HyeonJu Oh/Ch.5 first draft/Tues 9-11 am

My little soldier

Hyeonju Oh          

 

"Sister, of course you already knew. My bed is not for your comic books. And about mandarins' peels, takes them back to your room later." When I kicked the door and rushed into his bed with mandarins like a usual, he said without any attention. The Korean SAT finished in last week, but his eyes were still stick on his desk. His old glasses were shining under the desk light. He kept reading a book. "Little you, I heard the news from mommy and don't even think that you can deceive me. The Military Academy c-h-o-s-e you!" I yelled for drawing his attention. His chair turned slowly. He looked at me with deep breath. I threw one mandarin to him with giggling.

Everything in his room was a symphony in brown and black. There were black cushions and black blankets were on the redwood bed and a small black dumbbell was standing under it. The wall was white. There wasn't any spot on it. The windows were up high and they were covered with curtains all day. But I knew that sometimes they flapped in cold winds in early morning and he enjoyed that kind of scene. All the gadgets on his desk were old. But nothing was covered with dust so I easily guess how he cares about his room. In overall his room was clean and well-organized.

"Actually I never thought that you wanted to be a soldier. Well I know that it is a really honorable job, but I felt that you always refuse to belong to somewhere. Is there any special opportunity to make you decide like that?" I asked him. Then he stretched his arm into the air shortly and touched backside of his neck slowly. "Well, when I firstly dreamed of it was 6 years ago. I was 13 years old and at that time, the North Korea attacked the Yeonpyeong Island. Although I was young, I could feel the negative tension between two groups. And I realized that the peace maintained by a lot of soldiers who died for this nation." He lightly grabbed the mandarin and I saw his big hands with vivid tendons.

"It is much earlier than I thought. But you know, you once said that you wanted to quit the high school. So I believed that you don't like to obey in a strict system. Are you sure that you can be well accepted in the army?" I asked. When he mentioned about his will for quitting the school, the conflict between parents and my brother was little aggressive. But now he answered silently recalling the past. "When I was in a high school, I was impatient. I couldn't endure studying subjects which had no relations with my goal. But now I thanks for all… all the subjects were helpful for the entrance exam."

After he answered, he stood up and collected the peels of mandarins. Because I ate most of them I felt guilty and so I followed him to the trash can. He wasn't quite tall but his body shaped like an athlete. I recalled days that my mother scolded him because he ran about 2 hours for a day in midnight. She might think that it is dangerous, but anyway he got muscles. "I remembered the times that you were young… now you are taller than I, stronger than I, and even cooler than I. After you go to dormitory, how can I live without you? I'll miss you!" I pretend to cry. But he suddenly ran fast and with closing the door, said. "I won't!" His room was locked and I had to go back to my room. Behind me, mother yelled "Don't bother your younger brother!" and the interview was ended like that.