I Was Born The Unloved Twin - 143 'Let's not go there'

Early in the morning, I checked up on my businesses in the making. Some research projects and stock inventory at home. I touched bases with Abbey, Georgie, the various kitchen staff, even communication through the troop’s kitchen line.

Mr. Boar is doing fine in the troop’s bakery, aka he’s been anxious for my return to the troops for quite some time. He believes the revolution of bread is among us. Something about the livestock feed that I bought once turning out unexpectedly delicious when ground up.

Well, he’s a little confused but he’s got the right spirit.

I also went to extra mile to even check if my minions were accounted for and not, oh say, rotting in a slave ship somewhere.

Just a few extra steps, I wasn’t worried or anything. Just making sure grampa was actually doing what I told him and not fucking off the prance around in the woods in his new onesie or something. And that’s keeping me up to date on my servents until the day I get trackers on all of the troublesome ones.

Sure Yuna was kinda very twitchy when I inquired. But he’s whole and busy, stuck with reports to fill on what he did for this unexpected operation. Very unexpected.

I don’t really know what to expect out of this life anymore. But at least we get written reports to fill the supervisors in. Get to it grumpy cat!

Meanwhile, Amar has been sleeping like the dead.

All locked up in some maximum security remodeling of the sickbay. Probably sedated and on something. For he did not wake up no matter how many pinches and wacks I had at him.

How did I know my minion ended up in the sickbay?

I just stalked followed the clues, the congregation of guards, the gossip whispered in the halls, and forced actual info out of grampa. Easy. Using the kitchen ding bell system it was easy as cake sneaking into the sickbay long enough to see for myself. Duh.

It is a tad concerning that my minion has landed himself in the sickbay, again. But what can be done about brain damaged brats who run off to get in trouble?

I’m pretty sure he just died in my other life. Just went and got himself killed really stupidly or something. But that could go for the majority of people. Statistically, they’re just more likely to die than anything.

I’m not too worried though, since someone must have had enough sense to stick him into my family’s sickbay. What a luxury? Hey, kid do you know how impossible it is to pass our gates let alone use up our facilities like that. For now though, despite my choice in words, the minion is not dead but merely sleeping. Very very very deeply.

I even put baked cinnamon twists I snuck up under his cute little nose, to no reaction!

That’s how I know he’s truly dead to the world.

I just chalk everyone’s oddity up to the nonsense fantasy magic of this world.

I munch on the cinnamon twists I brought up. I fake cry that my mother is coming. I slap him again for avoiding my interrogation. I even pinch his nose and smother his breathing with a pillow.

Yep, Amar is definitely dead.

From my slapping inspection, I see the kid is at least not injured, albeit drugged unconscious. Hmm, mochi cheeks are softening just a bit. The make Amar gain weight plan seems to be going along slow and steady.

I get one more half a slap more in before the not so secret masked guards show up, pulling me back out the bay.

“Please don’t do that, my young mistress.” says tall, dark and definitely handsome under there.

They didn’t have to deliver me straight to Alfonso though, sheesh. They even confiscated my snacks! Improve the manners to your young miss!

At least my direct minions are ok or at least accounted for. Good enough! For now.

And so I continued with the rest of my day.

So far so good right? Wait for it.

It was a pleasant enough time feeding and practice walking my horse, without the weight of guilt of juggling work stress. Isn’t that nice? When you can go about the day without that lingering fear you’re forgetting something or have an assignment due.

Just a lovely autumn day with me and my Adorita.

Ok and I guess the nerd too.

Father was also momentarily free, relieved of his great suffering pleasure that is his work. And so he could take me down to my Adorita’s stable, purse full of carrots and other horsie snacks.

I sincerely must hide my snacks well, for they seem to be confiscated quite a lot lately. I wonder why?

Not that I need my father’s permission to go out or anything. Not like the guard actually have permission to pop out, redirect and shoo me away from certain places now. It’s just a lot easier with my Lord father escorting.

I’m not grounded or anything.

I didn’t even do anything wrong. Why should I be grounded?! Gimmie back my freedom and snacks!

“In case one, as the reports go: You, my sharp little Chip, in full knowledge, ran away from the guards and into the captor’s getaway. This is after being presented with not only your safety routes but in full view of other terribly horrid influences getting nabbed. Something I hate to admit but have full confidence in you doing. ” father walks one of the practice horses slowly by the reigns, threatening me from my precarious perch on top.

I would be solo riding if not for his hold. Leading the horse from the ground in a leisurely enough walk. Round and round the indoor lot already. Even though it’s still a perfectly good day outside to ride off.

But alas I am not given that permission, nor is my center of balance all that stable yet.

See the horse saddle is very big and slippery, even with this strange seatbelt, and my legs are very short.

“Father! I’m innocent. A kidnapping ring and slave ship is very awful, and I am glad they’re caught, but I didn’t conspire to make such trouble. Who would have known!?” I complain, clopping along the stupid pony ride.

Release me. Let me go. I wish to ride like the wind, even if this is not one of my horses. Okay maybe not the wind, how about a slight pleasant breeze?

But I’m not even allowed off the horse, or out this ring. Sometimes it’s very inconvenient being so wealthy. To not even be allowed to ride outside, because we have our own indoor arena for riding and practice.

It’s very stuffy like this. In all this protective gear. I know more than enough to know this is not standard horse riding gear. Yet here I am, puffed and padded.

This is a very interesting form and setting of interrogation. Certainly novel.

This dangerous balance of tall horse and not being able to do anything but sit there suffocating.

Truly father is a master at awkward and uncomfortable interrogations. I’m getting off easy.

“Case two then, my unreasonably wise and troublesome beyond her years Rosalia. Is that you are too young, vulnerable and foolish to be anywhere without easily getting kidnapped. So very easily it’s in fact extremely difficult. Hmmm?” father gives me the alternative, upping the threat of my grounding.

I gulp.

“….I, in full knowledge, did not get kidnapped but snuck aboard and took down a kidnapping ring. ” I nod and lie, reluctantly accepting the cover story that gets me the least in trouble.

This is the story that grampa likes best. Crying and spinning me about for my ‘heroic’ habits so early on in life.

I fear he shall be crying this tale to anyone that will listen for weeks. Unfortunately for me, as the grand founder and boss of all the troops….that’s literally everyone employed there. They have no choice.

The rumor mills are already filling in the details that he missed in his blubbering and mysterious dumbness. Everything from me being sincerely kidnapped and this is a cover-up. To accounts of me ripping apart bars and freeing all the captured prisoners while setting off explosives to call for my hero of a grandfather.

They’re all terrible, no matter what version is told.

I realize, belatedly, that my grampa is a sort of troll. A very ultimate chaos-creating troll.

Who else would come to save the day in a stupid chicken onesie? It’s like he’s pushing himself how far, how stupid, he can go before people starts doubting him.

But no.

The problem is that the masses sincerely do not care to use common sense, in fact, they ate it up greedily. Cheers and swoons. If my nightmarish predictions are to be believed, there will soon be a chicken suit craze, and this story will never be erased from common history.

God damn it.

“Father. Can I have invested money for a short term business deal? I suspect chicken-themed memorabilia will fetch quite the price this coming season. ” I sigh.

If you can’t beat them, take advantage and profit off of them.

“No my tiny child reminiscent of a peasant horror story goblin, you may not. We do not bring down the value of your honorable grandfather and the family name with cheap short-sighted endeavors such as novelty items.” father says blankly.

That’s his, ‘no it is not up for debate voice’, noble business tone. So I must give up that plan before I even start.

Fine, we’re a fancy and reputable brand then. Our reputation is always at stake. No official grampa chicken merchandise.

“Can we at least destroy anyone else who tries to profit off this mockery?” I sigh up upon the old horse. For elderly mares are gentler and tamer to ride.

