JIN COULD HEAR his Converse sneakers beating hard against the pavement. He could feel the humid wind tugging on his black T-shirt. He could practically taste the hot tar from a freshly paved portion of the parking lot. But when he flung his arms around the two huddled creatures near the entrance to Sword & Cross on Saturday morning, all of that was forgotten.
He had never been so glad to hug his parents in his life.
For days, he’d been regretting how cold and distant things had been at the hospital, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
They both stumbled as he plowed into them. His mother started giggling and his dad thwacked his back in his tough-guy way with his palm. He had his enormous camera strapped around his neck. They straightened up and held their son at arm’s length. They seemed to want a good look at his face, but as soon as they got it, their own faces fell. Jin was crying.
“Buddy, what’s the matter?” his father asked, resting his hand on his head.
His mom fished through her giant blue pocketbook for her stash of tissues. Eyes wide, she dangled one in front of Jin’s nose and asked, “We’re here now. Everything’s fine, isn’t it?”
No, everything was not fine.
“Why didn’t you take me home the other day?” Jin asked, feeling angry and hurt all over again. “Why did you let them bring me back here?”
His father blanched. “Every time we spoke to the headmaster, he said you were doing great, back in classes, like the trouper we raised. A sore throat from the smoke and a little bump on the head. We thought that was all.” He his lips.
“Was there more?” his mom asked.
One look between his parents told that they’d had this fight already. Mom would have begged to visit again sooner. Jin’s tough-love dad would have put his foot down.
There was no way to explain to them what had happened that night or what he’d been going through since then. He had gone straight back to classes, though not by his own choice. And physically, he was fine. It was just that in every other way—emotionally, psychologically, romantically—he couldn’t have felt more broken.
“We’re just trying to follow the rules,” Jin’s father explained, moving his big hand to squeeze his neck. The weight of it shifted his whole posture and made it uncomfortable to stand still, but it had been so long since he’d been this close to people he loved, he didn’t dare move away. “Because we only want what’s best for you,” his dad added. “We have to take it on faith that these people”—he gestured at the formidable buildings around campus, as if they represented Bo Young and Headmaster Song and the rest of them—“that they know what they’re talking about.”
“They don’t,” Jin said, glancing at the shoddy buildings and the empty commons. So far, nothing at this school made any sense to him.
Case in point, what they called Parents’ Day. They’d made such a big deal about how lucky the students were to get the privilege of seeing their own flesh and blood. And yet it was ten minutes until lunchtime and Jin’s parents’ car was the only one in the parking lot.
“This place is an absolute joke,” he said, sounding cynical enough that his parents shared a troubled look.
“Jin, honey,” his mom said, his hair. “We just want one nice day with you. Your father brought all your favorite foods.”
Sheepishly, his father held up a colorful patchwork quilt and a large briefcase-style contraption made of wicker that Jin had never seen before. Usually when they picnicked, it was a much more casual affair, with paper grocery bags and an old ripped sheet thrown down on the grass by the canoe trail outside their house.
“Pickled okra?” Jin asked in a voice that sounded very much like little-kid Jinie. No one could say his parents weren’t trying.
His dad nodded. “And sweet tea, and biscuits with white gravy. Cheddar grits with extra jalapeños, just the way you like ’em. Oh,” he said, “and one more thing.”
Jin’s mom reached into her purse for a fat, sealed red envelope and held it out to Jin. For the briefest moment, a pain gnawed at Jin’s stomach when he thought back to the mail he was accustomed to receiving. Psycho Killer. Death Boy.
But when Jin looked at the handwriting on the envelope, his face broke into an enormous grin.
Sandeul.
He tore into the envelope and pulled out a card. Inside, every square inch of the card was filled with Sandeul’s large, bubbly handwriting. And there were several pieces of scrawled-on loose-leaf paper because he’d run out of room on the card.

Dear Jin,
Since our phone time is now ridiculously insufficient (Can you please petition for some more? It’s downright unjust), I’m going to get all old-fashioned on you and take up epic letter writing. Enclosed you will find every single minuscule thing that happened to me over the past two weeks. Whether you like it or not …
Jin clutched the envelope to his chest, still grinning, eager to devour the letter as soon as his parents headed home. Sandeul hadn’t given up on him. And his parents were sitting right beside him. It had been way too long since Jin had felt this loved. He reached out and squeezed his father’s hand.
