Dear Mr. Marcus D'artagnan: Part 1
Title: Dear Mr. Marcus D'artagnan
Rating: G
Pairing: KyuMin,
Genre: Fluff, Romance
Summary: Sungmin thought he would be forever stuck in an orphanage until this certain man came and decided to send him to college. Inspired from the classic tale, Daddy Long Legs, Sungmin takes over the life of a young college boy who writes to his "sponsor" to talk about his experiences and the new things he's been encountering.
A/N: I tried to imitate the format and I used the interesting parts right from the book so I guess you could say that this isn't really my own story. I edited some of the parts so it could fit Sungmn's character. Sorry for the long text.. not sure if I overdid it but I would like to hear what you think...? If this one doesn't work I might need to change it somehow.. for now, please enjoy! :D
To You:
On the first Wednesdays of every month, the Trustees, or to be more specific, sponsors of the Park Jungsoo Home, takes a visit to examine the orphans living in the institution. This is their way of making sure that the children are being treated fairly and to have a chance to hear out the needs of the children.
We started the story on this day because this is the same day that Lee Sungmin, the oldest orphan, dreads to experience.
He is the one who makes sure that every part of the place must be neat and clean. No dust is allowed to be seen and that all the little orphans are in order. Ninety-seven kids needs to be scrubbed, dressed in freshly starched clothes and be reminded to answer properly whenever a Trustee speaks.
But there is something different about this day where everything changes.
After a distressful day, Sungmin took a break by the window on the hallway. He watched the Trustees bid farewell after a meeting downstairs. They all looked cheerful and refined. So different from the world he and the other orphans were living in. Having a family to talk to, having to own something under your real name and having a place where you can go home to... it all sounds like a dream to Sungmin. A dream that even if he knew could happen in reality, can never happen to him. And now that he is seventeen years old, the dream of being adopted sounds so far away it feels like it’s just a myth.
As he let out a sigh, one of the little kids came running to him.
“Sungmin hyung! You’re being called in the office!” little Ryeowook said.
“Who’s calling for me?” Sungmin asked.
“Mr. Kim Heechul. He wants you to hurry up!”
Sungmin can’t stop the sinking feeling in his stomach. Now he’s worried to know what have gone wrong. As he walked his way to the office, he seriously analyzed all the things that had happened. Did he cut the sandwiches wrong? Did one of the orphans spilled a juice on one of the trustees? The list just goes on and on and Sungmin can’t figure out the mistake he did this time.
As he went down the stairs and walked past the main entrance, he saw that a Trustee was standing out front. He had his back facing Sungmin so his face was not seen. The man in suit waved to his chauffeur to drive by the front steps, signalling that he’s ready to leave. As the vehicle came by, it’s headlights shone on the waiting man, making his shadow fall inside the hall. Sungmin saw that the shadow pictured a “grotesquely elongated legs and arms that ran along the floor”
It looked, for all the world, like a huge, wavering daddy-long-legs.
Immediately, Sungmin was amused by the weird figure. So he went by into the office, smiling, trying to brush away the moment that had happened and finally face his fears of being scolded. Surprisingly, Mr. Kim Heechul was not in a foul mood.
“Sit down, Sungmin, I have recieved a news for you.”
Sungmin gulped as he sat down the nearest chair and made himself ready for the bad news.
“Did you see the man that just left?” Mr. Kim Heechul asked.
“I only happen to see his back, Sir.”
“That man is one of our most signifant Trustees. He has always taken a large part in supporting the asylum’s needs. It’s really important for you to know who he really is but he deeply expressed that his identity be kept as a secret.”
Sungmin was surpised as to how the conversation has been going. Mr Kim Heechul has never bothered talking about a Trustee to him even when they took a liking to Sungmin himself.
“Today, at the regular meeting, your name was brought up.”
Sungmin could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Mr Kim Heechul walked around, eyeing the dongsaeng sitting in front of him, in a serious manner.
“As you know, the children are not kept after they have reached the age of sixteen but you were exempted in that case. You finished high school at the early age of fourteen and have always done well in your studies...except-“
Sungmin took a deep breath.
“-your conduct. “
Sungmin suddenly felt sad that this was all they could see. What can he do? He has a wild imagination that wants to surge and conquer the world. But despite his misconducts, he made sure that the asylum was running in good order and that taking care of the orphans was done in the best manner.
“Anyhow, a while ago, the question of your future was brought up. One of the board members got in touch with your rhetorical teacher and shared to everyone an essay you wrote entitled ‘Blue Wednesday’.”
[Uh oh] Sungmin thought.
“It seems that you have expressed little gratitude that you mocked the institution that took care of you on that writing of yours.”
[I’m going to be expelled and be thrown away to the farthest end of the earth.. oh the woes] Sungmin sighed.
“But fortunately, for you, this gentleman, whose name will remain unknown, has offered to send you to college.”
Sungmin blinked first.
“I’m sorry Sir, but did you just say college?”
“The gentleman personally talked to me to discuss it and I have to say...it was erratic. But he did mentioned that you, to quote his words, ’have the originality to become a writer’ and so he’s sending you to college to become one.”
“A w-writer?”
“That was his request. He is going to provide you with allowance, enough to pay for your monthly expenses as a student. The tuition, the books and the other commodities would also be provided for you which leaves you to only worry about your studies.”
Sungmin cannot believe what he was hearing.
