AN: Hi! Sorry for not updating... I promised more JCW and NJH and hope that you are ok with what I've done... There will be more because JCW and NJH will need to start giving Min-seo advice her love life which is going to get very, very complicated soon... After all, what is a girl to do when she has two gorgeous men around her?

 

Dear Diary,

 

I am spending today on the set of Aba-mama’s new drama!!! This isn’t normally something to be excited about except he is getting old and was cast as a father in a campus drama. And I have a cameo. 

 

—

 

The weather was perfect. Sunny, hot, but with enough breeze that no one feels suffocated by the heat. My good mood was new. Until yesterday we’d been at the villa and I’d been having to spend time with Joon-ho. He’d been increasingly determined to get me to call him Oppa. I was increasingly determined not to call him Oppa. The closest I’d come was when we’d gone out for a family meal and a group of girls saw him and started calling him “Oppa! Oppa! Saranghae!”

 

“Stop laughing Geogeo…”

 

“But… the O word… they keep calling you the O word!” I giggled.

“Shut up,” he said sotto voce when our parents glanced over. “Look, Geogeo. This is… I’m not like the Hyungs. I do not like the attention, ok?”

 

His admission was surprising coming from someone who had walked in Paris Fashion Week. It also wasn’t important enough to me to push the issue.  So I just ignored him for the rest of the meal. I underestimated his fangirls though. When I went to the restroom, a couple of them cornered me wanting to know who I was and what I was doing spending time with their Oppa. I wasn’t his girlfriend was I?

 

“Park Joon-ho is a family friend. He isn’t my oppa.”

 

I shook my hands hard to get rid of the water. The girls jumped back and they glared at me. Their persistence bothered me. I wanted to tell them to leave him alone. To leave all of us alone. But eomma always said to ignore people in situations like this. Just go on with your life and unless you thought you might be in real danger do not cause a fuss. These girls had a different idea though. They followed me into the corridor and peppered me with questions about Joon-ho. Everything from his favourite colour to his favourite snacks to his favourite cartoon character. The temptation to tell them was strong until I saw him standing there watching us. I looked at the girls. Each of them was well dressed. Their hair and makeup perfectly aligning with the very latest trends everything looking perfect and put together. No wonder they thought I was the odd one out at a table full of famous people. I wasn’t messy. But my hair was in a knot on top of my head and needed to be washed—swimming in the pool didn’t count—; my dress used to belong to my eomma and had a pretty obvious grease stain on the skirt from where I’d dropped bbq onto it; and, as Aba-mama’s Gongju, I wasn’t allowed to wear much makeup. 

 

“O…” I caught myself just in time and broke away from the girls and ran towards him. I grabbed his arm and pulled him away before the girls could follow us. He followed along and we were outside before I realised that our parents were still at the table. I looked to where I’d been holding him and dropped his arm as if it had burnt me. “Sorry.”

 

“What was that about?”

 

“Those girls. They wanted to know what I was doing with their precious O-word.”

 

“Are you going to start saying O-word all the time now?” he chuckled. His face was even more attractive under the lights that were illuminating the path. And I was self-conscious again of how different I was to the school girls who were so in love with him. I had my puppy fat.

 

“Yes… I don’t know. I…” 

 

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and led us back inside the restaurant. The girls were waiting for us—I wondered where their families were.

 

“Girls,” he called them over with a friendly wave. Giggling and blushing they shuffled over and shyly asked if they could get a photograph with him. “I’m sorry. I don’t take pictures when I’m with family.”

 

“Is she your family?” one of them asked.

 

“No,” he looked down at me. A funny expression on his face that gave me no warning for what he would say next. “I’m her favourite Oppa. I’m the Oppa that she can’t get enough of… isn’t that right Geogeo?”

 

That had been out last night. Today I was wearing a school uniform and having my makeup and hair done by Aba-mama’s stylist. 

 

“Omo. I can’t believe you are eighteen now! What is the drama you are doing now?”

 

“A sageuk. I’m the younger version of the female lead,” I didn’t really want to talk about the drama though. The actress playing the female lead was very nice to me in a not very nice way. She kept asking when my parents, particularly Aba-mama, would come to the set when we started filming next week. Worse yet, she had very sweetly told me that I didn’t look like either of my parents.

 

“Oh that should be fun!” but the stylist was distracted by a loud crash. One of the cameras had fallen and was now lying broken on the ground. “Omo! I hope that this doesn’t…”

 

Then Aba-mama came over with a bright smile on his face. He reassured the camera man and smoothed everything over. 

 

“Oh, Ji Chang-wook oppa!” the woman sighed. She had the grace to blush when she realised that his daughter was sitting right in front of her. 

 

—

 

Back at home, Aba-mama and eomma were laughing about something while halmoni fixed us dinner. I was sitting on the floor in the living room with my revision in front of me. Maths was my worst subject and not one that anyone could help me with. Eomma claimed to have forgotten everything and Halmoni had warned me from even thinking of asking “her pretty, but stupid, son”.

