Before they left, Sooyoung’s grandparents handed him a large box telling them to open it when they are already on their way to the airport.

“I wonder what this is,” Sooyoung starts to inspect the box.

“Why don’t you open it?” Kris said as they started to leave the place. He took a steady pace since they still have plenty of time before their flight.

Sooyoung reached for the ribbon and untied it. When she removed the cover, she sighed, “They are not that eager right?” she looked at Kris.

Kris spared her look, same with the box. He laughed lightly.

Within the box were hand sewn baby clothes. There were even embroidered designs on it.

“They are cute,” he smiled and looked on the road again.

“Cute? Yah! What do you mean by that?” Sooyoung closed the box.

“What? All I said is that the clothes are cute, nothing more. Wae?” Kris argued.

“Never mind, maybe I am just tired,” she sighed and leaned on the chair. She reached for the car’s stereo and turned it on. Exo M’s ‘Angel’ started to play, somehow relaxing her.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

The trip to China took only an hour. When the plane landed on the airport, Sooyoung sighed as the passengers started to move out.

“Kris, your grandparents don’t bite right?” she looked up at him as he pulls their bag on the compartment above them.

“Do I look like I bite people?” he looked down at her.

“I’m scared,” she whispered, removing her seatbelt.

“Relax, they don’t bite and don’t whip people. Stay as you are, I bet they will surely like you,” he assured her as he reached to help her up.

There’s already a car waiting for them when they got to the entrance. While on the road, Kris kept on pointing over certain buildings and sites to calm his wife. Sooner, the car turned to get inside a very large garden, pulling over the entrance of what looks like an ancestral house. Sooyoung gaped at the majestic structure in front of her that looks like it contains a very large amount of hidden history.

She was just startled to feel his hand hold hers, coaxing her to get inside. The inside is twice the outside with very antique designs and grandeur. “Kris, how many people lives in here?” she whispered over him.

“My grandmother and grandfather with probably a hundred servants to keep the house as it is,” he replied proceeding to get into the large parlor.

“You must be tired from the trip, please have a sit,” an old lady gestured over the seats opposite her. Kris moved forward to give her a kiss as Sooyoung bowed her head lower than expected.

The old lady just smiled, thriftily.  When the couple had settled down, Sooyoung reached for his hand to keep her trembling hand at ease.

“Your grandfather will join us shortly,” the old lady continued on t the bonsai tree on the table.

“Kris, why do I feel like she doesn’t like me?” she whispered, making the old lady look up at her. ‘Did she heard that?’ she thought when their eyes met, making her gulp.

Kris smiled at her, squeezing her hand in assurance, “Don’t worry,”

“The lord waits for you in the dining table,” a butler came to inform the three. His grandmother stood up and led the way, without even bothering to look at the couple.

During the meal, only Kris responds to them since they are conversing in Chinese in which she really don’t understand. She kept her gaze low when she was startled by the sudden raise of Kris voice. She held on to his arm to calm him down. She wants to speak but since she doesn’t know Chinese, she kept shut.

When the meal was over, his grandfather looked at her. “Thanks for visiting and paying respects. Your flight back to Seoul had been booked. You will leave shortly with our grandson since he can’t miss his business. Kris, don’t forget what we had talked about,” he then stood up and left the table.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Sooyoung was still in a daze even when they had already landed back into Incheon airport.

Kris led her to their car when she looked at him, “They don’t like me, right?” she asked.

“Sooyoung, that’s not what you think. We were just discussing about business,” Kris looked back at her and went to sit behind the wheels as she got inside the car.

“Business? Kris, I may not know that much about Chinese but the way your grandparents look at me tells me that they don’t want me as your wife. Now, just confirm my thoughts so that nothing will go wrong in the future,” she tried to make him look at her.

Getting too much emotions building inside her from the traumatic visit made tears fall from her eyes which she didn’t felt. When Kris spared her a look, he saw fear and sadness in her big brown eyes. He reached to wipe off the tears but she shied his hand away.

“Answer me,” she blinked.

“I already told you, it’s about business and about them being not able to attend. They are reprimanding me to do the ceremony in there but I refused that’s why my voice rose up during the meal,” he explained.

She wants to believe but she can’t find anyways to do so. She just leaned on the seat and told him to go on and drive her home.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“Where are we? Why are we in this place?” Sooyoung asked when Kris pulled over in front of a large mansion.

“Did your parents inform you about this?” Kris removed his seatbelt.

“Inform about what?” she looked back at him.

“That you will be living with me and the boys. No need to worry about your clothes, some of them had been transferred here, on your own room, and the other half, you will shop for it. How’s that Mrs. Wu Sooyoung?” Kris smirked before getting out and moved to open the passenger’s door.

