Airplane//KTH

Chapter 25

Hadley smiled at him. "It's not the worst place to be stuck."

"No, it's not," Tae agreed, popping the last pretzel in his mouth. "In fact, there's nowhere else I'd rather be right now."

In the hallway of the darkened church, Dad paces restlessly, checking his watch and craning his neck toward the stairs every now and then as they wait for Ji to emerge from the basement. He looks like a teenager, flushed and eager for his date to arrive, and the thought crosses Hadley's mind that maybe this is what he wanted to be when he grew up. Husband to Kang Ji Hoon. Father to her baby. A man who spends Christmas in Seoul and goes on holiday to the south of France, who talks about art and politics and literature over slow-cooked meals and bottles of wine.

How odd that things turned out this way, especially since he'd been so close to staying home. Dream job or not, four months had seemed like such a long time to be away, and if it hadn't been for Mom—who urged him to go, who said it was his dream, who insisted he'd regret passing up such an opportunity—Dad would never even have met Ji in the first place.

But here they are, and as if cued by Hadley's unspoken musings, Ji appears at the top of the stairs, pink-cheeked and radiant in her dress. Without the veil, her dark hair now hangs in loose curls to her shoulders, and she seems to glide right into Dad's arms. Hadley looks away when they kiss, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. After a moment, Dad breaks away and sweeps an arm in Hadley's direction.

"I'd like you to meet my daughter," he says to Ji. "Officially."

Ji Hoon beams at her. "I'm so pleased you could make it," she says, pulling Hadley into a hug. She smells of lilacs, though it's hard to tell whether it's her perfume or the bouquet she's holding. Taking a step back again, Hadley notices the ring on her finger, at least double the size of Mom's, which Hadley still sneaks out of the jewellery box from time to time, slipping it onto her thumb and examining the carved faces of the diamond as if they might hold the key to her parents' unravelling.

"Sorry it took me so long," Ji says, turning back to Dad. "But you only get to take your wedding photos once."

Hadley considers mentioning that this is, in fact, Dad's second time around, but she manages to bite her tongue.

"Don't listen to her," Dad says to Hadley. "She takes this long even when she's just going out to the market."Ji whacks him lightly with her bouquet. "Aren't you supposed to act like a gentleman on your wedding day?"

Dad leans in and gives her a quick kiss. "For you, I'll try."

Hadley flicks her eyes away again, feeling like an intruder. She wishes she could slip outside without their noticing, but Ji is now smiling at her again with an expression Hadley isn't quite sure how to read.

"Has your dad had a chance to tell you about—"

"The father-daughter dance?" Dad says, cutting her off. "Yeah, I told her."

"Brilliant," Ji says, putting an arm around Hadley's shoulders conspiratorially. "I've already made sure there'll be plenty of ice at the reception for when your dad steps all over our toes."

Hadley smiles weakly. "Great."

"We should probably get out there and say a quick hello to everyone before it's time for photos," Dad suggests. "And then the whole wedding party is going back to the hotel before the reception," he tells Hadley. "So we just need to remember to grab your suitcase before we head over."

"Sure," she says, allowing herself to be led in the direction of the open doors at the end of the long corridor. She feels a bit like she's sleepwalking and concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, figuring the only way out of this-this wedding, this weekend, this whole blessed event—is to just keep moving forward.