1

"I'm going to WHAT now?” I utter, hoping my ears had been fooling me a few seconds ago.

Alas, my hearing sense is intact as evidenced when my mother repeats, “You will be attending a marriage meeting with a business partner's son.” Her straight face tells me that this is not a lame prank my parents have decided to pull on me, though the concept of this no-nonsense woman joking around is a laugh in itself.

I glance to my father, who is lounging with a mien much unbefitting for the distinguished company higher-up that he is, for clarification. He catches my gaze but doesn’t offer anything more than a rueful smile and nod to his wife that scream, “Ask your mom.”

The pleads in my eyes refashion into daggers. Said mother, who had been watching our silent exchange, takes it upon herself to explain as if it is indeed in some script of theirs to do so. And as I listen to the history of what came to be some sort of agreement between my parents and their company affiliate to have their children engaged, I find myself delving further down a spiral of bewilderment.

It takes a minute for me to register the news, but my mother, with selective patience as always, waits in silence for my thoughts to mold into substance. In the end, all I have are more questions.

“Okay, so what if the meeting doesn't go well? Then it's all over—no marriage?” I ask, optimism raising my voice an unintentional octave higher.

She must have heard this leak of emotion, because she has a subtle but all-too-coy smile when she answers, “We'll work it out.”

Ambiguous as my mother may have been when I had pestered her to find out what outcomes could result from the meeting going awry, I resolved at the end of the day to at least test my hypothesis. Whatever awkward consequences follow can come at me, as long as being forced into a lifelong bond with a stranger is not one of them. Of course, I have considered the prospect of having an attractive partner but dismissed that in favor of finding my own spouse.

It’s this resolve that keeps me bounded to the reality of Earth when I find out who my potential fiancé is.

In retrospect, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it would be Kim Jongin—recollections of rumors that his family runs business directly related to that of mine flash into my mind. But Kim Jongin. A member of the clique that luxuriates at the top of our clichéd school hierarchy, the 'chocolate abs' that all people of the fitting uality lust over, the would-be ace of all our athletic teams if only he gave a damn about anything more than his friends and girlfriend—Ah, the girlfriend. Oh, the girlfriend. , the girlfriend. The outlooks of our current situation continue to grow gloomier with every passing moment.

With this resurfaced knowledge (as well as his broody aura from the get-go), I can solidify my intuition that Kim