“But he requests one thing from you.”
“May I ask what is it, Sir?”
“In return for his sentiment to you, he wants you to write him a letter of acknowledgment, once a month. Not to thank him for the money but you will write to tell him the progress of your studies and the details of your daily life. Just like a letter you would write to your parents if they were living. All your letters would be addressed to Marcus D'artagnan. That is not his true name, mind you, but he prefers to be called such. These monthly letters are absolutely obligatory on your part; they are the only payment that Mr. D'artagnan requires, so you must never ever forget to write him one.”
After the talk they had, Sungmin didn’t know if he was feeling excited or if he was just dreaming. In a snap his future opened up and embraced him with such good things he didn’t know could really happen to someone like him.
The letters of Mr Lee Sungmin
to
Mr. Marcus D'artagnan
215 FERGUSSEN HALL
24th of September
Dear Kind-Trustee-Who-Sends-Orphans-to-College,
My first letter to you. I am happy to announce that I travelled yesterday for four hours by train and finally arrived in my college! It’s a very funny sensation since I have never been out of town more so ride a train... until now.
When I arrived, I saw that the college was the biggest, most bewildering place I have ever seen. I really want to write a detailed description of this wonderful place but my words fail me. Not because I can’t describe it but because when I go out and try to go to places I easily get lost! That’s how big it is!
My class schedule has already been handed out to me but I will discuss about it next time. I thought I should make this letter entertaining since this is my first official letter to you. Also, classes won’t begin until Monday morning and this is a Saturdat night. It would be better for us to at least get acquianted.
To be honest, it seems peculiar for me to write a letter to someone I do not know. But it’s even more peculiar to write a letter at all. The only letters I have written before were formal letters my teachers had required for us to write. I am not sure if I am doing the right thing but please bear with me for a while.
Before I left yesterday morning, Mr Kim Heechul and I had a very serious talk. He told me to behave and never forget the man who has changed my life. But seriously, how can one be very respectful to the man who’s identity remains to be unknown?
I know you have given me a name to call you but it feels a bit impersonal. For the last summer, all I can think about was you. I cannot deny the joy I felt after learning that someone had finally taken interest in taking care of me. For years I have longed for someone to adopt me but for some reason I never seemed to be liked or ideal. Until I got older and older and it was too late. But now, it feels like I had found some sort of a family and this new feeling came to me. I guess this is what they mean when they say they feel secured and it’s a very comforting sensation. However, when I do think about you, I have a hard time imagining how you really are. The only things I was able to come up with were:
I. You are tall.
II. You are rich.
III. You have a weird sense of humor.
I suppose I might call you Dear Mr. Strange but that would be insulting for the both of us since I am the one who wrote the essay you liked. Dear Mr. Rich-Man, but that's insulting to you, as though money was the only important thing about you. Besides, being rich is such a very external quality. Maybe you won't stay rich all your life; lots of very clever men get smashed up in Wall Street. But at least you will stay tall all your life! So I've decided to call you Dear Daddy-Long-Legs. I hope you don't mind. It's just a private pet name we won't tell Mr. Kim Heechul.
The ten o'clock bell is going to ring in two minutes. Our day is divided into sections by bells. We eat and sleep and study by bells. It's very enlivening; I feel like a fire bunny all of the time. There it goes! Lights out. Good night.
Observe with what precision I obey rules-due to my training in the Park Sung Joo Home.
Yours most respectfully,
Lee Sungmin
{At the envelope}
To Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs D'artagnan
1st October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I love college and thank you very much for sending me-I'm at the point where I am experiencing such joy, sleep won’t even come near me.
You can't imagine how different it is from the Park Sung Joo Home. I never dreamed there was such a place in the world. I'm feeling sorry for everybody who can't come here; I am sure the college you attended when you were a young couldn't have been so nice.
My room is up in a tower that used to be the contagious ward before they built the new infirmary. There are three other boys on the same floor of the tower-a Senior who wears spectacles and is always asking us please to be a little more quiet, and two Freshmen named Lee Hyukjae and Cho Donghae. Hyukjae has brown hair and a turn-up nose and is quite friendly; Donghae comes from one of the first families in New York and hasn't noticed me yet. They room together and the Senior and I have singles. Usually Freshmen can't get singles; they are very scarce, but I got one without even asking. I suppose the registrar didn't think it would be right to ask a properly brought-up boy to room with a foundling. You see there are advantages!
My room is on the north-west corner with two windows and a view. After you've lived in a ward for eighteen years with twenty room-mates, it is restful to be alone. This is the first chance I've ever had to get acquainted with Lee Sungmin. I think I'm going to like him.
Do you think you would?
Tuesday
They are organizing the Freshman basket-ball team and there's just a chance that I shall get in it. I'm little of course, but terribly quick and wiry and tough. While the others are hopping about in the air, I can dodge under their feet and grab the ball. It's loads of fun practising-out in the athletic field in the afternoon with the trees all red and yellow and the air full of the smell of burning leaves, and everybody laughing and shouting. These are the happiest boys I ever saw-and I am the happiest of all!
I meant to write a long letter and tell you all the things I'm learning(Mr. Kim Heechul said you wanted to know), but 7th hour has just rung, and in ten minutes I'm due at the athletic field in gymnasium clothes.
Don't you hope I'll get in the team?
Yours always,
Lee Sungmin
PS. (9 o'clock.)