The large door of the house got opened and the boys lined up on the front porch and welcomed her.

“Welcome Sooyoung Noona!” the greeted in chorus.

“Just so you know, I would not share a room with you,” Kris whispered over.

She looked at him, “Wae? I thought married couple shares the same room.”

“Would you want to share room?” he grinned.

From the way he grins, Sooyoung immediately shook her head. The thought of what had happened on their first night crossed her mind and she doesn’t want that to happen again.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

The couple met on the dining room right after dinner. The boys are lounging at the living room.

“So what are going to talk about in here?” Kris sat on the opposite chair in front of her.

“We are going to talk about rules and regulations,” she smiled showing him a paper and a pen.

Kris groaned, “Are you a five-year old kid or what?”

“This is serious. We should make limitations and privileges. The fact that we both had our own busy schedules ahead of us so it will be very helpful,” she smiled.

“Let’s start with curfew,” Sooyoung wrote down on the paper.

“Eleven,” he started.

“Nine,” she objected.

“That’s too early. Ten thirty.”

“Aniyo, too late. Ten.”

“Fine,” Kris agreed.

“Nights out. Every Friday and Saturday night is our free day,” she looked at him.

“Aniyo. I happen to be a businessman so there might be parties by weekdays so I don’t want that. Only you but not unless you have one of the boys with you,” he replied.

“What? But what about my friends? I can’t just agree to that!” she protested.

“Let’s have it this way, we can go any night out on the seven days of the week, but not unless you have one of the boys with you,” he leaned forward.

She paused and weighed the situation. ‘It’s not bad. I can bargain my way out on the boys,’ she thought and agreed.

Their rules and regulation continued on until they started again for the house chores.

“If you want to discuss that, why don’t you include the boys?” he suggested. She gladly gave a nod as Kris calls on the boys.

They all proceeded and sat around the table.

“Listen to her. She wants to tell you something,” he addressed the boys.

“Since there are thirteen of us in here, might as well we divide the chores equally, shall we?” she smiled.

All of them exchanged looks but soon agreed to her plan.

“So, I divided the chores from doing the meals, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, taking care of the garden, doing the dishes and grocery shopping. Regarding the rooms, it will be the occupant’s sole responsibility to fix it. So shall we group ourselves by two’s?” she looked at them.

“Noona, Kris Hyung and you will be one pair so you would not join the pairing anymore,” Baekhyun smiled at her.

“But if she has Kris Hyung as her partner, then how can you evenly divide the eleven of us?” Chen asked.

“Let’s have it this way. We will do a draw lots. The one with the same numbers is one group. Since the chore of cleaning the house is very heavy, three people will be assigned to it. Will that be fine?” she asked.

All of them agreed. Kyungsoo did the honor of improvising a draw lots on an empty fish bowl. He distributed the bowl after shuffling the rolled papers with numbers. When they are already done, the result was: Kyungsoo and Chanyeol, Kai and Tao, Lay and Sehun, Luhan and Xiumin, and the three-member group is Suho, Chen and Baekhyun.

“So who will be on the meals?” Sooyoung asked the boys.

“Kyungsoo and Chanyeol can do that,” Suho pointed, which the two agreed on.

The rest of the tasks were distributed as follows:

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol – cooking the meals

Lay and Sehun – taking care of the garden

Kai and Tao – doing the dishes

Luhan and Xiumin – doing the laundry

Kris and Sooyoung – doing the groceries

Chen, Baekhyun and Suho – cleaning the house

After being satisfied because none of them has the will to protest and change partners, everyone soon settled to go on and take some sleep. Sooyoung stayed by for a while to rewrite the rules and regulations between her and her husband and enlist properly the assigned tasks on each group.

“Seriously, that thing can wait,” Kris looked at her after taking a drink.

“I need to do this because I might forget it again,” she replied still busy on writing.

“When shall we do the grocery shopping?” he asked again, still on doubt of leaving her on the kitchen alone.

“Tomorrow, that is if you are not busy since it will be Monday,” she replied again.

“I can always cancel my appointments, but don’t you have classes?”

“I only have classes during Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the rest of the week, I stayed on my Unnie’s café house,” she looked up at him.

“Fine then, we’ll do the shopping tomorrow,” he grinned and turned to leave.

“Kris,” he turned again to look at her.

“Are you really sure about your grandparents?” she asked again.

He gave a sigh, “Do we have to go over that thing again?”

She bit her lip and bowed her head, “I’m sorry,” she whispered and walked past him.

“Sooyoung,” he called her, stopping her midway on the stairs. She turned to look at him.

“Don’t bother yourself about that incident. It has nothing to do with you,” he said, trying to look at her straight in the eyes but the dim light on that part of the house made it impossible.

“Arasseo,” she whispered back and went upstairs to her room.