"Hi, Mommy!"

Kibum trails behind Sunny shyly as she bounds into the apartment and throws her arms around her awaiting mother's neck. He doesn't get noticed for a few seconds, looking up only when a male's voice breaks the high-pitched squealing by demanding who the man is. Kibum smiles sheepishly when Sunny snatches his elbow and yanks him into the apartment to stand by her side. He isn't feeling too sure about this meeting anymore.

"Daddy," Sunny chirps, linking her arm with Kibum's to keep him from bolting in terror, "This is Kibum, my boyfriend. He's a teacher at my school also, an English teacher too."

Sunny's sisters, Eunkyu and Jinkyu (Sunny made sure to explain the difference between the two), peek around the corner to watch the explosion. They've both experienced the wrath of the Lee parents while introducing their boyfriends. Surprisingly, their parents only got worse as the girls grew older; their parents knew that the older their daughters got, the better the chance they had marrying the next boy they brought home. Their parents needed to pick a proper man to raise their grandchildren and support their daughters.

Kibum bows to Sunny's parents timidly, "It's nice to meet you both."

"You didn't tell us that you were dating, Sunkyu," her father says as he takes a step forward to offer an abrupt hand that Kibum shakes.

"I know," she replies sheepishly, setting her hand on Kibum's arm, "But it's been a little complicated for the two of us for the past couple weeks because Kibum is in the process of transferring to a different school to teach at," she looks up at Kibum with a small smile, "We didn't decide to be official until pretty recently. You invited me over, so I thought this would be a good time to introduce him to everyone. He's a good guy, Daddy. You know I only like the best."

Sunny pulls Kibum along with her past her father before he's able to comment. He wonders if she wants him to stay quiet until her father stops glaring at him. Kibum decides that that's probably the best thing to do. It's been a few years since he's met with a girlfriend's parents after all. He usually dated casually, and the "meeting the family" stage never came along. Kibum was fine with that; he's unnaturally awkward around other people's families.

"It's nice to meet you, Kibum," Eunkyu giggles as she rounds Kibum's side, eyeing him up, "I'm Eunkyu."

"And I'm Jinkyu," her other sister butts in, "You're tall. How come you're not an idol?"

Kibum blinks, "I tried out, but I never got into any of the companies."

"Madness! T--"

Sunny shoves Eunkyu out of the way, ready to elbow Jinkyu to get to the couch, "And these are my wicked big sisters, Jinkyu and Eunkyu. I'm sorry they're like piranhas. I'm the least annoying sister."

"Psh, yeah right, Sunny. If we do annoying to body size ratio, you're just as annoying as we are," Jinkyu grins, "Our sister somehow got the dwarf gene in the family though. It was a freak accident. No one is sure how it happened."

"I'm not a dwarf!" Sunny motions for Kibum to sit on the couch and takes a seat next to him, creating a barrier between him and her parents. 

"Kibum," her mother pipes up before her daughters can begin bickering again, "Would you care for tea or coffee?"

"Coffee if it's not too much trouble."

"Cream and sugar?"

Kibum shakes his head, "Black is just fine."

"Sunny, you got yourself a classy boy. Only classy boys take their coffee black."

Sunny looks at Kibum fondly, "I just got myself a boy who has a caffeine addiction and doesn't care how is coffee is as long as he has it."

"She speaks the truth," Kibum chuckles, turning his head to look at Sunny when she takes his arm to put it around her shoulders.

Her father eyes the two of them when he enters the living room. Kibum can tell he's dying to separate the two of them. He tries not to initiate too much skinship with Sunny while he's staring like a hawk. Kibum doesn't want to die for too much touching. His initial plan was to keep intimate touching for another day, but Sunny is jumping right in there.

"Where did you go to school, Kibum?"

"Seoul University, sir. I majored in the English language and minored in business, so I had something to fall back on if teaching didn't work out for me. I was going into a pretty soft job market when I graduated, so I did everything modestly. I was lucky to get a job as quickly as I did."

"Are you still living at home?"

"I'm not. I have my own apartment."

"And car?"

Kibum nods, "But I've found that public transportation and walking are much more efficient."

Sunny's mother returns with a tray of coffee. Kibum accepts the cup with both hands, thanking her under the watchful gaze of big, bad Mr. Lee.

Kibum has a feeling that it's going to be very difficult for Mr. Lee to accept Kibum. He is, after all, dating his little girl. Sunny was the last out of the nest and the youngest by quite a margin. Sunny fell for the most heavily protected daughter. Mr. Lee is the alligator-infested mote.

