“What?,” Jong Kook asked dumbly. “How do I know who?”

“My mother,” Hannah said patiently.

“I don’t know your mother,” he replied, feeling like his head is stuffed with cotton. He can hear what she’s saying, but it’s not sinking in.

Hannah laughs lightly. “Then why was she just shrieking at you?”

“Cherry’s not your mother.” He continues to be an idiot even as the bells are clanging louder and louder in his mind.

“Cherry? You call her Cherry? So that’s where you were this morning? At my mother’s house?” Her face is half shock, half confusion.

“What? No. Cherry - Charity - she’s… what? She’s your mother?”

“I see you’ve caught up, Jong Kook oppa.” Hannah grins at him.

“That’s not possible.” He shakes his head.

“Why not?,” Hannah frowns. “Don’t you think we look alike?”

Jong Kook just laughs weakly and shakes his head.

“Could I, uh, have a second?,” he asks, sliding his phone out of his pocket.

“Take your time,” Hannah nods as he moves to step outside the door. “But I’d like to talk when you’re done.”

Jong Kook nods and slides a hand over his face wearily. He steps into the hallway and dials Charity. She picks up immediately.

“I left my car keys under the seat. It’s parked out front. Bring it back when you’re done. I’m walking home so I don’t murder you when you get there.”

“I wasn’t planning on coming --”

“Oh, you’re coming back,” she says tensely. “How the did this happen?,” she explodes.

“I don’t understand -- how is Hannah -- but Zoe is your daughter.”

“Who the are you, the daughter police? A person can have more than one daughter!”

“But Hannah’s --”

“4-8-9-4!,” she says, a tinge of hysteria creeping into her voice. “What the hell, Kim Jong Kook-ssi!”

“What does your apartment pin have to do with anything?” Everything is moving too fast for him. He’s hearing the words she’s saying, but none are clicking together in a way that makes any sense at all.

“4-8-9-4,” she repeats. “April 8, 1994! She’s twenty years old, you big creep!”

“She’s what?” Jong Kook’s stomach drops. “She is not.”

“SHE IS.”

“There’s no way. She’s so --”

“I was there, Kim Jong Kook-ssi. I assure you, it was April 8, 1994.”

“But you’re 35.”

“So?”

“That means you were only --”

“WHAT OF IT, ? SORT THIS THE OUT.”

She hangs up.

Jong Kook stares mutely at the phone in his hand for a long moment before knocking on Hannah’s apartment door again. She opens it a moment later and he steps in.

He moves slowly over to the couch and sinks down on it, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his head in his hands. Hannah takes up the chair across from him and watches him.

“So,” she finally says. “You know my mother? I assume that’s who you just called. When I saw her at the club the other night, I never thought --”

Jong Kook lifts his head. “That’s why you left? You saw Charity?”

“Mmhm.” Hannah nods. “I was walking behind you, and I saw her. It took me a second to recognize her. She seems out of place at a bar, you know?”

Jong Kook most certainly does not know, but he says nothing.

“And I saw we were going to have to walk right past her -- though now I guess I realize we were probably walking to her -- and I just couldn’t do it.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to talk to your mother?”

“We’re not…” Hannah scrubs her toe on the floor, looking down. “We’re not really on the best terms right now.” She lifts her head and eyes him. “Is that what this whole thing was? Did she send you to meet me to, I don’t know, force me to talk to her or something?”

“No, not at all.” Jong Kook shakes his head. “I really had no idea at all that you two are related. She’s never mentioned you.”

Hannah laughs lightly. “Figures. I haven’t seen her since I arrived here. Actually, for quite a while before that, either.”

“Why not?”

Hannah shrugs. “We already weren’t doing so great before she submitted me for this program, and that was kind of the last straw. I just cannot with her.” Hannah hisses out a frustrated breath between her teeth. “I don’t know what is wrong with her in the last year or so. First she drives my dad away --”

“Wait, wait,” Jong Kook breaks in. “Charity told me her husband is dead.”

“He is,” Hannah says and sighs. “He was in a car accident with one of the women he was sleeping with. If my mother,” she almost spits the word. “Hadn’t chased him off to see other women so much, it never would have happened.”

Jong Kook’s eyes narrow. “Your mother didn’t chase your father away, Hannah.”

“She absolutely did,” Hannah insists. “I don’t know what she did, but I don’t know how else a couple goes from so totally in love to barely speaking to each other to one of them starting up whole other families, out of nowhere!”

“I really don’t think that’s what happened at all.”

“It IS!” She stands now, fists clenched at her sides. “They were best friends! They were together for almost TWENTY YEARS!”

“They were best friends,” Jong Kook agrees. “But that’s all.”

“No,” Hannah shakes her head. “No. They loved each other.”

“They loved you,” Jong Kook says. “They stayed together to raise you and give you a family. And from the looks of it, they did a pretty amazing job at it. You’re twenty?” He’s still incredulous. “How is that even possible?”

“I graduated college at 15, med school at 18.” She waves her hand, distracted. Jong Kook’s jaw drops.

“That’s amazing, Hannah.”

She shrugs. “You don’t really know my mother, Jong Kook oppa. She ruined everything.”

“Did she make you go to college that young?”

“No, I wanted to.”

“Did she make you become a doctor?”

“No, I’ve always wanted to be a doctor.”

“I’m not really following how she ruined everything, Hannah.”

Her eyes flash. “Maybe if she’d worked harder at something, went to college, got a real job, took care of my father better, or tried harder, he never would have had to cheat on her and he never would have died!”

Jong Kook leaps to his feet. “Hey! Hannah, you cannot talk about your mother like that.”

Hannah scoffs.

