Chapter 14

Sunday~

I never cry because I know that it'll never change

The members were all expected at JYP that afternoon, so the five of us—3Racha, Hyunjin, and me—piled into the car and returned to our dorm to get ready. Once they left, I took the time to shower and dress myself in clean clothes that didn't belong to my brother. The dorm was quiet compared to the noise I'd experienced in the past couple of days; it had been a while since I'd had any time alone.

I took a walk into the city, breathing in the cool air and buying myself some bungeoppang from a street vendor. You couldn't really find them in America, and I'd missed the taste of the fish-shaped waffles and the sweet red bean paste they were filled with. Everything in Seoul was exactly how I remembered it.

Minus my family, of course. In my childhood, Seoul had always been a place of travel, visiting for a week or so when an important relative came to town, or to see some famous show. But those trips had always been accompanied by my parents, and now I remembered my mother's clipped, usually disappointed voice along with the flashing lights.

I forced my thoughts away from that. My mother ... my mother was a piece of my life I tried very, very hard to ignore. Somehow, she always found a way to slip into my thoughts, but I'd gotten better at blocking her out. It had been especially hard in the first couple weeks I'd been in America. Every decision I made, her voice was in my head, questioning it. And whenever my homework weighed down on me like a physical stone, or I looked back at my writing pieces and found nothing worthy of showing to the rest of the world, she was there, telling me it was foolish to run from everything I knew and pursue some fruitless dream half a world away.

It was her voice that made me want to give up, but at the same time, it was her voice that kept me from actually doing so. However terrible I was doing in America, I was away from her. And however much her voice persisted in my head, it would be much worse than that if I ever went back. I would have to hear her, look her in the eye and tell her I'd failed, and that was enough drive to keep me going.

After a while, I found other reasons to keep myself motivated, keep myself working towards the finish line, and her voice faded over time. But I know it will never fade away completely. It's just one of those things that follows you, wherever you go. I accepted that a long time ago.

There were other things that made me want to give up, though. Learning new culture, new customs, was hard in itself; trying to survive college on top of it all was practically a suicide mission. But I'd always been good at studying. I threw myself into my work; I met with teachers, wrote hundreds of emails, chose to study in the library or my dorm instead of going out for the night. I probably would've wasted away my whole life like that if not for Claire.

She showed me college was about having fun, too. I could prioritize my work, but I couldn't prioritize it over my life. I'd come to the U.S. because I wanted a better education than the one that had been set up for me—an education on things I actually wanted to learn, where I didn't have to visit home every night—but also because I wanted to live. See the world, however cliche that sounds, where I wanted and how I wanted. Freedom in its truest form. And sitting at a desk going over mathematical formulas wasn't freedom—it was just a different kind of cage.

But I managed to get out of it, and it took hell to do so.

-

The thing is, my parents weren't exactly on board with the whole 'college in America' plan. As in, I told them about it a week before my departure.

I hadn't wanted to cut it so close, but it had never been the right time, and I had always been afraid. But in the end, my fear was unnecessary. My mother had just looked me in the eye after I'd told her, told me that if I wanted to spend my life piss-poor at whatever college in America that would have me, struggling and alone, I should. It will be a good lesson for you, to learn better respect. And when you come crawling back home, not even 1000₩‎ in your pocket, we will welcome you with open arms. Then maybe you will see the importance of family, since you clearly have not learned.

Somehow, her words always managed to slip past my guards. I had braced myself for her anger, her rage; I had braced myself for her trying to convince me not to go. I hadn't expected her to be completely indifferent, and it hurt more than I realized.

But I refused to let her shatter my self-esteem, no matter how guilty I was when I boarded that plane to New York city. I'd been going behind my parent's back ever since the dream of America slipped into my head, even as they helped me apply to big colleges in Seoul and made plans for boarding and tuition, unaware I never had any intention of seeing out those plans. Every bit of research I'd done about college in America, every application—the only thing that had eased my guilt enough to keep applying was that I never believed I'd actually get in. It was a secret fixation, a plan destined to fail, but I couldn't stop myself from going down the rabbit hole that promised an escape.

And then the rabbit hole turned into a tunnel, and the light at the end of it was America.

Somehow, I was accepted into Columbia University—with a full scholarship—and then, somehow, I qualified for student loans to pay off room and board. And suddenly, my far-fetched dream turned into a dream that wasn't very far away at all, and then a possibility, and then finally a reality.

So no matter how much hearing those words from my mother and torn into all the fragile confidence I'd built up in myself, I didn't let them stop me.

