#isak pachinko | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chicken-fifi · 3 months

Text

Forgive and Forget | Mark Tuan (MafiaAU!) Imagine

Pairing: Mafia!Mark Tuan x Wife!Reader; Mafia Boss!Lim Jaebeom X Sister!Reader

Requested by anon: haii, i saw that your request is open!! i want a request with mafia!mark tuan x wife!reader. mark and your jayb are known have died being killed by the other group. unknownly you're having a child years later, and when the other group saw you both, they wanted to kill both of you. suprisingly, you were saving by got7. you were mad at them being shadows and hide themselves from you for years especially mark and your brother. so, (especially) mark and the others regaining your trust back and want to be a dad in your child live, you're slowly trust him and got7 again (maybe there's an incident or something that mark almost being killed cause he saved you and/or child(?)). thank you^^

Genre: angst

Word Count: 2,960 words

Warnings: violence, mafia, kidnapping, death threats, implied torture, blood, bruises, etc.

A/n: the urge to turn this into a miniseries was deep, but i couldn't do that given i'm already in the midst of attempting to plan one and putting the Ghost!YoungK on the backburner for a bit. hopefully you like this! for the record, yes, i got the child's name from pachinko by minjin lee. please go read that masterpiece.

Tunes: [Playlist] Life is a Book by ethereal

“Isak!” you called out, setting down a plate on the dining table. “Dinner’s ready!”

Still in your work clothes, you sat down at the dining table, watching as your six year old son slid into his chair happily digging into his meal. His dark locks bounced as he danced as he ate. He looked identical to his father - a father he would only ever meet through the few photographs you had managed to keep from the early years of your relationship…before everything went to shit.

You felt an irrational amount of anger towards your brother as you recalled how he had been the one to offer the job to Mark under the promise that it would help him provide for the two of you. After all, “nothing bad will come out of it when it’s all of us together.”

God you wished you could puns your brother in the face for the boldfaced lie he’d told.

Not that it would make any difference. Both Jaebeom and Mark were dead. The consequence of their growing greed and name having put them on top of just about every other mob’s hitlist. Bring them down and they get the monopoly back. Simple as that.

Even it meant the other mobs had an excessive number of lives on their hands. It wouldn’t be something new to them either way. Not even with the knowledge that they were taking away a brother and husband of a woman who was unknowingly pregnant with her and her husband’s first child. None of that would matter to any crime organization’s decision to make someone ‘disappear.’

“Mom?” you heard Isak call out, halting all of your thoughts.

“Yes Baby?”

“Can I sleep with you tonight?”

Your brows furrowed at his question - especially after he’d been so happy eating his meal.

( Not to mention that it was out of the ordinary for him to ask to sleep with you. He hadn’t asked to sleep with you in nearly three years. )

A soft smile made its way onto your face and you reached out rubbing his cheek gently. “Of course, Darling.”

He smiled at you and continued eating quietly, although no longer dancing. The two of you finished dinner not long after and cleared up. Isak lingered by your side the entire time you washed the dishes. You weren’t entirely sure what had transpired in his little mind during the short time from when he start eating to when he asked you the question, and you certainly weren’t aware of what was going on in his little head at the moment as he clung to your side as if you would leave him and never come back.

“Is something wrong Isak?” you asked, setting the final dish aside to dry.

Isak looked up at you with his big, round eyes. You could tell there was something he wanted to say but didn’t actually want to say for whatever reason.

“Do you not want to talk about it?”

He shook his head, looking down at the floor. Without saying a word, you took your hand and ruffled his hair lovingly, hoping it would provide some silent comfort. Clearly Isak didn’t want to talk about it and you didn’t want to force him to talk. So you’d wait it out for a bit.

“Whenever you’re ready you can tell me okay?”

You got a small nod before he hugged your waist as best as he could. Hugging him back, you crouched down and picked him up with a huff, holding him as tightly as you could for a few minutes before setting him back down. When did your little boy get so big?