Lee Hyukjae just poked his head in at my door. This is what he said:
'I'm so homesick that I simply can't stand it. Do you feel that way?'
I smiled a little and said no; I thought I could pull through.
At least homesickness is one disease that I've escaped!
I never heard of anybody being asylum-sick, did you?
10th October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Have you ever heard of Michael Angelo?
He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages. Everybody in English Literature seemed to know about him, and the whole class laughed because I thought he was an archangel. He sounds like an archangel, doesn't he? The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you've never learned. It's very embarrassing at times. But now, when the boys talk about things that I never heard of, I just keep still and look them up in the encyclopedia.
I made an awful mistake the first day. Somebody mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck, and I asked if he was a Freshman. That joke has gone all over college. But anyway, I'm just as bright in class as any of the others-and brighter than some of them!
Do you care to know how I've furnished my room? It's a symphony in brown and yellow. The wall was tinted buff, and I've bought yellow denim curtains and cushions and a mahogany desk (second hand for three dollars) and a rattan chair and a brown rug with an ink spot in the middle. I stand the chair over the spot.
The windows are up high; you can't look out from an ordinary seat. But I unscrewed the looking-glass from the back of the bureau, upholstered the top and moved it up against the window. It's just the right height for a window seat. You pull out the drawers like steps and walk up. Very comfortable!
Lee Hyukjae helped me choose the things at the Senior auction. He has lived in a house all his life and knows about furnishing. You can't imagine what fun it is to shop and pay with a real five-dollar bill and get some change-when you've never had more than a few cents in your life. I assure you, Daddy, I do appreciate that allowance.
Hyukjae is the most entertaining person in the world-and Cho Donghae the least so. It's queer what a mixture the registrar can make in the matter of room-mates. Hyukjae thinks everything is funny-even flunking-and Donghae is bored at everything. He never makes the slightest effort to be amiable. He believes that if you are a Cho, that fact alone admits you to heaven without any further examination. Donghae and I were born to be enemies.
And now I suppose you've been waiting very impatiently to hear what I am learning?
I. Latin: Second Punic war. Hannibal and his forces pitched camp at Lake Trasimenus last night. They prepared an ambuscade for the Romans, and a battle took place at the fourth watch this morning. Romans in retreat.
II. French: 24 pages of the Three Musketeers and third conjugation, irregular verbs.
III. Geometry: Finished cylinders; now doing cones.
IV. English: Studying exposition. My style improves daily in clearness and brevity.
V. Physiology: Reached the digestive system. Bile and the pancreas next time.
Yours, on the way to being educated,
Lee Sungmin
PS. I hope you never touch alcohol, Daddy? It does dreadful things to your liver.
Wednesday
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I've changed my name.
I'm still 'Sungmin' in the catalogue, but I'm 'Min' everywhere else. It's really too bad, isn't it, to have to give yourself the only pet name you ever had? I didn't quite make up the Judy though. That's what little Ryeowook used to call me before he could talk plainly.
I wish Mr Kim Heechul would use a little more ingenuity about choosing babies' names. He gets the last names out of the telephone book-though I wish he had named me Daniel instead. I would love to called Niel. In the future please always address me as Min.
Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It's all I can do not to wear them to classes.
(Dinner bell. Goodbye.)
Friday
What do you think, Daddy? The English instructor said that my last paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. Those were her words. It doesn't seem possible, does it, considering the eighteen years of training that I've had? The aim of the Park Jung Soo Home (as you doubtless know and heartily approve of) is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.
The unusual artistic ability which I exhibit was developed at an early age through drawing chalk pictures of Mr Kim Heechul on the woodshed door.
I hope that I don't hurt your feelings when I criticize the home of my youth? But you have the upper hand, you know, for if I become too impertinent, you can always stop payment of your cheques. That isn't a very polite thing to say-but you can't expect me to have any manners; a foundling asylum isn't a young man's finishing school.
You know, Daddy, it isn't the work that is going to be hard in college. It's the play. Half the time I don't know what the boys are talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that every one but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language. It's a miserable feeling. I've had it all my life. At the high school boys would stand in groups and sometimes look at me. I was queer and different and everybody knew it. I could FEEL ‘Park Jung Soo Home’ written on my face. And then a few charitable ones would make a point of coming up and saying something polite. I HATED EVERY ONE OF THEM-the charitable ones most of all.
Nobody here knows that I was brought up in an asylum. I told Lee Hyukjae that my mother and father were dead, and that a kind old gentleman was sending me to college which is entirely true so far as it goes. I don't want you to think I am a coward, but I do want to be like the other boys, and that Dreadful Home looming over my childhood is the one great big difference. If I can turn my back on that and shut out the remembrance, I think, I might be just as desirable as any other boy. I don't believe there's any real, underneath difference, do you?
Anyway, Lee Hyukjae likes me!
Yours ever,
Lee Min
25th October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I'm in the basket-ball team and you ought to see the bruise on my left shoulder. It's blue and mahogany with little streaks of orange. Cho Donghae tried for the team, but he didn't get in. Hooray!
You see what a mean disposition I have.
College gets nicer and nicer. I like the boys and the teachers and the classes and the campus and the things to eat. We have ice-cream twice a week and we never have corn-meal mush.