I'd gotten in, after all. Everything else I could figure out later.

And I did.

-

College was still hard. Even with the loans and the scholarship, there were times when I was so behind on everything—work, finances, plans for the future—I wanted to quit and do exactly what my mother expected of me: crawl back to Korea with my tail between my legs and go to the college she'd chosen for me, relying on her money and support.

But the longer I spent in America, the more I fell in love with it.

Not America, exactly. America was stock-full of housing prices so high no one could afford to live anymore, racist people who didn't even know my name and still glared at me as I walked down the street, and some of the shittiest fast food I'd ever eaten.

But in that, there was so much life.

Before I came to New York, I hadn't heard of the phrase "the city that never sleeps," but I didn't need to know it to believe it. Everything was so vibrant, from the colors graffitiing the walls to the people living behind them. I was free, too: free to set my own expectations and pursue my own interests. I'd never known that kind of life before, and once I tasted it I was never going to be able to go back.

Still, though, my old life touched me, running its claws down my spine when I tried to fall asleep at night and jabbing me in the chest when I missed Korea so much I could barely breathe. I pushed through it as best I could, but Korea was where I was born. It called to me.

So did my mother, approximately one month after I'd started school. I'd checked my phone after waking up and seen the red alert on my home screen, claiming I had 1 missed call from 엄마. No voicemail.

I was very, very lucky that she'd tried to contact me when I was asleep, because if she'd called me and I'd been given the choice to accept, I might have taken it.

That thought scared me enough that I let her every one of her calls go to voicemail, when she called me later that day and every time after. She never left a voicemail, never texted, and for that I was knee-waveringly grateful.

Had I not been in America—had I been at some other college she'd wanted me to go to in Seoul—declining her calls would've been a death sentence.

She was always supposed to be my priority. If she tried to contact me, I would drop everything and answer, or else she would punish me when I got home.

Never big punishments, though. Little things, small enough that I would feel stupid for calling them punishments at all: silence during dinner. Making me miss out on plans that weekend in favor of staying home to study, or to come visit her friends with her in the city even though she knew I hated their judging eyes and sugar-coated comments about how my cheeks had gotten too chubby and I must have such a wonderful mother for me to be excelling this much in school. Sharper words, clipped gazes and narrowed eyes, until I felt like a criminal in my own house, sneaking around and disobeying, and I couldn't take it and burst out apologizing.

She never had to say a word.

One time when this happened, I cried. I hadn't meant to miss her call, but I'd been hanging out with a friend and hadn't been checking my phone. She'd given me the cold shoulder for a week, and when I finally broke and apologized to her, I'd cried.

Emotions like that were unacceptable. Crying made me seem weak; it made me seem pitiful, emotional, everything my mother was against. In her world, power was the only way to be successful, and the only way to attain power was to never act on your emotions. She taught me to value status and standing over everything.

She'd stared down at me as I cried, and her contempt was so clear that I'd only cried harder. She'd said nothing, just waited until I managed to control myself enough to stop.

Look at the mess you've made, Yeji. You've spilled water all over the floor.

I'd rushed to get a towel to mop it up, intent on earning her forgiveness by cleaning up my own mess. That was how it had worked: she'd never needed to tell me to clean it up, never needed to tell me I'd disappointed her. I would throw everything down to please her anyway.

Because of this, I was too afraid to ever cry until I was twenty-one.

It was finals week. I had spent four hours trying to understand biochemistry and had gotten nowhere, and now it was almost 3 a.m. I was on the verge of tears when Claire showed up in the quiet, deserted section of the library I'd holed myself up in bearing the gifts of pizza and Coke, even though there was a strict rule against having food in the library.

"I tried to sneak it past the front desk by putting it under my shirt, but the librarian drew me into a three-minute conversation about how my life was going, so it might not be the freshest," she'd said, and I'd burst into tears.

It was one of the most mortifying moments of my life. I'd been so embarrassed about crying in front of her I'd actually tried to run away, but Claire had caught my arm and gently pulled me into a hug. That action—that single act of comfort had utterly shocked me. No one had ever responded to my tears with tenderness before, my sadness with softness. She didn't frown, or tell me to stop, or walk away. She just sat with me for twenty minutes while I cried uncontrollably, and then put a finger to my lips when I tried to apologize and handed me a slice of pizza.

I might've fallen in love with her right then.

We spent the next hour studying together, and somehow, science was a hell of a lot easier when she was there. I didn't really like pizza, but I was hungry, and I didn't want to make Claire feel bad. I couldn't bring myself to eat the crusts, though. I fell asleep on her shoulder in a crash of Coke and sleep deprivation, and we would've stayed there the rest of the night if the librarian didn't make a final sweep before closing at 4 a.m. and scold us for leaving crumbs scattered all over the carpet.

