Growing Green

Chapter I

Growing Green first started to appear with Han-ul back in his earlier years, in grade 3. He was sitting in the tall green grass outside his elementary school, waiting for lunch to end like he always had, making grass woven rings and bracelets, when he felt a tug from down below on his finger. Alarmed, he immediately removed his finger from where he had felt the light tug and to his surprise, he saw the strand of grass waving at him almost like it was human. 'It is alive, after all.', he thought to himself as he sat back down, curiously swirling his finger back into the grasp of the strand. He wasn't exactly sure if he was dreaming or not, but he didn't see any harm in it.
Shortly after, Han-ul knew for sure that he hadn't been dreaming the first time because the next day he came back out to that same spot, there were strands of grass tangled to form his name, and weirdly enough, a flower crown placed neatly beside it.
    He laid next to the grass written name and the neatly woven crown in hopes of possibly sparking something else to happen due to his confused state.
    After a while of waiting, he looked over to the name beside him that was lightly being blown on by the wind causing it to sway slightly, and sighed. Nothing had happened and even though Han-ul would've liked to stick around longer to make sure nothing else was gonna happen, he heard the bell ring loudly, causing an outside panic by his grade mates to hurry back inside to their next class. Han-ul sighed as he walked back, slowly approaching the doors to the school as teachers rushed him in along with other students who didn't seem to be interested in attending class. He headed down the hallway to the left of his school where his English class was located. Sitting down in his rightful seat in the far back corner of the room, Han-ul tried to reassure himself that he was probably just going crazy and that maybe a girl had weaved his name into the grass. Crazy, he knew. But how else could he explain to his 8 year old mind what he had just seen out in the field.
    Now Han-ul's life was of anyone else's, whose family was stable specifically financially, and had a good family balance of communication and complication.
    His routine was also quite normal being that he would of course go to school everyday, by bus, because, his parents were busy after all, trying his best to earn good grades in school, go out to sit out in the tall, green grass fields, and finally travel back home on his school bus. His mom was able to greet him, since she worked from home. Han-ul's dad however wasn't so lucky. Sure, the family had a good balance of love, communication and occasionally, complication, but with Han-ul's dad, there was always either not enough time for communication, which lead to complication, or Han-ul's dad just simply caused complication between Yoon-suh, and himself, Erick.
    Erick worked for a space company who studied the atmosphere and sent rockets into space, while Yoon-suh worked for a book publishing company used for young authors who couldn't get their books up and running and ready to publish. They were both still fairly busy, it was just the difference of being able to work from home and not being able to.
    Besides the point, Han-ul was on his way home, greeted by Yoon-suh at the door who had a small lunch prepared for him that was sitting on the kitchen table. She did this everyday, trying to make her son feel as welcome as possible. He thanked her and sat down to eat.
    During the night, when Erick came home from work, he didn't typically greet either of them. He just went to look in the fridge for a wrapped, leftover portion of the meal his wife had cooked for dinner. After that, he went straight to bed, acting like they didn't even exist half the time. No goodnight. No kisses for Yoon-suh, and nothing else of the sort either. Just straight to bed. Sometimes he wouldn't even change into his night-wear.    
    The next day, the small family collaborated quietly together in the kitchen, making a hash brown egg wrap meal. Although Han-ul couldn't help much, he tried to get everything his mother needed in order to make him breakfast. He felt bad for his mother because he always saw how awful his father was to her. Sure he didn't lay hands on her or anything, but he wouldn't even look her in the eyes sometimes.
He just sighed, and went to get changed and ready for school.
    Time passed as Han-ul went through the day like he typically did, only today he was more excited than ever to go sit in the grass field, and continue to wait. And so he did, he sat there for almost 30 minutes and was about to head inside when he heard the bell when he was suddenly pulled by his leg. He knew immediately it had been the same occurrence he had experienced a few days ago. He looked down to see a little strand of grass slowly wrapping around his ankle. It pulled. The single strand was fairly strong, pulling Han-ul down harshly, to the ground.
    Han-ul laughed aloud to himself and the grass, not realizing how crazy he seemed. He was only 8 after all. He found the grass to be like you would with a long lost friend that you haven't seen in a few years.
    Han-ul knew for a fact now that the grass was either possessed or really really alive and liked him, a lot. So everyday, for two years, Han-ul would come back out to the field to see his 'friend'. He would always talk about it to his mom, but she just brushed it off much like his dad did. No one really believed him until one day, when his great grandfather visited their house. As soon as he saw Han-ul, he knew he had inherited his gift. He used his visiting time to tell now 10 year old Han-ul all about what he knew about Growing Green. Han-ul was immediately fascinated, believing every word that came out of his great grandfather's mouth, but even though they knew it was true, everything his grandfather had told him, his parents weren't too happy about the "ideas" he had gotten from him, and because Han-ul's ideas were so out of this world, they sent the grandfather back to his home town in Japan, where he lived.
    Yoon-suh and Erick were furious with all of the crap that was spilling out of poor Han-ul's mouth, and he had been sent to his room more than usual lately because he wouldn't stop discussing his ideas with them.
    When Han-ul turned 16, he couldn't exactly use his power quite yet. However, he knew what it could do, he just couldn't unlock it, per se. Simply, Growing Green has the capabilities of controlling everything in relation to the earth. It can't control man made objects, but can control things such as wood planks, used in houses. It was pretty compact. And that's what frustrated Han-ul the most. He just couldn't understand how to use different abilities with others in order to make them work. He could make plants grow, like flowers or weeds, but that basically summed it up.
    Now, Han-ul was in grade 11, in highschool, and very much enjoyed going to school because of how rough it had gotten at home. His dad wasn't ever happy anymore, and you would rarely see him smile, but only in times of talking to other women who stop by their house every once and a while. And that made Yoon-suh very upset, hurt, and had a major feeling of betrayal. She knew it was wrong and that he wasn't being loyal to her when she turned her back, but what could she do? She had no control over the situation because the simple fact was, her husband just wouldn't listen.
    During school, Han-ul typically took the days slowly, of course with confidence. He was a "cool-nerd" type of kid. He had a lot of friends because of his good looks which he didn't really prefer, but he had a few friends that really stood out to him when he first had met them. Natalie, and Kevin, who actually had just made it official between each other, were Han-ul's best friends. He loved them dearly.
    Although he hadn't told them about his mysterious secret, he was very very close with them, they pretty much knew everything as he did with them.
    "You guys look good!" Han-ul stated as the couple clinged onto each other. Natalie had beautiful brown hair that hung down to her lower back, and had beautiful amber eyes. Kevin had short dark brown hair that was always swiped to the left side or spiked up neatly. He had green eyes like Han-ul, only Han-ul's eyes were more vibrant like none other.