It seemed Hyuna was so excited that even during morning prep she opened her brother’s door several times and shouted.
“Oppa, oppa!”
“What now, again.”
Ever since she heard a week ago that they would go to America to watch Sarah Stewart’s concert and have some fun, she had been like that nonstop.
“We are really going to America, right?”
“Yeah, we are going to America.”
“And we are watching Sarah Stewart’s concert?”
“Yeah, I told you we are.”
“No joke, really real true, right?”
Hyunseung waved his hand in the air as if very annoyed. He already barely had enough time to do another pass on the arrangement and it was killing him.
“Min Hyuna, have you lived your whole life getting duped?”
“Yeah, since I have always been getting duped by you, of course!”
At the answer that popped out of Hyuna’s mouth without even one second of hesitation, Hyunseung lost his words and only smacked his dry lips.
All the records of him having tricked and teased his little sister until now flashed through his head.
“That was all just joking around…”
He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, trying to excuse himself, but
“What should I wear? Is it hot in America now? Cold?”
“Just throw on whatever…”
“Ah! What if the big screen at the concert catches me?”
“People will be shocked that a country mouse showed up, no?”
“It would be a disaster if Sarah Stewart suddenly handed me the mic!”
“No matter how much of an oddball she is, unless she wants to ruin her own concert, I do not think that will happen.”
“Good, then I should start practicing singing from now on!”
“You are not a born instrument. Practicing that is not something that improves in a short time…”
“I am going to a coin karaoke right now, coin karaoke! Oppa, give me five thousand won!”
As if nothing else could be heard, Hyuna muttered to herself and then promptly shook him down for cash and zipped out of the room.
Tak!
Maybe no other words were needed for her in the first place. It seemed she just could not believe the fact that they were going overseas and wanted confirmation.
If you look back a bit in time, in a little over two years since they came back, had the family not gone on two overseas trips together?
And yet, even now just the single fact of “going abroad” had her this excited.
If he had added that they would be flying on a private jet sent by Unice Music Group, she would probably have foamed at the mouth and fainted from shock.
“When you see stuff like that, a kid is still a kid.”
He looked at the closed door and shook his head for a moment.
“Then, back to…”
He flipped his headset down to resume the work that had been interrupted.
Creak.
Just then the door opened yet again.
“Min Hyuna, now stop…”
Of course he figured it would be his sister again, so he frowned and turned his head, only to see his father standing there holding a plate of fruit.
Clink.
Only after their eyes met did his father carefully step into the room and set the plate on the table.
—Son, eat some fruit while you work.
Out of regard for the gesture, Hyunseung immediately picked up one neatly peeled apple in front of him and, with words of thanks, brought it to his mouth.
His father slowly patted his back as he chewed, and said nothing else.
But it looked like he had something to say, because he did not leave and kept standing behind him.
What is it?
Tap tap.
Watching his father like that, Hyunseung carefully asked.
—Dad, is something going on?
—No, nothing is going on.
—You are not sick or anything, right?
—I am perfectly fine, do not worry.
Contrary to saying nothing was wrong, his father looked at him and hesitated, watching his son’s face.
There was definitely something.
Hyunseung sat his father on the bed, met his eyes, and asked again.
—Really, nothing is going on? Or do you have something you want to tell me privately?
His father’s hands paused in the air for a moment. —It is not that.
As if even speaking was apologetic, he smiled sheepishly and added:
—Could you maybe buy me one set of clothes?
At the careful question, Hyunseung felt his heart drop with a thud, as if he had missed something.
He had been giving a fair amount of living expenses, so he thought his father would buy what he needed and use it.
He had been too complacent.
Always frugal, and always feeding his children first, his father was exactly the kind of person who never got himself anything.
Most likely, of all the living expenses he had given until now, his father had never used even a single penny purely for his own comfort.
Right.
When the seasons changed, he should have bought him things.
In this moment, in front of the nicely sliced apples, Hyunseung realized he was still a woefully inadequate son.
—Let’s get ready right now and go out and buy them.
He immediately set down the headset and urged his father that they should go.
He did not want to be the kind of son who could not even buy a single set of clothes.
However, it seemed his father still had more to say, because after watching his face for a long time, he added:
—But a suit like that is very expensive to have tailored, right?
He pointed at the suit hanging on one wall and asked.
—My suit?
—Yes. You usually cannot buy something like that for around a hundred thousand won, right?
Following his father’s fingertip, Hyunseung turned his head and looked at the suit.
Because he liked comfortable clothes, he did not really have occasions to wear it, so it hung there like a framed picture.
It did not meet his aesthetic sense enough to satisfy him, either.
But he did not want to throw it out.
It was the suit that Mom Kim had forced him to wear on the day he first met CEO Jeon Nam-il.