“Why don’t we watch a movie before going to bed?”

~~~~

You sat up in your bed with a start hearing rustling down the hall in the living room of your home. Isak was still sound asleep beside you, cuddled closely into your side. Moving as quiet as you could, you got out of bed, inching towards the bedroom door avoiding the creaky floorboards you could remember in your sleepy state. As you reached the door, you heard a floorboard creek on the other side of the door. Panic and fear filled you as you pressed your body forcefully against the door, just as whoever was on the other side attempted to open it.

“They’re in here!” a man’s voice yelled, waking Isak with a start who instantly looked in your direction eyes wide.

“Mom?”

Hide. you mouthed, pushing all of your weight against the door, jolting as the men pushed against the door. HIDE!

Isak’s eyes filled with tears as he slid out of the bed and walked in your direction initially before you shooed him away motioning to the closet. You knew that he knew about the crawl space that was pretty hard to find if you didn’t know it was there - it was his favorite hiding space after all. He didn’t get a chance to get to the closet before the door burst open, your frame practically going flying from the force used to break it open.

Frozen in fear, his little eyes widened as he saw the four burly looking men enter the room. Two immediately went to grab you, covering your mouth preventing you from screaming. A third went to him, reaching to grab him a sickly sweet tone being used as he spoke. Running past the man, Isak made a break for the master bathroom, only to be grabbed by the fourth man, a scream echoing throughout the room as the man’s hands gripped him tightly. You pulled and flailed from the two men holding you, instinct telling you to get to your son - all to no avail.

“So our intel was right,” another voice spoke from behind you before another man entered the room crouching down in front of you. “The son of bitch does have a little sister.”

“And a nephew,” the fourth man added, covering Isak’s mouth before yelping as he bit the man’s fingers.

In his captor’s distraction, Isak ran to you not paying any mind to the two men holding you.

“And a nephew…” the fifth man repeated, eyes trained on the little boy. “This will certainly make things interesting.”

~~~

Mark lunged himself at the man tied in the chair before him, “You pathetic piece of shit! How could you?!”

Jaebeom pinched the bridge of his nose, “What exactly did you tell them?” he asked the man as calmly as he could, not paying Mark any mind.

The man gulped, looking at Mark before flicking his gaze to his boss, “They threatened me.”

“SO YOU DRAG INNOCENT PEOPLE INTO IT?!” Mark yelled, landing a punch on the man’s face, the force alone knocking the chair to the ground, the man along with it.

Yugyeom and Youngjae watched, unsure of whether or not to intervene. Jinyoung sat at a chair looking at the photographs they’d been mailed. The dirtied and bruised figures of your son and you making him sick. How had they let it go this far?

“Mark,” Jaebeom barked. “That’s enough.”

Mark turned, rage alight in his eyes, “Enough? I don’t think so. Your sister, my wife, and our child have been kidnapped and are about to be killed because of this…pathetic,” a kick to the man’s side, “piece,” another kick, “of shit.”

A door opened and in came Jackson and BamBam, their faces void of any emotion. Jaebeom looked away from Mark momentarily.

“Anyone else working with him?”

Jackson shook his head, “He went rogue on this one. Bold move if you ask me.”

“Any idea on where they could be being held?”

Bambam shook his head, “Not yet. My squad’s still looking.”

Jaebeom turned back to his brother-in-law, walking up to where the man was still kicking the mole. Placing a hand on his shoulder, he pulled him back, crouching down before the battered man.

“You have three tries to tell me where they are,” Jaebeom spoke, far too calm for someone who had just been betrayed by one of his men. “If you even think about lying to me, I’ll riddle your body with so many bullets that no one will recognize your body once it’s found - if it’s ever found.” Without even waiting for a response, Jaebeom grabbed his handgun, placing it on the man’s thigh and firing it, “Better start talking.”

~~~

Your hands held Isak close to your bruised and bloodied body. One thing you were thankful for was the lack of light in the room as it provided you a way to hide the many injuries that had been inflicted onto you from your son, even if the groans and radiating pain intensified whenever he cuddled you. Little whimpers fell from his lips as he cried into your dirtied shirt.

Your heart broke as you shushed him, rubbing your hands along his back and hair, attempting to comfort him as best as you could in your state. Tears filled your own eyes as you took in the reality of the situation you were in - along with all the information you’d found out during the many hours of ‘interrogations’ you were put through by whoever this group was.

Jaebeom, your brother -whom you swore you saw gunned down right before your eyes - was alive.

Mark was alive.

Those two lying sons of bitches were alive and had let you live the past six, seven years of your life believing they had been killed.

And here you were being questioned about their location.

How the fuck would you, of all people, know?

Isak’s soft cries turned into sniffles as he fell asleep, your own eyes growing tired, both from the torture you’d endured and the past few… How long has it been? Hours? Days? Weeks? No. Not weeks. You’d be dead if it had been weeks.

Letting your mind rest, you fell into a light sleep, unsure of what your and Isak’s futures held.

