05.

“How did flower shopping go?” Sehun dropped his keys into the key bowl and turned to catch the bottle of beer his roommate threw at him.

“It went well. They don’t charge too much which is a relief since this is a charity event and all.”

“That’s good.”

“Two girls run the florist. Apparently they’ve been invited by some of my coworkers to attend the ball too. Small world,” Sehun clicked his tongue and before raising his beer for another swig.

“Are you going to ask me to be your , Sehun-ah?” His roommate batted his eyes repeatedly in such an unattractive manner, Sehun felt like throwing up the freshly stomached beer.

“Don’t be such a girl, Chanyeol!” The mentioned rolled his eyes.

“I’m serious, man. Help a brother out. You know I always meet psychos when I try to meet girls on my own.” That was true. Chanyeol did have the craziest line up of exes Sehun had ever seen. His last girlfriend mistook Sehun’s voice for Chanyeol’s whilst he was using the bathroom and forcefully demanded to come in to watch him do his business so he couldn’t use the opportunity to ‘cheat on her’. Obviously Sehun objected, which led to her being so enraged she began charging at the bathroom door until it broke in. Unsatisfied by only being able to see Sehun with his pants down on the toilet seat, and no Chanyeol in sight, she proceeded to search the cabinets and tub for her boyfriend.

Needless to say any dump Sehun had been planning to make shot right back up his colon.

And then there was Chanyeol’s ex from the previous year who took polaroids of herself each morning to forcefully hang onto Chanyeol’s bedroom wall. After a month, his room looked like a psycho-stalker’s mural. The blatantly creepy display of her affection didn’t help when the police showed up on their doorstep, the day he tried to break up with her, because she had reported him for stalking. Chanyeol spent a night in the loony bin and the following morning behind bars.

Chanyeol has spent quite a few nights behind bars actually. His ex kept showing up out of nowhere and calling the cops to report him for breaching his restraining order. Poor guy.

“Alright. But please don’t try to match your clothes with mine like last time. You can only be so obsessed with me, Park Chanyeol.”

“Don’t flatter yourself Sehun.”

Jinae pulled up the driveway to her parents’ house. She had been trying her best to avoid coming more than once a week and wasn’t planning to visit her parents again until the following Wednesday night, but her mum had ordered that she come home for a family meeting.

The Hwang residence was obnoxiously grand. Her parents were the kind of people who believed it was necessary to let the neighbours know how much wealth they had. They expected the staff to keep the large garden fountain lit and running at all hours of the day, and the front hedge was to always neatly spell out ‘Hwang’. They always had a gardener in the yard during the day; more for the purpose of showing they could afford the help than for any productive reason. Jinae didn’t like being at home.

It took 1 ring, 3 knocks and a 20 second hum of Taeyang’s ‘Eyes, Nose, Lips’ before the hardwood doors slipped open. Jinae had expected to see ajumeoni opening the door but instead she was graced by the sight of her 6 ft 2 older brother. Blessed by the family’s most drastic growth spurt, Hwang Jinwoo was able to exude an aura of dominance and control over people without trying nearly half as hard as Jinae did. This was probably why he seemed to have everything under control as the managing director of their father’s company.

“Ae, you’re late.” She gutted him in the stomach and he doubled over wheezing for breath.

“Shut up, you lanky beanstalk.”

Jinwoo looked at his sister with muted outrage. “Yah! You brat, do you not see these biceps?!”

“Oh wait, I think I can see the number of girls swooning over them,” she paused for dramatic effect. “Zero.” That had her brother lunging at her. Using his height to his advantage, he encased her head with his arm and proceeded to roughly fist at her hair demanding she apologized.

“Ayoo is that Jinae?” Their mother’s overly chirpy voice sang from the hallway. “Omo Jinwoo! What are you doing to your sister? Why are the two of you always in a tussle, let her go!” Jinae seized the opportunity to give her brother a good blow to his privates before rushing over to her mother to drag her to the kitchen, ignoring Jinwoo’s unmanly howls.