“Of course my hellion, what you take your mother’s name for? Burned, unburied, and made an example of. Within reason of course. Do you know those limits Rosalia?” father tests me.

“No beating up little old grannies. Little old grannies are grampa’s biggest fan club supporters. ” I mumble.

“Well that one of them, and I suppose it shall do. Now straighten your back, we do not slouch in walking position.” father leads me into another circle of the pony ride, patting my back and sides terribly until I’m back in the proper position.

As an experienced horse rider, I know all the positions and moves. Why I even practiced intensely during the summer on the vineyards with grampa! Yet somehow father keeps finding childish fault in everything I do.

My back is straight I say! It’s just hard to tell under all this fat and squish…and armor?

“Hold and steady. Less complaining, Rosalia. It does nothing. Focus. You’re sliding to the left, my dear.” father tsks, righting me back up.

…Also not my fault. The legs and thighs are too small to maintain a good seat. Sometimes I slip and slide a little. Or a lot. This helmet is heavy!

To the very funny high powers that threw me into this life, as a newborn baby of all things, cursed to suffer through these awkward growing pains again, haha. I hate you.

“This time to the right. Hmm…what are we to do with you,” father pokes me back upright again on the pony saddle.

I swear I’ll grow.

After all, I started horseriding lessons sometime around age four. That’s not that far away.

“I can do it. I rode plenty of times without you supervising. ” I huff and defend my teeny tiny sliver of pride.

It’s all I have against this fiend.

“Wild bird mounts with your honorable grandfather are very different,” he says.

“Even so. It’s merely the pressure, and your judgment, that have me slipping so much.” I counter.

Why else would someone with my experience and skill level be bullied to this point?

Father always had this strange effect on the original Rosalia and thus me in this little body at times. Increased heart rate. Stiffness of the face, limbs, and overall great painful discomfort. To the point of getting flustered or near choking.

Ah fear. An entirely different kind than mother’s but still quite scary!

Obviously, the pressure is getting to me and affecting my horseback riding. Or just in general. Being watched by a man as darkly intimidating as father does that.

When he’s not being an absolute nerd that is.

“Tell me then, Chip. How do whip around and up in your beloved kitchens? Every monstrous culinary chimera that gluttony demands of you to demand yourself? Surely not with these?”

He means my very short legs, that he so plays with when I roll. Then slides me back straight on the saddle.

Mockery aside, I understand what he’s trying to make me admit for myself.

“My limbs are too small, as is my height. My strength is not sufficient for pots, pans, and flames. So I have to have everyone help me. It’s much faster and more convenient to have things done by command. It’s their jobs anyway….” I take no shame in explaining it that way.

“You’re a noble, my Rosalia. I would be distressed if you didn’t know how to submit orders and requests. That’s how we get things actually done. What we’re trusted and trained to do where others cannot. If I were to labor over each and every task to be done, on my own, I’d be dead and dust many times over. ”

“…That’s because you overwork with too many projects. ” I mutter stubbornly.

“…Ah yes. How I envy the commons, who frolic in the wilds to gather branches, to chop into wood, to fuel the fires they must light, all before they can have their morning tea. Tea very different than our own imports. For they must gather themselves, from local herbs in the ground, then dry, then store properly in houses that may or may be secured. Drunk out of cups they must carve from wood or beasts, if not badgered, bartered or perhaps even bought from the potters! What a novel concept, buying or trading things. Potters they meet by chance or relations. Who must walk and gather their clay to-”

“I get it father!”

“With their little ovens and plants and butter churners, sleeping in barns with their own farm animals. How provincial. No queue of cases nor administrative work. What is paperwork? Can they even afford paper? How is-”

“I’m sorry father. I was wrong. I get it. I get that we all need help and that help is a good thing. I’ll stop complaining about it!”

“Truly?” father sounds like he doesn’t believe me.

“Yes!” I yell out, in case he rambles on about how paper or potter is made.

“If only….but if we all could run off to our prancing peasant fantasies in the woods, giving up every responsibility not only placed on us by implicated and weighed by connection, oh wherever would we be?” father ponders.

Off topic I believe. In fact, is that a Gable call out? Or my own?

Excuse me for fantasizing about a picture-perfect fantasy hobbit life with Gable. Where I don’t have to worry about a thing but the simple life, even if there are inconvenient chores. I’m sure I’m not alone there.

I mean just look at grampa! That unjust, unfair, crazy old man. Hogging Gable and intruding on all his precious time. Making himself way too at home in the hobbit house.

Just who does he think he is?!

Ah but I suppose I need the crazy old man to help maintain that connection link. I don’t know what exactly he’s doing in this lifetime that’s forcing Gable to show up so much, willingly, but I’ll take it.

I’d rather have these peeks and chance encounters than nothing at all. Not like last time. If I’m so frustrated about what I don’t know right now, god, I don’t know how I handled it before.

“Chip? …There’s nothing wrong with wanting. ” father addresses my pouting silence.

“You may want anything your heart desires, and upon requests, and within reason, we shall do what we can to provide. But you must understand that often, the gap between want and application, is momentous. Let alone reality. And that nothing is free. A cost, a sacrifice, goes into anything and everything. Every choice. And that’s if you can afford it.” he goes with our excursion.

Almost mindlessly if I didn’t know any better. An always busy man with time more effectively spent elsewhere.

If I wasn’t so selfish, I would bad for wasting it. But here I am. And here this nerd is wasting his own life, and chances for direct advancements of power.

Things are veering off in ways I don’t yet know are good or bad yet.

“I apologize for being impatient, father. I understand my small size and history are not very impressive to work with….but if I don’t move, don’t try, I won’t get anywhere. ”

“Anywhere as in…uncouth pirate ships and uncharted forests in lands afar? My my my, whatever is wrong with the little nest that home. The only place for hatchlings to appropriately be.” father annoyingly leads me round and round.

Over the little steps and rings of this indoor arena. All perfectly in the reigns on his hand. As if he were escorting me through a simplistic version of a dance, or well, the horse that I’m on.

“…no? Not that. I don’t mean that.” I admit that much.

“Of course dear.” father plays along.

Because it’s not my home. And I can’t stay.

Maybe mother and father can accept me for another short few years. Maybe they can stand the waves of the public discord towards me. After all, they still kept me despite the foreboding warning that was my baptism even a lifetime ago.

But that was only for their own purposes, and upkeep of our name and honor? It wouldn’t do to just throw me away then. It wasn’t as bad yet. I was still useful in my own ways.

But that will run out eventually. The cost I’ll incur isn’t profitable in the long term.

I don’t mean just money.

I’m more trouble than I’m worth. Always have been.

Always.

This is supposed to be a crueler and more violent world than my own. But thanks to my position, I don’t face any of that yet. Poverty. Abuse. Those terribly vulnerable situations that the powerless face every day. I’m grateful to be wealthy and have capital. I’ll use it well.

Before it’s my time to go.

I just don’t know when that will be. The longer the better. Because it benefits me more because I’m selfish like that.

I was selfish then too. Not as Rosalia, not as a villainess in any strange world. Just as myself.

I have always been horrible cruel, ruthless, and self-centered. Everything I do is for myself, my own desires.

I couldn’t do it then. When I was nothing but a 14-year-old girl. I couldn’t sacrifice myself like that. I couldn’t save anyone. Even worse, I took the chance to wring it for all it’s worth. I threw my own parents under the trainwreck. Ran away and reported everything, refused to relent or release my jaws till I sued and ruined everything.

Even my affections to my one family member, the only one I could keep and call mine. It’s my own selfishness, my own ego, and feelings of abandonment, that kept me from leaving Heng-Fei. We siblings were in the same boat. Left behind. Useless after a point. After I could no longer show my face. After he couldn’t walk anymore.

It was the only way my shitty pride could allow me to live.

