#amomk

The bravest of the pack clears her throat to calm the giggling. She gives her girls a glance before sliding a little closer to Jin.

“You here for the Sunday tutoring sessions?” she asks, tossing her hair in the slight breeze and revealing her neck.

It’s a pretty neck. Long, and slender. Certainly kissable. Definitely suckable. Especially by Jin’s plump lips. But the sound of the woman’s tongue hastily licking her own lips makes Jin get the urge to hide said lips and crinkle his nose instead. He’d rather keep the scold-inducing wrinkles to a minimum, so he keeps his eyes on the sky quickly turning orange. Not wanting to be rude, he offers a quick, neutral nod.

The group of women starts to whisper.

And their leader’s eyes widen. “Wait, really?”

Tilting his head a little, Jin answers. Curt, but polite. “Yes.”

Jaw unhinging, the woman unleashes the collective’s words. “We didn’t think you— You don’t really seem like—”

Utterly flabbergasted by the response, the woman allows her body to be pulled forward until she’s hunched over, attempting to stretch around Jin’s immaculate profile to land dead center in his field of vision, tongue still working in an attempt to keep her drool at bay.

“Uh, you just look… different,” the woman finally explains, with a giggle that echoes the others’.

Jin is a handsome man. He’s also a numbers man. It’s the combination of those two identities that tells him that the women are now extrapolating data. Data like the cloth of his suit, which was worn to the office on what others usually take as a guaranteed day off. Data like the make of his luxury car parked in the lot a few yards away. Data like the flawlessness of his hair, eyes, lips, and skin. After triangulating all this data, they can’t help but wonder: why is a person like him in this neighborhood, much less waiting in the bleachers of a dilapidated baseball field of an old, rundown, public school?

“Different how?” he asks playfully. He knows it’s better not to engage. That he could end up in yet another risky situation. But Jin is still unsure of the third thing, which is whatever the hell is taking Namjoon so long. Faced with anywhere from seconds to hours, Jin supposes that a little stroking of the ego can’t be an unforgivable waste of time.

“Well, first off, I’ve only seen faces like yours on movie screens,” the woman replies, leading the rest of the group in another symphony of snickers.

“You’re too kind,” comes out of Jin’s mouth. But as he finally looks their way, the glimmer that his eyes shine on his rapt audience signals to them that he knows as much as they do that the woman’s words are more fact than opinion.

One woman, in direct line of sight, audibly gasps.

“Tell us more about you,” the first woman pleads.

Another woman smiles as shyly as her tentative giggle bounces toward Jin. “We’ve just been so curious about you since you sat down.”

He watches as the rest of the women crouch together, resting their chins in their hands. He could almost scoff at all the wedding rings on full display. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything!” the woman replies quickly.

Someone behind her mutters, “Everything!”, which is quickly buried by laughs.

With the breeze shifting, the woman’s hair lands around her shoulders again. She tucks some of the locks behind her ear, as if to make sure she’s able to receive the information she’s about to ask for. “Your name, for starters?”

His lips curl into a soothing smile. “Kim Seokjin.”

“And what do you do, Mr. Kim Seokjin?” This woman has the benefit of illusory brazenness now that the others have knocked the first door down. “Something as sexy as that face?”

Jin shrugs. “Depends on how sexy you think this face really is.”

One of the women actually grunts.

“Your wife just lets you roam free like this?” the first woman asks.

“Oh, I’m single,” Jin replies. “Never married.”

He’s pretty sure they’ve all borne children, so he isn’t exactly sure why the groan is so dramatically pained.

A burst of distant laughter momentarily takes everyone’s attention, and when Namjoon comes into view, herding a group of ten or so students from the school over to the pick-up queue by the baseball field, Jin stands and brushes away the bits of baseball diamond dust that have settled in his pant creases.

“Well, ladies, it’s been fun.”

More questions buzz around him like gnats. Does he have kids at the school? How many? Would he know their kids? Are their kids in the same grade, or better yet, the same classes? How come they’ve never seen him before? Will they see him again next Sunday? Will they ever see him again?

As Jin walks toward Namjoon, Jin smooths his hands over his bottom to wipe any remaining bleacher dust away.

And once Jin and Namjoon meet on the curb next to the start of the pick-up queue, Namjoon’s knowing chuckle confirms that the sound that the women made at the sight of Jin’s bottom, was, in fact, a wolf pack of howls, followed by more busily whispered assumptions. Of course. How could they not see it before? Kind, intelligent, middle school teacher Kim Namjoon is the only other man they’ve seen around here who looks like he should be on a movie screen instead.

Jin’s eyes fall to the middle seventh-grader at Namjoon’s side. The kid’s left laces are untied. An apt metaphor for his entire appearance, which is generally well put-together, with minor telling quirks. Messy hair. Baggy uniform. Backpack straps set at their longest slack, his books and other belongings too heavy and hanging too low, causing the kid to hunch forward to balance the weight. And that scowl. Worthy of a mother’s scolding. Jin would know.

“Who’s this uggo?” the kid demands.

After being hoisted so high into the air by all those compliments just a moment ago, Jin finds the thud with which his resulting frown lands on the dirty earth to be particularly disheartening.

“My brother,” Namjoon answers, with a somewhat amused smile.

“Thought you looked related,” the kid cracks.

Namjoon sighs as he absorbs the jab.

But Jin tightens. The kid’s audacity pries his eyes open wider. “Whoa. Dude. Can we ease up a little?”

The kid grins, eyes thinning into upside down U-shapes. “Bite me,” he responds, teeth bared and flashing.

“Lee,” Namjoon begins, seriously but gently, “I know you hate these Sunday sessions, but your father—”

“He can bite me, too. Fucking prick.”

Jin presses his lips together, finding it hard to stifle the oncoming laughter.

Namjoon sighs again. “Watch your mouth, Lee. Would you rather have detention?”

“Honestly, yes,” Lee replies, grabbing his backpack straps and looking up at Namjoon, “because then I wouldn’t have all this stupid crap to do all weekend and then wake up early for school the next morning.”

“I wish you’d seriously consider joining the debate team,” Namjoon goes on, raising his eyebrows. “You’re a good tutor.”

Lee rolls his eyes and folds his arms. “Whatever.”

“No, really.” Namjoon grins. “And you’ve been a really good practice opponent for us, highlighting key holes in arguments and finding quite elegant solutions to—”

“I see my fucking prick of a father pulling into the lot,” Lee interrupts.

His eyes follow a nondescript sedan swerving into the entrance and driving impatiently into empty parking spaces off to the side rather than safely joining the queue.

Lee looks back at Namjoon and Jin. His appearance might’ve been telling, but his actions speak louder. He at least bows slightly and mumbles a “bye” before jogging toward the car.

“So that’s the kid,” Jin remarks.

Namjoon nods. He narrows his eyes and peers through the windshield, trying to get a sense of what Lee’s father is like. Does he slump in his seat? Is his voice as sharp? Are his eyes as cold as Lee’s guarded scowl might indicate? But the car peels off, the roar of the engine ending in the squeals of the tire, which bleed into the giggles that come from behind.

Jin glances back to the women in the bleachers. Some of them have left, but more than a few linger and continue to ogle.

He gestures toward them with his thumb and looks over at Namjoon. “It’s really like this every day?”

When Namjoon sheepishly raises his eyebrows, sharing one half of a dimpled grin and one half of a lazy shrug, Jin rolls his eyes and clasps Namjoon on his raised shoulder. A gentle squeeze, a playful jostle, and Namjoon rocks back and forth on his heels a little.

“How do you stand it?!” Jin exclaims. As Namjoon laughs and rebalances, Jin adds, “Any longer and those bleacher vultures would have picked me off!”

“It’s why I never walk out here alone. Without Lee, I would have been completely defenseless. And without you, I would have been stuck.” Namjoon pats his brother’s resting hand. “Thanks again for picking me up. I should’ve gotten my car battery checked.”

“Like I said last weekend?”

“Yes, hyung, like you said last weekend.”

Namjoon gives a wave to the last of his students, the parents in the pick-up queue, and the rabid fanbase in the bleachers before turning and swinging an arm around Jin’s broad shoulders. They make their way over to Jin’s car. Their backs shield them from all the continued enamored screeches.

“The app, Joon,” Jin says, pointing a finger at him. “I can see when your car throws a trouble code. You had ample warning.”

“You look like Eomma when you do that,” Namjoon observes coolly, reaching for the passenger door handle, and, upon taking his seat, reveling in his expert ability to get Jin to shut up.

Jin’s car looks fancy because it is. It’s also strangely unfamiliar. A brand unknown to people not in the loop. The sportiest design. The softest leather. The smartest tech. More spaceship than car. Namjoon feels as if he merely has to think of Taehyung, and the dashboard is already video calling their youngest brother. But, admittedly, Namjoon isn’t sure if that’s the norm now. His loyal hatchback has served him extremely well over the decades.

“You really should get a new car,” Jin replies, pulling them out of the school’s parking lot and onto the main road. “It’s risky to keep anything older than ten years, nowadays. And if it’s a financing thing, then I can—”

“Your help will be much appreciated,” Namjoon says calmly, and decidedly, “when I ask for it. The tow was covered by insurance, and the shop says everything is fixable.”

Jin rolls his eyes just as Taehyung’s sleepy face pops up on the center of the dash. Taehyung’s smart screened speaker captures him from its place on his nightstand, broadcasting his sleepy body, sky blue hair curled up in his cloud white comforter.

“Taehyungie?” Jin asks gently.

Taehyung’s hand dreamily, if not clumsily, pulls away from the screen after having accepted the call, that same arm swinging over to the other side of the bed as he rolls over, facing away.

“Tae!” Jin bellows.

But Taehyung just burrows deeper into his blankets. “Mm?”

Namjoon smirks, but his voice is soft when he speaks. “Tae-Tae? Are you just now waking up?”

“…Mm?”

“Tae, we’re going to be at your place in half an hour,” Namjoon informs him.

After a stubborn pause that Jin and Namjoon know by now to wait through, Taehyung sighs and rolls back over to face his tiny elder brothers on the screen. He blinks a couple of times, nose scrunching and bunching as his nostrils flare to make room for a couple of deep, thirsty inhales. He sits up a little and pulls his pajama-sleeved arm out from under his pillow to check his watch. Having shifted during sleep, its face rests against Taehyung’s bony wrist. He presses the leather strap against his cheek as he sinks back down onto his pillow, rotating his wrist so that the face of his watch moves back into its proper place. As he struggles to pry his eyes fully open, he pulls down his jaw, corners tight.

“Weren’t you supposed to get me an hour ago?” Taehyung mumbles.

“Sorry we kept you waiting,” Jin remarks with a scoff. “Clearly we’ve inconvenienced you so.”

Taehyung narrows his eyes. “You have.”

“Which is why I said clearly,” Jin remarks.

“You don’t know my life,” Taehyung grumbles. “You don’t know how if I had a long shoot last night, or if I’ve even eaten today, or—”

“Car,” Jin says suddenly, “read Kim Taehyung’s posts from this weekend.”

Namjoon jumps at the surrounding sound of a friendly chime, and cowers a little in his seat as a friendly voice says, “Alright. Reading recent posts by KIM. TAEHYUNG.”

3:06 AM, today: Is there anything better than a post-fuck 20-Taco Takeout Box from Taco Town? The answer is no, except maybe the fuck.

12:15 AM, today: I don’t know who you are or where you went, but you gave me a gigantic boner. If you see this, slide into my DMs like your tongue slid into my throat. #whatelsethatmouthdo

10:49 PM, today: Alright y’all, just got to the club. Who wants to make out??

9:32 PM: What’s everyone up to tonight? Trying to decide between going out and reading some stupid book my hyung gave me.

Namjoon frowns. “I ordered The History of the Photographic Lens months ago. I thought you’d actually enjoy it. Y'know. Given what you do.”

“How do you know those posts were really me?” Taehyung dares.

“You still have cheddar cheese stuck to your cheek!” Jin exclaims.

Taehyung rubs his face into his sheets, but the cheddar cheese shard stays put.

Namjoon sighs. “Tae, just go shower and change. And bring one of your cameras. Maybe some lights. Eomma asked for them for tonight.”

Throwing the comforter off of himself and suddenly sitting up, Taehyung yawns and scratches his back. And his sides. And his stomach.

And then he scampers off the bed while still on the video call.

Completely naked from the waist down.

“Need you to sign.”

The delivery man holds out his barely-together clipboard.

Mr. Kim curls his finger around the dangling chain attached to the clipboard to retrieve the small, hanging pen. He gives a little sigh, scribbling his signature before receiving three, small, white parcels, tied together with a bit of white string. He notices something on the sticker on top of the first box, but the delivery man is already by his truck.

As Mr. Kim leaves the foyer, he smiles to himself, mentally patting himself on the back at the sound of the soft air leaking out of the hydraulic door closer as it slowly, gently shuts.

Mrs. Kim chuckles when he joins her in the kitchen and beams a dreamy smile at her.

“You and that door,” she mumbles with a fond grin.

Mr. Kim whistles. “It’s a real beaut,” he sighs.

“Never mind that it took you fourteen tries,” Mrs. Kim jokes.

Mr. Kim can’t hear her. “Like marshmallows landing on the ground,” he revels. He looks at Mrs. Kim and beams with pride. “Like your head hitting the pillow at night.”

Mrs. Kim snorts. “My handyman.”

“And, apparently, your secretary,” Mr. Kim replies, presenting her with the three white boxes.

Mrs. Kim sets a wooden spoon down, puts a lid on a pot, and wipes her hands on her apron.

A bright smile. The lightest giggle. The sound of a shiver through her body. Mr. Kim can only laugh when Mrs. Kim excitedly squeals, “Oooh! They’re here!”

She rounds the kitchen island, scooping up the boxes and bringing them farther away from the stove. She finds a clear spot on the counter and parks there for her inspection.

After untying the white string, she uncovers them, then thumbs through them, picking a candidate from somewhere in the middle of the second box. After looking it over, she picks the front card in the first box, and the last card in the last box. She holds them up to the light. Waves them in the air. Turns them over, and then back over again. Even sniffs them. Gladly, everything is up to snuff.

Three perfect stacks of the perfect business cards to use for her three perfect sons.

Mr. Kim hovers behind her, intrigued.

Moving her shoulder into his line of sight, Mrs. Kim asks, “Aw. Yeobo. What three words do I always tell you?”

“‘I love you’?”

“No.” She looks up at him. “‘Mind your business’.”

Mrs. Kim boxes the cards back up and pushes them to the back of the kitchen counter, next to the one remaining landline phone in the house.

Mr. Kim stays on her slender heels, which peek out from sensible, well-worn, muted rose, furry house slippers, the still-intact rubber soles of which are clop-clop-clop-ing back toward the stove.

“I just… well…”

“What?” Mrs. Kim asks, picking up the wooden spoon and stirring the nearly-there stew for what should be the last time. “You gonna lecture me again?”

“No,” Mr. Kim admits. “I just… well… don’t I get business cards too? I mean…” He smirks. “I did help make the boys.”

“Well, no one is accosting you at the club!” Mrs. Kim exclaims. She tastes her stew and frowns. “Damn.”

“I want business cards, too!” Mr. Kim pouts, bringing her back to the conversation.

A chorus of familiar voices break through Mr. and Mrs. Kim’s playful squabbling.

“Ma?”

"Maaaaa!"

Mr. and Mrs. Kim brighten at the sweet sound of Taehyung’s greeting and the teasing, echoing sounds of Namjoon and Jin.

“Boys?” Mr. Kim calls back.

From the lack of the sound of the door slamming, Mr. and Mrs. Kim assume their boys have just come in through the door and are still taking off their shoes. Mr. and Mrs. Kim smile happily at each other, walking over to the front hall.

They’re met with a flurry of kisses and hugs from their three sons, everyone’s bodies and limbs somehow knowing to dodge Mrs. Kim’s stew-covered spoon and comfortably settling into familiar pockets of space that feel just as much as home as this warm, lived-in, beautiful house.

“Was there lots of traffic?” Mr. Kim asks, clasping the shoulder pad in Jin’s suit.

“No, the roads were pretty empty,” Jin replies.

“It’s my fault,” Namjoon replies. “I got held up.”

“Taehyung also needed a minute or two,” Jin adds, causing Taehyung to narrow his eyes and frown.

“You boys didn’t even give your hyung a chance to change out of his work clothes,” Mrs. Kim chides, looking over at Jin.

“I’ll just pull something from my closet later,” Jin says, following his brothers into the living room to relax a little before dinner.

“Before you sit down, do you mind if you drive me to the store, really quick?” Mrs. Kim asks, following them. “I think I need to add more onions and peppers to the stew. It tastes a little bland.”

She offers Jin a lick of the stew from her spoon, and Jin nods, out of agreement with his mother’s assessment, as well as obedience to his mother’s request.

“Thanks, Seokjinnie."

Mrs. Kim looks at all three of her sons, standing there in the front hall. Eldest, charming Seokjin, so dependable that he works on his days off, and still so handsome in his well-tailored but slightly creased suit that she will scold him about later. Middle, charismatic Namjoon, a sight for sore eyes even if the lines of the nose pads of his glasses have dug into his skin a bit after kindly dedicating his time off to teach. Youngest runt Taehyung, so sweet, even with that ever-present cheeky smile connecting his fluffed up cheeks.

“Actually…”

Mrs. Kim’s contemplative pause causes the boys to turn and watch her with slight worry.

“Can all three of you come to the store with me?” Mrs. Kim asks. She turns to her husband, who perks up when her eyes land on him. “And can you just keep an eye on the stew while we’re out?”

“Really?” Mr. Kim says, judging, and cryptically, while cocking an eyebrow.

“Yeobo, don’t start,” Mrs. Kim warns, shaking her spoon at him as she heads back into the kitchen. “Let me just check the stew and set down my apron.”

Mr. Kim looks over at the boys, who look a little more worried, and now, confused.

He just sighs before following her into the kitchen.

And then, he returns almost as quickly as he disappeared, bringing with him a small, white box.

“Bring this with you,” Mr. Kim tells them, handing the box to Namjoon. “Be extra careful out there.” A weary look sets upon his face. “Godspeed, boys.”

The Kim brothers exchange glances, wondering whatever in the world would prompt extra speed and care for a simple trip to the store.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Jin mutters, as he leads the way.

He feels his mother grasp the back of his jacket, crumpling the fabric in her tiny fist.

“Eomma,” he complains. “My suit.”

“Oh hush,” Mrs. Kim hisses. “I can see the creases behind your knees. And is that sand between the folds?”

Jin gives a glance back at Taehyung and Namjoon, who smirk at their hyung from their places on either side of Mrs. Kim, the perfect V-formation that she has needed seemingly now more than ever.

Spring brings with it all sorts of life, all of it evident in the local grocery store: gorgeous flower arrangements on display at the front of the store; a new bundle of crops showcased in the produce section; and a cavalcade of young women in attire much too dressed-up for a quick errand, all of them flinging themselves (or being flung by their mothers) to the front of the Kims’ V-formation, on the off-chance that three lucky winners will make a strong enough impression to be chosen by the three most eligible bachelors for miles.

Tiny Mrs. Kim’s feet can’t keep up with her giant sons’ long and powerful strides, but she’ll gladly take ping-ponging within that V-formation over what usually happens. Without her boys here, Mrs. Kim would be blocked for hours in the check-out line, being inundated with questions about her sons.

Namjoon kindly wraps his arm around his mother’s shoulders and holds her elbow to keep her safe. She smiles at him in thanks. And then, she turns to a blankly staring Taehyung.

“Stand up straight,” Mrs. Kim whispers. “Are you passing out the cards?”

“Uh—”

Taehyung’s hands are firmly grasping the box, but he doesn’t need to do more than that. Streams of young women continue to rush past him and pick up business cards on their own, running back to their mothers and excitedly whispering about getting to see the boys in person.

“How do they always know when we’ll be here?” Namjoon asks, scanning the store. “Up until a few minutes ago, we didn’t even know we’d be here.” He can’t fully take in the scene around them. There are so many women, but they all wear the same uniform. Shiny, styled hair. Floral dresses. Red lips screaming against too-white teeth. “People, like, got ready?”

“I swear it’s like they can smell us coming,” Mrs. Kim grumbles.

“Maybe we don’t need more onions and peppers in the stew, then,” Jin jokes.

Mrs. Kim stops abruptly, her clear bags of onions and peppers swinging forward and bumping into Jin’s back, and then swinging back and bumping into her stomach. “Ooh. That reminds me. I need scented candles. I also fried some fish to go with the stew.”

Taehyung groans, Namjoon takes a deep breath, and Jin clears his throat insistently as he tries to maneuver their V-formation through the crazy crowd and back to the home goods aisles of the store.

They flatten into a straight line and step behind to allow Mrs. Kim to see what scented candles are available. She revels in the ability to shop uninterrupted. That her tall sons can pick the candles from the highest shelves when she requests. That she can ask them for their opinions, dismiss them, and then consider them again.

“You’re right, that one,” she says, after a little while. “The cinnamon apple. It’s the strongest.”

Jin steps forward and pulls the red candle from the shelf. “I told you.”

As Mrs. Kim lifts the lid of the candle and smells it for the eighth or ninth time, Jin looks around at the scene again. More of the same.

And then, something not same. But still familiar.

A face. One that he hasn’t seen in a long while.

It’s attached to a form at the other end of the aisle, almost shapeless in her hoodie and sweatpants, holding two cans of air freshener. She shakes one and sprays it. She takes in the scent, but she looks unimpressed. She shakes the other and sprays it, and immediately, she gags, sticking her tongue out and slamming the can back onto the shelf.

Jin chuckles. “Hey… Is that…?”

Mrs. Kim follows Jin’s gaze. Upon landing on an unkempt appearance and angry demeanor, Mrs. Kim tightens, and straightens, causing Namjoon and Taehyung to close their distance around her, just in case. “Don’t make eye contact,” Mrs. Kim instructs. “She’s a black circle.”

Jin turns back to her. “A—” He furrows his brow. “A what now?” he asks quizzically.

Mrs. Kim grabs the back of Jin’s suit again. “C’mon.” She gives the fabric a strong tug. “I thought of more stuff that we need. Back to the produce aisle. Lettuce. Tomatoes. Salad dressing.”

The Kim V-formation winds through more aisles. The Kim boys’ three pairs of arms pick up more items, and their devastating faces leave more destruction in their wake. Soon, Mrs. Kim is carefully checking off boxes in her mind as she watches the 24-pack of paper towels, the 12-count of toilet paper, three bottles of wine, a new peony arrangement for the kitchen table centerpiece, Taehyung’s requested snacks, the cinnamon apple candle, and the onions, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, and salad dressing travel one-by-one across the cashier’s conveyor belt.

As Mrs. Kim moves to pull her credit card from her purse, Jin holds up a hand and swipes his card instead, earning a happy smile and loving pat on the back from his mother.

And while her sons scamper to the parked car in the distance, all the groceries in tow, Mrs. Kim waits in the shade by the front of the store, watching intently to make sure they aren’t hit by any careless drivers or rogue shopping carts.

Someone’s cart rattles next to her, and she turns to find a woman whom she’s seen around town. Mrs. Kim thinks that maybe she even taught one of her kids. Maybe that student is the pretty girl standing next to this woman, on the other side of the cart, gripping the handle to make sure it doesn’t veer off.

“Hi, um, excuse me,” the inquisitive mother replies, “are those your sons who are lugging your groceries to your car? Because I—”

Mrs. Kim rolls her eyes and looks down at her white box of business cards. She hastily pulls one out and just holds it in front of the inquisitive mother’s face.

   “Ah,” the inquisitive mother replies, grinning. “You clearly get this question all the time, then, but, uh, well, I’d love it if my daughter here could introduce her—”

Mrs. Kim flips the card over in one smooth movement of her fingers.

   The inquisitive mother blinks at the card before looking back at Mrs. Kim and taking the card from her.

“Thank you,” she says reverently, patting her daughter on the back and quickly heading to their car.

Mrs. Kim smiles after them, and as she looks down at her precious, genius business cards. The flowers that she had hand-painted. The pristine calligraphy.

“Bongseon, look how far you’ve come,” she whispers proudly to herself, as Jin’s spaceship of a car pulls up to the store’s entrance.

The kitchen isn’t exactly small, but with all five of the now-grown Kims crammed inside, along with Taehyung’s camera, stand, and several lights, the room is starting to feel a little tight.

“A photo shoot?!”

Jin frowns.

“We bought all of these groceries for a photo shoot?!” he continues, folding his arms as he watches an energetic Taehyung and a grimacing, bowl-handling Namjoon getting into position as instructed by a very determined Mrs. Kim.

“We’re eating the salad with dinner,” she says seriously.

Taehyung rummages through a nearby drawer. “I want a prop, too!” he whines, fingers causing chaos. “I look more natural in photos when I have something to work with.”

Jin crosses the kitchen, striding over to the drawer that Taehyung is digging into. “You’re messing up Eomma's system! Big to small, from left to right!”

“I want this!” Taehyung rings out, holding up a whisk.

“Does that even go with the theme?” Jin asks. He sorts the ladles from the spatulas from the skimmer spoons and the rest. “Namjoon’s holding up a salad bowl. Maybe salad tongs instead?”

They turn to see Namjoon plucking a tomato from the salad, eliciting a frustrated yelp from Mrs. Kim.

“I want this!” Taehyung insists, lifting the whisk higher in the air. “There can be a little suspension of disbelief with the theme. You’re not wearing pajamas.”

Jin winces, remembering the sight of Taehyung just hours ago. “You were only wearing half of them a little while ago.”

Taehyung smiles proudly. “Needed to air some things out.”

“Ugh.”

“What’s the trouble back there?” Mrs. Kim demands, turning her attention to Jin and Taehyung, as wide-eyed, hungry Namjoon sneaks another tomato while out of her gaze.

“Tae-Tae wants to hold a whisk,” Jin responds, “but we’re not holding anything that would require one?”

“Whip something up, then,” Mrs. Kim says, bringing Taehyung’s camera’s viewfinder up to her eye. Her eyelashes graze the small square as she blinks and focuses her vision. “Namjoonie, tilt the bowl up a bit? Maybe give me a little bit of a flirty wink, like, ooh, what do I have here, a nutritious salad that I’ve made for you from scratch?”

Namjoon does as told, and Mrs. Kim does her best to suppress her delighted giggles as she snaps the shot.

“Perfect!” she squeals. She confirms her assessment by pulling the camera away and checking the test shot in the camera’s screen. “Ah, I wanna shoot you at a different angle! Let me fix the tripod. You all look at me over here, off to the side, and we’ll do more candid types of shots. Ugh, Namjoonie, your dimples are too cute!”

Beside her is a grinning Mr. Kim, holding up one of Taehyung’s ring lights. “They are cute, aren’t they?” Mr. Kim chimes in.

Mrs. Kim whirls around and laughs at the originals of those dimples, dotting her sweet husband’s cheeks. She kisses them for good measure, and the ring light slips a little in Mr. Kim’s grip.

Taehyung blinks in the shine. “Ugh, Eomma, Appa, gross.”

“This is so fun!” Mrs. Kim exclaims, turning back to the boys, as Mr. Kim plants another kiss on her temple.

“What is this even for?” Jin asks, spooning some crème fraîche into a clear bowl.

“It’s just been so long since I’ve gotten to take your pictures,” Mrs. Kim replies innocently.

She stands on her kitchen step stool and angles the camera for peak dimple capture, and then she begins to scroll through more test shots of Namjoon and Taehyung, pausing momentarily on every photo, like she might do while flipping through all of the photo albums currently lining the bookshelves in her studio.

“No more Halloween costumes. Haven’t been to a formal event in a while, and the next one isn’t for a few weeks.”

She tries another test shot, and even though it’s of Namjoon preparing to flick a leaf of lettuce at an unsuspecting Taehyung’s cheek as Jin stares off into the distance, the beaming smile on Mrs. Kim’s face shows that she is completely convinced that this is another winner of an idea. It’s the same beaming smile that outshines the boys’ smiles in her photo albums, smiles that start out in all earnest eagerness, but slowly, and over time, turn into smiles of obligation.

