biography: kang yumi
it begins in the early winter of 1999, and kang sohyun screams in a delivery room. the baby screams louder (she carries that habit for the rest of her life). kang sohyun was not a flashy woman. she did not sugarcoat her words or say more than she ever needed to. so rather than talk about the impact it brought about to her children, she would be pleased to know her obituary simply stated her date of birth (june 8, 1964), her date of death (november 17, 1999), and her cause of death (died in childbirth). the mother doesn't have the breath to name the child, so the oldest sister, yura does-- and like a flame flickering to life, kang yumi enters the world.
yumi is six, and her oldest sister yura is twelve, and her middle sister yuna is eleven when they begin to save money to move to america. their father left after the death of their mother— they’ve been placed into the care of their paternal uncle, and they like it that way. their uncle ignores them, and they like it that way. they only have each other, and they like it that way.
their uncle is the same as them; abandoned by the same people, not really knowing what to do or where to go. he hardly tolerates them besides their pocket money he leaves on the table and the food he leaves in the fridge. he is never home; it is as if the kang siblings have a house all to themselves, because their uncle never uses it, preferring to snooze at bars instead.
yura plays baseball, and she plays it so well and with such a passion that yumi boasts her sister will be in the big leagues somewhere in america. she even learns english to prepare for it. yura is lean, strong, and besides their uncle, they depend on her the most. yuna, with her long, flowing hair and captivating eyes and moonlight skin, is the opposite. yuna always has boys on the doorstep, making the kang uncle cranky on the rare occasions he’s home and wakes up to them serenading his niece.
“unnie,” yumi says one day with a bowl of tofu soup on her lap. yuna is out with a boy, probably flirting him into buying her and her siblings dinner for that night. yura has taken up a job fixing their neighbor’s kitchen light and let yumi tag along to hand her tools as she needs them. “your eighteenth birthday is tomorrow,” yumi continues, “are we going to america then?”
“no,” yura responds with a grunt, “we’re going down the street.”
yura had decided that america was unrealistic; pulling her sixteen and twelve year-old sisters out of school just so she could follow her baseball dreams simply made no sense.
instead, yura buys out a building at the end of the road where their uncle’s home sits. it has two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen above a storefront. yumi takes one bedroom, yuna takes the other, and yura takes the sofa. their uncle becomes a neighbor; he also becomes kinder and more present without the stress of raising three children, and takes up a job under yura for the new store: kang sisters restaurant.
(it’s a little ridiculous, but it works.)
yura and yuna butt heads more than anyone yumi knows. one sister is personable and clever and the other is vain and haughty, and the kang household is always filled with yelling between the two sisters.
it always stops when yumi cries her loud, loud cry and yura and yuna hold her apologetically, despite throwing dirty glares at each other.
(they always make up later anyway and fall asleep with yumi held tight between them.)
the year is 2006. the day is june 12th. yuna is eighteen and serving a squid bowl to a customer when he looks her up and down lewdly and explains that he is a scout for wonder records and wouldn’t you be perfect for our upcoming girl group? yuna blushes prettily and smooths out her flour-covered apron and admits that yes, i’ve always thought i’ve been meant for something bigger.
the year is 2007. the day is august 5th. yuna debuts with a girl group called pandora at the age of nineteen, and yumi is right up there in the front row with an unsettled yura who’s proud of yuna anyway. seven-year-old yumi decides right then and there that even if it kills her, she’ll become an idol just like her big sister.
as the youngest of three, yumi always gets what she wants anyway, but it’s nothing to this extent. yura is hesitant to give her dance lessons (“isn’t one idol in our family enough?”) and even more hesitant to give her singing lessons (“kang yumi, don’t be ridiculous— you’re tone deaf!”). it’s only after yumi sheds tears, lies face-down on the floor for three hours straight, and threatens to call yuna who’s in the middle of her promotions, that yura finally relents and lets yumi learn to sing and dance. yuna’s stardom brings publicity to their restaurant anyway, and yura’s food is so good she supposes she’s alright with her other sister becoming an idol to attract more hungry customers.
