After too much coercion and guilt-tripping, I’m finally going on a trip to Los Angeles. I felt like a woman about to get married except that I wasn’t the excited kind of bride, but one that’s getting cold feet. Seulgi booked the flight a week ago, and I said yes. Three days before the flight, I changed my mind again. If it weren’t for her rather lengthy diatribe, I wouldn’t have packed for the trip at all.

“I booked for business class flights. You can’t bail out now. You already agreed. This could be my only vacation!” She said the last bit as if I wasn’t giving her enough holidays. It’s her choice to work on holidays to be clear, not mine, and yet she used it against me. “I really want to see LA, too, and you’re killing that dream. I’ve prepared for it already and I shopped for the trip.”

I could feel the muscles surrounding my left eye twitching as she said those things to me, and in the end, I said that no matter how much my mind changes, the green light is on. I can’t go back on a promise, especially not one that would jeopardize Seulgi’s simple happiness. So that is how I found myself sitting on the waiting lounge at Incheon Airport, waiting for our dawn trip.

So far, there hasn’t been any problems apart from the look the flight stewardess gave me when she looked at my passport, halfway filled up with these stamps years ahead of its expiration. I had to ask her if she had a problem about it, but she shook her head but again, gave this curious look. Seulgi had to drag me to our seats before I start giving the flight attendant a look she would never forget. Honestly, I was tired after a whole day at the office and I’m in the mood for bashing my carry-on bag on anyone who would give me a hard time. I don’t even understand where those looks are coming from.

Despite the fact that the notion of a long flight is making me sick at the moment and that nosy flight attendant, I was quite excited. Mark doesn’t know that I was coming at all. I told him days ago that I wouldn’t be able to go due to some things that came up. Seulgi actually arranged all my meetings in advance, and so, before the weekend, my schedule is jammed. I’m relieved to be free from all that even if it’s just for the rest of the week.

Mark’s mom was the only one who knew that I am arriving soon. We let her in on the secret because we didn’t have any clue as to how to get to their family house. She’s even more excited than I am to meet the rest of the family, as she had put it. I felt like I was this guest they have been expecting for a long time, but I wasn’t aware of it. I wanted to meet them, too. I’m curious about Mark’s family just as he was curious with mine. I met his mom already and he spoke to mine over the phone, but he hasn’t met any of them in person.

Apart from that, the trip was a good opportunity for me to visit my maternal grandfather’s grave. He died several years ago and we rarely ever get to visit his grave, especially me since I had so many things going on in my life. My grandfather served in the US navy in his youth, and continually lived in the country until his death. He was buried in San Jose, which is a few hours’ drive from LA. I was thinking of dropping by.

The flight was long, but I spent most of it either asleep of eating. It wasn’t as tiring as I was expecting it to be and we arrived at night in LA, still the same day. I was looking forward to not adjusting to the time zones. It was good because I was too tired to function even after sleeping the flight away, and I woke up early the next day to a phone call from Mark’s mom.

It was a meeting full of excitement when she finally came to the hotel we were staying at. She loves Seulgi, which is good. Ayi also treated us for breakfast, going all giggly as she related how everyone’s asking her where she was going so early in the morning.

“They were all wondering where I was heading and told me be back before lunch,” Ayi said with a slight laugh. “Of course, I couldn’t tell them.” Apparently, Mark slept at their house. I was glad to know that. At least he got to spend time with his family albeit for a short period of time.

“He missed his room,” she continued to relate. That’s really cute.

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel to pick up the presents I have bought for the family. Later, we went to the supermarket so I could cook the dish I’m surprising Mark with. It was a special oriental dish I’ve learned to cook. I fed it to him once and he liked it so he requested for me to cook it several times.

Finally, we went to their house which reminded me so much of my home in Leipzig. It had that warm feeling the moment we entered. Everyone seemed to have gone out, and soon, one by one, they arrived into the house. Ayi had to ban them from going into the kitchen where I was finishing the cooking before I was told to hide in the car until lunch time. I met Mr. Tuan before lunch, and he was really nice, too.