 

So I watched them instead. Even though they had been married for twenty-five years, they always acted like newlyweds. Laughing at inside jokes or sitting next to each other holding hands while they watched a movie. Eomma leant over and said something to Aba-mama which led him to look over at me. I met his eye and knew, like every child does, when they were about to have a “serious” conversation with their parents. It didn’t come until after dinner. They took me onto the roof and we sat on the patio furniture. 

 

“Min-seo-ah…” Eomma began. “Min-seo-ah… I was wondering… I got an email from Helen, do you remember her?”

 

I nodded. I remembered Helen. Helen was the mother of James, my penpal. 

 

“Well, their son, James, is going to come to Korea for the summer. And we were wondering if you minded him staying with us.”

 

“In the Oppas room?” I asked. 

 

“Yes. Your oppas will stay with Park Seo-Joon and Won Jin-ah if they take leave.”

 

“Oh.” 

 

“What do you think?”

 

“No, I mean, great. But… why?” I asked. He hadn’t mentioned anything in his last email.

 

“He wants to travel a bit before he starts going to college… and we were thinking it would be nice for you since the Hyungs are in the military.”

 

Eomma squeezed my hand. They thought my sulking during the vacation was because I missed Oppa1 and Oppa2. But that wasn’t the reason. Joon-ho was. I looked at the stars that weren’t as easy to see in Seoul. They reminded me of the night we’d been lying by the pool. Something strange was going on with him and I couldn’t put my finger on it. 

 

“Min-seo?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Are you ok with him staying?”

 

“Oh! Yes. I would like that. We share emails. To improve my English. I was just thinking that he hadn’t mentioned it in his last email,” that was sort of true.

 

“Really? No wonder that you do so well in English,” Aba-mama chuckled. “That settles it. Shall I drive you to school tomorrow?”

 

“Please,” my answer sounded a bit sad. It didn’t mean to be like this but it was hard to be happy when I had so many things on my mind. 

 

“Ok, Why don’t you stay up and look at the stars a bit more, I know you must be missing Jeju,” Eomma kissed my forehead and pushed Aba-mama back into the house. 

 

I took out my phone and flicked through my messages from friends. All of them were excited about school starting again. They wanted to know about the Hyungs—but not, thankfully, as fans. Was it true that I could date (in secret) now? I was sending them pictures from the shoot today when a new message came in from Joon-ho.

 

“We are moving next door.”

 

The phone slipped from my hand. Next door? Were any of the houses even for sale?

 

###Two Months Later###

 

We picked up James at the airport. The flight from Los Angeles took over 13 hours, so after we picked him up we were going home even though it landed in the afternoon. He could take a nap then we would go for a meal. Since it was confirmed he was coming we had been exchanging lots of emails and did some video calls so that he could practice Korean—his pronunciation was terrible.  The video calls had also let me see how handsome he was. People always posted their best pictures on SNS so it was no way to tell how someone really looked. But during the call I could see that he really did have a strong jaw and blue-blue eyes. He was even more handsome in person. When he came through the doors, he just had a hiking backpack with him. He dressed casually and waved when he saw me. 

“James!” I rushed over to say hi. Just when I got to him I stopped. Did I hug him? What did you do? Especially with foreigners who not only hugged but sometimes kissed each other on the cheek when they met—even if it was for the first time. The situation made me blush when I thought about him kissing my cheek. 

 

“Hey, Min-seo,” he seemed to know that I was nervous so he put his hands up for me to high-five. I did but was surprised when he interlocked our fingers. “Anyeong…”

 

His voice was soft and his eyes were smiling.

 

“Anyeong,” I replied. There was something private about saying “Anyeong” to him. Probably because he was American. 

 

By then my parents had come over and they were greeting him in not very good English. Both of them looked very pleased when he responded in Korean and by the time we were heading back to the house we were speaking in a mix of English and Korean. As we pulled into the garage, I noticed that there was a moving truck in front of the next house over. Movers were carefully carrying boxes and furniture in. Hyung-nim was standing in the front pointing and telling everyone where things needed to go. She waved when she saw us and came over. Eomma introduced James and invited them to have dinner with us. Hyung-nim looked relieved because there was a problem with the oven and the stove. 

I grabbed James and showed him around the house. By then I was no longer shy. After showing him his room, the bathroom, the living space, I took him up onto the roof. It was my favourite place and he agreed that the view was beautiful. He frowned and asked me who the man was who was glaring at us. I looked to where he was pointing and there was Joon-ho. He had his hand stuffed into his pockets. When I waved he turned away and went back into the house. I explained that he was a childhood friend and had just moved in next door. It surprised James that he was still living with his parents. I realised that there would be a lot of things he would find strange here and could help but feel a little uncomfortable with his tone that sounded a bit critical.

 

“It is really common. And Joon-ho is always going around the world modeling that it doesn’t make sense for him to get his own place.”

 

“But what if he wants to date?”

 

Yes, I realised. There were a lot of differences between us. Americans… I shook my head. And we went back inside. While James napped, I went next door to say hi to our new neighbours. I asked if Joon-ho was in. Hyung-nim said he was unpacking his room. I found it and pushed open the door which wasn’t closed all the way. Inside I gasped. His back was… he had broad shoulders that tapered at his waist. There was a tattoo of a rabbit between his shoulders. A rabbit should have looked feminine but on Joon-ho it was… y. 

