ᴀʙᴅɪᴛᴏʀʏ || baek kyung

It's Not a Kang Family Dinner Without Tears, Death Threats, and Weapons.

It's Not a Kang Family Dinner Without Tears, Death Threats, and Weapons.

Kyung disassociated pretty quickly.

He sat at the kitchen counter, wearing the blue jumper Jia had knit for him months ago, and wondered how his life had gotten to this point. It was always extreme with him. The pointer of his life was either on Potential Death or Too-Much-Happiness-It's-Suspicious. There was no...stagnation. So much had been happening for as long as he could remember that he was desperate to close his eyes and shut his ears and hide in the apartment forever.

Adjacent to him, Dohwa seemed to zone out while staring at the bottom of his glass. His mouth was slightly open but he hadn't seemed to notice. The boy had yet to utter a sound ever since he had accidentally heard Kyung and Jia's argument.

Speaking of arguments, Jia and Hwan were snipping at each other, making wild gestures and pointing accusing fingers at one another. With his fingers interlocked against his mouth and elbows on the table, Kyung watched Jia glare at her brother, one arm on her hip, and bicker. Her glasses kept sliding down her nose and curly strands of hair had escaped her ponytail. Had he always found her so mesmerizing with that mess on her head?

"—don't need to tell the others," she said firmly as she and Hwan argued in the hallway.

Hwan looked bewildered, "I'm not keeping this a secret. I can't keep this a secret."

"You're a therapist. You can keep secrets."

"This is different," he retorted, "Jia, you and Kyung are married—"

She cut him off with a nervous laugh, "That's too big of a word. I would rather say legal partnership."

Speechless, Hwan turned to Kyung who simply held up his hands and shrugged. Hwan let out an annoyed huff, "Do you know how stupid this is? You're nineteen. You have unresolved anger issues," he pointed at Kyung, "and you," he glared at Jia, "have commitment issues."

"I don't have commitment issues!" She protested weakly.

"You just said 'legal partnership' instead of 'marriage' because 'marriage' is a big word."

"Don't psychoanalyze me!"

With a tone of finality, Hwan said, "Either you come clean to everyone or I'll tell grandpa. Really, Jia. Did you even think of how much of a shock your shotgun wedding would be to him? What if it kills him?"

"It's not a shotgun wedding. And..." she recoiled, "grandpa can't die. He's immortal."

"Are you even listening to yourself?" At the guilty look on her face, he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "It's just one thing after another with you. Do you really want to spend your twenties running around marriage counselors? I'm not trying to be unsupportive and pessimistic but usually, when people get married, I've noticed that they're really excited to introduce each other as 'wife' or 'husband'. You two, on the other hand, look as if you're one breath away from puking your guts out."

He did have a point. Jia had shifted her weight from one leg to the other while Kyung had muffled a cough, earning a blank look from Dohwa.

Jia pretended to shrug away Hwan's quip but it was obvious that she felt offended. "We'll figure that part out by ourselves," she replied, "Just...don't tell the others, please. We didn't want you to know like this."

"Then why did you say that we could come over!?"

"I didn't!" She denied, "You said you wanted to celebrate and you sounded happy so I couldn't say no. You're not this happy very often and I didn't want to...I don't know...I guess I just wanted today to go well for you," Jia lowered her head and swallowed bitterly, "I'm sorry it didn't."