A/N: I double updated so make sure you read the chapter before this one!!

Lina gapes at me. “Mom?” she mouths, utterly shocked.

“Lina, if we could have the room, please,” my mother says coolly. Lina swallows and nods, and then scurries out through the door. I am left with my mother.

“What are you doing here?” I rasp. “The last time you contacted me was 12 years ago. I didn’t even know if you were still alive.”

“Here I am, then” she says, taking a seat across from me. “We need to have a talk, Aemin.”

“A talk? A talk? Seriously? You- I haven’t seen you or Dad in years. Ever since high school, it’s been like I’ve grown up without parents! Do you know how terrified I’ve been? Do you know how horrible it’s been for the last few years?”

My mother purses her lips. “I was monitoring you the entire time. If something serious had happened, I would’ve stepped in.”

“Oh, but you couldn’t even see me in person. That’s totally cool. And Dad’s little honeymoon with his new wife turned into them literally moving to Europe-,”

“You think that was a coincidence?” My mother snorts. “8 years ago, I sent your idiot father and his wife on a prolonged honeymoon in Europe to keep them out of the way. They’re safe there-,”

I slam my fist on the table. “How about me? You could’ve sent me someplace-,”

“Listen, Aemin! There’s a reason that all the children of the 3 gangs ended up in the same place. It’s a test of sorts, to see how well you can handle yourself amongst other gang members. The 4 Flames caught onto that later, and sent BTS to Brookhaven, too.”

“What are you trying to say?!”

“I was planning on bringing you into Cyntel after you graduated. Gradually introducing you to all parts of the business.”

I am utterly silent for a good minute.

And then I say, “You were grooming me to take over X.E.”

“Yes. And my plan would’ve been successful if you hadn’t been... prematurely introduced to the 4 Flames.”

“How long have you worked for X.E.?” I ask quietly.

My mother narrows her eyes. “12 years.”

Oh.

So my mother divorced my dad right after she joined X.E. Then, she took him out of the picture when I entered high school. I was put in the same school as Lina on purpose, and BTS was sent to that school on purpose as well.

Every single part of my life has been predetermined.

Except for my first meeting with the Anime Club.

I would beat myself up over agreeing to hack into that stupid 4 Flames website. I thought that if I hadn’t done that, then I could’ve avoided getting entangled in all of the violence and destruction.

But I was wrong.

It was all completely unavoidable.

I would have been brought into the gang world regardless.

“I’ll give you a bit,” my mother tells me in a terse voice, standing up. “But you will have to be fully debriefed in a few hours. I’ll send Lina to get you.”

“Wait,” I breathe, and she pauses by the door. “You’re not going to say anything else?”

My mother turns away so that I cannot see her face.

“You are 20 years old,” she says in a cold voice. “Pull yourself together.”

And she leaves.

I was never close with my mother.

My dad was always the person who took care of me. Despite his absentminded nature and completely idiotic moments (I remember him making salty brownies for me in the 6th grade because he accidentally mixed up salt and sugar), he was a pretty cool guy. He would help me with my homework and read me bedtime stories and cheer for me at every softball game I ever played in.

But the only clear memory I have of my mother is from the 2nd grade: she came home one night, glanced over my graded test papers, and merely shook her head in vague disappointment.

“You’re not going to survive later in life if you score this low,” she told me, her eyes hard and narrow.

She was always working. I remember flashes of dark pantsuits and low heels and Chanel No. 5 perfume.

When she left me and my dad and broke off all contact with us, he acted like everything was going to be okay, but I know he was hurt. Being a single parent was hard for him, but he never complained. He was the same goofy, obnoxious guy he’d always been.

So when he met my stepmom, I was happy he finally found someone else. And after their wedding 4 years ago, when they announced that their companies had decided to sponsor them on some all-expenses paid “informational” tour of Europe, I was totally cool with it.

But weeks turned into months, and months turned into years. I was shocked and hurt and completely bewildered. I would call my dad every single day, yelling at him and asking him when the hell he was getting back? I blamed my stepmother at first (which was hard, considering that she was equally as nice and annoyingly friendly as my dad) until it hit me one night sophomore year- my dad didn’t want to come home because he was tired. He was tired of constantly taking care of me for all those years.

