“Are you going somewhere?”

If I’d known that Jongup wasn’t doing anything over the break, I would have never said that I was returning home for the weekend. It just didn’t feel right leaving Jongup alone in the house alone.

“Are you not?”

That’s maybe why I’d decided I was going to bring Jongup along. It wasn’t as if he was planning on doing anything anyways - other than maybe lock himself up in his room with his books, like he seemed to take a liking to doing. The only real trouble was hunting down an extra seat in the ktx.

And getting Jongup to stop thinking that he’d be a bother.

“Are you sure it’s alright? I don’t want to be a bother, it’s been a while since you’ve been with them, hasn’t it?”

He’d asked me if he wasn’t being a nuisance at least a thousand times on our ride on the ktx. It wasn’t a short trip, but it still took talent to be able to ask so fast without as much as breathing in between.

(He should try rapping to Outsider someday.)

“I’m telling you, it’ll be fine.”

I was trying to wave down a taxi and Jongup was still at it, a pleading look on his face begging me to say no and send him back to Seoul despite our current position already in Busan. If I didn’t know any better, I might have been offended that he didn’t want to meet my family. I mean, yeah they were obnoxious, but they had their … merits. Sometimes.

“Hey, chill, alright Jongup?” Finally succeeding in hailing down a taxi, I twisted to put an arm around my shorter friend. “If anything, I should be apologizing to you. Ahead of time, I mean, cause oh god my siblings are such a pain.” He didn’t take my word for it; and he was surely going to regret it. “Trust me, my parents won’t mind me bringing you over. In fact, remember how excited they were when we called yesterday? They’ll love you. They love everyone except me.”

It was a joke.

But he didn’t laugh.

“I’m sure they love you more than anyone else.”

Jongup was far too serious sometimes.

I tried to prepare Jongup on the taxi about my loud, extended family. It didn’t matter that no matter how much preparing we did, he would never be properly ready; he could at least know some of the risks to his health that was coming.

By the time we were returning to Seoul, I predicted a burst eardrum and sore throat from yelling over all the noise in the house.

Jongup wouldn’t have any of it though, turning the tables against me and scolding me at point for insulting my younger sister for being possibly picked up from under the bridge and actually related to a banshee and not me. He didn’t know how loud Soojung could be when she wanted to. Really, Jongup should have just been glad Sooyeon wasn’t home or he might have found out the real hell to the Jung family.

Honestly, the only reason I kept coming back home was because of Keke - my maltese pup, never mind what Soojung says. (Because I bathed him, fed him, walked him, and cared for him.)

Somewhere along the ride - the driver glanced several times at us through the back mirror and laughed - I gave up to his soft chuckles and dismissal of my warning. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I really wasn’t exaggerating when I said my family was loud.

“Mom! Daehyun’s back!”

The house exploded with noise the minute we were out of the taxi, slamming the door shut behind us. I didn’t even get a chance to step through front doors before my aunt - when did she come over? - had me in  her grasp, using her bear strength to choke all air out. Like Soojung, I had a feeling we weren’t exactly a hundred percent related.

“Oh little Daehyunnie’s back!”

It turned out that the whole family had gathered to see little Daehyunnie’s roommate. Even Uncle Jaehoon had come over, laughing at me being passed around between aunts from behind his beard that had grown out too bushy - I could almost hear my mom nagging at him, “That’s why you don’t have a date.”

Jongup was next to the hug fest, being pulled into arms and passed around like a rag doll. I don’t know how the hell he managed to keep up a smile while being tossed from arm to arm. He was a true warrior.

The only pleasant meeting was when Uncle Jaehoon had managed to squeeze his way through all the hugs and noise, simply shaking Jongup’s hand with a crazy grin. Uncle Jaehoon was a little crazy, but surely it was better than all the hype my aunts made.

(One had even prepared a underwear gift set for him.)

At this rate, we were going to spend the whole day standing out in the lawn, passing Jongup around between my relatives until there just wasn’t anymore of him to go around. Lucky for us though, my mom wasn’t going to have any of that. She shooed everyone away, taking both my and Jongup’s suitcases - one in each hand - before herding the whole crowd back home.

“Oh god, my family is just,” I paused to shudder, shaking my head. I was embarrassed, my family was embarrassing. “They’re usually not this bad, or no, wait, they’re usually worse, I’m so sorry. I bet you regret coming.”

“No, I don’t.” Jongup had a stupid smile on his face. I couldn’t make much sense of it. How was he not burning of second hand embarrassment? “Your family, I like them. They’re really lively.”

I snorted. Lively was a understatement.

“Jung Daehyun! Get your in here! I didn’t teach you to leave guests standing outside!”

I shot Jongup another sorry look before scrambling after my mom. Before her grammar could turn anymore colorful. Jongup didn’t need to see that just yet; we still had the whole weekend left over for that.

“Uh, hey, Daehyun?” Halfway into the front door, I turned around. “Is this Keke?”

Oh god.

“Jung Soojung! What the hell did you do to Keke! Why the hell is he pink?!”