UPSIDE DOWN [TAEGYU] ✔

eleven ; taehyun

Realizing that my father had the same sense of humor as Huening Kai gave me the serious willies. I had the hardest time just looking at my dad, let alone speaking to him. But at about five o’clock Friday afternoon I agreed with him about one thing — we should’ve barbecued. A barbecue is more, you know, low-key. Instead, my mom was flying around the kitchen, slicing and dicing and barking orders at Dad and me like the president was coming to dinner.

We swept the floor, put an extra leaf in the table, brought in five more chairs, and set the table. We set it all wrong, of course, but all my mother had to do was shuffle things around to make it right. It looked the same to me, but what do I know?

She put out candlesticks and said, “Gguk, can you load the dishes and run them? I’d like a chance to get cleaned up. After that you can change. And Taehyun? What are you wearing?”

“Mom, it’s the Chois. Are you trying to make them feel totally worthless?”

“Taeri and I agreed on a dress-up, so — ”

“But why?”

My dad put a hand on my shoulder and said, “So we can all feel equally uncomfortable, son.”

Women. I looked at her and said, “Does that mean I have to wear a tie?”

“No, but some sort of button-down instead of a T-shirt would be nice.”

I went down to my room and ripped through my closet looking for something with buttons. There were lots of buttons, all right. Lots of geeky buttons. I thought about boycotting my mother’s dress-code requirements, but instead I started putting on shirts.

Twenty minutes later I still wasn’t dressed. And I was extremely ticked off about it because what did it matter? Why did I care what I looked like at this stupid dinner? I was acting like a girl.

Then through a gap in my curtains I saw them coming. Out their front door, down their walkway, across the street. It was like a weird dream. They seemed to be floating toward our house. All five of them.

I pulled a shirt off my bed, punched my arms in, and buttoned up.

Two seconds later the doorbell rang and Mom called, “Can you get that, Taehyun?”

Luckily, Granddad beat me to it. He greeted them all like they were long-lost family and even seemed to know which one was Yeonjun and which one was Soobin hyung. One was wearing a purple shirt and the other was wearing a green one, so it shouldn’t have been that hard to remember which was which, but they came in and pinched my cheeks and said, “Hey, baby brother! How’s it goin’?” and I got so mad I mixed them up again.

My mother zoomed in from the kitchen, saying, “Come in, come in. It’s so nice you all could make it.” She called, “Haerin! Gguk! We’ve got com-pa-ny!” but then stopped short when she saw Beomgyu and Mrs. Choi. “Well, what’s this?” she asked. “Homemade pies?”

Mrs. Choi said, “Blackberry cheesecake and pecan.”

“They look wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!” My mother was acting so hyper I couldn’t believe it. She took Beomgyu’s pie, then whooshed a path to the kitchen with Mrs. Choi.

Haerin appeared from around the corner, which made Yeonjun and Soobin hyung grin and say, “Hey, Rin. Lookin’ good.”

Black skirt, black nails, black eyes — for a nocturnal rodent, yeah, I suppose she was looking good.

They disappeared down to Haerin’s room, and when I turned around, my granddad was taking Mr. Choi into the front room, which left me in the entry hall with Beomgyu. Alone.