Frankly in Love

Frank’s parents run a store, officially called Fiesta Hoy Market, but which the family simply calls The Store. They have worked every day, taking no holidays off or vacations after inheriting The Store from an older Korean couple. The Store is located near lower immigrant neighborhoods, which are different from the Li Family’s suburban neighborhood of Playa Mesa.

Frank hangs out in The Store, overheated. He’s started working at the register on Sundays, which he suspects his mother orchestrated so he can spend more time with his father. However, because of the language barrier between Frank’s English and his father’s Korean, they don’t communicate deeply. Frank receives a message from Q, inviting him to go to a museum in LA, but Frank replies that he has a Gathering—a rotating house dinner between five Korean American families who knew one another in Seoul before moving to Southern California together. During the Gatherings, the adults show off their successes and reminisce about a specific period of time in Korea, while their children are forced to talk until the Gatherings are over. Frank refers to himself and the other children as the Limbos.

At this Gathering, most of the Limbos are gathered in a bedroom playing a multiplayer video game. Frank looks for Joy Song, a childhood friend. They build a block tower together. When Frank’s mother sees them, she smiles, and Frank jokes that he and Joy need to get married and join their houses together. Joy confesses to Frank that Wu Tang, a Chinese American boy whom she’s dating in secret, asked to meet her parents. However, she’s against it, due to racial tension between Korean and Chinese Americans. This makes Frank think of his sister Hanna.

On the way home from the Gathering, Frank’s fathers vomits in a to-go cup, and his mother warns him to never drink alcohol. Frank thinks of the impossibility of this, as his social circle comprises Advanced Placement (AP) students, the Apeys, who enjoy activities like meteor showers and speculating about the nature of the universe. When the family drives through a Chinese neighborhood, Frank’s parents begin to make fun of Chinese people and they use a Korean racial slur against them. Frank calls them out on their racism and asks them if they would also use a racial slur against Q, but they protest that Q is like family. However, Frank knows this isn’t completely true and tries to keep Q away from his parents so they don’t say anything hurtful around him. Frank’s father rambles on, perpetuating negative stereotypes about Black Americans. Frank eventually gives up on arguing, thinking of how his sister Hanna used to challenge their parents’ racist perspectives. After Frank’s father falls asleep, Frank wonders what they’d do if he dated someone of a different race. However, his mother reiterates that they want him to marry a Korean girl, claiming it would be better for everyone.

Frank loves his Calculus class for a few reasons. Firstly, his teacher, Mr. Berry Soft, brings his students coffee and donuts and plays jazz music in the background. Secondly, Frank is attracted to classmate Brit Means, a white girl. During the class, Brit asks Frank to be her partner for a class project.

Later that day, Frank goes to Brit’s house, where he marvels at her architect parents’ projects. He catches Brit staring at him before they start working, “like you would a favorite painting in a museum” (36). Although Frank thinks she is flirting, he is nervous to kiss her. She takes him outside to show him a street full of parked cars, where she begins sneaking between them and opening the unlocked ones to examine their inner contents. Frank is nervous and asks Brit if she keeps the things she takes out of the cars, but she claims she just redistributes them to other cars. They climb into a minivan together, and sensing that she is just as nervous as him, Frank kisses her. Before they are discovered by the minivan’s owner, they sprint away into the night.

The next day, Frank plans to meet Brit behind the school greenhouse after lunch. He struggles to focus in his classes, even CompSci, his favorite class, eagerly anticipating seeing Brit again. When he tells Q that he’s going to miss their Dungeons & Dragons game, Q immediately knows what happened. Behind the greenhouse, Frank and Brit kiss and flirt with the idea of becoming a couple. However, they are soon interrupted by Joy and Wu, who have also shown up to hide from the rest of the school. Joy remarks that Frank now has her problem, but when Brit asks what she means, Frank says he will explain later. The bell rings, and the two couples separate and return to school.

On Friday, Brit leaves for a weekend trip with her parents and Frank goes to Q’s house for dinner. Frank and Brit text throughout the day, and Frank finds it hard to resist the constant contact. Q jokes that this will be how their friendship dies. At dinner, Q’s parents tease Frank about having a girlfriend and ask if his parents like her, which Frank avoids answering. As Frank brings his dirty plate to the kitchen, he spots a photo of Q, him, and his parents, and feels sad that he doesn’t have the same photo in his house. After dinner, Q shows him a game called Craft Exploit, and they muse on how the explorer character is like a colonizer against the indigenous aliens.

It’s Sunday again, and Frank helps his father mop The Store. An older white man whom Frank speculates is homeless enters The Store and gives Frank a small scroll, but before Frank can ask his father about him, another customer enters. Frank’s father engages with his Spanish-speaking customers with some Spanish. He lets this particular customer leave without paying, and tells Frank that Luis just finished serving an 11-month sentence yesterday. He begins rambling about Mexican children joining gangs, and Frank gives up trying to protest, engaging in what he refers to as jeong, a Korean value of shared emotional depth and loyalty without conversation. They almost have a bonding moment when Frank’s father begins to recite The Flea by John Donne, but they are interrupted when Brit enters The Store. She comes behind the counter to give Frank a hug, and he is nervous about what will happen next. When Brit explains to Frank’s father that they are in Calculus together, he’s embarrassed to hear her talking to him as if he were an exchange student or someone hard of hearing. However, Frank is grateful that she picks up on his nervousness and doesn’t hug him before she leaves.

The next week, Frank is on his way to a Gathering with his parents, examining the scroll that the older white man at The Store gave him. It’s a photocopy with nonsensical handwriting, images of a man, woman, and fetus, and geometric shapes. Frank makes a mental note to show Brit later. When the Li Family arrives at the house of the Song Family, Frank realizes that no other Limbos are present, and Joy tells him that the evening is a set-up to get the two of them together. In Joy’s room, Frank marvels at all the engineering and robotic gear she has. She sees the scroll in his pocket and they examine it together, and she asks if he’s shown it to Hanna. Frank tells Joy that Hanna married her boyfriend Miles and has been disconnected from the family since. They then commiserate about their respective relationships, and how their partners want more attention than they’re able to give under the watchful eyes of their parents. Frank claims their parents created a Korean bubble and want to keep their children inside of it. He thinks of his sister Hanna, and tears well up in his eyes. He wonders if she made the right choice, and if he will face the same choice. Suddenly, an idea occurs to Frank, and he proposes that he and Joy pretend to date each other, but secretly meet up with their real partners. Joy calls him crazy and then a genius, accepting his plan.

After creating a shared calendar so they can coordinate their dates, Frank and Joy return to their families downstairs while holding hands. Frank’s father escorts them to a separate table and pours them full glasses of wine, further setting the mood with background music. Frank notices that Joy’s eyes are hazel, not black like his, and have ssangkkeopul, or double eyelids. He compliments this feature, and Joy laughs. At the end of the night, the two go outside and Frank pretends to kiss Joy’s cheek, completing the façade.