MMH(Jenlisa Adaptation)

Final

~ 112 Sunday Brunches Later ~

Lisa brought the orange juice to her lips and decided that anything put into a wine glass or goblet was immediately made fancy and tasted better. That, or it could have just been that Hyun-joo always purchased the best of the best, and hand-squeezed orange juice made that list. She thanked Claude, the butler whom, after a particularly stressful Christmas Eve dinner, she had bonded with over the iron fist of Hyun-joo Kim, as he refilled her glass with juice.

"So when will you two be leaving?" Hyun-joo asked Wo Jin, who in the last two years had sprouted like a weed.

He swallowed the large bite of turkey sausage he had placed in his mouth before grabbing his napkin and wiping at the corners of his lips. "Next Saturday. We'll be back by Monday night the latest."

"You've just finished school, dear, and you're already leaving so soon? Don't you think you want to fully settle in?" Hyun-joo had still yet to visit the cottage even after Jennie and Lisa had spent a weekend cleaning it up. Most of the furniture remained, but dusting the place did nothing to evade the insects and wildlife of the woods, which Hyun-joo continued to remind the family that no amount of bug spray could make them immune to the bacteria they possessed.

"Yeah." Wo Jin beamed. "I have my first riding competition at the end of the summer, and Jennie says I have to practise as often as I can. Are you gonna come watch?"

Lisa smirked and turned a curious eyebrow to Hyun-joo. "Yeah, are you gonna come up?"

Hyun-joo pursed her lips and refrained from rolling her eyes. "We will see."

Lisa caught Wo Jin's eye, and they both shared a silent laugh. The boy had oddly taken to Jennie's mother, which sometimes worried Lisa, but he didn't exhibit traits of evil cackling or manipulation (other than conning his way into a later bedtime and a bigger allowance), and for the most part, she was happy to know that her kid got through to the scary dragon lady. That didn't stop them from teasing the older Kim, however. Every time they would return from their trips at the cottage, they would tell her stories of the biggest spiders they'd ever seen, rabid wolves set on the loose, and wild mustangs running free in the pasture. The look on Hyun-joo's face when she imagined such creatures was priceless. It nearly rivaled the look on Jennie's face when she realized Lisa and Wo Jin had found a way to get under Hyun-joo's skin and live to tell the tale. Jennie thanked Lisa graciously, over and over, when the blonde first purposely annoyed the older Kim, and now it had become a past time of Lisa's, and Wo Jin's apparently.

"How is that. . .animal of yours?" Hyun-joo asked, bringing some cut up fruit to her lips.

"Donny?" Wo Jin asked, continuing when he received a nod from the older woman. "He's just learned to do jumps now. We've been going up there whenever we can, and he's getting more lean and faster. It's like he knows when people are watching though 'cause he gets nervous."

"You'll just have to break him in," Hyun-joo said obviously with a wave of her hand. When Lisa raised an impressed eyebrow, Hyun-joo continued. "Yes, I know things, Ms. Manobal."

"Right," Lisa muttered to herself, forking a piece of her spinach and goat cheese omelet into her mouth and nodding along.

"I've recently got in touch with Charlene Tremaine," Hyun-joo said.

It took Lisa a moment to realize that Hyun-joo was speaking to her before straightening, her eyebrows shooting up high in curiosity. When she didn't recognize the name, she scrunched up her face. "That's. . .nice?"

Hyun-joo rolled her eyes and sighed as if talking to an imbecile. "She's the headmistress of the private school Jennie went to as a child."

Lisa tried to look excited at the news but failed to see what that had to do with her. "That's . . .also nice."