09. THE IN-LAW'S BIG DOOR.

Seoul Station has a strange feeling to it.

A brisk, breathless sort of feeling. An empty, yet hopeful kind of feeling—the kind you get when you finish a book, one that had you fixated on every line, from beginning to end.

Trains, arriving and departing. Large electronic boards with scrolling characters and departure times. The crying of an infant, the chatter of children, the clipped tones of an ongoing business conversation on the phone, the raspy grumble of an elderly man as he bears the weight of his many bags on his shoulder. Everyone going somewhere. Everyone leaving something behind.

"Everything passes." wrote Dazai Osamu in No Longer Human, "That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth...Everything passes."

And so is the way of life.

"I never took you as one to ride trains." I confess to Jungkook as we ascend together up the stairs. My newly dyed hair spills behind my back as I gather it behind my shoulder, keeping it from falling into my face.

I'd had blonde hair all throughout college, and yesterday Sooyoung was adamant that nothing else would make me look more eye-catching and youthful than a return to the past, especially when I was already wearing black from bottom to top. Jungkook, too, had agreed in the morning that the color suited me well, though in the past few hours it seemed to distract him more than once. When I prompted myself to ask him why he seemed so off-put by my hair, he'd simply replied that he hadn't seen me more than once a year in the years I'd gone to college. It was the novelty of it all, he'd claimed. ("Really? Are you sure it's not because you think I'm hot?" I'd joked immediately after, to which Jungkook had chuckled and shoved his hands in his pockets in answer.)

"Public transportation is better for the environment." Jungkook tells me, gritting his teeth as he stares ahead at the crowd awaiting us. His hand reaches out to rest protectively on my waist, pulling me inwards towards his chest when a large family barrels past us on the platform. "I forgot today was the last day before schools open again. So, so many people..." he mutters, sounding slightly distraught.

Jungkook never much liked tight, congested spaces full of strangers—because, he would later emphasize, public spaces were essentially cesspools of debris and therefore prime breeding grounds for virulent diseases—thus, historically, he avoided them whenever he could. It was almost as if the sun rose from the east this morning when Jungkook had informed me that we would travel to Busan by train, and that he had already purchased two business-class tickets.

Seeing how he was awfully nervous, I lean over to whisper in his ear. "I'm proud of you for reducing Seoul's pollution." I declare with a giggle, "That's my man, saving Korea and the planet Earth, one Busan train ticket at a time."

Jungkook laughs, finally seeming to loosen up a little as he dips his head and smiles at the ground. "Thanks, Yerim." he murmurs gratefully, though his hand still fidgets in his pocket as he eyes the plethora of teenagers and university students gathered to either side of us.

The ten minutes that pass before we board our train feel like almost an eternity. Jungkook and I stand next to each other, the backs of our hands brushing against each other every once in a while.

Touch is an interesting sensation; the guiding instinct of humanity within us is driven with some form of craving towards it. Touch and touching, when intentional, are symbolistic. It's the most archaic form of giving and receiving, of exploration and reaffirmation.

Slowly, I reach out my hand and thread it through Jungkook's. He doesn't seem to mind as I lean my body against his arm, and I smile giddily towards myself, so much that there's an extra skip to my step when we finally board the train. I sift through the corridor, pulling Jungkook along behind me, our hands connected between us.

"Can I sit in the window seat?" I turn and ask him, when I finally let go.

"You always like windows." he observes as he complies, and I settle against the glass in content.

"Not windows." I correct him, "The view. I like watching things pass by. It's like breathing—you don't really realize it's happening until you think about it. Time passes by, people pass by, the more unaware of it we are, the less it feels like one step closer to the end..."

I glance up from my lap when Jungkook's suit jacket suddenly blankets my upper body.

"It's cold in here." he coughs lightly as he sits into the seat beside me.

With a grateful nod, I pull the heavy fabric up to cover my neck before I turn towards the long glass panel once more.

—

Jungkook's parents lived in Haeundae-gu, which was the residence address for many of Busan's most affluent. His brothers were out of the country at the moment, meaning that they wouldn't be present today.

Jungkook and I arrive at around 10:30 A.M., where a family employee picks us up from the station, but it isn't until the car is parked and I step out onto the cement that my nervous tic begins to show again. As we walk from the parking garage to the elevator, Jungkook glances down to see me turning my ring, over and over again, and picks up on my turmoil quickly.

"Yerim, marriage is two people's matter." He says when the elevator opens onto the floor which his parents lived, "I'm independent of my parents and have been for a while now. Whether or not they accept you doesn't change anything."

"I know." I say, even though I continue to turn my ring with my fingers. I glance down at my feet as I walk, unable to churn out any witty defenses like I usually would.

"It may seem like in this day and age, in-laws are of lesser and lesser importance." my mother's voice rings in my ears as our footsteps come to a pause. "Young people think that they do not need their parents' approval for marriage, and that is true—not much can prevent them from getting married under the law. However, there is less of a guarantee their marriage will be a happy one."

As a woman, it is my husband's family who I am responsible to serve for the latter half of my life. In their health and in their sickness, it will be my duty to care for them as my own. No matter how much Jungkook sacrifices for me, this will be my burden to carry, and mine alone.

The door opens.