~~~

Much like the night of your abductions, you awoke with a start - so did Isak - as the sound of gunfire and shouts rang out throughout the building you were in. Isak clung to you whimpering as he hid his face in your shirt. You did your best to wrap your body around him - a weak attempt at shielding his small body, giving him even the tiniest sliver of a chance a t surviving whatever it was that was going on out there. You shook as you tried to get him to quiet as his whimpers grew louder as the gunfire drew nearer.

All too soon, the gunfire stopped just as footsteps were barely heard stopping in front of the door to the room you were in. Thuds followed which you could only assume was someone making an attempt at breaking down the door, something you weren’t really you wanted to happen. It could be the police finally having been notified of you and your son’s sudden disappearance - but no one in this world was stupid enough to leave traces of that - or it could be yet another mob wanting their final taste of revenge on GOT7.

Either way, you were scared shitless for you and your son.

Then you heard him. The sound of his voice calling your name over and over again from the other side of the door.

“Mark,” you whispered. “Mark!”

Isak stopped crying looking at you strangely, before calling out the name you had just said realizing that you were far too quiet to be heard - genuinely afraid that whoever was there would leave if either of you didn’t respond, clearly they were there to help you if they sounded worried, right?

“Mark!” he shouted, his tiny voice still rough from the tears he’d shed. “Mark!”

The thudding got more and more frantic and frequent before a few more names were said, presumably more help - and the thudding was stronger until the door finally caved and in rushed one man before anyone else falling beside you.

“My love,” he whispered, taking you into his arms, choking up at the sight of you. He turned his attention to the little boy who was clearly trying to decide whether or not this ‘Mark’ was actually safe. It didn’t take long as he soon recognized the man’s face from the many pictures you’d shown him.

“Daddy?”

Mark let out a breath between a laugh and sob, as he cradled your body reaching out to touch his son’s face.