“Seriously,” he says. “Why do I feel like you’re the one who doesn’t really know her? Didn’t you say yourself that she was always a real mom-type mom? Always welcoming your friends, always taking care of you? Didn’t you say that when you got too serious, she helped lighten you up? That she did everything she could to make sure your childhood was great? And clearly supported you to excel in so many areas, too?”

“I did,” Hannah allows.

“And don’t you think that someone that dedicated to you, dedicated to her family, might have protected you from the reality of what was going on between her and your father? Don’t you think someone like that would bend over backward to make sure you never knew that she had given up on her own life goals - at fifteen years old! - to make sure that you had the perfect life she didn’t have?”

Hannah doesn’t respond.

“Don’t you think,” Jong Kook continues, wheeling out of control at this point. “That it’s possible that as smart as you are and as mature as you are, you don’t know everything about your mother or how her life works? Don’t you think that it’s a little high and mighty of you to look down on your mother for not having the same education and career that you have, when she gave up her chance at all that so you could have it?”

Hannah grits her teeth. “Jong Kook oppa, I don’t know who you think you are to be talking about me and my mother like this, like you know us, but -- oh.” Realization dawns on her face. “Oh, my god. Jong Kook oppa, do you… do you like my mother?”

His mouth opens and closes.

“I don’t believe this,” she says. “She can just forget my father so easily?”

“She hasn’t forgotten anyone, Hannah. She never forgets anyone. She is easily one of the most caring, considerate people I’ve ever met. I don’t think for she’s forgotten your father for a single second. I do think, however, that she’s finally living her own life.”

Hannah’s face darkens and it looks like she’s about to fire back, but all of a sudden it crumbles, and her eyes fill with tears. She sags back into her chair and covers her eyes with her hands.

“I know!,” she wails. “I know all this. Or at least, I knew it. It was just… easier to be angry with her. I always kind of suspected my parents were just… friends. But I didn’t want to believe it, not really. I wanted to think they were happy. And when it all fell apart and he was gone, I just…”

“Needed someone to blame,” Jong Kook fills in.

“Right?” Hannah lifts her face, her eyes red and cheeks damp. “And she never disagreed with me! She just comforted me and nodded along! Add in all the stuff my grandmother says about her --”

“Miranda,” Jong Kook says with clear disgust.

Hannah laughs weakly. “So you’ve met.”

Jong Kook scowls.

“She really doesn’t like my mother,” Hannah says. “She’s so certain that my mother ruined his life, that she trapped him by getting pregnant, that he would have had a better career and been a better son if my mother hadn’t come along and lead him away with her golden .”

Jong Kook blushes at Hannah’s crude words.

“You know none of that is true, though, right Hannah?”

“Sometimes it’s just easiest to listen to the loudest voices,” she admits. “Especially when someone doesn’t defend herself at all.”

Jong Kook nods, sympathetic.

“So all this time,” Hannah says. “All this time that we’ve known each other, you’ve been hanging out with my mom?”

“Guilty,” Jong Kook says wryly.

“I’m kind of jealous,” Hannah says. She sighs. “I miss my mom.”

“You know where to find her,” Jong Kook reasons.

“I said some pretty nasty things the last time I saw her,” Hannah admits. “I don’t know if she’d even want to talk. Plus, you saw how angry she was when she was here.”

“She’s angry at me, Hannah, not at you. Besides, of course she wants to see you. Wasn’t her original plan to follow along with your father while he came to Korea? Why would she have gone ahead with the plan, without him, if you weren’t here? Wouldn’t it have been easier to stay in the States with Zoe?”

Hannah’s face lights up. “Did you meet the Zo-bo?”

“I did,” Jong Kook grins. “She’s something else.”

“Isn’t she?” Hannah beams proudly. “She’s my favorite person on Earth, for real. My grandmother brought her by briefly. I was so happy to see her and I can’t wait until she gets here.”

“Sure would be easier to see her all the time if you made up with her mother…” Jong Kook says leadingly.

She laughs and slaps his hip lightly. “All right, all right. Point made.”

He smiles down at her happily.

“So,” she says, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. She gestures to the couch for him to sit back down and he does. “You and my mother, huh?”

“Uh.” He flushes. “It’s more just me, really.”

“Oh?,” she asks. “She seems to like you quite a bit.”

Jong Kook laughs. “She made it quite clear she does not feel the same way about me as I do about her.”

Hannah rolls her eyes. “Jong Kook oppa, my mother is not a yeller.”

“Let’s go back and make really sure we’re talking about the same person,” he jokes.

“Seriously!,” she says earnestly. “She was unleashing the fury on you, for real.”

“Not the first time,” he concedes and Hannah laughs.

“She likes you,” Hannah declares.

“I don’t see where you’re getting that.”

“Jong Kook oppa, she didn’t even yell at my dad. When she doesn’t care, she just flat does not care. If she doesn’t like someone, she doesn’t have the time or energy to spend getting angry at them. She just cold cuts them out of her life. Ruthless.” Hannah makes a chopping motion. “But if she’s angry enough to yell, well. She definitely cares.”

Jong Kook considers this information.

“Trust me,” Hannah continues. “She used to yell at me a lot.”

“Used to?”

Hannah shrugs. “Once I started yelling at her - about my father, about applying me to this program, about everything and anything - she stopped. She kind of just took it. That’s why I figure she probably doesn’t want to see me. She just doesn’t care anymore.”

Jong Kook rolls his eyes. “You know that’s ridiculous, right, Hannah?”

twists down at one corner.

“You know she was just letting you get it all out, probably letting you vent at her because she’s a safe space for you to totally lose it. You clearly have yourself very together in all aspects of your life. Where can you let loose and blow off steam?”

“My mother,” Hannah admits with a small smile.

“And now?”

“And now…” Hannah thinks. “And now she’s giving me space to do what I need to do and come b