Hi all, I'm sure you've noticed that the updates have slowed down. I started my job, and for that reason, updates will become far more scarce. I was writing 4 fics at once, but now I'm going to whittle down the load. I'll keep this one going, but instead of updating every other day, I can't promise an update schedule. However, if I'm going to write, I will prioritize this fic. Thank you always for reading and for motivating me to keep going. Much love.

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Krystal’s POV

Your parents weren’t born rich. Both of them had grown up solidly lower middle class, in the suburbs close to Seoul. Your mother had gone to one of the best science universities to study engineering, in the hopes of making a steady wage, while your father majored in economics. They met in college and married a few years after, when your mother’s cosmetics company got off the ground and your father received his promotion to vice president at his bank. In a way, your parents were very risk adverse. They didn’t even think about having you and your sister until they knew they could afford to. They both picked financially secure fields and made sure to work hard so that they’d rise to the top.

Truly the story of East Asian success.

So maybe that’s why they had so much trouble understanding why you’re flinging Kai and his wealth away.

You’ve been standing outside your mother’s office for five minutes now, shifting your weight from foot to foot and fiddling with the chain around your neck. You can hear her talking to someone on the phone, her soft but resolute voice piercing the thick wood of the door. She had this piece imported from some rainforest in the Amazon—apparently it was the hardest wood available and could withstand a blast from a bomb.

You think though, that the only possible explosion would come from the other side of the door, and once you entered, there’d be no protection.

“M-mom?” your voice embarrassingly cracks. “Are you busy?”

The voices pause within the room. You quickly your lips and try backing away.

“That’s okay, I can come back later—”

“No, come in,” your mother replies as she hushes the people on the line. “The door’s open.”

No more running away then. Is this the version of you Amber wanted? Someone who’d confront problems head on instead of finding the path of least resistance? You place both hands on the door and push yourself inside.

Every time you see your mother, you always feel a mix of barely-under-the-surface terror and grudging admiration. Maybe it’s because growing up, she was the disciplinarian of the family. She never had to lay a finger on you nor raise her voice. It was the psychological punishments and mind games that made you obey her without question. The day she and your father decided to alternate living in Korea and the States was the day you finally breathed a sigh of relief.

She doesn’t even glance up from the report that’s lying open on her desk. You slowly shuffle in, eyes roving around the room. Although you’ve been in here numerous times, something always changed. Your mother got bored of the interior design quite frequently and remodeled once every year. This time, she had opted for a light, airy office, with grey accents, from the rug to the chairs in the room. Her glass desk glinted in the afternoon sun streaming through the gigantic back window. You take a seat on one of the two plush divans in front of her work desk and cross your legs at the ankles, just like how your etiquette tutor taught you to.

She still hasn’t looked at you, paging through the last few sheafs of paper on her desk. When she reaches the end, she sweeps the report off her desk and into the shredder located at the end. The quiet hum of the blades don’t do much to dispel the tension.

You always hated awkward moments, and your mother knew that.

“Um mom, about the whole marriage situation,” you splutter, unable to take the quiet anymore, “I wanted to talk to you about it.”

The way she slides her reading glasses off of her nose and leans back in her large office chair makes you feel like you’re in elementary school, waiting for a reprimand from the principal.

“I thought I made myself perfectly clear, Krystal.”

The shredder finally stops and the eerie soundless expanse is almost too much to bear.

“Yes, you did. But you haven’t heard my side yet.”

At this, your mother tilts her head to the side and surveys you as if trying to decide whether your words are worth her time. You really want to continue speaking, but two decades of experience have taught you not to interrupt her thinking.

After another minute, she inclines her head.

Y