She pushes her lips out as she climbs down her stool.

“Maybe we should do more of these. Create more content.” Her eyes widen when her left foot joins her right on the floor. “They could even go on fliers!”

“First business cards, and now fliers?” Mr. Kim remarks. A fond smile turns the corners of his lips into comet tails attached to his dimples, soaring higher and higher up his cheeks. “I mean, I know you love a good flier, yeobo—”

“Wait, fliers?” The last scoop of crème fraîche differs from all the others because not all of it ends up in the bowl. “Content??” Jin groans, the sound echoing from the hollow marrow of his bones. “The business cards were already a step too far, but now you want us to actively get involved in this whole scheme?”

Mrs. Kim stares at him. “So what if I am?” She rolls her eyes at Jin’s pleading, defeated look. “You know what? It’s good that we’re laying this all out. I’m tried of trying to gently encourage you. Why do you think I keep asking you to go to the store with me on Sundays? Why else would I ask you to change into your pajamas and robes before dinner?”

Namjoon shrugs, still cradling the salad bowl in his left arm. “So that we’d be comfortable?” He stretches his right arm out to his side, shaking out the sleeve of his red and gray flannel robe, tugging the fabric down his arm with his ring and middle knuckles so that the long sleeve straightens and grazes against his fingernail beds. “These really are so comfy,” he says, with a warm smile.

“Where’s your robe, Seokjinnie?” Mrs. Kim demands.

Jin gives Taehyung the bowl of crème fraîche, and Taehyung happily whisks it around, smiling to himself.

“I don’t know,” Jin replies, watching Taehyung whisking, and feeling himself quickly draining of energy. “Probably back at my loft or something.”

Mrs. Kim sighs. “Well, that’s fine, just take your suit jacket off and, y'know, straighten out your shirt — plus the creases in the back of your pants,” she adds, with a scowl.

Even while huffing and puffing, and while muttering that he can’t help that he has knees, Jin does as told.

Mrs. Kim grins again. “It’s a good thing I thought of this before your roots grew out too long,” she claims proudly. “Jinnie, Joonie, blonde really does suit you. And Tae-Tae, not everyone can pull off that wonderful, subtle mint!”

Taehyung blushes and grins, lips pressed tight, cheeks like little loaves of bread on either side of his face.

“Looks more like straw to me,” Jin mumbles, as Taehyung digs his elbow into his stomach.

“Alright, Taehyungie,, stay in the middle,” Mrs. Kim orders, before the boys jostle around too much. “Namjoonie, stand on the left. No-no-no, my left. Yes, good, and Seokjinnie, on the right, angle in just sligh—yep! Nice!” She wiggles her fingers in her graying roots, squinting her eyes. “Rub your hair like this, like you—” She fake-yawns, mouth hanging open. "Ahhhh! Y'know. A little disheveled.” Mr. Kim yawns for real, eyes glazing over. “Soft faces,” Mrs. Kim continues. “Well-slept. Getting ready to start a productive and meaningful day.”

“OK, so what I’m hearing is that we just woke up, and for breakfast, we’re having salad and sour cream?” Namjoon asks, puzzled.

“It’s crème fraîche,” Jin corrects, pulling his fingers out of his now slightly wavy bangs, “but the point stands.”

As Taehyung shakes his hair out, he scoffs and exchanges a look with Mrs. Kim. “Ugh. Models, right?”

“What does it matter?” Mrs. Kim asks, using Taehyung’s camera’s remote to click-click-click-click candid shot after candid shot. She smiles and laughs along with them to try and elicit her sons’ trademark smiles. After a few rounds, she holds up a finger and walks back to her stool, climbing up to the camera on the tripod and investigating the screen. When she sees that the camera has indeed captured their less-than-thrilled expressions, Mrs. Kim adds, “Why do you all look so mopey?”

“We’re annoyed,” Jin answers.

“We’re just a little tired,” Namjoon admits.

“And we’re hungry,” Taehyung mumbles.

“Well, the faster we get this shoot done, then the sooner you’ll be able to eat, OK?” Mrs. Kim asks, raising the camera to her eye. “Now, Namjoon, give me that wink from earlier.”

Mrs. Kim can’t help but let more delighted giggles out as she snaps Namjoon’s cheeky close-lipped smiles, or as Taehyung comes fully alive with props securely in hand.

But Jin’s shots keeping coming out a little lackluster.

Mrs. Kim sighs, looking into her eldest son’s eyes. He’s made it clear that he’s annoyed. And she knows he’s hungry. But he’s never looked this tired before.

“Jin?” she asks.

Jin furrows his brow, the bridge of his nose narrowing and crinkling a little under his mother’s studious gaze. “What?”

“Get in the middle,” she says, softly.

Jin scoots in as Taehyung backs up and makes room, while Namjoon comes around the two of them.

Mrs. Kim steps off the stool and walks over to her boys. She fixes their hair a bit, fingers swiping and curling here and there.

She places a kiss on each of their cheeks.

“I just like getting to see you happy,” she tells them, before turning back to Jin and holding his chin in her thumb and forefinger. “When you’re happy, I’m happy.”

Jin’s shoulders fall a little.

Easing.

Surrendering.

Taehyung closes in and cuddles up, and Namjoon places his contemplative hand on Jin’s shoulder.

And then, Jin’s face starts its magical transformation.

His lips fall open slightly, corners pulling back just a bit, forming his perfect, polite, trademark grin. A grin full of possibilities. The kind of grin that sparks instant curiosity, that drives a nearly insatiable hunger to learn more. Like how big the grin might grow when he’s really tickled. Or how contagious it is when he’s laughing with his brothers. Or how tiny it gets when he’s so happy that he can’t make a sound at all.

So many people have wondered about this grin and all of its stories. Just today, countless others who have seen it, like the leader of the pack of moms at the school, or the women at the store grabbing business cards out of his hands, have already been wondering what could have prompted it, or the ones on his younger brothers’ faces, and if they happened to be some of the lucky ones who might’ve even inspired them somehow. Making a Kim brother smile? One could live off of that energy. One could even feed others with it.

Mrs. Kim, renewed with the energy it takes to feed the three of them, zooms back up her stool steps, bringing her boys’ gazes up with her. She quickly places her eye behind the viewfinder and snaps the picture before the grin dies altogether.

“Ah, now this shot is a winner!” she sighs, admiring the mixes of younger versions of her and Mr. Kim’s hands, eyes, and lips in the frame.

But as she pulls her eye away from the viewfinder, and she checks the shot in the camera’s screen, she wonders what exactly has happened in the time between her thumb lovingly stroking Jin’s chin and her index finger hitting the camera’s shutter release.

Jin’s eyes still look so tired.

The additional time spent simmering has actually done the stew some good. The flavors are bolder, the spices warmer. Mrs. Kim smiles to herself as she takes and savors another taste. Another job well-done. A victory lap well-earned.

She ladles half the pot into a big serving bowl, which is perched atop a serving platter. They both have matching designs: navy, wavy, funny squiggles that make her think of high tide at Namjoon’s favorite beach. Jin’s first tailored suit. Taehyung’s eyes when he’s laughing.

Mrs. Kim carefully carries the stew as she rounds the doorjamb and joins her family at the kitchen table, where her boys are quietly complaining to their father about how far off the deep end she has jumped.

“I just wish you’d settle down sooner rather than later,” Mrs. Kim tries to explain, setting the bowl of stew in the center of the table.

Jin leads the chorus of happy sighs, eyes widening as she releases the bowl and makes space for him and his brothers to dig in. Which they hastily do.

“Looks perfect, Eomma,” he grins, watching the meat swim as he ladles.

“Like always,” Namjoon adds, beaming up at her with a bit of drool on his chin.

“Finally,” Taehyung groans, spilling a bit of his serving on the table.

“Did you three hear me?” Mrs. Kim leaves the table and walks back over to the kitchen, right to the sink, grabbing her rag before heading back out to the table. “Your father and I are getting older, and I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.”

“Oh,” Jin says, “we heard you. We just chose to ignore you.”

His brothers snicker along.

“You maybe wanna rethink that response?” Mrs. Kim asks. Her words are sharp but, luckily, still sheathed.

Jin shrinks a little. He looks cute with his tail between his legs. A nice trait for a husband to have. It’s certainly helped Mr. Kim throughout the years, that’s for sure.

“Getting married isn’t our only option,” Namjoon insists.

Mrs. Kim softens and mops up Taehyung’s spill with the rag.

Namjoon watches her. The rag dances across the tabletop in soft, fluid half-circles. “We’ve been through this, Eomma. We can take care of ourselves.”

Mrs. Kim says nothing as she folds the rag in half and takes it back to the kitchen before disappearing completely.

Mr. Kim looks over from the head of the table, grateful for a moment of quiet, and grateful to finally be able to reach for the ladle now that the boys are done. He looks at the top of their heads, their mouths slurping from their chopsticks and bowls. Shaking his head, he smirks to himself.

Familiar metal clicking between slippered feet shuffling captures all the Kim men’s attention.

“Maaaaa!” Taehyung groans. “No!”

Mrs. Kim emerges from the dark of her study at the front of the hall.

“I crunched more numbers,” she replies, setting up the easel.

“Crunched?” Namjoon asks tentatively.

“More like pulverized,” Jin notices, his eyes dancing around the notes, icons, and calculations on the page.

Mrs. Kim’s map triangulates the fourteen closest bachelorettes whose mothers have called to inquire about the boys’ dance cards. Always vacant, the boys say. And yet, somehow, whenever Mrs. Kim calls with a new prospect, they’re suddenly very busy.

“Honestly, we’re gonna stop coming home every week if you keep bringing those charts out,” Jin threatens, as Namjoon and Taehyung nod along. “And even if you execute stellar APA formatting,” Namjoon says, maintaining reverence in his annoyance. “I saw those standard error bars. Nice job, Eomma.”

Mrs. Kim can’t hide her small smile. It’s impossible to do around these three. She’s heard this threat before. Several times. But they always come. Every Sunday.

“Just hear me out,” she pleads. Her finger lands next to a heart sticker on the map. “I even changed the recommendation system. Hearts now denote the best matches, with as high as 93% compatibility based on the lists you gave me!”

“The lists that you, again, tricked us into giving you,” Jin replies, noodles hanging out of the side of his mouth.

“I was just asking some questions!” Mrs. Kim exclaims, as Jin slurps them up.

As Jin’s words continue to hang in the air, Mrs. Kim relents.

“Fine, no more tricks,” she sighs, “but I know you. I know you better than you think I do. Better than you know yourselves.” She ruffles Jin’s hair, threading her fingers through his bangs to fluff them up a bit, some of his forehead peeking out. “If you just give my map a chance, a real chance, starting with these top fourteen candidates, I promise you’ll be happy with the results!”

“The only result that we’ll be fully happy about is when you finally stop all of this,” Jin says.

“Seriously, Eomma, you’re being kind of, well, forceful,” Namjoon adds gently.

Taehyung gulps down his mouthful of stew. “It’s hard to manage on top of all of the other stuff going on.”

Grumbling, and growing frantic, Mrs. Kim adds, “Look, this isn’t just about you, OK? How do you think I feel? Constantly worrying whether you’ve eaten, or whether you’re relaxed, or whether you’ve got someone who can help shoulder your burdens? Plus! I’ve got all these ol’ biddies breathing down my neck at every turn! Accosting me in the grocery store, cornering me at my art class—”

“The ladies’ room at the club,” Mr. Kim says, without looking up from his bowl.

“The ladies’ room at the club!” Mrs. Kim remembers, slapping her hand to her forehead. “And not while I was powdering my nose, mind you! I was mid-stream!”

Taehyung groans and throws his chopsticks into his bowl.

“Appa,” Jin says painfully, raising his eyebrows at Mr. Kim, “a little help, here? ‘Mid-stream’? We’re having stew for god’s sake.”

Mr. Kim’s stern but present look has a way of grounding everything, and everyone. As he looks at his sons, they each let their wrists fall respectfully to the table.

“Have some sympathy for your poor, frustrated, but still incredibly eloquent mother,” Mr. Kim replies, giving her a tiny smirk as he raises his spoon to his lips. “She just wants what’s best for you, and you three don’t exactly make things easy.”

His gaze falls back onto his wild-eyed wife. He tries to speak as enthusiastically as he can while remaining as quiet as possible, shoving leftover air in hums at the end of his sentences. “So maybe we can pick this up later, huh?” he decides, glancing between her and their boys. “Save the map for after dinner, hmm?”

He rises noiselessly but definitively from his now-cold stew and joins his wife at her easel. He grips one side and holds Mrs. Kim’s hopeful gaze until it turns into one of acceptance. Together, they haul it back into the study, leaving the French glass doors open, and hearing the boys whispering in the kitchen.

With the boys’ hushed voices in the background, the easel clinks and clatters sharply as they set it down in the center of Mrs. Kim’s studio. She looks at her map, and then she looks up at the shelves of photo albums in her bookcases, the spines shining in the moonlight, happily announcing the Kims’ early years in bright neon labels with cartoon-y lettering, and the later years in perfect, sophisticated calligraphy. Her eyes then catch the wall, lingering on a frame, holding a photo of the boys on vacation juxtaposed against three smaller photos of younger versions of themselves.

Jin’s eyes are shining brightly in those pictures.

“Why did we have to make such handsome, wonderful, perfect boys?” Mrs. Kim asks, still peering up at the albums, fingers itching to grab at them, but her body choosing to rest her temple on her husband’s shoulder instead.

“They’re definitely handsome, and absolutely wonderful, but they’re not perfect,” Mr. Kim remarks fondly, though Mrs. Kim’s narrowed eyes make it clear that she thinks otherwise on that last point. “And they’re men now, yeobo.” He rubs her arm with care. “They’ve already done so well. We couldn’t possibly ask for more, right? Maybe it’s alright to let them be.”

Mrs. Kim pauses. And she listens. It’s been a while since she’s heard what “letting them be” sounds like, especially at the house, now that everyone has their own places to live. Apparently, “letting them be” sounds not like a sweet, happy, domestic utopia of three kind brothers sharing some homemade stew, but rather Taehyung making some kind of joke about the girl he took home the night before, and Namjoon and Jin weighing in with some comments, slaps on the table, and stories of their own. Mrs. Kim doesn’t fully know what all their words mean, or why exactly Taehyung is talking about finding cheese in the shower. As she feels Mr. Kim wrapping a comforting arm around her waist, she also feels him quietly letting out some impressed whistles. Though she probably wouldn’t be thrilled with the explanations, she supposes that this means that she could derive some sort of sense of accomplishment on their behalf. A different kind of victory lap altogether.

Even so, Mrs. Kim slumps against her husband’s frame.

And her eyes keep roving back to that easel.

Bongseon’s easel doesn’t fold up as neatly as she’d like. It was already cheap, and she bought it at a discount because of the faulty latch meant to keep the legs safely tucked away. It actually does the opposite, making it all the more difficult to haul across campus every day. But, like with everything in her life, Bongseon does her best anyway, grateful that she has an easel to haul at all.

Hugging the easel to her side, she takes a step back and looks up at the board full of flyers. Campus is always so busy, and it’s been weeks since she put her own flier up, so it makes sense that her simple request has gone unnoticed. Most of her page is covered up by other, more colorful and appealing messages anyway. Messages from sororities and fraternities. Invites to parties. Pleas from various student organizations to raise funds for school events. Things that are beautifully communal. Pretty petals in lavender, coral, cornflower, lemon, and viridian, fluttering in the breeze. If she were harder on herself, she’d have a sense of shame about interrupting this rainbow with her ripped piece of notebook paper and blunt message:

Need a male specimen to sit down and shut up for an hour. 50 bucks.

But this flier is not meant to reflect her art. It is meant to help her create it. If someone doesn’t take one of the makeshift tabs at the bottom of the page soon, she’ll have to get started on her backup plan. Which she really doesn’t want to do.

Campus is busy. It’s been weeks. And Bongseon has already gotten so used to trudging past the student center’s board full of flyers without seeing any evidence of an upcoming response. So she completely misses that the last tab, which was previously just hidden under the call for the Chuseok event planning committee, has been torn off.

It’s also why she’s so completely thrown when she hears her name echoing down the hallway.

“Excuse me, are you Pan Bongseon?”

There’s a pause. A murmur. And then, an, “Oh? OK, thank you.”

Bongseon’s arm freezes in position as she pauses to listen.

“Excuse me, are you Pan Bongseon?”

There’s another pause.

“Ah, sorry.”

Bongseon sets her charcoal down and wipes her hands on her sweater. She picks up her now-empty fruit juice cup and tosses it into the small trash can next to her easel. Her legs stretch, and she walks toward the entrance to her studio, arriving just as a fist is reaching up to knock on the door.

The punch is completely inadvertent, but it hurts all the same.

“OW! FUCK!”

“Sorry!” the owner of the voice cries out. Instead of retracting his hand, however, he reaches out with the other, placing his fingers on Bongseon’s shoulders gently and crouching down to inspect her face. “Are you OK??”

“Get off of me!”

“I was checking to see if—” He releases his grasp on her and takes a step back. “Wow, I’m so sorry! I turned to look down the hall and see how many more doors I had before—” He winces, his glasses rising as his cheeks puff up. “A-are you Pan Bongseon?”

Bongseon tosses her long hair out of the way, grips the bridge of her nose with one hand, and gives him the finger with the other.

“I am so, so sorry,” he repeats, hanging his head. “I just…”

He holds up a piece of notebook paper.

“I saw your flier,” he explains, “but you didn’t put any other contact information except that you’d be in one of the student spaces in the art building, so I’ve been coming here for weeks trying to find you…”

Bongseon glares at him, but that pesky shame starts to settle in. “Oh.” She sniffles back a little dab of blood. “Sorry.”

His eyes grow at the sight of red. “God, no, please, I’m so sorry—” He shakes his head at himself, muttering through grit teeth, “Ugh, why do you always— stupid arms— jeez, get it together—”

Bongseon places her hand on his upper arm, causing him to stop and blink. “It’s OK. Really. Anyway,” she says casually, as takes the piece of notebook paper from his hand and rolls it up before sticking it into her bleeding nostril, “I’m sorry I was so hard to find.”

He smiles weakly.

She pulls the door back more to let him into the small but vibrant studio. There are more books littered about than would be expected, but then again, artists must need all sorts of sources for inspiration. As well as many types of canvases to express that inspiration. One wall is decorated with paintings, photographs, and mixed media collages. But the rest of the studio’s walls are blanketed in gorgeous charcoal illustrations. A drawing of the student center. Some fruit bowls. Faceless silhouettes, seated at tables or sprawled out on the ground. Random body parts.

Hands.

Lips.

Eyes.

He looks into Bongseon’s.

“Wow.”

He smiles a little funny.

“You’re, uh…” He shrugs. “Wow.”

“What’s your name?” Bongseon asks, turning away to find her stool, in front of her easel.

“Kim Jihu.” His eyes get a little sparkly whenever he gets to say his name. “I’m a bio major! I’m hoping to get into med school after I graduate.”

The left corner of Bongseon’s mouth curls up as her nostrils flare. “I’m sure your parents are very proud.”

Jihu's grin shrinks a little. “Uh, yeah…” He clears his throat. “Well, how do we start? Like, do you need me to dress a certain way, or do something in particu—?”

“I haven’t decided if I’m going to use you yet,” Bongseon replies, glancing at the half-done edifice on her easel before setting her sights back on Jihu's awkwardly crouching frame.

“Well, how do you decide?”

“Straighten up. Let me get a good look at you.”

Jihu puffs his chest out and slowly turns in an irregular circle, shrinking back into that crouch once he finds Bongseon’s eyes again.

She scrunches up her face. “Hmm.”

Jihu frowns.

“Don’t take it personally,” Bongseon says lightly. “I’m just thinking through some stuff.”

“What are you thinking through?” Jihu's lashes bump up against his lenses when he blinks nervously. “What is this for, anyway?”

“A project.” Bongseon tilts her head and follows the line of Jihu's arm. He’s strong, but seemingly out of leisure rather than necessity. Most of the pre-med students on campus come from families in the top tax bracket. “I need a scholarship to stay in school. I’ve decided on a charcoal series.” She smiles. “They’re my favorite.”

“Oh.” Jihu shuffles his weight. “Uh, this isn’t like a nude modeling thing, is it?”

“Ew, no,” Bongseon says, shaking her head. “I hate that shit. The scholarship prompt just requires human subjects.” She reaches out for her easel and smudges a line that’s been bothering her. “To be honest, I didn’t want to work with models at all. But I’m terrible at drawing myself, I’m tired of sketching from reference photographs, and I’ve really grown to hate trying to capture people out in the world.” She huffs. “They always move when I’m not ready for them to.”

She isn’t really sure why Jihu chuckles, but when he does, her eyes snap to his smile. She follows the line of his cheek, bouncing as it had when he was profusely apologizing. Bongseon isn’t really sure why she’s so fixated on it. There isn’t anything particularly remarkable about his cheek, save maybe that little dimple.

“OK. Thanks for stopping by. I’ll let you know,” she replies, turning back to her easel and reaching for her charcoal.

“Wait!”

Jihu steps forward, reaching his hand out again, placing his hand on Bongseon’s shoulder.

“Look…”

Bongseon spins to face him. When their eyes meet again, Jihu pulls his arm away.

“50 bucks is a lot of money for me,” Jihu surprisingly admits.

Bongseon agrees. It takes more than a while to scrounge up enough coins to convert into one small, paper rectangle. And it’s outrageous that she needs 999 more of those rectangles to keep working in this studio. Or to keep working at all.

“I really need this gig.” Jihu continues softly, his body shrinking further, and his chest the most deflated it’s been.

Bongseon stops trying to imagine what a thousand small rectangles looks like. “When it comes to stuff like this, you can’t just choose anyone,” she informs him, moving to spin back around.

Jihu purses his lips and reaches out for her shoulder again to keep from losing her. Startled, Bongseon stares at his hand, and then glares into his eyes.

“I’m not asking you to choose anyone. I’m asking you to choose me.”

As Bongseon revs up with a breath, Jihu steals it.

“I’ve checked the board every morning.” He speaks quickly. Matter-of-factly. “Your flier is still there. You haven’t posted any updates. And it’s been weeks,” he keenly observes. And then he realizes something. “When’s your scholarship deadline?”

Bongseon sighs and stiffens.

Jihu grins again, glasses rising, round pupils dead-center in the lenses. “So, then, it seems like you need me just as much as I need you.”

Decisions are usually easy for Bongseon to make. She can find inspiration and motivation for anything, at any time. Especially when it comes to her art. Though it has taken decades of practice to transform skill into style, intuition still guides most of the process. When she gets the urge to sketch, a group of students on the quad usually does equally well as a building or a bowl of fruit.

Hesitance is not something that exists in Bongseon’s vocabulary.

So what is it about Jihu that makes her pause?

She tries to figure it out following the line of his cheek, down his arm, and down to his hand. Rougher than expected. Round knuckles that bulge a little. Fingers about as long as his palms, and about as long as each other. And still resting on her shoulder.

“Fine.” Bongseon’s shoulder rises, and, smiling in triumph, Jihu finally lets her go. “Meet me here tomorrow at 5.”

Jihu straightens, his chest puffing out a little more without having to be told. “Do you need me to bring something? Wear something? Do anything in particular? ”

“Just what the flier said to do,” Bongseon remarks coolly.

She turns a little, with the understanding that this is enough of a goodbye for them to part ways.

But Jihu leans forward again.

His measured fingers tickle at her nostril as they pull out the rolled-up, slightly red scrap of notebook paper from Bongseon’s nose.

And he turns and tosses it into the small trash can next to Bongseon’s easel, flashing her another dimpled grin before he goes.

Names swirled through your head, mocking you with every thought. Kim Seokjin. Kim Taehyung. Min Yoongi. Kim Namjoon. You could hardly focus on your work when all your brain could do was loop those 4 names – those forms – over and over again. Now that you had them in hand, were you really so selfish to grab all 4 applications? Were you no better than someone at a cattle auction, waiting to nab the best in show? After all, it was one application out of dozens, possibly hundreds, to win the mere chance to go on a date with these men. To try to be a good, noticeable, outstanding candidate, to prove to these strangers that yes, you could be a good wife in the future. As if that’s all you needed in life.

But then again, that seemed to be what modern dating was nowadays. Click on a profile, read a basic summary, see a few photos, and swipe right. Pray that the person on the other end wasn’t a creep or a bot. On the dating apps, you didn’t have to see the humanity behind the screen; just one click and move onto the next. Hope for a match. Hope that profile leads to something more. Find another if you don’t. To walk up to these very real men and ask for every list and form available – in front of their mother no less! – now forced you to face the apparent greed of your actions. That maybe you should have been firmer in your decision, to just pick a profile and pray for the best.

Kim Seokjin. Kim Taehyung. Min Yoongi. Kim Namjoon. It would be all too easy to blame Ji-a. After all, it was her crazy idea to apply in the first place. However, she already made her choice – the singular application for one Kim Taehyung was filled out and submitted the second she got home from the country club. So why were you waffling around like someone staring at a takeout menu at 2 am?

It could also be the lingering embarrassment from realizing Kim Namjoon was Museum Boy. There was no telling how you’d live that realization down. You’d even changed when you visited the museum because of it. Ji-a squealed when you told her – she insisted that this was fate, that this just was evidence you and Namjoon were meant to be, how your only choice now was to fill out the pre-destined application and make it official, just like her favorite romance stories. But all you wanted to do was hide. How could you face him? Before, Museum Boy was a concept. Just a handsome man with similar tastes in art. He was safe, distant, a small constant in your hectic life - like when the barista already knows your order at your local coffee shop. But now? Now you could only imagine just how crazy you looked from his point of view: a woman just so happens to run into him at a museum several times, enough to be recognized. Then she shows up once again at the same exact country club at the same exact time he happened to be there. Then saying “Uhh…. all of them?” when asked which application she wanted…Ugh, no wonder he probably thought you were a stalker. Numerous true crime documentaries have proven people would do much less for attention.

Kim Seokjin. Kim Taehyung. Min Yoongi. Kim Namjoon. Each attribute, likes, and dislikes gave you a small glimpse into who they were – you’d practically memorized them by how many times you’ve agonized in making your choice:

Seokjin, eldest of the Kim brothers, loves to cook, visiting farmers markets, and to go fishing on his few days off. A hard worker and dependable, every detail jotted down in his profile just screamed “Perfect Husband Material”, and it would be all too easy to imagine a simple, domestic life with him.  

Taehyung, baby of the family and massive flirt, listens to jazz and is a photographer by trade. A creative soul, you could tell just by reading each response that he would be fun and adventurous, each day just as spontaneous as the last.

Yoongi, not even related to the Kim brothers but still somehow has his own form, writes songs and plays both piano and guitar when he’s not teaching. Each answer seemed direct, but thoughtful, something you’d sorely missed in your last couple relationships.

And Namjoon, middle child and Museum Boy extraordinaire, teaches middle school, is passionate about music and writing, and loves having deep philosophical discussions. You could imagine talking to him for hours, delving into the inner workings of the arts, letting those conversations lead you to explore more about yourself and the world you live in.

Maybe you were surrounded by too many choices – on paper, they all seemed amazing, almost too good to be true. You wanted to get to know them individually. You wanted to wait and form some sort of plan. You needed to get out of your head and make a damn decision already. At this rate they might already be married by the time you decide to apply.

The serene painting in front of you was your favorite for this very reason. It seemed simple from far away – a watercolor scene of lotus flowers floating in a pond – but it always felt immersive. You could lose your thoughts as the colors flowed in and out of each other. Imagine the golden light of sunset warming your body. Whenever you were stressed or upset, you would just sit at the bench directly in front of it and mediate, forget about the outside world for a little while. Your troubles started to melt away, thoughts of applications joined the very paint on the canvas.