{{{:::}}}

"I don't think your dad likes me very much," Kibum mumbles and takes Sunny's hand as they make their way back down to the parking garage, "He was staring at me like I'm a cradle robber. I'm the younger one!"

"Daddy is just a little stiff. I promise he'll warm up to you once you meet him a few more times. He doesn't not like you."

"He was glaring at me all through dinner!"

"I think you'll be the same way if you're ever the daddy to a little girl. You just want to protect them. That's what Daddy always told us anyway. Daddy doesn't believe in divorce, so he wants to make sure we've found the right guy. He's a firm believer in dating, marriage, kids. Only that. He thinks that my sisters and I decided to wait until marriage to give ourselves to someone. I was seventeen," she covers when she giggles, "It's a generational thing, I think. It's my life, not his. It's my turn to live my young adult life the way I want. He got his turn."

"I guess," he swings their hands lightly, "I'll have to plan a day trip down to Daegu so you could meet my parents."

"I met them already, kind of. The funeral?"

Kibum shakes his head, "That's not a good first meeting. I want it to be under better circumstances. Plus, you weren't my girlfriend when you met them back then. You were just a co-worker before. I sure wish my grandma could've met you. I think she would have loved you."

"Really?"

"Mm," Kibum smiles, "She loved when I brought home pretty girls. She would have called you gorgeous every time she saw you, trust me. She would have wanted you to call her grandma too. She was like that."

"I bet she was a great woman."

"Oh, she was."

Sunny nods and wraps her arms around Kibum's. She rests her cheek against his bicep as they walk, humming softly to herself. It echoes throughout the parking garage.

"Well," Sunny begins as they approach Kibum's car, "I like you, and my sisters like you. My mom is still a little iffy and so is my dad, but I don't think they hate you. It's a start. They'll warm up to you eventually. My sisters are actually the worst critics of my boyfriends, and you passed with flying colors. That was a hard part."

"If you say so."

Sunny scrunches her nose, "I do say so!"

{{{:::}}}

"Is this too revealing? I think this is too revealing!"

Sunny hurries out of Kibum's bedroom in her third outfit of the say, hastily throwing clothes together before his parents arrive. The outfit she wore, on second glance, was much too provocative for meeting his parents for the first time. It was too loud, too busy, and she didn't realize it until they were within twenty minutes from Kibum's apartment. 

Kibum steps out of the kitchen, looking Sunny over, "What are you talking about? You look adorable."

"Isn't my skirt a little too short? It's the one I wear for parent teacher conferences, but now I'm thinking it's too short. What do you think? Don't be biased! Isn't there an unspoken rule about not wearing anything shorter than five centimeters above the knee or something? Oh, Kibum, what if they think I'm trashy?"

Kibum can't help but chuckle as he walks over to Sunny, sets his hands on her shoulders and kisses the top of her head, "They're not going to pull out a ruler and measure your skirt, sweetheart. You look beautiful. Isn't that all that matters? They have met you before. They know that you're a polite woman. You're working yourself up, silly. They raised a man like me. They're not that bad."

"I still want to make a good impression on them. I'm the girl who's supposed be a good female figure and all that, aren't I? What kind of potential future wife would I be if I wear skirts that are too short?"

"You'd be a fantastic young lady with beautiful legs and short skirts that make her potential future husband very happy," he looks up when the doorbell rings, "And they're here now, so there's no time for you to change a half dozen more times. You're fine, I promise," Kibum gives her a quick kiss before heading over to answer the door.

"Ooh, my Kibummie. How are you?"

Sunny smiles when that's the first thing she hears. Kibum gets knocked backward by his mother's hug, and he's laughing and rubbing her back. It's nice to see. Sunny smooths down the fabric of her skirt once more in attempts to make it hit her knees and goes out to meet Kibum's parents, bowing instantly when their attention is turned to her.

"It's a pleasure to meet you again."

Kibum hears the nervousness in her voice and side-steps closer to set his hand on the small of her back. It's possessive and protective, and it gives Sunny a needed boost of confidence. She strengthens her back and clasps her hands in front of her, smiling politely. 

Sunny remembers the golden advice that her sisters told her: tone everything down. Tone down the make-up, the speech, the jewelry. Be as neutral and natural as possible while still being yourself. Sunny thought it would be as easy as pie, but she quickly learns that it's not as simple as she planned. Plus, Kibum doesn't like her for being toned down; he likes her just the way she is. The real her.

"And now you're meeting us as a girlfriend," his mother smiles, handing Kibum a Tupperware container of frozen soup, "You'll need to learn all the family recipes so you can cook good food for Kibummie. That's bone soup, just like you like, Kibum. I figured I'd bring some for you because you work so hard. You can both enjoy it together."

