| Episode 44. Family Invitation Event (1)
Some time later.
A middle-aged woman visited Spark’s dormitory.
“Long time no see, everyone. Is this the friend I’ve never seen before—the new one, Iwol?”
It was Jeong Seongbin’s mother.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Seongbin’s mom.”
She set her luggage down in the entryway and held out her hand to me.
I quickly took her hand in both of mine and greeted her.
“Yes, hello.”
I considered adding, “It’s my first time meeting you,” but held back.
I may never have met a friend’s parents before, but even I could tell that sort of wording wasn’t normal. All I had to do was look at Lee Cheonghyeon, who was bouncing around beside Jeong Seongbin’s parents.
Sure enough, Jeong Seongbin’s mother smiled and said to me,
“My goodness, Iwol is much more gentlemanly than Seongbin made you sound.”
Already? My back isn’t even halfway bent yet.
If I had added that it was my first time meeting her, she might have said, “What a proper young man. He’s got such good posture.”
More importantly, what had Jeong Seongbin told his mother about me?
I was anxious, but I didn’t particularly want to know. So instead of interrogating Jeong Seongbin, I decided to carry his mother’s luggage.
“Give that to me and sit down comfortably.”
“Oh, no, no. I’ll put it in the refrigerator.”
With that, she picked up the large shopping bag she had set down.
Only after a brief tug-of-war was I able to take the bag and head for the kitchen.
The shopping bag was packed full of airtight containers. There was so much luggage that I wondered if she had come dressed so simply for the sake of convenience.
Seeing this, Jeong Seongbin said,
“You brought side dishes again? You’re so busy with work.”
“It’s not like I come often. This much is easy enough to make. Giyeon, Cheonghyeon! Can you two put these out on the balcony?”
At his mother’s instruction, Gang Giyeon and Lee Cheonghyeon hurried into action.
Everyone moved so briskly that it seemed this wasn’t something they were doing for the first or second time.
That was when the doorbell rang again.
His mother, who had been busy taking things out of the shopping bag, lifted her head and said,
“Ah. That must be your father.”
“Dad came too? Didn’t he have work today?”
“He took a day off. When I said I was coming to see you, he insisted on coming too.”
Hearing that it was Jeong Seongbin’s father, I hurried over to the front door.
When I opened it, a man with features strikingly similar to Jeong Seongbin’s was standing there.
He was carrying grocery bags twice as large as the ones his mother had brought.
“Oh? I don’t recognize this face. Are you Iwol?”
“Yes, hello!”
I had seen plenty of men around his age before.
The convenience store owner, for instance, or the people I had worked with during my delivery gigs.
Even so, I couldn’t help feeling strangely awkward because the man standing before me was my colleague’s father.
Thanks to that, I had to bust out the “answer in a loud voice” technique I had only ever used at UA.
And this time, I successfully helped carry his luggage to the kitchen.
That was when his mother’s thunderous voice rang out.
“Goodness, why did you make the kid carry that? I told you there were fruits inside and it was heavy!”
“Oh dear, I forgot.”
“It wasn’t that heavy, so it’s fine, ma’am!”
Afraid of becoming the little shrimp caught between a whale and a prawn, I hurriedly offered an explanation.
When Jeong Seongbin and I opened the grocery bags, they too were filled to the brim with brightly colored plastic containers.
“Is there anything you can’t eat, Iwol? I tried to prepare a variety of things, but I was worried there might not be anything for you.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am. I eat everything!”
“Hyung only eats jjolmyeon, but he eats all the vegetables in it too!”
Because of my time at Hanpyeong Industries, where I had learned to drink even hard liquor if it came from a superior, the answer came automatically… only for Lee Cheonghyeon to ruin it.
I couldn’t understand why that guy was so obsessed with my taste in food.
“Iwol, do you like jjolmyeon?”
“Haha, a little!”
It seemed that after the two of them left, I would have to spend some quality time having a serious talk with Lee Cheonghyeon in our room.
Just wait. I’ll give you a lecture you’ll never forget.
Only after we had put away all three enormous shopping bags’ worth of food could we finally gather in the living room.
While the guys chatted with the adults, I decided to make tea.
After all, having spent years entertaining guests, my pride wouldn’t let me sit still and order someone else to do it.
‘Although doing this makes me feel like I’m in the break room, which is a little unsettling.’
Before any moldy memories could resurface, I hurriedly placed seven cups of warm roasted Solomon’s-seal tea and one cup of lukewarm water for myself onto a tray, then headed to the living room.
Park Juwoo looked at my transparent cup and asked,
“…Why are you just drinking water, hyung?”
“To prevent tooth discoloration.”
If I couldn’t do anything about my face, shouldn’t I at least maintain a clean appearance?
Despite my efforts to improve the group’s average visual appeal, the expressions on the guys’ faces as they looked at me were exceptionally strange.
I was well aware of my shortcomings, so I wished they wouldn’t emphasize them with their eyes.
While I endured the members’ piercing gazes, Jeong Seongbin’s parents checked in on each member one by one.
“I heard you injured your ankle last time, Giyeon. Has it healed completely?”
“Yes, it’s perfectly fine now.”
“Jeho, you’ve gotten even taller since I last saw you. How do you keep growing so quickly?”