You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn't you? And I've been peppering you with letters every few days! But I've been so excited about all these new adventures that I MUST talk to somebody; and you're the only one I know. Please excuse my exuberance; I'll settle pretty soon. If my letters bore you, you can always toss them into the wastebasket. I promise not to write another till the middle of November.
Yours most loquaciously,
Lee Min
15th November
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Listen to what I've learned to-day.
The area of the convex surface of the frustum of a regular pyramid is half the product of the sum of the perimeters of its bases by the altitude of either of its trapezoids.
It doesn't sound true, but it is-I can prove it! Wait.. Am I boring you? I’m sorry if I am.
You've never heard about my clothes, have you, Daddy? Six getups, all new and sophisticated and bought for me-not handed down from somebody bigger. Perhaps you don't realize what a climax that marks in the career of an orphan? You gave them to me, and I am very, very, VERY much obliged. It's a fine thing to be educated-but nothing compared to the dizzying experience of owning six new dresses. Miss Pritchard, who is on the visiting committee, picked them out-not Mr Kim Heechul, thank goodness. I have a suit, black shiny silk (I'm perfectly handsome in that), and a blue one for church, and a dinner suit with Oriental trimming (makes me look very Oriental), and another preppy suit that has a sweater, and a grey street suit, and an every-day getup for classes. That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Cho Donghae, perhaps, but for Lee Sungmin-Oh, wow!
I suppose you're thinking now what a frivolous, shallow little beast he is, and what a waste of money to educate a boy?
But, Daddy, if you'd been dressed in hand me downs all your life, you'd appreciate how I feel. And when I started to the high school, you can't know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable hand me downs. I was perfectly sure to be put down in class next to the boy who first owned my clothes, and he would whisper and laugh and point it out to the others. The bitterness of wearing your enemies' cast-off clothes eats into your soul.
LATEST WAR BULLETIN!
News from the Scene of Action.
At the fourth watch on Thursday the 13th of November, Hannibal routed the advance guard of the Romans and led the Carthaginian forces over the mountains into the plains of Casilinum. A cohort of light armed Numidians engaged the infantry of Quintus Fabius Maximus. Two battles and light skirmishing. Romans repulsed with heavy losses.
I have the honour of being,
Your special correspondent from the front,
M. Lee
PS. I know I'm not to expect any letters in return, and I've been warned not to bother you with questions, but tell me, Daddy, just this once-are you awfully old or just a little old? And are you perfectly bald or just a little bald? It is very difficult thinking about you in the abstract like a theorem in geometry.
Given a tall rich man who has a weird sense of humor, but is very generous to one quite impertinent boy, what does he look like?
R.S.V.P.
19th December
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
You never answered my question and it was very important.
ARE YOU BALD?
I have it planned exactly what you look like-very satisfactorily-until I reach the top of your head, and then I AM stuck. I can't decide whether you have white hair or black hair or sort of sprinkly grey hair or maybe none at all.
Here is your portrait:
But the problem is, shall I add some hair?
Would you like to know what colour your eyes are? They're grey, and your eyebrows stick out like a porch roof (beetling, they're called in novels), and your mouth is a straight line with a tendency to turn down at the corners. Oh, you see, I know! You're a snappy old thing with a temper.
(Chapel bell.)
9.45 p.m.
I have a new unbreakable rule: never, never to study at night no matter how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read just plain books-I have to, you know, because there are eighteen blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe, Daddy, what an abyss of ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself. The things that most girls with a properly assorted family and a home and friends and a library know by absorption, I have never heard of. For example:
I never read Mother Goose or David Copperfield or Ivanhoe or Cinderella or Blue Beard or Robinson Crusoe or Jane Eyre or Alice in Wonderland or a word of Rudyard Kipling. I didn't know that Henry the Eighth was married more than once or that Shelley was a poet. I didn't know that people used to be monkeys and that the Garden of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn't know that R. L. S. stood for Robert Louis Stevenson or that George Eliot was a lady. I had never seen a picture of the 'Mona Lisa' and (it's true but you won't believe it) I had never heard of Sherlock Holmes.
Now, I know all of these things and a lot of others besides, but you can see how much I need to catch up. And oh, but it's fun! I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an 'engaged' on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read one book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and Vanity Fair and Kipling's Plain Tales and-don't laugh-Little Women. I find that I am the only boy in college who wasn't brought up on Little Women. I haven't told anybody though (that WOULD stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what they’re is talking about!
(Ten o'clock bell. This is a very interrupted letter.)
Saturday
Sir,
I have the honour to report fresh explorations in the field of geometry. On Friday last we abandoned our former works in parallelopipeds and proceeded to truncated prisms. We are finding the road rough and very uphill.
Sunday
The Christmas holidays begin next week and the trunks are up. The corridors are so filled up that you can hardly get through, and everybody is so bubbling over with excitement that studying is getting left out. I'm going to have a beautiful time in vacation; there's another Freshman who lives in Texas staying behind, and we are planning to take long walks and if there's any ice-learn to skate. Then there is still the whole library to be read-and three empty weeks to do it in!
Goodbye, Daddy, I hope that you are feeling as happy as am.
Yours ever,
Min
PS. Don't forget to answer my question. If you don't want the trouble of writing, have your secretary telegraph. He can just say:
Mr. D'artagnan is quite bald,
or
Mr. D'artagnan is not bald,
or
Mr. D'artagnan has white hair.
And you can deduct the twenty-five cents out of my allowance.