"Thanks, Mom. Have you ever had bone soup before, Sunny?"

"I don't think so."

"It's my favorite. I'll have to heat it up when you're over so you can try it. Mom and grandma make it the best. I kind of know the process, but I still haven't had enough practice. It's hard because it takes almost all day to make it properly."

His mother nods, "It's why we make it in such big quantities."

"You two, always talking about food," Kibum's father steps past his wife and son, "Let me get a look at this girl. My, she's pretty, Kibum. You were being modest."

"It's hard to describe it in words," Kibum teases and leans down to kiss Sunny's temple.

Sunny smiles but separates Kibum from her slightly. Rule number two was to not show too much affection in front of the parents, according to her sisters. She thinks that all this etiquette is too confusing. She's bound to mess up somewhere.

Kibum keeps his hand on Sunny's back until he heads to the kitchen to toss the soup in the freezer and grab their coats. His parents insisted on eating out in one of the posh restaurants Seoul has to offer because they didn't treat themselves like that in Daegu. Kibum doesn't argue with the decision. He didn't feel like cooking today, and neither did Sunny.

Sunny ends up settling for flats when they're slipping their shoes on at the door. Her sisters stressed the importance of not wearing heels higher than four inches. Sunny didn't think she owned a pair of heels shorter than three inches. She went from flats to sky high heels. There was no in between for Sunny. The height difference throws the couple off slightly. Sunny is almost never seen without heels on.

"Alright, let's get this show on the road, yeah? Our reservations are for three o'clock, and Seoul traffic gets bad like you wouldn't believe."

Kibum keeps his arm around Sunny and sets a hand on his mother's shoulder as they walk out of his apartment. He removes his hand from Sunny long enough to lock the door and slip his keys back into his pocket.

{{{:::}}}

Sunny does her best to keep from laughing unattractively in front of Kibum's parents. She's failing. The stories they're telling about Kibum are just too funny. Sue never pegged Kibum as a person to do such goofy things. When Kibum sees that Sunny doesn't mind the comments about how bad some of Kibum's past girlfriends, Kibum unleashes the best memory from his arsenal.

"No, so there was this American girl I met at my college. She was here for school to get qualified to be an English teacher also, but man, did she speak some broken Korean. She was just bad at it, but she was kind of cute and insisted on meeting Mom and Dad. I spoke to her in English mostly, but I spent the entire way down to Daegu trying to teach her some simple Korean. Mom and Dad know English, but they don't use it when they don't need to. Well, this girl, God bless her, called my dad 'old man' the entire night she was there. I'm not sure how the hell she got that from what I was teaching her!" Kibum laughs and shakes his head, "It was actually awful."

Sunny covers to muffle her laughs, "I can't see you with a girl like that. I thought you liked people who could hold their own."

Kibum waves a hand, "I was twenty and stupid. It wasn't until that girl that I really couldn't stand, well, stupid people. It's a great story to tell."

"Imagine what she'd call me now," his father chuckles, "If she thought I was old back then. I must have aged ten years just paying the bills to put Kibum through college. She'd think I was a walking corpse!"

"You should have told me this story before, Kibum," Sunny scolds playfully, "Then I would have known I couldn't have messed up as badly as that."

"Yeah," Kibum leans back, "I'm pretty sure nothing you could do would even match that. I was the only one embarrassed too! She didn't understand what she was saying. I never had the heart to tell her."

Kibum pours Sunny another glass of wine when she sees her glass almost empty. She smiles at him, setting her hand on his thigh to show her thanks. He pecks her cheek quickly, smoothing her hair behind her ear.

"I'm glad my parents raised me speaking Korean. I was actually born in L.A. and lived there until I was almost two because my grandparents were receiving medical care there, but my parents knew we were moving back to Korea, so my first words were Korean. I did start learning English young, so by the time I git into high school, I was pretty fluent. I enjoyed learning it, so I figured I'd start teaching it."

"I was kind of the same, minus being born in America."

His mother sets her hand on her son's hand, "Our Kibummie studied abroad in America for six weeks, you know. All by himself. We were so proud of him."

Kibum smiles shyly, dimples showing, patting his mom's hand gently, "My mom is still proud of it, and it's been over a decade. She still tells everyone."

Sunny grins, "That is a big deal! That must have scary, going all by yourself like that. I'd be proud of you too, if I was your mother. Let her brag about you. Look how happy it makes her."

Kibum rolls his eyes and clicks his tongue while his mother looks triumphant, "I like this young lady, Kibummie. I think you should keep her around."

"I'm planning on it, Mom. I'm planning on it."