Chapter Text
The traffic is so crazy this morning that we need almost an hour to reach where I live, when usually it takes about fifteen minutes of car ride. It’s understandable because people are going back to their hometown for this holiday week, but apparently it’s still stressful.
On our ride home, Mum insisted that she sit next to Kitty because she wants to talk and get to know her more. So, I had no choice but to sit at the front because Kitty acts as if she is Mum's accomplice working on a mission to irk me. They talked about a lot of things, from food to fashion, to tarot and astrology. Mum also promised to do a tarot reading for Kitty and they signed a pinky promise for it.
*
Although my house is actually located so close to the school, I am staying at the dorm. The dorm itself is not mandatory for every student at KISS. Foreign students like Kitty or Q can live in the dorm, while Korean students like me or Yuri are free to choose. There are also students like Dae, who can stay there through scholarships but with terms and conditions.
Some of us stay at the dorm to focus on our studies. I, myself, was forced to live there because of my parent’s messy divorce. When they got divorced, hundreds of people–from fans, reporters, paparazzis, and haters, would flock to our house and make it difficult for me to go to school. By the time the divorce news broke, my dad had already left the house and escaped to London. I refused to follow him there because I wanted to be with my mum.
We weren’t thinking things through then, because in no time we got stuck inside the house and we had no way out. Principal Lim was concerned for me as I was unable to attend school for almost two weeks. So, she suggested that I stay in the dorm until everything is settled. I hated the idea at first because I was worried for my mum. But she assured me that knowing that I am safe at the school dorm is better for her than worrying about my condition even though I’m staying with her. I planned to stay for a while, but weeks turned to months, and months turned to years. Later on, I grew to love staying here, because I have roommates like Q and Dae.
*
When we arrived at home, the gate swung open and our car went inside the garage.
“Welcome to our home, Kitty darling.” Mum says with her high pitched voice. She grabs Kitty’s hand and they both get down from the car.
We climb some stairs from the garage and walk past the garden. Mum is explaining our home’s layout and Kitty is listening to her faithfully, nodding her head a few times. Kitty’s eyes were full of excitement when she saw the garden and her eyes widened even bigger when she walked inside the house and was welcomed by the panoramic view of Seoul city from the living room window.
“Wow… this is so beautiful.” She turns her head to look at me and my mum.
“I know.” I smirk.
She scoffs. “Now I don’t understand why you would choose to stay in that dorm when you can experience this scenery every single day.”
“No reason?” I shrug my shoulders. Kitty rolls her eyes, annoyed. “Anyway, if I stayed here, we wouldn’t be best friends like now and I wouldn't've fallen in love with you, would I?”
Kitty looks flustered, she glances over at Mum and me. Eyes wide open and she clenches her teeth. She glares at me and mouths an inaudible I’m gonna kill you .
I can’t help but smile. She looks annoyingly cute when she’s annoyed.
Mum looks back and forth at us and then she turns at me. She says to me in Korean with her cute tone, “ Omo, my son can talk about love now? When did you get to be so big, Son?”
I forgot that my mum is here.
“Mummy never thought this day would come so soon. Can’t you please love Mummy a little longer, Minho-ya?” She pouts and puts on her usual mommy aegyo.
Flustered, I can feel the heat on my face. I replied to her in Korean. “ Mum, of course I love you more. I was just joking to annoy her really. I swear. ”
“Minho, what’d she say and what you were saying?” Kitty–who all of a sudden is standing next to me, tugs my arm. I bet she is frustrated because she doesn’t understand a thing we were saying.
Mum laughs seeing Kitty’s cute reaction. Mum strokes Kitty’s hair and says, “We were just joking, Honey. Don’t worry. Now, let’s come upstairs and take a look at your room.”
Mum grabs Kitty’s hands and walks her to the guest room.
*
We have three bedrooms in the house and Mum decorated all of them in different tones. The master bedroom is my Mum’s. It has icy-white walls and ocean blue furniture. She chose this color because she fell in love with Santorini and wanted that ambience for her bedroom.
The second room, which is my room, has a monochromatic theme with stone gray walls and black furniture. Unlike my fancy fashion preference, I like to have my room clean and simple.
The guest room is decorated in trendy Korean bedroom style with beige walls and natural wood colored furniture. This room has a small balcony with a view of the neighborhood. Kitty gasped at the view when she saw the tiny roofs lined down beautifully.
“It gets better at night.” I whisper over her shoulder. She looks at me, seems to be excited to see how it looks at night. Our eyes locked for a split second but then I got shy for no reason.
“I love your house,” Kitty turns to Mum. “Everything in this house is so beautiful…”
I noticed that never once she addressed Mum as Mum the whole day. She would cut the sentence short or end the sentence without a pronoun. But Mum didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m glad that you like it, honey. Now, the bathroom is here,” says Mum as she points at the leftmost door of the wardrobe. “Your bags are inside the wardrobe, you can unpack it some time later.”
Kitty nods.
“Do you want to see Minho's room?” Mum offers.
“No.” I almost yelled.
“Yes, please!” she replies excitedly.
Mum laughs. “ Okay, let’s go.”
I groan, annoyed.
We walked towards my room, next to the guest room. Mum opens the door and lets Kitty walk inside before her. Kitty looks around quietly, seeing the photographs placed above the cupboard. She glances at me from time to time, as if she’s trying to check that the one in those pictures is really me. She takes one of the frames of my baby photo and says, “Ooh, it’s the poopy baby.”
Mum laughs at that remark. “You knew about that, honey…?”
Kitty nods enthusiastically.
