hospital few weeks ago.
“Ahh….itai!” J cried as Mrs. Yoshida cleans the cut he had on his elbow.
“You’re such a young boy, you must stay healthy and strong, my child” she coughed a little after finishing her words.
“Uhm. Wakatta…Obasan, hontou ni daijoubu?” J is worrying this old lady more than himself instead. Dean just looked at the 2, before she brought three cups of hot ocha from the kitchen.
“Sore…” said Mrs. Yoshida staring at the glittering sapphire-blue locket on J’s chest. It can be seen clearly when he took of his jacket. J looked at Mrs. Yoshida and followed her eyes to find that she’s referring to his locket.
“Ohh. This locket was a gift from my mom. She gave me when I was just a little kid” J answered and smiled a second. His turned into straight face a moment later as he recalled it’s the last thing he received from her, before she died.
“From your mom? Child, can you lend it to me for a while?” The two is looking at each other. Why would this old lady acted like that?
“Sure” J replied while he took it off from his neck and hands it to her. Dean and J sit still and uttered no words, waiting for Mrs. Yoshida to reply. The old lady looked at the locket very carefully. She touched and cares the locket as it is hers. Her eyes shed few tears later, uttered surprise looks on each faces.
“Child, what is your mother’s name?” she asked as the tears leaving her eyes.
“Juanita…she is better known as Jang Nita, adapted name to Korean pronunciation” J answered honestly in details. The detail brought the shock expression to both Mrs. Yoshida and Dean.
“Then you must be Jun’ichi…Lee Jun’ichi!” she wailed and later takes J into her embrace, and calling out his name as “Junji”. J was totally shocked. He sat still for Mrs. Yoshida still embracing him tightly in her arms. J tried as hard as he could, guessing on who is actually this old lady, whose exactly knew his past.
“Obasan,…” releasing his body from her embrace, and then continues,
“Are you Mrs. Yoshida Yumie? Dan… no! Yoshida Kazuhiro’s wife?” he just guessing it. But it must be a right guess, since nobody else to think of. Mrs. Yoshida nodded her head few times and took him to her embrace again. She and her husband, which better known as Dan and their daughter, once lived with J, not a very long after J and his dad back to Japan from their 2-week-vacation in Malaysia, that was, 12 years ago. J was closed to her as closed as his late mom. As her husband was working for Mr. Lee, Mrs. Yoshida took care of J for mere 6 months. She left the apartment with her daughter after had a quarrel with Dan. From that on, Mrs. Yoshida disappeared and nobody knows where she went to. She felt a terrible grief and pain leaving J, and lived in regrets all this past.
“Auntie!….We’ve been looking for you this whole 12 years. Why did you left me? What had happened? Where’s your daughter? How is she now?” J asked one after another as he reminds the things of 12 years ago. Mrs. Yoshida wiped off her tears using her sleeves’ ends first, before she moved backwards a little and bowed to J, until her forehead was nearly touches the ground.
“Gomen nasai. Gomen nasai” she said again and again.
“Auntie, what are you doing? Stop it, please” now J too bursts into tears. He can’t deny the fact that he couldn’t stop blaming this woman for leaving him in that house like the hell. He holds Mrs. Yoshida shoulders and looked into her eyes, assuring her that he forgave all her done.
“My daughter Emi passed away 5 years ago, in an accident. I was injured badly too, but she can’t take it no more…she died in my arms” the silence filled the cold night air for a moments. So that was the reason for why she’s leaving all alone here now.
“Auntie, please have the ocha while it still warm” Dean breaks the silence, and hold the cup for Mrs. Yoshida. J halted. He thinks of something before continued…
“Yah… why don’t you said that earlier? I’m thirsty…” he took a sip of a warm ocha before continued,
“Ahhh, having hot ocha on the cold night is saikou! Na, obasan?” J said before taking few other sips. Mrs. Yoshida smiled kindly, makes Dean to burst into a small laughter too.
""This was the first time I saw her laughing. She laughed quietly, uttering no sounds, showing her upper front tooth a little. That is cute! I hope she smiles more later… everyday maybe! And I just noticed it – the way she talked to my aunty. She is like my aunt’s real daughter, they are too closed instead of they just knew each other today. But she has no closed friends at school… I wonder why. Ark! What I’m talking about?! Isn’t it happening to me too?""
////////////////////// Word List /////////////////////////
1) Abunakatta (from the word abunai (adj.)) = (it was) dangerous
2) Yokatta! = That’s a relief! (That’s great!)
3) Obasan = Aunty
4) daijoubu = ok/fine
5) ocha = japanese green tea
6) saikou = the best
7) itai = hurt
8) sore = that
9) sore jya! = later!/see ya!
..... to be continued ...........