A part of me wishes I could be a better more normal person, but no. I can’t change something that’s so much a core part of me.

At most, I can somewhat pity the poor saps that get used and abused by me. Willingly at that.I really pity that entire family I crashed into and imposed on. They just couldn’t quite get rid of me for years to come.

In fact, wasn’t that the start? The day my parent sold me out, no more than cattle. Than a whore. All I was good for apparently. The day I would rather not remember. The day I became truly heartless.

The day my life went down the shit drain for good was the day I first met them.

Silly stupid bossman. Dragging a wet mess home for his poor family to clean up, no questions asked. That’s how I first really met all of them.

Him.

…Let’s not go there.

“Too far to the front there Rosalia. You’re entirely slumped over. Well, it can’t be helped. ”

Before I notice it, father has led this pony ride back to the start. Right into the stable pen. While undoing the many bundles and belts, he unclicks and unfastens me from the heavy seatbelts on my saddle. Eventually freeing me from the trapped constraints.

“I understand the lesson you’re trying to remind me of. Of my own lacking, and aid as needed. But is this really necessary?” I motion stiffly in all my padding, having no choice but to wait until father sets me down and undoes all this.

I feel like a car crash dummy like this. So warm, so poofy.

“Absolutely. The chances of you getting into another accident are, unfortunately, guaranteed without the proper precautions. ” father pats the pillowy cushion of all my armor, finally taking off the stupidly oversized helmet from my little head.

“Ah that’s much better, but there was really no need. I was sweating in that thing. Now the rest of me!” I shake and urge him to hurry from all these uncomfortable restraints.

“Do bear with it, if nothing but for our own peace of mind. ” father chuckles, settling me down elsewhere to undo the padding and armor.

“I would be fine in here.” I gesture to the indoor arena, attached to a few of the stables. Plenty of stable hands, servants, and trainees to be my cushion and witnesses.

“You could be. Or you could be met with a frightful incident involving beasts that weigh, at minimum, 66 times your body weight. Now assuming you were sitting, that would still be enough to squish out your delicate little life-bearing organs.” he snaps for a couple of stablehands.

For me, and me only, a little show has been prepared. One presents a fruit, a simple little orange. The other has a metallic weight, to which he drops and murders the innocent orange in a juicy pulpy splatter.

“Assume you were merely stepped on, whipped with a loose tail, piece of equipment, or my the heavens forbid, fallen off a horse at even a walking speed. Let along a prancing or riding one.” father continues, sentencing even more oranges to their gruesome fates.

The stable hands working to demonstrate with the appropriate analogies and tools. Round little oranges rolling away to their juicy deaths. He even has riders lined up like a science experiment. Massacring the fruits as they take off and drop them at the stampedes

Orange juice is everywhere, but not in the way I would prefer to enjoy.

“Um…” I am lost on how to respond.

When did father get the time, or incentive, to prepare this?

“How grand it is, that we humans have a bit more will and regenerative abilities. But still, it is a sorry state to be in. My dear little Chip, should such an injury occur you would be bound far worse than this mere protective layer. Why you would be dead, if not bed bound and wrecked with the fevers of recovery.” he presents to me as he unbuckles my padding and swaps out my little riding boots for cute house slippers once more.

As he pokes and pulls at my little feet, bloody fruit decorating the space, I can’t help but admire my father’s interrogation and threatening techniques. What creativity! What theatrics! Oh the drama.

Yes I can certainly see how another child, say my little sister, could be life long terrified at this simple yet messy display. They even fed a grapefruit to a steed, to showcase what could happen to my little head should it be chomped down on.

A wonderful production of mundane fruit destruction. I am amused for time being. For their efforts, I even grace them with small applause.

“…This was not the intended effect but also not out of the range of expectations. It can’t be helped I suppose. Note down that my eldest daughter must be exercised daily for two sessions of 10-minute intervals of chaos, daily. This is very important to sate her.” father snaps and arranges.

Two sessions of what now? What kind of P.E. homework is that?

I believe misunderstandings are rampant in this household. It’s just not worth the effort to clarify them all.

“I understand father. You fear for the lost investment in combination to my current dark history. But I assure you, that I intend to live a very boring and peaceful life. I do not seek out trouble, but it keeps happening! ”

“…I can see that as I continue seeing evidence contrary. ” the nerd does not look impressed in the slightest.

“If left to my own devices, I would surely be fine. It’s not like I’m going to ride off and be squished up anytime soon.” I present my case as clearly as my tongue and teeth will allow.

My voice sounds a lot more professional in my own head. But the physical reality is that I am very small, with a very toddler squeaky voice, and lisp around an occasional world.

Expectations and reality. I already know best what the gaps are between them. I don’t need father’s depressing warnings to know that. Even if it comes with a show.

“Let’s keep it that way. I have a strange sense that it’s not that far off. There is no rest or assurity, either with your mother or you girls involved. That I am sure of.” father sighs, refuting my words.

Excuse you. I have never fallen off a horse in my life! Ever!

…Okay there was that one time, in the last lifetime. But only because Alfonso would never let it go. Rosalia hardly remembers that, so not much I can work from there. Just that she was very young, even before getting Adorita, and woke up in that original sickbay afterward.

Hmm…what was she doing getting injured on a horse at that age anyway? Didn’t I start lessons at age four?

Meh, it’s probably the nerd’s fault or something.

Well that’s his problem then. Not mine. Go stress yourself out for all I care. I’m nothing but a selfish little girl right now, the spoiled eldest young miss of house Ventrella.

At least I’m cute, that part of me also has not changed. Selfish and cute. What more could you expect? I’m your unfortunate spawn after all, there’s only so much that can be done with this DNA. Trust me, the original Rosalia was not any better.

Sometimes I think my host and I are just too similar. Sometimes I think she’s getting stronger, taking over at all the wrong times. Such a strange oddly compatible little girl.

At least I can take all the petty revenge for her as pleased. Somehow I think she’d approve.

“Father, I want orange juice. In a glass and not splattered over the floors.” I demand, pushing it.

“Juice that must be preseed and squeezed by some force I suppose. From specific monoculture fruit collected by hand. Grown from trees cultivated by farmers or the like. Grown over seasons by trees of a certain age growth, whose seeds-” he goes on, taking it in his own way.

“Father!” I complain.

Get to it Lord nerd. You’ve got work to do while I still have my petty reigns on this house. Oh ho ho ho!

“Oh ho ho~ Oh darling! it’s time~”

Wait that’s not my voice. Definitely not my voice, too terrifying for that.

Mother slams the indoor stable range door a little too harshly. The metal doors resounding heavily into the walls. The sudden pounding screeching sound is almost as high and frightening as her laugh.

Immediately, reflexively, I hop into the nerd’s coat and jacket for fear of anything and everything.

A crisp chill is already in the air. Shivering cold in the mornings and evenings, while still sunny hot midday. An awkward and precarious balance of the changing of seasons. Winter is approaching soon and we’ll be shut up in the home property once again.

How cozy and peaceful, if a bit boring. Not bad at all.

So why do I get the warning danger signals in my head?

Mother is looking especially pretty today. In a lovely new gown, I haven’t seen before. It drapes and coils but not indecently so, despite the too generous bosom that is natural under the tastefully expensive collar and shawl. In fact, the jewels that drape mother’s skin sparkle despite the lack of light. The testament to the cut, craftsmanship, and pure money in their worth.

Like a Godness of wealth. Filthy sexy money a mere shawl over the enviable youth and beauty that is already hers.

Oh no, she’s dressed to go out.

“Time for what now, beauty above all, my splendor and spoils? Maria, my gracious keeper, you could bring nations to their knees with your face alone. In your finery, mere mortals as lowly as myself lose all ability to produce words worthy in response.” sweet words from the fiend to bring forth a sweeter smile in mother’s glowing face.