“Yeah, I’m your Dad.”

~~~

As you sat on the bed in the infirmity you avoided all eye contact with Mark and Jaebeom. Having saved you or not, they were not in your graces.

“We know it wasn’t right, but we had no other choice but to disappear in order to-”

“You didn’t disappear,” you snapped. “You faked your deaths and left me with six, almost seven years of grief. Not to mention having to raise our child by myself thinking you were dead and he was never going to know who you were.”

The last part was clearly directed at Mark, who winced at your words.

“I know it wasn’t right,” Jaebeom continued crouching down before you. “And I’m sorry that my decision brought so much pain and agony to you. But at the end of the day, I made the decision that would give me and my men the best chance at survival. The choice that would allow you to stay out of all of this mess. Clearly that wasn’t the case, but I don’t regret it.”

You looked away, tears welling in your eyes. You wanted to be selfish and hate both of them, hate your brother for everything, but you couldn’t. You knew he was capable of making the most gut wrenching decisions if it meant keeping the people he cared about safe and out of harm’s way, even if it brought pain in the process - at least they would be alive.

Jaebeom rose to his feet, “I think the two of you need to talk some more, I’ll go check on…Isak?”

He was clearly unsure of the way the name rolled off his tongue but smiled as he remembered the little mannerisms that the small boy had shown as he was treated by the mob’s doctors.

As soon as Jaebeom left the room, Mark took a step closer to the bed before sitting down after you didn’t move away.

“He looks a lot like me,” he commented, figuring you might be more willing to talk if it started off with your son.

“Acts like you sometimes too,” you add, cracking a tiny smile. “You have no idea how difficult it is to see him everyday. It’s like being haunted by your ghost.”

Mark nodded, in understanding. He couldn’t take away or undo anything that had happened. But he knew he could maybe change things for the better now…if you let him that is. Seven years was a long time.

“Listen,” he began, turning to face you. “I’m not going to ask you to forgive. What I did and went along with is not forgivable. I have hurt the two of you in ways I can’t even begin to imagine. But I need you to know that I’m extremely sorry for that. That, if given the chance, I would take it all back and rewind the clock.”

“Mark-”

“Let me be in his life. I don’t care if you want a divorce after all of this. If you don’t want to ever see my face again. But please, please, let me in my - our - son’s life.”

You looked at him for a few minutes, not saying a single word. Despite not allowing them to fall, tears were welling on his eyes, threatening to spill over his waterline.

“I think he’d like that a lot,” you finally said, looking away. “Just, keep him out of all of this.”

“I promise!” he said without a single ounce of hesitation. “I swear I won’t allow anyone to rub a single hair on his head in the wrong direction.”

You smiled weakly, biting your lip, “As for me, just…just give me some time. It’s a lot.”

Mark cocked his head to the side. He couldn’t imagine what you were going through right now, all because of him. The very man who had vowed to never hurt you all those years ago.

“Of course.”

You went to say something when the sound of Isak’s voice filled your ears as he called for you rushing towards where you were on the bed, Jaebeom right behind him.

“Mommy, he said he’s your big brother!” he giggled, bouncing up and down his hands on your knees, as he pointed at Jaebeom. “He’s my uncle right?”

You smiled, running your hand over his reddened cheek - he must’ve been having fun with Jackson who had been tasked with distracting him while you were being examined - and nodded.

“Yeah. He’s your uncle. My big brother.”

Jaebeom smiled slightly at you as you finally looked him in the eye, “Do you want to go see your room?”

Your brows furrowed at his words before Isak pushed away from you and ran after Jaebeom who was already out the door.

“His room?” you asked, looking at Mark.

Mark scratched the back of his neck, “Yeah…Jaebeom and I think it’s best if you live here for a while. With him. Just until things settle down. I personally don’t want you going back to the house alone after what happened.”

You nodded, it would take some getting used to that’s for sure, but maybe you’d be able to move past it all quickly. Forgive and forget everything as best as you could. After all, you had them back. You finally had your family back.

#kpop #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #got7 #got7 masterlist #got7 mark #got7 mark tuan #got7 imagines #got7 scenarios #mark #mark tuan #mark imagines #mark scenarios #mark tuan imaginea #mark tuan scenarios

14 notes · View notes

an0rpm · 6 months

Text

baek isak, the shepherd

portrait study of noh sanghyun as baek isak in "pachinko"

#photo study #painting #portrait #digital art #art study #kdrama #k drama #pachinko #noh sanghyun #steven noh #noh steven #digital painting

13 notes · View notes

kimtaeri · 3 months

Text

i just started reading pachinko and i really want to punch hansu🤬🤢💩 in the face and give a kiss to sunja and isak🥰💞👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨

#pachinko

3 notes · View notes

grrrlsoverdramas · 4 months

Text

2022

Favorite couples:

Ryeon/Joon-gil (Tomorrow)

Woo Young Woo/Lee Jun-ho (Extraordinary Attorney Woo)

Isak/Sunja (Pachinko)

Mi-jeong/Mr. Gu (My Liberation Notes)

Vegaspete (Kinnporsche)

DanYok (Not Me)

No Go Jin/Lee Shin Ah (Crazy Love)

Favorite Performances:

Park Eun Bin (Extraordinary Attorney Woo)