A blaring whistle made both his parents jump. “It’s just the dinner bell,” he explained; they seemed relieved. “Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
As they walked from the hot, hazy parking lot toward the commons where the opening events of Parents’ Day were being held, Jin started to see the campus through his parents’ eyes. He noticed anew the sagging roof of the main office, and the sickly, overripe odor of the rotting peach grove next to the gym. The way the wrought iron of the cemetery gates was overcome with orangey rust. He realized that in only a couple of weeks, he’d grown completely accustomed to Sword & Cross’s many eyesores. 
His parents looked mostly horrified. His father gestured at a dying grapevine winding its decrepit way around the splintering fence at the entrance to the commons.
“Those are chardonnay grapes,” he said, wincing because when a plant felt pain, so did he.
His mother was using two hands to grip her pocket-book to her chest, with both elbows sticking out—the stance she took when she found herself in a neighborhood where she thought she might be mugged. And they hadn’t even seen the reds yet. His parents, who were adamantly against little things like Jin getting a webcam, would hate the idea of constant surveillance at his school.
Jin wanted to protect them from all the atrocities of Sword & Cross, because he was figuring out how to manage—and sometimes even beat—the system here. Just the other day, Jimin had taken him through an obstacle course-like sprint across the campus to point out all the “dead reds” whose batteries had died or been slyly “replaced,” effectively creating the blind spots of the school. His parents didn’t need to know about all that; they just needed to have a good day with him.
Ken was swinging his legs from the bleachers, where he and Jin had promised to meet at noon. He was holding a potted mum.
“Ken, these are my parents, Kim Nam-jung and Kim Sung-hee,” Jin said, gesturing. “Mom and Dad, this is—”
“Lee Jae-hwan,” Ken said formally, extending the mum with both hands. “Thank you for letting me join you for lunch.”
Ever polite, Jin’s parents cooed and smiled, not asking any questions about Ken’s own family’s whereabouts, which Jin hadn’t had the time to explain.
It was another warm, clear day. The acid-green willow trees in front of the library swayed gently in the breeze, and Jin steered his parents to a position where the willows obscured most of the soot stains and the windows broken by the fire. As they spread out the quilt on a dry patch of grass, Jin pulled Ken aside.
“How are you?” Jin asked, knowing that if he’d been the one who had to sit through a whole day honoring everyone’s parents but his, he would have needed a major pick-me-up.
To his surprise, Ken’s head bobbed happily. “This is already so much better than last year!” he said. “And it’s all because of you. I wouldn’t have anyone today if you hadn’t come along.”
The compliment took Jin by surprise and made him look around the quad to see how everyone else was handling the event. Despite the still half-empty parking lot, Parents’ Day seemed to be slowly filling up.
Yoongi sat on a blanket nearby, between a pug-faced man and woman, gnawing hungrily on a turkey leg. Jimin was crouched on a bleacher, whispering to an older punk girl with hypnotizing hot-pink hair. Most likely his big sister. The two of them caught Jin’s eye and Jimin grinned and waved, then turned to the girl beside him to whisper something.
Seo-joon had a huge party of people setting up a picnic lunch on a large bedspread. They were laughing and joking, and a few younger kids were throwing food at each other. They seemed to be having a great time until a corn-on-the-cob grenade went flying and almost blind-sided Hoseok, who was walking across the commons. He scowled at Seo-joon as he guided a man who looked old enough to be his grandfather, patting his elbow as they walked toward a row of lawn chairs set up around the open field.
Taehyung and Jungkook were noticeably missing—and Jin couldn’t picture what either of their families would look like. As angry and embarrassed as he’d been after Taehyung bailed on him for the second time at the lake, he was still dying to catch a glimpse of anyone related to him. But then, thinking back to Taehyung’s thin file in the archive room, Jin wondered whether he even kept in touch with anyone from his family.
Jin’s mother doled cheddar grits onto four plates, and his father topped the mounds with freshly chopped jalapeños. After one bite, Jin’s mouth was on fire, just the way he liked it. Ken seemed unfamiliar with the typical Georgia fare Jin had grown up with. He looked particularly terrified by the pickled okra, but as soon as he took a bite, he gave Jin a surprised smile of approval.
Jin’s mom and dad had brought with them every single one of Jin’s favorite foods, even the pecan pralines from the family drugstore down the block. His parents chomped happily on either side of him, seeming glad to fill their mouths with something other than talk of death.
