Chapter 3
------

“Fany!” Sunny came running forward. Tiffany greeted her with a fierce hug. She was looking better, with her porcelain face tinted slightly with healthy brunette hair nice and fluffy. 

Sunny looked very happy and her black eyes glowed with happiness.

Not at all like what she was like when we were in school.

Sunny Lee was not only one of her best friends, but she was also her first cousin, by her father’s younger sister, and they had studied together, though Tiffany knew her path would be in law, and Sunny’s in medicine. 

Sunny was a sweet girl, soft black-eyed, brunette-streaked light, and fluffy. 

She was very shy and had met Tiffany because they shared a dorm room at the private school they went to together.


“Your mom’s-“


“I know, worried about me.”


Another excited squeal was heard and a blonde woman pushed through the people on the stairs to run to Tiffany. 

“Fany!!!!!!!!!!!” Hyoyeon bounded over to Tiffany.


However shy Sunny was, Hyoyeon was much different. 

The blonde was very outgoing and the silver-screen princess. 

She was a superb dancer, and that was how she had met her dancing star husband Eunhyuk. 

She looked amazingly like Tiffany, for they were distantly related because their grandmothers on Tiffany’s mother and Hyoyeon’s father sides were sisters. However, Hyoyeon was also one of the ia Kwons, for her mother had been a Kwon. 

The Kwons were almost as famous as the Hwangs, and they owned most of ia’s seats in the house and senate. There was even a Kwon as governor!


Tiffany’s grandmother on her father’s side, Gail Hwang, was best friends with Gretchen Kwon, the matriarch of the Kwons. Tiffany’s grandmother was the matriarch of the Hwangs, so it was no surprise that Tiffany had seen plenty of Hyoyeon, since they always met at the constant social gatherings.


Now, as Tiffany looked at Hyoyeon, she was surprised to see Hyoyeon’s stomach quite swollen. 

“Wait a minute, you didn’t say you were…”


“Expecting? It’s fabulous, isn’t it?”


“Boy or girl?”


“We don’t want to know yet. We want it to be a surprise. But I think it’s a girl. Eunhyuk thinks its a boy. I don’t care; either way, I’m going to be a mommy!”


“Hyoyeon! Oh my gosh!” Tiffany smiled glowing, dizzy with all the happiness she felt. 


“Congratulations!”


“I wanted to tell you in person! I wanted to see that face of yours. I knew it’d be quite a show. It appears the family thinks so too!”


Tiffany was now speechless. She just stood, shaking her head, trying to clear her thoughts.


“Also, Tiffany, your mother is going to lock you up for a year.”


“How many people has she actually TOLD?”


At that moment, she heard a woman shoving her way through the crowd by the hall leading to kitchen.


“Tiffany Nicole Hwang! You are now grounded!”


“Hello mother!” Tiffany smiled weakly, hugging the late fifty- year-old woman. “I had a few problems getting here.”


“Don’t give me that! You are now grounded and you can’t leave for another year.”


“How about another week? I do, after all, have some classes to teach, and some more briefs to read. I still have some leftover papers to grade from last semester. That is LAST time I decide on an essay final! And where is Daddy and Suho?”


“Right here sis!” Suho, a tall young man at twenty-three, with light brown hair and the same eyes as his sister, threaded through another crowd to greet his sister with a kiss on the cheek. “I have a surprise for you too! I’m engaged!”


“You are only twenty-three, young man! You’re already getting married. I feel ancient now!”


“Meet my fiancee, Sulli Choi.” A beautiful girl approached Tiffany and she showed her infamous eyesmile at her.


“Tiffany Hwang, Suho’s big sister. Watch out, he talks in sleep,” Tiffany said.


“Sis!”


“And-“


“That’s enough, Mushroom!”


“Daddy!” Tiffany ran and plowed herself into her father’s arms. “I missed you Daddy. You never scold me or bug me, and I’m so happy to see you again.”

“I don’t bother bugging you because your Aunt Hara reports to me every Monday morning.”

“DADDY!”


“She’s your law associate. She knows pretty much what happens in your life.”


“Michael Hwang, you will stop frustrating your daughter right now!” a regal elderly voice hung over everyone. Tiffany turned to the entrance of the hall that led to the throne room, and her eyes widened.


“Gram!” If it was possible to glow even more, Tiffany did. She gave the woman a hug. Gail Hwang looked as regal as she always was, in a gown of blue velvet, with the tall stature she had passed on to her children and grandchildren.


“Now, we don’t have to all stand here. Dinner is in twenty-five minutes!” Gail now yelled to everyone, looking at her gold pocket watch. “You’ve all got to wash up and get up in the Christmas clothes! So let’s get!”


Tiffany smiled as the crowd retreated. She was starting to feel claustrophobic. Gail then turned to her and said, “Now you get going upstairs to your room and get on some classy clothes. We’ll catch up later.”


Tiffany grinned, and took her things up the winding stairs, through the crowds of Hwangs and Kwons…some she knew, and some she didn’t.
She walked down the slightly crowded hall, and into her room. Nothing like home. She then plopped herself down on the bed and leaned back, ready to fall asleep. Instantly, she remembered she had to change for dinner. She immediately sat up, thinking about what to wear.
She didn’t have to wear anything truly fancy, like “gala” or “wedding” for Christmas dinner. No, the Hwangs wore the “formal familiness” kind of clothing. She pushed herself off the bed and the small crystal chandelier.


Little rainbows refracted from the crystal danced about the ceiling and Tiffany went to the suitcase to open it and hang up some clothes.

Five minutes later, she pulled out a skirt of layers of lavender silk, looking misty and flowing, a lavender silk tunic that flowed to her hips in wavy ends of the same layered misty quality that would go over her shoulders with a wide but not low cut collar and tied together at the sides by a pair of lavender satin ribbons on each side tipped with pearls, and a lavender silk blouse.


She took her clothes off and started with the lavender silk knee- highs. After, she out on the blouse, followed by the skirt and finally the tunic. She tied a pretty bow on each side. She then put on lavender silk flats.


She went to the mirror and brushed her hair, sitting down. She combed her hair up into two buns, capping them with lavender lace covers, as a family joke; Tiffany had worn that hair style from the time she had hair long enough to age sixteen. 


She wore it occasionally now. She kept her pearl earrings on, and decided to the top button of her blouse to put on a thin gold chain with a single pearl around the base of her neck.


As she stood up, she smiled. The hair do made her look like a child…a rather big child. But she was still beautiful, and sophistication seeped her entire being. She got up from her white wooden chair, with a gold cushion, and opened her walk -in closet door to check herself in the full-length mirror.

At that moment, the dinner bell sounded, and Tiffany walked to the door, opening it and stepping out, turning the light off behind her.


She walked into a man who was walking out of the room next to hers. The halls really should have been built larger.


Actually, the halls were rather large, and Tiffany’s was at the end of a hall, in a circular court of rooms. Tiffany had only backed up after she closed her door because she noticed a name plate above her room and read “Tiffany Nicole Hwang.” It was a new improvement. So was the little gold box by her door, which was apparently stuffed with mail.


“Oh, excuse me,” mumbled softly.


Her Auburn brown eyes turned to meet hazelnut brown eyes, and was shocked to find the deepest pair she had ever seen in her life.