yumi is hell-bent on debuting at nineteen, just like yuna, so she works harder and harder till she’s better than everyone in her class. even her terrible singing becomes something passable, and she makes sure to learn all sorts of languages so that she has something to boast when auditioning for the company.
it all comes to a halt when yura is killed at the age of twenty-six.
kang yura was not a flashy woman. she did not sugarcoat her words or say more than she ever needed to. so rather than talk about the impact it brought about to her sisters, she would be pleased to know her obituary simply stated her date of birth (march 18, 1987), her date of death (february 13, 2013), and her cause of death (fatally stabbed in a mugging gone wrong).
she’d been walking home after dropping yumi off to her audition for worldwide records, and yumi returned to an empty home. yura was found in the alleyway down the street the next morning. she was known among the community as the big sister everyone wanted, and her disappearance hit hard.
what started as a local attack goes national when it’s discovered that the woman is the sister of one of the nation’s top girl group members. yuna doesn’t even find out about her sister’s death until three days later; none of yumi’s calls could be patched through due to yuna’s strict promotion schedule, the kang uncle is away on a yuna-paid vacation in tahiti, and so yumi spends the first three days after yura’s death weeping alone.
when yuna arrives in their small restaurant (she has to push her way through mourners and media alike), she breaks down.
“i found out through the news,” wails her bell-like voice, her jewel-clad hands waving around her face in panic. “we were too busy promoting and i didn’t even know—”
she takes in a gasping breath before passing out onto the floor right then and there, and yumi has to drag her sister upstairs away from the cameras. they turn it into a sob story much later, and yumi wishes the headlines would be silent.
(even when she finds out later that she was accepted into worldwide, she barely registers any joy.)
yuna locks herself up in her room for the next three months, clearly under the same impression as yumi that their eldest sister was invincible. she gets kicked out of pandora in that time period for refusing to show up to any practices or shows. thirteen-year-old yumi just barely manages to keep her second-oldest (or now, her only) sister alive by forcing food into her mouth and making her swallow. and worldwide media— now that yuna’s lifeless and yura’s dead, yumi forces herself to practices for their company. their uncle runs the shop while yumi dances her heart out.
yuna emerges one day, emaciated and sallow.
the first thing she does is fix the light in their kitchen. It had broken only days after yura’s death.
yuna becomes more beautiful in her grief, her idol days long behind her. she rolls up her sleeves and ties back her hair and captains the shop, her face taking on a natural, surreal sort of loveliness in the determined lines that set in her jaw. yumi clings hard to yuna, expecting her to collapse in on herself. she never does, and yumi never understands how yuna changes from a vain, spoiled girl to a decisive, capable young woman. the older kang sister still receives double-takes when people realize that the flannel-clad girl serving their food is the same sundress-wearing idol who used to be splashed across the front pages of magazines. who yuna becomes after pandora is respectable enough that yumi’s name isn’t ruined for her own debut, and yumi is infinitely proud of her sister after that.
so slowly-- painstakingly slowly-- yumi starts piecing herself back together.
she still visits the now-married yuna in their restaurant, which has begun franchising under the name “three kang sisters restaurant” and is well on its way to becoming a multi-million dollar food chain. whenever yumi can, she spends the night in their two-bedroom apartment; yuna’s husband is kind enough to take the second bedroom on these nights to allow the sisters to cling to each other until far past the sunrise.
on the days she can’t be with her sister, she turns to her group instead; three days alone is three days more than she cares for. netizens comment on how she follows them around like a puppy, occasionally getting distracted by something pretty but always coming back to show her group members with an excited smile.
so it goes that yumi learns to heal. she builds up her name and image and separates it from yuna’s. she might still be piecing herself back together, and she might have gone through far too much for any seventeen year old, but she knows that she has a strong support network to turn to. and whether it takes years or even decades to fill the hole that one sister left behind, kang yumi has more to turn to, and she’s more than ready to go along for the ride.
