~

I stood by the arrivals gate with a cup of coffee in my hand, waiting for my energy-filled cousin to walk through the heavy doors. I noticed a few foreigners and a lot of Koreans come through the gates, so he should have also been here by now. He had asked me to get him a coffee, but he wasn’t even out on time to collect it before it got cold.

I sighed, deciding to sit down on one of the seats on the side of the gate and wait for him. Nothing bad could have happened to him, right?

“Honey I’m home~” Oppa's familiar voice sang and I turned around to find him by the gate with his arms spread out looking at no one in particular. I shook my head knowingly, this was going to be an interesting weekend but perhaps one that I would need.

“Oppa!” I stood up to call him and as soon as he spotted me he ran to pull me into his arms causing me to a spill a bit of his precious and expensive airport made coffee.

“Op- let me breathe.” I squeaked.

“Sorry, it’s been so long since I last saw you.” I blinked at him not even astonished at his exaggerations anymore, we had only seen each other during the summer, and we spent pretty much every day of it together. Well, he has always been the homely type. He always voiced how much he wanted the family to always together, but since my Uncle moved the family to the States he didn’t have much opportunity to see me like before.

I handed him his coffee before the rest of it disappeared on the floor. “Where’s all your luggage?” I asked, noticing he didn’t have much besides a carry on and a pair of sunglasses on, which I chose to ignore despite it being negative degrees.

“It’s at the hotel.”

“In Busan?” I tried to affirm, bug he shook his head distastefully.

“No.”

“In Seoul? Why didn’t you just stay at our place in Busan? Or better yet yours. Aunty and Uncle didn’t sell it in the end right?”

“Ha! There’s no way I’m staying stuck in the countryside with nothing to do when I have a perfectly free cousin in Seoul.” He tilted his sunglasses downwards a little, “Where all the magic happens.”

“You used to live in said countryside.” I reminded and he hushed me. “Right, so what do you have planned to torture me with this weekend?”

“Why would you think of it as torture? I’m here to spend some quality family time with you.”

I gave him a look and he started laughing. “Okay, but really I want to make the most of this weekend. I actually have a networking thing this evening, I’m leaving for Hong Kong on Monday morning and staying there for a few day for more fancy business meetings, then to Japan and then back to my beloved America.”

“Oh-ho, look at you being all grown up.” I nudged him, to which he lifted up his collar clearly loving the ego boost. “Not like I know anything about running a company but shouldn’t you be, you know, preparing for all of that business stuff?”

“That’s the benefit of being in charge, I know everything already. Don’t worry about the technicalities my dongsaeng, let’s just focus on this weekend. Now, where are the good night clubs?”

I shrivelled my nose and shook my head, “I don’t know. I haven’t been to any and I don’t fancy it either.”

“Bars?”

“Do drinks have to be involved?”

“Fine. We’re going to do Karaoke though, you have no choice in that. I came to bless you once again with my vocals and you’re not going to miss out.” I nodded in response, but he wasn’t pleased at my lack of enthusiasm.

“Come on Hyunnie~! Loosen up, do you think I came here to waste my time? My cousin senses were tingling, you were practically begging for my help and I’m here.”

“That’s not-”

“You know better than to deny it, whenever I get that feeling you know it’s almost never wrong.” He gave me a pointed look as we continued to walk outside. I fixed my scarf tighter so that it covered my mouth, an avoidance tactic that was measly at best. He was right, we’ve somehow always been on the same wavelength since I can remember. Seeing as I spent most of my time with the rest of my cousins I thought it would work with them too, but only Youngjae Oppa seemed to get me. “So?” He inquired.

I breathed in the winter air through the knitting of my scarf and watched in interest as the clouds formed through the tiny holes. I pulled the scarf down just by my chin, puckered up my lips and widened my eyes trying to muster up my most enthusiastic face in my attempt at a cheer. “Kim Youngjae, Kim Youngjae, voice that's sweet as honey Kim Youngjae! Woohoo! Let’s go have some fun!”  

Oppa laughed, seeming to have preferred this response. When we got through to the parking lot, we spotted Myung-Soo standing beside his car waiting for us.

“Might work with others, not so believable with me but I’ll take it.” Oppa whispered just as we got to the car.