Choi Woo Shik (Choi Woong)

Favorite Characters:

Dong Geurami (Extraordinary Attorney Woo)

Ji Seung wan (25/21)

Shin Ha Ri (A Business Proposal)

Dramas I Most Enjoyed Watching:

Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Reset

Kinnporsche

Twenty Five Twenty One

Through the Darkness

New Life Begins

Shooting Stars

Kiss Sixth Sense

#I found this list in my drafts to see if I'd ever started a 2023 one #lol #this was my year disengaging with social media so I guess I just decided not to post this lmao #2022 #lists

3 notes · View notes

seawherethesunsets · 1 year

Photo

@userdramas event 04: love

Pachinko (2022) - Isak x Sunja

With Sunja, I have this feeling…that perhaps my life can be significant somehow.

401 notes · View notes

ithinkilikeit-reactions · 1 year

Text

3 Book reviews from someone with no credentials other than the ability to read

I have been reading a lot again lately and this year I finished 3 books so far! So I wanna do a little review of the books because I think it’s fun and I really missed reading! Let me know if you’ve read these, what your thoughts were or if you have a recommendation for me!

Might contain spoilers

You’ve Reached Sam - Dustin Thao

It had been a minute since I had read a book with romance adjacent plot, I had recently watched a lot of tragic love stories in films and wanted to read something with a bit of a tragic air to it. Sam and Julie’s story is definitely tragic however I should have maybe skipped this one. The book is a Young Adult story about healing and moving on and that’s how it’s written. Young Adult is an amazing genre and considering I hadn’t been reading for a while, I thought diving in with YA book would be good for me and I thought wrong. It’s not that the story isn’t written well, it’s more that I found myself feeling slightly too old for it. I also found myself getting incredibly frustrated with the main character and some of her choices, while still understanding her loss.

This being said, the ending was a great sense of closure for the book and main character Julie. It also had me bawling my eyes out as I’m an emotional wreck in general.

2.5/5 Good read, just simply not for me!

My Grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry - Fredrik Backman

The connection between grandmother and granddaughter is something beautiful, as someone who has grown up with my grandparents surrounding me this book definitely hit me where it hurts. Elsa and her grandmother’s relationship was absolutely beautiful, even after the passing of her grandmother. I liked that Elsa didn’t regard her grandmother as a saint, learning about her wrong doings in the past and holding her accountable. There’s a beautiful sense of forgiving in this book, the residents of the apartment building all being connected to the grandmother in one way or another. Elsa’s grandmother created an entire world to make Elsa happy and it’s simply stunning. There’s a hint of found family trope in this book as well and that is simply my favorite trope ever. However, the wurse’s death had me sobbing because in my head it looked like my dog.

4.8/5 as no book is perfect but this one nearly is

Pachinko - Minjin Lee

Now this book is another one that hits me in an emotional way. I have a Korean grandmother and know that she lived through many things in her life, she doesn’t like to talk about it and I don’t pry. This book gave me some insight however. I loved that you travel through this family nearly generation by generation, starting with Yangjin moving to Sunja, then to her sons Noa and Mozasu and then to her grandson Solomon. It’s a tragic story, Sunja’s life having never been quite easy. The first 2 parts of this books touched me the most, Isak and Hansu’s characters being so different yet both oddly appealing. I love that Sunja grew to love Isak as he was truly her savior. While sometimes not much happened within the chapters, I found I couldn’t put the book down as I needed to know what would happen.

It made me feel sad to see the shame people had simply being Korean yet also not being able to detest the Japanese as a lot of them grew up among them despite the things the country had done. It was interesting to see and shed a personal light onto the entire situation through the eyes of one family experiencing life this way. At many times through out this book I wanted to extend my arms and give Sunja a hug. Especially at the end, as she visits Isak’s grave to speak with him and burrying Noa’s picture next to him so that she has a sense of closure knowing her son is with him.

4.5/5 The last part of the book didn’t keep my attention as well as the other parts. But the last chapter made my chest hurt, feeling sad that I wouldn’t get to see anything else from this family that I had been following for 500+ pages. I simply wept at the last page.

If you have read any of these, let me know if you shared some thoughts! I know this is a kpop writing blog but reading has been bringing me peace and I wanted to share it with you all! Might do this more often after I finished another 3 books.

#you've reached sam #dustin thao #my grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry #fredrik backman #pachinko #minjin lee #book review

7 notes · View notes

samuraibydjavan · 9 months

Text

dude who plays isak baek in the pachinko show has an insane facial structure bro

#they really cast the perfect man for the role

2 notes · View notes

isobelleposts · 2 years

Text

Korean Immigration in 'Pachinko' - Book Review

The cast of Apple TV Original Adaptation directed by Kogonada

