Back to a Bowl of Soup

Story by Joyce Lee

| SHORT WRITING CONTEST

He had received an order for miyeok-guk, or seaweed soup, as it was called in English. He rarely made miyeok-guk anymore. Perhaps no one ordered it because it took a while to make. Or it could be that people seemed to prefer the galbi or bulgogi. People these days only seemed to want meat.

He gathered together the ingredients absentmindedly. His hands knew what to do, even if they were out of practice. After all, he had made this frequently many years ago. 

He dropped the glass bowl he was holding. Shaking his head, he cleaned up the shattered pieces on the floor. The customers were waiting for their food, he scolded himself. He shouldn’t keep them waiting. 

The beef cut easily into neat slices under his experienced fingers. He marinated it and cooked it carefully, adding the miyeok in when the meat was no longer red. 

Tiny little fingers grabbed the seaweed and handed it to him. He laughed at the girl’s antics. “You should wash your hands first,” he scolded gently.

He blinked. He was back in his restaurant kitchen. He shook his head and concentrated on the soup. He added water and brought the mixture to a boil. He skimmed off the extra matter and lowered the heat. Setting it aside, he cooked other dishes as the seaweed soup boiled. He was alone in the kitchen, for his restaurant was small and not well known. He did not need help to cook.

The timer beeped. The miyeok-guk was complete. He carefully transferred it to one of the bowls his daughter had gifted him with, when she grew up, and just before…

His hands shook, but he managed to finish. He looked at the porcelain bowl. He had protested that it was too expensive, but she had shook her head and said, “Please take them, appa. They are a gift from me to repay you for everything you’ve done for me.” He set it down and called for the waiter. Those days, when she was grown up, after her mother had passed away, and the days when she no longer needed his help, she had rarely called him appa, or ‘Dad’, but had prefered to call him the more formal abeoji, or ‘Father’. It was that word that had convinced him to take the gift. It was also that word that he had missed most when she had reached adulthood. 

The waiter took the dish. “There’s someone who wants to meet you, chef.” 

“Is that so?” He asked. No one had made that request before. He was just the person behind the scenes who made the food. He washed his hands and stepped outside of the kitchen. 

He recognized the eyes first. The warm, brown, almond-shaped eyes he had known best in the two people dearest to him. 

And one of them stood before him now, smiling, with a familiar twinkle in the eyes he hadn’t seen for five years. “Hi, appa.”