1 Chapter 1: Am I a K-drama trope?

"OMG, there is a new Korean show on Netflix!"

I could hear my sister squealing from the living room and the hurried footsteps of my mother rushing to join her.

All the women in my household love Korean music and programs. My mother is an OG K-drama fan, having begun binging them in the early 2000s via dubs on Chinese TV networks in the US. And after my younger sister fell in love with BIG BANG and 2PM in 2008, it had been a point of no return for these two.

Naturally, as a good son and sibling, I found myself sitting beside them, consuming show after show, from "Boys Over Flowers" to the more recent hits like "Squid Game". At this point, I felt like I could write my own K-drama. It's usually either a rich boy meets a poor girl or a revenge/survival-type trope if it is a modern drama. Then there are court intrigues and swapped at births in historical dramas.

I wonder what show my sister was talking about.

"John!" my mom called from the kitchen, "I just remember I forgot to drop off these dumplings at Auntie Maisy's house just now. Can you do that? I need to start this new drama with your sister."

Begrudgingly, I acted as my mom's errand boy and took the tubberware of homemade dumplings with me to the car. I felt like since I got a driver's license my mom has been treating me like an Uber Eats driver.

And this complaint about being my mom's errand boy ended up being my last thought before it all went dark. An out-of-control truck had somehow crashed into our driveway and right into me as I was about to get in the driver's seat.

I guess I was a living K-drama trope too. Courtesy to truck-kun.

Until I opened my eyes.

"그는 깨어나고 있습니다!"

"준호야, 괜찮아요?"

"준호야---are you ok?"

"Junho?!"

I blinked as things came into view. A doctor was looking down at me, white coat and all. Meanwhile, a bespectacled man stared at me tearfully.

I saw the words "응급실" in the corner of the room I was inhabiting and the words somehow slowly melded into "Emergency Room".

Spoken words around me was changing from Korean to English as I began to focus.

"Junho, it's dad. Can you hear?" said the man with glasses.

My dad passed away many years ago, and this man looked nothing like him. And I had never been called Junho either.

Then it all went dark again.