𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐎𝐖𝐍, 𝐊𝐈𝐃 // Love Next Door //

FIVE.

━ -ˋˏ*.·:·.✧.·:·.*ˎˊ- ━

When her father comes near and she has to repeat the same string of words that she practically shouted for the whole neighborhood block to hear, he takes a step back. His legs give out and the sound of him hitting the ground shocks everyone, including her furious mother.

"Give him space! Give him space!" Seunghyo's father orders them, quickly rushing up the hill. He stops Mrs. Seo and her mother from smothering her already faint father, who lies in the middle of the street. "Bae Geunsik-ssi, it's okay," he gets down on his knees beside him and empties out the paper sandwich-bag in his hand for him to use, "take this! Okay, okay–calm and deep breaths, in and out."

"What's happening?Aigo-aigoo...my daughter–she's not—everything that—no, no...why's the world spinning so fast? Dr. Choi, hey, hey—" He blinks with sudden alarm for the way Seunghyo's father reaches down to undo his belt buckle and loosen up his pants.

Dr. Choi understands and doesn't try to help any further, seeing that the man is back to breathing normal. Still, he grabs onto his arm and pulls him up to carefully stand.

"I'm fine, I'm okay," her father nods. Letting out one last heavy sigh, he turns and meets Seokhui's eyes but before he can do or say anything, her mother steps in.

"You better stop messing with us, Seokhui."

She glances between both her parents, who despite the utter look of shock and disappointment shown in their eyes, she can still see that they want to move past this. Knows that they'll be ready to forgive her by the end, only if she were to admit that all this is a joke. A cruel one but, nonetheless, just a joke.

"I'm not messing with you—"

"Look at the state of your father! You brat, stop this now, or you'll give us both a heart attack," her mother insists, wishing that she'd give up but she can't.

"Eomma!" She shouts back at her, voice loud enough that it silences the neighborhood block.

Her mother stares at her, mouth gaped while the others stand and watch frozen in place. The only one who moves to take a step closer to her is Seunghyo, who looks at her with the same expectant furrowed brow as the rest of them.

She takes a deep breath and lets out, unmistakably serious, "Eomma. Appa. I am not joking. I came back because the wedding is not happening and my relationship with Dylan is over."

While her father is at a loss for words, her mother lets go of the black plastic bag she carries in one hand. The potatoes roll out and disappear down the hill but the wrapped bundle of leeks seems to be okay as it hits the ground. Mrs. Seo widens her eyes and murmurs a string of words in French that Seokhui can't quite understand over her mother's outrage.

"You've gone completely nuts!"

"Eomma—"

"Only a nutjob would pull a stunt like this a month before the wedding! You crazy brat— Come here!"

Seokhui clutches the back of Seunghyo's shoulders at an instant, tugging him this way and that way, as she uses his taller height to her favor and hides from her mother's fire-breathing fury.

For a moment—a very fleeting, miniscule, double-quick beat of her heart—she feels ashamed to be doing this to him. To Choi Seunghyo, who's been the kid she tried for most of her childhood to push away from her side, and now she's here, with her desperate hands clinging onto him back.

But her mother's anger terrifies. It drowns her in a greater shame that undoubtedly wins over the silly notions of her racing heartbeat.

And she can put a stop to it, her mother's anger that is. Like her brazen sister Seokryu did when she was faced with their parent's great disapproval of her moving abroad, she can get angry too. She can drive her point through with the same amount of uproar.

She's a grown woman, she can yell if she needs to. Their younger brother Dongjin has done this, too, and in many more instances than either of Seokryu or her at that.

She's in her right.

Seokhui knows that fighting fire with fire is how things are usually resolved when it comes to dealing with their mother's anger. But acting on this knowledge is where she will always start to deviate from her sister and brother. Because neither of them have stuck around for the aftermath like Seokhui's done. Whether it's been Dongjin, who after arguing with their mother has often stormed off back upstairs and into his room until the heat's died down, or whether it's been Seokryu, who didn't get their mother's goodbye at the airport and had to hold back tears in her eyes until she boarded the flight—not one or the other knew what it was to be there and face the hurt in their mother's eyes after the fight.

See how pathetic and small that raging storm of a woman really became at the end of such things.

While Seokhui held their mother close and let her cry until all was better, Dongjin locked himself away and Seokryu moved on.

If Seokhui did what anyone else would do; if she stood up against the fight; if she yelled and got angry at her mother back; then... Seokhui can't help but ask herself this: who is going to be there to hold Eomma and let her cry until all is better?

If not me, then who?

Not her group of best friends, the Suk Sisters. Seokhui knows her mother too well. Her mother's too proud to go crying to them about something like this. And she's also too stubborn to have her father see her that way.

The best she can do is bite her tongue and hold her breath as she's submerged in the chaos. And be thankful. To Choi Seunghyo, who has decided to stay and help her.

Seokhui can't help but notice that he's changed— but of course that he would—just like any other person, he's gotten older.

Like Seokryu, Moeum, Dongjin, and her, Seunghyo grew up, too.

He's not the same little kid who got so easily pushed around by the older and meaner kids at the playground. He hasn't been that little kid since Fall of 2014, when he came back with his parents from the summer vacation he spent in France. He returned a full head taller than her for their freshman year of high school, and his towering height seemed to have deterred the bullies from picking on him after that.

Now, she's here to witness how Seunghyo has grown strong enough that he can actually take the hits now. (And she knows that a hit from her mother's like taking a hit from Manny Pacquiao.) So she's extremely grateful, that he now has broad shoulders that can shield her from her mother, and arms fit to cage her mother in and stop her from getting to her, every time she charges forward in an attempt to land a slap on her face.

All of this happening, and Seokhui has yet to tell any of them that she has quit her job, too.

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A/N: Hello my lovely readers, thank you for having this fic reach over 200 votes!! I'm currently going through midterm exams season so I'm sorry I couldn't update with a longer chapter, but since this fic has been receiving so much love from you guys, I wanted to try and give you something before having to take a short break meanwhile I finish with my exams and all!

Thank you for your patience and kind support, and as always, I wish you all lovelies a good rest of your day/night, hope to see you soon! ❤️❤️