After that, however, I discovered I didn't dislike pizza at all.

-

It had been less than half an hour since I'd returned to the dorm when the door to my room burst open and the soft, solitary peace I'd had all morning shattered. Felix shot into the room like a rocket, followed by Jisung, who slammed it shut and leaned against it, out of breath, his beanie slipping over his eyes. "Hide us," Felix said to me. "Hide us now."

I stood, alarmed. "What? What's wrong? From who?"

"Channie-hyung," Jisung gasped, pulling out something from his pocket and brandishing it like a mystical artifact. "We stole his phone."

"Oh, no no no. I won't be a part of this." I backed away from the phone quickly. "Go find somewhere else to hide."

"Please, noona," Felix begged. "Chan-hyung could be here any second."

I melted at his eyes. "Fine. Get into the closet, quickly. Give me the phone." I ushered them into the closet, quickly pulling the door shut.

"Could you change all his contact names to NCT songs while you have it?" Felix asked through the closet, his voice muffled. "We didn't get the chance because we were changing his wallpaper to selfies."

"Make me Hot Sauce," said Jisung.

"Shh," I hissed, stuffing the phone into my pants pocket as footsteps thudded against the carpet; a second later, the door opened, and Chan entered the room, looking around.

I noticed Jisung's beanie on the floor a second before he did. Instincts took over, and I threw myself onto the carpet, covering his hat with my body, then desperately tried to play it off as Chan looked at me like I had sprouted another head. "Yeji-noona, what are you doing?"

"The floor is very soft," I told him. "I've been very into carpeting recently. This is really a quality brand---my compliments to the former homeowners."

From behind me, there was a snort of laughter, quickly muffled. Chan eyed me with a little suspicion and a lot of concern. "I'm looking for Jisung and Felix. Do you know where they could've gone?"

"Nope," I said, a beat too fast. "I heard them run past me into Hyunjin's room, though. Maybe they went over there. Did you catch the game last night?"

Chan opened his mouth, then closed it.

"Dodgers won. I always knew they had what it took."

"Yeji," said Chan.

"Yeah?"

"Please get off the floor."

I winced, slowly making my way to my feet. "Oh my god, would you look at that! Jisung must have left his beanie here when he came to my room yesterday. Which he does. A lot."

"And why is that?" asked Chan.

I bit my lip. "We're, uh ... having an affair."

A choking sound came from the closet. I quickly coughed to cover it up. "I know, I really should tell Claire about it," I said, deciding to roll with it, "But Jisung hasn't told Hyunjin yet, and I feel like it would be weird if only one of us told our partner—" I stopped, noticing that Chan's eyebrows had touched his hairline and didn't seem to be stopping. "Anyways."

"So you definitely don't know where Jisung and Felix are?" Chan asked me.

I shook my head. "Nope."

He gave me a look. "You know, Yeji, I'm pretty cold. Can I borrow one of your jackets, please?"

Panic shot through me. "No!"

"Why not?"

"I—I don't have any."

"That's absurd, of course you do," said Chan, and before I could stop him, stepped around me and opened the closet door. "You have one, two, hi Jisung, hi Felix, three—"

Felix waved sheepishly. "Hi, hyung."

Chan turned to me, hands on his hips, while Jisung and Felix climbed out of the closet with the faces of people who'd been caught red-handed. "Well, would you look at that, Yeji. Now, unless you're having an affair with two of the members, I think it's safe to say the chase is up." He turned back to Jisung and Felix. "Game's over, you two. Where is it?"

"Beats me," said Jisung.

"Yeah, people lose their phones all the time," said Felix. "You probably just misplaced it somewhere."

Chan arched a brow. "Except I didn't say it was my phone I was looking for, did I?"

Felix's expression morphed into one of a child's when they'd been caught stealing dessert from the cookie jar. Jisung facepalmed. "Felix—"

"Hand it over," said Chan, holding out his palm.

Jisung high-fived him instead. "Yeah, so here's the thing ... we don't actually have it." He cast me a sheepish look. "Yeji hid it."

I widened my eyes at him in alarm. "Traitor," I hissed.

"What was I supposed to do? You didn't cover us very well," Jisung whispered at me, keeping his voice low.

"I wasn't the one who dropped my hat trying to hide," I whispered back angrily.

"And I wasn't the one who decided the best excuse was to claim to be having an affair with me," Jisung shot back.