Jin should have been enjoying his time with them, and washing it all down with his beloved Georgia sweet tea, but he felt like an imposter son for pretending this elysian lunch was normal for Sword & Cross. The whole day was such a sham.
At the sound of a short, feeble round of applause, Jin looked over at the bleachers, where Bo Young stood next to Headmaster Song, a man whom Jin had never seen in the flesh before. He recognized him from the unusually dim portrait that hung in the main lobby of the school, but he saw now that the artist had been generous. Ken had already told him that the headmaster showed up on campus only one day of the year—Parents’ Day—with no exceptions. Otherwise, he was a recluse who didn’t leave his Tybee Island mansion, not even when a student at his school passed away. The man’s jowls were swallowing his chin and his bovine eyes stared out into the crowd, not seeming to focus on anything.
At his side Bo Young stood, legs akimbo in white stockings. She had a lipless smile plastered across her face, and the headmaster was blotting his big forehead with a napkin. Both had their game faces on today, but it seemed to be taking a lot out of them.
“Welcome to Sword & Cross’s one-hundred-and-fifty-ninth annual Parents’ Day,” Headmaster Song said into a microphone.
“Is he kidding?” Jin whispered to Ken. It was hard to imagine Parents’ Day during the antebellum period.
Ken rolled his eyes. “Surely a typo. I’ve told them to get him new reading glasses.”
“We have a long and fun-filled day of family time scheduled for you, beginning with this leisurely picnic lunch—”
“Usually we only get nineteen minutes,” Ken interrupted in an aside to Jin’s parents, who stiffened.
Jin smiled over Ken’s head and mouthed, “He’s kidding.”
“Next you’ll have your choice of activities. Our very own biologist, Ms. Kang, will deliver a fascinating lecture in the library on the local Savannah flora found on campus. Coach Woo-bin will supervise a series of family-friendly races out here on the lawn. And Mr. Lee will offer a historical guided tour of our prized heroes’ cemetery. It’s going to be a very busy day. And yes,” Headmaster Song said with a cheesy, toothy grin, “you will be tested on this.”
It was just the right kind of bland and hackneyed joke to earn some canned laughter out of the bunch of visiting family members. Jin rolled her eyes at Ken. This depressing attempt at good-natured chuckling made it all too clear that everyone was here in order to feel better about leaving their children in the hands of the Sword & Cross faculty. The Kims laughed, too, but kept looking at Jin for more cues on how to handle themselves.
After lunch, the other families around the commons packed up their picnics and retreated to various corners. Jin got the feeling that very few people were actually participating in the school-sanctioned events. No one had followed Ms. Kang up to the library, and so far only Hoseok and his grandfather had climbed into a potato sack at the other end of the field.
Jin didn’t know where Yoongi or Jimin or Seo-joon had sneaked off to with their families, and he still hadn’t seen Taehyung. He did know that his own parents would be disappointed if they saw nothing of the campus and didn’t participate in any planned events. Since Mr. Lee’s guided tour seemed like the least of the evils, Jin suggested they pack up their leftovers and join him by the cemetery gates.
As they were on the way over, Jimin swung himself off the top bleacher like a gymnast dismounting a parallel bar. He stuck his landing right in front of Jin’s parents.
“Helloooo,” he crooned, doing his best crazy-boy impression.
“Mom and Dad,” Jin said, squeezing their shoulders, “this is my good friend Jimin.”
“And this”—Jimin pointed at the tall, hot-pink-headed girl who was slowly picking her way down the bleacher stairs, “is my sister, Jisoo.”
Jisoo ignored Jin’s extended hand and swept him into her open arms for an extended, intimate hug. Jin could feel their bones crunching together. The intense hug lasted long enough for Jin to wonder what was up with it, but just as he was starting to feel uncomfortable, Jisoo let him go.
“It’s so good to meet you,” she said, taking Jin’s hand.
“Likewise,” Jin said, giving Jimin a sideways glance.
“Are you two going on Mr. Lee’s tour?” Jin asked Jimin, who was also looking at Jisoo as if she were crazy.
Jisoo opened , but Jimin quickly cut her off. “Hell no,” he said. “These activities are for absolute lame-o’s.” He glanced at Jin’s parents. “No offense.”
Jisoo shrugged. “Maybe we’ll have a chance to catch up later!” she called to Jin before Jimin tugged her away.
