Finding Their Places
December 25th.
"Luca, today's Christmas."
It felt like only yesterday that I had glanced, completely unmoved, at the little Christmas tree in the office at the start of the month. I never could have imagined that in less than a month, I would have a family of my own.
There was no glittering tree in the apartment, but the baby and I were spending a peaceful, sun-drenched Christmas morning together.
I patted Luca's back lightly and whispered,
"Merry Christmas, my beautiful little one."
Nestled in my arms, he blinked his sleepy eyes and still managed a bashful little smile that made him look just like an angel.
Next year, will we be able to decorate a Christmas tree together?
Lost in that pleasant daydream, I realized the baby had already drifted off to sleep. I pulled the crib over beside the sofa, carefully laid Luca down, and stretched out on my side next to him.
"Haaah…"
It was the first real stretch of leisure I had felt in a long time. Moving from the third floor down to the first had been nothing, really—and yet the past week had felt like reporting for work every single day. I arched my lower back, drew in a long breath, and felt my eyelids growing heavy.
No. I forced my eyes wide open. There was still so much to do today. Just a short rest, and then I would get up.
"…"
If my old self had suddenly been handed three months of vacation, I would have been completely lost as to how to spend it. Back then, when I wasn't working at the company, I simply did nothing. I had no drive—or more precisely, I had no idea what to do with free time at all.
Lately, though, everything was different. I could not remember ever being this busy in my life. On top of caring for a baby who needed constant attention, I was using my newly acquired ability to gradually expand our household goods in the spare moments I could find. And whenever I caught my breath like this, I found myself thinking about everything I still needed to accomplish before this "special privilege" vanished.
Earning a hundred percent cash-back in points whenever I shopped was an obvious financial help. But why did those same points grant me a craftsman's mastery the moment I used the items I bought with them? It was certainly useful for stocking the house more cheaply and more beautifully, yet I could not believe the ability had been given to me merely so I could save money by doing DIY.
…Maybe there's something I absolutely have to do with this power.
And if so—what? I could not exactly take a job or open a shop with a skill that would disappear in three years. Nor could I use it to rake in a fortune overnight, and it was hardly the sort of power a superhero would need to defeat villains.
"Eungh…"
The baby I thought was sound asleep stirred and babbled.
"Shh. It's okay, it's okay…"
Fortunately Luca slept through the night in solid stretches, but he sometimes woke like this when daylight came. When he did, stroking his hair or his tummy usually sent him drifting right back under. Once he had settled again, I kept running my fingers through his soft hair, then brushed a cheek with my thumb.
It was a funny way to put it, but the child seemed to grow fluffier by the day. His peachy pink cheeks were filling out, and even his still-fine, delicate hair was endlessly endearing.
When will he start crawling? When will he try to walk? And when will he begin to talk?
Just thinking about his growth filled me with happiness. Yet the joy and fun of the past few weeks—of today—were not solely because of the baby.
I lifted my head and looked around at the growing collection of household things. Every piece of furniture had been made by my own hands, tailored to the life we were living. The baking set, and the cooking tools I had bought after it, had turned every meal into something richer. This was a daily life I almost certainly never would have experienced without the app's privilege.
I was grateful I could give the child even a slightly better environment—and more than anything, it was fun. Once the motivation returned, I threw myself into studying every possible subject so thoroughly that I forgot how I had ever managed to live without it. The notebooks and scrap paper that had been lying around the apartment were already packed with notes of every kind. Even if the app granted me skilled technique no matter what I did, I believed progress would still hit a ceiling without theory.
Woodworking was a perfect example. The deeper I went into that world, the more fascinating it became. I learned the fundamentals of furniture-making, then built pieces myself and piled up new ideas along the way. Creating furniture fitted exactly to my home instead of the cookie-cutter designs stamped out in factories was genuinely satisfying. Baking would be the same, and cooking, and all the other things I still had left to learn.
I realized all over again how much I had been missing. Life had been so empty. I had always told myself I was fine, but living had held no joy at all.
Suddenly a conversation floated up from my college days—with the roommate who had been my closest friend among my classmates.
…You're not going to university?
Yeah. There's no study I want badly enough to take out loans for, and someone like me has no business at a four-year school.
