It was Joonmyun’s brother who had proposed the idea of the meal over at their parent’s house that evening. It was also his brother who managed to convince his parents to come along to Joonmyun’s graduation; they had no real desire to go and though it hurt Joonmyun knowing this was probably so, he didn’t really care if they decided to turn up or not in the end.

Recently finding out his wife was pregnant, what better time was there to celebrate with his family anyway? All he had to do was set a date and time with his parents and drive his brother over with him (he was pretty sure that if Joonmyun was allowed to drive himself over he would chicken out and make up some excuse as to why he couldn’t attend).

Though it’s quiet and tension hangs in the air, his brother likes to think that this is progress of some sort. He’s managed to get his parents and Joonmyun to stay in a room for longer than twenty minutes.

“So Joonmyun” his sister-in-law begins “I read your article on Wu Yifan the other day, it was good. An interesting read”

“Thanks. It was actually my first” Joonmyun replies “I’ve recently finished an interview with Jung Soojung and the article should be up on the website pretty soon”

“What use is there in writing an article if it’s only going to be published online and not in a newspaper?” his mum asks, Joonmyun falling silent at her question and dropping his gaze back down to his plate of food, jabbing his fork into it.

“W-well this country is like any other technologically advanced country in the world; people are more likely to read stuff online now than they are on a piece of paper” his brother steps in to explain. Joonmyun appreciates his brother’s attempts, but they both know by now that Joonmyun could win the Nobel Peace Prize and it still wouldn’t be enough to satisfy his parents.

The majority of dinner is eaten in silence. Joonmyun’s brother and sister-in-law make attempts to try and get some conversations going, but to no avail and whenever they do manage to get something out of Joonmyun, his parents always seem to have something to say to knock his confidence down all over again.

“I bumped into Jongdae earlier this morning. You remember him, right?” Joonmyun asks, his parents had liked Jongdae and were just as sad as Joonmyun when they discovered he would be moving away.

“No way! How is he?” his brother asks and Joonmyun opens his mouth to reply but his mum cuts him off before he get another word out.

“How about you honey? How has work been recently?” she asks and Joonmyun doesn’t even bother to try and stop the sigh that escapes his lips. He should never have come to this meal, he knew from the moment his brother came to pick him up it would be like this. Unlike Joonmyun, his brother had gone and specialised in financing when he went off to university, something their parents were happy with because it’s what they had wanted him to do in the first place. The difference between Joonmyun and his brother being that his brother liked the maths involved in financing, he enjoyed working with numbers. Joonmyun however hated it and that’s why his career took a different path.

He always remembers his parent’s reactions when it came to applying to university and Joonmyun went and chose a university they didn’t want him to go. He can remember their reactions when he told them he wanted to be a journalist. They disapproved of his choice that much that if it wasn’t for his brother they would have never turned up for his graduation! He tried to make them happy by going on to specialise in business and economics journalism but he knew that would never be good enough for them. Quite frankly he hated how they treated him because of it and he had had enough.

“Mum, Joonmyun was talking” his brother says

“Well it wasn’t hardly anything important, was it?” his mum replies and Joonmyun knows she’s being intentionally spiteful- she’s always been like that with him. Having enough for one evening and refusing to be a part of this anymore, Joonmyun scrapes his seat across the floor and jumps up.

“I’m leaving” he says, voice completely hollow. His brother makes a move to come after him, convince him to stay just a little bit longer, but Joonmyun dismisses him- someone has to stay and finish the meal. It won’t be him however, he’s quick to grab his jacket and doesn’t care how hard he slams the door shut as he leaves, he just needs to get out of there, he doesn’t deserve to be treated the way his parents treat him. It’s not fair.

“All these people here and not one I like, except you and your father of course” Soojung says, handing Yifan a glass of champagne before looking around the room and letting out a scoff “It’s almost suffocating in here!”