Father craftily backs away, getting abandoned by every and all employees as they run, hide or bow and cower for their lives. I too, realize my mistake too late. I should have ran with the tide, with them. But instead, I chose the wrong place the hide, the very worst place.

“Oh ho ho darling, don’t you remember? We must be at Countess Gonzaga for her dinner party! Oh but I do want to make it by tea! All the best ladies’ talk happens over tea. ” mother giggles behind her dainty hand, beautiful new fur and lace gloves on display.

“Ahhh, of course I would never forget a single thing that your fair lips utter. But it appears…that Chip is unwell. Yes. ” father coddles me in his hold, and for once I comply. Shaking and whimpering in a headache.

Headache from everything I ever have to do and remember. In any lifetime.

Putting aside everything else, and recalling the troublesome network that is the world of nobility. I don’t even need my other life’s memories to know this is going to be a very dull and boring time for ladies at tea. Oh the drama, oh the cat fights, all before everyone shuts themselves up for winter.

But isn’t that territory a bit far away, one of the borderlines and loyal connections to the Bichierris?

Oh, my head hurts for real from the implications of whatever social chaos mother must play here.

“Oh my poor baby! Muah muah, this is what happens when you don’t take your nappies on time as you should. Like your sister! You love to play so, but my darling girls need their rest. ” mother pounces on me at once, making me dizzy in kisses and snuggles.

I get a glimpse of my father’s devastatingly blank face the moment I’m stolen away, a too-quick goodbye to his last line of defense against the dreaded ‘dinner party’ of high nobility. Which, if location and connections are to be believed, will more likely than not host if not one than multiple of his siblings and in laws.

Oh cruel evil plots mother. A checkmate of brute force.

“Frederick dear~ Clean up and get ready as I tuck Rosalia in. Tsk tsk my Rosalia, see how my little lady gets. There there, mama will tuck you up, nice, clean and well, before leaving. Oh Frederick, will you just stand there and look unfairly gorgeous or shall you be preparing? My devil, my divine, the trails of sweat and exertion are but stardust glimmer on your being, and I fear many a lady would not be able to control their delicate sensibilities should the feast that is your mere image present itself before them.” mother instructs, comforts, and threatens all at once.

What sort of torture is this?!

“Darling?” mother gives one last warning, before turning to take me up for a bath and nap. Most likely setting all the maids and guards against me in maximum babysitting watch.

“…yes my love.” father is forced to concede, shuffling to clean up for decent society.

“Oh husband dear, don’t frown and pout. Not like that, you just look too delicate and cute. Kissies?” she stands there, long past pushed his mental limits.

Father looks to the left, then to the right. He then perhaps glares hard enough for anyone in the visible distance to scram if they haven’t already.

“Darling? It’s rude to leave a lady leaving?” she whines, taking me with her as she rocks impatiently.

As if counting to himself, he takes a sigh and a breath, leaning in for a disgusting act of affection. A scandalous meeting of his flushed lips

Oh but it lands on me, more specifically my face. Ewwww gross! What is wrong with this family and the kisses!?

“Oh that’s just mean and unfair.” mother pouts and whines again, tip-toeing.

Father attacks again, quicker, but this time on the top of my hair. Made even more disgusting for how much I sweated.

“Darling!” she sincerely cries, pronouncing each and every syllable.

“You’re right my love, can’t leave the ladies’ tea waiting. How rude of me. I’ll be off to make myself presentable and ready your carriage at once.” he leans to attack my face and sides once more, helpless in mother’s arms, before running off in escape.

I think I’m being used here. In a way, I never would have been able to foresee. This torture really is too much, far more intense than anyone could have imagined.

Mother huffs in teary frustration as she wipes me clean and takes me back inside. Something I still don’t understand why she bothers when she could just hand me to a maid. Or even better, let me go on my own!

Eh whatever. Let them play parents or something since they seem to like it so much.

“Rosa my eldest baby girl~” mother coos at me, readying my water and pajamas.

“Yes mother, ” I fear.

“Do you want another baby sister or perhaps a little brother?!” she cheerfully asks, heart in her mouth.

How terrifying. It’s worse than I thought.

“None. ” I roll over in a towel, hopefully rolling myself away. Far far away.

“Oh you~…Why must you two be so alike… Oh but if you were to pick, which one? Rosa? Rosalia get back here, you’re not even wearing your nighties! Oh that is not proper!” mother tearfully chases after me as well.

Today was a decent day. So long as I don’t think too hard, don’t feel too hard, and certainly don’t get caught. By either of this body’s parents.

The last one I can’t really help against.

Until the day I can successfully roll away. When I’m actually ready to.

“Lilyanne no! Didn’t mama put you down for your nappy?! No don’t copy Rosalia in that? Oh what to do with you. Oh no the stairs, not the stairs?! Rosalia!?”

Time for my daily still needed nap. Until the time I can become a splendid independent villainess. Good day.

—

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“Let’s not go there”- part

Back into the modern world. Because there’s plenty that Rosalia does remember without it being induced. Let’s not think about it.

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—

It was raining rocks outside. The chill of the season growing only colder and colder as night hours crept on them. Cold was underselling it, even if snow and frost had yet to appear on their yearly streets.

A young 14-year-old girl would have been feeling very awkward right now if it wasn’t so damn cold outside.

She didn’t realize how cold she was until the thaw of her own limbs left her drained, and in pain. Pale flushing slowly pinker and pinker under the bundle of towels, blankets, and the radiating heater.

She looks around the strange but warm room, unconsciously taking in everything.

From the knick-knack items to the low table, cushion seats all over the floor. There’s a slightly outdated slim tv monitor, top of the line maybe 5 or so years ago, hanging from a corner of the wall. Wooden cabinets that could pass off as foreign antiques, but made far too homey with the covers and stuff overflowing.

The doors themselves were an odd mix of another culture’s traditional and common modern. A wood and paper screen sat by another corner, almost as a room divider. The floors wooden but cushioned in parts by carpet and cushions.

It looked and felt lived in. As if people came in and out all the time. Leaving their traces and marks stacked up.

Beads and strings of the friendship bracelet. Someone’s empty glasses case. A half-drunk bottle of a yogurt drink. Too many indoor slippers of too many sizes.

She took even little detail in as if to sound out her own thoughts. Even the voices outside of this incredibly homey space. Hears it, even if she doesn’t register it. She doesn’t register much of everything.

“You know when eomma was worried and complaining about you bringing a girl home, I don’t think this is what she meant.” comes a dull hushed voice.

“Oh ew. Bro dude, I was not expecting this from you. She’s totally younger than me, if she’s not actually a ghost that tricked you and we’re all gonna die that is.” the next one sounds higher, female.

“I bet a gwisin, it matches up more.” says the first voice, full of nonsense despite his cool tone.

“Don’t be silly, she has legs and a face. Cute girl too. Poor thing was shivering, like a living human. Not a ghost.” says another feminine, albeit much more mature voice.

“Gwisin. Definitely a drowned water ghost type. We’re gonna die. ” the first female ignores her.

“Not if we catch it. We technically already did.” says the other male again.

“I did not bring home a fucking vengeful ghost.” tiredly sighs the second older male.

“Bro, I don’t know how to make it even more obvious that your singleness dragged in the girl from The Ring into our house. ” the young girl says again.

“If it’s real then…it’s going to kill us.” the first male says, a little too excited.

“Or make us rich!” his sister agrees and adds on.

“Who needs a ghost when I have all of you to torture me? ” the eldest brother groans.

“That’s enough, there is no ghost….but even if she was a dead wandering spirit, no girl would follow Jung-Hyuk home. Maybe if it was JJ that was the bait? ” the eldest sister was no better than the rest of the lot.