“Hey stranger, haven’t seen you around here in a while,” a voice suddenly called. You nearly reached the ceiling as your trance was brutally interrupted. To your left stood Kim Namjoon.

“Gah! I – uh – hi! Hi,” you undignifiedly sputtered in response.

“Hi,” Namjoon laughed, the smile never leaving his face. You knew you were sunk if you stared at his dimples for too long. “I thought you might have found a new hangout spot. Usually, our semi-regular greetings are a bit more…well…regular. You’re Y/N, right?”

You looked toward the floor as you nodded, your face already feeling warm. “I didn’t want to seem like a stalker…”

“Don’t stalkers change their patterns once they’re caught?” Taking a quick shocked glance was all you could do as he gave a cheeky smirk, his eyes bright and mischievous. “But no, never thought you were stalking me. I just figured you were a fellow patron of the arts. What brings you here on a Wednesday afternoon?”

“There were severe issues with my work’s telecom system, and rather than let the big wigs think we’re not doing anything or pay us to just sit there waiting for repairs, we were all sent home. What about you? Playing hooky?

“Legally allowed hooky, yes. It’s a school holiday and I somehow managed to get all of my meetings done before sunset. So I'm celebrating and taking a small break before I have to go drown in lesson plans.” Namjoon then gestured to the seat next to you. After you nodded your agreement, he sat a close but respectable distance from you.

“Are you doing okay? You seemed really lost in thought there.”

You didn’t give much of an answer, unable to look at him quite yet. A sigh escaped as you stared at the painting ahead. “Yeah, just a lot on my mind. But it seems so stupid now…”

He turned more toward you, a calm demeanor radiating from his body. “If you feel comfortable talking, I’m all ears.” There was an inkling that he was like this with his students. You hesitated despite the warm invitation, contemplating what you were going to say.

“It’s just….” You started, subconsciously smoothing your hands over your knees. “These damn dating applications that I got from your mother is stressing me out and It’s so dumb because I can’t seem to make a choice. I should be able to just…make up my mind and turn something in if I was so determined to do so at the start. It’s been weeks! But no, here I am, being so ridiculous and overthinking something that I might not even get accepted or chosen for in the first place. I’m a tiny piece of the puzzle, why am I freaking out so much?”  

Namjoon nodded as you rambled, a brief flash of recognition crossed his face. “I totally understand. And your feelings are absolutely valid. But from one overthinker to another, why should you have to make a choice right now? Or even make a choice at all? Why do you even have to choose one single application to complete?”

“It all seems so final, doesn’t it? Like this entire process is some sort of life test or fate or something. My friend was able to just go forward, know which one she wanted to go after, and just fill out the form, so I should be able to do the same, right? But now I just feel greedy, like I’m just lumping you and your brothers together, as if you are some sort of interchangeable trophy to win. That’s not fair to anyone. If I need to make a decision, I just want to be sure of it, you know?” You knew you were rambling, but your brain just couldn’t stop. If this was a life simulation game, you just hoped you wouldn’t see the negative friendship points flash over Namjoon’s head. Why couldn’t you stop rambling?

To his credit, Namjoon only chuckled. “Well, it’s definitely something to think about. And it’s great that you see all of us as separate human beings instead of just the Kim boys or a full unit. Your heart seems to be in the right place. But you have a few options – you could just apply for all of us and take a chance. It might be exciting, like a going on some blind dates, right? You could think about what you want in a relationship, use that to determine which one of us you want to pursue. Or you just walk away, forget about maps and dates and applications. But, if you’re so sure about making a single choice…. would it be easier if I tell you why you shouldn’t date each of us?”

“What…?”

“Yeah, just take a look at my hyung, Seokjin. He’s the best older brother anyone could ask for. Kind, loyal, a hard worker. Takes charge but in a more subtle way. But his jokes are terrible. You’d be forced to listen to the absolute worst dad jokes this side of the world. And that’s before he likes you enough to force you onto a fishing boat before sunrise.”

An eyebrow raised was all it took for Namjoon to continue on.

“Yoongi is my best friend, and is such a romantic at heart. But when he’s focused on a project or work, it’s like he’s dead to the world. I’m actually not even sure he really sleeps at night. And Taehyung is such a thoughtful guy, will do anything for those he loves, and lives life to the fullest. He loves life, you know? But as much as I love him, sometimes he can be downright weird. There are days I wish I could just see what’s going on in his brain. Some people might find him too much to handle.”

Giggling at every description, you could see how much love and respect Namjoon for each of them.

“So, what about you? Why would you be deemed undatable?”

Namjoon paused, a small hint of something unreadable flashed over his face. Perhaps a bittersweet memory? Something sad he wanted to forget? Whatever it was, he didn’t let it linger for long. Just as quickly as that brief emotion arrived, he replaced it with another half-smile. “Well, I’m a middle school teacher who likes fine art. I’m afraid the only dates I’d be able to afford involve takeout and free events.”

A light laughter filled the room as you both focused on painting in front of you. Namjoon checked his watch, sighing as he stood up.

“Unfortunately, break time is over. If I don’t get started on those lesson plans now, I’ll never get them done on time. But hey, don’t dwell too much over whatever you decide, okay? Flip a coin if you need to. Take your time to think, but if that’s all you do, you’ll find opportunities will pass you by. Bye, Y/N! See you when the new exhibits premiere.” With a wink and a wave, Namjoon lightly waved his goodbyes as you continued to sit on the bench, going over every word.

--

8:47 AM.

Ms. Yong: (from her desk) Kim Seokjin?

Big Kid Jin abruptly ends his conversation with his groupmates and looks over to her as he stands.

Ms. Yong smiles and holds up her phone.

Big Kid Jin: Hmm. (looks down and stretches his arm out of his sleeve to check his Princess Toadstool's Castle Run watch) He’s early today. 

Big Kid Jin walks down the hallway and past the front office to get to room 104. He knocks on the open door.

Mrs. Peng: Ah, Seokjinnie, thank you!

Big Kid Jin: (rolling up his sleeves) What do we got, Mrs. Peng?

Mrs. Peng: Well, today, he just walked a bit awkwardly and---

Small Kid Taehyung is wailing on the floor, encircled by his entire class watching in confusion. All of his shoelaces are undone.

Mrs. Peng: He won’t let anybody near him.

Student 1: Tae-Tae---

Small Kid Taehyung snarls, and then goes back to wailing.

Big Kid Jin: Taehyungie!

At the sound of his hyung’s voice, Small Kid Taehyung stops crying immediately.

Big Kid Jin: (heroically) Don’t worry. Hyung will do it!

Big Kid Jin marches over to him, and Small Kid Taehyung sits up, planting his soles on the ground and sniffling, wiping snot from his upper lip with the back of his sleeve.

Big Kid Jin kneels by Small Kid Taehyung’s feet and makes two less-than-perfect bunny ears, but they’re completed all the same.

Small Kid Taehyung: Thanks, hyung!

He starts to get up.

Big Kid Jin: Wait wait wait!

Small Kid Taehyung freezes, and Big Kid Jin goes back to double-knot the laces.

Small Kid Taehyung: Hey but that’s not what Eomma does!

Big Kid Jin: Well, Eomma taught me to do this if my shoelaces get loose! (smiling at Small Kid Taehyung) And I’m in charge when she’s not around, right?

Small Kid Taehyung: Right!

--

12:08 PM.

Big Kid Jin sees someone dumping Medium Kid Namjoon’s milk into his container of stew.

Big Kid Jin: (to his friends) I’ll meet you at the table.

He walks around the perimeter of the cafeteria, avoiding Medium Kid Namjoon’s eyeline, though he wouldn’t notice much, because he’s helplessly staring at his ruined lunch. Big Kid Jin keeps walking until he meets the bully who ruined it.

Big Kid Jin: I saw what you did.

Bully: (laughing) Hilarious, right?

Big Kid Jin: Not hilarious. Mean.

Bully: I did him a favor. He could do with a little less milk, and a little less food. Guy’s a bit chub---

Big Kid Jin: (drops his food on the floor, where it spills onto the Bully and his friends’ shoes and pants; slaps the Bully on his shoulder, and leans in uncomfortably close) What?

Bully: (startled) H-huh?

Big Kid Jin: (smiling) I said, what? (squeezing his shoulder) I couldn’t hear what you were going to say about my brother (nails digging in) so I’m leaning in really close to make sure I can hear you clearly.

Bully: (tears in his eyes, sputtering) Y-your bro--- I-I didn’t---

Big Kid Jin: What?

Bully: I-I’m sorry!

Big Kid Jin: Cool. That’s what I thought you said.

He leaves the mess and walks over to Medium Kid Namjoon from behind. 

Medium Kid Namjoon is trying desperately to use his fingers to pick out slices of meat that went unaffected in the milk debacle. He reaches for a slice of meat and makes a disgusted face before bringing it to his mouth to---

Big Kid Jin: (slapping Medium Kid Namjoon on the back) Hey! Don’t eat that!

Medium Kid Namjoon: (dropping the meat, rubbing where Big Kid Jin slapped him, falling quiet, feeling ashamed) ...You saw what happened?

Big Kid Jin: What do you mean?

Medium Kid Namjoon: (pointing down to his food) Some guy just took my milk and---

Big Kid Jin: Whatever, look, I have some extra money to buy something for lunch, and they have hamburgers! You wanna go through the line with me?

Medium Kid Namjoon: But Eomma said to stop buying lunch because---

Big Kid Jin: (pulling Medium Kid Namjoon up from the table) I said it was extra money, and I want a burger. Do you want a burger?

Medium Kid Namjoon: (getting excited, leaving his lunch and following his brother) Well, of course I want a burger, who doesn’t want a burger?

--

5:33 PM

Small Kid Taehyung: (lying on the couch, upside down, shirt falling and covering his eyes, tummy exposed) Boots!

Big Kid Jin’s eyes pop open. Nap interrupted, he looks over and sees Small Kid Taehyung starting to cry.

Big Kid Jin: (scampering over) What happened!

Small Kid Taehyung: Fell! Behind--- huhuhuuuu--- the--- huhhhhuhuhuuu--- couch!!

Big Kid Jin: Don’t worry, hyung will get him. And don’t cry like that. Just tell hyung what’s wrong. Eomma is cooking. She might get scared.

Without giving it a second thought, Big Kid Jin dives into the gap between the back of the sofa and the wall, his bigger body wriggling to reach for the toy. He pulls Boots out to a laughing, wriggling Taehyung.

Big Kid Jin: Is that what hyung looked like?

Small Kid Taehyung laughs and nods as he wriggles. But then he looks serious. And doesn’t stop wriggling.

Big Kid Jin: Do you need to go to the bathroom?

Small Kid Taehyung: Yes.

--

6:13 PM

Mrs. Kim: (serving dinner at the table) Appa said this will be the last night he works late this week.

Small Kid Taehyung: But he always says that.

Mrs. Kim: (a little disheartened) I know. But he has a very important job that helps people, so he has to work hard sometimes. He misses you very much when he doesn’t see you.

Small Kid Taehyung: (thoughtfully) Me too.

Mrs. Kim smiles at him sadly before going back into the kitchen to get the next dish.

Medium Kid Namjoon: (reaching for some fish sauce, fingertips nudging the nozzle and pushing bottle almost to where it spills, but---)

Big Kid Jin: Wait, wait, wait, hyung will do it.

He looks over to Small Kid Taehyung. 

Big Kid Jin: (animatedly, dripping the sauce into Medium Kid Namjoon’s food) Plop! Plop! Plop!

Small Kid Taehyung laughs, and Medium Kid Namjoon smiles.

Small Kid Taehyung: Plop plop plop!

Big Kid Jin: Right! Plop! Plop! Plop!

Small Kid Taehyung: What’s plopplopplop mean?

Medium Kid Namjoon: It’s what Appa says when he puts sauces into stuff.

Small Kid Taehyung: (reaching for the bottle of fish sauce) Plop plop plop!

Big Kid Jin: (angling to put sauce in Taehyung’s food) OK, you say the plop plop plops, and hyung will do the bottle.

Small Kid Taehyung: (laughing as Jin pours and Namjoon looks on) Plop! Plop! Plop!

--

Bedtime.

Big Kid Jin and Small Kid Taehyung look at each other in the mirror as they brush their teeth.

Small Kid Taehyung: (whines)

Big Kid Jin rolls his eyes. Boots is sitting on the sink. Big Kid Jin has agreed to brush Boots’ teeth as well, so that the three of them can brush their teeth together. Big Kid Jin resumes brushing.

--

Big Kid Jin walks past Medium Kid Namjoon’s room and sees that he’s fallen asleep while reading in bed with his lights on again. Jin gently pulls the book from Namjoon’s hands, covers him with his blanket, and then leaves, turning the lights out and closing the door behind him.

--

Mrs. Kim is tucking Big Kid Jin into bed and kissing him on the forehead.

Big Kid Jin: Is Appa home?

Mrs. Kim: Yes, he’s just having some dinner. (smiling) Alright. What book shall we read tonight?

Big Kid Jin: (eyes blinking at different rates) I’m sleepy. I think just night-night, Eomma.

Mrs. Kim: (frowning) What’s wrong? Are you sick? (pulls Jin’s forehead back to her lips, then cheek, startling him) You don’t feel warm. Why are you so tired?

Big Kid Jin: (lies back down) I just get tired sometimes.

Mrs. Kim: Of course. We all do, especially at the end of a long day. 

Big Kid Jin: Like it’s hard to be Appa, working late.

Mrs. Kim: (heart swelling with pride) That’s true.

Big Kid Jin: Hard to be Eomma. Teaching. And cooking.

Mrs. Kim: We all have our different kinds of roles in the family. It’s my and Appa’s job to go to work and make money that we need. It’s Taehyungie’s job to be a good boy and behave in school. It’s Namjoonie’s job to pay attention to his studies and mind his manners. And you have the biggest job: doing all those things, plus watching over them.

Big Kid Jin: (weary) The biggest job for the biggest hyung.

Mrs. Kim: I don’t think that’s who you are.

Big Kid Jin smiles as Mrs. Kim nestles into him, kissing him and tickling him a little bit.

Mrs. Kim: Who are you?

Big Kid Jin: Eomma!

Mrs. Kim: Who are you??

Big Kid Jin: I’m the best biggest hyung in the world!

Mrs. Kim: (smiling) That’s right.

And then, faintly, from the kitchen.

Mr. Kim: Plop! Plop! Plop!

He sighs to himself before walking back over to the makeshift set, the two models mimicking and giggling about their ridiculous pouts. Their ridiculous jobs. Lamenting how ridiculously long the shoot has been. Buzzing about how ridiculous their plans need to be to let off steam this weekend.

They’re prettier like this.

Everyone is, Taehyung thinks.

“Miss Luna, Miss Ruru,” he says, looking at them in turn, “I’m so sorry. Gonna have to cut this short. I heard a weird click on the last round, and now I think something’s wrong with my camera.”

He’s thankful that their sighs are ones of relief.

Luna smiles as brightly and other-worldly as her name would imply that she does. “Actually, that’s totally fine,” she remarks. She takes the opportunity to step out of her model persona completely and lets out a deep, but still graceful yawn. “I’m starving.”

“Cheeseburgers?” Ruru pipes up, eyes sparkling.

“Cheeseburgers!” Luna says, “hell yeah!”

They both fall forward to start undressing.

Taehyung clears his throat and politely turns around, hands hanging straight down by his sides, fingers outstretched and in full view, making a show, for once, of not pressing any buttons.

“You still bashful around us, Tae?” Luna asks, giggles bursting against the sound of straps loosening and zippers unzipping. “Even after all our… collaborations?”

“You have to ask? He still calls us ‘Miss’,” Ruru observes, making Luna snort.

Taehyung lets his left cheek turn slightly toward his left shoulder. Cherry red strands tickle his brow when he smirks.

And bare footsteps pad across the studio’s concrete floor at the sight of that smirk forming.

“I’m a professional,” he says simply.

“Mmhmm,” Luna teases. “I bet you’re a professional with all sorts of things.”

Her hand reaches out, and the tips of her long, square nails land at the base of Taehyung’s scalp. He closes his eyes at her touch, dips his head back, tilting his right temple down and turning forward again as she ruffles his hair.

“You know what’s professional?” Ruru coos, from his other side.

The crack! of the ass slap that she gives him makes her and Luna laugh.

Taehyung’s eyes open.

Widen.

Stay pointed forward.

Luna and Ruru stay forward as well, and they walk into his view. Taehyung can’t help but twist his neck as his eyes drink in their naked bodies from behind. Perfect forms. Gorgeous skin. He’s seen almost every inch. But for all the sex Taehyung likes, loves, craves, when it comes to work, he’s adamant on keeping that view within the viewfinder.

“Networking,” Ruru says, flipping her hair to the side as she winks back at him. “Networking is very professional. So please give our info to your hyungs, huh?”

Taehyung chuckles.

“And keep a copy of our info for yourself in case you ever want to go back to the amateur leagues,” Luna adds.

She wraps an arm around Ruru’s shoulders.

Taehyung licks his lips at the sight of the side of her breast.

A soft grunt slips from his lips as Luna leans on the inside of the corner, leading Ruru into the turn down the hall and back to the private dressing room, Luna’s hand slowly sliding down Ruru’s back.

He blinks.

Quick.

Like a shutter.

He’ll keep that view for himself.

Sweet giggles, and a debate on ketchup vs. mustard, float down from the dressing room.

Taehyung licks his lips again.

Takes a step forward.

But the giggles are soon joined by a soft, electronic buzz in his pocket.

He sighs and closes his eyes.

Slow.

Like drawing the curtains shut to block out the sun.

He sighs and pulls his phone out.

“Hi, Eomma,” he replies, turning around and walking back to the set.

“Did you get the list that I sent you?” Mrs. Kim asks, voice urgent.

Taehyung sets his camera down on his equipment table and reaches for his lighting rigs, pinning his phone to his ear with his shoulder as he switches the lights off one by one, and starts unplugging and curling up all of their wires. “I get all the lists you send us, Eomma. You’ve sent us at least 30 just this week.”

“No I haven’t!”

Taehyung lets the loop of wires hang in the crook of his elbow as he uses his other hand to check his last few downloads on his phone.

“Sorry. 26.”

There’s a pause on the other end.

“OK, I swear this list is the one!” Mrs. Kim promises. “It even includes all the refinements I told you about!”

Taehyung smiles to himself, unable to keep from chuckling warmly. A chuckle reserved only for Mrs. Kim.

“Buh-bye, Tae!”

He turns at the sound of Ruru’s voice, and a smirk joins his chuckles as Luna and Ruru wave a quick goodbye just before slipping through the front door.

“Tae??”

He rolls his eyes, walking his loop of cords over to his equipment table.

“Who was that?” Mrs. Kim asks.

“Some models,” Taehyung replies, setting the cords down next to his camera. He starts to pack up his camera into its case. “I was just wrapping up a shoot. Which, by the way, was cut short because somebody did something to the camera I was planning on using.”

Mrs. Kim clicks her teeth. “Ah, sorry, Taehyungie. Did I handle it too roughly? Is it fixable? I can pay for the repairs!”

Taehyung’s warm chuckle returns. He’s always so quick to forgive. “Don’t worry, Eomma. It’ll be fine.”

“OK, well, your first round of dates is lined up for Thursday,” Mrs. Kim pushes on, “so— stop laughing, Tae-Tae! Take this seriously! I want you to check the list for contact details!”

Taehyung giggles. “Why are you so, I dunno — upset? — about this?” He slips the strap of his camera bag over his shoulder and moves toward the front of his studio, in search for his keys. “What about all that stuff about wanting to find us wives and what not? At dinner, your eyes did that thing where they get all misty-eyed at the thought of us finding domestic bliss.”

Mrs. Kim paces back and forth in her kitchen, waiting for her pot of water to finally come to a boil. “Look, Tae-Tae, sweetie, I called you first because—”

“Because I’m your favorite.”

She sighs, but she smiles warmly, pausing to glance at her pot, and catching sight of three colors, blue, orange, and yellow, of the flame at her gas range. “What do I always say?”

Taehyung answers, voice rising and falling to the notes of a nursery rhyme, “That I’m your favorite Tae-Tae, Namjoon-hyung is your favorite Joon, and that Jin-hyung is your favorite Jin!”

Mrs. Kim laughs at the thought of baby Taehyung in her lap, or toddler Namjoon at the kitchen table, or little kid Jin all buckled up in the back seat of the car, saying those exact words in her exact singsong.

Keys jingle in Taehyung’s hands as he locks his front door. “So, then, why did you call me first?” he asks.

Mrs. Kim frowns at the bubbles starting to rumble in her pot. “Because I need you to torpedo this particular date.”

A group of camera repair shop employees in matching, blue shirts greet Taehyung cheerfully when he enters through their door. Taehyung smiles and waves his forefinger at them all, the other fingers still curled around his phone, held to his ear.

That ear fills with the sound of clacking keys and busy chatter, soon interrupted by Jin’s low voice.

“She really said that?” he asks.

“Yes,” Taehyung says, falling in line, “ad I don’t think she meant it the way I usually mean it.”

“Did she say why she wanted you to sink the date?”

“I’ll go get her for ‘ya,” one shop employee tells Taehyung, who nods and smiles.

“She just kept saying that this date was a favor to someone,” Taehyung goes on. “Apparently this girl’s mother is worse than Eomma when it comes to getting involved in matchmaking her kids. Eomma doesn’t think this candidate is ‘Kim material’, whatever the hell that is.”

“It means that this candidate is completely normal and sane,” Jin jokes.

Taehyung giggles. “Right.” He sighs. “You should have heard her today. She’s approaching full Brazy Bongseon mode. And here I thought she was caught up in her emotions about finding us our happy endings.”

“No, Tae-Tae, that’s Eomma starting to express her extreme worry about her own mortality,” Jin replies. “One sec.”

There’s a hushed voice. Jin’s voice, muffled by his palm on the receiver.

Taehyung smiles as a girl in a bright red version of the AperSure employee shirt walks over to the counter, the shop’s cartoon camera mascot smiling and winking at him.  

“Hi, Dal,” he says, grinning. “Shirts came out great!”

“Hey, Tae,” she answers, propping her palms face-down on the counter and leaning forward. “The logo that you designed for us is a hit! And our reds match!”

Taehyung smiles, shaking his cherry red bangs. “Temporary. Just trying it out.”

“Well, it suits you,” Dal says. Her eyes fall to the camera bag. “Aw. I love her.” She smiles. “But she’s giving you trouble?”

“I think there’s something wrong with the shutter,” he says, slipping the bag off of his shoulder. “And I’m seeing smudges. Might be—”

“Oil?” Dal asks. She takes the bag from Taehyung. “No worries! I’ll take a look!”

“Thanks.”

“Need it for your next shoot?”

“No rush,” Taehyung replies. “Take your time.”

“OK, I’m back, sorry,” Jin chirps into Taehyung’s ear.

Taehyung points to his phone, and Dal smiles and nods, gesturing to the back of the shop before whisking away Taehyung’s camera.

Taehyung moves in the opposite direction, waving to other AperSure shop employees while heading toward the front door.

“So what do you think?” Taehyung asks Jin. “The map has been finalized. Are we really gonna go through with it?”

“Let’s check in with Namjoon,” Jin replies. “See what he thinks.”

A pained groan army-crawls its way out of Taehyung’s throat and nostrils. “We might as well just say yes, then,” he whines, disappointed. But, then, in typical Taehyung fashion, he switches on a smile. Sees the light. “Though, I guess it gives us something to do on Thursdays. And I guess I can report back on what exactly constitutes a black circle.”

Jin blinks, like the now paused cursor on his computer screen. He pushes on his ear bud, wanting to make sure he’s hearing correctly.

“The black circle is your first date?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung replies. He laughs. “Eomma even made her number 13 on the list. Subtle, right?”

Jin raises his hands from his keyboard, reaches over to the right corner of his desk, and picks up his phone. He unplugs it from its charger and opens his personal inbox, not even needing to scroll to see the bold URGENT: FINAL MAP OF MRS. KIMS! email, complete with an attached copy of the map, and a spreadsheet containing contact information.

He goes for the spreadsheet first.

After all, Jin’s eyes are already quite familiar with numbers.

Particularly the number 13.

Taehyung (2:09 PM): Is there anything we could trade to get out of this?

Jin (2:011 PM): And what exactly are you willing to give up? 

Taehyung (2:12 PM): What if we blue-ball her?

Jin (2:12 PM): You mean BLACKMAIL?

Taehyung (2:13 PM): Whatever

Taehyung (2:13 PM): NO WAIT 

Taehyung (2:13 PM): BUT WHAT IF WE DID BLUE-BALL HER???

Taehyung (2:13 PM): CALL APPA!

Taehyung (2:13 PM): TELL HIM NOT TO PUT OUT UNTIL SHE AGREES TO STOP THIS!!

Jin (2:16 PM): Namjoon? You done with work yet? 

Taehyung (2:16 PM): PLEASE STOP IGNORING ME

Chuckling fondly at his brothers, Namjoon tries to think of a reply to add. But the TV station tour guide’s voice launches into a new sentence.

“Now, if you look over to this big green screen,” she states, holding her hand out to the  you’ll see where our weather team presents information about the weekly forecast,” she explains.

She gestures over to the opposite wall, and the class’s eyes follow. A TV screen displays a green map of Korea, with random swatches of yellow and red moving from left to right, the animation looping in 8-second increments. “The graphics department overlays the information, and our forecasters read the info from the screen,” she explains.

Her smile is gentle. Inviting. The kids haven’t been reticent at all on this particular trip, eager to jump into the activities that she planned for them, and asking interesting questions that actually have merit. She answers all of them, one by one. Not with irritation, but with smiles, outlined in perfect red lipstick, teeth bright even through the clouds of her curly brown hair.

She clearly has lots of patience. Evident not just because of the way that she handles the tour, but with how she carries herself. Never rushing. Always letting things unfold at their own pace. Looking around the room for volunteers, and choosing not the kid who is the loudest or most eager, but the kid who most needs the attention.

When her eyes settle, she asks, “What’s your name?”

He blinks. Looks around the room at all the other kids, so eagerly raising their hands. “You should pick one of these other clowns,” he tells her.

“Well, I’m picking you,” she giggles, kindly. “C’mon. What’s your name?”

He scowls.

And then grins.

“Lee.”

Namjoon looks up, phone still in hand.

“Alright, Lee,” the tour guide replies, “come be our weatherman for today!”

The crowd parts for Lee as he moves to join the tour guide at the green wall.

Namjoon bites his lip.

Jin (2:20 PM): I’m not ignoring you. We just need our level-headed voice of reason.

Taehyung (2:20 PM): Level-headed? Are you the one who doesn’t know what words mean now?

“Why don’t you go ahead and tell us our 10-day forecast?” the tour guide asks. “Read the script that scrolls up on that screen, and point to the cities on the map as they come up.”

Lee takes his place on the small stage and begins.

“We’re going to have some rain over the next few days, with major metropolitan areas seeing up to four or five inches of rain,” he reads, as little white dots and numbers fade in and prompt him to point. “Don’t forget your boots and umbrellas for the commute!”

“Great job!” the tour guide exclaims. “Love how you even made your voice sound so conversational. You’re a natural!”

“Thanks!” Lee cheers, a little too enthusiastically.

Namjoon narrows his eyes.

Jin (2:22 PM): I know what words mean! Words mean very specific things!

Taehyung (2:22 PM): Then obviously you’ve forgotten which brother is which. Namjoon is a complete simp for Eomma!!

Jin (2:22 PM): Maybe he is. We all are. But Joon won’t go to unreasonable lengths.

Taehyung (2:23 PM): Unreasonable Lengths

Taehyung (2:23 PM): New dickname!

Jin (2:23 PM): Dibs on that dickname!

Jin (2:23 PM): Ugh, dammit! 

Jin (2:24 PM): Joon, are you there? I want your thoughts on what to do with Eomma’s whole map thing. And I want a ruling on this dickname fiasco.

