Nouveau Love

Chapter Two

Choi Minho opened his eyes and vaguely recalled the night before, though it was familiar: the bed wasn’t his but a hotel’s, his clothes from the night before were scattered all over the ground while he saw someone else’s clothes on the floor. He didn’t know whose clothes they were but he figured he was at the club yet again.

Eh, whatever, he thought as he got himself out of bed. He yawned and stretched and went to the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar so naturally he went in and did his business. When he got out, there was a woman who seemed to just wake up herself and she looked at him.

“Mm, last night was wonderful, Minho,” she said through seemingly dazed eyes. “Should we go for another round?”

Before he could answer though, he heard the familiar musical tone he assigned to his mother. It’s a pretty tune that sounded its being played by a flute. He rolled his eyes and went over to the vicinity of where his pants was, to the pocket where the cell phone resided in, and pulled it out as the tone repeated itself. The unknown girl was clearly annoyed at the fact she was ignored by him, at least until she realized who was on the other end.

“Ah, good morning, mother,” he said with practiced eloquence.

“Minho,” she said, already so sternly. “You know exactly what I’m going to ask.”

“Why, mother,” he said as he started to put on his clothes from the night before nonchalantly. “You know I’m the picture of innocence!”

Minho could just feel the look his mother would often give when she knew he was lying.

“Either way, just give her the cab fare and come home immediately to wash that filth off of you. Don’t forget about the arranged marriage meeting later this morning.”

The cocky man made an annoyed sound as if as though his mother had told him to eat his vegetables before he could leave the table. There was no point. Choi Minho never even wanted to get married or really have anything to do with family – except his grandmother and older brother.

For as long as he could remember, it wasn’t his parents who raised him – it was his grandmother. It wasn’t just Minho she raised, though. She helped his elder brother, Choi Dongwook, the now famous actor, until he could stand on his own two feet. Even when Dongwook left, they were so close to each other.

The reason why the grandmother raised Minho was because, as he was told, his parents were too busy to take care of him. Since his grandmother was more than well-off and she was feeling lonely anyway, she offered to raise him for them. Dongwook eventually chose to live with them during his teenaged years and before he made his big break in the acting world. To make up for lost time, though, the Chois always got together during birthday and holidays and made it a point to spend time with Minho and Dongwook as often as they could.

That was the past sixteen years until the accident.

One day, Minho came home from school and realized how quiet it was where they lived. Usually Minho would hear her sing her favorite trot songs and danced by herself somewhere around the house. There was just some kind of noise that indicated that she was home. And even if she wasn’t, there would have been a note easily found. Needless to say, Minho would rarely bring over friends.

The teenaged boy at first thought that maybe she had had gone out somewhere.

But where would she go? I mean, I can’t find a note anywhere, he thought. Then the house phone rang. Minho rushed to answer it but it was only Dongwook.

“Minho, did you just get home?” Dongwook sounded more worried than tired.

“Yeah, where’s grandma?”

“She’s in the hospital.” Dongwook said. “Someone broke in the house and—“

“Don’t tell me!” Minho yelled.

“No, nothing like that happened. She managed to somehow fight them off but when the police arrived, she had a . Minho, she’s still alive but she’s still ICU.”

From that point on, his parents made the decision to bring him back into their home and have Minho stay until he’s of age. As soon as he left high school, though, he decided not pursue college simply because he didn’t care.

There’s no point, he kept thinking. Why should I bother?

Between his parents who always nagged him and Dongwook, Minho dealt with it by going to the hospital where his grandmother was at least once a day to talk to her about the news, updates about his family, and anything else he could think of. But Minho wasn’t happy. It wasn’t as though his grandmother let him run wild but instead made him learn the proper etiquette for a man of his class. It didn’t take him long to become popular with the ladies but usually they were one night stands. As long as he didn’t bring any of them to the house and as long as he performed his family duties, they didn’t care.

“Can’t it wait till after I visit grandmother?” he asked over the line as he checked through his wallet. By now his shirt was still wasn’t buttoned up.  The woman already had her clothes on. Once Minho had enough money, he handed it to her and ignored her when she tried to motion for him to call her later. She slammed the door in an attempt to let him know she was angered.

“No, it cannot. You’ve put this meeting off for far too long. You are meeting this woman. You may do whatever you want afterwards – just go to the meeting.”

Minho couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Why couldn’t you make Dongwook do it? Isn’t he the oldest?”

“He’s already engaged to Smiley. He earned his freedom.”

“More like bought it,” Minho muttered under his breath. “Ah,” he said out loud as he squinted his eyes, “where is it again?”

“At the Summer Springs Hotel.”