Bonus Chapter #1: A Mealful of Awkward

Attayear
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Jinsu was not at all sure how she’d managed to convince Baekhyun to come over to dinner that night, and she also wasn’t at all sure what on earth had possessed him to agree.  Worse than at, at quarter to four he rang her in a bit of a state because his parents had for some reason actually agreed to come along with him and were asking about the dress code.

“I told them it was an open invitation and that they didn’t have to if they didn’t want to,” he babbled, sounding on the brink of crying with frustration.  “Dad keeps going on about being the bigger man and Mum keeps giving me these talks about accepting being gracious—”

“Baekhyun,” Jinsu said, beyond stressed herself, “how come you said yes?”

“You asked me to come!” he exclaimed.  “Why would I say no?  How come you asked me in the first place?”

“Jimin said it would be a good idea.”  Jinsu paused, gnawing on her lip.  “I don’t think I should have listened to him.”

“No,” agreed Baekhyun.  “Your brother is evil.”

 

Jimin was disturbingly nonchalant about the whole thing.  Jinsu had heard her big brother having a quiet word with Mrs Kwon about potential guests for dinner after lunch, but at the time she’d been pretty sure Baekhyun would get back to her saying that it was too short notice for his parents to come and that he didn’t particularly want to come on his own because he hadn’t yet had a chance to buy himself body armour (or something), and part of her mind hadn’t actually registered that this evening was only a few hours away.

In a tizzy after the most recent call from Baekhyun, Jinsu burst unannounced into her brother’s room.  Jisig was shedding bright, holographic light all over the room and chirping away in answer to questions that Jimin was shooting at it, but both shut up at Jinsu’s sudden appearance.

Jimin barely had a moment to raise an inquisitive eyebrow at his little sister before she was pacing agitatedly around his messy room, pausing every few seconds to pick up and fold and refold the clothes he’d dumped on the floor.

“Jimin, Baekhyun’s family’s coming tonight,” she rambled, her thoughts almost incoherent to herself as she tried to fold up a tie.  “What do I wear?  They’re asking what they should wear, but what do I wear?  Do I need to dress up?  Is this a formal meet-the-parents thing?  Or do you think it would relax them more if we said casuals?  I mean, if the clothes are comfortable, they’re more likely to be comfortable, right?  But you make a better impression in smarter clothes, so should I wear something smart?  But then that might make it look like it’s supposed to be a really dressy dinner and we’re trying to conclude a business deal or something—”

Jimin sensibly removed his pink silk tie from her hands before she could start shredding it with her nervous energy.

“Why not go for the best of both worlds and say smart casuals?” he suggested.  “Call Saeeun and ask for help picking out a dress, because she knows your wardrobe better than I do.”

“I’ll do that.”  Jinsu started pacing again, this time with Jimin’s favourite t-shirt in her hands.  “There’s a red dress I have that Baekhyun thinks is really pretty on me.  Should I wear that?  It’s just that it’s really smart and I don’t know if I can dress it down enough.”

“Jin.”  Jimin looked amused.  “I’m not Saeeun.”

“O-oh.”  Jinsu paused, halfway through mid-air fold of the t-shirt, and accidentally scrunched it into a ball with how tense her hands were.  “O-oh yeah.  I’ll go ask Saeeun.”  But she wasn’t two steps towards the door before she turned around again.  “Jimin, do you think a dress or a skirt or trousers is more suitable in this situation?”

He just raised his hands heavenwards and shrugged.

 

At teatime, Jimin decided it was the right moment to drop the outlying bombshell on their parents.  Park Jiwoon was reading the newspaper while their mother was looking through a catalogue for a very upmarket jewellery boutique.  Jimin was sitting round the other side of the table to them, his chair pushed out and with one ankle balanced on his other knee as he answered work emails from his tablet, sipping from a cup every so often.  Jinsu had snuck in with the aim of nabbing herself a cup of tea and some rice cakes and then disappearing before they’d even noticed her so she could get back to video-calling Saeeun to show her exactly what was in her closet, but as she was quietly helping herself to her snack, Jimin looked up and put the tablet on the table.

“I almost forgot,” he announced.  “Jinsu’s boyfriend’s coming round for dinner this evening.”

Park Jiwoon actually dropped his newspaper.  Their mother also looked very taken aback.  Jinsu tried to back out of the room as quietly as possible.

“Jinsu has a boyfriend?” their mother asked.

At almost exactly the same time, their father said in a rather accusatory tone, and with a large frown in Jinsu’s direction, “why weren’t we told about this earlier?”

Before Jinsu could glare at her brother or ask her father if he meant the meal or the fact that she was dating, Jimin spoke up again.

“I’m flying back to India on business in a couple of days to wrap up those deals I was working on before,” he reminded them.  “I’ll be back as soon as possible after, obviously,  but I don’t know how long it’ll take and things are going to be absolutely hectic here once the news gets out about the lawsuit, so I asked Jinsu to invite him here tonight so that I’d actually have a chance to meet him.”

Jinsu gulped.  She wasn’t totally sure how well a meeting between Baekhyun and her brother would go down, especially since she could still sense residual anger at the way Baekhyun had treated her at school for so long, let alone how her father would respond to Baekhyun showing up on their doorstep.

Unusually for their father, he didn’t demand more information, though whether that was because Jimin had just taken all them blame on himself or because of the stunt Jimin had pulled that morning was impossible to determine.