 

“I! I’m so sorry,” I closed my eyes. With them closed I started rambling. “I just wanted to say. And that I thought it was… you could have waved back you know. I really didn’t mean… the door was open. Could you put a shirt on?”

 

He didn’t say anything, and, as the silenced stretched out, I decided he must have put his shirt back on. I peaked. He was facing me. I squeezed them shut again because I all I could see were perfect abs, perfect body. I made sense why girls were crazy about him but I felt like I was betraying some code that said you couldn’t find your childhood tormentor and family friend y.

 

“I’ll put a shirt on if you call me Oppa.”

 

“Please stop with that,” I begged. “I don’t know why you want me to call you Oppa. I just… please put a shirt on. I’m so embarrassed right now. Please…”

 

“Ok. I’ve put it on.”

 

“Thank you,” I opened my eyes. He had put a shirt on. A button up shirt which he hadn’t buttoned up. I turned around and ran to the door and tried to open it. But nothing. It wouldn’t budge. I tried again but nothing. But Nothing! I was stuck in the room with Joon-ho. A partly shirtless Joon-ho. Not a good idea.

 

“Did you close the door? Geogeo. Don’t you think there was a reason I left it open? This house is falling apart. The door is broken. Do you have your phone?”

 

I patted my pockets but nothing. “What about you?”

 

“No. I left it downstairs charging.”

 

I started pounding on the door and shouting for someone to come and find us. He buttoned his shirt and walked over to his desk where he used his laptop to send a message to Hyung-nim that we were trapped in the room. She replied that she would call someone who could let us out… because it turned out that you couldn’t open it from the outside as well. When it became clear that we were stuck together, I started looking around his room. It was nothing like I expected. As well as his computer, there were loads of spare monitors, and the shelves were full of all kinds of cameras. Ones you could film with, ones that took pictures and a couple of very old fashioned ones. I reached up to touch one of the ones that looked really old. I couldn’t quite reach it and then I felt him standing behind me and easily taking it down from the shelf. His proximity caused my heart to beat so fast. This had never happened before. I’d never been so aware of him before. It was easy to know he was handsome. But that was just an objective fact and didn’t mean I had ever felt my heart flutter.

 

“Here,” he handed it to me. “But be careful.”

 

“It is very pretty,” I said.

 

“And rare. I found it in a small shop in Paris. Wait. Stay there.”

 

He took the camera from me and put it on his desk. Then came back and tucked my hair behind my ears. I stared straight ahead. Then glanced up to see he had a crooked grin on his face. He told me to stay still and then fiddled with the camera and stood back so that he could take a photograph. He asked me to relax and try to at least look happy to be there. I gave him an ugly face then laughed when he became exasperated with me. 

 

“Can I see?”

 

“Nope. This camera uses film. I’ll need to process the film first. When it is done I’ll show you.”

 

I’d never seen a film camera before and asked how it worked. He showed me then suggested I take a picture of him. I raised it up and tried. The sound of the shutter closing. The weight of the camera. Having to wind the film. It all felt strange but in a good way. It was exciting. I jumped and nearly dropped the camera when there was a bang on the door. The locksmith was there and in the middled of freeing us from his room. Joon-ho took the camera from me and rolled the film. He took it out and put it on his desk. He did all of this in silence but his face said a lot. He looked happy and relaxed as if there was something calming about taking photographs or something like that. 

 

Once we were free it was already time to go for dinner. Aba-mama had decided that we need to go for a proper Korean bbq since it was James’ first night in Seoul. When we sat, I found myself between James and Joon-ho. As usual, when I asked Joon-ho to pass me the water, he told me to call him Oppa first. 

 

“Here,” James took the other water and poured me a cup. “I thought you could only call your brother’s Oppa.”

 

“Yes, but you can also call older men you are close with oppa,” Eomma explained. She put a hand on Aba-mama’s shoulder. “I call Chang-wook, Oppa all the time. But I call him Orabeoni on extra special occasions.”

 

“So does that make me your Oppa?” James asked with a laugh.

 

“Sure. Should I call you Oppa?” 

 

“Yeah. I like the sound of that.”

 

“Baegopa Op..” just as I was about to finish calling him Oppa, Joon-ho stuffed meat into my mouth.

 

“What did I tell you about aegyo?” he said. “Don’t use it.”

 

I glared at him but couldn’t say anything because of the delicious meat. Our parents burst out laughing. 

 

“Omo! Omo! Joon-i! What was that?” His father started clapping. “You take after me! I told you he would take after me!”

 

“And she takes after you,” Aba-mama said to Eomma. “Calling everyone Oppa! Oooo… Joon-ho, you poor man!”

 

But I couldn’t understand why they thought the whole situation was so funny. I tried to make eye contact with Joon-ho, hoping that he could explain. But he was drinking his beer, with a slight flush on his face.

 

 

 

Next Chapter... Chang-wook drops Min-seo off at school; Ji-hyun has words with Joon-ho; Halmonis return to the story with food and words of warning.