Madame Cho couldn’t look at her only daughter.

The long drive back to Gyeonggi-do where she resided in with her politician husband was something she had gotten used to since she was often cited for business purposes in the center of Seoul. But after seething with passive anger as a result of seeing Joo Yeon engage in outright disobedience, she couldn’t spare one look at her only daughter, and this journey had begun to prove itself as a bit of a burden.

Furthermore, Joo Yeon wanted to just throw open the car door she leaned against and jump out. It no longer mattered if they were in a moving car going 80 mph or if they were in the middle of the expressway. She’d do almost anything to get the hell away from her mother.

The tension inside was toxic.

Joo Yeon wished she could point her fingers out at someone else and put the blame on them. Evidently, there was no other person for her to let her anger out on, since this was indeed her fault. She was the one who went back to Coffee Tree and not-so-accidentally bumped into Jong Yoon. She was the one that didn’t even try to refuse him as he offered to walk her home. Ultimately, she was the one who forgot that her mother’s driver was going to pick her up to bring her back to Gyeonggi-do for dinner with her parents.

But it’s not like she knew her mother would be there to pick her up. So in essence, it isn’t all her fault.

When they finally arrived at Gyeonggi-do, the Park’s chauffer had gotten out of the driver’s seat to open Madame Cho’s door for her. However, she held it and motioned for him to remain outside. Joo Yeon got the notion that her mother was going to have a serious talk with her. Normally, they’d do this inside her office, but seeing as Joo Yeon’s father’s car was already parked by the garage of their house, Madame Cho didn’t want to have to drag Joo Yeon inside her office. Mr. Park would notice and eventually find out about Joo Yeon’s restricted rendezvous. And that, Joo Yeon concluded, is much worse than being scolded by her mother alone.

“When I was seventeen, my father introduced me to a man that worked in his office,” Madame Cho began, her long, slender fingers curling around the strap of her Hermes handbag. She faced away from Joo Yeon, her eyes only looking at the front with a cold, apathetic gaze. “His position wasn’t anything significant, but not to the point where he was a lowly secretary or filing clerk. I had never seen him or met him prior to our first introduction at the company’s Christmas party. My father told me he was an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and that it was his first time back in Korea after having just graduated from his business school.

“He was 28 and a newlywed. His wife was sort of out of it that night so she couldn’t follow him. After my dad had conducted small talk with him, he moved on, leaving Mr. Chang with me. I found him to be a very interesting man who loved baseball and Arthur Miller plays. And I couldn’t stop staring into his eyes: they were so bright and jovial and I couldn’t care any less about what was happening around us. The night wore on and still, it felt like I had just spent only five minutes with him.

“After our first encounter, Mr. Chang would see me whenever I made visits to my father’s office. My visits became more and more frequent and unbeknownst to the world outside Mr. Chang’s and my little bubble, we grew fond of each other. I was only seventeen at the time and he was a decade older, but I couldn’t see anything wrong with that. My judgments were obscured by infatuation. At the time, of course, I thought I was in love.”

Joo Yeon fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat. This was the first time Madame Cho had ever shared this story, and it definitely wasn’t an image Joo Yeon could easily picture her conservative mother to be painted into.

“And then our whole affair took a serious turn when he started to pick me up from school almost every day. He went under the premise of picking me up as an errand for my father, and I only said that I was going to enroll at a new tutoring center. We stayed out late together and it never struck me as weird that his wife was never suspicious of his whereabouts. This went on for nearly two months.

“My superficial dream world crumbled the day the company found out that his wife had killed herself.” Madame Cho’s throat was going dry. She swallowed thickly. “It only occurred to me then - when his wife tipped over the edge of insanity and depression - that I was making a big mistake. I was only obsessed with the idea of us. I didn’t love him. How could I? He was an older man who pushed his own wife into her own self-destruction. And what was I to him? It was like I was some sort of backup plan because his marriage was crumbling. All it took was someone else’s drastic measures to make me realize that I was wrong all along.”

“What I’m trying to say, Joo Yeon,” her mother finally sighed, looking down at her knees. “Is that sometimes we never know about the kind of mistakes we’re about to make, and sometimes we do. But most of the time, we are blinded by what’s in front of us. We don’t know if what we’re getting ourselves into is going to be the biggest mistake we’ll ever make, and that worries me. You take after your father, Joo Yeon-ah. You both don’t take the time to fully consider an action if it means that the end result will be drastic either way. You both want to get the decision-making part over and done with, like it’s some painful terminal disease. If you’re on the ledge of a rooftop of some tall building and someone tells you that you can fly, you’re not going to think twice about it. You’re going to step off that ledge with a full, unadulterated belief that you can fly.” Madame Cho reached over and finally looked at Joo Yeon as she clutched her hand. “I want you to fly, Joo Yeon, but I don’t want you to fall, either.”

