Even after such an uncomfortable dinner, the evening carried on. Minseok and Mister Huang went to the library, though I couldn’t help but notice the wide gap between them as they walked. Meanwhile, I put on my best attempt at an interested expression and followed Han out to the front. We sat down and I tried to make myself comfortable, though the night air felt tense.

Han stared into the dusk with his hand resting on his face, agitation rolling off of him in waves so strong I could almost see it. I decided I should try to get him to calm down a little, so I asked him some very basic questions about his daughter.

“So how’s-”

“Yifan,” he cut me off. “We’re really not that close, are we? Even though we’re cousins… I mean, you didn’t even go to my wedding!”

“Um… I was overseas still… fighting a war…”

“Oh, right,” he chuckled awkwardly. “Well let me tell you Yifan… It’s just-” He paused and took a deep breath. “Well, you see, I just think everything’s terrible in the end.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything… I’ve had a very bad time, Yifan. I’m pretty cynical about everything.”

It sounded like he wanted to say more, so I waited patiently for him to continue. However, he remained silent, so I tried to steer the conversation back to his daughter.

“So… um… your daughter… I suppose she talks and eats and everything?”

“Hyerim? Oh yes.” Han turned to me and I could see how blank his eyes were. “Would you like to know what I said when she was born?”

“Sure? I mean- yes, I’d like to.”

“It’ll explain why I feel this way about the world. Well, she was less than an hour old and Minseok was God knows where-” he turned around and glanced forlornly towards the house, “with God knows who. Our surrogate Guan Xiao Tong was passed out due to the anesthesia and as soon as the nurse was finished cleaning the baby up I asked if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and I felt so overwhelmed with relief when I realized how much she looked like me. ‘Alright,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl.’ And I prayed to the good Lord above that she would be a fool- that’s the best thing a pretty person can be in this world. A beautiful little fool.”

His eyes flashed with anger and suddenly he stood up and let out a terrible shrieking that can hardly be considered laughter. In that moment, it felt like I was broken out of a spell I didn’t even know I had been under. Everything he said right now felt so insincere, and it made me feel uncomfortable. It was as though this entire evening so far was an elaborate act meant to bring out a certain kind of reaction from me. I waited for him to calm down, and sure enough, he turned to me with a most conceited smirk on his pretty face, as though he had established himself as part of an elite secret society that only people like himself and Minseok could belong to.

Han sat back down and when he turned to look at me again, his smirk was gone and in its place was his usual happy expression. “Come on Yifan. Let’s go back inside.”

The red velvet room- as I have affectionately dubbed it- was full of light. Mister Huang was on one end of the couch, reading a newspaper aloud in a voice so soft, so quiet, I almost didn’t think it was really coming from him. Minseok was on the other end, leaning, with an elbow on the armrest and a hand holding his chin up. The light from the lamp was reflecting quite nicely on his face, though his eyes were downcast.

As Han and I walked in, Mister Huang looked up, and he lifted his hand as a gesture for us to stop. He closed the newspaper and set it down next to him, then stood up and stretched. “Not that tonight wasn’t fun, Lu-ge, but I really should get going.” He gathered his things and made his way toward us. “It’s already ten o’clock and you know I need my beauty sleep,” he whined.

“Zitao here has a tournament tomorrow,” Han explained to me, “at Westchester.”

“Oh so you’re Huang Zitao?” That’s why he looked so familiar to me! I remember seeing him on the covers of sporting magazines and his photographs alone had been very intimidating, though not necessarily unattractive. I’ve heard a few things about him, unpleasant things, but whatever they were I couldn’t be bothered to remember them.

“Good night,” Mister Huang murmured. “Wake me up at eight, okay?”

“I’ll need to go earlier then so that you actually get out of bed.”

“Oh come on Lu-ge don’t be like that. Anyway, I’ll be leaving. Good night, Mister Wu. I’ll see you around.”

“Of course you will. Ohh, you know what? I think I’ll arrange a marriage between you two! Lock you up in linen closets and push you out to sea in boats! And maybe I’ll-”

“Good night!” Mister Huang cut him off. “I’ll just make like I never heard anything.” He left the room and Han followed to see him off.

After a moment of silence, Minseok spoke. “He’s a good kid. They shouldn’t be letting him running around like that.”

“Who shouldn’t be letting him run around?” Han asked as he walked back in. His eyebrows were furrowed and his mouth was set in a hard line.

“His family.”

“His only family left is his father who’s, like, a million years old already. Besides, Yifan will be looking after him, aren’t you, dearest cousin? Zitao’s spending a lot of weekends out here this summer. I think the family environment will do him some good.”

As soon as those words left his mouth, Han turned over to glare at Minseok, and Minseok glared right back. Not wanting things to escalate, I quickly asked if Mister Huang was from New York.

“Actually, he’s from Xiongtai City. We spent our childhood there, together. Our sweet, innocent-”

“Han what were you and Yifan talking about earlier when you were outside?” Minseok interrupted.

“Huh? Oh, I don’t remember. I think it had something to do with the economy and the social order. Yes, that’s it. It just came up out of nowhere and the next thing you know we-”

Minseok scoffed. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Yifan.”

I simply nodded and gathered my things to leave. The couple walked with me to the door and watched me from there, the light on the front porch casting a false cheerful glow on them. As I started the engine, Han suddenly called out to me.

“Wait! I forgot to ask you something important! Rumor has it that you’re engaged to someone out West.”

“Ah that’s right,” Minseok remarked softly. “We heard that you’re engaged now.”

“Lies and slander. I’m too poor…”

“But we heard it from a reliable source,” my cousin insisted, catching me off guard with how earnest he sounded. “We heard it from, like, three different people, so it must be true.”

I knew full well what they were talking about, but I most definitely am NOT engaged. In fact, part of the reason I had moved out here was because this stupid rumor got so widespread. I don’t know how it started, but many people back home were speculating that I could be engaged to a really close friend of mine. I couldn’t exactly stop talking to said friend because of some meaningless small town gossip but then again, I didn’t need everyone to falsely believe that I was getting married.

Their interest in my life was actually quite touching, but even so, my mind was running with confusion and maybe a tiny bit of disgust as I drove away from the Kim-Lu mansion. Han was different than I had expected and I can’t say I liked what I saw. However, I was more curious about Minseok. He had been an unbearable prick in the past and although he continued to act like a typical rich boy, there was something that felt really off, and it may have something to do with the guy he’s seeing in the city. His whole spiel about maintaining the social order felt like a complete farce, as though he were clinging to these classist values to convince everyone that he was still the same man they knew, but deep down in his heart he knew that was a lie.

When I pulled up to my house in Yutadari, I drove my car into the shed and I climbed up to the roof. I sat there for a while, listening to the music of the night. The wind had died down a long time ago, leaving room for the rapid flapping of wings and the loud croaking of frogs to fill up the summer air. The silhouette of a stray cat caught my eye, and as I turned my head to track of it I realized I was not alone. About fifty feet away from me, a dark figure had emerged from my neighbor’s dock, standing there with his hands in his pockets and gazing up at the stars. Something about the way he carried himself, the way he stood there so confidently, told me that it was Suho himself, out to determine what part of our small window of the universe was free for him to claim.

I was tempted to call out to him. Mister Huang had mentioned him earlier today, and I figured now was a good time to introduce myself. But just as I was working up the nerve to go talk to him, he moved suddenly, which I took as a sign of him wanting to be left alone. He reached out towards the water, and even though I was pretty far away from him, I could still see how badly he was shaking. I looked out across the bay, and saw nothing but a single green light. I turned back to look at Suho, but he was already gone, and I was alone in the darkness once again.