Pencils & Polaroids

27: like dad like daughter

The other side of my father's office door looks like a page ripped out of a fiction novel. I don't have to take any more conscious steps forward, the aesthetics of dark academia lure me inside automatically. 

In a room that has palette colors of brown and black, my being in a green dress makes me feel out of place. A tall wall-mount bookshelf occupies one side of the room while a cozy-looking hazelnut couch is placed on its opposite end. The smell of old papers and books mixed with the scent of oakwood fills my lungs in an instant. If there was a way I could trap that scent inside me, I would hold it in forever. 

Between the two gigantic details of the study, my father leans on his dark table, cross-legged and cross-armed, watching me as I intently take in the place he built for himself to escape away. I don't need to be told that everything in this room is according to my father's guilty pleasure. The colors, the French door windows, the dark wooden flooring, and the orange lights looking like lanterns--everything is how he described the Harry Potter world to me when I was a kid. He made me dream about a place like this before tucking me in and putting me to sleep. 

Nevertheless, I make a mental note to click a polaroid of this room before bidding goodbye. 

I'm glad he at least got his share of the dream actualized. 

"Nice office," I tell him, purposely taking the whole room into another long glance. "Really brings out your personality." 

My first attempt to push him down the guilt trip and was a success because he looked down at his shoes with eyes refusing to open up and face me. To level up the awkwardness, I start to move around the office, casually touching a few details just for the sake of it. I add in untimely loud sighs while I waltz around pretending to own the place. 

My dad clears his throat. "I thought about what to say to you and I've reached a point of--"

My held-up finger and a loud chuckling scoff stops him mid-sentence. "You had to think about what you wanted to say to me? Alright, okay. Um, are you referring to the last thirty minutes or the last one and a half years? I'm a bit confused." 

His straight face obviously doesn't appreciate my humor. Well, the joke wasn't aiming for a laugh anyway. His long silence kills the moment, after which, he replies with, "The last thirty minutes." 

"Huh, funny." I nod, po-faced. "Was the time sufficient for you, father? Because I could come back." 

The thumb I'm pointing at the closed door behind me gradually drops when another one of his long pauses kills another one of my staged-awkward-moment. I take in his grave stature—a white shirt peeking from under a Prussian blue sweatshirt. That combination I don't recognize, but the black pants? It's the one he bought for Christmas five years ago. It's his favorite pair of comfortable trousers to wear at home and not look homeless.

He gives out a heavy breath. Second guilt trip accomplished. "What do you expect me to say, Park?" 

He should've known better not to ask me open-ended questions. "Oh, this is easy. I can help. Maybe you can start by saying hi? It's how people greet each other. And then you could've asked me how I was doing, because it's decency, duh. And you're my father so you're kinda supposed to know how I am. And then you could tell me how you were. That's how conversations work. Back and forth information--"

"I'm aware of that, but, thank you for elaborating on it anyway." He says in a low voice before folding his lips inwards. 

I shake my head. "No, no, I wasn't done. I was getting to the part where I then educate you all about the differences between remarrying and disowning your child. Two very diverse topics, I tell you. So diverse that I'm still wondering how you got confused."