Taehyung (2:24 PM): Why is a dickname ruling needed?? We’re in a chat!!

Jin (2:24 PM): Technically, you double-texted.

Taehyung (2:24 PM): I was first! There are TIMESTAMPS!

Jin is now Unreasonable Lengths 🍆📏

Taehyung (2:25 PM): Wow. Really hyung??

Namjoon shakes his head and lifts his phone closer, turning down the brightness on his screen to stay shrouded and peeking over at his students every now and then.

Namjoon (2:25 PM): Field trip.

Taehyung (2:25 PM): Ooh, where are we going?

Namjoon (2:25 PM): No, Tae-Tae, I’M currently on a field trip. With my students.

Taehyung (2:26 PM): Tell Yoongles hi!

Unreasonable Lengths 🍆📏 (2:26 PM): Which one is it?

Namjoon (2:26 PM): The news station trip.

Taehyung is now Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏

Unreasonable Lengths 🍆📏 (2:27 PM): Definitely gonna slap you when I see you

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:27 PM): Can’t wait 😜

“What’s really fun,” the tour guide continues, “is that for special occasions or holidays, we play around a bit with our green screen. It’s really silly, but it helps keep things festive and light!”

“Do you do special animations or drawings?” a student asks. “I’ve seen that before.”

“Yeah, they do little hearts for all the cities on Valentine’s Day,” another student chimes in.

“And birthday cakes,” someone else adds, “even for their pets’ birthdays!”

Dumbfounded, Lee stares at his fellow classmates and asks, “Y’all ever heard of Netflix?”

The students laugh as the tour guide walks back up to a coy, grinning Lee. Gingerly held in the pads of the tour guide’s fingers is a cloak made of the same material as the wall.

“We particularly like playing around with this!” she exclaims.

After Lee gives her a quick nod, the tour guide places the cloak on his shoulders, covering covering everything except his head in that same bright green.

“Mr. To, our chief meteorologist, wore this during the Halloween broadcast,” the tour guide explains, tying a small, loose bow at Lee’s neck.

She gestures to the screen, and the students laugh at Lee’s floating head, the rest of the map laying where Lee’s body should be.

“Oooh, spooky!” Lee cracks, as he starts to bob back and forth like a ghost.

“How does that even work?” a student asks. “I see it in TV and movies all the time, but I’m not even sure, like, what happens?”

“It’s a process called chroma keying,” the tour guide explains. “Essentially, our production team lights the screen and sets it to where a range of colors will be replaced with the proper background. In our case, that’s the weather map.”

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:27 PM): Tell Yoongles about my dickname!

Unreasonable Lengths 🍆📏 (2:28 PM): OK I’ve got a quick meeting on the half-hour. Talk to you dorks later.

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:29 PM): Namjoon-hyung, did you tell him?

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:31 PM): Take a screenshot before Jin-hyung kicks me out of the chat!!

One of the shier students pipes up, a testament to the smiling, gentle tour guide. “Is the screen always green?” the student asks.

“Doesn’t have to be,” the tour guide replies, “but green is the easiest because it’s the furthest away from natural skin and hair tones.”

“Frogs have green skin,” Lee points out.

Namjoon holds his breath.

“Well, we mostly film humans,” the tour guide chuckles.

With each bounce of her shoulders, Namjoon lets out a small puff of worried air.

“But,” the tour guide goes on, “whether it’s a green screen or a blue screen or something else, the really important part is the lighting.”

She gestures to the array of white lights hooked up to rigs and poles.

“If we don’t get a balanced, even light across the screen, the effect won’t work as well, and you’ll see some distortion. Watch.”

She holds her hand out in front of Lee to create a shadow, and some of the illusion is broken. Part of the map disappears on the screen. The student group murmurs, nodding as they watch.

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:32 PM): Did you tell him yet?

“So, if the lighting is right, and someone has this on, you can’t see anything underneath?” Lee asks.

“Nope,” the tour guide says with a smile.

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:33 PM): If you told him, did he laugh??

“Sooooo,” Lee goes on, as he spookily flutters from side to side, his head bobbing on the screen, “you can’t see what I’m doing under this cape thingy right now?”

“No,” the tour guide says. She laughs. “What are you doing?”

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:34 PM): Did he laugh with his shoulders? That’s how you know he thinks something is really funny!

The tour guide pulls the cloak back, revealing Lee’s legs, torso, arms, and hands, curled into fists save for his triumphant, standing middle fingers.

Lee pumps them at everybody, and toward the camera.

He leans back.

His shoulders shake as he laughs.

And his class cackles along with him. Students start taking photos of Lee on the screen, flipping off all of the cities that are about to get four or five inches of rain.

Videos of him are already going viral.

Namjoon huffs. “Shit.”

He crams his phone into his back pocket. It barely fits.

“Lee!” he bellows.

Lee, who has pulled out his own phone and is recording himself, laughing, mouth open, tongue hanging out, and panning back and forth to get his fellow classmates in the shot, suddenly frowns. “What??”

Namjoon’s eyes widen when he eats. When he figures out a puzzle. When he realizes that he forgot to clean his apartment before a visit from his eomma. But they widen most at insolence.

“Over here! Now!” he booms. “You’re spending the rest of the field trip with me.”

Lee’s eyes widen. “Awww! C’mon!” He pouts.  “Sir!!!”

The crowd that had just been egging Lee on now falls silent as they part for him. He sneers at all of them as he treads the split and walks over to join ever-watchful Namjoon in the back corner.

Namjoon shakes his head as Lee approaches. “Don’t ‘c’mon sir’ me. I even gave you a handicap of five strikes to start with, and you used them all up before our entire group could even get through the front door.”

Lee grins. “So I made record time?”

There’s another burst of laughter before the tour guide corrals the group back to focus on the big, green wall.

When Namjoon glares and clenches his jaw, Lee already knows to walk over to him, and to sit down, cross-legged, on the floor.

Lee’s eyes scan the ground. There’s a ton of dust, some freshly fallen over the sweep lines of a probably similarly dusty broom locked up in some closet somewhere. It’s always interesting to Lee that in the clumps of dirt around him, there are always little sparkles that catch the light. He isn’t really sure what they are. And he’s always wondered if anybody else has noticed that before. But there hasn’t been anyone to ask.

His eyes then wander over to Namjoon’s shoes.

Lee follows the lines of Namjoon’s long legs, up to Namjoon’s still-clenched jaw as he finishes whatever he’s typing on his phone.

“New pair?” Lee asks.

Namjoon’s fingers pause. He looks down at Lee. He likes him better this way. No sneaky agenda. A little bored. Just trying to make conversation.

Namjoon sighs and sits down, pretzel-ing his legs like Lee has, and balancing his phone face-up, on his thigh.

“You like ‘em?” Namjoon asks.

Lee nods. “I don’t usually go for high tops because they feel weird around my ankles.”

“I like the support. Helps me brace. I can be a bit…”

Namjoon looks back out at the students being led by the kind tour guide. They make their way to the news desk, and she starts to roll into the spiel about how the prime time local news show is put together. Her hair falls over her shoulder a little, and she shakes her head to move it out of the way without missing a beat in her more-than-memorized, completely-ingrained talk track.

So elegant. In contrast.

“…Clumsy,” Namjoon finishes.

“Dumb, always-breaking-things clumsy, or tactless?” Lee asks.

Namjoon weighs the question in his mind, while also impressed with Lee’s perception. “You came up with that distinction pretty quickly,” he observes.

Lee hides his eyes, looking back down and shrugging. “Yeah. Well.”

Namjoon watches as Lee traces shapes in the dust on the floor.

“Is it because you’ve had a lot of talks about that kind of stuff?” Namjoon ventures.

“Maybe.”

Namjoon pushes his lips out. And then, he asks, “What do you think about those talks?”

“I think they’re dumb.”

Lee huffs and rests his head on his open palm, propped up by his elbow resting on his knee. “People should be able to do what they want, when they want, with whomever they want. Especially if they aren’t really hurting anyone.”

“Do you feel like you aren’t able to do what you want?” Namjoon asks.

“Sometimes.”

“Well, what kind of stuff do you want to do?”

“Just— ugh— I dunno!” Lee releases an angry, irritated grumble as his finger moves faster in the dust. “Just stuff!”

Namjoon tries to stay with him, but without spooking him. A matador careful with his cape.

“Who do you want to do stuff with?”

Lee grows quiet. “People.” He blinks. “You say I’m smart, or whatever. But whenever I do something that I think is cool or funny, I’m always put in the back with you. I’m always…”

Namjoon waits.

Lee hides his face from him, turning left and peering through cables and curtains toward the red EXIT sign at the other end of the room.

“I’m always alone.”

Namjoon wants to say something. But he isn’t sure of what to say, exactly. He’s never sure if it’s appropriate in his position as an educator to say the things he would say to any other human being. That he understands. That he kind of relates. What he really wants to say is that better things are coming. That the right people will pop up. Make themselves known. But he isn’t entirely sure of that either.

A new notification lights Namjoon’s phone up.

Work Wife Yoongles (2:58 PM): I saw the Lee video.

Namjoon grabs the phone quickly to keep Lee from seeing.

Work Wife Yoongles (2:58 PM): It pisses me off that the kid is so damn funny.

Namjoon smiles at the light from his text. Years of teaching together at the same school has essentially made Yoongi the fourth Kim brother. One of the right people who just happened to pop up.

Namjoon (3:02 PM): Did your shoulders shake when you watched it?

Work Wife Yoongles (3:02 PM): ??

Namjoon laughs to himself before re-opening the Kim brothers chat, screenshotting the mayhem, and sending it back to Yoongi.

Work Wife Yoongles (3:04 PM): Tell Tae that my shoulders were absolutely shaking.

Work Wife Yoongles (3:04 PM): But don’t tell Lee. Might encourage him.

Namjoon (3:05 PM): You? Encourage a student??

A giggle snakes out of Namjoon’s lips when Yoongi sends him a still of Lee’s middle fingers in response.

“What’s so funny?” Lee asks curiously, his head turned back toward Namjoon, eyes wide, hand erasing the stars and lightning bolts that his finger had traced on the floor.

“Nothing,” Namjoon says quickly, closing the text and opening the group chat instead.

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:47 PM): Hyung

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:47 PM): Hyung

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (2:48 PM): Hyung

Namjoon (3:06 PM): Which one??

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (3:06 PM): Both! Either! Yoongles! Whoever answers at this point! 

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (3:07 PM): Are we doing this or not? I’m trying to make plans for the week??

Unreasonable Lengths 🍆📏 (3:07 PM): Tae-Tae, appreciative of the energy, but I said I was in a meeting! I just got back to my desk!

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (3:07 PM): Sorry.

Unreasonable Lengths 🍆📏 (3:07 PM): Have you gotten to take a look, Namjoonie? Any thoughts on the dates? The torpedo??

Namjoon finally opens the email that everyone seems to be talking about. He can hear his eomma’s voice in parentheses as he reads her instructions.

From: [email protected]

Subject: URGENT: FINAL MAP OF MRS. KIMS!

These are fourteen of the city’s most eligible, most prestigious bachelorettes. (So don’t screw this up.)

They’re already grouped according to the best matches for each brother. (Don’t question it. Eomma knows best.)

You’ll have Thursday dates. (The chastest of days. So as to avoid any hanky-panky.)

As such, do wholesome, romantic things. Stick to coffee. Dinner. Art exhibits. Strolls in the park or along the river.

Nothing immature or foolish (Read: silly, Seokjinnie).

Nothing you can get arrested for (Read: dangerous, Tae).

Nothing dry or overly academic (Read: boring, Namjoon).

Just be pleasant, and show all of these fine young ladies a good time.

“Except number 13, apparently,” Namjoon mutters, opening up the map.

“What’s that?” Lee asks.

Namjoon turns to him, having nearly forgotten that he was there.

Lee has already seen a brief snapshot, though. A picture of an illustrated map. Some hearts. A house? A black dot. Stars. And some names.

“Nothing,” Namjoon repeats, putting his phone away completely.

“Are you going on some sort of adventure?” Lee scoffs. “Looking for treasure?” He tilts his head to try and get another glimpse of the map as Namjoon shoves his phone into his back pocket. “Planning a hit?”

“I guess you could say all three,” Namjoon sighs.

Lee smirks.

The tour guide walks toward the center of the room, cueing Namjoon to rise to his feet quickly, as Lee follows slowly.

“What kind of hit?”

“Trip’s over,” Namjoon says. “Let’s gather the rest of the class and head back to the buses.”

“My father’s picking me up from here. Said he didn’t want to wait for our buses in the traffic.”

“OK, well, maybe I can talk to him about…”

Namjoon stops walking, only just then noticing that Lee is lingering a little, walking nearly a foot behind Namjoon’s great stride. Namjoon sinks and waits for Lee to catch up to him, and his chest pinches a bit when he sees the look on Lee’s face. An expectant one. And not one that expects good things to happen after this supposed talk.

“Maybe I can ask him about career day,” Namjoon offers instead, deciding to put a pin in the green screen viral video for the day.

Lee sneers. “Good luck.”

He pushes past Namjoon, past the rest of his classmates lining up for the bus, and through the door.

When Namjoon joins the rest of his students outside, he sees Lee climbing into the same, impatient car, which zooms off the moment the door has been slammed.

This time, Namjoon catches a loosened tie, and a stern frown, on Mr. Lee’s face.

“Long day?”

Namjoon turns to see the tour guide by his side, grinning up at him.

“Sorry about earlier,” he tells her. “That kid… he’s… he’s got some things—”

“I’ve been giving these tours all year since I started working here at the station,” she says. “There’s always one of those kids. If not more.” She sticks her hands in the back pockets of her trousers, relaxing her shoulders and rolling them back. “But you seemed really good with him. Kind of a sad, kindred spirits vibe. Like you understand him.”

“He was running out of steam,” Namjoon deflects. “He was doing too much. End of the day, and the trip, and all. Didn’t have anywhere else to go but down.”

“I dunno,” the tour guide says, turning a little. “People definitely have their patterns. But people can surprise you if you keep giving them a chance.”

She shrugs lightly and smiles before heading back into the station, Namjoon admiring her soft, bouncy hair, and her delicate gait.

After all of Namjoon’s students are accounted for, and Mr. Min Yoongi’s class joins them on the bus, Yoongi and Namjoon flop down into the front seat and sigh.

The bus’s breaks hiss and release.

“Drinks on me,” Yoongi mutters in the gaps.

Namjoon stares at his phone. “Sounds good.”

Namjoon (3:43 PM): OK. I say we give it a try.

Even More Unreasonable Lengths 🍆🍆📏📏 (3:43 PM): Ugh, Jin-hyung, what did I tell you?? An even bigger simp for Eomma than you are!

Jin softly bonk!s his head on his keyboard.

“Hey, handsome.”

Jin slowly turns his head to the right and finds a friendly, full, flirty face smiling back at him.

“Not now, Retsuko.”

She slides into the empty chair next to Jin’s desk. “Where’s Pham?” she asks.

“His client lunch ran long.”

“Hmm. Speaking of,” Retsuko replies, tilting her head, and smiling even wider, “when are you gonna take me on a date?”

Jin’s temples start to burn. “Please don’t. I get enough of that talk from my eomma.”

“Your eomma wants you to take her on a date?”

Jin groans and turns his head back to his desk, his nose grazing the wood grain. “Stop fucking around and just tell me what you need.”

“Apart from the steamy date,” Retsuko goes on, her short bob swaying as she leans toward his desk, “I need some help reviewing the new insurance policy that we’re proposing for the Ioniq and Chilsung merger.” She frowns to herself. “The regressions that the new kid ran don’t seem right. I’m wondering if there was something wrong with the raw data?”

Retsuko playfully leans over Jin’s lap, and he shoves her away with his forearm.

She pokes at the edge of Jin’s keyboard instead, making Jin scoff.

“Can you work your magic?” she begs.

“Bet it was something simple, like he didn’t screen and clean,” Jin mumbles, smoothing his tie and fully sitting upright. “Log transform should help. Which drive?”

“The P drive.”

Jin squints at his screen when he can’t find any files relevant to whatever Retsuko is blabbering on about.

“Maybe it’s the B drive,” Retsuko says lightly. “Anyway, you can pick me up whenever you like. You remember where I live, right? Can we get something that reminds me of home? Or, if not, anything but baekban. I’m so tired of going to that same damn—”

“Does this file exist or not?” Jin interrupts, having checked the B drive twice.

Retsuko’s eyes finally turn serious. “It exists! I swear! The new kid! What’s his name. Joh.”

Finally, Jin finds Joh’s file in the V drive and backtracks to the raw data file to start working his magic, as it were.

“You’re a doll,” Retsuko cheers, shooting Jin a wink.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jin sighs, rolling his eyes as he types.

Retsuko watches him for a moment. In the five or so years they’ve been working together, Jin has always played off of her teasing with the perfect retorts. The fact that he’s so irritable now must mean—

“Something’s up,” Retsuko says. Her face softens, and her back molds itself to the back of absent Pham’s chair. “Was it the meeting?”

“No.”

Retsuko places her hands on Pham’s desk, her wedding ring hitting the surface of the table with a soft clack!

“Wanna grab a coffee?” she asks. “My treat.”

“No time,” Jin grumbles. “But essentially, my eomma is officially acting on that plan of hers.”

Retsuko stifles a laugh, her whole body pumping once, suddenly, quickly before settling back into place.

“The maps?”

“Just the one.”

“How many girls??” Retsuko’s eyes glisten with curiosity and excitement.

Jin pauses typing and looks sideways at her, eyes narrowing.

“You can’t be reveling in this.”

“I know I tease you relentlessly, but it’s because you’re hot as shit, smart as shit, kind as shit, but shouldn’t be single as shit.”

“I’m not single as shit.”

Jin presses ENTER on his keyboard and lets his initial data analysis run as he swivels his chair to face Retsuko head on.

“I’m just single. It’s not shitty, being single. I go on dates when I want. But I like—”

“—your independence, yeah yeah yeah,” Retsuko mocks, nodding her head exaggeratedly. She sits back and crosses her legs, the inside of her right knee resting on her left. “You do know that you don’t just merge into the person you commit to, right? You’re still your own person. You don’t just… blob together, like glue, or snot, or… or… I dunno, name another viscous fluid.”

Jin smirks.

Retsuko smirks back. “That’s why you’re single.”

“I just have too much viscous fluid in me to save it all for one person,” Jin says, turning back to his screen and scanning the syntax of his analysis. “Sharing is caring.”

“Well,” Retsuko says, “you might find out that after years of sharing—”

“Incessant sharing.”

“Incessant sharing—”

“Messy. Criminally so.”

“After your incessant, messy, criminal, absolutely depraved and disgusting sharing,” Retsuko jokes, “you’ll look up and find that there’s no one to share with anymore.”

“Not more age stuff,” Jin groans, fixing a misplaced period in his syntax and re-running his analysis.

“I don’t mean age-wise. But I do mean time-wise.”

“Time?”

“Yeah. It’s not on your side. Listen, I watched this documentary—”

“Oh god.”

“—about how people are getting more and more isolated. Seeing less of a point in partnering up. Independence and all that.” Retsuko shrugs. “Maybe that’s the flag you’re flying. I don’t know. More power to you if it is.” She tilts her head. “Anyway, who knows what these princesses are going to want out of this, especially if their eommas are just like yours.”

Jin frowns. “What do you mean?”

“You think they’re signing up for this just because you’re cute?”

“I thought I was hot as shit.”

“You were until you started talking about your viscous fluid.”

“My viscous fluid is also hot as shit.”

Retsuko snickers and hits Jin on the shoulder. “Seriously, Jin, you’re gonna have to find a balance here. If there’s any part of you that wants to settle down, now’s probably a good time, right? But be cautious, because the pool of candidates your eomma is curating might end up being a cesspool.”

Jin can’t really stifle laughs. His body still pumps suddenly, but the loud chuckle must accompany it. He doesn’t really know how to laugh if it’s not freely.

“Trust fund babies,” Retsuko goes on. “Where is your eomma even meeting these women? Probably at that snooty country club you go to every weekend, right?”

The gaggle of girls at the grocery store flock to the front of his mind.

“More or less.”

“Well, wherever she’s meeting them, she’s only choosing the elite crew. The children who ate their siblings in the womb.” Retsuko raises her eyebrows. “Watch out for sharp teeth, Jin.”

Retsuko may not be single, but she is hot as shit, and she’s smart as shit, too. And it’s the last characteristic that has Jin trying to figure out ways to backpedal on agreeing to their eomma’s plans.

On Tuesday, Jin thinks about deliberately ordering old food from the already-sketchy seafood restaurant across the street. But that would mean potentially missing work. Or dying.

On Wednesday, Jin thinks about getting married to the next woman he sees. But he doubts his neighbor, 84-year-old Mr. Keng, would appreciate him hitting on 82-year-old Mrs. Keng. Even though Mrs. Keng has made it clear that she wouldn’t mind at all.

On Thursday, the best Jin can come up with during the pre-date Kim brothers video chat is, “How about you both go, and I just, like, don’t?”

Taehyung holds up another shirt to his phone’s camera lens so that his hyungs can see.

“How about the black?” he asks, eyebrows flickering up and down as his bread cheeks expand with their full, fluffy power.

“Fitting,” Namjoon replies, ignoring Jin as he refolds his white dress shirt sleeves up to his elbow. “Black shirt for the black circle.”

“Hmph.”

At his wary scoff, Namjoon and Taehyung both look over at Jin, who has yet to get dressed.

“Really, though. Are you OK with this, hyung?” Taehyung asks. “I mean, even though my diabolical plan to act like a completely self-indulgent asshole—”

“Act?”

“—is the best I’ve ever come up with,” Taehyung goes on, narrowing his eyes at a smirking Namjoon, though his eyes soften before he looks back at Jin, “we don’t actually have to do this. I didn’t want to in the first place!”

“Neither did I, but maybe it’ll be better than we thought?” Namjoon offers. “Giving people a chance?”

“It’d probably be less weird if they were all people we didn’t know,” Jin mumbles.

Taehyung lets his arm droop a little, the black shirt sleeve crumpling against his chest. “You should just call her,” he says. “It feels a little mean to sabotage a date just because Eomma doesn’t really approve of her.”

“If she’s so against her, then why is she on the list in the first place?” Namjoon asks.

“Some kind of deal with her eomma,” Taehyung explains. “She apparently pleaded with our eomma to put her daughter at the top of the list. She’s desperate. Noona isn’t exactly interested in settling down either.”

Jin smiles. He thinks of the hoodie-clad girl at the end of the candle aisle, frowning at that gross room spray.

“Seems like her.”

“So let’s switch!” Taehyung replies. “If I’d have recognized her name sooner, or if you would’ve said something sooner…”

Jin’s still a little groggy after his post-work lightning nap. He peeks down next to him, at his laptop, still on and displaying Number 13’s info.

“Camp was a long time ago,” he mumbles, kicking off his blankets. “Besides. She’s expecting you.”

He walks over to his closet and pulls the shirt hanging closest to the door. Doesn’t even register that it’s baby blue. All that matters is that it’s clean and pressed.

“And my date is expecting me.”

He walks over to his sock drawer and pulls out whatever black socks are in the nearest corner. The two that he picks out are both black, but they aren’t from the same pair. They aren’t even the same brand, or length. A funny thing that Jin has learned over time. Socks don’t really have to match.

“And Namjoon’s date is expecting Namjoon, all in about an hour and a half. So, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it Eomma’s way. Get these dates over with and go back to our regular lives,” Jin finishes.

“Maybe we’ll have some fun while we’re at it?” Taehyung offers.

“And maybe we end up actually meeting some solid people,” Namjoon replies.

Jin smiles. “Sure.”

**

“So you work in investment banking?”

Namjoon isn’t yet used to his thighs. Not that he isn’t highly adept at things with wide circumferences. A joke that his hyung would appreciate. But it’s an interesting irony that with more leg days at the gym, protein-shake-happy-hours with the guys, and jogs around the nearby park, that his thick, shaking thighs feel like the soft, wiggly, near-transparent tendons in his eomma’s gomguk.

“I do!” Gyeong says brightly, mouth half-closed, trying to keep her bite of mint chocolate chip ice cream in her mouth.

Namjoon scrunches his nose. He’s done that a few times. The first nose scrunch happened when you waltzed into the daisy yellow ice cream shop, lined up next to him, and proudly ordered. The second, third, and fourth scrunches happened with her first, second, and third bites while still in line. He didn’t scrunch his nose when he paid, but you think you might’ve caught him wince.

He clears his throat. Regular chocolate ice cream is always delightful, but piping hot gomguk would actually be helpful. The cold and dairy is starting to make his tonsils feel sore and full. “My hyung works in risk assessment.”

“I know!” she cheers, though, perhaps, her tone is a little too bright for him, with the way he squints. She swallows her mouthful of ice cream and tries to tone it down a bit, like her eomma told her to. “I studied the info sheets,” she explains. “Oppa studied actuarial science. And Taehyung is a photographer. Right?”

“There are info sheets??” Namjoon asks quizzically.

“Tons!” she squeaks. “The one-pagers, the spreadsheets — I even drew up my own map of your commutes!” But then she shakes her head, her bangs nuzzling her brows, which she is trying to flatten and subdue. “Sorry. I’m just really excited to be able to have a chance to talk to you, let alone, uh, uhhhhh, let alone be on… a…” She whispers. “Date.” She chuckles. “With you!”

She appreciates that Namjoon gives her a grin, even if it’s an uneasy one, and shot at her from over a quick check of his phone.

“Are you nervous?” she asks, setting her spoon down.

Namjoon nods, setting the phone face down on the table.

“Do you date often?” she asks.

Namjoon shrugs. “I don’t know. Here and there. Just busy, I guess. With my students.” He half-smiles. “I’m a—”

And then they speak at the same time.

“Well, you know.” / “I know.”

She giggles, and he seems to settle more into himself. His knee isn’t bouncing up and down as violently. Or, at least, he’s no longer hitting the table and causing her spoon to rattle against her dish of ice cream.

She reaches for that spoon again. “I love kids,” she says.

Namjoon nods. “I read that you want three of them?”

Trying her best not to squeal again, she answers, “Oh. Yes. Three.”

This time, Namjoon doesn’t scrunch his nose when she excavates a huge mound of mint chocolate chip ice cream from her dish. Eomma was right, she thinks. Just stay calm, and he’ll be yours.

“I take it that you don’t want kids, though,” she says, venturing into debatable territory that you’re not sure if your eomma would approve of.

Namjoon tilts his head and looks down at his dish. “And why do you say that?”

“Because of how resistant you’re being,” she says pointedly.

Namjoon arches an eyebrow and picks up his spoon.

“I don’t mean on this date,” she says, her black frames sliding down her nose. She uses the back of her hand to push her right lens back onto her grinning cheek, and then she digs into her ice cream for more. “But there’s a reason why the three of you are still single, and it’s obviously not due to a lack of interest.”

Namjoon’s Adam’s apple bobs as he snorts through his nostrils, air cool from the dollop of ice cream he’s just eaten.

She starts to feel the energy cool, too.

Each of those nose scrunches and winces aren’t just about the mint chocolate chip ice cream.

He’s pulling away again.

Maybe Eomma wasn’t right, she thinks.

Maybe there’s nothing to do but eat this free ice cream.

It’s pleasant enough.

Conversation is pleasant enough, too. Even more pleasant for Gyeong when she isn’t trying to reign in her natural squeaks and cheers.

When she asks about his brothers, his eyes light up, and his dimples deepen. She savors each story like each minty chip. She knows she won’t get this insider view again.

And when they leave the daisy yellow ice cream shop for the orange sky outside, and Namjoon is launching into a kind speech about how he had a lovely time, and how he can’t wait to see her again, she figures that she has nothing to lose.

So she does what she always does.

She says what’s on her mind.

“Your eomma paired us up because we’re both analytical,” she says. “So you know as well as I know that this date, though pleasant, was kind of a dud, and we are probably never going to see each other again.”

Before Namjoon can protest, she goes on.