The plan was that Seulgi will arrive and tell Mark that I sent her on my behalf, and was invited over for lunch. I was already standing in the pantry while they began lunch when Ayi brought out the dish I cooked. It’s my own recipe, a rendition of some sort of the original dish, so Mark immediately got a hint once he started eating even as Seulgi had been insisting that I thought her how to make it herself.

“I don’t think so,” he said with a laugh. “She’s here. I feel it in my guts.”

Joey, Mark’s youngest sibling, chuckled. “I saw her getting out of the car earlier. I thought I was seeing things, too. I knew it.”

“Who?” Tammy asked.

“His future wife,” Ayi said with a laugh.

“No sense pranking you,” Seulgi told him. “She’s in the pantry.”

“For real?!” Mark stood up from his seat, I surmised because I heard a loud clutter before the pantry door opened a few seconds later to admit him. “You’re here!”

I didn’t know how to react. I just stood there awkwardly with an equally stroppy smile. I haven’t seen him for only ten days and yet, I was having a hard time trying to figure out what to do with myself again. Well, he looked really stunning, and I think my system suddenly reset and was reacting to a foreign stimulus.

Or it was probably because it was the first time I am seeing him as the Mark that his family knew, the real person dressed like an ordinary person in his comfort zone, the Tuan Yien before he became the idol, the human version. Of course, he’s let his guard down around me, but I have never seen him in his natural environment so to say. In Korea, he’s this idol, untouchable to most. Here, he’s just him.

In the end, after a moment of just staring at him, I managed to wave. “I guess I am.”

He laughed as he opened his arms wide, approaching me. “You guess?” he repeated with inflection and took me in his arms. “It’s so good to see you.” I felt him nuzzle my hair. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too.” I patted him on the shoulder, about to pull away before any one of his relatives comes into the room and sees us hugging, but before I knew it, my feet were off the tiled floor and I was seeing a blur of the kitchen as he whirled me around. He set me on my feet again and gave me a bear hug.

“Tuan –” I caught myself before I could say it out loud, remembering that I was in a household full of Tuans. “You can let go now.” Damn, it’s gonna take some getting used to not calling him by his surname.

He let go of course, still chuckling in disbelief, but the hugging ambush resumed when Tammy, his eldest sister, came into the room, half squealing. “Oh my god! We finally meet,” she said in between giggles and hugs. Joey and Grace also gave me brief hugs, but that wasn’t the end of the awkward greeting phase.

During the meal, Joey, the youngest of the siblings, asked, “So, how long have you two been dating?” He clucked his tongue. “This will surely break a ton of fan girls’ hearts.”

I flashed him an amiable, almost pleading smile while Mark looked delighted on his seat. “Well, there won’t be any hearts breaking –”

“You’re just friends?” Tammy asked, looking disappointed.

Mark rolled his eyes. “She won’t let me date her.”

“Tu – Mark!” I hissed through a smile, nudging him, and to his family I said, “We’re very good friends.”

Tammy seemed to have recovered from her disillusionment and smiled brightly at me. “It’s good that he has a female influence in Korea. At least he would remember to take care of himself while he’s there.”

“He does have a knack for unnecessarily exhausting himself,” I said, turning tables on him.

Mark looked at me as if I’ve lost it. “That’s not true.”

“Yeah? So what do you call those nights you would play video games instead of actually getting a decent sleep?” I told him.

“I like her,” Grace hooted.

“But really, he takes care of me more than the other way around,” I amended to pacify him.

Meeting the rest of Mark’s family has been a delightful experience. They were such nice people with unique personalities. I’ve come to know just how double Mark’s attitude Joey was. He was fluent in several languages including sarcasm, and he seems to be the rather extroverted version of his older brother. He was the one who started the awkward atmosphere, which I think he did on purpose.

Grace was al