-Chapter VI-

“Are you sure you don’t want anything else, Miss Chae?”

Yong Hye sighed. She hated it when her parents hired new maids. It took forever to convince them to call her Yong Hye, and when she did manage, they would only call her Yong Hye when her parents weren’t around. “Call me Yong Hye. We’re about the same age, aren’t we?”

The young woman didn’t answer at first, then when she did, she only nodded shyly.

Yong Hye nodded as well. “So it doesn’t make sense for you to call me Miss Chae, does it?”

“You are my employers’ daughter,” the maid countered.

Yong Hye grinned, thankful for the response. “And as their daughter, I’m asking you to call me by my first name.”

The maid smiled in defeat and looked down at the tray of food she was holding.

“Okay?” Yong Hye asked for confirmation.

Instead of saying anything, the young maid simply placed the tray on the table in front of Yong Hye and left, leaving Yong Hye chuckling and shaking her head. That one was going to be hard to crack.

Moments later, the drawing room doors opened again and Yong Hye’s parents walked in. Every Saturday (or at least every Saturday Yong Hye couldn’t come up with an excuse), Yong Hye visited her parents at their house.

Yong Hye always hated visiting home. Maids ran from room to room in the mansion, cleaning and running errands. Growing up, Yong Hye remembered that there were times that she wouldn’t see either of her parents all day, mostly because of the sheer size of the place. She would help the house maids clean some days, just to make herself feel needed.

Thinking about it now, a lot of the reason Yong Hye wanted to work as a journalist and live as simply as possible is because she lived in such a large place growing up. She could see how unnecessary all the luxuries her parents had indulged in were. Spending time with the maids were some of the happiest memories she had as a child, and those memories had now influenced her adult life. She had happy memories with her parents, yes, but sometimes her parents were too rich for Yong Hye.

“Scaring the maids again?” Yong Hye’s father joked as he and his wife, Yong Hye’s mother, sat on the sofa across from their daughter.

“Of course not,” Yong Hye answered, taking the teapot of hot water one of the maids had left and serving her parents and herself.

“How’s school?” Yong Hye’s mother asked as she placed a teabag in the water. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and, as always, she had a serious look on her face.

“It’s going really well,” Yong Hye answered as she prepared her own tea. “My professor thinks that I’m really talented. He’s friends with an editor for the magazine that I want to work for after I graduate and he said that he’s shown his friend my work, and that they may offer me an internship and, if I do well, a job.”

Her parents exchanged glances.

“Honey,” Yong Hye’s mother sighed, turning to her daughter, folding her hands in her lap. “Are you sure that that’s what you want? You know that we could get you a job at the city’s newspaper….”

Yong Hye sighed. So it was going to be this again. Ever since Yong Hye had told her parents that she wanted to go into journalism instead of business, her parents, mainly her mom, had been trying to convince her to change her mind, and when they realized she wasn’t going to change her mind, they then tried to convince her to work at a large publication where she could make ten times more money than if she worked where she wanted, but the sacrifice would be that she wouldn’t be able to write about what she wanted to. Her dad, thankfully, had stopped bugging her about it. Her mom, however, was another story.

“I don’t want to work there. I don’t want to be told what I should write. I want to be able to write about what I’m interested in,” Yong Hye told her mom firmly.

“Sweetie,” her mother started, her voice becoming hard with anger. “Think about it. If you work at that…gossip magazine, you won’t be able to afford this kind of life!”

“I don’t need this life,” Yong Hye said, getting angry herself. “And it’s not a gossip magazine! It’s an investigative publication!”

“Yong Hye,” her dad sighed warningly. He was generally easygoing, but he was definitely a firm believer in respecting one’s elders.

Yong Hye stopped yelling and slid back into her seat, embarrassed.

“Also,” her mother continued, knowing that Yong Hye wouldn’t fight back now that she had been chastised by her father. “You’re engaged. Think of Taemin! Would he be proud to show off a wife that helps run a large corporation…or an investigative journalist?”

It was a low blow, and everyone in the room, including the maids and butlers who had been standing in the shadows against the walls during the whole conversation.

“Haemi…” This time, Yong Hye’s dad sighed his wife’s name. “That was unnecessary. Everyone knows that Taemin supports Yong Hye, and she supports him, no matter their individual choices, and I know for a fact that Taemin would be proud to show Yong Hye off, no matter what her occupation. They’ve always been that way, and that won’t be changing any time soon, as far as I can tell.”

Yong Hye’s heart filled with love for her father at that moment, and it took the sting out of her mother’s words. Her mother looked at her husband, taken aback.

“What about when they have children?” the older woman cried. “Are the kids going to grow up in a run down apartment, unable to tell people what their mother does for fear that their friends will tell the city mobsters and kill her?”

“That’s a bit dramatic, Mom,” Yong Hye said. “And any kids Taemin and I have will know what I do, and will be some of the most informed kids in the city.” Yong Hye laughed, trying to lighten the mood. “Besides, by the time we start having kids, I plan on being some kind of editor, so I won’t be risking my life, and I might be able to even work from home, so I’d be with them almost all the time.”

“That could take ten years!” her mom cried.

“Yeah?” Yong Hye asked. “I’m only twenty-two, and Taemin’s a few months older. We don’t have to rush to start having kids right away.”

Neither woman said anything, giving the only man a chance to speak.

“Yong Hye, you know that I would prefer you to work in the family business, but I know now that you won’t, and I respect that. However, I would like to see you working somewhere where we wouldn’t have to worry about you so much.” Yong Hye looked down at her hands. She wanted to make her dad happy, and she was failing. “Haemi,” her dad continued, turning to his wife. “You, like I, want the best for our daughter. But forcing her into a life that doesn’t make her happy will not work, and you need to respect her decisions.”

Still, neither woman spoke.

After sitting in silence for a while, Yong Hye stood, said good bye to her parents, and left, leaving her tea untouched and feeling very out of place in her childhood home.

Thanks for reading/subscribing~!

I'm sort of breaking my own rule here. I haven't written chapter seven yet, but I wanted to post this chapter, because I feel really bad. I haven't forgotten this story, I've just been so wrapped up in finishing my other one, that I hadn't had time to write this one.

Really sorry for the delay!