Goodbye till January-and a merry Christmas!
Rating: G
Pairing: KyuMin,
Genre: Fluff, Romance
Summary: Sungmin thought he would be forever stuck in an orphanage until this certain man came and decided to send him to college. Inspired from the classic tale, Daddy Long Legs, Sungmin takes over the life of a young college boy who writes to his "sponsor" to talk about his experiences and the new things he's been encountering.
A/N: I tried to imitate the format and I used the interesting parts right from the book so I guess you could say that this isn't really my own story. I edited some of the parts so it could fit Sungmn's character. Sorry for the long text.. not sure if I overdid it but I would like to hear what you think...? If this one doesn't work I might need to change it somehow.. for now, please enjoy! :D
To You:
On the first Wednesdays of every month, the Trustees, or to be more specific, sponsors of the Park Jungsoo Home, takes a visit to examine the orphans living in the institution. This is their way of making sure that the children are being treated fairly and to have a chance to hear out the needs of the children.
We started the story on this day because this is the same day that Lee Sungmin, the oldest orphan, dreads to experience.
He is the one who makes sure that every part of the place must be neat and clean. No dust is allowed to be seen and that all the little orphans are in order. Ninety-seven kids needs to be scrubbed, dressed in freshly starched clothes and be reminded to answer properly whenever a Trustee speaks.
But there is something different about this day where everything changes.
After a distressful day, Sungmin took a break by the window on the hallway. He watched the Trustees bid farewell after a meeting downstairs. They all looked cheerful and refined. So different from the world he and the other orphans were living in. Having a family to talk to, having to own something under your real name and having a place where you can go home to... it all sounds like a dream to Sungmin. A dream that even if he knew could happen in reality, can never happen to him. And now that he is seventeen years old, the dream of being adopted sounds so far away it feels like it’s just a myth.
As he let out a sigh, one of the little kids came running to him.
“Sungmin hyung! You’re being called in the office!” little Ryeowook said.
“Who’s calling for me?” Sungmin asked.
“Mr. Kim Heechul. He wants you to hurry up!”
Sungmin can’t stop the sinking feeling in his stomach. Now he’s worried to know what have gone wrong. As he walked his way to the office, he seriously analyzed all the things that had happened. Did he cut the sandwiches wrong? Did one of the orphans spilled a juice on one of the trustees? The list just goes on and on and Sungmin can’t figure out the mistake he did this time.
As he went down the stairs and walked past the main entrance, he saw that a Trustee was standing out front. He had his back facing Sungmin so his face was not seen. The man in suit waved to his chauffeur to drive by the front steps, signalling that he’s ready to leave. As the vehicle came by, it’s headlights shone on the waiting man, making his shadow fall inside the hall. Sungmin saw that the shadow pictured a “grotesquely elongated legs and arms that ran along the floor”
It looked, for all the world, like a huge, wavering daddy-long-legs.
Immediately, Sungmin was amused by the weird figure. So he went by into the office, smiling, trying to brush away the moment that had happened and finally face his fears of being scolded. Surprisingly, Mr. Kim Heechul was not in a foul mood.
“Sit down, Sungmin, I have recieved a news for you.”
Sungmin gulped as he sat down the nearest chair and made himself ready for the bad news.
“Did you see the man that just left?” Mr. Kim Heechul asked.
“I only happen to see his back, Sir.”
“That man is one of our most signifant Trustees. He has always taken a large part in supporting the asylum’s needs. It’s really important for you to know who he really is but he deeply expressed that his identity be kept as a secret.”
Sungmin was surpised as to how the conversation has been going. Mr Kim Heechul has never bothered talking about a Trustee to him even when they took a liking to Sungmin himself.
“Today, at the regular meeting, your name was brought up.”
Sungmin could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Mr Kim Heechul walked around, eyeing the dongsaeng sitting in front of him, in a serious manner.
“As you know, the children are not kept after they have reached the age of sixteen but you were exempted in that case. You finished high school at the early age of fourteen and have always done well in your studies...except-“
Sungmin took a deep breath.
“-your conduct. “
Sungmin suddenly felt sad that this was all they could see. What can he do? He has a wild imagination that wants to surge and conquer the world. But despite his misconducts, he made sure that the asylum was running in good order and that taking care of the orphans was done in the best manner.
“Anyhow, a while ago, the question of your future was brought up. One of the board members got in touch with your rhetorical teacher and shared to everyone an essay you wrote entitled ‘Blue Wednesday’.”
[Uh oh] Sungmin thought.
“It seems that you have expressed little gratitude that you mocked the institution that took care of you on that writing of yours.”
[I’m going to be expelled and be thrown away to the farthest end of the earth.. oh the woes] Sungmin sighed.
“But fortunately, for you, this gentleman, whose name will remain unknown, has offered to send you to college.”
Sungmin blinked first.
“I’m sorry Sir, but did you just say college?”
“The gentleman personally talked to me to discuss it and I have to say...it was erratic. But he did mentioned that you, to quote his words, ’have the originality to become a writer’ and so he’s sending you to college to become one.”
“A w-writer?”
“That was his request. He is going to provide you with allowance, enough to pay for your monthly expenses as a student. The tuition, the books and the other commodities would also be provided for you which leaves you to only worry about your studies.”
Sungmin cannot believe what he was hearing.
“But he requests one thing from you.”
