It was the first really warm day of spring. The grove was bathed in a sweet green radiance that was somehow ethereal and magical. There was a warm breeze whistling through the branches, birds hopping from one to another. The new grass pushing through the sodden dirt was soft, ticking the undersides of Baekhyun’s bare arms, filling his nostrils with the scent of fresh earth and new growth.

The water in the stream swirled around his ankles in an almost ticklish manner. As the stream came down off the mountain, it was cold and his toes were soon numb but he didn’t care. The light filtering through the foliage overhead danced, casting moving shadows across his body. Beyond the treetops, the sky was a cloudless blue.

It was only early afternoon and Baekhyun should have been at the store, but his grandmother had given him permission to bunk out early due to the lack of customers and the niceness of the afternoon. He was grateful for the break. It wasn’t that he disliked his grandmother’s store. On the contrary, it was probably his favorite place on earth. Even so, it was nice to get out every once in a while.

A butterfly floated by on the breeze, alighting on a nearby bush and fluttering its wings.

This little grove seemed a million miles away from the village, like his own private world. He’d been coming here since he was old enough to stray from his mother’s side on his own. It was here that his imagination had run rampant. Here he’d fought dragons and rescued princesses and hid from ogres who wanted to eat his bones. It was here that he’d had his first kiss and shared his dreams with his best friend and daydreamed about faraway lands.

All of that seemed so far away now. Dragons and princesses and ogres were things of the past. Oh Jihyun, who he’d shared his first kiss with in this shady grove when he was in his third year of primary school, was married now and expecting her first child. And whatever dreams he’d ever had of getting away from Mangyang had dissipated with the last of the snow.

He was getting older, too old to waste time on such foolish thoughts. And it was getting painfully obvious that his grandmother was getting older too. She would never admit it, but Baekhyun could see the way she was moving slower, the way her joints seemed stiff, the way her hands shook so badly sometimes she had to set aside her knitting and pretend she was tired. His grandmother was a proud, strong woman, and it broke Baekhyun’s heart to see her decline this way. Leaving the village wasn’t an option.

There was a rustle in the brush and Jihye came into the clearing. Bringing with her the familiar scent of dumplings from her parents’ restaurant, she was a welcome intrusion into the private world he’d created for himself.

“What’s up, buttercup?” she asked, plopping herself down beside him on the soft grass and peeling off her own shoes and socks so she could stick her feet into the stream alongside his. “Not at the shop today, I see.”

“Nah, Gran gave me the afternoon off since the store was pretty much dead,” Baekhyun says. “What about you?”

“I got into a fight with my mom and skipped out,” Jihye admits, pursing her lips. “This is much nicer than that stupid restaurant.” She groaned. “I’ve got to get out of this town or I’m going to go crazy. Let’s run away together.”

Baekhyun chuckled, his arms propped behind his head. “Thanks but no thanks. I like it here.”

Again, Jihye groaned. “You can’t possibly mean that,” she said. “This town away your soul. Why would you ever want to stay?”

“This town has a lot going for it,” Baekhyun argued.

She gave him a flat look, the sun glinting across her forehead. “Like the population of two thousand? Because that gives us so many options.”

He laughed. “I think the small population is nice. We know pretty much everyone in town.”

“Yeah, we’re related to pretty much everyone in town,” Jihye muttered glumly, kicking at the water with her bare feet. “If you meet someone who’s not your cousin, you may as well snatch them up right then because you’re not going to meet a better marriage candidate.”

Baekhyun pulled a face. “No offense, but I don’t want to marry you.”

She stuck out her tongue at him. “I don’t want to marry you either, duckwad. I’m just saying.” She sighed again. “Let’s run away,” she repeated. “To Busan or Incheon or even Seoul. I think I could do well in Seoul.”

Baekhyun laughed. “Seoul would eat you alive, noona.”

“Like you know so much,” Jihye scoffed. “You’re more of a small-town kid than I am.”

“No arguments there,” Baekhyun agreed with a contented little sigh. It was true that he was content in this little town; he had no grand notions to move on to bigger things. “You should apologize to your mom. You know how she gets when you guys fight.”

“Yeah, well she should be a little bit more understanding when I say that I don’t want to be serving dumplings for the rest of my life,” Jihye grumbled, pulling a candy bar out of her pocket and taking a big bite out of it.

The brush rustled again and a second girl burst into the clearing, one much younger and much more out of breath, her long hair pulled back in pigtails and a stained apron tied over her jeans.

Jihye threw up her arms in disbelief. “God, can’t you leave me alone for ten seconds? Jeez!” she exclaimed.

The little girl, Hyejin, ignored her sister. “They sent me to fetch you,” she said, still struggling to catch her breath. “They said it was very important and that you had to hurry.”

“I’ll come back when I’m good and ready-” Jihye exclaimed, glaring.