“You all shut up! It’s not like that and you know it. I didn’t mean for this to happen?!” bemoaned the oldest brother again. The only somewhat familiar voice she’s heard before.

The strange guy that dragged her across town, on foot, in this fucking rain. Through alleys and hidden metro stations, round and round. She thought she was going to die in exhaustion. She’s a student, not a marathon runner.

The numb, the cold, what just happened. What could have happened? Nothing. She doesn’t want to think about it. About all the implications. Doesn’t want to feel anything.

She’d rather drown in this goddamn rain.

Maybe she should have?

It vaguely registers, that the comfort of warmth and softness is much more comfortable than the world outside. Her slowly drying hair, and damp clothes cling to her skin. It doesn’t feel very good. It doesn’t feel like her at all.

But what is her in the first place? Does it even matter?

Probably not.

Nothing really does anymore. Not even what happens next. She should just count her remaining lucky chances. She doesn’t have much, if any, anymore. Not after that. Not much she was good for.

Not after what her own parent left her for.

She feels her own throat closing in. Slams the gates and locks on whatever emotions threaten to overtake her. Focuses on breathing was counterproductive. Focusing on herself only made her more aware, too much so. She almost can’t breathe. Nothing. Nothing but-

…the sweet scent of honey?

The plate slides with a pale little hand, sticky topped bun pastries sitting innocently.

The air wafts a bit as if just warmed up, golden brown and dripping with a honey top. It probably was. A mug of something steams like a coiling dragon between them. A haze.

A pair of big brown eyes blink at her from the small distance at the corner of the table, so dark they might as well have been black. Black as a tumbled smooth polished stone. Black as a void. Empty so. They curved sweetly in that emptiness, especially when he smiles. Framed by black lashes and a little mochi soft face.

They blink again, slowly. As if observing her cautiously, curiously, for a very long time.

Those little hands peek out slide the plate and mug closer to her, before quickly retreating to his side of the table. He almost hides but stays there. Watching. Waiting. An uncomfortable furrow to the cute line of his young mouth, a hint of worry on that clear forehead.

Like an adorably funny pet, he reaches out again. Reaching with his entire body to quickly slide the offerings ever the closer. Right up to her, under her nose.

All before diving himself back down to the minimal protection of the table. Still clearly in view. Acting cute.

She almost snorted at that.

His eyes followed the movements of her hand, especially as she carefully reached out to take the offered pastry. If the boy had a tail, she imagines it would be waving along in tune.

Cute.

The pastry seemed to deflate with one bite. Soft and fluffy, the sweetness of milk and honey coying on her tongue. Melting into between her teeth as she chews. It was indeed warmed up. So much so she has to huff out a hot breath.

But it pleased the child so much, she forced herself to hold it back, taking another bite. And another.

“Oi oi oi look it’s working. That’s the first time she moved?”

“Told you using J.J. would work. Ghost fucking love using kids. All creepy and shit. ”

“It’s a little late but is our brother at risk of getting possessed or anything? I don’t want eomma after our asses.”

“Oh for the last time, I didn’t bring home a ghost!”

The hushed voices outside the screen come again. Silly as they were, they get ignored. Right now there really didn’t exist anything or anyone outside this tiny space. Rain pitter-pattered on the windows. Steam curls and escapes the mug.

Meng takes another honey bun without meaning to. Suddenly realizing that she was in fact hungry, but not realizing it was this bad. Not until the first sugar sweet bite seemed to dissolve down her throat.

“Ah. Hey, are you one of the living?” the boy asks, leaning his head out to rest against the table.

He was much more relaxed the moment she started eating. A little shy smile that could have resembled a sly kitty cat, turned sideways, as he repeated his siblings’ question.

It takes her a little off guard how childishly silly this all was. In a way, it was all very rude. But so was imposing on a stranger’s kindness, stuffing her face with their food. So she’ll let it go. Even it makes her choke a bit on her next bun.

“That’s good! Here, drink this with it. Yummy? It’s my favorite staple at the shop. Ghosts can’t eat or drink, right? So you’re alive, right?” he smiles, sounding so innocent it’s hard to stay mad.

Until what the brat has to say next.

“Hey! Everyone don’t worry, she’s real!” the kid switches between relief, amazement, and cheerful clamoring so quickly the Meng nearly chokes again.

“Aigoo! That’s not the problem!” rumbles out one of those original voices, sounding out like a crash and tripping over a bundle of young people.

“Of course ghosts are real, that’s the problem-” that young girl shrieks out again

“There are no ghosts. Not that one at least. I said so already?” her sister responds.

“Maybe he’s already possessed?” the younger male ruminates.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Meng can hardly process a thing, but she thinks she choking on that. Reaching for the drink to chug it down, despite the heat, she blearily notes the slightly too sweet, this could be addicting, milky coffee flavor.

“Awesome. We can’t do anything if you were really a dead sister ghost. This is a lot better. You’ll be ok.” the kid crawls around the short table reaching her easily, comfortable in his home environment. Fearless, if but ridiculous.

After patting her back, both making sure she’s solid and in her half choking comfort, he reaches up to pat and rub at the limp towel over her head. Sitting up on his knees, though still very short, he tries to rub her rain-drenched hair as dry as it could get. Movements too close, too easy.

She doesn’t know why she lets him.

Maybe it’s just because he’s a kid. A still innocent one. Something she didn’t know she could envy. Maybe it’s because he fed her, as stupidly simple as that was.

Took all those extra efforts in his own childishly clumsy way. Warm and sweet. Far too comfortable. The taste that lingers in her mouth, in the pit of her warming stomach and stiff fingers, all around her, is exactly that.

This was a mistake.

Feeling anything, even warmth, was a mistake.

“Eh, are you alright? Was the coffee milk too bitter? Do you want something else?” small soft hands drop to rest at her dripping shoulders.

An innocent gaze looking at her straight on. She thinks she can see a hideous reflection in those open black eyes.

Dirty. Wrong. Useless. So damn useless.

Not even good enough to save herself from that. Couldn’t even run away by herself. Most importantly of all, not good enough to help anyone. Not even her own family. Absolutely a piece of useless shit. Dirty selfish shit.

Don’t cry, those eyes seem to want to say. But they don’t. They don’t hold that kind of pity. Don’t know any better.

So she bites down on the inside of her cheek and turns away. Honey-sweet turns iron bitter with the sharpness of pain. Because if she must feel something, let it be a punishment. Let it be something that someone as awful as herself actually deserves.

Warm hands pry into her own clenched ones, releasing the flow of blood in her painful hold. They were creamy in tone, like a doll’s, but a little larger than expected. She’s more than confused when they fully make their way into her own hand.

“It’s ok. Maybe not right now, but it’s going to be ok. Don’t cry?”

She hears him speak through the haze. Doesn’t know what to make of it, but hears him none the less. A little hard not to when he was right there, black void for eyes and a soft voice seemingly everywhere. Like the steam of coffee and honey-scented fresh bread, fogging up her brain.

Even as her jaw drops slightly askew, no steam is released. Nothing has gotten better in this one moment. In all the time she’s probably been reported missing, since running. Useless, useless, all she’s good for running.

Nothing has changed about her situation. Nothing at all.

What happened? The disaster that was her, fighting and screaming. Scared and angry out of her mind. Attracting the wrong kind of attention enough from some idiot to come by and drag her out of it. Some idiot fattie that smelled of the same vanilla baked goods even through a day of running in the rain. This place. That ridiculousness.

This one little boy. All of it.

But god damn, does this feel like something. Something a little too good to be real.

So obviously it must not be. Obviously, this wasn’t quite real. Maybe she was already dead. Jumped out the window or some shit. That would teach them a lesson for messing with her. Or maybe, just maybe, it was all a bad dream. As awful as her home life has been, as terrible as her parents have been. Fighting or dragging her into it to prevent any more stress to her younger brother. The bubbling anxiety inside, maybe it was all just a bad dream. And she would wake up, miserable, but safe in her own bed, just as always.

