CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

 

The word ‘cute’ has probably mentioned in the game room for about a thousand times already all thanks to Jung Soojung. Everything the kids do, it was apparently cute for her.

 

Jihoon cries. It was cute.

 

Somin throws a tantrum. It was cute.

 

Jihoon sneezes in front of her and his snot flies to her face, and it was still cute for her.

 

Just kidding. That didn’t really happen. But Jongin thinks if it did, she’d probably wouldn’t mind. Sadly for her, Somin got mad at Mingyu for not letting her play so she went to her mom crying while Jongin had to give baby Jihoon back to his parents because he wouldn’t stop crying, leaving her with no playmates to play with.

 

The two had decided to stay there to kill for some time, chatting and laughing at their stupid jokes while the Kim cousins were busy playing. Well, Mingyu was the only one playing seriously. Both Jinah and Jonghyun were low key listening to their conversations out of curiosity. They were sitting on the floor, with Mingyu in the middle while Jongin and Soojung were in the sofa behind them, cuddling.

 

“What do you call a cheese that isn’t yours?” Jongin asks Soojung in English. She hasn’t even answered yet she’s already laughing.

 

“What?”

 

“Nacho cheese.”

 

Jinah and Jonghyun automatically exchanged looks as Soojung and Jongin laugh their off.

 

“That wasn’t funny at all.” Jinah mouths to Jonghyun, who agreed by nodding his head.

 

“Oh sh-” Soojung, realizing that she wasn’t alone in the room with Jongin, changes her choice of word midway. “I mean, oh no. My cellphone’s dead. I have to go to your room to charge it.”

 

“Let me come with you.” Jongin says as he helps her stand up.

 

Before following her outside, Jonghyun pull his cousin to a corner and whispers, “So you have a ?”

 

“Why are you asking me for a ?” Jongin asks in disbelief

 

“Not for me, it’s for you. I have one in my room. You can have it if you want-”

 

“Shut up, hyung.” Annoyed, Jongin leaves him without letting him finish his sentence.

 

“I’m just thinking about your future! You’re still in high school, you punk!” He hears him say.

 

 

“Hey, can I borrow your phone?” Soojung randomly asks. She has plugged in her own phone, but it was still not turning on. “You have a really nice lightning in your room. I’d like to take some selfies.”

 

Thinking that she was going to do something important, he chuckles at her reason but decided to pass it to her from the bed where he was laying. He lets her take a few pictures and when she finishes, she walks closer to him to hand it. But when she was about to walk away again, Jongin pulls her beside him.

 

“Well isn’t this just so comfy?” She says as she lands into the bed. “I’m seriously, so in love with your bedroom. It’s all modern and clean.”

 

“Aren’t you worried? I mean, about sleeping here with me? You’re a girl and I’m a boy. You do the math.”

 

“What? Are you actually thinking of having with me?” She chuckles.

 

“No, of course not. But still, aren’t you scared of what I might do?”

 

“Jongin, you’ve seen me drunk as in Paris. You were in the same room with me. You slept in the same room as me and you didn't do anything to me. I trust you.”

 

“But I did kiss you.”

 

“No, you didn’t. I did.” She says, emphasizing ‘I’. She stops and thinks if she asked him if she could kiss him. “I asked you if I could kiss you, didn’t I?”
 

“I honestly don’t remember.” He tells her. “I’m sorry about my cousins by the way.”

 

“Are you kidding me? They’re really nice!” She exclaims.

 

“They haven’t stopped with the jokes ever since we got there. They’re probably thinking we’re doing it.”

 

“Let them be.” This is one of the things Jongin likes about Soojung. She’s so chill about things. Well, most things. "What are you going to do on New Year's Eve by the way?"

 

"The same thing as usual. My parents are having a party so I have to stay here." He answers. "Oh, Taehyun always host a yearly party on New Years. I would probably go there."

 

"Can I come?"

 

"You're not allowed."

 

Offended, Soojung stood up to hit. But instead of groaning in pain, Jongin just laughs. “Speaking of parties, guess who had a model for a date in The Winter Ball?”

 

Curious, Jongin sits down so he could listen properly. “Err, Chanyeol? I mean, Jinri’s a model right?”

 

“No, idiot. I’m talking about Sehun.” She tells him, but he doesn’t seem surprised. “Can you believe it? Did he tell you about it?”

 

“Oh, believe me. They’d stop seeing each other in a week.” Jongin chuckles. Sehun hasn’t really had any real, serious relationship. He really wants to have a girlfriend though but just can’t seem to find that girl that he wants to call his girlfriend. “We should go downstairs already. The dinner’s probably done.” He says as he got of his bed and she does the same.