"You wish you could pull me!"

"I can hear both of you perfectly well," Chan pointed out, and we stopped arguing. He turned his attention to me. "Yeji?"

I swallowed, trying to think fast. "Um..." I looked over to the boys; Felix made a go-on motion to me, telling me to keep stalling for time.

I shuffled over to my bed. "Maybe I put it here." I lifted the pillow. "Nope. Maybe I put it over here..."

Felix unsubtly gave me a thumbs up behind his back.

Chan sighed, rubbing his temples. "Someone just call it."

"I'll do it," Jisung said, pulling out his own phone.

Chan's expression shifted into one of alarm. "Wait, no—"

He was cut off suddenly by the sound of Blackpink's How You Like That, quickly followed by Jisung's voice singing along with Lisa. Chan winced.

Jisung looked at him, confused. "...from the karaoke night we had when we were trainees?"

Chan nodded.

"But I thought you hated my singing that night," said Jisung, brows knitted together. "You told me that me singing along to Blackpink would be the music that blasts on repeat at the gates of Hell."

"I do—I did," Chan protested. "The recording just kinda ... grew on me. You harmonized with Jisoo-noona kind of perfectly. And I knew I couldn't tell you, or else you wouldn't let me live it down."

Jisung's face split into a grin. "You're right. I won't. Do the others know?"

"No, and you'd better keep it that way."

"Not a chance," he said, grinning wider. "And how wonderful, that Talk Time is in a couple hours!" 

I blinked. "Hey, what's Talk Time?"

Felix frowned. "You don't ... Changbin-hyung didn't tell you?"

"Tell me about what?"

"Talk Time." At my confusion, he looked to Chan to explain.

"Every Sunday night, at the end of the week, we all sit down after or before dinner and talk," Chan explained, his quarrel with Jisung forgotten. "We settle any arguments that have been going on during that week, talk about any pressures we've been experiencing, and go over our schedule for the next week. You weren't there for the one last week, were you? Have you really only been with us six days?"

"I ... I guess so," I said. "I came Monday morning, so..."

"Huh," said Jisung. "Feels like longer."

"Yeah," I said softly. Then a thought hit me. "Wait, Talk Time is on Sunday? Like every Sunday?"

"Pretty much," said Felix.

My mind raced. Maybe that was what Chan had been talking about, in the quiet part of the night. I know, he'd said. We'll talk about it, I promise. But save it for Sunday.

In my sleep-addled brain, I hadn't realized Sunday was the next day. But now that I thought about it, it made sense that Chan was referencing a specific event rather than the whole day of Sunday. So he could've been talking about 'Talk Time.'

"Is it okay if I'm there?" I asked, speaking the words as they came to my head. "I can drive somewhere—like a restaurant or something...."

"No, you'll be fine," Chan said quickly. "It can be ... personal, I guess, if there's something serious we need to talk about. But I'm sure the members are all comfortable enough with you that they won't care if you're there."

"Yeah, you've already seen Hyunjinnie cry, like, three times," said Jisung. "And you've seen Minho-hyung and Seungmin fight before." He grinned, tossing an arm over my shoulders. "You've seen it all, Yeji-noona. And now you'll see Jeonginnie's face when I tell him Channie-hyung has my lovely voice as his ringtone." He winked at Chan, who grimaced.

I laughed. "Alright, if you're all sure I wouldn't be intruding."

"It'd actually be nice with you there," Felix added. "Chan-hyung and Changbinnie-hyung are the mediators a lot, but since you're not part of the group like they are, you'd help keep everything calm."

"We could use some help," said Chan, offering me a smile. "I barely managed to stop the members from organizing themselves into a boycott against JYP-E last week."

"Pshh, we're still going to do that sometime," Jisung said. "Rioting is fun, and they need to stop forcing such strict diets on TWICE—they're already being overworked enough."

"Rioting is fun when it doesn't get us fired," Chan countered.

I tilted my head to the side. "I see why you might want my help."

He cast me a grateful look. "Thank you."

"Oh, no, I was talking to Jisung." I returned his grin. "TWICE is amazing, but they don't need harsh forced diet plans to look good, and JYP needs to start prioritizing their mental health more. When should I start making protest signs?"

"Sweet mother of Jesus, there's two of them," Chan mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"Hyung, she's not wrong," Felix pointed out. "Remember the last time we talked to Nayeon-noona? She was practically sleepwalking, she was so tired. And she said JYP had recently put them all on a new diet..."

Chan looked at each of us in turn. He let out a long sigh. "I'll help with the signs."