She can’t breathe and this is not a dream. She knows that.

That small strange hand wipes a sorry trail of silent tears on her face, the kind she didn’t even know where there. No one said anything else.

It’s not a mighty force that breaks her.

It’s not the frightful assault on a young girl or the betrayal of who she thought was supposed to be the closest people to her, her own parents. They’re awful. She decides then in there in this sudden moment of clarity, how she knows she’ll never forgive and never forget. But they’re not what finally breaks her.

A gentle touch is more than too much.

It burns, scorches something that might scar forever. It’s this little kindness from ridiculous nosy strangers that will kill her heart. What’s left of it at least.

What a way to go.

She bats his hand away and scrubs her own face. Flushing red from the irritation, and more than a bit of embarrassment for being seen this way. It was too shameful, even more so than getting caught drenched like a wet rat in the rain outside their home store.

Something about this was definitely too vulnerable. For anyone, let alone a little stranger.

“Alright, that’s enough. Jung-Joon, thank you for seeing to our guest.” the shutter doors slide open.

One college aged young woman, in long black hair and a pink sweater, slides open the door to release the tumble of three others. They roll on the floor in a mess, as if all secretly pressed against the screen to spy like hooligans. Two clean looking black haired teenagers and the chubby older guy splayed out, tumbled on one another.

If the physical resemblance wasn’t enough to tell them as siblings, the bickering sure did.

“This isn’t safe, I’m not ready to die mysteriously yet. I’m too cute and not famous yet!” a short haired girl crawls over her own brother in sacrifice.

“I can’t save JJ alone, Sunny. Sunny your foot is in my face.” the closest in age, a good looking face underneath the askew glasses, yells back at her.

“Why didn’t eomma just abort all of you?” the biggest sibling just laid there, taking the abuse that was the physical fight on top of him.

A wild house slipper smacks and attacks all three of them, until they were sitting, or slumping, somewhat decently in their seats. The girl in the pink sweater turns over to the youngest and the stranger in the room with a light smile and apology.

“Ah sorry about them, they’re just a little shy. Hi, I’m Eun-Jung, I heard a bit about how my brother kidnapped you. In this weather? How silly of him.”

“I didn’t kidnap anyone, especially not scary little girls. You know how much she can cuss and scream?! I-” the big one cries in complaint. As if he were greatly wronged and never going to be a good samaritan again.

“Ssssshhh, ah I’m just kidding. Stop making things more awkward than it already is.” Eun-Jung smiles so widely it twitches a little

“Idiot.” the middle brother whispers.

“Big idiot. This is why he can’t get a date.” the younger sister giggles back.

“Stop making it about that!?!!”

“Isn’t that why he went out in the first place. To get stood up? But who would have thought he’d bring home a drowned spirit in relation. Ah I always knew he would bring death upon our house.”

“Oi big idiot bro, how are you going to make this up to us? You can stay sad and single for life but it’s not fair to kill us with you?”

The slipper comes back out to kick all three of them into obedience once more.

Meng looked back and forth in the confusion. This weirdo bunch too busy getting lost in themselves. Only the youngest of them, the little boy by her side, seemed to remember she was there. Pushing the warm coffee milk mug in between her still too cold fingers.

He shrugs and smiles apologetically as if to say ‘yes, they were always like this’. The half-moons that shined in his eyes also seemed to say ‘isn’t it great?’.

Because it was. This mess. This warmth. Something that even an idiot like Meng could tell from miles away.

This was what a family was supposed to be, behind the screen of their privacy. They talked. They laughed and cried. They expressed everything and anything in too tight spaces. They didn’t hurt each other.

Not like that. Not the way Meng has always lived her life.

It’s from sitting there, like a spectator from the window, one glimpse took far too long, that Meng realizes what bullshit she’s been living. The fires of empty anger would rage, would burn. But her stomach rests comfortably but for the slight growl. Still embarrassingly heard over the noise.

The fighting pauses as every pair of pretty dark black eyes turn to look over at her curiously.

She blushes instantly and hides her too warm face into the sweet drink.

“Cute.”

It’s unsure who said it first. But the table of youths burst out in a mix of terrible laughter and commotion.

The big guy, the one who ‘saved’ her, mocks and laughs at her to her face before getting pushed aside by his sister. A kind girl who fusses over if Meng wanted a warm bath first or something more to eat. That it’s raining something freezing outside and obviously she couldn’t go anywhere for the time being.

Someone gets up to press buttons on a microwave. Someone throws over a half-opened bag of tea snacks, turning on the television for some classic game show. A telephone rings in the background.

Nothing has changed in these few hours of time. Nothing will probably change in the next few, the next day, or even beyond that.

But sitting in the middle of this was like the window she was glancing in had opened into a door. A door to a strange sort of bakeshop and cafe, a rest stop after school or in some strange afternoon. A peek into the doorway into a home, a real one.

That’s what Meng will allow herself. Selfishly imposing. A little bit of peace, a little bit of this. There was just….so much of it here. Can she stay, just for a moment longer? Just until she warms up enough to get back on her feet? She thinks she can face the world outside just fine, she doesn’t have a choice.

It could just be for a little bit?

That’s fine right?

A plate clatters and slides to her side again. A funny little boy that hides back to his side after delivering the warmed up honey buns. One with a very lovely kind of smile.

She’ll stay just for a little bit.

————–

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—

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Okay, now we have a skippable modern bonus. Not necessary but here we are.

Grossness absolutely assured.

Thanks for reading!

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“Do it again! Squeeze all water out! You! Don’t be lazy, you think good banchan is magic like that!? Get to it!” echoes an almost voice from down the all.

“Yeah yeah, it will be fine eomeoni! Really, your banchan are magic like that! Aiya my nails, gonna be chili stained for days.” Meng turns to the jar of pickles, ready to transfer it down the stairs.

She doesn’t even work at the Park’s bakeries, or the bar anymore. Yet here she still getting used as slave labor. Wait, it’s not even the bakery or the bar business. This was just their daily household pickles?!

But if one does not work one does not eat.

That is fair, given how many snacks and free meals she’s stolen under this roof. And Meng would like not to be chased around by the matriarch of the household again. For any reason. Either by a slipper, a baguette or even a giant slab of kimchi. Ah, the creative application of things an Asian mom could hit you with.

She sets down the bucket batch down to the kimchi fridge because you really need one with all the smells when it comes to traditional pickles. Rearranging items she a little too familiar with, in the fridge and around the basement.

Meng was just going to do one thing. But that turned into another. And another. And get yelled down by Mrs. Park again, to work as her little household slave. And there goes another weekend of Meng’s life.

Great. Very glamorous. Covered and dust and smelling like Korean pickles. Mmmm briney. Yes she’s a very sexy young lady in her prime. The cartoon bear apron and rubber flip flops were really ahead of the trend.

No lie, Meng had her own separate indoor and beater slippers in this house, and that’s how she knows she spends too much time here.

She was gonna run off with the latest batch of homemade wine and pickles, and Mrs. Park was just going to have to deal. Just watch her. She’ll do it.

Preferably without getting chased with another baguette. Those things were surprisingly painful.

“Ah, you look like a housewife like that? Not in a sexy way, boo. Ahaha Mengmeng calm down and put down the slipper. It’s just me. ” a too familiar voice and figure descended the stairs.

Jung-Joon, a mere clean faced college boy holds out the bag of convenience store drinks and ice cream in a peace offering. For that Meng will not throw the deadly weapon, but instead, hop it back down on her foot and just as quickly hop over to the handsome source of snacks.