“They seemed nice,” Jin’s mother said in the probing voice she used when she wanted Jin to explain something.
“Um, why was that girl so into you?” Ken asked.
Jin looked at Ken, then at his parents. Did he really have to defend, in front of them, the fact that someone might like him?
“Seokjin!” Mr. Lee called, waving from the otherwise unoccupied meet-up point by the cemetery gates. “Over here!”
Mr. Lee clasped both of his parents’ hands warmly and even gave Ken’s shoulders a squeeze. Jin was trying to decide whether he should be more annoyed by Mr. Lee’s participation in Parents’ Day or impressed by his fake show of enthusiasm. But then he began speaking and surprised him.
“I practice for this day all year,” he whispered. “A chance to take the students out in the fresh air and explain the many marvels of this place—oh, I do love it. It’s the closest a reform school teacher gets to a real field trip. ’Course, no one’s ever shown up for my tours in years past, which makes you my inaugural tour—”
“Well, we’re honored,” Jin’s dad boomed, giving Mr. Lee a big smile. Immediately, Jin could tell that it wasn’t just Dad’s cannon-hungry Civil War buff side speaking. He clearly felt that Mr. Lee was legit. And his father was the best judge of character he knew.
Already the two men had started trooping down the steep slope at the entrance of the cemetery. Jin’s mom left the picnic basket at the gates and gave Jin and Ken one of her well-worn smiles.
Mr. Lee waved a hand to get their attention. “First, a bit of trivia. What”—he raised his eyebrows—“would you guess is the oldest element of this cemetery?”
While Jin and Ken looked down at their feet— avoiding his eyes as they did during class—Jin’s father stood on his toes to take a gander at some of the larger statues.
“Trick question!” Mr. Lee bellowed, patting the ornate wrought iron gates. “This front portion of the gates was built by the original proprietor in 1831. They say his wife, Ellamena, had a lovely garden, and she wanted something to keep the guinea hens out of her tomatoes.” He laughed under his breath. “That was before the war. And before the sinkhole. Moving on!”
As they walked, Mr. Lee rattled off fact after fact about the construction of the cemetery, the historical backdrop against which it was built, and the “artist”—even he used the term loosely—who’d come up with the winged beast sculpture at the top of the monolith in the center of the grounds. Jin’s father peppered Mr. Lee with questions while Jin’s mom ran her hands over the tops of some of the prettiest headstones, letting out a murmured “Oh my” every time she paused to read an inscription. Ken shuffled after Jin’s mother, possibly wishing he’d latched on to a different family for the day. And Jin brought up the rear, considering what might happen if he were to give his parents his own personal tour of the cemetery.
Here’s where I served my first detention. …
And here’s where a falling marble angel nearly decapitated me. …
And here’s where a reform school boy you’d never approve of took me on the strangest picnic of my life.
“Jungkook,” Mr. Lee called as he led the tour around the monolith.
Jungkook was standing with a tall, dark-haired man in a tailored black business suit. Neither of them heard Mr. Lee or saw the party he was leading on the tour. They were talking quietly and gesturing in a very involved manner at the oak tree, the way Jin had seen his drama teacher gesture when the students were blocking a scene in a play.
“Are you and your father late arrivals to our tour?” Mr. Lee asked Jungkook, this time more loudly. “You’ve missed most of it, but there’s still an interesting fact or two I’m sure I could impart.”
Jungkook slowly turned his head their way, then back at his companion, who seemed amused. Jin didn’t think the man, with his classic tall, dark, and handsome good looks and huge gold watch, looked old enough to be Jungkook’s father. But maybe he had just aged well. Jungkook’s eyes skimmed Jin’s bare neck, and he seemed briefly disappointed. He blushed, because he could feel his mother taking in the whole scene and wondering just what was going on.
Jungkook ignored Mr. Lee and approached Jin’s mother, drawing her hand to his lips before anyone could even introduce them. “You must be Jin’s older sister,” he said rakishly.
To his left, Ken gagged into his elbow and whispered so only Jin could hear, “Please tell me someone else is nauseated.”
But Jin’s mom seemed somewhat dazzled, in a way that made Jin—and his father, clearly—uncomfortable.
“No, we can’t stay for the tour,” Jungkook announced, winking at Jin and drawing back just as Jin’s father approached. “But it was so lovely”—he glanced at each of the three of them, excluding only Ken—“to encounter you here. Let’s go, Dad.”