The way they spoke made it clear that they had been watching over the trainees for a long time.
At the same time, for some reason, a single scene from a trashy weekend drama kept replaying in my head.
You know—the scene where the future mother-in-law says to the female lead, “How tacky. You’re far too low-class to be a match for my son!”
‘If they heard that some nobody they’d never heard of had joined the group their son had spent years preparing to debut in, they might understandably feel that way.’
The side dishes she had mentioned earlier might even have been the real-life equivalent of a “don’t let them feel left out” care package.
If I were in their shoes and found out that a guy who had crawled out of who-knows-where was going to share a boat with a son like Jeong Seongbin for seven years, my anxiety would probably pierce the roof too.
Once their greetings with all the guys were over, my turn finally came.
“Iwol…”
I quickly racked my brain, trying to predict what would come next.
‘What made you think you could become an idol?’
Or maybe…
‘Are you really planning to stay at UA until debut?’
If not—
‘Do people often tell you that you’re rather oblivious?’
The moment my thoughts reached that point, I desperately wanted to run away.
My heart felt even more constricted than it had during the pressure interview I’d witnessed at Hanpyeong Industries.
I knew better than to recklessly doubt the goodwill of others, especially my elders.
And yet it felt as though my brain was using every bit of energy in my entire body to come up with terrible thoughts.
After one second that lasted a thousand years, Jeong Seongbin’s mother spoke.
“Is there anything difficult about being a trainee?”
“Huh?”
I was thrown off. It was a type of question I hadn’t anticipated at all.
Who in this world didn’t have something difficult in their life?
Even if the absurd condition of debuting as an idol hung over me, if I could truly save my sister, then I had to consider myself fortunate to have received an opportunity most people would never get.
Besides, while the colleagues I had to debut alongside had gotten into a bit of trouble, their abilities were guaranteed.
Complaining in a situation like this would be a luxury.
I smiled and answered.
“Yes, I’m working hard!”
…And I meant it. Completely honestly.
* * *
Jeong Seongbin’s parents stayed for about an hour before leaving.
I asked whether they shouldn’t at least stay for dinner, but they refused again and again, saying they didn’t want to disturb the kids’ time to relax together.
When I asked Jeong Seongbin, he said, surprisingly, that both of them were going straight home.
The adults in my family never came home for about three days once they went out.
Then again, as I grew up and listened to other people talk about their families, it seemed that most families gathered at home once night fell.
While we cleaned up the living room after their visit, dividing the work according to the dormitory rules, Jeong Seongbin approached me holding an empty cup.
I had been doing the dishes myself so the guys’ hands wouldn’t get chapped in cold water—especially for the fans who loved their hands on the microphone.
“Is that cup for the dishes? Just leave it over there.”
“No. Um, hyung. I’m sorry about today…”
“Sorry for what? Did you spit in the cup on your way here?”
Manager Nam sometimes spat phlegm near my shoes when he was in a bad mood. That was why I hated people who spat on the street.
But what Jeong Seongbin confessed wasn’t anything from that unpleasant category.
“My mom and dad made you uncomfortable, didn’t they?”
“Huh?”
Jeong Seongbin fidgeted with the cup’s handle as he struggled to continue.
“I know you’re not the type to be shy around strangers, hyung, but you seemed kind of tense today.”
Tense? Not flustered?
‘I thought I was just a little out of sorts because it was a situation I’d never encountered before.’
Now that I thought about it, there was a flaw in that reasoning.
If I were the kind of person who couldn’t adapt to an unfamiliar environment, I should have bombed the college entrance exam or flopped at the Hanpyeong Industries interview.
But I hadn’t ruined the exam—and unfortunately, I hadn’t failed to attend the Hanpyeong Industries interview either.
I wasn’t even sure whether I had been flustered because of some unconscious desire to make a good impression. I had met countless people I needed to impress throughout my life.
‘There must have been about twenty people at the university alone whom I needed to impress.’
That meant there was no reason for me to become anxious over wanting to make a good impression on someone.
Then there was only one conclusion.
‘Was I nervous because I was afraid of making a bad impression on my colleague’s parents?’
It was fucking embarrassing, but that explanation made sense.
No, it was the only explanation that made sense.
If I’d met the family of someone I knew before, I wouldn’t have had to fumble around this badly. But I had frozen up all by myself, drumming the buk, striking the janggu, and apparently even playing an ocarina.
At this point, it was more than simply worrying about making a verbal slip in front of an adult.
I covered my embarrassment with a cough and said,
“I haven’t had many opportunities to talk to people around my parents’ age. It was only because I’m not used to it. I wasn’t uncomfortable at all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Both of them took good care of us. So don’t feel sorry.”
I answered indirectly, since Jeong Seongbin looked as though someone had written “I’m sorry” across his forehead.
It wasn’t as if he had anything to apologize for in the first place. Apologies were for when people like those from my birth family came around.
I briefly imagined such a situation, then realized it had been a pointless thing to do.
I had nearly dropped one of the dormitory’s few glass cups into the sink because of how fucking awful it made me feel.
Just as I was trying to clear my tangled thoughts, I arrived at one question.
How had Jeong Seongbin noticed my abnormal state of mind?