“Don’t try to be funny. Look look, my manicure. It turned into kimchi nails because of your mom. Even worse, it still smells like fish sauce now. I was so nice to bring her back a designer handbag from New York and look at what she’s done to me in return. ” she held out her two hands, rubber gloves pulled off, pitifully.

Really now, she’s the one that left herself open like that.

Taking her smaller hands in his, Jung-Joon leans down a little too dramatically to place a gentlemanly kiss on her outstretched hands. Much like how a charming prince would in any young girl’s fantasy or piece of media.

When he looks up, black eyes furrowed and slightly glazed over in the low light of the basement, Meng blames binging those trashy things too much for the beats her heart decides to skip. The breath that catches at her throat.

She feels herself freezing for no good reason. Feeling both hot and cold at once, from moving around, from the environment. Definitely not from the boy, just a boy she’s seen grow up, not a very fine man now, nope, just that, nothing else at all.

“Bleck, yep. That’s anchovy and garlic chili alright. You even smell like an old housewife now. ” he sticks out his tongue on her, ruining the made up mood that her mind plays tricks on her with.

Rude. But she rips her hands away and swats at him playfully. Smiling gratefully at the delivery.

“What am I going to do? The whole company will kick me out if I come smelling like your kimchi fridge?” she whines, opening up her hands to make grabby motions, demanding a drink.

“You bragged that you had the next week off, I heard. Don’t lie. ” he dangles a bottle of juice, one of Meng’s preferences, up high.

“I didn’t say that exactly… I still have to turn in reports. Working from home is still working.” she makes to swipe at the main bag, successfully making off with the rest of the goods.

Hazaah! Refreshing goodies! She’s alive again after chugging down half a so not healthy, fizzy fruity soda. Even after letting out an unlady like burp, she does not calm down and tidy up but plops herself lazily over the nearby couch. Rolling around in the goodies like some goblin creature, or an enslaved house-elf, same thing.

“Did you get dried squid snacks in here?” she shakes the bag, picking through it.

“No. I got you flowers, chocolate truffles, stolen diamonds, and tickets to luxury cruises around the world. ” he rolls his eyes at her, before dropping down himself.

“Oh fancy, call me when you become a filthy rich man~ Aha, yaaassss my squid snacks!” she cheers, opening another beverage with the snack package, much like an old man with a drinking problem.

“So you can murder me in style and take all my money? So selfish, only wanting me when I’m filthy rich. At that point, I’d be better off rolling in supermodels and idol starlets that don’t have kiddy hair clips all over.” he reaches over and pokes at her pulled up cartoon hairpins.

“Ah if you do that, then you deserve to be brutally murdered. It’s just bad karma.” she tuts at him, but shares back the snack bag.

When he stays still enough to rummage out the stuff, she sits up on her knees to clip the stupid plastic barrettes and pins into his own hair. His bangs especially, sticking up in cartoon stars and animal characters.

Meng snaps a portrait with her phone. Jung-Joon even pulls a smile and V sign for the later pictures.

“There. Now you look stupid and I can ruin you. Good look with your dream billionaire yacht cruise of supermodels when this picture, and all the other blackmail I have of you, goes viral. ” she taunts, chewing on a jerky while scrolling her phone.

“Meng? Say cheese.” J.J. snaps her up with his phone camera, pulling off the clips with his fingers.

Her hair wasn’t quite as pinned up when she donated most of them over, but she was still crouched over barefoot in a bright and silly apron. Chewing on dried squid and looking messy over everything from scrubbing pots to moving pickle storage.

“Eh eh eh, not me. This is not my day. ” she pulls up a hand in that infamous ‘no pictures’ pose.

“Cute.” he praised her, trying to get a clearer shot. She was beginning to turn pink in a blush.

“Fuck off, try again another day when I don’t look like utter crap.” she tries pushing him, phone and all, off the damn couch. But sue her she was tired and lazy.

“Very cute. The apron look on its own is very cute. ” he attacks by pushing back a little too roughly, almost pinning her down to the couch. Leaned over to snap the so-called embarrassing photos.

“…Jung-Joon?” she makes to ask, feeling a little…odd down here.

Something intermixed with the shame of getting caught by him like this. It wasn’t quite blackmail material but it wasn’t very flattering, she knows how much a mess she looks today. But he still snaps away, that certain sort of strange grin on his face.

It made everything unreasonably more attractive. Even this dingey space.

No more binging those type of shit games anymore, not even for research purposes, she told herself.

“Okay, you win. I won’t post that picture and you can have your dream model yacht. I won’t dream murder you for it, really. You can stop now.” she feels the embarrassment rise with each and every shutter sound.

“Hmm sounds nice. But I’m a simpler guy than you give me credit for. The housewife in nothing but an apron dream honestly appeals to me a hell lot more. Especially when it’s my own cute wife. Did you know that? ” he plays around on his phone, doing god knows what to make her look even more like a fool.

“How am I supposed to know something like that? You’ve grown up to be such an idiot, haven’t you?” she turns away, hoping to at least blur his stupid blackmail photos.

When her sight lands on a masculine hand, pale but for the hints of tattoos on his wrists and fingers, she unreasonable jolts. It was not pinning her, hardly a touch, but close enough to lightly scrape and play with the apron ribbon on her shoulder. She immediately turns her head to the other way.

“So you admit it. ” he doesn’t waste the opportunity, tracing the open expanse of her exposed neck.

She must be freezing cold down here, shivers wreck her even after that one trace touch. She must be numb and tired, when she still doesn’t nearly move enough to push him off his tomfoolery.

“Admit what you dork?” she laughs when it tickles, but her voice doesn’t quite come out right.

“That I’ve grown?” neither does his.

It sounds heart-stoppingly wrong, far too low and raspy. Without either of them realizing it, he’s already dropped his phone, uselessly down to the side. Both hands pinned up the only thing stopping him from completely crushing her. Not that he would mind, quite the opposite really.

“What are you talking about dummy…of course you have…maybe your stomach…” she whimpers no, laughs it off. Hitting him up in the tummy in this far too small space between them.

That was the plan, but her hand feels a little stuck and trapped. Pressing up into a resonating heat, and well-packed muscle, and oh god oh no when did he get those? When did?

A lot of questions already lost and distracted. Because his smiling eyes really were her favorite, not that she would ever tell him that, and right now they were looking down in a way that made things a little too hard to think.

She thinks she hears the ocean crashing and breaking their waves though. Straight through her ears, washing away the brain and common sense that should be in her head.

The kind that says friends don’t look at each other like that. The way they do. Maybe.

She almost whines out loud when he closes those night eyes, only to lose her breath completely when he leans down.

“Yo bro I heard you brought ice cream. Don’t hog it all you-…..AHHHHHH mom! Mooooom, eomma! Big idiot bro!!! My eyes, they burrrrrrrn! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

The scream of a young woman had them jumping up and over one another. Falling over and knocking things down. Even from a storage shelf not used in forever. That’s how bad they jumped.

“Sunny!? What the hell, Sunny, girl calm yourself. Jung-Joon, go explain to her you were just joking around! She’s getting the wrong idea, again!” Meng feels a very strange sort of frustration overflow out of her, fear and embarrassment making her tremble.

When she recoverers enough sense to get up from that dizzy short fall, she pounds her balled up fists over to the awful jokester. Pushing and nudging him up more than actually hitting him.

“Again. Fucking Sunny, again.” Jung-Joon rubbed the back of his neck, rolling it of any kinks and injuries.

“Hurry. Before she comes back down here throwing red rice or jujubes again.” Meng shivers in the memory of the last misunderstanding.

The Park siblings were nice and all, but sometimes they were really insane. Last time Sunny ran out screaming in gross misunderstanding, she ran back in 10 minutes later to celebrate “winning the bet!” and started throwing ‘wedding’ foods at her.