***

Taemin watched Minho pick up a spring roll with his chopsticks and pop it into Jonghyun’s waiting mouth. Monday’s dinner consisted of whatever Taemin or Jonghyun could whip up from the available ingredients in their kitchen. Overall, all three of them shared spring rolls, rice, and fried egg. Definitely not a buffet, but it was something.

“It tastes pretty good,” Minho commented after taking a bite out of one spring roll. “Great job, Taemin.”

“That’s Joo Yeon’s recipe,” Taemin replied flatly, staring at his phone on top of their dinner table. It laid lifelessly with no new text messages or incoming calls.

“Well, you executed it well anyhow,” Minho said. Jonghyun nodded with his mouth full.

“Speaking of Joo Yeon,” Jonghyun began. Oh, here it goes again. Taemin braced himself for anymore crap from his hyungs about being a responsible boyfriend. “I found out that she’s actually the granddaughter of Park Soon Kwang.”

Minho raised an eyebrow. “Who the hell is that?”

“Her grandfather, obviously,” Taemin said dryly, but Jonghyun shook his head to his answer.

“Not only that,” Jonghyun said. “He actually ran for president way back then. It was a close race, and my parents were really disappointed he didn’t win. They were huge supporters of him.”

“Wow, Taemin,” Minho smirked at the youngest boy. “You’ve been dating the granddaughter of a politician who once ran for president? I’m surprised you never told us. It’s probably all top secret business, isn’t it? Like, your life would be endangered if you told anyone, right?”

Taemin rolled his eyes. It was easier for him to get seriously irritated nowadays. “No, that’s not the reason why I haven’t told you that. I just thought it wouldn’t have mattered now since it was a long time ago. And besides,” he reached over for a spring roll, the oil on the fried wrapper staining his fingertips. “I didn’t think you guys cared about like that.”

“You apparently don’t either, considering you don’t bring it up at all, anyway,” Jonghyun said pointedly.

“Why is that every time I’m with you guys, or anybody actually, my girlfriend has to be the topic of conversation? I mean, don’t you guys have girlfriends of your own to talk about? Or even talk to?” Taemin burst, chewing indignantly on his spring roll.

“Okay, changing subjects,” Minho said amusedly. “Let’s talk about the girl you were with last Saturday.”

 Taemin sighed heavily and made a great, big show of getting out of his seat, the heavy wooden legs of his chair screeching against their porcelain kitchen tiles. Minho, quick thinking and agile, grabbed his wrist.

“Where are you going?”

“My room,” Taemin said.

“What for? We just wanted to ask you why you were with another girl last Saturday,” Jonghyun said teasingly.

Minho asserted more force by pulling Taemin back down to his seat. The younger boy’s relentless physical training was not enough to withstand the older boy’s ability to pull him down.

“Why is everyone so nosy about everything I do?” Taemin growled out with equal amount of frustration. “How many times do I have to remind – ”

“Hey, hey,” Minho intercepted before Taemin would delve even deeper into his pool of unprecedented wrath. He patted the younger boy on the arm, gently. “Listen, okay? There’s nothing wrong with hanging out with another girl, even one that’s not your girlfriend. It’s just, okay, sometimes we’re afraid you might stray off.”

Taemin scowled. “What are you even talking about?”

“Well, it’s not very wise to always be around girls like the one you were with, especially if it’ll give you the idea that you’ve got other, um, options.” Minho tapped their dinner table, his eyes averting Taemin’s glare.

“What?!”  Taemin cried out incredulously. “Seriously? Are you seriously throwing shade about cheating on my girlfriend when, not too long ago actually, I was the one who suspected that she was cheating first!"

Jonghyun quickly glanced over at Minho, who didn’t look too alarmed at Taemin’s impending tantrum. The eldest of the three held his breath in anticipation of what Minho might say next. They were on thin ice, and it would have been a good idea to end the conversation a long time ago. And Taemin was right, after all. Their conversations with the youngest member would eventually come around to his girlfriend, no matter how hard they had tried to avoid it.