“She knew it and she shared it with the whole class last year, Mum. Now everyone knows.” I snorted, a bit annoyed when I remember how embarrassed I was that time.
Mum laughs again and pats my back. “Well, you’ve managed to hide it for so long, honey. That’s also an achievement on your part.”
Kitty chuckles. “But you know what? I have to admit it, Minho. You were a pretty baby.”
“I know, and I still am pretty.” She rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Now, can’t we just get out of my room? I think we’ve seen enough.”
She scoffs. “Okay, okay. Don’t be so petty like that.”
*
“By the way, is there anything you want to do for the holiday, darling?” Mum asks. We’re now sitting in the living room while waiting for Ahjumma as she is preparing our lunch.
“Honestly, I don’t have any plans yet.” Kitty shrugs. “In the past, I used to visit my halmoni and harabuji’s house for the Korean New Year, but we never do it again since Dad got married to Trina–my stepmom.”
Mum mutters, “Oh..”
“Oh, oh, here’s a funny story.” Kitty continues, excitedly. “There was one time when me and Lara Jean wore a hanbok for the Korean New Year to visit my grandparents’ house. We wore that to make our Dad happy even though we knew that our cousins won’t even bother to do it. But, we didn’t know how to tie the ribbon, so we Facetimed Margo–my oldest sister, who lives on the other side of the world, to help us with it and in the end we still didn't do it right.”
“ That would be very cute. ” I mutter in Korean unknowingly. I remembered how cute she was wearing a hanbok with the little headpiece and dancing a traditional Korean fan dance last year. Although it was somehow ruined by the fire incident.
“Oh, thank you, Minho.” Kitty replies.
“Wait. What? You understand Korean now?” I reply, flustered that she understands.
“Nope,” she shrugs. “...but I see you’re smiling. So, I know that you’re saying something nice.”
Mum chuckles. “Hmm, what do you think of having a hanbok lesson for tomorrow, honey? Minho can teach you all about hanbok . I’ll call my staff so we can have a quick photoshoot session tomorrow. You can share it with your family, so they know that you’re having a good time this holiday.”
“That’s actually an interesting idea, but I’m not sure if Minho can teach me properly.” says Kitty. She dares to challenge my knowledge of my own culture.
I scoff. “Oh, I’m sorry but you can rest assured with me. Because as a proud son of Dami, Korea's biggest historical drama star, I learned about hanbok even before I could read.”
Mum laughs at my antics. “It’s true, Kitty. I’ll tell you something fun. Minho used to love seeing me in a hanbok , and he even asked me to dress like that at home. So silly, right?”
“Oh come on, Mum. I was four years old.”
“One time, when he was three or four years old, we did a family photoshoot wearing hanbok for the company’s Chuseok greetings. But when Minho saw that he was dressed like his father, he threw a fit and wanted to wear the same hanbok dress as me. We almost gave up our photoshoot session if it weren’t for the photographer’s quick wit who suggested that we shoot Minho in both dresses.”
Kitty laughs and looks at me in disbelief. “As expected from you…”
“I still use that picture as my phone background, you know.” Mum reaches for her phone and hands it over to Kitty.
Kitty let out a long sigh. “Oh… how adorable. I actually noticed the background picture a while ago, I just didn’t expect it to be Minho.”
“Oh yeah, it’s not Minho, it's his twin sister, Min-hee.” Mum replies while holding her laughter.
“Mummy!” I yell.
I was going to throw another fit to both of them but Ahjumma interrupts as she informs us the food is ready.
“ Thanks , Ahjumma .” Mum says in Korean. “Let’s have lunch, Kitty. You have to try Ahjumma ’s cooking. It’s so good, it will blow your mind.”
“Oh, I can’t wait…”
I walk to the dining table and gasp when I see the dishes she cooked. Oh God, Ahjumma prepared a feast.
Chicken stew, braised beef short ribs, braised cutlassfish, and ginseng chicken soup with side dishes like seasoned spinach, stir-fried anchovies, kimchi pancake, seasoned mung-bean sprouts, spicy cucumber salad, and braised potatoes set up beautifully on the table.
Kitty looks excited to taste all of these foods. She takes the chair next to my mum at the center, while I sit across from her, also next to mum.
“ Thank you, Ahjumma. ” Kitty repeats what Mum said, trying to appreciate ahjumma in Korean.
But ahjumma replies to her in English instead, she says “Same-same, Miss .”
“Kitty, if you want to say thank you to the cook, you should say, thank you for the food before eating.” I teach her how to appreciate the food in proper Korean.
“How’d you say it again?” she asks. “ Thank you… ”
“ ...for the food, Ahjumma .” I repeat slowly.
“ Thank you.. For the food… Ahjumma .” Kitty finally made it to thank Ahjumma .
Ahjumma smiles and heads back to the pantry.
I eat my food in silence while seeing Mum taking care of Kitty the whole time. She tells Kitty to eat only the food she can eat, that there is no need to force eating things she doesn’t like. She would check if she can handle the spiciness, whether the Kimchi is too salty, too spicy, or too sour. She even separates the fish meat from its bone so that Kitty can eat comfortably. Mum is so focused on Kitty, she barely eats her lunch. But I can't really say anything because it might make Kitty uncomfortable.
Not long after we finished lunch, Mum excused herself to take a nap as she felt sleepy after a long flight. I teased her that she’s getting old for giving in to the drowsiness and got a smack on my back. But the truth is, I’m just not ready yet to be left alone with Kitty for the rest of the day. I don’t know about her, but I feel that we both are still very awkward with each other.