 

“But Jinri said that they were together all night making out.”

 

“Just because they did that doesn’t mean that they’re going to stay together.”

 

 

It has been a long time since Jongin saw their family’s table of 20 almost full. When he still lived there, it would be just him and his parents, and now seeing it like that felt livelier. Even though he didn’t want to admit it, he was glad that his cousins were there.

 

Sitted at next to Jongin and Nana, Soojung was a lot more excited about the fact that Jihoon was sitting across her in his little chair. She was trying to make him laugh, but the funny faces that she was doing wasn’t really working. The one who was looking at her with much amazement was Jongin.

 

“Soojung, how’s Catherine and the baby doing by the way?” Somebody suddenly asks, making her stop from what she’s doing. She wasn’t actually listening to the adults’ conversation so she didn’t know who spoke. She looks at Jongin for help.

 

“Heechul hyung asked about your sister in law.” He whispers.

 

“Oh, she and the baby are doing well. She’s in London with my brother, and I’m actually heading there tomorrow night.”

 

“If it’s a girl, please tell your brother to talk to me.” He then looks over to his son and smiles. “I would like to talk to him about arranging our kids’ future. I’ve always wanted to marry one of the Jungs, but since I’ve already have a lovely wife, I have to pass my dream to my son.”

 

“Are you actually arranging your son’s marriage to an unborn baby?” Jongin asks in disbelief. “Hyung, are you crazy?”

 

“That’s how they did yours.” His older cousin spats back.

 

“I guess there are two people in our family who wanted to be a part of the Jung family.” Jinah pretended to cough. She was obviously referring to Jonghyun.

 

“Wow, Kim Jinah. Just say my whole ing name.” Jonghyun frowns.

 

“I do not understand. Please explain.” Puff, Heechul’s wife, says in her broken Korean.

 

“Don’t worry, honey. They’re probably talking about something childish.” Her husband assures her.

 

“Can you kids keep quiet? We have a guest here.” One of Jongin’s aunt scolds them as she referred to Soojung.

 

“Mom, please. Can you chill? I bet the Jung siblings do this all the time on their own table. Right, Soojung?” Jinah elbows Soojung, who just smiled at her weakly. She and her siblings have never goofed around like that. Jaejoong and Jessica did fight once, and it didn’t end well with their parents.

 

Jongin, knowing how Soojung’s relationship with her siblings really is, immediately changes the topic. “Soojung is a great pianist. Can we watch her play a piece later after dinner?”

 

Her head immediately turns to Jongin when she mentioned both her name and perform in the same sentence. “Jongin, what are you talking about? I haven’t practiced for months.” She mumbles.

 

“Oh, that’s a great idea!” His mother exclaims. “Your mother has told me that you’ve been taking piano lessons since you turned six.”

 

“Uhm, okay?” Soojung smiles at her, but when she and Jongin exchanges looks, she immediately glares at him.

 

 

After her playing of Yiruma’s May Be in front of the adults, she immediately looks for Jongin. It was better than expected, but it wasn’t really perfect either. How dare he suddenly announce to his whole family that she’d be playing the piano for them when she hasn’t touched the instrument for so long? And how dare he leave her in the living room with his aunts, uncles and parents? And where the hell were his cousins?

 

“Noona, you did well!” Jongin suddenly appears from nowhere pretending that it was Jihoon who just spoke as he covers his face with the baby. When Soojung doesn’t speak, he tilts his head and says, “It’s me, Jongin.”

 

“If you think bringing this cutie patootie to me will make me forgive you for suddenly telling your family that I’m performing in front of them well-” She suddenly stops when Jihoon unintentionally made a cute sound. Soojung was trying to continue frowning but the baby was so cute he just couldn't stop it. “You’re right. I can forgive you. He’s just so cute, oh my god. Can I carry him?”

 

“Oh, sure.” Jongin carefully passes the baby to his fiancée. She was so happy when he didn’t start to cry in her arms.

 

“I’m bringing him to your room so we could play.” She says, walking carefully to the stairs.

 

“Aren’t we too old to play?” He raises his eyebrow, judging her as he guided her to the top of the stairs.

 

“We as in Jihoonie and I.” She smiles, and heads to his bedroom. Jongin just follows.

 

They found the bedroom door open, and Jongin was pretty sure that he closed it. A little freaked out, he slowly opens the door only to find his younger cousin Somin who stood in a chair, trying to reach his robots that were at the top of his cabinet.