“Joo Yeon’s a cool girl. She really is,” Minho said plainly. “And I know a lot of guys in the company that would ‘hop on that’ if ever you were to break up with her.”

The breath that Jonghyun held was hitched sharply, and he looked from Minho to Taemin in apprehension. Taemin’s facial expression seemed to smooth over: his furrowed eyebrows fell back into place and his jaw slackened. He blinked.

“What’s your point?”

Minho sighed, patting Taemin on the shoulder like a grandfather about to give his grandson some long overdue, sound advice. “She is the best thing you ever had, and the worst thing you would ever lose.”

***

“She’s dating that little faggy ?”

“You know him?” Jong Yoon asked his best friend, Kwon Dae Ho, incredulously. The two men were conversing Joo Yeon’s newest beau over a couple bottles of beer at Jong Yoon’s flat when Dae Ho decided to do a Naver search on a certain Kpop Idol named Lee Taemin on his smartphone.

“No, but look at this kid,” Dae Ho said, facing his phone towards Jong Yoon. “Seriously, look at the he wears.”

Jong Yoon pushed Dae Ho’s phone away, not sparing a single glance. He took a quick swig from his bottle of Heineken and dabbed his upper lip with a napkin. Dae Ho looked back at a photo of Lee Taemin for an editorial for Elle Girl Japan. He raised an eyebrow at the SHINee maknae’s failed attempt to look seductively “chic” what with the god-awful vest wrapped around his lithe, skinny chest and that fedora-looking hat that was not adding anymore charm to his already charmless aura.

“How do you think I feel?” Jong Yoon asked apathetically.

“You must feel really emasculated right now,” Dae Ho answered, his fingers scrolling through the image search results on his phone. He browsed past images of a skinny, blonde Lee Taemin in an acid-washed denim vest, Lee Taemin with crimped, blonde hair and kohl-lined eyes, Juliette-era Lee Taemin in a yellow tank and buttercup skinny jeans, and even the granddaddy of them all: Lee Taemin donned in a pink, sequined miniskirt and long, blonde wig.

“Joo Yeon seriously needs to set her priorities straight. I mean, really straight.” Dae Ho put his phone down and chuckled. “I get it if she’s got es but this isn’t even a question of bedroom fantasies anymore. This is a question of uality.”

Jong Yoon momentarily broke away from his otherwise placid state to give Dae Ho a look.

“What?” Dae Ho asked defensively, still stifling in a bout of laughter. “She went from you, Daewha Academy’s Golden Child to Little Miss Singer Idol. That’s a big step towards batting for the other team. Kind of like a gateway drug. This Lee Taemin kid is her gateway to a whole new preference – ”

“Are you done?” Jong Yoon intercepted. His sharpness was always a limiting factor in any conversation with him, and usually, it was his greatest asset. That just Dae Ho up immediately and although he was Dae Ho’s best friend, he still possessed the power to scare Dae Ho just a little.

“I was only saying…” Dae Ho muttered timorously.

“Well, you said enough.”  Jong Yoon took another gulp from his beer before finishing the entire bottle. He hissed from the spritzy tang of his cold Heineken. “Joo Yeon just doesn’t know what kind of a man she’s dating. If you can even call him a ‘man’. I’ve seen the way he flounces onstage for performances, and I can’t agree with you any more. Lee Taemin is too feminine for her taste, but that isn’t her fault.”

Dae Ho remained quiet, letting his friend continue.

“She needed someone to turn to when I left Korea, but I’m here. I’m back, and I’m going to show her how a real man treats a woman.”

“Wait, so you’re staying?” Dae Ho asked, surprised. “You’re not going back to Chicago?”

Jong Yoon formed the tiniest smile in the corner of his lips. “I’ve just adjourned my Spring semester until Fall and my father had gotten me to a slot to take classes at Seoul National. So yes, Dae Ho, you’re going to see a lot of me nowadays.” 

author's note: as you have noticed from this chapter and the previous ones, i take a habit on calling joo yeon's mother "Madame Cho" instead of "Madame Park" or "Mrs. Park" - this is normal in korea. married women in korea don't usually take their husband's last name unless, of course, they marry a foreigner. just wanted to clear that up for anyone out there.

jong yoon's and dae ho's conversation really springs up some harsh ill-feelings about taemin's supposed manhood, so i'm sorry for using (and will be using) derogatory terms for the homoual such as "" and "fairy". 

thank you for reading, and please do leave a comment whenever you have a chance!