“Who was that?” Jin's mother whispered when Jungkook and his father, or whoever he had been, disappeared back up the side of the cemetery.
“Oh, just one of Jin’s admirers,” Ken said, trying to lighten the mood and doing exactly the opposite.
“One of?” Jin’s father peered down at Ken.
In the late-afternoon light, Jin could see for the first time a few gray whiskers in his dad’s beard. He didn’t want to spend today’s last moments convincing his father not to worry about the boys at his reform school.
“It’s nothing, Dad. Ken’s kidding.”
“We want you to be careful, Seokjin,” he said.
Jin thought about what Taehyung had suggested—quite strongly—the other day. That maybe he shouldn’t be at Sword & Cross at all. And suddenly he wanted so badly to bring it up to his parents, to beg and plead for them to take him far away from here.
But it was that same memory of Taehyung that made Jin hold his tongue. The thrilling touch of his skin on his when he’d pushed him down at the lake, the way his eyes were sometimes the saddest things he knew. It felt at once absolutely crazy and absolutely true that it might be worth all of this hell at Sword & Cross just to spend a little more time with Taehyung. Just to see if anything might come of it.
“I hate goodbyes,” Jin’s mother breathed, interrupting his daughter’s thoughts to draw him in for a brisk hug. Jin looked down at his watch and his face fell. He didn’t know how the afternoon had gone by so quickly, how it could already be time for them to go.
“You’ll call us on Wednesday?” his dad asked.
As they all walked back up toward the parking lot, Jin’s parents gripped his hands. Each of them gave him another strong hug and series of kisses. When they shook Ken’s hand and wished him well, Jin saw a video camera clamped to the brick post housing a broken call box at the exit. There must have been a motion detector attached to the reds, because the camera was panning, following their movement. This one hadn’t been on Jimin’s tour and was certainly not a dead red. Jin’s parents noticed nothing—and maybe it was better that way.
Then they were walking away, looking back twice to wave at the two boys standing at the entrance to the main lobby. Dad cranked up his old black Chrysler New Yorker and rolled down the window.
“We love you,” he called out so loudly that Jin would have been embarrassed if he hadn’t been so sad to see them go.
Jin waved back. “Thank you,” he whispered. For the pralines and the okra. For spending all day here. For taking Ken under your wing, no questions asked. For still loving me despite the fact that I scare you.
When the taillights disappeared around the bend, Ken tapped Jin’s back. “I was thinking I’d go see my dad.” He kicked the ground with the toe of his boot and looked bashfully up at Jin. “Any chance you’d want to come? If not, I understand, seeing as it involves another trip inside—” He jerked his thumb back toward the depths of the cemetery.
“Of course I’ll come,” Jin said.
They walked around the perimeter of the cemetery, staying high on the rim until they’d reached the far east corner, where Ken paused in front of a grave.
It was modest, white, and covered with a tawny layer of pine needles. Ken got down on his knees and started to wipe it clean.
LEE KUK-HUI, the simple tombstone read, WORLD’S BEST FATHER.
Jin could hear Ken’s poignant voice behind the inscription, and he felt tears spring to his eyes. He didn’t want Ken to see—after all, Jin still had his parents. If anyone should cry right now, it should be … Ken was crying. He was trying to hide it with the mildest of sniffles and a few tears wiped on the ragged hem of his sweater. Jin got down on his knees, too, and started helping him brush the needles away. He put his arms around his friend and held on as tight as he could.
When Ken drew back and thanked Jin, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter.
“I usually write him something,” he explained.
Jin wanted to give Ken a moment alone with his dad, so he got up, took a step back, and turned away, heading down the slope toward the heart of the cemetery. His eyes were still a little glassy, but he thought he could see someone sitting alone on top of the monolith. Yes. A guy with his arms wrapped around his knees. He couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten up there, but there he was.
He looked stiff and lonely, as if he’d been there all day. He didn’t see Jin or Ken. He didn’t seem to see anything. But Jin didn’t have to be close enough to see those violet-gray eyes to know who it was.
All this time Jin had been searching for explanations about why Taehyung’s file was so sparse, what secrets his ancestor’s missing book held in the library, where his mind had traveled to that day he’d asked about his family. Why he’d been so hot and cold with him … always.
After such an emotional day with his own parents, the thought nearly brought Jin to his knees with sadness. Taehyung was alone in the world.