The little girl cut her off with an impatient little wave of her hand. “I’m not here for you,” she said in an annoyed voice. “I’m here to get Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun sat up, brows pulling together in confusion. “Me?” he repeated. “Who sent you to fetch me, Hyejin?”

“Your grandmother,” Hyejin reported. “And some man.”

“Some man?” Jihye was more interested than annoyed now that the summons didn’t involve her specifically. “What man?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen him before,” Jihye said. “But it seemed really important. Your grandmother insisted that you hurry.”

Baekhyun felt a flurry of panic as he struggled to his feet, yanking on his socks and shoes despite his damp feet. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“I don’t know,” Hyejin admitted. “They didn’t tell me. They just said that I needed to fetch you at once.”

Baekhyun led the way out of the grove, Jihye and Hyejin following closely behind. He moved quickly, not quite a run but almost. It was about a twenty-minute hike from the forest to the outskirts of the village, but they made it in about fifteen. And then, sweating and a little out of breath, they arrived at the little store Baekhyun’s grandmother had owned and run since before he was born.

It seemed like the whole street had come out to stare at the stranger standing on the porch of Baekhyun’s grandmother’s store. It wasn’t often they got visitors in such a small town, so anyone out of the ordinary stood out a mile. And this man, with his pressed suit that probably cost more than a few of the houses in the neighborhood and his dark sunglasses and neatly-trimmed hair, was like an alien to the people here. By comparison, his grandmother, standing next to the man with her knitted shawl draped around her drooping shoulders and the hand-carved cane in her hand, looked like a caricature of rural life.  

Baekhyun jumped the steps all at once, wiping sweaty fringe out of his eyes. “What’s going on, Gran?” he demanded. “I came as fast as I could.”

His grandmother smiled, but it was that tight, pinched smile that meant nothing good was going to follow. Instead of elaborating, however, she simply gestured to the door behind her. “Let’s discuss this somewhere more private, love.” When Jihye and Hyejin tried to follow her into the dusty store, she gave them a stern look and said, “This doesn’t concern you lot. Go on home.” And so the sisters had no choice but to return to their parents’ restaurant, Jihye looking nervously over her shoulder as the door shut behind Baekhyun’s grandmother with an alarming sort of finality.

His grandmother didn’t speak as she led the way through the cluttered little store, to the even tinier back room where she would examine patients when things were dire. There was barely enough room for all three of them and little table shoved into the corner; there were no windows and, with only a single lamp for light, it was dim and foreboding.

Baekhyun waited until his grandmother was seated in an old chair with spindly little legs to speak. “What’s going on, Gran?” he demanded. “Who is this?”

The man spoke for himself before his grandmother had the chance. “My name is Ji Minkyu. I am valet at Westfield Estate.” He said this like Baekhyun should know both his name and the place that he hailed from, but Baekhyun was lost.

“I’m sorry?” he said uncertainly.

The man removed his sunglasses, revealing dark eyes and a hard expression. “Westfield Estate,” he repeated, obviously annoyed at Baekhyun’s lack of knowledge. “Home of the Kims.”

“Kim who?” Baekhyun asked.

Thankfully his grandmother chose that moment to step in. “He doesn’t know about them,” she said, sounding rather cross. That surprised Baekhyun. Very rarely was his grandmother cross with anyone.

The man, Mr. Ji, looked positively astounded at this revelation. “You mean to tell me that this boy knows nothing of his mother’s people?”

“Did you think she would speak pleasantly of them after all they did to her? Bah,” his grandmother said, and she spat on the floor in contempt.

Baekhyun’s mind was reeling. “What they did to her? Gran, you told me that my mother was born and raised here in Mangyang.”

Mr. Ji scoffed. “She may as well have been, for all the slumming around she did.”

Baekhyun’s grandmother whacked him smartly across the shins with her cane. “That’s my son you’re talking about,” she huffed. “And if you wish to continue sitting under my roof, I expect you to stop talking like that.”

Mr. Ji glowered at her but, rubbing his shin, decided to keep the insults to a minimum.

Try as he might, Baekhyun just couldn’t wrap his mind around all this. He’d grown up hearing that his mother’s parents had passed away when she was small, so she’d been raised by friends here in the village. Even his mother herself had told him so. Now it seemed like the whole village had been lying to him his entire life.

His grandmother sighed and took his hand; hers looked so small and wrinkled in his. “The truth is, dear, your mother was never from Mangyang. She’d never set foot here until after she was pregnant with you.”

“A most unfortunate mistake,” Mr. Ji said with a sigh.

“Your father was working as a teacher in Seoul when they met, and they fell in love right away,” his grandmother continued. “Because her family didn’t approve of the relationship, they married in secret, but once they found out about you they knew they couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. When her family still refused to accept the union, your mother fled. Here, where I kept them safe.” She shot a withering look at Mr. Ji, who seemed either not to notice or not to care.

