Not surprisingly, Jae Hoon’s arrival was a pleasant surprise for everyone at home. Grandma promptly invited him to her yet another brunch. When Jae Hoon arrived in our house on Sunday, grandma scrutinized him for a brief moment and asked him general questions which Jae Hoon answered politely. He seemed relaxed with the interrogation, which grandma pointed out to me and expressed how much she likes him for that.

I merely nodded my head because I knew Jae Hoon too well and his poker face doesn’t really work that well on me.

“She’s scarier than your dad, I swear.” Jae Hoon murmured to me as we made our way to the buffet table.

However, I think grandma’s enthusiasm in meeting Jae Hoon can’t compare to mom’s. She practically threw her arms around Jae Hoon as though he was her own son when she saw him.

The first time I introduced Jae Hoon to her and dad, she was very reluctant. But after getting to know Jae Hoon, she finally let us date but she imposed certain rules on us such as unchanged curfew and Jae Hoon’s not allowed in my room or near my bedroom.

Over time, mom and Jae Hoon became close. Mom’s aura would always brighten whenever Jae Hoon would visit our house. Perhaps because she and dad had always wanted to have a son. She kept asking Jae Hoon about his trip and Jae Hoon happily converse with her, and then grandma would occasionally interrupt them.

After the brunch, Jae Hoon and I went to the backyard and hung out by the porch swing. He told me about his acceptance letter at the medical school. It was quite an awkward topic for us, because we used to dream of entering the same medical school. We used to study together to get the required grades, and maybe higher, just to be qualified and then I changed my mind. But I knew he understand me unlike my mom. I reached for his hand and gave it a little squeeze as I told him I’ve always knew he’d make it.

We decided to change the subject and he shared with me his time during his charity work. When it was my turn, I happily told him about our short film making and my summer job. I told him about the new friends I made and how I want him to meet them.

Speaking of my summer job, I found out another information about Jongin. It’s quite an old news and no one really talk about it openly, especially when Jongin’s around. It kind of answered the lingering question in my head as to why Jongin doesn’t like anyone to know about him dancing alone at night at the apartment and quite possibly the reason why he doesn’t want to attend university altogether.

I was in supply room one Monday afternoon with one of my coworkers. We were arranging some of the box accordingly. While we’re working, she said Jongin seemed to be a little strange the past few days.

“What do you mean?” I asked her curiously.

My coworker, who’s sitting on the floor, glanced behind her as though Jongin will pop out all of a sudden, and then she turned back to me and answered my question in a hushed tone.

“He just seem a bit…jolly these days.” she said.

“Okay, he can’t be that grumpy before.” I said to her, because I didn’t entirely believe their statement of Jongin being stably grumpy. At least not the Jongin I know.

“You don’t understand.” my coworker pressed on. “He barely talked to us the first time he came in here. We thought he was just being chic and reserved, but at times he can be really cranky, so we find it hard to make friends with him. Plus it seemed like he doesn’t want to be friends with us either. He usually spend time alone. We managed to maintain a professional relationship with him, though. Then, we found out about his sister—” she suddenly clamped her hand over and cursed under her breath. She glanced by the door once again and sighed.

“Why? What happened to Noo Ri?” I asked her.

My coworker looked at me for a moment and then I watched her got up from the floor, went to the door and closed it shut.

“I wasn’t talking about Noo Ri.” she murmured to me.

I frowned in confusion. “She’s Jongin’s sister.”

“True. But they had an older sister.”

My mind started to reel in curiosity and I waited for her to continue. But she said she can’t say anything further than that because she’ll be a dead meat if Jongin finds out they’re gossiping about him. I persisted and told her I won’t tell anyone about our conversation.

My coworker eventually caved in and told me about Jongin’s dark past in hushed tone. Almost a year ago, a couple of weeks before Jongin’s high school graduation, he was caught in a fatal car accident along with his older sister. Jongin’s older sister was the one driving, they were heading home from one of the dance competitions Jongin used to take part in and then a huge furious truck hit their car. Jongin’s sister was dead on arrival while Jongin suffered from comatose for four days. Noo Ri told her employees about the accident when most of them started to think that Jongin was a plain prick, when in fact, he was merely depressed.

I didn’t exactly know how I should feel after hearing the story. Coming from someone who lost a loved one as well, it’s really heartbreaking. It’s like there’s a deep hole inside your very being and you can’t find anything to fill that void.

“You guys already knew the reason why he’s acting the way he does,” I said to my coworker afterwards, “Why couldn’t you try and befriend him?”

“Because he shut people out.” my coworker said. “Isn’t obvious? He doesn’t spend much time in here, or sometimes when he does, the only thing he talked to us about was the shop, nothing else. These days, though, he seemed different. Good different.” she added pensively, “He was laughing. Genuinely. Did you see this morning?”

I nodded my head. For the past week I’ve been working at the shop, every time Jongin enters the shop, he would always have that serious and indifferent exterior. It came to my senses as well that he never really laughed before. I’ve never heard him laugh with other people. The incident our coworker was saying was this morning, I saw Jongin talking and laughing coolly with one of our coworkers by the counter.

I thought he was in a good mood so around lunch time, I went to the workshop. I asked him to join me and our coworkers for lunch but he declined just like that. He asked me to help him again with his lines for when we film again. We went up to the deck roof and sat on our usual place by the wooden picnic table. This time, though, Jongin had his own lunch. He said his grandma made him one before leaving for some important meeting.

“Have you ever eaten lunch with the other employees?” I asked him tentatively. Jongin, who’s busy eating his food, merely shook his head. “Don’t you ever get lonely here? Eating all by yourself?”

“Where is this conversation going?” Jongin asked, his mouth half full. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m eating with you, so I’m not really ‘all by myself’.” he said, using air quotes as he speak.

“I just noticed you don’t have friends around here.”

Jongin stopped chewing and looked at me. “You’re my friend.” he said plainly.

“I know.” I said rather casually, even if I wasn’t expecting him to say that. Not because I didn’t want him to be my friend, but because I didn’t know I actually got into his standards of being friends with him. “What I mean is, it’s more fun when you have a lot of friends.”

“You don’t have a lot of friends either.”

“I have quite a lot of friends. From school.” I said, trying not to sound a bit annoyed from his blunt statement. “I just don’t hang out with them as much as I hang out with Eun Hye and Da Hee.” Jongin turned back to his food and continued to eat. “Besides, our coworkers are nice. You should hang out with them some time. If you’re free.” I added hastily because I didn’t want to push yet another wrong button.

I decided to drop the subject because it was useless to talk him out of it. For now. We went on and run lines again, it seemed like he had already reviewed the lines because he delivered them perfectly.

The next day, however, my coworker told me that Jongin actually joined them last night after their shift. She said they went to different eateries and Jongin was quite affable towards them which surprised and delighted all of them. I wasn’t able to join them because I met up with Jae Hoon at the country club where he plays basketball. I promised him I’ll visit and w