Youngsaeng walked in through the front door of his home that wasn’t locked directly toward the family room where his mother had been waiting for him while reading a book on her lap and a cup of tea in the table in front of her.

“Omma, I’m home.” He said.

“Oh Youngsaeng-ah.” His mother looked up from the book she read to greet the only son of her with her usual warm smile hanging on her face. He walked over to give a small peck on his mother cheek and then sat on the couch across her.

He looked around, turned his head left and right looking for a figure of a male and a girl that he usually found there in his house during that hours.

“Where are Appa and Jiyoung?” He asked his mother in the end after finding no signs of their presence in that place.

“Your father is still in the office, there are some important things that need to be taken care of. And Jiyoung is going out. She really loves to take a stroll in the night all by herself lately.” Answered his mother. Youngsaeng nodded solemnly.

His mother marked the last page of the book that she had just read then closing and laid it on the small table beside the couch. Taking off her reading glasses, she fixed her gaze on that son of her. “Nah. What is it? What is the thing that you said you want tell me, abou Seungyeon?” she asked.

For a while Youngsaeng was just standing there in silence, lips in a small pout for a sign of wanting to say something but not sure whether he should really said it or not. His mother took a notice of his facial expression-that had been not really good since he popped out in their home-became more gloomy.

“Well…I…”

“Don’t tell me that you had a fight with Seungyeon and then broke up, please?” The middle-aged woman cut his words with horror in her face before he could spill the next words that were still hanging in the tips of his tongue. Some amount of tense had also appeared on her face. She gripped the armrest tight, anxiously waiting for the answer that her son would give her.

“No, it’s not.” Youngsaeng shook his head, at the same time shrugging off the concern that his mother had making her expression turned in a relieved-normal one.

“Thank God.” She uttered softly. Although she had only met her once, she had become really fond of her since the first time. The reasons were many. First, of course because of some submitted standards that made her as the ideal criteria of a girlfriend that she always imagined for her only son. She was pretty, brilliant, smart, had good manners and everything in her eyes. But more than anything, the thing that made her also fall over head for that girl was the fact that she was the first girl that could make her son admitting to something that called love, her son who used to be so sceptic about love and women thingy.

“Then?” she asked again, increasingly becoming impatient this time. From the voice tone of Youngsaeng that she heard over the phone earlier, she could sense that whatever he would come up with was a serious matter. After seeing his expression, she could only hope that it wasn’t something bad.

“Omma,” Youngsaeng finally voiced out something after a really deep breath take.

“Yes Youngsaeng-ah?” His mother waited edgily, her eyes widened just like a really curious little girl.

“I…” he again stopped for a while, squinted his eyes, then, again took a deep breath to utter the next words in a smooth breath.

“I want to be engaged with Seungyeon.”

***********************

Seungyeon was in Gyuri’s room, laying on her back on the top of the bed with legs dangling on the edge of the bed. She stared blankly at the ceiling with her mind wandering around to the scene back on that afternoon earlier. It had become uncounted already how many times she had been thinking that same thing since she got back home.

Then suddenly she raised her right hand, spread all her five fingers over the light beam from the light bulb attached on the ceiling of the room. The meaning beyond her action, she didn’t know either. Approximately it was just the same as her absence of understanding about, again, the scene from the afternoon earlier.

Gyuri who had been sitting on the chair behind her desk, working on the report for tomorrow’s presentation at office, incidentally turned around and found her in the middle of twisting her head left and right following the movement of her hand that covered the light bulb. Could no longer bear with the strange behavior of her sister, she brought herself asking.

“What’s wrong?”

Seungyeon tilted her head to the right. “Hmmm?”

Gyuri left out a small snort. “Seungyeonnie.” She called out with her usual tone of convincing. Seungyeon finally dropped her hand that previously hung in the air after hearing it and landed that hand of her on the top of Gyuri’s bed.

“Unnie.” She spoke, her voice small, a cautious tone. “Can I ask something?”

“Yes?” Gyuri spun her chair, fully facing Seungyeon.

“Have…that Mr. Alien ever-”

“Seungyeon-ah.” Gyuri cut her off, sulking at the way how Seungyeon called her beloved one. Though they had made up and talked about Gyuri and Hyunjoong’s relationship, it seemed like Seungyeon still couldn’t accept the fact that her sister really did choose Hyunjoong over all the guys in this world.

“Have he…” ignoring Gyuri’s complaint, she continued. “Have he…ever hug you just out of sudden? I mean…a really tight one that you would feel as if his life was hanging on it?”

She was sure that the question she just threw would leave Gyuri confused and surpsired. She changed her position into sitting, explaining.

“Emm-I-I mean-look, argh how to explain it?” She stumbled down upon her own words, didn’t know how to explain the meaning behind her actually a simple and ordinary question. He hugged her only, for god’s sake, but she felt the need to explain something, maybe more to reassure her own self. “That was-” She took a breath in frustration, despaired of not being able to find the words that would really fit her thoughts.

But it was enough for Gyuri to catch something beyond that short question. There must be something happened between Seungyeon and Youngsaeng, she thought. Sifting through the right words, she carefully asked her.

“Seungyeon-ah, what happened? Did he hug you in the way that you just explained?