“And that’s OK. I’m just happy for the opportunity. But I do have a request.”

“A dud?” Namjoon blinks. “Wait, we’re not… we’re not going to see each other again?”

“Kiss me.”

His eyes fly open. “What?”

“Kiss me,” she says. “I mean, if you’re comfortable with that. Sorry. Let me back up. That was way too blunt. Um, but, y’know. Would you be comfortable with that? Kissing me?” You smile. “I just want to know what it feels like. A kiss from a Kim.”

Namjoon furrows his brow. But his analytical mind has shaken off his brain freeze, and he’s starting to catch up.

No, they probably won’t see each other again.

And that’s OK.

Now kiss.

Those three things seem wrong, or out of order somehow?

He clears his throat again, and she can’t help but squeak out some giggles at how sweet he looks, all nervous and confused.

And then he steps into her, smirking a little.

“Tell me if you don’t like something I’m doing,” he says, his voice low and soothing. “I wanna try to make it a good kiss.”

“Pretty sure it’s a safe bet to say that all of yours are,” she replies.

His arms reach around you, a little awkward, hovering before touching her, just to make sure that she’s comfortable with him being this close.

It’s wholly unnecessary to hover. Who wouldn’t be comfortable with him being this close?

She sinks a little to force him into a hold, and he shyly gathers his lips together and scrunches his nose before laughing and looking away.

She laughs a little too, but she keeps her eyes locked on his. She doesn’t want to miss a moment of this.

And then it happens.

His eyes come back to her.

His cheeks relax.

He sinks down.

His fingers thread into her hair, cradling the back of her head as he dips you slightly back.

He takes a quick breath, in and out, air warm against her skin.

The tip of his nose runs down the bridge of yours, and he angles his head this way, then that, mouth pulled into a slight, charmed, anticipating smile.

Then.

Eyes close.

Lips press against lips, still cold, and sticky, and sweet.

Tongues search for a new taste.

And she tastes like a new favorite food. A glimmer of excitement. A sigh through a giggle. Maybe one of the squeaky ones that she likes to let out so often. Something that, despite what she said earlier, Namjoon wonders if he’ll get to have again. The more of her flavor that he gets, the more he’s deciding that, even if it weren’t his first choice, he wouldn’t be opposed to having it again.

Him?

He tastes like fire. She can’t help but gasp at the way she immediately burns, like a too-soon bite of a soufflé fresh out of the oven.

His kiss will leave a scar.

**

It was a good kiss.

Namjoon can be clumsy. He’s still figuring out his body, even now. And he’s definitely still feeling residual nerves from meeting you and going on this date. He just feels so uncertain. Uncertain of how to move. How to feel. What to say and do.

Because Namjoon is more of a thinker than a mover, feeler, sayer, or doer.

But Namjoon has always been certain about good kisses.

He’s studied so many of them. From his favorite romcoms. TV shows. Music videos. Harry and Sally. Ross and Rachel. Usher and Alicia Keys, though that last one was less about the actual kiss and more about building the mood.

He’s imagined them, too. In great detail. With famous people. With girlfriends. With crushes.

With lost ones.

And he has the perfect yardstick against which to measure them.

As he walks back to his apartment, hand in pocket, rubbing his thumb over the teeth of his keys, he thinks of all of the marks on that yardstick.

Gyeong’s lips admittedly weren’t the softest, but they’d just had ice cream. Which, by the way, is infinitely more delicious from Gyeong’s mouth than it is from a spoon. Maybe the mint did them both a favor.

He also liked her movements. Exquisite, and coupled well with the tone. How she was neither shy nor aggressive. Interested, but not too eager. Rhythmic, and particularly well-paced.

He liked that she asked. Well, told.

And he liked that she ran her hand up his arm as he responded with perfect pout, pace, and pleasure of his own.

As he jiggles his key into his lock, he wonders what else got stuck. Maybe if he kissed her before she’d had a lick, she’d have a higher spot on that yardstick. But even with the ice cream factor, she does beat out most of the rest.

As Namjoon crouches down by the door to untie his shoes, he wonders what it is about her that’s sticking. Why he’s curious for more.

And as he replays their kiss for the seventh or eighth time, he develops a hunch.

It might be that even though she tastes different, her lips are shaped kinda like... someone else’s he knows.

**

“Fuck, what was your name again?”

Jin falls back into his bed much sooner than anticipated. Not just within this quick, passionate tumble, but much earlier in the evening.

“Did I suck it out of your brain through your dick?” she teases, as her tight, black jeans straddle his wet, still-hard cock, and her teal, silk, ruffled blouse slides off to reveal a leopard-print bra. “Lee Kamou. Bank teller. Wants 4 kids.”

Jin smirks at her impression of him. How bold she is. He was quite bold, wasn’t he? Bursting into the restaurant, ignoring the frustrated host completely and roving from table to table, repeating the same three chunks to each single woman that he saw. Nearly running for his life when it turned out one of those women wasn’t single but merely waiting. And then, finally sitting down at her table after finding her long, layered black hair, parted to the side, just like the photo on his phone.

“Kamou,” Jin growls, as he sits up and unbuttons her pants, his cold hands making her squeal.

Kamou.

Pure.

She sure seemed it, taking minuscule sips of her amaretto sour through pink, slightly glossy lips.

He smiles devilishly as she undoes her bra and toss it behind her.

“My brother made a joke about your name,” he tells her.

“I bet.”

She slithers forward, her jeans riding down her sides. Jin’s eyes widen as her hands travel into the back of her pants, fingers sliding into her lace-trimmed, silk underwear, nails following outline the lotus on her lower back, scratching slightly when he catches sight, as if trying to pick off a petal.

She bucks, and he hisses.

“Wait, I’m caught in the fly,” he tells her with a slight whine.

His square palms cradle her naked hip bones, and his long, crooked fingers curve to grip and lift her up slightly so that he can wriggle his pants down a bit.

Her knees sink into the mattress when she leans forward and pushes herself up and off of him to help him claw his pants off completely.

“Shit, OK,” he laughs. “Gettin’ right to it.”

She snorts softly through her nostrils and plants her lips on his collarbone, the corner of her mouth sliding against the collar of his open shirt.

His phone rings.

“Hang on—”

She places both of her palms on his shoulders and pushes him down onto the mattress, his hair falling left and right, his forehead softly exposed.

His phone rings again.

“I need my—”

“You really gonna answer it?” she asks, her cutesy voice doing nothing to disguise the snarl that propels it.

Jin scoffs as his phone rings again. “You want it bad, huh?”

“I filled out a damn application.”

The sound of his phone ringing falls away as she traces the lines of his chest — the top of his abs, his collarbones, his pecs — and he wiggles a little.

“I don’t want four kids,” she admits. “Just figured your eomma would move me to the top of the list if I added it.”

“Pure,” Jin laughs again.

“Yeah. Pure genius.”

Jin grunts as he reaches up with both arms, hugging her tightly as they both use knees and thighs to kick off her pants, laughing as he licks at her breasts, tongue swirling around each nipple, tip teasing each with flicks, and lips circling around to suck.

She hums sweetly as she sinks down onto his cock, pausing just a quarter of the way when Jin is already muttering curse words under his breath.

“Like that?”

“Mmhmm.”

She slides up a little, and he glares at her, frustrated, even angry, at the thought that she’s about to take it away from him.

But then she smiles and sinks back down a bit more.

“Ohhhh-ho-ho-ho,” Jin chuckles. “You’re—”

She laughs as she slides back up, and he shakes his head.

“Wow.”

“Feels nice, though,” she says, “right?”, tossing her hair over her shoulder and leaning over him.

Her palms rest on his chest, and he hisses again when you sink all the way down.

He can’t take it anymore. Not after her mouth spat that playful banter. Not after her mouth spat onto his cock. Not after she lapped it up and then took him in, throat tense and eyes wide with need finally satiated after months and months of waiting, telling her that if things stopped right there, she’d be just as happy.

He picks her up, wraps her legs around his waist, and slams her down on to the bed, her breasts plump and bouncing like his mattress.

He straightens up and slams into her.

A soft moan eeks out from between her pinched, still raw tonsils.

But unlike her banter, this one is soft. Like pink lip gloss.

Each stroke is divine. Strong and full. She seems to like it slow, actually. Jin tries to hold out as best as he can, which is hard to do, as her sweet voice lifts higher and higher.

He catches her gaze and inhales softly when he sees beads of sweat wetting her hair at her temples.

Her pink, glossy moans tumble out faster and faster, and he realizes it’s because his strokes have gotten faster and faster, and his heart is beating faster and faster.

“Fuck!” she cries out, as his nails dig in. “Gonna c-come!”

“Me too,” he whines.

He’s pummeling blue and purple Rorschachs onto her hips.

“Keep going, I need it,” she pleads. “Wanted to drink it, have it all over me, but y-you—” She shuts her eyes and starts to tremble. “You said you wanted to— fuck, I can’t t-think straight!”

Jin misses the rasp in her voice. Now, it’s almost too sweet.

He planks over her now, sweat from his hair dripping onto her cheeks. She spots his eye in the curtain. It shimmers, everything shimmers, as she starts to come.

The shimmer. The slick. Like pink lip gloss.

“You do want kids, don’t you?” he whispers, between straggled breaths.

“Yes,” she sighs in admission, voice sweeter than he’s ever heard it. “Want you.” You’ve thought about the ring that Kim Kamou has to it. “Want kids.” Their names have been picked out since she was twelve. “Want this. Fuck, I want this all the fucking time. It’s even better than I—"

She’s tumbling in every direction. He’s pumping harder and harder. And then they’re melting into each other, moans overlapping and stitched together with flurries of kisses.

As she lies on his bed, eyelashes fluttering and flirting with the beginnings of a dream, he slides out of her, so gently that she almost don’t notice, and he chuckles softly when you twitch.

Her moan is met with a soft, appreciative grunt of his own, and he kisses her cheek before he leaves her for the bathroom.

He eyes the box of condoms on his sink counter. Familiar branding. Cardboard seams frantically torn across in haste.

Thank god for these, he thinks, as he unwraps himself and turns the cold knob on his faucet.

He wonders how sharp Kamou’s teeth are.

**

Taehyung (7:08 PM): It’s a café.

Eomma 🥰 (7:08 PM): Not like a sex café or anything, right??

Taehyung (7:08 PM): What the hell is a sex café and where is the one closest to me right now??

Eomma 🥰 (7:09 PM): Tae-Tae.

Taehyung (7:09 PM): Did you put those on the map?!

Eomma 🥰 (7:09 PM): Please.

Taehyung (7:09 PM): I thought you wanted me to torpedo this date, anyway!

Eomma 🥰 (7:10 PM): In a respectful way, PLEASE.  This is a favor that I’m hoping is a one-off, but I don’t want it to be mean-spirited, and I don’t want this to ruin anyone’s reputation. Especially yours.

Taehyung (7:10 PM): Relax, Eomma. I’m in the design district, by her office, like you pointed out on the map. Just a regular ol’ café.

Eomma 🥰 (7:11 PM): What is it like?

Taehyung looks around, his eyes landing on random things. An espresso machine with a chipped tip jar sitting on top. Clean, white subway tiles. Someone pouring honey into their tea. A waiter delivering a sandwich. Friends, and couples, and singles, all at their respective tables, singing conversations physical and virtual.

Taehyung (7:12 PM): Very café-like.

Eomma 🥰 (7:12 PM): Please be gentle in your torpedoing.

Taehyung (7:12 PM): Oh, I’m never gentle when torpedoing.

Eomma 🥰 (7:13 PM): Appa laughed at that, but please save those comments for your group chat with your brothers.

Eomma 🥰 (7:13 PM): And I guess your Appa 😑

Eomma 🥰 (7:13 PM): But tell me more about your actual date OK??

Taehyung (7:14 PM): I will.

His eyebrows crease as he sets his phone down, looks around the café, becoming very self-aware that his voice isn’t joining the chorus, and thinking,

…If she even shows up.

**

It's been hours.

Mrs. Kim frowns at the clock. “How do you think it’s going?”

Mr. Kim rests the bottom of his book in his lap. Glasses perched at the end of his nose, he turns to Mrs. Kim beside him.

She fusses a bit, smudging a line or two with her finger, trying to get more dimension on the pot of dakdoritang she had made earlier that day and is trying to recreate as best as she can in her sketchbook.

“Messy,” Mr. Kim remarks.

“Only pencil.”

“Still messy,” Mr. Kim says with a lazy smile, turning back to his book.

Mrs. Kim sighs and sets her notebook on her nightstand.

Mr. Kim chuckles lightly. “Yeobo.”

“What??” she asks. “I’m just— I just—”

“Just let them be,” he replies. “They agreed to your scheme—”

“Scheme??”

“This, ah, opportunity, to, uh, get to know these wonderful young ladies! That you picked!” Mr. Kim replies tactfully. “Gotta be wonderful if you picked ‘em!”

“I only pick winners,” Mrs. Kim mumbles, folding her arms.

“Aw!”

“Not you!”

“Aw.”

“I mean, of course you,” Mrs. Kim says, leaning over and giving Mr. Kim a peck on the cheek.

He turns to try and steal more than a peck.

But Mrs. Kim shakes her head and leans forward.

At this point, their silence is more than comfortable. It’s baseline. That much time spent with someone. That much time learning, and sharing, and growing. That much time seeing. And feeling.

Words are almost too weak when shared between Mr. and Mrs. Kim, more red flags of insecurity, rather than banners of waving in joy.

“Tell me,” Mr. Kim knows to nudge. “Let it out.”

Mrs. Kim takes a deep breath, and then exhales, slowly. Again. And again.

“I just… want them to have everything,” she says, finally.

Mr. Kim leans forward with her, brushing some of her hair behind her ear.

“No one has everything,” he tells her.

“We do.”

“We have a lot.”

“I want them to have everything that we have.”

“Well, it took us a while. Quite a bit more silver along these earpieces.”

Mr. Kim’s eyes crinkle when he smiles.  And Mrs. Kim wonders how she might capture it, if this were the first version of him that she saw. Assistance from colored pencils? Or just better, more time intensive shading, a mere trick of the light?

“I worry,” she admits.

“You tend to worry in the beginning,” Mr. Kim reminds her, easing back only when she starts to, spine hitting his propped up pillow against the headboard, but not feeling it until Mrs. Kim’s spine hits hers. “But things work out in the end, right?”

He leans over again, lips puckered.

But Mrs. Kim reaches for her drawing.

“Right,” she says, flipping to a new page and starting over.

Bongseon can’t help but notice that Jihu’s lanky frame looks odd leaning against the art building. But that isn’t a dig on Jihu. It’s really not. Bongseon just knows these sorts of things. She got top marks in all her composition classes. She knows when things vibe, and she knows when things clash.

See, the art building is all curves. Designed by architects with a proclaimed affinity for nature, the art building evokes how things never really start or stop but just are. Its frame is a rounded rectangle. Its oval, stained glass awning provides kind, almost motherly shade in the warm summers and protection from the wind in the cold winters. Regardless of the season, the yellow orb of the sun creates watercolor rainbow patterns on the ground, and the rain hits the glass like soft, balled mallets on the higher end of a xylophone. There’s even a globe statue outside. Cast in bronze, save for a purple-painted Korea, it was gifted by a senior class decades ago when the building opened, commemorating the worldly and timeless nature of its students, and of art itself.

Funnily enough, Jihu, who was designed completely by nature, is all straight lines. His form ignores the curves of his DNA double-helixes. His spine is straight, though his arm bends at a perfect 45-degree angle as he leans against the concrete. His eyes are thin and flat, unwavering even when laughing. The roundest things about him might be his dimples, but even those are lines, striations of muscle that echo the triangles that his cheeks make with the corners of his lips when he smiles fondly like that.

And the girl he’s talking to?

Well, she’s probably the golden ratio. Like all the other girls on campus. But she, and they, kind of get lost in perfection. Bongseon can’t really tell when something is perfect anyway. It’s just hard to say when you don’t have something harsher to judge against.

Bongseon’s free arm stretches out. Her index finger digs into more lines that form the sharp point of Jihu’s shoulder blade poking out as he sticks his hand in his back pocket for his notepad and pencil.

“You ready?” Bongseon interrupts, readjusting her easel against her side.

Jihu’s in the middle of saying, “Well, I’d love to get your num—”, but even he forgets, when he feels the jab of a finger against his back.

He whips around, kind of annoyed.

But then his eyebrows raise.

“Oh! Hey!” Jihu smiles kindly. “Hi!”

Bongseon frowns. She glances at the golden ratio girl. Who is also frowning.

“I said, you ready?” Bongseon repeats.

“Yeah!” Jihu replies, standing tall. Standing straight.

“But I was gonna give you my…”

Neither Bongseon nor Jihu hear.

Sometimes, things get lost in perfection.

They’re silent until they get to Bongseon’s studio. Jihu takes his time entering the space. Bongseon makes a beeline for her stool.

She can make lines, too.

Jihu slowly follows, eyes roving over the room. It’s somehow exactly the same yet completely different than last time. Art strewn about everywhere, but nothing in the same place that it was when he first saw it. Like a whirlwind flew through only this room.

He grins. “How was your wee—?”

“Don’t talk.”

Jihu purses his lips. “I thought we said we’d meet a little earl—”

“Don’t talk.”

Jihu readjusts his shoulder blade, stretching back. He wanders over to his designated chair.

Bongseon busies herself with her supplies.

Even through the closed door, the sounds of civilization from the hall are louder than whatever is or isn’t going on in this studio.

Jihu finally pipes up. “OK if I set my—?”

“Don’t. Talk.”

Jihu sighs. How many times is he going to go through this? “So for this whole project, I’m really just gonna sit here and do nothing?”

Bongseon blinks.

Silence.

“Didn’t you read the ad?” she finally spits.

Jihu blinks back.

More silence.

Bongseon suddenly understands why this trait is something her mother found so annoying.

“Jeez, fine, then read or something.” Bongseon replies, focused on her canvas. “Get something from my shelf over there. Just hurry up, and please don’t talk while I’m getting started. It takes me a while to get into the right head space.”

Jihu nods. He should’ve known better by now. Like with all things, there is a process. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Before Bongseon’s stare evolves into a glare, Jihu nods and snaps his mouth shut.

He stands and walks over to a book with a flashy cover, bright yellow with bold black text on some sort of brush technique. Next to it, there’s a beige, textured book with a name embossed in gold in the center, surprisingly sparse for what the synopsis says is an artist’s memoir. The huge, heavy, hardcover coffee table book underneath seems to miss the point of what it houses, a series of posthumously published essays and notes that the original writer had actually wanted to be stored somewhere no one would see.

Jihu picks up the beige book.

“Hmm.”

He turns around, catching the tail end of Bongseon’s hum, and meeting Bongseon’s most neutral expression.

She says, quietly, not wanting to break her own rule, but feeling so compelled to share, “That one’s actually my favorite.”

Jihu grins. He taps the back, fingers tracing the synopsis. “Sounds cool.”

Bongseon blinks.

She looks back at her easel.

She then closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and focuses on feeling the warmth of the sun shining through the window.

Finally, she smiles.

And so does he.

**

If the school truly is making great strides toward being the shining beacon of progression that it touts itself to be by admitting more and more women, then Bongseon has grossly underestimated how many men attend this school.

This is the, what, twelfth?, golden ratio girl that Jihu has been giggling with outside of the art building.

Bongseon doesn’t pause to acknowledge them as she marches inside.

But when she hears a quick flurry of rushed conversation, and clumsy, heavy steps running to catch up to her, she allows herself a smirk.

“You’re early this time,” Jihu remarks, his gait evening as they fall into rhythm.

“Don’t get used to it,” Bongseon grumbles, fumbling with her easel as she opens the door to the studio.

Rhythms are easily memorized when you play them over and over again.

Bongseon sets up her easel.

Jihu plops right into his chair.

She starts to get ready, and he quietly opens the beige book.

Bongseon catches the look on his face as he reads.

He looks so…

So…

Anyway, Bongseon doesn’t know what it is, but it’s the same feeling she gets when she has a moment in the sun. The way her father looks in photographs on his boat. The way her mother looks when she’s finished a quilt.

Something’s off, though.

“Hey.”

Jihu startles, eyes wide as he looks up at her.

Bongseon walks over and tilts her head.

Something is definitely off.

She’ll find it.

Her eyes pore over his shoulders, hanging easy and sloping into the book resting at his knees. Thighs and calves still, where they angle into softer triangles that end at the heels of his shoes resting on the bar between the stool’s front legs.

No, not there.

Her eyes climb back up again, and then she sees it.

Bongseon reaches out for his chest. Smooths down a wrinkle on his shirt.

Erasing that line means better appreciating the others. The solid ones of his pecs. Collarbones. Part of his neck.

She meets his eyes for a moment before heading back to her easel. She tries to decide whether she’s going to interpret the nervous look on his face. But then she shrugs and takes her seat.

Jihu lets out a breath.

“Comfortable?” Bongseon thinks to ask.

Jihu looks down at the perfectly adequate stool. “Uh. Yeah. Sure.”

Bongseon pushes her plump lips out and nods once.

She picks up her charcoal, and he waits until it looks like she’s got a steady pulse beating into her strokes across the canvas before returning to that beige book.

And then he wonders.

He wonders if she was asking about the stool, or something else.

**

Bongseon realizes that, outside of the studio, she’s never seen Jihu alone.

Around campus, he’s always surrounded by golden ratios, regardless of gender.

That’s why she actually stops this time.

Jihu grins. “Hey.”

Bongseon gestures to the empty space in front of him. “You’re usually talking to to some girl.”

“Yeah, probably,” Jihu says nonchalantly.

Bongseon glances at him. She’s thankful for the bit of intriguing surprise at his response. It helps her nail his confidently arched eyebrow.

Jihu crosses his arms.

“Do you not date?”

“I don’t. You do.”

Jihu shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, it’s kinda more like I don’t not date.”

“They ask you?” Bongseon asks. “You shy or something?”

Jihu’s lips don’t untangle.

Not until Bongseon nods and says, “That’s cool.”

Jihu pushes up the bridge of his glasses.

Bongseon keeps her eyes on her easel.

“What kind of things do you like to do on dates?” she asks.

“There are trends.” Jihu shrugs. “People like to do different things. Right now, everybody seems to be into mini-golf, and the bio majors are always up to something at the arcade. But I like the kinds of dates where you just kinda grab something to eat.”

It’s clear the Bongseon isn’t listening anymore. She’s too focused on getting the main line of his thigh right, but he’s wiggling in his seat.

“Stop.”

“Sorry.”

Jihu reaches over for the book and notices that there’s a bookmark in the spot where he left off. It’s a folded up piece of paper, with some doodles in black ballpoint pen, and half of a reminder to pick up garlic and parsley at the store last Thursday.

He opens the book and picks up where he last left off.

“You still haven’t finished it?” Bongseon snorts.

“You said it was your favorite?” Jihu asks.

Bongseon nods. Grins a little. “But it’s been weeks since you’ve started it! Thought you would’ve finished it by now.”

Jihu shrugs.

And then he finishes the remainder of what is technically his fourth read.

**

“Can I ask you a question about the piece?” Jihu wonders. “And if not, that’s OK! Please don’t feel pressured to answer! I am a little curious, but it’s your creative process, and I want to be clear that I’m being respectful of that!”

Furrowing her brow, Bongseon says, “It’s fine,” surprised at all the couching. “You can, like, ask people questions.”

Jihu nods, as if he’s forgotten. “Right. Yeah.” He smiles a little. “Well… OK, so… why did you request a male model?”

Bongseon blushes a little. “Oh.”

Smirks are like dessert. Sweet. A little bad. Worse when you indulge too much. Perfect when enjoyed sparingly. Surprisingly.

Jihu loves a good smirk.

His left dimple rises.

“It’s not what you think,” Bongseon says, rolling her eyes. When she huffs, tendrils of hair move with her breath.

Jihu’s jaw relaxes. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Bongseon’s arm has stilled, charcoal stuck in place on the easel, but her shoulder droops, and the side of her wrist lands in black.

“Sorry,” Jihu replies, low and quiet, “uh, if I… I didn’t mean to…”

It’s sometimes hard to tell when something is buckling under weight, or releasing it.

“It’s O… K,” Bongseon says, confused, bobbing her head on the bottom right corner of the K. “You…”

Her eyes search his kind face.

“Well, it’s like this.” She folds her lips together. Like stacking someone else’s laundry at the dorm. An unexpected chore, but one that clears the dryer for your own. “When I saw that the scholarship required, y’know, human subjects,” she scoffs, making Jihu chuckle, “I had this really intense reaction, like, it has to be a man. I didn’t really know why at first. I wasn’t expecting to have such a strong opinion on the subject, or anything, really, about the piece before I’d even started. Determinism blocks shit. Do you know what I mean?”

Jihu’s brow knits. “Yeah,” he says, nodding. “I feel that.”

“So I sat with it, right?”

Bongseon sets her charcoal down on the easel ledge and gets up, wiping her hands on top of the older smudges on her t-shirt.

“And I realized,” she goes on, pacing back and forth, “that my reaction wasn’t that it had to be a man, but that it couldn’t be a woman. Or, rather, that the body in front of me had to be a traditionally masculine one, not a traditionally feminine one.”

Jihu leans forward, his hands clasping the edge of the stool.

Riveted.

“Why?”

“I just felt so disgusted at the thought,” Bongseon says. “Like… not disgusted by the body, but… I dunno, you ever have something dangled right in front of you, and be told at the same time that you can’t have it?”

Jihu swallows.

Bongseon’s feet slow to a stop as her eyes flit quickly over his expression.

Jihu looks left. Then right. Then back at her.

His eyebrows rise, taking with them his cheeks, taking with them, his glasses.

Bongseon’s lips gather to one side.

“Probably not,” she judges. “But the thought made me queasy.” She faces him, but her hips are turned, chugging along the track in one direction, swiveling, and then chugging back the way they came.

Her arms wave like a conductor’s. The other kind. Or maybe both? One who moves things along with as much grace as she can harness the swell of a swirling ballad.

“Have you seen the kind of women who take on these modeling jobs??”

Her body tumbles forward and then back on each slanted word. An uneven part of the track. A swung rhythm.

“You know how artists are always talking about wanting to capture things in just the right way? Those drawings behind you—”

Bongseon gestures to the still lifes on the far wall, and Jihu whips around.

“—I felt like I was eating the fruit in that bowl. Talking with that group on the quad. I could hear their voices. Taste fruit juice!”

Jihu smiles and turns back, but Bongseon’s eyes remain on her sketches, emptying at the thought that that’s ultimately what they are.

“For me to try to draw a beautiful woman seems kind of like a waste,” she surmises.

Jihu watches as Bongseon drifts back to her easel, retaking her seat.

“Now,” Bongseon says, “question time needs to be over. Your jaw keeps coming out too round because you keep talking.”

**

If Bongseon wants to win this scholarship, she needs to figure out what it is about Jihu’s neck that isn’t working. She’s pretty sure that she’s got the length right, as his cheekbones and shoulders seem better balanced. And the width is right, the lines extending from behind the ears, where the lobe and jaw meet. But after looking with greater intention, Bongseon realizes that the shading is wrong. It’s more defined than originally perceived. Some angles a little sharper. Adam’s apple a bit wider. Maybe that’s why his voice is so full and resonant even when low and quiet. It’s just such a deep part of him.

“Huh?” Bongseon asks.

“I said I’m hungry,” Jihu says, frowning.

Bongseon catches the time and sees that two hours have passed by.

“Shit,” she mutters, dusting off her hands on her shirt, and wincing at how sore her fingers are. “Yes, god, I’m so sorry, dinner’s on me.”

“We can’t be gone long,” Jihu points out. “I need to leave when we agreed. I have to get back and study.”

“I know a quick place,” Bongseon answers, walking over to the door and grabbing her coat, and tossing Jihu his.