“Hyung, if she doesn’t want to go then just let her be.” Myung-Soo came to my aid already reading the situation.

“Not you too! Hey, if you don’t want to have to collect me at the police station first thing in the morning, then I suggest we follow your elders orders. Go-go!” He put an arm around Myung-Soo and then called shot-gun. Quite ironic how he acknowledged himself as the elder and yet…

I looked at how comfortable the two were with each other and I shook my head in amusement. “Since when were you two so close.”

“Oh, since this wimp here came to me for advi-” Whatever Youngjae Oppa was going to say was blocked when Myung-Soo put his hand against his mouth.

“When I asked him about UCLA, you know since Hyung graduated from there I just wanted to know what it’s like.” He fumbled and I shifted my eyes between the two of them suspiciously.

“Yeah… UCLA. That’s what he was curious about.” Youngjae finished with a laugh and I shrugged it off. We hopped into Myung-Soo’s car and set off for lunch.

~

“I don’t want to go.”

“But you said you would.”

“No, I said that I would go watch the play and then have dinner with you.” I returned to Myung-Soo quietly.

“Yeah, and you haven’t told me why you dislike this idea so much?”

We were exiting the National Theatre of Korea, after having watched Seung-Ho’s play that evening. We were waiting around for Seung-Ho to come out from the dressing room and since it was the first night, they usually had a long discussion with the director.

I was aware that he had been working hard for it, spending most of his time rehearsing for his role as Romeo in the Korean rendition of Romeo and Juliet. I had to admit, he and the whole staff did a good job of it. He was the only one from his class at the University to have been offered the part without having to audition for it, which just goes to show how talented he was.

Although I didn’t appreciate the ending Shakespeare chose, but unlike most tragedies I’ve read I did appreciate the whole message on ‘love’ and the ‘human condition’. I still wouldn’t have made the same decision as Juliet, but I get it.

I found myself feeling the emotions that each character displayed and I was (begrudgingly) pulled in by the different expressions Seung-Ho displayed. Some were familiar, a few were strange to me, but those were the ones that I made sure to mentally note.

We would always come to his first show and wait for him at the end, it was like a sign, letting him know that we supported him. Ji-Soo handled the bouquet of roses and the rest of us would bring food so that we could have a mini congratulatory feast. Myung-Soo and I were currently collecting bags of fresh Tteokbokki, sundae and sweet delicacies for the night as we usually did, bringing me back to our current discussion.

“You know why.” I crossed my arms, “They’ve all been avoiding me, treating me like I’m a criminal after what happened with So-Hee.”

“They don’t really think you did it.”

“What do you mean ‘really’, it’s either they think I did or I didn’t.” I sighed, opening my mouth for the rice cake he placed in front of it. The sweet and spicy flavour burst in my mouth as I chewed, but I couldn’t lose focus, this was his tactic I could see it. “Myung-Soo-yah, we’re in a world of developing technology. If they really wanted to speak to me they could have messaged me, emailed me or better yet approached me. Heck even a letter in the post. I don’t live on a remote island.”

“You might as well do. You know it would help if you weren’t actually avoiding them like the plague So-Hyun-ah.” He replied gently and I scrunched up my nose because he was right. But I wasn’t avoiding them all, just two out of the four. “Hey, we get off for winter break in a week and the others are going back to Busan, after that it’s exams and graduation. I’m not going to force you to come, I just want us to spend some time together, the gang would too.”

Yeah, I’m sure they would. I didn’t reply as he proceeded to flood my mouth with irresistibly good street food and I relented knowing that I couldn’t escape this without making things much worse and awkward with everyone. Though I didn’t want to go, I was going to push through it for Myung-Soo. The food might have helped me come to that conclusion, but I’d rather say it was for Myung-Soo’s sake.

“Fine, but I’m not speaking to any of them first. Call me petty, I don’t care.”

Myung-Soo chuckled, wiping something – most likely sauce, away from the corner of my lips. “I wouldn’t dare.”

When we got back to the theatre entrance Seung-Ho was just walking out, the others ran to him while I stayed distanced and I couldn’t help but notice So-Hee stick to his side almost immediately, like he was a magnet and she was iron. It was clear that he hadn’t told her about that night either otherwise there was no way she would have been so smiley. How he was walking