Meng also does not want to be chased by anyone with a bamboo or pine stick ‘representing fidelity’ ever again. That hurt way more than a baguette. She’s also pretty sure the ‘fidelity’ stick was bullshit.

“We can get it all over it, once and for all, if we just make it official? I can’t get you a billionaire yacht or anything, but then you don’t have to murder me in my sleep for money. I’d give it all to you anyway. You already got me. How does that sound? Want to be my wife, for real? For better or worse.” Jung-Joon suggests, sounding too hopeful for a joke gone too far.

She does not have a ‘fidelity’ stick so she settles with wacking him with her own hands. Even if it hurts her more than him.

“Go. Fix. This!” she cries.

“Don’t wanna.” he sticks his tongue out at her in mocking, pulling her into his arms punishingly. Maybe he’s punishing himself as well, knocking the back of his head against the wall in a sigh of frustration.

“There! I’m right this time! Oh my god pay up bitches. ” a screaming short haired girl, dyed a fashionable shade of brown, drags down every sibling willing to listen. Their mother probably far too tired for this nonsense, after a day of cleaning and working Meng to the …pickle.

It did not help that they carried with them a variety of chestnuts and cheap market rice cakes. Probably for throwing, at her.

“Oh not again.” Meng squirmed, absolutely unable to escape.

“Is it true?” one of the brothers asked bluntly, Jung-Soo looking down at them in disbelief.

Jung-Joon did not grace him with a reply, but a lovely middle finger held up while tightening his grip on the girl in his arms.

“Ah.” his brother responded simply.

“Oh thank god. ” Jung-hyuk praised the heavens. Not while he was so single, please.

“What no! I saw it! I saw the busy, my eyes did not burn for nothing. ” Sunny waves to the couch, and the ‘not’ couple on the floor, in accusation.

Something Jung-Joon may have responded back to in their own sibling sign language. It involved a lot of middle fingers.

“Awww, pack it up.” the eldest sister put down her camera with no happy occasion to film and started to march the rest of them back up.

“Do we get to at least throw things at them?” Meng’s former yet forever bossman always looked forward to that part. As if to impart a little bit of the pain that watching those two always gave his soul.

“You have to clean it up though. With Sunny, for the false alarm, again.” Eun-Jung nodded in thought.

“Oh you all suck. This wouldn’t happen if you two just sucked it up and sucked face. ” Sunny throw a dried berry at her younger brother and friend anyways, leaning down to at least steal a convenience store popsicle before it melted.

“What are all of you doing hiding down there and not helping with dinner!?!!! Do you all want me to die in exhaustion?! Before any of you become doctors or at least give me a grandchild!? Get out of that hole before I do it for you!” the accented voice of the siblings’ mother echoed down the halls and stairs.

Amazing.

“I don’t want to be slapped by another giant kimchi.” Meng raises her slightly red stained hand from the ball the Jung-Joon had her in.

The rest of that woman’s children all agreed to that. Quickly working together better than they would ever on their own to clean up whatever mess lingered. All before their mother really decided to come drag them out.

“Hey, what’s this?” Sunny unfurls and unrolls something that had fallen out of the long untouched storage.

A piece of white cloth, waving it out revealed it to be a dress. A simple feminine little dress that wasn’t exactly for a child, but wouldn’t fit anyone here. Not anymore.

In a house that raised two girls, an old dress here or there wasn’t so strange. It was just in a very odd place. As if hidden and forgotten. Nor did Sunny remember her sister or herself owning a piece like this.

“Ah. ” Jung-Soo looked over at his younger brother, a slight smirk playing on his lip.

“Probably nothing, just throw it in the wash or donation box for later. Let’s get going.” J.J. waved off.

“Wow, how nostalgic. Mengmeng, come look. Isn’t this what you were wearing when Jung-Hyuk kidnapped you all those years back? We gave you Sunny’s old track suit to wear after that, ah so this is where your clothes ended up?” Eun-Jung laughed, secretly holding the camera behind her back and to the side.

“What the hell?” Meng leaned under from Jung-Joon’s broad shoulders to look at the old thing. An ancient relic really.

“Mengmeng, you’re really hungry right? ” J.J. moved and directed the girl away.

“Huh, uh yeah. I didn’t expect to stay here this long. But I’m pretty sure your mom lured and tricked me into, well, all this. ” Meng looked down to the apron and rubber gloves in the pocket.

It wasn’t just today, trapped for lunch and with house chores.

She really had not intended to stay so long?

Ten or so years? Has it really been over a decade since that day?

Why was she still here? Sure she didn’t live here or anything, but why was she still imposing in these people’s lives. People that had long stopped being strangers all those years ago.

It was a little disorienting.

“Do you want it back?” Jung-Soo spoke up, the way he said that sounded a bit odd. As was the knowing look in his eyes.

But that ass hole always looked like that. Meng simply shrugged, even as Jung-Joon’s arm held on, though a bit stiffly. As if terribly reluctant to let go.

“Not really? Sorry, it’s been there so long. I can throw it away. ” she makes to apologize, reaching out to where Jung-Soo dangled the old thing. A dainty piece of cloth, nothing fancy or all the durable.

For some odd reason, her old bossman and Eun-Jung were clutching each other with bated breaths, as if watching an exciting scene in one of their dramas. It made Meng pause to stare at them in confusion, but that was nothing new either.

“Do you want me to starve and die?!! Do you want to eat funeral food? Should my ghost cook it for you too since none of you lazy kids know where the kitchen even is?” the family’s mother shouted again, voice reaching splendidly through even the walls.

“Oh no, we really should go.” Meng starts running up the stairs.

She feels more than the lure of food, maybe some Pavlov’s dog reaction. All moms were scary in some way, she was just going to go with that.

“Mmm, that’s right. We can finish up throwing away the trash later. Come on.” Jung-Joon responded to her, looking back down to the rest with a silent glare.

Eun-Jung almost put down her camera after that, just almost.

“Yeah I’m fucking lost. ” Sunny threw her hands up, shaking her head at the rest of them, and started heading up herself.

“Do you remember your favorite fairy tale as a kid?” Jung-Soo was in a good enough mood to remind her, after all, he just saw an embarrassing show.

“Um, Aladdin?” Sunny didn’t even look back.

“No, not a movie. When you were really little. Remember the fairy and the woodcutter?” Eun-Jung helpfully supplied.

Something that their youngest did not appreciate, not with the way he missed a step.

“Oh yeah. That old stuff with a dude that stole a fairy’s robes while she was taking a bath and like marries her because she’s stuck on earth now. Creep much? Man that story did not age well. Yeah and he totally gots what he deserves when she gets them back. Flies back home to heaven. Like see ya nevers! Ahaha….oh. OH!” Sunny gets in on the joke late, but at least she gets it.

“I hate each and every one of you. This is all bad for my heart. It’s sensitive.” Jung-Hyuk beats at his own chest from the drama. Not the stairs, the sheer drama.

“Awww that was your favorite childhood story Sunny. That’s cute. ” Meng turns around to comment.

“It was apparently JJ’s too.” Jung-soo teased, not sure how much more obvious he can make it.

“Awwwww, wittle Jung-Joon? That’s so cute~” Meng tip toes to reach and pinch at said boy’s face.

“Mmmmm.” he hums and smiles without much a reply.

When Meng passes into the kitchen first, he does turn back momentarily. A quiet promise to get them all back, but especially the teasing Jung-Soo.

“Oh come on, I practically threw it in her face. She’s not a ghost or a fairy like we joked about years ago, but she’s not running away from you any time soon.” the middle brother pushed him along, shaking his head.

“You’re all so embarrassing it physically hurts. ” Sunny pokes, laughing.

“This hurts my heart! Ai ow.” Jung-Hyuk keeps rubbing as if feeling indigestion. Wrong spot but close enough.

Eun-Jung presses save, and closes the video camera.

———–