The sun hasn’t set quite yet, casting a lotus pink across a sky primed in lights and darks of marmalade orange and steel blue. The palette gives the food cart’s yellow neon sign a different kind of glow. Less stark. Like neon signs were designed as part of the aesthetic, rather than designed to overcome it.

Bongseon and Jihu stare at it from a bench across the street. As they eat, they people watch. People in line. People making orders. People just passing through.

“You’ve really never been here before?” Bongseon asks.

“Hadn’t heard of it,” Jihu repeats. “Really.”

The temperature of the metal of the bench that they’re both sitting on is starting to drop.

Bongseon’s knees start to bounce a little. They should go soon.

“Well, it’s really good,” she sighs, swallowing the last of her hoppang and using her napkin-wrapped index finger knuckle to dab at the corners of her mouth.

Jihu starts his nod eagerly, but he dials it down lest he covers himself with the flaky goodness of his gonggal-ppang. He brings up his shoulders and holds a napkin under his chin, needing to get the timing right to make sure a glob of brown sugar syrup doesn’t fall onto his only nice pair of pants.

“And,” Bongseon adds proudly, “it’s a good deal.” She dusts a few crumbs from her lap before crumpling her napkin into a ball and tossing it into the paper bag that their orders came in. “I come here so often that sometimes, the owner throws in extra mandu for me for free.”

“Sweet,” Jihu says, reaching for his soda. “I’ve got some insider knowledge.”

Bongseon grins.

“You almost ready, then?”

Jihu points to the half that he still has to finish of his gonggal-ppang. “I mean, I’m—”

“Sorry!” Bongseon replies, shaking her head in embarrassment. “I was just afraid that I was keeping you again.”

“You can keep me,” Jihu says. His eyes pale. “I-I mean, you’re not keeping me.”

“You said you have to study,” Bongseon noodles.

“So then I’ll study here.”

Jihu delicately balances his gonggal-ppang in one hand, licking at some brown sugar between his left top and bottom lips as he uses his free hand to reaches for his backpack, which is on the bench next to him. Bongseon watches as he brings the bag to rest upright between his thighs. He undoes its buckle with that hand, grasping the frame between the muscles in the palm of his hand, and using his fingers to wiggle the leather strap out of the bar and off of the prong.

The leather strap slips out, and Jihu angles his head to the right as he flips the top cover back. and pins it between the bag and his chest.

The drawstring is bunched up right at the top. Bongseon can only barely see the shift from mossy green canvas to midnight blue lining. The blue quickly blows out though, as Jihu presses the button on the lock and quickly yanks it down the cord.

He grabs the underside of the top cover and finds the handle underneath. He fists it in his fingers and pulls the bag up from his lap and bends down to place it between his feet on the ground in front of the bench. He squeezes the insoles of his shoes around the stack of books inside.

And then, in one simple motion, he pulls a out textbook.

Organic chemistry.

Bongseon lets out a scoff. “Gross.”

“I dunno, it’s kinda fun,” Jihu says with a chuckle.

“Yeah?” Bongseon frowns. “What’s it like?”

He looks at her and smiles. He sets the book down in the space between them so that they can both see as he flips through. Formulas. Nomenclature. Diagrams.

“It’s just a bunch of puzzles,” Jihu says. His thoughts are punctuated by soft wisps of the pages turning and landing. “Imagine a long, quiet afternoon lying on your tummy, in a patch of sunlight, and doing a bunch of puzzles.” He brightens. “And it’s like a mix, too. You get a bit of everything. Part numbers. Part word. Part shape.”

Bongseon’s eyes catch a particularly cute shape, on one of the pages heavier with text rather than images. Carbon atoms drawn together to form a smirking little character in the corner.

She lets out a giggle at the sight. “What the fuck, that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life!”

Jihu laughs, and then Bongseon laughs again, her eyes widening even more.

“What??” Jihu demands with a smile, eyebrows raising.

“I’ve never seen you laugh with your mouth open before!” Bongseon exclaims with glee. “Tell me right now! I need to know all about this little goober!”

Jihu tilts his head and points to the adorable cartoon. He taps on the drawing, the pencil line smudging a bit and getting on his finger.

He giggles. “It’s you!”

Bongseon’s smile straightens.

Spine straightens.

Eyes switch on.

Her mouth finds his with ease. The dips in their chins. The seams of their lips. Their cheeks. Their jaws. Their rounds and edges. All meet without needing to bend.

Jihu glues them together with brown sugar.

Namjoon laughs.

Normally, he has three distinct laughs. 

And Yoongi pairs them with situations like a sommelier pairs wine with food. 

Yoongi’s favorite is Namjoon’s oldest laugh. The laugh that probably burst forth from him when he was a baby. The laugh encoded by his genes. It’s his truest laugh. Not that Namjoon has a fake laugh, really. Honest, and showy, arguably to a fault, with his emotions, Namjoon could never disguise something as wonderful as joy. So, in that vein of honesty, it should be labeled as Namjoon’s completely unencumbered laugh — which, despite every attempt to look away, cover his face, and redirect its energy out of other people’s faces — completely trumpets out of Namjoon’s wide-open mouth in all directions, quickly filling the air with musky, buoyant, balsam notes of cedar and winter berries. It’s full. It echoes. A real chortle. And he chortles when he’s caught off-guard, but pleasantly surprised that he’s also kind of right about something. It pairs exceptionally well with finger pointing, “I knew it!”s, and “I told you so!”s. 

There’s also Namjoon’s giggle. Like gears that stick a bit. The sound of a ratchet adjusting a bolt. Metallic. Grinding. Shorter spurts, forced through his pinched throat, hovering teeth, and two-( always two-)dimpled smile, more air and spit than voice. It’s percussive. Quick. Kekeke. It doesn’t last long. All treble and mid-tones, zero bass. It’s meant to dart through conversation, zipping things up to make sure that everyone safely gets to the next topic. His nostrils flare when his giggle comes out. It needs more air to push it through. It pairs well with his look of momentary confusion, the top of the bridge of his nose caving in a bit as it strains under slight worry, until he can see the rest of the conversation through.

There’s even Namjoon’s sheepish, high-pitched, sing-song, tee-hee. Soprano and sweet. Like a moscato. A dessert wine of a laugh, let out at the end of a highly satisfied meal of his favorite things. An inadvertent, shared look with Taehyung when losing his turn at a hand game in the backseat of a long, long drive. A muttered, impatient joke that slips from his Jin-hyung’s lips as they help their Appa check the foundation of the front porch swing every fall. When an annoyed Yoongi stands his ground during weekly department meetings about the disappointing size of the tangerines in the cafeteria. It even has citrus notes itself. It pairs well with his chin rising, a quick, backward thrust of his head, and squinched eyes. Fond. Like when he spots something tiny, adorable, and cute.

But this laugh?

It’s different. 

It’s not even really a laugh. It’s more of a punctuation mark. One of those abstract ones that was ahead of its time, like the interrobang, intended to try to convey something that everyone knows and feels, but can’t quite describe, and can kind of already express in other ways. Just as his jaw had been working at imaginary words, so too does this laugh work at the prospect of something being funny but not… quite. It’s low. Barely perceptible. Almost nonexistent. A hush. Something finished before starting. A punctuation mark at the end of no sentence.

Yoongi notes that it pairs well with wide, glistening eyes that are so black that they almost seem blue.

“They told you about her, huh?” Namjoon asks, turning his black-blue eyes out to the cadet blue sky, like the good soldier that he is.

Yoongi stares at him for a moment, pupils unwavering. And then, he crams the rest of his doughnut in his mouth, giving up on the tissue-thin napkins that have all but dissolved, choosing to wipe his hands on his pants instead, and stretching backwards, palms and fingers spreading across the cool, red metal, a little wet with some reformed dew. 

Through hastily chewed doughnut fluff, Yoongi says, “Ma did, actually.”

“Eomma? Really?”

“Yeah. Last time I came for dinner.” Yoongi swallows. “She cornered me by the bathroom next to her studio.”

“That’s why we never use that one.”

“Well, she asked me if you were secretly seeing anyone, and I said, ‘Since when has Namjoon been able to keep anything a secret?’”

Namjoon scoffs.

“Obviously,” Yoongi goes on, reaching for his iced coffee, “I told her no. And then she told me to encourage you to take a look at the version of the map that she had at the time. She said the top picks in your candidates all had Sadness Girl qualities.”

“Sad Girl.”

“Mm?”

“Just Sad Girl.” Namjoon shrugs. “And you don’t have to call her that.”

“Oh, then, what was her na—”

“You don’t have to call her anything.” 

Namjoon glances over at Yoongi to see how the sentence lands. He always forgets that he doesn’t have to do that with Yoongi. Yoongi always understands, and he shows so with a series of slow, wavy Yoongi nods that pair well with a contemplative lick of his lips. 

Yoongi smirks. “She was also trying to give me the most updated version of her application form for my own map.”

Namjoon’s eyes brighten with just a bit of gold. “You should take her up on it! She’s really systematic in her approach— We could go through this madness together!”

“Don’t you already have brothers for that?”

“So then all the brothers would finally be in on this,” Namjoon points out. “If anything, it’d be a great story! Y’know, ‘Hey, Yoongi, remember the time eomma helped you find your soulmate?’”

Yoongi’s shoulders sink. Not out of embarrassment. They sink because, around the Kims, he can actually relax. 

But then he spots something that reminds him that they need to get on with their day.

Hopping off the hood, Yoongi says, “This is y’all’s story. Not mine.”

Namjoon smiles. “If it’s ours, then it’s a little bit yours.”

Yoongi chuckles as he throws open the driver door, quick to throw the flimsy box with its flimsy napkins in his seat.

“C’mon. We’ve gotta go.”

“But—”

“Bro, get the lead out of your big, goofy feet — I’m trying to help you here.”

Namjoon frowns. “Help me? Help me with what?” 

“Yoongles!”

The sound of a new voice pairs well with a thin streak of pink starting to thread through faint, white clouds starting to wake and fluff together for the day.

When Yoongi sighs in annoyance, he almost blows them away.

“Yoongles, I know that’s your car, and I brought the maple—”

The figure stops in her tracks. Namjoon can just make out her arms falling to her sides. Something seems to topple to the ground. Another box of doughnuts? The logo looks so similar.

“Is that…” Namjoon blanks on the name. “She teaches those seminars for the gifted kids? There’s, like, a physics one? Wait, is it physics? I know it’s something with a P—”

“Like I said,” Yoongi says, nearly halfway to the school’s entrance as more and more of the faculty’s cars pull into the parking lot, “I’m trying to help you here. Let’s get inside before the parents start to queue up for drop-off.”

Namjoon scrambles off the hood of Yoongi’s car, grabbing his half-full iced coffee and clutching the strap of his messenger bag resting at his chest.

 “Yeah, some kind of stomach flu,” Jin replies.

He listens as his boss’s pleading voice drones on in the back of his head, but his attention is paid in full to the words on his screen. 

“Bit of a fever,” he reads. “Some cramping. I think it’s some bad seafood that I ate.” His boss’s voice is only getting stronger until he reads, “Diarrhea! Loads and loads of diarrhea.” 

He swivels his desk chair around and stares out the window. 

“I don’t know about you, sir, but I’ve never had it this bad before. Honestly, like, I had to use an app to order some cleaning supplies because I haven’t been able to get off my toilet — let alone out of my apartment! — long enough to shop for my—”

His boss’s words start decreasing. Decreasing in count. Decreasing in fervor. Decreasing in demand to rethink taking one measly day off. Jin has only worked for one company, and he’s banked nearly 365 of them during his stellar tenure.

“Thanks for being so understanding,” Jin says, voice sweet but eyes rolling, “I really appreciate your kindness during my, uh—” 

How should he phrase it? 

“Time of, um, need.”

Just a few, short words later, Jin puffs out his cheeks and triumphantly blows out some air at the sound of his boss disconnecting from the call.

It’s frustrating to call for a day off when his mind is still technically working. It’s just working at something else entirely.

He pulls up his dear eomma’s map. Smirks at how he can hear her voice narrating each aspect in sing-song during family dinner earlier that week. Even though he won’t go through with any of this, not for real, he has to admit that it’s nice to see his eomma so well-intentionally passionate about something again.

Three down, and eleven to go. 

He isn’t sure about the first (he’ll wait for Namjoon’s sappy playback later), and he’s already said goodbye to the second, with an egg white omelet, some back and forth about when they’re going to see each other again (they won’t), and one last kiss on Kamou’s sweet lips.  

But it’s the number 13 that still weighs on his mind. 

He drags the window of his eomma’s email to the left and snaps it to lock. Then, he clicks on a new tab and drags it to the right, doing the same. He smiles as the corners adjust automatically. It’s so satisfying when things just do what they’re supposed to do.

In the new tab, Jin looks up the old Camp Kanu website, wondering if there would be any photos from his time there. 

Their time there.

It stings a little that he finds them in the Archives section of the site.

She looks the same.

Jin wonders if he looks the same. 

He looks up his work profiles. There are so many professional networking sites with the same, standard, simple headshot of Jin in a suit. 

He thinks he looks the same.

At least, it’s plausible that someone from his past could recognize him.

It’s happened before .

His phone rings.

It has moved from his pocket in his pants on the floor to his pocket in his pants on the bed to his desk, right next to him, after having put his clothes in his hamper and getting changed into a fresh pair of sweats. “Hi, Eomma,” Jin says after putting her on speaker, his voice tight, hoping that because his keyboard is clacking right next to the receiver, she won’t be able to tell that anything’s different. 

“Seokjinnie, don’t forget that the annual boat race is this Sunday,” she replies. “The weather forecast said it might rain, but the club said they were going through with the event no matter what. You boys are still planning on racing, right?”

A needless question.

“Of course, Eomma.” 

The line goes quiet, but when Mrs. Kim says, “Hmm,” or maybe as far back as when she called in the first place, Jin knows that this conversation was never really about the boat race, and that it is far from over. 

“Is it a slow day today?” Mrs. Kim asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Usually, there’s always people chattering in the background. Even this early.”

Jin didn’t realize how attenuated his office’s background noise had grown to him, but that tends to happen when you’ve stayed in the same place for nearly ten years. 

“Ah, yes, well,” Jin replies, clearing his throat and suddenly keyboard smashing DFJKSLJWWTJ OIF NKLJDSFKLJSDFOKAALKJJKLSDFJLKSDF into the search bar in an effort to, well, do what, exactly? Feign preoccupation? Express surprise? 

Vent?

“Well,” Jin repeats, “I decided to log on from home today.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Should I move the date days to a weekend?” Mrs. Kim asks. “The date didn’t tire you out, did it?”

Jin smiles. 

“Seokijinnie?”

“Let’s just say that it put more than a little pep in my step.”

“Seokjinnie.”

“And I think it did for her, too.”

“Seokjinnie!”

“What?”

“You didn’t!”

He giggles.

“Kamou is a great candidate, and so lovely and sweet, and I wrote in the rules that—”

“Don’t worry, Eomma, everything is on track with your plan,” Jin interrupts, though he’s deleted the random keyboard smash from earlier and is instead typing a name, a well-constructed, melodious name, into a search bar.

Song Mari.

“Well, since I’ve got you,” Mrs. Kim says, too eager, “why don’t you, y’know, tell me about it!” Jin can hear Mrs. Kim’s eyebrows knit together. “The nice parts, I mean.”

Mari apparently has over 500 work connections. Her profile picture is of her shrugging, as if she doesn’t know what to do with them.

Jin laughs.

“Ooh, does that mean that you had a good time, then?” Mrs. Kim asks hopefully. “Had fun? Good conversation? Good food?”

Jin starts perusing some of the posts on the site. Shared job postings. Encouragement for colleagues. She’s a designer now? That plays. She was always the best at making those plastic, criss-cross-y, keychain or backpack zipper, um, thingies.

“The restaurant was a little cold, the bread basket was stale, and the steak was overdone,” Jin rattles off. “But Kamou is a—” 

He can’t help but smirk again. Kamou’s thighs around his waist. Her nail-dug trenches still present on his back. Her lips pouting, and sucking, and skating, wet against his cheeks as she moaned what she wanted next. 

Things can also be satisfying when they do what they aren’t supposed to.

“—a good girl.”

“Good.” Mrs. Kim sighs. Relaxed. “Good.”

Jin looks back at the map. His hardworking eomma has put so much detail into every aspect. The grayed out city blocks, carefully traced and stitched together from several different satellite maps and even updated to reflect areas under heavy construction. The precise rating system, with every compatibility percentage denoted in scientific notation, carried over to two decimals. The iconography, the incredible iconography, consistent in design style and color, cartoonish in tone, perhaps for levity. So much time, and love, and care, put into each heart. Every star.

The black dot, in comparison, looks like a keyboard smash. 

Jin tilts his head. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course. You know I always encourage that. You can always ask people things.”

Jin isn’t so sure.

“How did you find her?” he wonders.

“She filled out an application.”

“Right,” Jin says, blinking and straightening. “I know she filled out an application, but, like, how do you judge the applications, really? Are you soliciting applications from anyone and everyone? Do you have certain core criteria, or…?”

“Oh, so now you’re interested in the specifics!” Mrs. Kim chuckles. 

“I guess you just did such a good job with my first date that I wanna pick your brain,” Jin says, glancing at the screen once more before spinning his chair to the right and getting up. 

He talks as he walks back out to the kitchen, suddenly craving something sweet. 

“What is it that you liked about Kamou so much that made you think to pair her with me?” 

Does he have any fruit? 

“Was it an instantaneous thing?” 

He might not actually have diarrhea, but it is true that he hasn't gone shopping in a while.

“Or did it take some time, triangulating what you know about me, and what you learned or observed about her, and the answers that she gave?” 

He stands over his fruit bowl, at the sad smattering of not-yet-but-nearly-bad apples, grapes, and bananas. He should pick one of them. Before he knows it, they'll turn, and he’ll just end up throwing them out. 

“Well, seeing that she wanted kids definitely put her in the running,” Mrs. Kim laughs. 

Jin sighs and abandons the fruit. He already knew that he wanted cereal. He always wants cereal. And he’d been craving it since making that egg white omelette a few hours ago. He should’ve just poured himself a bowl then. 

He does now. 

“That isn’t the only reason, though,“ Mrs. Kim replies, amidst the clinking of corn flakes.

The plastic bag inside of the box of cereal slides back down as Jin angles the cardboard back.

“It’s not?”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Kim says softly. “Is that really what you think this is about?” 

Mrs. Kim turns to her husband, still snoring, lying in bed beside her, blissfully unaware of the resulting smile that she has on her face. She isn’t careful about not waking him when she gets out of bed. She doesn’t have to be. He’ll be out for at least another hour, when she finally decides to start frying up some sausages. Or maybe it’s that she just automatically starts frying up sausages when she intuits that he’s about to get up. Frankly, Mrs. Kim can’t tell anymore, and Mr. Kim will really only be concerned about the sausages.

Shuffling in her house slippers toward the front door, Mrs. Kim clicks her tongue and asks, “Haven’t you been listening to me this entire time?”

“I have!” Jin protests, mouth full of cereal.

“Have not!”

“Have too!”  

Mrs. Kim opens the door, leans out the door jamb, and checks the mailbox on the wall. 

“I think about your personality. You’re so kind. Generous. Charming. Sometimes, to a fault.” 

Coupons, some bills, and some local ads. 

“I think about your interests. Talents. Sense of humor. Funny. Also, sometimes, to a fault.” 

She smiles at Jin’s soft laugh. 

“Your big hyung heart.” 

More bills. There’s a flea market event coming up. That might be fun.

“And I think about what you need.”

“Need?”

“Yes, Seokjinnie. You know, you do need things.” 

“Uh-huh. A strong six-figure salary. A happy family life. Fun times, great friends, and good food. Except maybe that steak.” Jin scoffs. “Please, Eomma, tell me — what exactly do I need?”

Mrs. Kim closes the door behind her and shuffles back toward the kitchen. 

“You need someone who has all of those same beautiful qualities of yours that I just listed, and to shine them back onto you.” She tilts her head. “Plus a healthy amount of patience. The easy kind. Someone who wouldn’t necessarily say they have that quality. Patient without even realizing it.”

Jin smiles. Fiddles with his spoon a bit. Watching the light, and his distorted reflection change, nose widening as he turns the spoon over to face its shell.

“Sooooo… thennnn… what are the things that help you, like, cross people off your list?”

Mrs. Kim tosses the sorted mail down onto the kitchen table. 

“Well, for starters, I cross off anyone who doesn’t have a stellar career, who didn’t get high marks in school, who doesn’t have a healthy family history, who don’t have blood types and Myers-Briggs answers that aren’t compatible with yours, and who don’t want marriage or kids.”

“Wow.”

“But that’s just to start.”

Jin shakes his head, a heavy, unsurprised breath escaping out of the right side of his mouth.

“Only kidding,” Mrs. Kim says. 

Though she isn’t. 

Not entirely. 

“It really comes down to genuineness. Do they seem to want to get to know you? And to be honest, sometimes, it’s not even about getting to know you, specifically.”

Mrs. Kim walks into the kitchen and flips on the light switch before reaching for the refrigerator door, cradling the phone with her shoulder and pinning it to her ear, and pulling out the clear pitcher of water.

She reaches into the cupboard and pulls out a glass as Jin scoops up another bite of cereal.

“It’s about someone who is open to getting to know someone. Anyone. Open to all that it takes. The discussions. The empathy. The time. The sacrifice.”  

She sniffs. 

“But it also wouldn’t hurt if they were an ENTJ fire sign with at least a Master’s degree in a lucrative field that gives her a yearlong maternity leave package for each of your five kids.”

Jin holds his breath like his next spoonful, just hovering in front of his mouth. Like Mari’s breath against his ear, carrying a secret. Like Kamou’s breath washing, warm, over his lips, carrying seduction.

He lets the breath out.

“Well, if you’re so decided… then why did you entertain a black dot at all?” 

He lowers his spoon just a bit. 

“Why did you ask Tae-Tae to torpedo his date with Mari instead of just rejecting her from the process completely?”

Mrs. Kim frowns. “Ugh, that was more of an unavoidable favor.”

“For who?”

“Her eomma.” Mrs. Kim frowns. She reaches into the fridge for the opened, now half-pack of sausages. 

Jin’s next questions will have to wait. 

He stuffs his spoon into his mouth.

“Do you know how Tae-Tae’s date with her went, by the way?” Mrs. Kim asks quickly.

He places his spoon in his bowl, empty of cereal but still full of milk. “No,” he says. “We’re catching up later, though. Around dinner.”

“Alright.” Mrs. Kim reaches into the cupboard and pulls out a pan, setting it on the stove. It lands with too sharp of a clang! , though it isn’t loud enough to rid her of the storm of thoughts that are forming. “Anyway, I hope that’s the last we see of her.” 

“Mm.” Jin places his bowl in his sink. “OK, well, I should go now. Do some work.”

“OK, then.”

Mrs. Kim draws in a short, soft breath. 

“Seokjinnie?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Eomma.” He pauses, heart swelling. Growing heavy. A little too heavy. “And, well, thank you. Y’know. For…” He smiles. “Just. Thanks.”

Mrs. Kim grins with satisfaction. The satisfaction of having raised a kind, appreciative son. The satisfaction of being right. And doing right by him.

“Bye, sweetie. Have a good day.”

“You too. Bye.”

Mrs. Kim switches on the burners. She smiles at the sound of the flames coming to life. And she smiles even wider as she hears something beside her. A quiet, familiar scuffling of slippers against the kitchen tile. 

She turns to find a glasses-less, squinting  Mr. Kim in his robe, hair a mess, eyes heavy with sleep and fingers scratching his white tee-covered belly. 

“Sausages?” he asks hopefully. 

Taehyung tells them that it was much later in the evening than anticipated, so he wasn’t sure if there would be any tacos left when he ordered his usual. He doesn’t know why he always picks tacos. Yes, they’re cheap. And he can always count on his usual place being open late. 

But there’s just something about them.

There was something about the way the tortilla chunks, cheddar cheese strips, and lettuce shreds sprinkled across his sheets, like confetti celebrating the moment, little breadcrumbs detailing the trip from her thumb in the corner of his mouth, to the heated kiss, to those first bites into her skin. 

“Damn, not too hard,” she moaned, as Taehyung pulled away from her collarbone and unwound their legs from around each other.

He lifted her shirt, up and over, smiling at the sight of her breasts jiggling in their bralette. 

“Sorry. I’m hungry.”

“Then here.” She smirked with such glee as she reached over for the box, pulled out another taco, and said, “Though I wonder if you’d like to eat a different kind of taco.”

There was something about the sound and feel of the shell crisply breaking against his cheek, as she smushed the taco into his face, cackling with laughter as he playfully narrowed his eyes.

He rested back on his knees, straddling her thighs, and glaring down at her. “What are you playing at?”

“Me? You’re the one who brought these into the bed!”

There was something about the way sour cream looked when painted over her skin. And like her jeans had so easily slid down and off, the sour cream moved so easily too, barely nudged by Taehyung’s index finger, tracing cloud-like lines up the side of her thigh, to her hip, across her stomach. 

He licked at the dollop that he had placed on her navel, letting the tang of that cream mix with the salt of her sweat, pressing it against the roof of his mouth to let it spread over his tongue. 

“Gonna paint you with more,” Taehyung murmured, licking the trail of sour cream down to her shaven mound.

She squirmed when he said that, twisting the other way and whining when his tongue delved into her folds and tasted an unanticipated dessert.

“Mmm, you’re sweet,” he observed, taking a moment to nibble on her lips.

She reached back and gripped his headboard. Slid her hips down his sheets a little. Made sure she was right up against his chin.

He opened his mouth wider, grabbing her thighs and digging his cream-covered nails in as his neck craned left and right, head bobbing slowly until she started to whimper. 

His thumbs reached inside and spread her wider, and his head shook from side to side, faster and faster as she rolled against him in desperation.

Just as she was about to come, he let go, and pulled away entirely, a mix of cream, spit, and her arousal glimmering on his nose, lips, and chin.

Her eyes flashed open at his sudden absence, and her hips started bouncing up and down in want.

Taehyung only smiled as he reached for the box of food.

He chose blindly, but the first hot sauce packet that he picked had a funny little message: Burning For You.

She snorted as he giggled and placed the perforated edge of the packet in his teeth and ripped, hot sauce spraying out, dabs of it getting on her face and chest.

There was something about the way those packets of hot sauce dripped all over her body. The heat took on a different quality as he licked each drop.

She was so soft that he couldn’t help running his tongue, and his hands, rough and calloused near his nail beds and on the sides of his knuckles, all over her, the hot sauce stinging in places where he bit and chewed. 

Her skin was perfect. 

He guessed, at least.

If there were blemishes, or bumps, or scars, or moles, Taehyung’s fingers didn’t catch them, though that’s not to say he wouldn’t love to get more time to find out where each and every single one of them were.

But maybe that would be for the next time.

Tonight, he was too focused on the way she moved against his body, the hot sauce starting to get sticky, their skin starting to peel away when they would come apart.

He wasn’t the only one who was hungry. She took every inch of him, though it was a bit of a squeeze to get all of him inside. He’d push slowly, and then have to wait while her body wriggled around him. From her throat, an urgent groan would signal she wanted more of him. And then he’d push slowly again, his head hanging forward, eyes squinched shut so as not to lose composure, tongue busying itself by licking hot sauce from her gorgeous nipples as he waited for her pussy walls to relax just a bit more.

And then he’d push slowly again.

The time came for him to move faster, though, cock pulsing as he slammed inside.

“Gonna? Paint? Me?” she panted.

“You want it?”

“Yes, god.”

Taehyung’s hips shifted into double-time, his hands gripping her shoulders, dimples forming in his ass cheeks as he clenched and strained.

She clenched, too. Warm. And needy. He could feel her sucking him in deeper, and when he moved with her, he started to feel the tip of his cock hitting her innermost wall.

Her squeal turned into a wandering moan, high-pitched and tense.

“T-too much?” he panted.

She shook her head no and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her and lifting her legs in the air.

