A Persona Non Grata
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By the time I finally arrived, everyone was already seated at the dining table adjacent to the kitchen counter. An awkward silence hung in the air as I took my seat. No one greeted me, nor did they meet my eyes, behaving as if I were a persona non grata whose arrival they all dreaded.
Typically, Saturday mornings at our dining table were lively, filled with laughter and animated conversations, being the only time all six of us could gather to share a meal together. The noise decibel level would occasionally escalate due to playful squabbles over food or heated debates on assorted random topics. One such example, we’d argue about which literary figure was more groundbreaking in their era between two 19th-century mixed-race Alexanders of African descent: Alexandre Dumas, the French author known for classics such as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, and Alexander Pushkin, the prolific writer who is regarded as the founder of modern Russian literature.
On this particular Saturday, though, the dining table was steeped in an unfamiliar cadence—the tension so thickly palpable that it could only be cut with the highest-rated knife on the Rockwell scale. I could tell everyone knew what was at stake.
Dad and my siblings had now all heard my piteous pleas for the pitiful kitten, and I had no doubt that their sympathy for the tiny creature was genuine. But on the other side of the coin, they were deeply aware that their lives would be upended in ways they’d never experienced before if they voted against Mom out of their sheer compassion for the kitten and me. The honcho had made her stance crystal clear: she would not tolerate an animal in the house, threatening severe repercussions for anyone who dared to oppose her.
Observing Dad and my siblings fidgeting in their seats, their nervous energy filling the dining area, I felt a pang of regret for putting them in such a double bind. They were bound to feel distressed regardless of whom they sided with. It was a lose-lose situation for them, with the exception of the singularly diabolical Maknae.
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As we began to eat, the oppressive silence amplified the sound of forks scraping against plates and the noises of chewing, further heightening my anxiety and restlessness. Though I was consuming food, I could neither perceive its texture nor experience its taste. The meal, stretching into what felt like a lifetime, was finally, mercifully brought to a close when the honcho set her cutlery aside and delicately dabbed her lips with a luncheon napkin.
We all stood up to clean our individual share of dishes, utensils, and cups. Once done, we each filed out of the dining area into the living room, where the voting was to take place. I was the last to leave the kitchen, needing a few moments to take some deep breaths to compose myself and wipe the tiny beads of sweat forming on my forehead.
In the living room, two sofas sat in an extended L-shaped layout. Hyung, my immediate younger sister, and I occupied the old, black round-back couch that was just a few scratches short of being officially dog-eared. Cruelly, the couch rested against the wall, forcing me to face the large window that looked out into the woods—woe, the place in question!—across the street. The energetic sunbeams streamed unhindered through the gridded glass panes, casting a pattern of white squares of light onto the black couch, their warmth causing me to sweat through my UGA football hoodie.
In sharp contrast, Mom, alongside Dad and Maknae, settled onto a newer, more comfortable chaise lounge, which was positioned at an angle that enabled her to conveniently evade the intrusive sunlight pouring in from the window. Nestled in the cool shade, Mom, unlike me who was as jittery as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, appeared as relaxed as a stuffed-to-the-gills cat luxuriating in a puddle of soft sunlight on a window sill in a room where the temperature was neither hot nor cold. She exuded the confidence of someone who knew her victory was a fait accompli.