It made a certain sort of sense. Though his parents had died when he was ten, he could remember bits and pieces of a childhood where things weren’t exactly as they seemed. His mother had always seemed slightly out of place in the rural backdrop of Mangyang, his father seeming to overcompensate for something she might be missing. It seemed strange that he wasn’t related to half the population, like Jihye and Hyejin were. But it didn’t matter to him where his mother really came from; she was still his mother and nothing about his childhood was changed by this revelation.

“I don’t understand,” he said slowly, allowing his thumb to small, comforting circles on the back of his grandmother’s sun-spotted hand. “Why are you telling me this now?”

His grandmother sighed and looked away.

“The head of the Kim dynasty has recently passed away,” Mr. Ji explained. “As he was your mother’s father and she was his only child and you are, by proxy, his only grandchild, you are the next head of the illustrious Kim family.”

Baekhyun blinked at him. “Are you insane?” he demanded. “I can’t be the head of any family. I don’t even know anything about them.”

“You will learn,” Mr. Ji said shortly, getting to his feet. “It’s about time to get going. We’ve got a long trip to make and I’d like to return to Seoul by this evening.”

Baekhyun also got to his feet. “I’m not going to Seoul,” he said shakily. Then he repeated it more firmly. “I’m not going. I’m sorry, sir, but I have no intentions of leaving Mangyang.”

“Dear…” his grandmother began.

Mr. Ji cut him off, tone brusque and to the point. “This really isn’t up for negotiation, Mr. Kim. As the heir to the Kim fortune, you will return with me to Seoul tonight.”

“Byun,” Baekhyun said, hands balling themselves automatically into fists.

Mr. Ji blinked at him, surprised. “Excuse me?”

“My surname is Byun,” Baekhyun said, a bit more firmly. “Not Kim. Byun, like my father.”

Mr. Ji stared at him for a long moment, then smirked and took a cigarette out of a silver case. “Everyone in the Kim family uses the surname Kim,” he said shortly. “Regardless of what your father’s name was. Now please get packed immediately. I would like to be on our way within the hour.”

“I’m not going!” Baekhyun snapped, feeling his face grow hot. Like his grandmother, he rarely lost his temper. There was just something about this man that got under his skin in the most unpleasant of ways.

His grandmother’s hand at his elbow stopped him from saying anything further. “Please leave us for a moment, Mr. Ji,” she said to the intruder. “I need to speak with my grandson privately.”

Mr. Ji hesitated, a lighter in hand, before shrugging and stepping out to smoke his cigarette.

“This is crazy, Gran,” Baekhyun began as soon as the door had shut behind him. “I don’t even know this man! I don’t care if these people are my mother’s family, I’m not-!”

“Baekhyun!” his grandmother said sharply, and he fell silent. “Please just listen. I’m afraid we don’t have much of a choice in this. You must go to Seoul with this man, to see your mother’s people.”

He stared at her, then sat down heavily in the only unoccupied chair in the room. “I don’t want to go, Gran,” he said, voice sounding weaker. He’d never been able to argue with his grandmother. “I-I don’t want to meet these people, especially if they’re so terrible that my mother fled and lied to get away from them. I don’t want to leave Mangyang and my friends.” And you, he thought to himself. Leaving his grandmother would be impossible.

She gave him a sad look. “I’m afraid there’s not much of a choice on your part, dear,” she sighed. “These people…their power is unfathomable. You’d never be able to get away from them.”

“My mother got away from them,” he said defensively.

“Because they let her,” his grandmother said with another sigh. “They let her because they didn’t need her then. But now that her father is dead, they need you. They have unimaginable resources at their disposable, and you can go nowhere that they cannot find you. Besides,” she sighed, and forced a smile that Baekhyun could see through right away. “These people are your family. Don’t you think you should get to know them?”

“I don’t want to know them,” he said sullenly. “They were cruel to my mother. How could I possibly like them?”

“Just go, dear,” his grandmother said, forcing another smile. “Cruel or not, they are your family. You should at least know who they are.”

He felt a catch in his throat. “But what about you, Gran? How could I possibly leave you?”

She patted his hand in a comforting manner. “I’ll be just fine, dear. I’ve managed for years on my own, I can manage a few more. And I know you’ll call me often to keep in touch. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even come up to visit you in Seoul.”

He had to laugh at that, because the thought of his grandmother in a big city like Seoul was laughable. The thought of him in a big city like Seoul was laughable.

The smile slipped from his grandmother’s face. “Your mother had a great many secrets, Baekhyun. Even after living with me for ten years, there were so many things that she kept to herself. Perhaps you’ll be able to understand your mother more living among her relatives.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” he said plaintively. “Please, Gran. I don’t want to go.”

But she just patted his hand again and pecked him on the cheek and just like that things seemed infinitely final. 

I'm really excited about this one, so I hope you guys like it!