Page 22 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 1-4
“Gang Junseo.” Jun frowned. He looked back down at his passport and birth certificate on the floor.
“No matter what your mother may have told you, your life is here now. You’re never going back. You’re never going to see her again.”
“But… she said we could go back? My friends?”
“You’re not American anymore. The minute I tore that up, you stopped being American. You can’t go back. They won’t take you. Your mom gave you to me, which means I decide which country you belong to. This is who you are now. Your name is Gang Junseo. You’re Korean. You’ve always been Korean. You are Korean and nothing else. You are Gang Junseo. You’ve never had another name.”
He waved something written in more of those hangul characters in front of Jun’s face. His photograph was on the paper.
Jun raised his hands and took it, looking over it. There were only a few things on it he recognized, one of which was the Chinese character for his name, Jun.
“My Korean name is Gang Junseo?” he asked. It sounded odd. He’d always been Jun River in Seattle or Jiang Jùn Ruì when speaking Chinese with his mother.
“Your only name is Gang Junseo.”
Jun swallowed. It didn’t feel like his name. But maybe this was the part that his mother meant when she said that there were things only his father could give him. He’d had his Chinese name and his English name as long as he could remember. Maybe he could get used to a third name. But his family name was supposed to be Bak.
“Why do we have different names?”
“Because we’re different people.”
“Mama said your family name is Bak, that in Korean I’m a Bak.”
His father turned, his eyes and his nose doing a weird flaring thing that made the hair on Jun’s arms stand up.
“You’re not a Bak until I decide you’re a Bak. And you’re not my son until I decide you’re my son. We’ll see if you’re worth my time.”
His father turned away, rifling through more of Jun’s things. Jun looked down at the scraps of paper. He knelt and grabbed as many as he could of his birth certificate. It felt important. His mom had always said it was one of his most important pieces of paper, and she kept it in a locked box in their apartment when she didn’t need it for something like registering him for school. She didn’t keep his school records there. But she always kept his birth certificate there.
Even if he wasn’t American anymore, he felt like he would be a bad son if he didn’t try to keep the pieces. It was the one paper that said she was his mother. He wanted that. He could be Korean if he had to be, but she would always be his mother.
He left the rest of the papers on the floor and quickly stuffed the scraps into his jacket pocket and then the hole in the pocket where his hands went to stay warm.
“You don’t need any of this.” His father pushed a bunch of Jun’s things to the side. He was keeping a small pile of clothes and tossing it back into the suitcase. Remaining on the bed were Jun’s video games, his books and papers, his fun sneakers, his Spider-Man hoodie, and his Winnie-the-Pooh bear.
“I want my bear.”
“It’s a want, not a need.”
Jun lifted his chin. “It’s mine.”
“You own nothing. You don’t even own yourself. Anything you think is yours is mine.”
Jun rushed to the bed and grabbed the bear. “It’s mine.”
“Everything you own is mine.”
Jun tightened his arms around the bear. His father was lying, but he didn’t know how to tell him that.
“Fine, keep the stupid bear. Everything else goes.” He swept it off the bed and into a bag. “Let’s drop you off.”
It was easier to drag the suitcase this time. And he hadn’t been allowed to keep his backpack. They walked down the street for a long time and took a few turns and then went into a dull-looking building and up the elevator to the third floor.
A man met them. He was younger looking with a bit more hair than Jun’s father. He gazed at Jun and said something Jun couldn’t understand. Jun’s father pushed Jun toward a door, and then they all went into a space with mirrors all along one side and a lot of empty space with a wood floor. There was a metal desk by the far wall and papers on top.
“He likes to sing and dance,” His father said in English.
The other man looked at Jun again and shrugged. “I saw the video.”