“May I ask what is it, Sir?”
“In return for his sentiment to you, he wants you to write him a letter of acknowledgment, once a month. Not to thank him for the money but you will write to tell him the progress of your studies and the details of your daily life. Just like a letter you would write to your parents if they were living. All your letters would be addressed to Marcus D'artagnan. That is not his true name, mind you, but he prefers to be called such. These monthly letters are absolutely obligatory on your part; they are the only payment that Mr. D'artagnan requires, so you must never ever forget to write him one.”
After the talk they had, Sungmin didn’t know if he was feeling excited or if he was just dreaming. In a snap his future opened up and embraced him with such good things he didn’t know could really happen to someone like him.
The letters of Mr Lee Sungmin
to
Mr. Marcus D'artagnan
215 FERGUSSEN HALL
24th of September
Dear Kind-Trustee-Who-Sends-Orphans-to-College,
My first letter to you. I am happy to announce that I travelled yesterday for four hours by train and finally arrived in my college! It’s a very funny sensation since I have never been out of town more so ride a train... until now.
When I arrived, I saw that the college was the biggest, most bewildering place I have ever seen. I really want to write a detailed description of this wonderful place but my words fail me. Not because I can’t describe it but because when I go out and try to go to places I easily get lost! That’s how big it is!
My class schedule has already been handed out to me but I will discuss about it next time. I thought I should make this letter entertaining since this is my first official letter to you. Also, classes won’t begin until Monday morning and this is a Saturdat night. It would be better for us to at least get acquianted.
To be honest, it seems peculiar for me to write a letter to someone I do not know. But it’s even more peculiar to write a letter at all. The only letters I have written before were formal letters my teachers had required for us to write. I am not sure if I am doing the right thing but please bear with me for a while.
Before I left yesterday morning, Mr Kim Heechul and I had a very serious talk. He told me to behave and never forget the man who has changed my life. But seriously, how can one be very respectful to the man who’s identity remains to be unknown?
I know you have given me a name to call you but it feels a bit impersonal. For the last summer, all I can think about was you. I cannot deny the joy I felt after learning that someone had finally taken interest in taking care of me. For years I have longed for someone to adopt me but for some reason I never seemed to be liked or ideal. Until I got older and older and it was too late. But now, it feels like I had found some sort of a family and this new feeling came to me. I guess this is what they mean when they say they feel secured and it’s a very comforting sensation. However, when I do think about you, I have a hard time imagining how you really are. The only things I was able to come up with were:
I. You are tall.
II. You are rich.
III. You have a weird sense of humor.
I suppose I might call you Dear Mr. Strange but that would be insulting for the both of us since I am the one who wrote the essay you liked. Dear Mr. Rich-Man, but that's insulting to you, as though money was the only important thing about you. Besides, being rich is such a very external quality. Maybe you won't stay rich all your life; lots of very clever men get smashed up in Wall Street. But at least you will stay tall all your life! So I've decided to call you Dear Daddy-Long-Legs. I hope you don't mind. It's just a private pet name we won't tell Mr. Kim Heechul.
The ten o'clock bell is going to ring in two minutes. Our day is divided into sections by bells. We eat and sleep and study by bells. It's very enlivening; I feel like a fire bunny all of the time. There it goes! Lights out. Good night.
Observe with what precision I obey rules-due to my training in the Park Sung Joo Home.
Yours most respectfully,
Lee Sungmin
{At the envelope}
To Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs D'artagnan
1st October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I love college and thank you very much for sending me-I'm at the point where I am experiencing such joy, sleep won’t even come near me.
You can't imagine how different it is from the Park Sung Joo Home. I never dreamed there was such a place in the world. I'm feeling sorry for everybody who can't come here; I am sure the college you attended when you were a young couldn't have been so nice.
My room is up in a tower that used to be the contagious ward before they built the new infirmary. There are three other boys on the same floor of the tower-a Senior who wears spectacles and is always asking us please to be a little more quiet, and two Freshmen named Lee Hyukjae and Cho Donghae. Hyukjae has brown hair and a turn-up nose and is quite friendly; Donghae comes from one of the first families in New York and hasn't noticed me yet. They room together and the Senior and I have singles. Usually Freshmen can't get singles; they are very scarce, but I got one without even asking. I suppose the registrar didn't think it would be right to ask a properly brought-up boy to room with a foundling. You see there are advantages!
My room is on the north-west corner with two windows and a view. After you've lived in a ward for eighteen years with twenty room-mates, it is restful to be alone. This is the first chance I've ever had to get acquainted with Lee Sungmin. I think I'm going to like him.
Do you think you would?
Tuesday
They are organizing the Freshman basket-ball team and there's just a chance that I shall get in it. I'm little of course, but terribly quick and wiry and tough. While the others are hopping about in the air, I can dodge under their feet and grab the ball. It's loads of fun practising-out in the athletic field in the afternoon with the trees all red and yellow and the air full of the smell of burning leaves, and everybody laughing and shouting. These are the happiest boys I ever saw-and I am the happiest of all!
I meant to write a long letter and tell you all the things I'm learning(Mr. Kim Heechul said you wanted to know), but 7th hour has just rung, and in ten minutes I'm due at the athletic field in gymnasium clothes.
Don't you hope I'll get in the team?
Yours always,
Lee Sungmin
PS. (9 o'clock.)