Park Jiwoon bent to pick up the newspaper.

“Who is this… boyfriend, then?”  He cast a probing look in Jinsu’s direction, and Jinsu nearly inhaled half a rice cake in fright.  “Do we know him?”

Jimin ignored the questions, while Jinsu was choking too much to attempt answering them in the first place.

“His parents are coming too,” Jimin said, this time with a slightly playful tone, “so please be on your very best behaviour!”

Their parents exchanged glances.

“Do we need to dress up?” wondered their mother.

“No!”  Jinsu was almost frantic in her refusal.  “Smart casuals!  Nothing smarter!”

Their mother nodded and returned to her catalogue.

After a moment or two, Park Jiwoon set aside his newspaper and stood up.  What he said next took Jinsu completely by surprise.

“I’m going to decant a bottle of port,” he grunted.

Completely stunned, Jinsu looked between her father as he disappeared in the direction of the wine cellar, and her brother, who winked at her and picked his tablet back up again.

 

By half six, Jinsu was more or less working herself up into a state.  She and Saeeun had eventually agreed upon a deep royal blue summer dress with just a few bangles in the way of jewellery (though she did sneak on her birthday present from Baekhyun), and after nearly an hour trying to decide whether her hair should be up or down, she finally settled on leaving it down so that she could feel like there was the opportunity for tying her hair back even though she knew she’d probably never do it.  Then she’d made the mistake of peeking out of a window for fresh air, and she’d spied the papparrazzi outside the building, some looking like they were trying to hide while others were much more open in what they were showing.

She bolted for Jimin’s room again.

“Jimin, the press are here!” she wailed.  “It’ll be chaos if it gets out!”

Jimin looked up from his computer, the picture of serenity.  “They’ve been there on and off since you got back from the Attayear,” he pointed out.  “It’s the weekend, so they’re probably hoping to catch one of us for an interview as we step out, because we can’t really use the work excuse.”

“But they’re going to harass the Byuns as they come in if they’re still there!  And they’ll misreport it or something, I know they will—”

Eyes half on his screen, Jimin reached out with his hand and grasped Jinsu’s.

“Shh, Jin, it’ll be fine.  I can get the security guards to move them on.  Just warn Baekhyun, okay?  Some might try to loiter.”

Baekhyun panicked as much as Jinsu did when she told him, but she could hear his father joking around in the background about how it would probably be misrepresented as a grand reconciliation after ten years, only for the media to be blindsided by the upcoming court case, which would leave them embarrassed and scrambling.

“We’re in the car anyway,” Baekhyun mumbled shortly before hanging up.  “It’s a bit too late to turn back now.”

Jinsu had the presence of mind to ask for the numberplate to pass onto the guards so that the car could be let straight in through the gates of the property.

 

Fifteen minutes later, she was down in the kitchen because Jimin had told her to stop pulling out her hair and to go and help Mrs Kwon.  Mrs Kwon didn’t need any help, so Jinsu fidgeted around and occasionally tweaked the position of dishes on the table so that they made proper patterns, or so that they’d be symmetrical, or so that they were ordered from largest to smallest, or by shape.  Both her parents came down at five to, her father looking rather awkward in black chinos, an open-collared green shirt and a beige jumper that looked like it was cashmere, while her mother had on a simple skirt and blouse with a pretty silver necklace.  Jinsu actually stopped fretting over whether to switch the position of two side dishes on the tray Mrs Kwon was beginning to load up to stare at her father for a few moments.  Once again, without the suit, he looked softer and more approachable.

“Would aperitifs be overkill?” he wondered, glancing between Mrs Kwon and Jinsu.

“Jinsu isn’t marrying the boy yet; I’d save that for when they’re being introduced as in-laws,” replied Mrs Kwon dryly, mixing in some soy sauce with the rice.  Park Jiwo

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Korekrypta
It's EXO's 4th anniversary today, so four chapters will be going up in a bit!

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Hyeji1990 #1
Here I am again..
Mitsukiii #2
I remember I had read this story about 10 times on my last account. Years later, back to do the same thing....
evaporous
#3
Chapter 20: Ik Jinsus family basically ruined baekhyuns life but he is just so mean to her
evaporous
#4
Chapter 19: 'I tried to withold this chapter. I failed. ' what does this mean Korey
evaporous
#5
Chapter 16: United We Spy? Is that the Gallagher Girls series? I love it! Wow, I can't believe a quote from that made it here.
evaporous
#6
Chapter 10: "Go away before someone sees you fraternising with the enemy"
HARRY POTTER-INSPIRED QUOTE from Goblet of Fire
Bbhfever #7
Chapter 97: Now I believe this is the 4th time I’ve read this all the way through! Going back to reread favorite scenes because it’s tradition at this point lol! I always forget how emotional I get reading this! You really did not let my girl rest… she faced problems after problems!!
Bbhfever #8
Chapter 12: And here I am again… I should really keep count just to see how many times I’ve actually read this 🤣.
Imthtdiamond95 #9
Re reading this fic 3 years later, can honestly say this is my favourite story on the platform, it’s just soo good. Your writing is seriously amazing, thank you for this story!
Justanother-girl #10
Chapter 97: Re-reading this again a few years later, and it’s still as good. Thanks korey for the wonderful story. 😍