Compared to the royalties Hyunseung was earning now, it was a modestly priced suit.
But for an office worker, it boasted a rather burdensome price at a custom tailor shop.
So he could neither throw it away nor wear it, and had it hung and on display, but maybe to his father’s eyes that suit looked nice.
—It is not expensive at all, so let us go buy one quickly.
—Really? Then I would like to try to get something like that tailored…
—But why do you suddenly need a suit, Dad?
His father was not a man who went out and about much. So he had never thought a suit would be particularly necessary; he was curious if some situation had suddenly come up where his father would be asking, with this much hesitation to his son, that he needed a suit.
No way.
Min Hyuna, this, are you seeing a boyfriend again? And is that side’s parents asking to meet?
“You should not trust any man except me.”
Suddenly suppressing the anger welling up, he was about to peel his backside off the chair and rush out to find his sister at the coin karaoke when
—It is just that…
His father carefully lifted his hands and signed.
—We are going to the young lady’s country to meet that misutgaru young lady.
Narrowing his eyes, Hyunseung asked, “Misutgaru young lady?” then realized he meant Sarah Stewart and nodded.
However… At the next words, his neck slowly stiffened like wax.
—So in case we end up meeting the young lady’s parents, would it not be good to be dressed properly?
The daughter was going to the coin karaoke to practice songs she might possibly sing at the concert, and the father wanted to get a suit tailored for a possible formal family meeting. Is this what they call “like father, like daughter”?
—I can have a suit tailored and buy you anything, whatever you want.
He neither knew nor wanted to know why his father was even considering the situation of meeting Sarah Stewart’s parents.
—Dad, please do not be thinking along the lines of some international formal meeting.
Right now, Hyunseung just felt sorry.
—I only thought, just in case. There is no other meaning!
—Since we are going out to buy clothes anyway, we should also buy some misutgaru.
More than not getting a formal meeting, he worried most that he would disappoint his father by never giving him even one grandchild.
No, wait.
It would be fine if Hyuna got married and gave him one, right?
Ah…
Wait a second, but who would he send Hyuna to?
This is a problem.
Kang Hajun, Solo Jiho, none of them were to his liking and that was a big problem.
Time flew, and finally the day came to go to America. Of course, he had already asked Austin for the private jet.
“Hey, Min Hyuna.”
Seeing his little sister tottering along with a bag bigger than her body on her back, he suddenly wanted to tease her.
“Did you practice singing a bit?”
“Yeah! Will you listen to me once?”
“No, my ears say they do not really want to.”
“Oppa, do you want to die?”
“Right, I would rather choose death than listen to your singing.”
“Okay then, I will grant your wish! Any last words before you die?”
Even as he took an elbow to the ribs from his little sister, Hyunseung did not stop joking.
“Please let my little sister evolve from mouse to human.”
“You are really not going to get away with this!”
Even while he was chuckling behind the huge bag and teasing her, his hand was under the bag, supporting it from below.
“Why is this so heavy?”
No doubt she had packed a mountain of clothes again. If someone saw her, they would think she had come alone to Fashion Week.
Bickering like that, before they knew it they reached the private jet boarding gate.
“W… what is this?”
When an attendant came out specifically to take their luggage, Hyuna and their father looked around wide-eyed as if their eyes would pop out.
“Oppa, are we really riding this to go?”
“Then do you want me to book you an economy seat separately so you can take that?”
Hyuna shook her head violently and shouted, “N… no!” Still, the fortunate thing was that she did not foam at the mouth and faint.
Swoosh.
Turning his head, he saw that his father, too, was pretending he was not surprised, but looked quite astonished. Then when their eyes met he gave his son a warm smile.
In that smile was a trace of pride in his son.
Right. This would be only for a moment. People are animals of adaptation; it is only novel at first.
Faced with the long flight time of no less than 14 hours, all three family members ended up knocked out.
“Ah…”
During that, when he felt the landing and opened his eyes, the scenery he had seen not long ago was filling the window.
“Here we are again.”
He had thought he would not be coming for a while, and yet before the seasons even changed he found himself in this faraway land again.
At this level, should he buy a private jet himself? That thought crossed his mind. For some reason he had a hunch that he would be going back and forth between America and Korea continuously for a while.
If he was going to do it, he could buy a vacation home in America so he would not have to bother booking lodging, and set up a private studio inside it.
“Hm…”
As he was recalling the price of the private jet and vacation home he had owned in his previous life, his sister spoke.
“Oppa, did we just arrive in America?”
When the plane came to a complete stop on the runway, his sister, her face not fully awake from sleep, asked.
“Yeah. I need to get the luggage sorted, so wipe the sleep from your eyes and take care of Dad.”
Then Hyunseung grabbed the boxes of misutgaru in both hands.
It made him look like a mad conductor clutching two entirely different instruments in his hands.
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