He grunted, clasping her even tighter, moving his arms under hers and circling them up to grip her shoulders from behind. 

He left his lips by her ear.

“Where do you want it?”

“My tits.” 

She squeezed her eyes closed even tighter, wrinkles forming in the corners.

“Ah, fuck, Tae, I’m gonna come so hard.”

Taehyung’s right hand slid up against the pillow behind her so that he could cradler her head.

She came apart, shaking, legs unable to hold themselves up. He caught her right leg, his hand whipping back, the inside of his upper arm pinning the side of her knee to his waist. Her left leg quivered as she did, kicking out to the side and sending tortilla, cheese, and lettuce bits into the air.

She laughed as she came, letting out a surprised shriek during an aftershock.

Taehyung slowed to enjoy the scene before him and take pride in the art he had created. 

But his cock was throbbing with need.

He grunted and started pumping again, and as she nodded yes with more fervor, his strokes became longer.

His hips used that backward motion to propel him out, a string of precum still linking him to her until it tore apart at the rush of cum spurting out of him, mixing with the hot sauce on her breasts, swollen from the friction.

She rubbed her fingers in that incredible mess as he took deep breaths to calm down, before rubbing those same fingers across his chest in contemplation.

She traced a trail up his neck.

She smiled wildly when he lifted her wrist to lick himself off of her fingers.

And when Taehyung proudly recaps all of this in detail during their video call, Namjoon laughs and says, “That reminds me of something Jin-hyung did.”

Taehyung frowns, and then pouts in annoyance. “What??”

All Jin and Taehyung can see is Namjoon’s ceiling, so they miss the way that Namjoon smirks, as he palms the wall, kicks off his shoes, and uses his socked feet to set them upright by the front door. 

“Eomma was telling me about this thing hyung did whenever she was pregnant with me, and then you,” he goes on. “Something about painting her stomach with food. Jin-hyung was so eager to feed us that he would slather her with stuff. Oatmeal. Ketchup. Peanut butter . Other stuff . She had to leave it on her stomach for a little while and wash up when hyung wasn’t looking, or he’d get frustrated and insist that she sit back down on the couch so that he could ‘feed’ you all over again.” 

Jin grins. “Copycat!”

“There are even pictures!” Namjoon answers, his eyes lowering, and then moving side to side as he picks up his phone from the floor and starts to type.

As a picture of toddler Jin, baby Namjoon, and a younger Mrs. Kim pops up in the group chat, and Jin and Namjoon’s exclusive laughter has the audacity to fill his living room, Taehyung gets further lost in his faraway look. But it quickly dissolves when those laughs turn into long stretches of high-pitched, increasingly satisfied breaths. 

He twists his face and stares at his own, motionless thumbs propping up his phone screen.

“Not every single one of my personality traits is one of your hand-me-downs, you know,” Taehyung scowls. “Plus, technically, Namjoonie-hyung, you were copying Jin-hyung, too!” His voice is starting to get louder, but also waver. “A-and, and—”

“OK, OK,” Jin says quickly. “No one’s really a copycat. We’re brothers, and best friends. It’s normal for us to do things alike, isn’t it?”

Namjoon chuckles teasingly as Taehyung rolls his eyes.

“Anyway, say more about your date,” Jin goes on, a little flatly. “Sounds like you and Mari ended up having a fantastic time.”

“No, hyung, this was with Dal,” Taehyung clarifies. “My friend, from that shop.”

Jin stops chewing.  

“Weren’t you paying attention?” Taehyung asks, delighted in his hyung’s expression, and no longer able to mask the bit of a grin that he’s been holding inside all along. “It’s like I said. I didn’t have to launch any torpedos. Mari-noona ghosted.”

It’s been a couple of years since she last taught an art class, but Mrs. Kim will never forget the concept of a classroom “T-zone”. She can still see the ancient, Java-coded graphic in the first tabbed section of every start-of-semester manual. This T-zone referred to the students who tended to sit in the front row and middle column of the classroom. With clean, bright, eager, shining faces, they’re the ones who, sometimes thankfully, sometimes annoyingly, always showed up. They always listened. Always participated. The overachievers. The high performers. The elite.

She was always grateful for them.

But Mrs. Kim herself was decidedly not one of them.

She still isn’t.

Every week, she chooses the easel in the back, by the window, next to the instructor's bookshelf. There’s something familiar about it that she can’t quite name, something that helps her access an aspect of her creativity that feels so much like her old self.

Her young self.

Today’s topic hits close to home, too. 

“This feeling that we’re trying to evoke,” the instructor goes on, cleaning her brush and eyeing the next color on her palette, a pale, Atlantic green, “is the feeling of being by oneself.”

Mrs. Kim feels her heart twinge. Not for herself, back then, or now. She can be by herself, no problem. But it’s been three whole lifetimes since she’s been completely by herself. And, unlike those three lifetimes, she knows what it truly is. How it truly feels.

She tries to forget Taehyung’s most recent text message.

Tries to stop thinking of ghosts.

She paints a black streak on her canvas. In warning.

“You may know the feeling as loneliness, which is when we are by ourselves and fraught with anxiety. There is pain. There is fear. There is the sense that you have been abandoned, perhaps due to your own actions, or due to some kind of inherent flaw.”

As the instructor dabs gently at their canvas, Mrs. Kim nearly pokes a hole in hers.

“But there is also another feeling. One that is peaceful, and content. One that reminds us that we are whole, and enough. Just by ourselves. That we aren’t inherently missing anything. That life is additive, never subtractive. That everything we receive, we receive because we are ready for it. We are gifted, never punished.” The instructor smiles at their work, and then smiles at the class. 

Mrs. Kim looks up and raises her eyebrows, her arm slowing under the instructor’s gaze.

“That feeling, my lovelies, is called solitude,” the instructor finishes, nodding once. “Blissful, content, wholesome solitude. Don’t take it for granted, friends. Some people go their whole lives mixing up the two, finding an inability to appreciate neither.”

Mrs. Kim looks back at her tortured canvas, all poked and prodded, and lets out a tiny, contemplative breath.

As the class begins to pack up, her eyes shift over to the easel next to her. A gorgeous, serene canvas of pastel pinks and purples, with something small in the background. A building of some sort? Or a figure, way in the distance?

“Is that loneliness, or solitude?” Mrs. Kim asks.

The girl who painted it stops what she’s doing and smiles back.  

“Probably a bit of both, to be honest. I don’t know if there's as distinct a separation between them as our instructor thinks. But what do I know?”

What could she know, Mrs. Kim thinks, looking at the girl’s sweet face, unmarked with life’s trials. But, surprisingly, just as memorable. 

“I think I know you,” Mrs. Kim realizes. “I saw you at the grocery store a little while ago, right? You were with your mother, outside?”

The girl nods happily. “Yes! I’m, uh, Yang Hwan?” she answers. Mrs. Kim lights up at the name, remembering the shy girl, always in braids, who also didn’t sit in the T-zone. “I also took beginner and intermediate art with you in school.” She giggles. “But that was a very long time ago.”

It can’t have been that long ago, given Hwan’s apparent age. But Mrs. Kim still feels her own age at the comment. 

“Ah, how are you?” Mrs. Kim asks, grinning. “Has life treated you well?”

Hwan nods. “Very well. Got my family. My art. Studying it in college now. Can’t complain. Very grateful.”

She clearly means it, but Mrs. Kim notes the clipped sentences, different from the pastel-colored melody with which she spoke of the blurring between loneliness and solitude. 

“You’re an artist,” Mrs. Kim sighs, her heart soaring. “How are you finding it? The journey?”

“I can’t see myself doing anything else,” Hwan admits, brightening. “I obviously wasn’t very good when I was in your class. But you and some of my other teachers really sparked a passion for me. I became obsessed.” 

She leans forward and shows Mrs. Kim her wrist, where there is a tiny tattoo of a paint brush,  with some royal purple paint dripping from its tip. 

Hwan smiles sadly at her tattoo.

“But do you buy…”

When she meets Mrs. Kim’s curious eyes, Hwan decides to bail.

She pulls her sweater sleeve over her tattoo. 

“Well. Anyway.” Hwan picks up her bag of supplies. “I’ll get out of your hair. See you in class next week?”

Mrs. Kim smiles. 

“Actually, I was going to ask if you’d maybe want to have some coffee or tea with me?”

The café one block over thankfully always has free tables. After putting their supplies in their respective cars, and more coins into their respective parking meters, Mrs. Kim and Hwan swing in through the café’s aqua doors and settle at one underneath a pretty, golden chandelier, sitting down in two lemon curd-colored, velvet chairs, in front of one mug of matcha tea, and one tall taro boba.

“Thanks,” Hwan says, both to the server setting her boba down in front of her, and Mrs. Kim placing her credit card back into her wallet.

“Thanks for the company,” Mrs. Kim says, smiling knowingly. “I usually come alone and read or call my boys.” She tilts her head. “Besides. I wanted to know what you were about to say. It sounded like you had a thought forming.”

They both take a drink, each of them savoring the sweet, creamy, mild tastes. 

Ironically, it’s Hwan who feels steaming heat in her cheeks.

She gulps down her sip, her cooled tongue now able to move a little easier.

“Formed,” Hwan clarifies. “Always forms. Keeps reforming. Duplicates. Grows. Every day. Without fail.”

Mrs. Kim knows to stir her matcha a little more. Not to pry. To wait. To let Hwan chew and swallow her boba uninterrupted, so that she can work out each letter of every word.

“Someone in our class asked you how you knew you wanted to be an artist,” Hwan recalls, her chipped jade fingernails fiddling with her thick, plastic, pink-lined straw, “how you knew you’d be fulfilled. How you knew you hadn’t made the wrong decision.”

Mrs. Kim grimaces. “And then I said something trite and stupid, didn’t I?”

Hwan laughs, and Mrs. Kim takes delight in seeing youthful stars in Hwan’s bright eyes. 

“You told us that making that decision, or any kind of big life decision, is never going to be easy. That we’re never going to be 100% sure of anything. But, also, that nothing is 100% permanent. So, we should always work hard, and be prepared, and go with what’s in our hearts. Even if it changes. Especially when it does.”

Mrs. Kim nods slowly. “OK, that wasn’t terrible advice.”

“It wasn’t. It was pretty good advice, actually.” Hwan smirks. “Got me this far. And, not to be judgmental, but I’m relatively unscathed, especially compared to some of my friends who, incidentally, didn’t take your class.”

Mrs. Kim chuckles, raising her mug to her lips. 

Hwan watches as Mrs. Kim takes another sip. And, amazingly, instead of launching into some parable or spiel, Mrs. Kim simply sets her mug back down on the table and waits for Hwan to go on. 

“Uh… well, so,” Hwan stumbles, “it’s like, y-y’know…” She sighs. “It’s like this.” She grips the bottom of her drink, swirling it around on the table, condensation on the surface tracing the pattern, pulling apart, and then reforming again. “I don’t know if I buy what our instructor said about being whole, and that being enough. I know I love creating art with every single muscle fiber and electrical impulse in my heart. But… the older I get… it just feels like something is always…”

Her drink comes to a stop, leaving on the table several wispy, watery circles, not quite attached.

“…missing.” 

Mrs. Kim nods. “Mmhmm. Been there.”

Hwan blinks. “Y-you have?”

“Of course. I find myself there from time to time, even now.”

Mrs. Kim’s gentle, kind eyes soften at Hwan’s speechlessness.

“I’m a human,” Mrs. Kim replies, “and a woman. Doesn’t exactly make things easier in this world.”

“But you have a career?” Hwan sputters. “And a husband? A-and a family? And your family, your sons, your husband, your career, are all so successful, I—” 

Hwan’s eyes start darting around the room. To the cash register. To the doors. Up to the chandelier. Over to the bit of lemon curd yellow chair back that she can see between Mrs. Kim’s left arm and torso. 

“Everything OK?” Mrs. Kim asks, furrowing her brow.

Hwan’s eyes grow wider. “No! Well, I mean, obviously not! As accomplished and content as you are, you still feel like something’s missing?”

Mrs. Kim bites her lip and wishes she could go back in time and bite her tongue instead. “See, I knew I wasn’t always great at advice.”

The table starts to shake. It’s barely noticeable, but Mrs. Kim realizes it’s because Hwan’s leg is starting to bounce.

“What’s got you worried?”

“I guess I was kind of hoping for a different reaction from you,” Hwan admits, eyes still darting around, but contained to the table top. 

“What were you hoping to hear?” 

Mrs. Kim doesn’t need to ask. She’s got enough life experience to know what Hwan was hoping to hear. 

Hwan doesn’t have as much life experience, but she is smart enough to know what she wants to hear, though, she is perhaps even smarter for knowing that Mrs. Kim won’t say it.

“That if I just stay the course, I’ll figure it out,” Hwan offers anyway, voice dripping with dejection. “That, eventually, I’ll find whatever’s missing. That it’ll all fall into place.”

The street is starting to fill up with more people. People spilling out of all sorts of Saturday morning classes. Art classes. Yoga classes. Kickboxing classes. 

Mrs. Kim’s eyes trace their outlines. “Actually,” she says, “I’ve found that you can always help things along. That you may even need to help things along, from time to time.”

All of these Saturday morning students start to bunch up into blobs. Group into families. Cluster amongst friends.

Pair off into couples.

Mrs. Kim’s eyes settle on one man standing by the bookstore entrance, looking out at the street periodically while checking his phone.

“Can I ask you a question?” Mrs. Kim ventures.

“Sure,” Hwan replies, smiling politely through her nervousness, “although, given what I just opened up to you about, I don’t think I’ll have any answers.”

“I think you will.” 

Mrs. Kim furrows her brow. 

“What does it mean when someone gets ‘ghosted’?”

Hwan’s eyes widen. “Oh!” 

“Not to insinuate anything other than my old age,” Mrs. Kim says warmly. “I think I might know what it means, but even if I don’t, I still don’t like the sound of it.”

“W-why?” Hwan asks. “Wait, did one of your sons— No, they’re too nice to— Unless, was one of your sons— But that’s, I mean, that’s impossible, because there’s a whole line of— A-all the applications, and the standby li—” 

She shakes her head. 

“Sorry. You asked about ghosting.” 

Hwan picks up her boba and cradles it with both hands, leaning forward slightly and speaking before taking a long sip. “Um, well, it means that someone didn’t show up.”

The rage is starting to bubble up Mrs. Kim’s throat. “Like getting stood up?!”

“Y-yes,” Hwan confirms carefully, “uh, l-like getting stood up.”

Mrs. Kim figured as much. 

How sharp is her paint trowel? Is it in the car?

“But!” Hwan adds, “I feel like getting stood up has a certain connotation of rejection to it. Ghosting isn’t exactly the same.”

“So, that’s it, then? There’s nothing else behind it? Nothing…” Mrs. Kim’s eyes narrow. “Unpleasant?”

“Actually, usually, it’s because people want to avoid unpleasantries.” 

Hwan sets down her boba but keeps her hands, still tucked into her sweater sleeves, around it. 

“Ghosting is much easier than showing up and facing situations. And it’s not just used in dating types of situations. People ghost on stuff like hangouts and job interviews all the time now. It might be weird to think about, but my friends and I even have this unspoken understanding. It’s just kind of expected that even though you might make plans for something, other factors, like how you feel that day, or other things that pop up along the way, or maybe even nothing at all, might change the energy around it. It’s almost like there is no such thing as making concrete plans anymore.”

Mrs. Kim shakes her head sorrowfully. “But to disappear like that? With no communication, whatsoever?”

“It doesn’t feel great,” Hwan says quietly. “But I think there’s… It’s…” She takes a deep breath that starts unsure but comes out decidedly. “Things just feel so overwhelming. Don’t you feel that? There’s just so much more. Many, many more things to face. More people to face. And so many more ways to avoid facing them.”

Mrs. Kim tilts her head. She’s no stranger to meeting things, and people, head-on. But it’s because there were only a few ways to meet them. Jin’s always complaining about how exhausting it is to work his fancy, cushy desk job, and it hasn’t been until recently that Mrs. Kim has realized that it must be overwhelming, being able to be reachable no matter what, whether it’s through his personal or work emails, his personal or work phones, or his company’s four platforms for direct messages, of which only two seem to work properly at a semi-consistent clip.

“That may be true,” Mrs. Kim concedes, but I don’t think I approve of ghosting. Communication is always multidirectional. And there’s something to be said for accountability.”

Mrs. Kim is surprised that Hwan merely sips her boba tea. That she isn’t more outraged by this.

How many times has Hwan been ghosted?

Has Hwan ever ghosted anyone else?

As she tries to read too-neutral Hwan’s face, Mrs. Kim wonders how many times she has technically been ghosted herself. Her one-track mind wouldn’t have noticed, let alone kept a tally, before moving on to the next thing.

Mrs. Kim has no time for ghosts.

Then again, if all the ghosts in Mrs. Kim’s or Hwan’s lives had actually materialized, what would have gone differently? Would they be sitting here now, in this lovely little café, two pairs of charcoal and paint-stained hands sharing two delicious drinks on a sunny Saturday afternoon? 

“Thanks for explaining it to me, though,” Mrs. Kim adds. “With your context I think I’m beginning to understand. Appreciate the, uh, perhaps… generational… differences.”

Her smile softens, like a line of charcoal smudged. Maybe not as bold, but just as present, and just as wonderful. 

Hwan sits up suddenly, her hold on her drink loosening just a tad. “I’m glad I could actually be valuable to someone!”

Suddenly, Hwan is standing, thanking Mrs. Kim for the drink, explaining that she needs to head home, and leading the way back to their respective parking meters.

And as Mrs. Kim stands by her car, watching Hwan wave as she drives away, Mrs. Kim wonders what in the world would make Hwan ever think she wasn’t.

“C.”

“Hmm?”

“The answer is C.”

“Ah.”

“Do you know why?”

“What?”

“Do you know why the answer is C?”

Jihu blinks, and everything becomes clear again. He looks at the group around him, each person shooting haughty smirks right at him.

“Uh—”

He looks down at his book and realizes that he’s not even on the same page as the others. 

“Sorry, what question are we on again?” he asks, flipping forward a few pages, checking the others’ books for the page number, and flipping back again.

“Chapter 15, practice question 32,” Yong-hyun replies, with the haughtiest smirk of them all.

Jihu starts to read the question, lips moving along, shaping another unfathomably polysyllabic chemical compound, when Yong-hyun’s finger lands on the page, right on top of the diagram just above practice question 33.

“Beckmann rearrangement,” Yong-hyun says. “Note the oxime.”

Jihu nods quickly. “Right. Right. The oxime.”

“Alright, out with it,” Mi-rae says, elbow landing in the spine of her open book, chin resting in her open palm. “You’ve been so distracted.”

“Oh,” Jihu laughs softly, “I just thought I saw—” His eyes widen. “Um, I just thought I s-saw someone I, uh, know. Sorry to derail things. We can pick back up.”

“It’s not just today,” Jung-kwon says. “You’ve been late. Hard to get a hold of. Especially for our late-night study groups. And your wardrobe.”

Jihu frowns as he looks down at his white button-up and black slacks, perfectly pressed. “What about it?”

Jung-kwon exchanges a knowing glance with Mi-rae. 

“I smell a girl.”

“Mmhmm. Thought so, too.”

“Someone finally worthy of the Kim name?” Yong-hyun asks. “Your parents must be thrilled. Especially after hearing all of your bitter diatribes against tradition.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Jihu replies, throat flexing to keep his vocal cords calm. “I’ve just been… I don’t know. Tired or something.” He scratches at his collar. “And I ran out of clothes. A-and I thought I saw someone I know.” His eyes crinkle a little. “Someone who, uh, owes me money.”

“Oh shit, a good ol’ Kim family shakedown.” Yong-hyun claps his hands and rubs them over one another. Like a crime boss. Or a hamster. “How much do they owe you?”

Jihu shrugs. “Not much.”

“Isn’t any amount too much?” Yong-hyun points out.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Mi-rae echoes in warned surprise.

“Want us to get it for you?” Jung-kwon asks. “Even with what went down, you still have a reputation to uphold.”

“No, no,” Jihu insists, “that’s really OK—”

“Now’s not the time to be proud, Jihu,” Mi-rae replies. “Everyone knows you’re clever. But it’s not an easy thing to deal with, being cut off so suddenly. We’re trying to help.”

Jihu looks around at the group and can’t help but notice the haughty smirks haven’t really left their faces. And maybe Jihu hasn’t really left the world that has plagued him with so many more questions than answers.

“Thanks, but, really, I’ve got it,” he replies. 

He closes his book, the thick halves slamming dully.

“I should try to catch up with them. See if they have the money.”

“Want us to come with?” Jung-kwon tries again, as the group watches Jihu collect his things. “Backup support?” He leans forward in his chair and gestures to the black leather jacket draped across its back. “Rode my motorcycle today.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Badass intimidation factor.”

Jihu snaps his mouth shut as he swings his right backpack strap over his shoulder, and his dimples deepen as he forces a tight smile, gives a wave, and walks away.

He glances down at his shoes. Makes sure that his laces are tied. Reminds himself not to break into a run. Takes extra care not to stumble.

Because if there’s anything unworthy of the Kim name, it’s absolutely the fool who stumbles on his way to meet Bongseon, draped gossamer, peony pink, waiting at the top of the spiraling library staircase.

Her cheeks start to match that pink when she catches sight of Jihu walking— jogging— walking toward her.

And her voice is sweet as peonies when she squeaks, “Hi.”

“Hey.”

Jihu leans forward and presses a kiss to her forehead. “You excited?”

Bongseon keeps her eyes closed a second longer. Everything is somehow warmer, better, when Jihu is around. “Honestly, no,” she finally answers, opening her eyes and looking up at him. “I feel pretty numb.” And then a smile peeks through. “Well. Felt.”

Jihu giggles softly. “Gross. What’s happening to you?”

“I know, right?” 

She rolls her eyes and clasps Jihu’s hand. 

“Thanks for coming with me.”

“Thanks for inviting me.” He squeezes her hand a little. “And thanks for… y’know. Understanding.”

Bongseon nods. “Of course.”

He tilts his head and gazes at her, the wrinkles in her forehead slowly disappearing. It’s, frankly, a prize in and of itself to get to be one of the few people in the world who gets to see it. But he still isn’t exactly sure why this merits an “of course”.

“Your parents really aren’t coming?” Jihu asks. “No one in your family? No siblings, or aunts, or uncles, or—”

“No, but even with everything you told me, I’m excited to meet yours,” Bongseon replies.

She lets go of Jihu’s hand and starts off in the other direction. 

As her black heels clack against the floor, Jihu accepts that maybe this is a bit of an escape. From an uncomfortable conversation. From a seemingly painful past. From the intensity of whatever has been building between them. But Jihu will always revel in the feel of Bongseon’s hand nervously slipping from his. 

Because it means that he got to hold it in the first place.

The top floor of the library wasn’t the first choice for this exhibit, but it quickly became a contender when funding finally came in for the leaky roof, stained floors, and air conditioning renovations. Judging has been taking place all day, streams of people weaving in and out of each piece of art on display, those in blue ribbons noting their comments on cards that are placed into a black box in the center of the room. But students and faculty alike don’t care as much about that. They shelled out for tickets to see the architecture of the new ceiling, the imported couches and carrels, and the fancy glass floors that, due to one embarrassing yet thankful mishap with the dean’s secretary, became frosted just a week before an unsuspecting Bongseon bought this dress.

“A vast improvement,” Bongseon observes, looking around. “I can see myself studying here.” She winces. “That is, if I’m still around.”

Jihu wraps his arm around Bongseon’s waist and turns her a little, aiming her toward the one familiar thing in this room.

One big frame, housing one big charcoal sketch of multiple layers of Jihu’s form, his body in slightly different positions in each layer. Sitting. Reading. Talking. Laughing. Watching. Everything that Jihu was. Is. Encapsulated into one frame.

“You see that?” Jihu asks, gazing at Bongseon’s wide eyes.

“I’ve seen it once or twice.”

Jihu pinches Bongseon’s side, and she lets out, and quickly muffles, a squeal.

“Well, I know a secret about them.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jihu leans down to whisper that secret into Bongseon’s ear. “I hear they’re going to win this competition.”

Bongseon gnaws at her lip, and in the process, smudges her lipstick just a bit. 

“Don’t do that.”

Jihu blinks.

“Do what?”

Bongseon frowns. “Don’t pretend to give me something that you know you can’t.”

Jihu’s hold on Bongseon’s waist loosens a little.

And at the sound of the second familiar thing in this room, his hold dissolves altogether.

“Jihu??”

Bongseon decides right there and then that Jihu must be an anomaly. An alien of some sort. Adopted, at least. Because Director Kim and his wife, the Mrs. Kim that she’s learned so much about over the past few months, project anything but warmth.

They project strength. They command respect. And they elicit fear. It resonates in the way they march forward, like troops toward battle. The way they scan the room, seemingly for threats. And the way they furrow their brows upon coming toe to toe with their son.

Bongseon can feel Jihu tense up. So she follows suit. But she waits to ball her fingers into fists.

“Jihu,” Mrs. Kim repeats. 

Jihu can feel the nearly invisible hairs at the tail of his spine stand on end, and he straightens unnaturally to let them unfurl.

“Eomma. Appa.”

Director Kim is barely there, silently counting down the minutes until this ridiculous event is over, and he can get back to his chair in his study.

“I thought that you had your study group with Yong-hyun and the others?” Mrs. Kim asks. “We saw them taking their places at a table about an hour ago, and they said that you were going to join them.”

“I did,” Jihu says. “But—”

“It’s good that you’re here,” Mrs. Kim replies. “There are many wonderful people here to introduce you to.”

Jihu’s eyes brighten, and his dimples appear as he pulls his cheeks into a small but happy grin. “Funny you should say that because—”

“Haneul!”

The face that turns at the call of that name is a face that all the other campus golden ratio girls would envy. She smiles politely and raises her eyebrows before turning back to the professor with whom she was speaking.

“Hmm, seems she’ll be just a moment,” Mrs. Kim observes. 

“Good, because, uh, actually, I was going to say that I wanted to introduce you to someone, too,” Jihu persists. “This is Pan Bongseon.”

His arm circles around Bongseon’s waist, firming with resolve, and making Bongseon’s lips curl into something instead: a surprised, proud smile.

Bongseon’s waist bends, her hips supporting a perfect, 90-degree angle, and her strategically chosen dress revealing nothing except her obligation to honor. 

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Director Kim, Mrs. Kim.” She smiles weakly. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Have you?” Mrs. Kim asks, bored. She looks around Bongseon, eyes never quite meeting. “Then again, most everyone in this room has, ah, heard so much about us.”

She shoots Director Kim a pleased look that goes completely missed.

“Yes, what with your illustrious careers,” Bongseon remarks, hoping that she’s not nodding too eagerly.

“Talk about illustrious. Bongseon’s one of tonight’s finalists,” Jihu says proudly. He gestures to the piece behind them. “Her piece is right here. The medium is charcoal. Isn’t she phenomenal?”

Director Kim stands in place while Mrs. Kim walks forward to get a better look.

“I don’t get it. Who is it supposed to be?”

“It’s not supposed to be any one person,” Bongseon answers. “The prompt called for human models to depict life in motion.”

Mrs. Kim frowns. “But he’s sitting?”

“I wanted the piece to show how we spend most of life moving time forward,” Bongseon answers. “By ourselves. In these small moments.”

Mrs. Kim stares at the piece again. “Well, the piece certainly feels small.”

Bongseon scowls.

“It kind of looks like you, son,” Director Kim chimes in, with an air of intrigue.

“Just, ah, Bongseon’s ability to c-capture the Everyman, I guess,” Jihu stammers.

Feeling unnerved, Bongseon says, “It is him. He saw my ad for models. I paid $50 for a session.” She crosses her arms. “He was very kind, and very happy, to take the job.”

Mrs. Kim smirks. “Fascinating.” She steps closer toward the plaque next to Bongseon’s piece, hunching forward slightly, crossing her arms and squinting her eyes to read the summary, as if needing more proof. “You know, Jihu, if you need money, you could always just come home.”