Why was I remembering that moment? Maybe because that was when I had first stopped challenging myself at anything. After graduating from community college I could have prepared to transfer to a university, but I did not. I had no particular field I wanted to study, tuition was steep, and the company where I had interned was offering me a full-time spot right away…
Back then I chose stability over new dreams and hopes. It would not have been an exaggeration to say I spent most of those days merely enduring. Especially after leaving the orphanage, the days had rushed over me like a flood; just staying afloat had been exhausting. I was worn out, and if a job could put food on the table, that was enough.
Looking back now, though, I wonder if I had simply been afraid. University, to me then, felt like a place where people who already knew exactly what they wanted from life gathered to chase it. I had no confidence I could compete with them, and I had no desire to stand beside them and be compared.
If I had gone on to university, would my life now—or rather, my life up until the day I met Luca—have been different? Or at least, would I have discovered this sense of excitement earlier? Maybe I would even have found a dream.
The truth was, there was no way to know. "What if" was a useless exercise, nothing more than trailing after time that could never be rewound.
Still…
These days everything I tried went well, which made it even more enjoyable, but the regret that I wished I had known this kind of life a little sooner was real. If I had, maybe by now I would have been good at least at one thing.
With that thought, I had recently started studying Korean again in the spare moments I could find—the language I had abandoned after college. I had no memories of my parents, and only fragmentary ones of Korea itself. Still, just in case. Someday I might visit Korea even if only as a tourist, and being able to speak a few more languages would never hurt.
And someday, when the child grew old enough to notice that his father had a different skin color from his own… I wanted to know more about myself so I could tell him. Just like that friend who used to sparkle with excitement as he tried to share everything about his own country, I wanted to look at my child with the same light in my eyes and tell him who I was.
The day before Maria and Greg were due to visit, I decided to head to the market for everything we would need to host guests. I preferred to choose the ingredients myself after seeing them in person.
While I was dressing the baby, I somehow kept pulling out only mismatched socks. No matter how thoroughly I searched the drawer, the mate to the one already on his foot refused to appear. I should have bought only solid colors the first time. Picturing the lonely little sock probably tumbling around inside a coin laundry machine, I peeled the one sock off and put a proper pair on him.
"Ah… I never washed this one…"
The baby still did not have many clothes, and right then there was nothing suitable left to put on him. I had no choice but to layer three of my own shirts around him and wind a scarf snugly about his neck. Once he was in the baby carrier and I put on my padded coat, only the top of his head would show, so the makeshift outfit would not be visible—but I still felt a little sorry for him.
Should I buy more winter clothes for him?
Winter would be over soon, though, and babies grew so fast he would not be able to wear them again next year… I could never understand why baby clothes cost as much as adult ones. Carrying that vague sense of apology toward him, I left the house.
I had thought an hour, including travel time, would be plenty. It took much longer than expected.
"Getting off!"
I shouted at the bus driver who refused to slow down even after I had pressed the stop button, then gathered my bags. As I stepped off, I cradled the sleeping baby's head with my right arm so it would not jolt and gripped the heavily laden shopping bags in my left, striding forward like I was going into battle. If I did not keep that pace, the cold and the weight would force me to stop over and over. I walked hard, thinking only of getting home, setting everything down, and catching my breath.
Wait for the elevator. Step inside. Hallway. Front door.
Fitting the key into the lock with one hand and turning it felt like it took an eternity.
"Aigoo…"
The moment I set the shopping bags down inside, a groan escaped me without permission. I let the tension drain from my shoulders and exhaled a long breath. After carefully locking the door, I carried the baby across the room and laid him gently on the sofa so he would not wake. Then I knelt beside him, buried my face in a cushion, and closed my eyes for a moment.
Finally home. Home really is the best place in the world.
I must have stayed like that for about three minutes. Watching the baby sleep soundly, I quietly rose, hung my coat properly on the rack, and set my wallet and keys neatly in the new tray I had made. I turned on the kitchen light and began putting the groceries away in their proper places, moving quietly.
Their proper places.
Everything in the house now had a place that belonged to it. The first kitchen-counter drawer, which once held socks because there had been no wardrobe, now contained a proper set of dishes. The second and third drawers, once empty, were filled with cooking utensils, vinyl gloves, zip bags, and all the other kitchen odds and ends. The cupboard that used to store bedding was already half full with the growing number of cups, plates, and baking tools. The refrigerator that once held little more than bottled water and beer was always stocked with things to eat.
I used to think I lived without wanting for anything. Now I wondered how I had ever managed without all of this. Every object sat in its rightful spot, doing exactly what it was meant to do, and made life richer.
If I could feel that, maybe my own life was slowly finding its place as well.