Chapter Three: Exams

“So,” Taehyung’s father starts talking while gently holding his spouse’s hand. He smiles at Taehyung as he pulls everyone else's attention, "Tell me everything about your love stories, sweetie.”

Unlike Taehyung’s mother, who turns out to be a grumpy and stern four-eyed woman who always drowns herself in her paper works and managerial business, his father is actually almost a complete idealistic opposite. In times when Taehyung was practically bothered by something, his father would sense a different aura from him and then afterwards treat him out or play some jokes with him. And unlike the stereotypical pair of parents where the mother usually gives ludicrous nicknames to their children, it’s the other way around for the Kim’s. The father of the family was the one who always interrogated their children about their crushes and heartbreaks and anything else. It wasn’t that bad, to be honest.

And because of that, aside from Mi Ja, and maybe the girl he likes, Taehyung’s favorite person would obviously be his father. His father rarely comes home, though, because of work on cruise ships. Maybe Taehyung inherited his father’s bubbly nature, plus his forever optimistic personality, because Mi Ja is certain that she had never seen Taehyung’s father mad before.

Taehyung replies with a chuckle, “Stories? That’s degrading!”

“You’re a man now, so I thought you’d be like Junmyeon,” his father innocently expresses, as if Junmyeon isn’t sitting on the other side of the table. Junmyeon smiles at them mockingly, and his mood at the moment is even worse than how it usually is. He doesn’t know why, to be honest, but Mi Ja hypothesizes that she might be the cause. To sum both of their situations right now, if there’s not a family having a happy reunion, they might have been debating since earlier because both of their lips were twitching to say something to each other. Not knowing what the other party wants to say; but Mi Ja knows she wants to apologize for her rashness.

“So, does Junmyeon have a girlfriend now?” Taehyung’s father asks, grinning at him.

Junmyeon smirks and shakes his head, “Please don’t move the topic to me. Taehyung just had his first date recently, I would love to hear the details.” He eyes Mi Ja, and she knows that his intention is to drive her pain. Taehyung’s father claps his hands, and his mother places her index and thumb on the spaces on either of her nose bridge as she shakes her head, and the whole family gasps in surprise.

The star of the subject then clears his throat before starting his narration. His cheeks flurries red while he playfully plays with the ends of his bangs and that’s when he talks, finally, “Well, I met her last year, during the middle school graduation. She was my friend’s sister, her name was Jinri. And she’s a year older than me, so right now, uhm, she’s,” he puts up a finger and then whispers some counting, “She’s in her first year of college at X University.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think I heard anything about the date?” Taehyung’s little brother, Jaehyung, raises his hand. The whole table bursts out into laughter because it is true. Mi Ja laughs as well, and Junmyeon…well, he has been studying Mi Ja’s face for a while.

Taehyung gazes at Mi Ja before he continues and looks down at his palm resting on his lap, “Jinri and I met occasionally during the first months of high school because of Badminton Club activities. Speaking of badminton, damn, she was amazing! The way she drives the shuttlecock and the way she smashes it, just…” he lets out a dreamy sigh, “She’s wonderful.”

“Date? Date?” Jaehyung clears his throat, reminding his brother about the details regarding the said date. The older shrugs his shoulders before sticking out his tongue, “This is just an introduction, alright.”

“Just tell it already,” Taehyung’s older sister, Jaeyeon, speaks out after slamming the cup on the table. Their mother widens her eyes at Jaeyeon, signaling her to keep her manners intact. And that’s when Taehyung finally sighs and gives in, “Fine, I’ll tell you guys about it.”

Taehyung smiles, “The date was great.”

Silence.

“That’s it?” Junmyeon bites his lips to stifle his laughter. That was outrageous. Everybody was anticipating a great romantic story of their ever-so-happy Taehyung and his love-love adventure and turns out that the only thing they’d hear was: The date was great?

Mi Ja butts in, even if she swears that it’d be awkward because there’s at least one person aware of her feelings and one person kind of expecting to know that she’s hurt (and turns out that this one person was Junmyeon), “Oh, but Jinri gave Taehyung a gift.”

“Really? What is it?” Jaeyeon, Jaehyung, and the parents ask in unison as they all divert their eyes to the person who last spoke, Mi Ja. They’ve all known Mi Ja even before her hair got longer, or to be specific, since she and Taehyung were young. Their families were friends, and if Mi Ja was lucky, their parents could have set them up for an arranged marriage then that way, she won’t worry about ending up with each other. She’d only worry about getting him to fall for her. But that wasn’t the case; the case is that today, arranged marriage is a completely idiotic and mythical tradition.

Mi Ja sighs, drowning slightly in self-pity, “Peanuts. Something-something with peanuts. His face the following day bloated, and his voice was, ugh,” she crumples her expression, creating a comical one, and making the whole circle of people break out into loud guffaws, including Taehyung.

Taehyung then suddenly says, “I wonder about Mi Ja, though. I mean, she’s never had a boyfriend before. Nor did I ever hear about her dating anybody.”

Silence, again. This time, Junmyeon was the one to break the tormenting silence off with a whistle. An annoying, or maybe worse, whistle matched with a raise of eyebrow at her. Mi Ja furrows her eyebrows at him as she nonchalantly makes an excuse, “It’s because I haven’t gotten over my first love. And I don’t think I have time for love at the moment.”

“Excuses,” Taehyung’s father exclaimed, as if it was a funny thing, and flicked his wrist playfully at her, “If I know…you actually like Taehyung, no?”

Uh oh.

Junmyeon doesn’t talk. Nor does Mi Ja. And because of this, Taehyung doesn’t either. The younger brother doesn’t budge as well, and of course, as usual, the others doesn’t. Except for the father, who suddenly becomes uneasy as he thinks that he had said something outrageous. The father pats Mi Ja’s back slowly and asks, “Am I wrong or…?”

“You’re wrong,” Junmyeon laughs, “Mi Ja is a thousand years too early for love. She doesn’t even have a plump bust yet.”

And just like that, Junmyeon turns the atmosphere from dark to light just like how he turns Mi Ja’s lips from frown to smile. Although a bit insulted, Mi Ja is heartily grateful for Junmyeon’s annoying being because sometimes, it comes in handy. After a while, the topic moves to another one, about Junmyeon’s college life. Everyone listens in to his adventures sharing, but Taehyung thinks half of it isn’t even factual. Then Junmyeon talks about his first love. He gazes at Mi Ja for some reason, only to find out that she’s looking at Taehyung. Taehyung looks uneasy; maybe because he still hasn’t gotten over what his father said earlier.

What if Mi Ja does like him?

He shakes it off, believing that it’s impossible because Mi Ja has been helping him selflessly since then. She even woke up early just to help him prepare for his first date, right? If she really liked him, then why would she help him? Taehyung ignores his assumptions, and his doubts get cut down to one conclusion. Mi Ja will forever be his best friend. Forever.

Everybody loves forever. But I don’t think Mi Ja does.

Apparently, two days from now will be Taehyung and Mi Ja's quarterly examinations. Mi Ja never liked having a red mark on her cards, it always appeared like a dirty slobber on her record she would wipe harshly in reflex. Fortunately, there wasn't any problem about her keeping straight A's. But Taehyung…don't get me started. Well, it's not that he's dumb. It's just that when it isn't Mi Ja reteaching him the less