'Pachinko' was without a doubt written so gracefully and seamlessly. Although there were times when I put the book down and didn’t feel so much urge to pick it up again, I still can’t deny the fact that this was one of the most well-written pieces I’ve ever read, tackling several relevant and worldly issues. Written so precisely as if these characters and the lives they’ve lived were real at some point in time, Min Jin Lee succeeds in making her readers stop and think about the world.

Kim Min-ha as Sunja, selling kimchi in the busy markets of Osaka

CHANGE

Throughout the book, we find ourselves hoping for change just as much as the characters do. It seems to be that negative change that wipes the life out of your body appears faster than lighting, and the change that everyone hopes for comes unnoticeable through time. The book proves what we should all know, which is that racism and injustices do not only occur among different races, but sometimes and for decades now, through different nationalities, gender, and social and economic status and beliefs.

That evening, when Noa did not call her, she realized that she had not given him her phone number in Yokohama. In the morning, Hansu phoned her. Noa had...

Page 385 of 'Pachinko'

Book lll: Chapter 8 and the words that followed that line crushed my heart.

"I am carrying your child."

Page 47 of 'Pachinko'

This book made me think a lot what ifs. What if Sunja had not met Hansu? What if Isak had went to Osaka on his own? What if Noa's mother did not visit him in Nagano? Through the course of a few months, Sunja's life had took a major turn and changed everything around her, and it felt real.

Lee Min-ho as Koh Hansu in the Apple Original Adaptation of 'Pachinko'

PRIVILEGE

One recurring topic that keeps coming to me the more I read this book is privilege. Koh Hansu was not born in privilege, being a Korean and a poor one at that. But it does not excuse the amount of damage his gained privilege later in his life has caused others whom he once stood in the same economic status with.

Hansu hit the girl's face so hard that blood gushed from her pink mouth. - Noriko was ruined.

Page 344 & 345 of 'Pachinko'

Noriko was such a small character in the book (mentioned in only three pages), but it felt necessary that she was added because it made me think of the that one second you could be smiling, and the next you realize that the thing you were smiling at brought you to the hells of earth. It made me think of how much change could happen in a second while the cause of it or beholder of privilege remains unharmed.

I’d say that Pachinko isn’t much for enjoyment and excitement, but a lesson. You read it to learn in an entertaining and beautiful way about the history of Korea and Japan starting with the life of a young woman named Sunja, whose life changes drastically because of man of privilege and her decision to not fall under his power. The book covered topics I haven’t been able to encounter much yet or at all in other books, and maybe so because I need to expand my palate more, but nonetheless, this three-generational story will have you thinking and sympathizing not only for the characters but the lives and years they were inspired by in history.

Author of 'Pachinko', Min JIn Lee, at a DeMott lecture in 2019 Ahmerst College

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Min Jin Lee is no stranger to spreading political and social awareness to topics that need to be raised, whether its through her books, social media outlets, or press conferences and lectures. With her books ‘Free Food for Millionaires’ and ‘Pachinko’ both about Korean immigrants, Min Jin Lee has made her name known for giving a voice to the struggles of Asian immigration, which is scarcely tackled in the media.

"Above all, I wanted the narrator to be sympathetic of every character's plight. I will be forty-eight in November 2016, and as I get older, it is easier for me to imagine and appreciate many more perspectives--perspectives I may have disliked when I was much younger."

A Conversation with Min Jin Lee, page 494 of Grand Central Publishing's 'Pachinko'

Min Jin Lee is found admirable for all the perspectives and timelines she had to put herself through to write these sensitive topics in a historically accurate way, by interview Korean-Japanese men and women of their experiences, and taking her time to understand the weight of these stories, among others.

There is no denying that the preciseness of this book and its every line made it so beautiful and stand out from other books.

(Click HERE for Writing Commissions)

by Isobelle Cruz, 25/10/2022

31 notes · View notes

wroteonedad · 11 months

Text

Discussing 'Pachinko' (2017)

Reading. One of those things that I love the idea of doing, but ultimately also the one thing I never really getting round to doing. Reading has been the one thing where I have always said, 'I'll read tomorrow' and then tomorrow just never comes. When I do read, I usually forget everything that had happened prior to when I picked the book up which is usually about 6 months before. Pachinko, the second novel by Min Jin Lee, did not have that effect on me. I hate to say it, but I have been reading this novel for over a year, and all of a sudden I am obsessed with it, near to the point that I simply cannot put it down.

It was one of those books that I'd picked up on a whim while visiting the bookstore, a book with a cover that I was visually drawn to straight away. I knew nothing about any aspects of Korean and Japanese history featured and I knew nothing about the author. I think I understand now.