Burdening my dad anymore was inconceivable. Contacting my mom was unthinkable.

So I stopped calling him. I stopped crying over him. And I told myself to it up and deal with it.

I heard that at my funeral, my dad wouldn’t stop crying. He kept blaming himself for not being there to watch over me. He kept repeating it over and over again.

My stepmother felt equally as bad. She kept telling herself that she should’ve talked to me more when they were in Europe, that she should’ve sent someone to live with me so I wouldn’t get lonely or sad and I had an actual guardian.

I wanted to talk to them so badly.

I needed them.

And now, after 4 years, I find out that my dad didn’t stay in Europe because he was tired of me.

My mom set them up. Informational tour of Europe?

Yeah, right.

    I curl up into a ball and bury my head between my legs.

I can never get out of all this.     

    Lina, Preet, Anna, and I eat together for the first time in years.

    We are in a large, starkly lit room, with nothing save for a long glass table and a few silver chairs. Bowls of minestrone soup and buttered breadsticks and caesar salad sit in front of us.

It’s quiet. I don’t think any amount of speaking could make up for the time we’ve spent apart.

    Lina keeps nervously glancing over at me. I don’t think she’s told Preet and Anna about my mother.

    The door opens and my mother strides in, flanked by Mrs. Nguyen, Marge, and Baekhyun. I glare at her, my eyes burning with fury. She coolly apprehends me and then looks away.

    “Long time, Ami,” Marge smiles, squeezing my shoulder. I break my gaze away from my mother and wrap Marge in a tight hug.

    “I’m sorry for screwing it all up,” I murmur in her ear. “You and Baek left the perfect opportunity for me and I botched it.”

    “Don’t worry about it,” she says soothingly. “We screwed up, too.”

    “What do you-,”

    “Well, well,” Baekhyun drawls, a smirk on his lips. “Who do we have here? Wow, Preet. Looks like you finally hit puberty.”

    Preet rolls his eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t act like you haven’t been monitoring me every day for the past 4 years.”

    “Guilty. Might I say, your girlfriend is quite pretty. If not aggravatingly annoying.”

    “Hey!”

    “You have a girlfriend?” Lina gasps, turning to Preet. “Wha- who? How?”

    “Is she the annoying girl who was at that restaurant the other day?” Annabelle wrinkles her nose. “She looked really pissed.”

    “Maybe because Preet was too busy freaking out over me,” I say, a smug smile on my face.

Preet rolls his eyes. “Oh, god, don’t say it like that. You were freaking out, too-,”

“Look, you four. We have business to talk about,” Mrs. Nguyen interrupts. The smile fades off my face. I slowly turn to her.

    We all stare at each other. The tension in the air is incredibly thick.

    “Where’s Kris?” I ask. Baekhyun stiffens next to me.

    “He just went through a little... debriefing,” my mother says. “He’ll be here any moment now. You will all be working with him.”

    “Work with him?” Baekhyun hisses. “Hell no. He’s getting the hell out of here.”

    My mother sighs. “Stop being a child. You and Marge have your own problems to worry about. Now keep quiet so I can explain the situation to my daughter.”

    The effect of her words is instantaneous: everyone except for me, Lina, and Mrs. Nguyen collectively gasp and look at me. Baekhyun and Marge especially look utterly astonished.

    I scowl.

    “Then hurry up,” I growl, crossing my arms.

    A creak! fills the room and everyone’s eyes pivot to the door.

“Hello,” Kris says, determinedly not looking at Baekhyun. Baekhyun clenches his fist and begins to rise, until Marge drags him back down.

“Let’s get started, then,” my mother says, leaning back in her seat. “Baekhyun, I trust that you’ll be professional through this meeting. And everything that is says here stays confidential. Otherwise you’ll have hell to pay.”

A/N: i dont know if any of this made sense LMFAO please tell me if its confusing 

AIGHT okay ya recap ami's birth mom is the head of xe & she left ami and her dad when she started working for XE

ami's dad & her stepmom are off in europe, and all throughout high school they were ""honeymooning"" but now they think shes dead

and ya anyway COMMENT/UPVOTE if u like the story yalls comments (esp ur comments about ami's mom) are MAKING ME SO HAPPY IM SQUEALING HEHEHE