 

“Oh, hi baby!” Soojung greats her in a cheery voice. The same voice that she uses when she speaks to her family, but the only difference is she’s not faking it this time. It just naturally comes out when she sees kids.

 

“Don’t touch it, Somin. If you do, you know what will happen to your Barbie doll.” Jongin warns.

 

“But I want to play with that.” The young girl points at one of the robots. She had actually one doll on her other hand.

 

“You can’t play with robots. They’re for boys-”

 

He hasn’t even finished his sentence, but Soojung has already cut him off. “Jongin! Don’t say that! A boy can play with doll houses and Barbie dolls, and a girl can play with toy cars and robots.” She would punch him, but she couldn’t since she was carrying Jihoon.

 

“Fine.” He mumbles as he helps his younger cousin go down by carrying her. He also reaches for his least favourite robot and gives it to Somin. She flashes a smile, but she doesn’t say thank you. “Can you say thank you at least?”

 

“Well done.” Soojung says as he sits beside her and Jihoon in his bed. “Shall we play together?” She asks the kids, but Somin was already playing with the robot, while Jihoon was his thumb. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

 

At the same time, two heads peeked at Jongin’s bedroom, namely Jonghyun’s and Mingyu’s.

 

“Oh, I thought you two were doing y time.” Jonghyun says as he looked around the room.

 

“What is y time?” Somin asked innocently.

 

“You must have misheard it, baby. He said, sleeping time.” Soojung answers as she fixed the younger girl’s hair. Thankfully, she didn’t ask any more questions and just believed her.

 

“Keep quiet hyung!” Jongin glared and Jonghyun just smiled apologetically.

 

“We’re going to play football outside. You wanna come, hyung?” Mingyu asks.

 

“When I return, you better be not sleeping.” Jongin tells Soojung who were already playing with the kids, and then turns to his cousins. “Let’s go.”

 

 

“Wow, you guys .” Jinah says as she watches the boys in who had just finished playing.

 

Thirty minutes has passed but the boys were already tired. Well, Heechul and Jonghyun were. The two older boys laid in the cold grass, trying to catch their breath meanwhile Mingyu and Jongin, both being in their school’s football team, didn’t show any signs of tiredness at all.

 

“Why are you even here?!” Jonghyun shouts at Jinah, who was just sitting at the chair near them.

 

“I thought I can finally have a girl to girl talk with Soojung, but it turns out that she’s not here. And now I’m stuck with you four again. Sadly.” The girl says, sighing loudly for her cousins to hear.

 

“Sis, go get me a glass of water.” Heechul orders, but Jinah pretends not to hear. “Please!”

 

“Alright, alright.” She rolls her eyes and heads back inside to get his brother a drink.

 

“I ing hate younger people.” Heechul glanced at Jongin and Mingyu who were still playing and practicing by themselves. He should have joined the football club as well when he was younger. “Hey, if you two are this good, one of you must win the league on June!”

 

“Don’t worry, my team and I will sure win it hyung.” Mingyu confidently says, until he was hit by a ball by Jongin.

 

“Kid, I’m sorry to tell you but Imperium Academy is going to win this year.” He smirks. “I will do everything to do it because it’s my last year in high school.”

 

“And because of Soojung.” Jonghyun says, still lying on the ground.

 

“And because of that too.”

 

 

The reason why he wanted her to stay up late is because there was going to be a fireworks display at midnight at downtown Seoul, and the view in his balcony would be the perfect spot to see it. It happens yearly in both Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. He was pretty sure that Jinri has mentioned to him that Soojung likes fireworks so he thought of telling it to her.

 

But he got back to his room, Soojung was already sleeping with the kids beside her. It made him surprised, but he couldn’t help but to smile seeing how adorable she and the kids looked. He didn’t know how to wake her up so he just softly called her name, causing her to groan because of his voice.

 

“Would you like to watch the fireworks with me?”

 

By the mention of fireworks, her eyes immediately widen. “Fireworks? Where?”

 

“Outside in the balcony. It will start in-”

 

Soojung directly gets up from the bed to go outside in the balcony, making him unable to finish his sentence. Jongin knows that it’s cold outside so before going out, he brings another coat for Soojung.

 

“Wait a minute, it’s not the New Year’s eve, right?” She asked confusedly as he puts the coat around her shoulders. “Oh, thanks.”

 

“Don’t worry Soojung. You didn’t sleep for a week. Sometimes fireworks display happens in Christmas as well.” He assures the sleepy Soojung and laughs.