Pachinko is theoretically three novellas within one book. Each section of the book represents the next generation of the family or a whole new branch of family life. As the novel begins, it feels more focused on Sunja, the daughter of a crippled fisherman in a boarding house which resides near the sea in South Korea in the early 1900s. It feels like for this section of the book, Sunja is carrying all of the hard work and caring that comes with the boarding house. Her back must hurt from carrying the weight of this boarding house on her shoulders. So during this section, Sunja ends up meeting Koh Hansu as a blooming adolescent to which she ends up falling in love and falling pregnant with his child. Hansu is a rich fluently Japanese speaking man and later in the novel, it is revealed he is actually part of the yakuza and that is how he has managed to make his fortune. The yakuza is the Japanese version of the mafia.

Sunja quickly finds out after making love to Hansu that in his eyes she is nothing more than a mistress and finds that he is already married to a woman in Japan and has daughters with her, not slay. She quickly asks him to no longer be apart of her life and she is left with the devastating realisation that she now has to disappoint her family, falling pregnant and not being married. This of course is a huge deal in the early 1900s and is enough to be deemed not good enough to be a part of mainstream society.

Baek Isak then visits the boarding house on his way to Osaka where he is visiting his brother. Yangjin discusses with the tuberculosis ridden man how Sunja has fallen pregnant with another man's baby and Isak decides to marry Sunja because he believes that he will die soon from all of the illnesses he has had in his short life. He promises to care for Sunja until the very end. The only problem with Isak is is that he is like a Victorian street urchin and is constantly sick with something,,, this is something that Yangjin considers that could be a problem for Sunja in the future. The newly wed couple then move to Osaka where they live under the same roof as Isak's brother Yoseb and wife Kyunghee.

Sunja gives birth to her firstborn with Koh Hansu, Noa. She is also working a job and sold a watch that Hansu had given her in order to make enough money to survive, much to Yoseb's disapproval.

Book 2

The novel jumps further in time to a world where Sunja now has Noa and Mozasu (Isak's birth son). Noa becomes the more academic of the two brothers, spending much of his time learning Japanese and reading.

Not long after Mozasu is born, Isak gets caught reciting The Lord's Prayer when everyone is supposed to be worshipping the emperor and he is quickly thrown into prison; which is absolutely insane by the way. They leave the guy to rot away in prison for quite a chunk of time and only release him when he is on the brink of dying so he is able to see his family for a short period of time before perishing.

In the time that Isak is in jail, Sunja and Kyunghee open up a stall at the market where they sell their own homemade kimchi. The business does well and the two are approached by an owner of a restaurant who pays them to cook for their place. In a time where Japan gets struck by World War II and everything begins to become scarce very quickly.

A few years later the restaurant is forced to close due to the War, which is also conveniently the time that Hansu decides to re-enter Sunja's life.

That night he tells Sunja that he is actually the owner of the resturant and that he has been manipulating their family all of these years as well as tracking them all down. He knew that Sunja had sold the gold watch that he gifted her all those years prior. The absolute fiend for controlling people then decides to send the entire family over to a country house in the middle of nowhere where they would spend the rest of the time in the war working. He makes a bunch of accusations and false claims to Sunja telling her the family need to leave straight away because their home probably wouldn't be there by tomorrow. He also decides to reunite Sunja with her mother Yanjin and pretty much drops Yoseb back off to the house later in the war after he becomes horrifically injured from all the bombings.

When the worst of the war passes, the family returns back to Osaka where Noa and Mozasu continue studying. Noa ends up leaving to go to university in Tokyo where he studies English Literature while Mozasu ends up dropping out of high school where he gets relentlessly picked on for being Korean to the point he was fighting all the time and after the night of being picked up by the police over it, he then begins to work in Goro's pachinko parlour,,, to which he ends up getting promoted. He falls in love with Yumi, a seamstress who wants to live the American Dream, except they have a child together and Yumi ends up dying in a car accident shortly after.

Noa on the other hand, is sleeping with a girl who makes comments about how she finds it weird that Hansu is Noa's mentor and is paying for everything, she accuses Hansu of being the real father of Noa and that is how he finds out Isak was never his father after all. The same night, he goes for dinner with Hansu where he learns everything, as well as all of his history in the yakuza. Noa is ashamed of this, he is honest with the way he feels like he can't live with himself knowing that his own blood is corrupt. He returns him to have a go at Sunja for not being honest with him, drops out of university and runs away. He sends both his mother and Hansu money every single month to go towards lifestyles and to pay back for his university experience, he feels as if he owes it.

Book 3

The main synopsis of this section is to discuss Noa and Mozasu now that they are both adults in their 40s with children. A school friend of Mozasu, Haruki ends up having the most insane plot twist in the story. The man works as a policeman and has an entire gay plot, despite him being a well beloved man as well as having a wife and children.