Lee Hyukjae just poked his head in at my door. This is what he said:
'I'm so homesick that I simply can't stand it. Do you feel that way?'
I smiled a little and said no; I thought I could pull through.
At least homesickness is one disease that I've escaped!
I never heard of anybody being asylum-sick, did you?
10th October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Have you ever heard of Michael Angelo?
He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages. Everybody in English Literature seemed to know about him, and the whole class laughed because I thought he was an archangel. He sounds like an archangel, doesn't he? The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you've never learned. It's very embarrassing at times. But now, when the boys talk about things that I never heard of, I just keep still and look them up in the encyclopedia.
I made an awful mistake the first day. Somebody mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck, and I asked if he was a Freshman. That joke has gone all over college. But anyway, I'm just as bright in class as any of the others-and brighter than some of them!
Do you care to know how I've furnished my room? It's a symphony in brown and yellow. The wall was tinted buff, and I've bought yellow denim curtains and cushions and a mahogany desk (second hand for three dollars) and a rattan chair and a brown rug with an ink spot in the middle. I stand the chair over the spot.
The windows are up high; you can't look out from an ordinary seat. But I unscrewed the looking-glass from the back of the bureau, upholstered the top and moved it up against the window. It's just the right height for a window seat. You pull out the drawers like steps and walk up. Very comfortable!
Lee Hyukjae helped me choose the things at the Senior auction. He has lived in a house all his life and knows about furnishing. You can't imagine what fun it is to shop and pay with a real five-dollar bill and get some change-when you've never had more than a few cents in your life. I assure you, Daddy, I do appreciate that allowance.
Hyukjae is the most entertaining person in the world-and Cho Donghae the least so. It's queer what a mixture the registrar can make in the matter of room-mates. Hyukjae thinks everything is funny-even flunking-and Donghae is bored at everything. He never makes the slightest effort to be amiable. He believes that if you are a Cho, that fact alone admits you to heaven without any further examination. Donghae and I were born to be enemies.
And now I suppose you've been waiting very impatiently to hear what I am learning?
I. Latin: Second Punic war. Hannibal and his forces pitched camp at Lake Trasimenus last night. They prepared an ambuscade for the Romans, and a battle took place at the fourth watch this morning. Romans in retreat.
II. French: 24 pages of the Three Musketeers and third conjugation, irregular verbs.
III. Geometry: Finished cylinders; now doing cones.
IV. English: Studying exposition. My style improves daily in clearness and brevity.
V. Physiology: Reached the digestive system. Bile and the pancreas next time.
Yours, on the way to being educated,
Lee Sungmin
PS. I hope you never touch alcohol, Daddy? It does dreadful things to your liver.
Wednesday
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I've changed my name.
I'm still 'Sungmin' in the catalogue, but I'm 'Min' everywhere else. It's really too bad, isn't it, to have to give yourself the only pet name you ever had? I didn't quite make up the Judy though. That's what little Ryeowook used to call me before he could talk plainly.
I wish Mr Kim Heechul would use a little more ingenuity about choosing babies' names. He gets the last names out of the telephone book-though I wish he had named me Daniel instead. I would love to called Niel. In the future please always address me as Min.
Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It's all I can do not to wear them to classes.
(Dinner bell. Goodbye.)
Friday
What do you think, Daddy? The English instructor said that my last paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. Those were her words. It doesn't seem possible, does it, considering the eighteen years of training that I've had? The aim of the Park Jung Soo Home (as you doubtless know and heartily approve of) is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.
The unusual artistic ability which I exhibit was developed at an early age through drawing chalk pictures of Mr Kim Heechul on the woodshed door.
I hope that I don't hurt your feelings when I criticize the home of my youth? But you have the upper hand, you know, for if I become too impertinent, you can always stop payment of your cheques. That isn't a very polite thing to say-but you can't expect me to have any manners; a foundling asylum isn't a young man's finishing school.
You know, Daddy, it isn't the work that is going to be hard in college. It's the play. Half the time I don't know what the boys are talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that every one but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language. It's a miserable feeling. I've had it all my life. At the high school boys would stand in groups and sometimes look at me. I was queer and different and everybody knew it. I could FEEL ‘Park Jung Soo Home’ written on my face. And then a few charitable ones would make a point of coming up and saying something polite. I HATED EVERY ONE OF THEM-the charitable ones most of all.
Nobody here knows that I was brought up in an asylum. I told Lee Hyukjae that my mother and father were dead, and that a kind old gentleman was sending me to college which is entirely true so far as it goes. I don't want you to think I am a coward, but I do want to be like the other boys, and that Dreadful Home looming over my childhood is the one great big difference. If I can turn my back on that and shut out the remembrance, I think, I might be just as desirable as any other boy. I don't believe there's any real, underneath difference, do you?
Anyway, Lee Hyukjae likes me!
Yours ever,
Lee Min
25th October
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
I'm in the basket-ball team and you ought to see the bruise on my left shoulder. It's blue and mahogany with little streaks of orange. Cho Donghae tried for the team, but he didn't get in. Hooray!
You see what a mean disposition I have.
College gets nicer and nicer. I like the boys and the teachers and the classes and the campus and the things to eat. We have ice-cream twice a week and we never have corn-meal mush.
You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn't you? And I've been peppering you with letters every few days! But I've been so excited about all these new adventures that I MUST talk to somebody; and you're the only one I know. Please excuse my exuberance; I'll settle pretty soon. If my letters bore you, you can always toss them into the wastebasket. I promise not to write another till the middle of November.
