A Warm Welcome and a Sweet Surprise
As Sia and I stepped inside her house, her uncle greeted me with a warm smile.
“Ah, Siwoo’s here.”
“Hello.”
“Yes, good to see you. Put your bags down and come over.”
“Okay.”
As usual, I set my luggage exactly where it normally went, then headed straight to her uncle.
He was scrolling through his phone, searching for something.
“What are you looking at?”
“Oh, I was looking up recipes for making food for Ji-eun. Turns out there’s an easy way to do it.”
“Ah…”
“Ji-eun’s already gone, right?”
“Yes, she left.”
The aunt had driven us home and was now heading to her next appointment.
“We’ll have to finish cooking quickly while we have this time.”
“But where’s the aunt going?”
“Her parents’ house… I mean, she’s off to Ji-eun’s parents’ place.”
“Ah… for Chuseok?”
“No, she already went for Chuseok. She just asked me to invite her once more for this surprise.”
“Ah… so that’s why we had to start early.”
“Exactly. Ji-eun’s birthday is tomorrow, and she’ll be coming home too, so we can surprise her right when she walks in.”
“Wow… so what should I do?”
“Siwoo, how about you and Sia make a welcome banner together?”
“Cooking?”
“You’re still little, so cooking’s too soon for you.”
“Really? But I can cook.”
“Umm…”
“I made juice with Mom once. We sliced carrots and bananas together and made a health drink or something… I’ve drunk it before.”
I had watched Mom make juice from the side, begged to try it, and she reluctantly allowed me.
Of course, it was with a child’s knife that didn’t even cut properly, but doing it with Mom made it so much fun.
“I see… I should try it with Sia too… No, anyway, since you’re growing up, let’s just do the cooking.”
“Okay. I’ll go find Sia then.”
“Mhm, go ahead.”
I went to the living room, where Sia was drawing on a sheet of paper.
Just like when her uncle arrived and we made the welcome banner, she had taped several sheets together. But this one was smaller.
“What are you drawing?”
“Umm… I want to draw Mom standing in a flower field.”
“A flower field? Why a flower field?”
“Mom loves flowers… and she’s so pretty like one.”
“Ah… you still haven’t finished yet?”
Last time drawing for her uncle, Sia had been amazing, no trouble at all. But right now, she had only roughly sketched with a pencil.
“I want to make it more special than just a flower field… but I can’t think of any other place.”
“Ah…”
Sia clearly needed a special spot for her birthday celebration.
“Umm… let’s look it up together on the phone.”
“Sure.”
I pulled out my phone right away and headed to the search engine.
Then I started searching for various flower fields.
“Rapeseed flowers… cosmos…”
“Umm… they look nice… but… they don’t seem special enough…”
“You’re right…”
The images showed nothing more than a path lined with flowers beside it.
Of course, we couldn’t expect a flower field to be magical… but the exact place Sia wanted wasn’t showing up.
“Umm… maybe we should try searching in a foreign country?”
“A foreign country?”
“Yeah, if it’s a special place, there should be more of them overseas.”
“Sure, let’s try.”
This time I widened the search to foreign countries.
The results were completely different—tons of images of beautiful landscapes poured onto the screen.
“Whoa… there are so many.”
“Yeah… let’s look at them.”
As we scrolled, one photo suddenly caught our eyes: a giant windmill with flowers of all colors blooming in front of it.
“This one’s good!” “This one’s pretty!”
Sia and I both said it at the same time.
“But what’s that big windmill for?”
“Wait… it’s called a windmill.”
“A windmill? What’s that?”
“Umm… it uses wind to grind grain or pump water.”
“How interesting…”
“Then is this the one?”
“Yes!”
We both liked the windmill together with its colorful flowers and decided to make the banner based on it.
Since we decided so quickly, all that was left was to draw on the paper.
At first we thought we’d start small, but thanks to how beautiful the landscape was, just like when we made her uncle’s banner, we drew it huge.
We divided the roles just like last time, but now it was slower than before because we had already sketched it.
If we kept going like this, we might not finish the surprise for the aunt before she came home tomorrow, so I came up with an idea.
“Sia, I’ll draw the windmill. How about you draw the flowers?”
I asked, feeling a little nervous as I waited for her answer.
Since it was Sia’s banner, she probably wouldn’t give it to me, but I asked anyway.
“Is it okay if I do it?”
Instead, Sia asked if I could draw it.
I immediately said, “I’m fine with it.”
“Then do it.”
“Okay.”
Since I agreed, Sia agreed too.
It felt a little strange.
Before, when we drew together, we hated overlapping lines.
But since Sia had given permission, I started drawing right away.
The method was simple.
Sia had chosen three spots, so I drew the windmill in all of them, starting with the size from the photo I had seen.
I drew light pencil lines to check the scale, then copied the windmill drawing from my phone.
At first I was a little unsure how to draw it, but after the second one I got the rhythm and started working faster.
“Oh… Siwoo draws really well.”
At some point her uncle came over and started watching us draw.
“I’m just copying an already existing drawing.”
“Being able to copy is amazing. I can’t do that.”
“Exactly, our dad can’t draw at all.”
“Ugh… but I can color. Can I color too?”
“I’m fine with it.”
“Yes! Great!”
So her uncle joined us and started coloring the banner.
Sia was drawing the flower field, I finished the windmills and started coloring the sky, and her uncle colored the windmills and flowers I drew.
With three of us working on it, the banner was coming together much faster than when Sia and I were alone.
Just as we were almost done, a loud gurgling sound came from someone’s stomach.
Someone was saying they were hungry.
I had eaten a piece of bread earlier… and I had seen her uncle eating snacks while cooking.
So the only one left was… Sia.
“……”
“……”
My uncle and I looked at Sia.
Sia, feeling shy about her stomach growling, turned her head the other way and said in a slightly grumpy voice, “What…”
Her uncle offered her some food. “Shall we eat?”
“Just a little…”
Sia agreed, and we ended up eating late that night.
At first we thought we’d have the food her uncle cooked, but since we had brought so much bread, we decided to just eat the bread.
“Come on, everyone pick the bread you want to eat. I’ll heat them up.”
“Okay.”
We chose the bread we wanted, and her uncle put it in the air fryer.
While that happened, Sia and I washed our hands in the bathroom.
Dinner had begun.
On the table were the bread we chose and some milk.
“Bon appétit.”
We all started eating together.
While eating the bread, we didn’t have much to say.
Just “Umm… it’s delicious.” “Yummy.” “It’s really good.”
All we did was praise the bread.
After finishing every last crumb, we said, “Thank you for the meal.” “It was tasty.”
“Kids, let’s quickly finish drawing the banner while we still have energy.”
“Okay.”
“Yes.”
Time to go to bed was approaching, so we hurried to finish the banner.
Her uncle joined us after cleaning up after dinner.
“Umm… what should we do with this?”
“I think this is enough, what do you think, Sia?”
“Mmm… just a little more coloring and it’ll be done.”
“Great. Then I’ll color here.”
“Okay. You color this part black…”
A little later, the banner was complete.
“Whoa! It’s finished!”
“Yeah, it looks beautiful.”
“Yes! We worked really hard.”
We had made the welcome banner.
On the blue field, with flowers of various colors and behind them the spinning windmills, the sky was bright blue with small seagulls flying around.
In the center it said clearly, “Happy Birthday, Mom.”
Without her uncle’s help we probably wouldn’t have finished.
“Okay, everyone, now let’s get ready for bed.”
“Okay.”
“Yes.”
Since bedtime was near, we rushed to finish and get ready for bed.