—

Jungkook's mother looks exactly like she did ten years ago. Her hair is a pristine jet black, cut short. She has high cheekbones and an elegantly sloped nose, with fair skin and barely-visible wrinkles around her eyes from smiling. The dress she's wearing is a muted jade, matching the color of her eyeshadow. She's beautiful, to say in the least, despite nearing her fifties in age.

"Yerim-ah, we're so, so happy to have you here." she gushes as she immediately reaches out to hold my hands in a genuine welcome. Despite the warmth in her voice, there's a resounding sophistication in her every action—each syllable is reserved, spoken with the polite distance of sophistication, but her eyes are lively, shining with movement and hidden joy.

I had yet to fully rise from my first bow as I bow again, thanking her for having me in the first place. That's when she hugs me, and my nose tickles with the pleasant fragrance of Hermès.

Jungkook moves to embrace his mother as well before taking my hand in his to greet his father, who had descended from the stairs upon hearing our entrance.

I bow twice, once with Jungkook and another by myself as his father approaches us from the banister.

"It's good to see you both." the elder Dr. Jeon greets us with a warm nod of approval. He, in contrast with his wife, looks to have aged much in the timespan which I had not seen him. His once-black hair was now streaked with grey and white, face seemingly more stern than it used to be, yet somehow resigned at the same time. "Welcome, Yerim." he says, taking evident satisfaction in my presence.

"Thank you, ahjussi. it is my honor to be here." I murmur, as placidly as I can muster.

"You must be hungry," Jungkook's mother says, now standing at her husband's side, turning to inform him, "I've asked the cook to prepare a Western meal today. I heard Yerim also went to college in the U.S. like our Jungkook did, and I thought she might enjoy a Western-style breakfast once in a while."

Jungkook's father gestures for me to speak. "How does that sound, Yerim-ah?"

I dip my head respectfully. "I do indeed like Western-style food. Thank you for thinking of me, and I'm sorry to have troubled you, ahjumeoni, ahjussi." I return politely, to which Jungkook's parents nod in appraisal.

"What a well-mannered child." Jungkook's father sighs, finally seeming to smile.

"Yes, yes." Jungkook's mother agrees. "We've heard a lot about you these years, Yerim, and we're more than glad to finally meet you."

"That's right," Jungkook's father continues, "Please, call us father and mother."

I lower my head even further, "You're too kind, abeonim, eomeonim."

—

The truth is, I know I shouldn't have questioned Jungkook in the past two days.

Jeon Jungkook never bet his word against a losing game. He doesn't make empty promises, because the only time he guarantees something is when he knows he can win. It's the only way in which he and I are very alike, except Jungkook is better at it than I am.

Today being a prime example: His parents seem to truly delight in his choice of wife, despite my inner fear that they would find a fatal flaw within my conduct. In Eastern countries, it's not often that a woman's in-laws are this kind, for even if they are satisfied in their daughter in-law, they might often act unreasonably harsh in order to intimidate her and therefore grow her sense of filial obedience.

In this way, I feel like Jungkook has planned things out very well from the beginning. Within our society, there are important factors in marriage, external pressures that don't exist during dating. Marriage, unlike dating, is the uniting of two families entirely. Two people, as well as two families, are put on a balance scale, one that is oftentimes wished to end up even. Appearance, age, occupation, personality, income, family background, commitment, ability to produce a family, ability to groom that family, the values which children are raised upon—every aspect is significant to the imaginary scale, in which a marriage may or may not be determined as "proper". While Jungkook's proposal to me stemmed from our long years of friendship and our understandings of one another, it's impossible that Jungkook did not first consider that scale to some degree. To his parents, and to many others, the matching of Jeon Jungkook and Kim Yerim sounds nothing short of right.

"Thank you for choosing our Jungkook. We know he isn't the easiest to build a relationship with, always running to the laboratory to work. You must understand that his experiments, once started, must follow a rigorous time schedule." Jungkook's father says to me as soon as Jungkook excuses himself from the table. "He's always busy with his work, so he doesn't have time to take care of women as much. Your eomeonim often complained to me about such before I retired."

"As long as you don't mind him, Yerim," Jungkook's mother jokes, "If he neglects you more than he should, do tell eomeonim..."

I shake my head, "Don't worry, eomeonim, Jungkook treats me very well. Thank you for looking after me."

"It's us who must thank you, Yerim-ah. You've allowed us to place down a big worry that we'd had for the past years. Jungkook didn't seem interested in marriage at all, unlike his brothers, who married right after they began their careers."

I nod as Jungkook's father sighs once more.

"Jungkook's mother and I were afraid—though now I see that we worried for nothing—that he would try to marry the daughter of that woman."

"Ah yes, the daughter of Jungkook's old caretaker..." Jungkook's mother interjects, "But that was many, many years ago. Don't worry at all about it, Yerim-ah. Jungkook hasn't contacted Seo Joohee or her daughter in years, and now that he has you, I see no reason to."

Seo Joohee.

The name sounds all-too familiar, as if I'd seen it before. Written on...a suitcase, maybe.

Although, I'd never stepped foot in an airport recently. I must've seen it at work or at the house—it was definitely a blue suitcase, labelled in a large sticker near the handle, which I'd pulled out to take to one of our rooms...

Ms. Seo.