“Omma, what’s for dinner? What’s the big occasion?” Jinae gripped as tightly to her mother as possible and tried to keep her attention from focusing on Jinwoo’s whimpers.

“Jinae, that’s not very ladylike.” She beamed as wide as she could in response to her mother’s scolding. “Appa said he had some things to discuss with you. I asked ajumeoni to make you some beef bulgolgi. Honestly Jinae-yah, with all this money I don’t understand why you still insist on eating such commoners’ food. Have a little caviar with us once in a while will you?”

“Omma,” Jinae tugged on her mother’s arm and whined like a child. “I like it, it’s my favourite. Omma, where’s Jinsoo?” As if on queue, the youngest of the Hwang family entered the kitchen.

“Unnie, you’re home!” The sisters swallowed each other in a bear hug. This was the best part about coming home, thought Jinae. In a whispered tone so their mother couldn’t hear, Jinsoo hummed into Jinae’s ear, “Unnie I need to talk to you. I have boy problems.” Jinae tried to hold in a snort. Her little dongsaeng was growing up.

“Help me carry this plate and hurry to the dining room, the lot of you!” Their mother herded them into the opposite room. Already sitting at the end of the table with a book in his hands was their middle-aged father; a man they had had more respect for than love. Throughout Jinae and Jinwoo’s childhood, their father’s presence was a scarcity. On the rare occasions he was home, he would be tired and unresponsive, often only speaking up to tell the children off or to discipline them with force. Neither Jinwoo nor Jinae had very many fond memories of their father.

When Jinae turned 8 she learnt the meaning of infidelity. Her mother had been pregnant with Jinsoo at the time. Jinwoo and Jinae had been sent outdoors to play while their mother talked on the phone. Of course, being the mischievous children they were, Jinwoo suggested they eavesdrop. Jinae wished they hadn’t. Her mother had been unfaithful in their father’s absence. Jinsoo was not a Hwang by blood. Jinae had little understanding of the situation at the time, but Jinwoo, with 2 more years of life experience, ushered her away with a grim expression and explained to her in the simplest words he knew how.

The siblings never spoke a word of it to anyone or to each other again after that afternoon. They couldn’t look at their father in the eye for weeks, feeling guilty on their mother’s behalf. From that day onwards, Jinwoo and Jinae made a pact to behave when their father was around. This also had the advantage of fewer beatings. It was until the day of Jinsoo’s delivery that Jinae realised that her father may have known all along.

Sitting in the waiting room with the patient forms, her father had paused when he reached the box labeled ‘Father’s name’. He played with the pen in his hand and stared intently at the words, as if forgetting where he was and the presence of his two young children beside him. Jinae called out to him, breaking her father from his trance. Laying the form aside and gathering the two onto his lap, he whispered their names as he kissed them both on the forehead.

“Ah-dul, ddal, you’re going to have a new sister today. Are you both going to promise me that you’ll look out for her?” The two nodded. “Good. What shall we name her then? Any suggestions, Jinae?”

Jinae looked at her father then to her brother. She didn’t realise the man they had spend their life stepping on shells around could was so accepting and generous. She wasn’t sure why the guilt overwhelmed her. Maybe it was because she knew she had spent years holding a grudge against him for his method of disciplining them. Or maybe because she knew she had often made matters worst by purposely being disobedient. Or maybe, and most probably, because she knew her father did not deserve this kind of heartache from her mother. She promised herself then and there that she would help raise her sister into a person her father could be proud of. A person he would maybe even love more than Jinae.

“How about Jinsoo, appa?”

“Precious and faultless? Ddal, that’s a good name. Let’s write that down shall we?” Her father took the clipboard and pen in his hands and wrote down the characters. “The three of you are my most precious possessions. When you’re older and trying to forge your own paths, don’t forget this old man alright?”

Jinae gripped tighter onto her fathers forearm. Jinwoo leaned his head into the crook of his father’s neck. “We won’t, appa.”