Yours most loquaciously,
Lee Min
15th November
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Listen to what I've learned to-day.
The area of the convex surface of the frustum of a regular pyramid is half the product of the sum of the perimeters of its bases by the altitude of either of its trapezoids.
It doesn't sound true, but it is-I can prove it! Wait.. Am I boring you? I’m sorry if I am.
You've never heard about my clothes, have you, Daddy? Six getups, all new and sophisticated and bought for me-not handed down from somebody bigger. Perhaps you don't realize what a climax that marks in the career of an orphan? You gave them to me, and I am very, very, VERY much obliged. It's a fine thing to be educated-but nothing compared to the dizzying experience of owning six new dresses. Miss Pritchard, who is on the visiting committee, picked them out-not Mr Kim Heechul, thank goodness. I have a suit, black shiny silk (I'm perfectly handsome in that), and a blue one for church, and a dinner suit with Oriental trimming (makes me look very Oriental), and another preppy suit that has a sweater, and a grey street suit, and an every-day getup for classes. That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Cho Donghae, perhaps, but for Lee Sungmin-Oh, wow!
I suppose you're thinking now what a frivolous, shallow little beast he is, and what a waste of money to educate a boy?
But, Daddy, if you'd been dressed in hand me downs all your life, you'd appreciate how I feel. And when I started to the high school, you can't know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable hand me downs. I was perfectly sure to be put down in class next to the boy who first owned my clothes, and he would whisper and laugh and point it out to the others. The bitterness of wearing your enemies' cast-off clothes eats into your soul.
LATEST WAR BULLETIN!
News from the Scene of Action.
At the fourth watch on Thursday the 13th of November, Hannibal routed the advance guard of the Romans and led the Carthaginian forces over the mountains into the plains of Casilinum. A cohort of light armed Numidians engaged the infantry of Quintus Fabius Maximus. Two battles and light skirmishing. Romans repulsed with heavy losses.
I have the honour of being,
Your special correspondent from the front,
M. Lee
PS. I know I'm not to expect any letters in return, and I've been warned not to bother you with questions, but tell me, Daddy, just this once-are you awfully old or just a little old? And are you perfectly bald or just a little bald? It is very difficult thinking about you in the abstract like a theorem in geometry.
Given a tall rich man who has a weird sense of humor, but is very generous to one quite impertinent boy, what does he look like?
R.S.V.P.
19th December
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
You never answered my question and it was very important.
ARE YOU BALD?
I have it planned exactly what you look like-very satisfactorily-until I reach the top of your head, and then I AM stuck. I can't decide whether you have white hair or black hair or sort of sprinkly grey hair or maybe none at all.
Here is your portrait:
But the problem is, shall I add some hair?
Would you like to know what colour your eyes are? They're grey, and your eyebrows stick out like a porch roof (beetling, they're called in novels), and your mouth is a straight line with a tendency to turn down at the corners. Oh, you see, I know! You're a snappy old thing with a temper.
(Chapel bell.)
9.45 p.m.
I have a new unbreakable rule: never, never to study at night no matter how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read just plain books-I have to, you know, because there are eighteen blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe, Daddy, what an abyss of ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself. The things that most girls with a properly assorted family and a home and friends and a library know by absorption, I have never heard of. For example:
I never read Mother Goose or David Copperfield or Ivanhoe or Cinderella or Blue Beard or Robinson Crusoe or Jane Eyre or Alice in Wonderland or a word of Rudyard Kipling. I didn't know that Henry the Eighth was married more than once or that Shelley was a poet. I didn't know that people used to be monkeys and that the Garden of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn't know that R. L. S. stood for Robert Louis Stevenson or that George Eliot was a lady. I had never seen a picture of the 'Mona Lisa' and (it's true but you won't believe it) I had never heard of Sherlock Holmes.
Now, I know all of these things and a lot of others besides, but you can see how much I need to catch up. And oh, but it's fun! I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an 'engaged' on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read one book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and Vanity Fair and Kipling's Plain Tales and-don't laugh-Little Women. I find that I am the only boy in college who wasn't brought up on Little Women. I haven't told anybody though (that WOULD stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what they’re is talking about!
(Ten o'clock bell. This is a very interrupted letter.)
Saturday
Sir,
I have the honour to report fresh explorations in the field of geometry. On Friday last we abandoned our former works in parallelopipeds and proceeded to truncated prisms. We are finding the road rough and very uphill.
Sunday
The Christmas holidays begin next week and the trunks are up. The corridors are so filled up that you can hardly get through, and everybody is so bubbling over with excitement that studying is getting left out. I'm going to have a beautiful time in vacation; there's another Freshman who lives in Texas staying behind, and we are planning to take long walks and if there's any ice-learn to skate. Then there is still the whole library to be read-and three empty weeks to do it in!
Goodbye, Daddy, I hope that you are feeling as happy as am.
Yours ever,
Min
PS. Don't forget to answer my question. If you don't want the trouble of writing, have your secretary telegraph. He can just say:
Mr. D'artagnan is quite bald,
or
Mr. D'artagnan is not bald,
or
Mr. D'artagnan has white hair.
And you can deduct the twenty-five cents out of my allowance.
Goodbye till January-and a merry Christmas!