Becoming a Dad at 20, Part 2: Please, Hire Me

Part 2: Please, Hire Me

August 2019. The money was going faster than I'd planned. I cold-called, posted in Korean expat forums, and went to every interview that would have me. Eventually one place said yes a dosirak shop inside a major subway station. Kitchen prep, two days a week, 7 AM to 5 PM.

Then one day, a photo came from my wife. An ultrasound. It's a boy, she said.
$435 a month. After rent, transit, food, and utilities, the math didn't work. Not even close. But I had no Japanese and no experience. There was nothing else to grab at. I kept going.

By November her belly had grown a lot. The due date was the first week of February 2020. I couldn't quit the job. I couldn't take a day off. I told her I wouldn't be there when she gave birth. I felt terrible about it, and there was nothing I could do.
Later, when a friend found out, he said: "Why didn't you just swallow your pride and ask your parents for help? Working part-time back in Korea, you'd have been way more comfortable." He was right. But at the time I was all pride and no sense.

I should've been more flexible. There were options. But back then my answer to everything was: I'd rather starve here than ask anyone for anything. Looking back now, that was a genuinely stupid and dangerous way to think.
January 14, 2020. I quit the dosirak job and found something new. A Korean-owned restaurant, kitchen work, $9 an hour. But since I couldn't speak Japanese, they offered $7. Still more than before, so I said yes.

Two weeks later, I was fired. The reason: I couldn't speak Japanese and couldn't cook. I was young and beaten down, and by then I'd gotten small. When someone came at me, I just absorbed it. That's on me. I wasn't good enough. Looking back now, it's absurd at the interview I'd told them upfront I couldn't cook. We'd agreed I'd wash dishes and clean. That was the whole deal. That was why they were paying me $7. I was being gaslit and didn't even realize it. I just apologized and left at 1 AM.

January 28 was also the day my son was born.

Walking home after being fired, the rain started pouring. They say when it rains, it pours is this that day? The day nothing works? I had no money for an umbrella. No jacket in the middle of winter. Slippers on my feet. And then my phone buzzed. A photo from my wife. My son had been born. That was the first time I saw his face. I walked the rest of the way home in the rain, staring at my phone.

Every father in the world would understand. The moment you first see your child's face on the day they're born there's no single word for it. Not joy, not sadness, not happiness. None of those cover it. If you're a father, you know.
I had $240. I sent $232 to my wife for medicine and the first round of costs. The hospital still needed another $220 I didn't have. I told her: give me a week, I'll get it to you. What I didn't tell her was that I no longer had money left to eat.

I started job hunting again. This time it was really the last one. $8 left. If I couldn't find something real within a week, I felt like I'd genuinely be robbing drunk strangers just to eat.
Six days in, I found it. A sauna in Roppongi, 3 PM to 11 PM, minimum four days a week. $9 an hour, up to $145 a month in commute support. Six days a week came out to roughly $1,390 a month. If I can pull this off, I can actually turn things around. It felt like the first real shot I'd had, and I knew if I missed it, that was it.

At the interview, I showed up with everything I had not passion for the work, but the will to survive. I said I'd do anything. Seven days a week if needed. Nights too. I don't know if the manager felt sorry for me or just needed the help, but he told me to start the next day. I went home and ate two packs of ramen for the first time in a while.

A week into the job, I explained my situation and asked for an advance on my wages. I got it. I sent the hospital bill to my wife. And for the first time in months, I could eat two meals a day instead of one.
School ended, I went straight to work, got home by 1:30 AM. Every day, the same routine. But I was happy. When the first full paycheck came in, it felt like something I hadn't felt in a long time. A small amount, but enough to send money home every month and once in a while, maybe once a month, eat something I actually wanted. Hard, but genuinely happy.

I told myself: if I can just grind through two more years, graduate, and land a real job that's the real turnaround. I was starting to believe it might actually happen.

That belief didn't last a month.

To be continued.