Seungyeon shut her eyes closed, giving a weak nod and then crashed herself back down on her back on the top of Gyuri’s bed.

Restraining herself to not squel, Gyuri clasped her both hands producing a loud voice, being excited for some reason she couldn’t explain. “How did it happen? How???” she asked in a tone of urgency so that little sister of her would spill the story.

“Well, it just happened out of sudden.” Seungyeon told all the details about the thing happened on that afternoon. How he was late for the first time since they knew each other. How his face looked so pale most probably from anger. How he kept himself quiet and not saying anything until then he suddenly pulled her into a tight embrace.

She spilled out everything to Gyuri. Yes, particularly everything, except the part where she felt her heart skipped a beat then went faster and faster she thought it would jump out of its place. For some reason she didn’t know either wanted to know, she naturally eliminated that part from her story.

“Unnie, I’m just dead worried. Do you have any idea of the possible causes he became like that?”

Gyuri twirled her chair a little bit to the left and a little bit to the right. “I’m not sure, it can be just anything.” She mumbled incoherently. There was an analysis that came to her mind, but she needed more evidences before she thought she could voice it out.

“Don’t think about it too much, I’m sure that he will be back to his usual self soon. Or maybe you can ask him directly later.” She added much later, trying to cheer on her little sister.

“But, I’m really just worried.”

Somehow I have this feeling that the cause, it has something to do with me, she added silently inside. Then she curled up like a kitten that was about to sleep.

**********************************

Youngsaeng’s mother sat in silence leaning to the head of her bed. It was past midnight. Her husband just got back home that late night and was already sleeping soundly beside her, seemed to be too tired to get to read the anxiety that his wife hid very cleverly.

She folded her arms accrossed the chest then also crossing her legs on top of each other underneath the warm browned blanket. She felt the inside of her head was spinning around, confused on how to explain to her husband later when the sun rose up on the east horizon that she had agreed to the crazy idea that their only son came up with.

Crazy idea, yeah, she called it. It wasn’t because she didn’t like it or she didn’t want Youngsaeng and Seungyeon to have a clearer relationship such as being engaged and married to each other someday. She really liked that girl, so did her husband. And truth to be told, she already had that kind of image and plan in her mind for a while.

But after she put some thought on it; which was she sure that her husband would also have the same thought; wasn’t it just a little bit too early for them to be betrothed? They both still hadn’t finished their education yet, though she didn’t mean them to get married as soon as possible after being engaged. They could take the time as long as they wanted. But the real concern she had that made her somehow having a doubt was the intuition she felt that there was something strange and weird about the relationship the young couple shared.

Even until now, she hadn’t got the details on when exactly they met each other or how they got to know each other and decided to go into a relationship. Other than that, the strangest part for her was when Youngsaeng asked her back then to not telling Seungyeon that he was the one who came up with such idea.

“But Omma, can you please tell her and her parents later that you are the one who initiate this instead of me? Someday, when the time comes, I’ll explain it to you and her, my reason for asking to hide this fact.”

The words that Youngsaeng uttered after she just happily welcoming and approving her son’s idea, flashed on her mind again. Wasn’t it just too odd? Why did he have to hide that fact? Didn’t it somehow become like Youngsaeng was forcing Seungyeon to get engaged?

Obvious enough, there was something hidden behind this all. But to reject the idea, to force Youngsaeng telling her the truth, she had no heart to do that. As a mother who had been living for more than twenty years watching over her growing son, she never saw him really passionately wanting something that much, ever. That was why, she became weak, she couldn’t say no especially after what the young guy told her.

“Omma, I’m sorry. I really can’t explain it now. But you must have known that there’s a saying on how sometimes in a relationship there’s always one side that gives much more while the other side give less. So I suppose, in this relationship of us, I’m the one who have a bigger feelings for her rather than what she has for me. I beg you, please help me this one time.

This is the first time in my life that I really can love someone. I’m afraid if it’s not her, I won’t be able to feel like this, not back then, not now or in the future. I don’t want someone else. She’s the one that I want to be with and someone that I need so much to be in my life.”

She inhaled a big amount of breath, turning her gaze to her husband who was still sleeping soundly. All the things that she heard that night made her recalled the almost similar scene years ago when her husband, her boyfriend at that time, proposed to her. She was just graduated from her senior high school at that time, somehow still a little bit too young to get married. But he was just too stubborn on convincing her and her parents that they finally agreed, not that she wasn’t happy or anything.

“Youngsaeng-ah, what should I do with you? Out of all natures that your father has, why this one? Why do you have to think on the same silly way?”

*************************************************************************************************************************

Author's note:

I don't know how to aplogize anymore. I'm proscatinating too much. But still, I'm really sorry for the late update, really sorry, from the bottom of my heart.

College is really taking over my life lately, paper, assignment, group-assignment, exams and everything. I want to write so badly. It's frustating sometimes while I was sitting in the middle of my classes or between the lunch breaks and ideas just came pass by in my mind yet I can't write it down, I don't have much time, sometimes I'm just too tired even if I have time. I'm really sorry. Thank you for still waiting on my updates. I can't promise that the next update will be fast, but I know I won't stop writing. Sorry and thank you.