“Not now, Eomma.”

Every time Jihu says it, he says it with a little more determination. As if the “not now” is slowly but surely transforming into a “never again”.

Mrs. Kim turns to Bongseon, arms still crossed, eyes still narrow. “If you think trying to buddy up with my son will nab you this scholarship, you’re sorely mistaken. We merely paid for the renovations and are attending this function in order to see the changes. We have no stake in who wins or loses. Though I certainly have an eye for prediction.”

Bongseon places her hands on her hips. “Then we have two things in common, it seems. An eye for prediction, and deep care for your son.”

Jihu brightens again, dimples deepening.

Mrs. Kim’s face sours as her head turns, chin moving over her shoulder. Her eyes scan the room again. “Professor Im!” She uncrosses her arms and waves for Haneul to join them. “You’re hogging her!”

Haneul sheepishly grins to the sweet, older man speaking with her. She says something seemingly equal parts charming and kind, given the way he smiles and nods gratefully. After a gentle handshake, Haneul makes her way over to them. She parts a crowd that has gathered around one of the sculpture entries, the figure of a ballet dancer mid-twirl. And like that ballet dancer, she strides, long, and graceful, toward Mrs. Kim, smiling politely and perfectly when she says, “Hello, Mrs. Kim. Everyone.”

Haneul doesn’t bow. At first, Bongseon wonders if that gives her a leg up in the real competition for the evening. Until she realizes that Haneul doesn’t need to bow.

And at that realization, Bongseon starts to shrink, wondering how hard and for how long she would need to stomp her feet to fall through the frosted glass.

“Haneul here is a scholar set to go abroad to study political science,” Mrs. Kim introduces. “Jihu, I think you and Haneul would make great friends.”

“I’ve been looking forward to getting to know you,” Haneul says happily. “Your eomma has bragged about you non-stop since I’ve met her.”

“It’s because I haven’t hit on every accomplishment yet,” Mrs. Kim says with glee, smoothing a slight ruffle in the shoulder of Haneul’s pure white blouse. “Come to our dinner party in two weeks’ time. I’ll send your mother the invitation, and I’ll seat the two of you together. You can catch up then.”

“I won’t be attending the party, Eomma,” Jihu insists. 

“Nonsense, you’re coming,” Director Kim replies. “Your grandfather will be in town.” He leans forward. “Whatever else is going on in our lives… well, you’d better be there to see your grandfather.”

“Excited to be a part of it,” Haneul says, grinning at Jihu. Her eyes shift to Bongseon. “I don’t believe we’ve met, but I think I might be in the same dorm as you. I’m in 205, with my suite mate.”

“308.”

“Lucky! You got the single dorm!” Haneul smiles. “Will you be at the Kims’, too?”

Bongseon tries to remember how to speak. That she is worthy of speaking. “Oh, I—”

“Family only,” Mrs. Kim says, with an encouraging wink.

Haneul’s head dips back slightly, and Jihu rolls his eyes.

“It’ll be a wonderful event,” Haneul says diplomatically. “They always are. But if you’ll excuse me? I’m volunteering at this event, and I believe I need to help set the stage up for the announcement of the winners and the dean’s closing remarks. We’re due to start in about fifteen minutes.”

“Go shine, Haneul, like you always do,” Mrs. Kim replies, nodding with proud approval.

“Thank you, Director Kim, everyone,” Haneul says respectfully. “And thank you for the donations to get these renovations done. Our student body is so grateful.”

As Haneul takes her leave, elegance and class wrapped up in the human form, Bongseon feels her own body disappearing into nothing. A better reflection of what she is.

“Go shine?” Jihu mutters. “Haneul volunteered. She’s just setting up the stage. Not even standing on it. Bongseon got here due to her artistic excellence. ”

Mrs. Kim tosses the statement right through Bongseon’s chest, Mrs. Kim’s eyes still not quite landing anywhere near Bongseon’s face.

“Please, Jihu. Only stars shine.” 

“Fuck my parents,” Jihu says.

Bongseon stops on the second stair of the entrance to her dorm, her purse swinging under her shoulder. Her long lashes blink in surprise. Despite the issues they had, Jihu had never used disrespectful language about his parents.

“I-I’m sorry, did you just—”

“Fuck! My! Parents!” Jihu repeats, stronger now. 

Bongseon looks around.

“C’mon. Let’s go inside. Someone might hear you.”

Jihu can barely keep his words in his mouth, muttering the entire time it takes for them to get from the front door of the building to Bongseon’s single dorm.

“They didn’t cut me off,” Jihu bursts, not even a full second after Bongseon closes her door. “I need you to know that. I need you to know that they didn’t cut me off, and that I’m the one actually refusing to accept their money.”

Bongseon raises her eyebrows. “OK.”

“They try to wire me my tuition every month, and I rip up the check. Every time. Because it’s the principle of the thing.”

“I hear you. Understood.”

“You could make something out of those ripped checks. Whatever that art style is. With all the bits of paper, and the glue, and you turn it into something else.”

“Papier mache?” 

“Yeah. But not really. Because I threw all the scraps away.”

“Papier mache isn’t really my forte, anyway.”

Eight, Bongseon notices. Jihu has angrily paced the same line back and forth eight times. But now, he comes to a stop. 

He scoffs. “Can you believe them? I was so excited to introduce you to them, introduce your art to them, and they just pulled their same old shit! And now I have to go to this dumb dinner and meet this girl? All because they’re so threatened that I could dare to see things differently than they do, that I could open up to someone who makes me feel—!”

Jihu catches Bongseon’s thoughtful gaze.

At the sight of her, his eyes widen and blink rapidly behind his glasses.

Bongseon’s eyes linger on him for a moment.

And then she takes a couple of steps forward.

Reaches up for his glasses.

Folds the earpieces down.

Sets them on top of a stack of books on her desk, just to her right.

“What do you feel?” she asks quietly.

Jihu’s eyes soften. 

“That’s it,” he admits, shrugging. “You… y-you make me feel.”

It’s surprising that it doesn’t happen in her studio, which is where he’d imagined it happening. With the door locked, it’s quite private. So much of her passion resides there. And it’s where they met, so it seemed like the most obvious place. He can’t believe that it happens in her dorm. He can’t believe how lucky he is to be able to be in her living space, where she eats, and sleeps, and lies on her couch while watching TV, and does her dishes. He can’t believe that this is where he’s cupping her cheek in his hand and kissing her with such intensity that he knows this is where it’s going to happen.

Her hands reach for his belt.

“We don’t have to,” he whispers quickly, lest he get his hopes up too early. 

But Bongseon smiles the way she usually smiles. 

Confidently.

“After tonight? Everything that you’ve said? How can we not?”

Jihu moans as he rushes forward for another kiss, and then another.

The peony pink dress looks at home on the couch. So does his button-up and slacks. 

Her white, lacy bra and matching panties look beautiful on her floor. So do his dress socks, and his boxers. 

And Bongseon looks exquisite in her bed, naked and excited, pulling Jihu on top of her and hooking her left arm around his neck.

That excitement. Contagious and thrilling.

Jihu realizes that that’s one of the feelings he always has with Bongseon.

The feeling of being wanted.

“I’m so glad you want it too,” he confesses, his hand snaking between her legs.

She bites her lip and lets out a moan at the feel of his fingers spreading her apart, slowly rubbing back and forth to coat his hand in her abundant arousal.

“Badly,” she whispers. She grips his wrist. “Can’t you tell?”

Jihu nods into their kiss, and his fingers massage her clit, hand staying where she holds him, as her hips start to rock back and forth.

Bongseon lets out a moan, head hanging back, teeth raking against her lips as she sucks in a breath to last her. As she moves, she raises her chest to him, and his kiss-swollen lips stamp a trail down her neck, and between her breasts.

She hoists herself up, and hugs his neck, while his free hand curls into a fist, the tops of his knuckles digging into her mattress like his knees are, springs creaking as she bounces heavier, and heavier, against him. 

Her throat closes up. All of her muscles tense. A scream presses against her tonsils, but they refuse to let it out. All Jihu can hear are his fingers sloshing around inside of her, and his own quiet, eager grunts.

When she comes, she lets go completely, her back hitting the bed, head landing on her pillow, hair strewn around her.

She lets out a gasp, air rushing into her body. She moans in delight, which turns into a more than satisfied, “Mm- hmm,” before rolling onto her belly.

Jihu lets out a quiet sigh as her ass slopes into view, her back arching, her hand combing through her long hair, and her pretty eyes peeking through as she looks back at him.

He bite his lip as he lines up behind her.

He’s patient as he slides into her. He’s so thick, and she’s so tight, that her juices are more enjoyable rather than useful. Still, she’s dripping everywhere, making an absolute mess.

Jihu loves getting to make a mess.

“Deep,” Bongseon instructs. “Long, and deep. Slow at first, yeah?”

She feels his nod, as it waves down his body and through her mattress’s springs.

A moan of ecstasy escapes her open, wet mouth as Jihu goes as deep as he can, cock curving slightly up, tip touching the back of her walls. 

When his hips start to pull away, the suction created by their tight, wet muscles makes them both double over, as it pulls him inside again.

Without looking, she reaches for him. Intertwines their fingers. Presses the back of his hand against her chest.

He fights through the suction as he pulls back. He nearly slips out of her. But then he pushes his cock head deeper, and his shaft rushes along her walls to slam into her again.

Bongseon’s head angles back, and she lets out a low, intrigued moan.

“What you had in mind?” Jihu asks through grit teeth. 

Whimpers are all that come out of Bongseon’s mouth. There’s barely any room for anything else against her gulping, heaving breaths. 

He bends down, his lips lightly brushing against the back of her shoulder as they move together, full, and slow.

“You know how long I’ve thought about this?” he whispers. “How many times I’ve drifted away and pretended I was kissing you? Fucking you? It’s all I wanna do.”

“Jihu.”

His cock fills her up with the same heat that radiates from his gaze. His smile. His broad chest. Every smirk, every kiss, every long day of work ended with a hug to cover up all the unspoken words, her temple pressed against his beating heart. 

He plunges deeper, stuttering on the way in.

Bongseon bites her bottom lip so hard that she thinks it might rip off and expose the bone 

“Deep. Slow. You knew exactly what to tell me. You’ve thought about it, too. You’ve wanted it, too.”

Bongseon isn’t usually one to show her hand, but it’s getting harder to fight the “yes” es collecting in her throat.

She wonders if he’ll fuck her there, too. Fuck them out of her. Fuck all the words, and thoughts, and spirals out of her seemingly ever-busy mind. 

How does he do this? Torture her and make her feel so at peace, so whole, at the same time?

Their backs arch and curve, sometimes snaking to opposite sides, playing with angles that release curses and unlock bursts of pleasure, sudden tension of hands gripping and teeth biting when it’s especially good. 

“Tell me,” Jihu pleads, voice still low, but thinning with urgency. “Tell me this is what you wanted.”

Bongseon whines, squeezing his hand tight, and squeezing her flesh tight, making Jihu moan into the back of her neck.

“Tell me you want more. Wanna give you more.”

Bongseon sucks in another breath, moving her hips back against him, telling him the only way she knows how. The only way she can. Her throat is too tight, voice too lost.

“Wanna give you everything.”

She nods, and Jihu slides his right hand along the seam of her right thigh, fingers finding her clit.

Bongseon bucks back, letting out a yelp as his fingers gather together and start to circle, pressure building.

“Want it all,” Bongseon finally admits, her voice far away. “Want you. All of you.”

As they move, they dip into the mattress and bounce up, rocking gently.

And then, violently.

Bongseon’s chin hits her pillow, and she starts to splay out, barely able to stay as tight as she has been. Her walls are fluttering, and Jihu knows that she won’t be able to last. 

“Just let go,” Jihu murmurs, placing his left palm in the small of her back as he speeds up. 

She nods. Doesn’t even bother moving her hair out of her face. Just lets her body take over, spasms and movements seemingly just as incoherent as anything that she tries to speak aloud.

When she comes, she wails, spit landing in her strands.

He comes soon after. Repeated grunts, soft “ohh, ohh, ohh” s, match each explosion of cum that springs from him.

When he collapses on top of her, she reaches back for him, fingers finding the back of his head. 

She taps him twice. 

“Well done.”

He laughs, lips brushing against her cheekbone.

“Now, get off of me. I wanna do something.”

Jihu rolls onto his side, kissing her there before she jumps out of bed, hair flowing behind her, footsteps punctuated by excited giggles.

She gets to her desk and looks around. Even with the clutter, her sketchbook is easy enough to find. Her pencils, though, always go missing. Remembering that she was last sketching when lying on the couch, she picks up Jihu’s shirt, and then her dress and purse, and finds the near-stub of a pencil between two cushions. 

She sets Jihu’s shirt back down. As well as her dress.

But she holds onto her purse.

She grabs the pencil and sets it atop her sketchbook on her desk. 

But then she opens her purse. 

Stares at the first place certificate.

As well as the check.

They each have her name on them, printed carefully, in elegant cursive on her certificate, and in serifed, clear, official font on her check.

She sets the certificate and the check on her desk, both face-down.

And then she grabs the sketchbook and pencil.

She jumps back into bed, having returned with a pencil and a sketch pad. 

“Stay still, OK?”

Jihu grins. He knows not to talk as she primes her space. 

After a moment, Jihu can’t help himself. He rushes forward and presses his lips to her bare shoulder, making her laugh and gently protest, as she flips her pencil under her index finger and over her thumb and middle, as her palm presses against his chest to push him back against the headboard.

Jihu’s never seen someone so consistently and intensely focused. And he’s not seen Bongseon like this, fresh off the glow of a win. In more ways than just one.

He lifts an arm and bends it behind him, resting the back of his head on his forearm. And, as he’s done for the entire time he’s known her, he watches her work. 

It’s amazing how content he feels, just watching her. He’d watch her for as long as she’d let him. And he’d watch her do anything. Sketch another scholarship-winning piece while bathed in the afternoon sun. Read on the top floor of the library. Cook. Laugh. Sleep. Think. 

Come.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” Jihu tells her, making Bongseon roll her eyes. “I mean it. Just thinking about the way you looked when you…” He smiles. “I’m gonna be thinking about that for a while.”

“Not the only one,” Bongseon giggles, half of her brain in that moment, and half of her brain focusing on how to make sure to get the line of his left pec just right.

“Bongseon.”

“Mmm?”

“I hope this isn’t a one-time thing.”

“Me neither.”

“Good.”

Jihu doesn’t need a breath. Doesn’t stutter. Her confidence is so contagious.

“Because I think I may be falling for you.”

Bongseon looks up from her sketchbook, eyes wide.

Jihu snores.

Loudly.

And a lot.

Bongseon can’t help but fondly chuckle every time Jihu lets another one out. Though he’s loud, and the rattle in the back of his throat might raise concerns about his health, it’s indescribably comforting to watch him sleep so deeply, to know that he’s so comfortable in a place that has only ever been hers.

He doesn’t stir when she gets out of bed. He continues snoring when she makes some tea. He sleeps right through the kettle whistling. So Bongseon is sure that he definitely won’t wake up when she slips out of her room, just for a few minutes.

She takes the stairs instead of the elevator, as if trying to keep Jihu from hearing that, too.

She pads down the hall. Everyone else is definitely asleep. But she has no qualms about waking a particular person up.

She knocks on the door, and when it opens, Bongseon feels so relieved to know that she’s memorized the number correctly. 

Bongseon looks up into Haneul’s tired but curious eyes.

Hanuel’s voice cracks when she speaks.

“Y-yes…?” 

Her realization grows as more light enters the room and enters those curious eyes, helping her to answer her own question.

“You’re the artist?” she asks, voice still not warm enough. “From today?”

Bongseon nods. “Yeah.”

“Um… well… Congratulations, again?” She raises her eyebrows. “But why are you—”

“I’m really, really sorry to wake you,” Bongseon replies, “but I need your help.”

“Right now?”

“No. Two weeks from now.”

Haneul tilts her head, as Bongseon raises hers.

“Please don’t go to the Kims’ dinner.”

Let me stress that this is all brand new. Like, one week new. I am not in love. I am not in a relationship. But I am dating again. I’m exploring what it is to share time and space with possibilities. 

This exploration is not the only thing that’s taken some time away from this blog. I recently got a promotion at work, and I am now the youngest person on the senior management team. And my team of direct reports has grown by four people in the past month alone, with more growth coming in the rest of the year. Along with that has come more responsibility and latitude, which has allowed me to start making moves that I’ve been dreaming of making since I first started this job five years ago. 

But, as with all things, it balances out. It comes with costs. I’ve been having more meetings. Lots more show-and-tell at work. I’ve definitely been writing, but I haven’t been posting. And I’ve missed you. 

Have I said that yet? I’ve missed you. 

Yes, You. 

You, with your beautiful brain and gorgeous smile and melodious laugh. I’ve missed reading your stories, seeing your art, reblogging your posts, and joining you in the comments. I’ve missed the inside jokes. I’ve missed the memes. I can’t imagine what brilliant things await me when things settle back down a bit.

And I keep thinking of what I was processing when BTS announced their hiatus. Specifically, what Yoongi and Namjoon said about regarding living more life in order to have something to say. And though I already had a lot to say, and was smack-dab in the middle of saying it, a dear friend told me last night, “If you spend a lot of time reading and writing about sex, it might be nice to have more opportunities to actually have it irl?”

It’s funny how this fanfiction thing has opened up my world. In addition to falling even deeper for our boys, I’ve gotten to meet You. All these wonderful people in our community. I’ve jumped into cars and onto planes to see you. To share ideas with you. To laugh with you. To learn and change with you. To be inspired by you. Hopefully you’ve had some fun, too.

But now, I’m changing in a different way. I’ve always written a lot, but I don’t say much. I’ve been told that I can be a lot (read: Kittenfishing, Hideaway, pretty much any one of my Y/Ns lol). But now, I’m talking more. Sharing more of myself. 

Not through Y/N. But as me.

I’m pleasantly surprised that people actually want to hear what I have to say... not just on the page, but nestled in the soft walla of forks scraping against plates and wine being poured and regulars seething about where the hell all these new people came from.

And I’m breaking out of that achiever cycle. That delayed gratification loop. There is an addictive thrill to staying up until 4 AM because I was on a writer’s high -- and PLEASE believe I will absolutely still do that lol. But I’m balancing that out with not waiting until I finish my next chapter before checking in with my friends or hanging with my family.

So a week after my grandmother passed away, two things happened. 

I got a promotion. 

And I got on Hinge.

We all know the steps. I’m admittedly a master at the first part. The resume-building part. Achiever Me has it down to a science. Literally. If you’ve read my fic Matchmaker, then you know, lol. 

I know my style. And I know the typical rules. I posted the necessary pics. Selfie, so you see my face. Wide shot, so you see my body. One cute. One flirty. Casual. Formal. With my family and friends, so you know my values. With emoji, so I protect their privacy. Blah blah blah.

I know the type of people who will gravitate toward me. Years of 20% wanted and 80% of unwanted advances have taught me a lot. 

But I had fun with it, too. 

Dearest Roomie / @mochilatae​ gave me 3 sets of numbers, and those determined what prompts I’d answer. When I got the prompt to do my best celebrity impression, I did one of Popeye.

Apart from all the fuckbois who liked my pics, only 3 responded to my impression in the first few days.

The Dad. 

The Grad Student. 

And The Teacher.

The Dad

The Dad was the first to reach out. In our BTS shorthand, he’s bboy Yoongi. Sneakers. Backwards fitted. Maybe a bit of Jungkook, what with his tattoos and a camera in hand. I shouldn’t have engaged, seeing that he has a kid. But he responded to my Popeye clip with, “ 🤔 Hmm, needs work. Jk.”

I’m an Asian, Millennial woman. I’m used to negging. And I love enemies to lovers tropes. So maybe I kinda like it, if done a certain way. The Dad is actually a sweet guy. So I Matched.

We’ve talked about a lot since then. Life’s funny turns. How tired we’re starting to feel at the end of the day. The best places to get Chinese food. 

Had it not been for this conversation, I would’ve deleted the app altogether.

The Grad Student

The Grad Student was the next to reach out. He isn’t actually a grad student, but he’s a carbon copy of an old labmate. Same cloth, mere threads apart. It’s very, very odd. Even his voice is the same as my labmate’s. I could hear it when he responded to my Popeye clip with, “My God that was perfect! Can you do Olive Oil as well? 😊”

He asked me out first, and he very interestingly suggested one of my usual hangouts from -- you guessed it -- when I was in grad school. It all seemed comfortable, and familiar. But almost too familiar. I told friends that it felt like I’d done all this before. I’m fluent in his language. I could tell his interests just by looking at him. I was feeling very Celeste in Celeste + Jesse Forever. But I also felt the cultural gulf that I sometimes feel in this situation -- most concerning, the fear of being fetishized as an Asian, Millenninal woman.

There’s an episode of the podcast Reply All called The Fever, which shares some stories about a creepy white dude who essentially socially collected Asian women. (Incidentally, this podcast episode was shown to me a few years ago by a white dude, but he did not collect me or any other Asian women.) Tbh, after listening to this episode, I kinda shut down the idea of dating at all.

Needless to say, being presented with The Grad Student made me a little nervous.

We got drinks last Thursday, and... it turned out to be a good time. He’s so... nice? But not braggadociously so. He’s not suave, like the dude from The Fever, or West Elm Caleb. He bumbles, which is funny, given that we’re on Hinge. The night started with him sincerely apologizing for getting a beer before I had arrived, and it ended with him texting me a sincere apology for not walking me to my car in the middle of the night in the middle of the city. Not that those things ultimately mattered to me though. I guess it’s a good sign that he thought of those things at all.

I’m not letting my guard down, but it’s starting to counter that fear of being fetishized. His genuineness has a charm. And we connected on a lot, most importantly the desire to lead a nontraditional kind of life. He doesn’t want kids either. He values his independence. And he’s tired of the expectations (and then mocking of those expectations) that have been foisted upon our generation. I left feeling confused... but optimistic that maybe I wasn’t too late to the scene... that I had something to offer... and that maybe I wouldn’t get fake-collected and real-murdered while out here trying to connect with people. 

That maybe people had something to offer me back.

He asked me out again for dinner on Wednesday. 

That was last night.

The Teacher

After things went well with the Grad Student, I wondered if I should set something up with the other two guys who had reached out. I was already hanging out with my brother and his girlfriend Saturday night and Sunday morning, so I decided I’d jam-pack the rest of that weekend with social activity. Like my 4am writer’s highs, I figured I’d just get it all done in one go. Ride the bit of extroverted energy that was propelling me forward. 

Why wait?

I asked The Dad, with whom I had been talking the longest, if he wanted to get coffee on Saturday afternoon. He said yes, and we picked a place.

I then asked The Teacher if he wanted to hang on Sunday. we had been talking a lot, ever since he said of my Popeye impression, “Pretty good lol”. He also said yes, and we picked a place.

On Saturday, I posted up at one of my favorite coffee shops and wrote for a little bit. 

20 mins before we were set to meet, I got a message from The Dad. He wasn’t going to be able to make it. Family stuff. Understandable.

When I got home from hanging out with my brother and his girlfriend, I checked in with The Teacher. He said he was definitely down to hang.

The Teacher scares me a little bit.

He’s 100% AMOMK Yoongi. Not just in personality, look, or style (and, trust me, eerily so, especially to Soundcheck Yoongi). But because of the connection that we seem to have regarding the core details from my life that I’ve injected into AMOMK. 

See, the Teacher really is a teacher. Specifically, he’s a middle school teacher. And he teaches at the middle school that I went to here in town. The middle school that is the basis for the school that AMOMK Namjoon and Yoongi teach at. Drive past it, and you’ll see the baseball diamond bleachers that AMOMK Jin gets ogled at in the beginning of Chapter 01, and the parking lot leading to the entrance to the band hall in the beginning of Chapter 03. You know what’s really scary? You might even see a red sedan. Like the one that AMOMK Yoongi and Namjoon share donuts on the hood of... and the one that The Teacher just happens to drive.

Have you seen the movie Ruby Sparks? (Another appearance of Chris Messina. Hmm. Interesting.) I certainly don’t advocate for the toxic aspects of control and will, but that awed feeling of seeming manifestation... I was starting to feel that awe when we were texting about these hometown details. And it was starting to solidify into a genuine feeling of bewilderment when we realized we also lived within 15 minutes of each other when we were younger, and that we went to the same high school at around same time. 

The Teacher showed up.

He showed up early, actually.

We originally planned for 4, but he said that he’d gotten done with his errands and would now be free at 3:30. 

We met for sushi, and I had one of the best conversations I’ve ever had in my entire life.

The content. Music, books, life, family, being Asian, being an immigrant, being first gen, being oldest siblings, being first gen oldest siblings, dating, movies, music, fashion, TV shows, comedy, writing, music, work, oh, and music. He said he listens to everything. I said I listen to everything. We both highly doubted that the other listened to everything. We both learned that we both listen to everything.

The little moments. Me accidentally dropping my phone, and then my chopsticks, and saying sorry or looking worried, and him just smiling and tilting his head and saying, “For what?” Or us talking about the disdain for how short songs are now to encourage streaming, Harry Styles’ use of a melody reminiscent of A-ha’s “Take on Me”, and the bright smile we’d flash each other as we stopped talking each one of the seven times the song played on the speakers during our-- 4-hour conversation? 

When did 4 hours pass??

Did I want to go somewhere to get drinks?

Yes.

And the big moments. Us sitting down at another one of my old hangouts from grad school, which just happened to be 5 mins away, and us talking about our motivations. Passions. PDA.

The Teacher: I’m not really one for PDA.

Me: Me either. (remembering something) Ugggghh! OK, so my brother and his girlfriend do this thing when they’re hanging out where one of them will go, "Uh-oh! My love meter is empty!” And the other one will go, “Oh no!” And they’ll scurry over to them and hug them and kinda squeeze and jostle them while going, “boop-boOP-BOOP-BOOP-BOOP!” And then they’ll go, “All full!” and smile at each other.

The Teacher: Gross.

Me: I know! Remember how you said you wanted to emulate the relationship your parents have? I’m the same way, and I think I’ve only seen my parents kiss a handful of times. I think the most recent of them was in the Philippines during New Year’s Eve 1999.

The Teacher: Hey. Y2K. They had to. They could’ve died.

Me: (laughs) What specifically about PDA makes it uncomfortable for you, do you think? Is it like what you said about how you hate when people play their music super loud when they go to the gas station or are just out and about in public?

(The Teacher is also a grumbling grandpa, btw.)

The Teacher: Yeah, and it’s like... too showy. I like the sense that it’s saved for behind closed doors. It’s just for the other person.

Me: True. And... like... if you’re doing it all the time, it doesn’t seem as special. Not to be a huge cornball, but it loses some of its... I don’t know, it loses some of its---

Together: Magic.

I swear to you. I know I write romcom fanfiction. But this happened. 

Which is why The Teacher scares me.

When it was time to go, not as an afterthought, before we even got up from our seats, he said, “It’s late. I’ll walk you to your car.”

He was wearing black, pointy boots. I could see them in my periphery because I was kinda looking down as we walked. He walked to my left, and just behind me. Kind of letting me lead. But still next to me. Like a cat.

We lingered in the hug. I thought he might be interested in a kiss. I got shy. He respected it.

Me: This was really fun. Thanks for hanging out.

The Teacher: Yeah. It was a blast.

Me: Would you want to... maybe... hang out... again?

The Teacher: Absolutely not.

(When I tell you that I cannot stop thinking about this and laughing... ugh.)

The Teacher: No, seriously though. We could hang out this weekend... or we could do mid-week, even. How about...

Me: (internally) Don’t say Wednesday. Don’t say Wednesday. Don’t say---

The Teacher: ...Thursday?

(Why wait?)

Me: Yes. Thursday.

We have texted nearly nonstop everyday since.

And I’m going out with him again in about 5 hours.

Because it is Thursday.