 

As they waited for the time to come, Jongin leans at the railing and Soojung rests her shoulder on it. They talk about school (Soojung was careful of not mentioning Ehra this time), their plans on the New Years and their families. Though it doesn’t seem to bother her, Jongin had to apologize again about how his cousins acted at their dinner.

 

“I’m really sorry. They’re just a bunch of idiots who can’t seem to understand fine dining.” He says, looking down to his shoes.

 

“Jongin, I told you that it’s alright. Don’t worry about it.” She smiles at him sincerely.

 

 She didn’t really mind them talking a lot. In fact, she was happy to see fellow heirs acting playfully. They were told to always be proper and elegant, but seeing how close they were with each other reminded her of her friends back in California.

 

When Jongin looks up to her, he notices the tears forming in her eyes. Worried, he asks her what’s wrong.

 

“D-Did I say something that offended you?”

 

“No, no. I was just… I’m just a little sad.” She quickly hides her face from him with her hands. “I guess I am still a cry baby.”

 

Still worried and confused about her sudden outburst, Jongin removes her hands from her face and orders her to look directly in his eyes. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“Is it bad to say that I’m a bit jealous of your family?” She confesses. Even though she tried hard to hold back the tears, she just couldn’t help but to cry. “When we were eating dinner, I realized that… that my family never got to the chance to be close to one another like that. I am not as close to my siblings, my parents are always not here for me. It’s like they never care for me at all.”

 

“Don’t say that. Of course they do. They just have a different way to show it.”

 

Soojung just shook her head. “No, they don’t. Why would they easily allow me to stay here for you? I mean, I do want to stay for you but I was really surprised.”

 

“Maybe because they know that you’re going to have more fun with me. You’re obviously not having fun right now, so please stop crying.” He hugs her quickly and then wipes away her tears. “And don’t forget that I’m also your family now. You’re a part of this family now. I am your husband, remember?”

 

His fiancée chuckles. “Future husband.”

 

“Same thing.”

 

After a few minutes later, Soojung seemed calmer but Jongin was still not sure about it so he tells another cheesy and dumb joke that made her laugh. He finds himself staring at her and smiling along as she laughed.

 

“I missed this. I really missed you.”

 

“I’m sorry about it. I felt really bad about it.” She says, feeling guilty now that he brought it up. “Can we not ignore each other anymore?”

 

“Yeah, let no do that anymore.” He agrees, his eyes still on her. Soojung notices it, so she looks at him, expecting him to look away but he doesn’t. It was on her second glance when he realizes that he had been staring at her all this time. “Too bad there’s no mistletoe around here. I don’t have an excuse to kiss you.”

 

“You don’t need mistletoe to kiss me.” She mumbles.

 

“Excuse me?” He blinks. He wasn’t sure if he heard her right.

 

“If you want to kiss me, then just kiss me.”

 

“You won’t get mad at me?” He asks.

 

“I won’t.” Soojung laughs as she pulls him closer to her. “I always have to do the first move.”

 

Their noses touch and Jongin was unable to breathe. The last time he got that close to her was back then when they kissed in Paris. His heartbeat was beating so fast as if he was running and the only thing that he wanted to do was to kiss her. Before he could place his lips to hers, the fireworks started making both of them startled especially Soojung.

 

“Woah, it looks so big up here!” She smiles, amazed at how close it looked. She tried to search for her phone on her coat’s pocket but she realizes that her phone wasn’t there since she didn’t use that coat before. “Be right back. I forgot my phone.”

 

When Soojung runs back inside to get her phone, Jongin bites his lips in frustration. He was so close to kissing her if only the fireworks didn’t started. “This is so ing cliché.” He mumbles to himself as he slumps down in embarrassment. 

 

Soojung came back, covering and her eyes so big. She showed him her phone that displayed her mother calling. She didn't expect the call so she wanted to scream out of excitement, but she couldn’t because she might wake up the kids.

 

“What should I do?” She asked Jongin, who looked pretty calm on the outside but is actually a bit unhappy on the inside.

 

“Answer it, of course!” He tells her, so she does. It was awkward at first since she didn’t know what to say.

 

“Uhm, hello mother. Merry Christmas. Yeah… I am at Jongin’s.” She glances at Jongin and smiles. “Yes, I am having a great time.”

author's note: 

I don't know what I'm doing with my life hahaha :-)

I forgot to tell you guys that this and chapter 22 are actually the Christmas chapters that I've been wanting to post. There will be another part in the next chapter. Even though I really love Heechul, Puff, Jonghyun, Nana and Mingyu, I don't think they will appear that much. Maybe they will have a cameo in their wedding? Idek.