Yifan knows he should never judge a book by its cover, he fell victim to that throughout his childhood growing because- even he would admit it- he looked positively terrifying to the other children and it wasn’t until they actually took the time to speak to Yifan that they realised he was the complete opposite of what they may have thought of him originally.

He was raised to know better than to judge people on first appearances- being a victim of it himself- and yet not even ten seconds after entering the room was he able to point out the fakes from the genuine. It was a relatively bad habit of his, however it was good to know who the real people were and who he had to be cautious around, he could never let his guard down in a room like this.

“Trust me, if the press hadn’t made such a huge deal about the two of us I would have happily stayed home” Yifan replies, holding his arm out for Soojung to take before leading her through the hall.

“Please, you’re enjoying this way too much” she points out causing Yifan to smirk

“Well, can you blame me? If it wasn’t for the fact that people were sure to gang up on Siwon and ask him questions, I would have stayed home and left them craving for unanswered questions” he explains and though Soojung rolls her eyes, she leaves him be and says nothing else.

The further they venture, the more obvious it becomes obvious that the two of them are some sort of spectacle to other guests in attendance. Some of the guests try to hide how they stare at the couple and others were making it blatantly obvious that after the recent stories circulating around the two of them they wanted to know if there really was anything going on between the two of them.

“My, my, don’t the two of you look perfect together!” a guests gushes, both Soojung and Yifan inwardly cringing as they turn to her and smile

“Nothing like escorting your friend through the place to make a grand entrance, huh?” Yifan replies, though the guest seems to think he’s playing with her as she sends him a playful glare

“You can label yourselves as you wish, but you, myself, and the press all seem to know what’s really going on” she says playfully and Yifan hopes his laugh doesn’t sound as strained and forced as he’s having to get out of him. He wants to tell her that neither she nor the press really do know what’s going on, but not wanting to cause a scene and drag Soojung into this he keeps quiet and smiles through the lies.

“Ah why is it such a wonder as to whether these two are dating or not? I say leave them be and give them they privacy they both deserve” another guest- someone who Siwon and has introduced to Yifan on many different occasions beforehand- pipes in and Yifan internally thanks him.

“It’s like everybody here tonight is looking to sink their teeth in some form of gossip or another” Soojung manages to joke and the man laughs along with her

“But I guess it’s better than what other people have been saying about Yifan” he says and Soojung can feel Yifan tense next to her

“And what does that mean?” he asks, a strained and completely fake smile plastered on his face. The man doesn’t seem to have noticed how Yifan’s attitude had begun to change and carried on with his speech.

“Well, with everybody assuming that you like the best of both worlds, having people think that you’re with Soojung here will surely dispel those silly rumours. It’s better for your father if things stick to being normal”

“Or you know” Yifan begins with a shrug of his shoulders “With it being the twenty first century, maybe people could start being just a little more open minded- regardless of rumours- instead of being completely ignorant and not open to change at all” and with one final tense smile, excuses himself and goes in search for his father. It doesn’t take long and when he does, Yifan is straight to the point telling him he wants to and needs to leave right now.

“I had another driver come along with us this evening, he should be waiting outside for you” Siwon says as Yifan smiles and shoots him an apologetic look

“Sorry to ditch you like this”

“Ah it’s fine! Really! I wasn’t exactly forcing you to come to this event was I?” Siwon reassures, the two sharing a final goodbye before Yifan quickly walks out from the place.

He was told from a young age that he should never judge people on just first appearances, but leaving a room full of people who were nothing but fakes hungry for the tiniest pieces of gossip to pass on to their gossip hungry friends, Yifan liked to think that maybe there was the tiniest bit of sympathy out there for him.

Okay people, you have been waiting patiently, and I can fully promise you that the next chapter will be the reunion between Kris and Suho

I'm sorry for making you wait so long, and I know I introduced a lot of new characters between their first meeting and the next chapter, but they will have important roles trust me! And this chapter we saw that Joonmyun- safe to say- doesn't get along with his parents and Yifan just hates people and how narrow minded they are... the next chapter should be fun!!

Until then!!