Hansu being Hansu decides to hire private investigators so he can locate where Noa is residing. At this point he has one son and three daughters with his wife, he is now considered a Japanese resident and also runs his own pachinko parlour in Japan. When Hansu tells Sunja about this she wants to find him immediately. They drive all the way to the correct area where Hansu tells Sunja it is not a good idea to speak to him and that they should wait longer before making any form of physical contact. As soon as Sunja sees her son, she comes rushing out of the car to speak to him. Noa tells Sunja about his family, the disgust that comes with being Korean and how he has to lie to everyone about who he is because his boss hates foreigners and his wifes mother would not allow him to be around if they found out he was Korean. He promises to call Sunja that night and when he doesn't, Sunja innocently thinks it is because Noa no longer has the home phone number anymore. In actual fact, he took the whole seeing his birth parents again very, very badly.

Mozasu becomes a rich man, rich enough to literally hire famous singers to attend his son Solomon's birthday party, so if you're looking for a fictional sugar daddy then you've come to the right place. Sunja's mother Yangjin passes away after giving Sunja one last mouthful about how awful Hansu was and that Noa deserved his fate because he was born 'a bad seed'. At her funeral in the following chapter, it was revealed that Mozasu's partner Etsuko has a daughter who had had an abortion a chapters prior had then moved in with the family and spends the entire funeral trying to make a move on Solomon? I think that Hana is a character that needs to be studied in the history books.

Fast forward a few years after Yangjin's funeral and it feels like Mozasu, Sunja and Hansu simply don't exist where the book begins to revolve around Solomon's blossoming from adolescence into early adulthood where he shags his future stepsister ???? Many a time, moves to New York for university, falls in love with Phoebe and then moves back to Japan with her to begin his post-grad job. He becomes a major gambler and tries to save not like other girls Hana who becomes an alcoholic and flees from everybody she ever knew until she tries to rekindle her flame with Solomon over the phone when he's still in New York. I've said this before in the paragraph above, but Hana NEEDS to be studied. Other than her complicated relationship with her mother, how did she end up like this? Every time I read about what she's doing, I end up feeling like that picture of Ben Affleck looking stressed out and smoking.

As the end of the book hits, Solomon's life literally falls apart. He ends up working for a big banking company where his boss Kazu wants to buy a property from a Korean woman so he can demolish it for the land he wants for a golf course. She refuses because she doesn't want to sell to a Japanese person so asks Solomon to do it for him. He approaches his father where he can get a guy who knows a guy help to achieve the deal he wants. Ironically two days after getting the land, the 93 year old lady passes away peacefully from a heart attack, however Kazu places the blame on Solomon and the yakuza and fires him from his high up position.

Meanwhile Hana is dying in the hospital in Tokyo from a disease passed on from a man which is never really fully disclosed. I imagine it would have been from her years of hostessing and battle with alcoholism. She tells Solomon how she was always in love with him and that after being sacked from his job that he should pursue his fathers pachinko parlour and run that because fuck what any Japanese person thinks of the yakuza background basically.

At a family weekend, Solomon's family are asking him about when he is going to marry Phoebe over a home cooked Korean dinner, but discusses with his father how she couldn't get a job in Japan and he couldn't work in New York without a visa. The relationship between the two shortly ends up breaking apart when Phoebe ultimately decides that they both want very different things and packs all of her bags. She leaves the next day. The night before she was in tears and angry, but the next day? A confident girlboss ready to conquer the world.

The end chapter discusses how Mozasu has been using the same desk for over 30 years and ends up as a well respected tax payer, Sunja visiting the grave of Isak to speak to him and deliver gifts and confirming that Noa had killed himself because he wanted to be 'normal'. His father Hansu is under 24 hour hospital care with good doctors over his cancer.

There were a lot of things that I felt towards this book. I feel sometimes with books, especially when a lot of the background is focused on major events in history, they can feel very focused on that rather than the characters. This was not the case with Pachinko, rather it was made apparent that all of these historic events were happening and this is what all of the characters were doing in response to all of it. Every character represented had strong developments and it felt so wonderful to grow up with them, for things in their past to haunt them, but also for them to look back at things they could have changed if they went back to that time period. The book is a super easy read, there weren't many words I didn't understand too which feels like an added bonus. It does not feel like it is over 500 pages long (which it is) and what I am most upset about is that Hansu didn't die after all of the torture and trauma he left for the family.

#min jin lee #writing #pachinko #book club #book review #literature

4 notes · View notes