Some girls do

Chapter 8: Kazuha

I'm on my third Netflix rom-com—and still trying to decide whether Chaewon hitting me with her car and handing me a bag of frozen peas this morning constitutes a meet-cute or not—when my parents get here. Bangchan isn't home yet—he had to pick up the pizzas for tonight's family dinner—so I get the honor of flinging the door open and getting smothered by their hugs first.

Mom's wearing her wool coat even though it's almost spring, and I inhale hard, trying to catch the scent of home.

"We missed you, kiddo," Dad says, dropping his one-armed hug and carrying a bag over to the counter. "It's been too quiet."

I untangle myself from my mom and follow him. "What's in the bag?"

He pulls it open to show me a massive container of his famous homemade peanut butter cookies. Dad peels up a corner of the lid with a smile. "Fresh from the oven! Still warm. Or rather, they were an hour and a half ago, when we got on the highway."

I don't even care. I've missed my dad's cooking so much I can't stand it. Bangchan is practically useless, which means I've been surviving mostly on takeout and frozen food since I got here. I reach my hand out, practically drooling, but Dad snaps the lid shut and pushes the container behind him.

"Not until you've had dinner," he says, pointing his finger at me sternly.

He makes it about two seconds before we both dissolve into laughter.

"Wow, Dad, so convincing."

"It's not his fault, honey. He's out of practice."

"Yeah, there's no one at home to sneak cookies but your mother," he says, kissing her on the cheek.

Bangchan walks in right then, a large pizza box with several takeout containers balanced in his hands and a two-liter of orange soda wedged precariously underneath his arm.

"Little help?" he calls, and we all rush over as he kicks the door shut with his foot.

Dad and I take the food into the kitchen and start setting up the table while Mom and Bangchan share a long hug.

It doesn't take long once we're all sitting around the table for the conversation to turn from day-to-day catching up to the real elephant in the room. Mainly because I can't help but bring it up. It's been two weeks since I moved in with Bangchan, and updates on the lawsuit have been almost nonexistent. Bangchan says they're probably just trying to shield me from it, but I don't want shielding; I want to be a part of it.

"Soooo . . ." I drag the word out until everyone looks up. "Any updates from Sehun?"

Oh Sehun, partner at Oh & Byun Attorneys at Law, is the lead on our case. He's the one who sends me questions and requests for statements and stuff—well, his assistant, anyway. But any true updates are filtered through my parents first, like I'm an afterthought to him, even though this case is for and about me.

"Nothing important," Mom says cheerfully, grabbing another garlic knot.

"How about the unimportant stuff?" I ask.

Dad sighs. "These things take time, Kazuha. You can't expect results overnight."

"I don't expect results overnight, but I'd like to be kept in the loop the way I was when I was still home. I—"

"The whole purpose of you coming here was to give you a fresh start," Mom cuts in. "If you're just going to be worrying about it all the time, then you might as well have kept homeschooling with us." She squeezes my hand. "We're only a couple months in, and Sehun said these things move incredibly slow. I want you to enjoy what's left of your senior year."

"I'm good. I told you. I'm settling in. I'm making friends. I'm doing as much normal kid stuff as possible when you're a runner banned from running and your college decision is up in the air. I know what you're trying to do, but not knowing what's going on is just freaking me out more."

I glance at dad. His elbows are on the table, his hands clasped in front of his mouth the way he does whenever he's thinking hard about something.

"Dad?"

He clears his throat and sits up straighter. "St. Mary's offered us a deal last week."

I can tell by how hard Mom exhales that he wasn't supposed to mention this.

"A deal?" Bangchan asks, his eyes shifting from Dad to me and back again. "What kind of a deal?"

"They'll support the waiver going through and give a 'positive reference' to any or all of your offering colleges."

"In exchange for . . . ?" I trail off, my knee starting to bounce.

"Dropping all civil actions."

I let out a nervous laugh and rub my hand over my forehead. "You said no, right?"

"We're still considering all of our options, but—"

"What does Sehun say?"

"Sehun thinks it's a fair offer," Dad says. "You'd get back everything they tried to take from you. You'd be in good standing again. You could run—"

"A fair offer? After what I went through?"

"Maybe you should consider it," Bangchan pipes up, but I shoot him a look that has him instantly diving into the pizza box to avoid my gaze.

"I want this to mean something. I need something good to come out of it, not just 'Kazuha gets to run again.' What they did to me, how they made me feel . . . nobody should have to go through that. And there are other queer kids at that school ..."

"I know, baby," Mom says, and my eyes start to well up.

"Does Sehun think we have to take the deal? Do we have to give up?" I ask, my voice wavering.

And, god, here I really thought getting hit by a car was going to be the worst thing to happen to me today.

"No, no," Mom says, rubbing my arm reassuringly. "We're not giving up."

"Jisoo," my dad says.

"We are not giving up," my mom says again, looking him in the eye. "There are just a few hiccups we have to deal with."

"Like?"

"For one, Sehun says the harassment claim isn't going to go anywhere because you gave as much as you got at first, and we need to make you look as sympathetic as possible—"

"That's hardly the biggest issue," Dad interrupts.

I look between them. "Then what is?"

Dad purses his lips, like he's deciding how much to say. "Because St. Mary's is a private school, all the typical freedom of speech and discrimination laws don't apply."

"Are you serious?" Anger wells up inside of me. "So this was all for nothing?"

"No," Dad says. "No. The publicity from this lawsuit put tremendous pressure on them. They're willing to back off on the waiver stuff now, and before they wouldn't even consider it! I call that a win. You'd get your life back."

"That's it?" I shout. "They just get away with it, then?"

Dad sighs. "Kazuha—"

"There is precedent in California," Mom cuts him off. "The state ruled that private-school students don't lose their constitutional rights at the door. We can try to run it up the ladder here and see what happens. Sehun says it's a slim chance, but possible."

"Okay." I take a deep breath and try to calm down. "Okay, then we keep fighting, right? A slim chance is better than none."

"We can try, honey bun," Mom says with a soft smile.

Dad gets up and clangs his dishes loudly in the sink. He stands there for a moment, head hung, fingers clenching the counter, but when he turns around, a familiar smile is fixed on his face. "Is there a game on, Chan?"

"Um, yeah," my brother says, carrying his own plate to the sink and then pulling a couple beers out of the fridge. "Yankees versus Red Sox started about fifteen minutes ago."

Dad cracks open a beer and gulps down half of it in one solid swig. "Go, Yankees."