Chapter Text
Yoo Joonghyuk has never regretted his decision to quit smoking before, but he thinks tonight will be the first.
It’s uncomfortable here. The suit is too hot, hugs him too tight. He feels like he needs to gasp for breath in this stuffy atmosphere, and he can’t believe he has to stay here until fucking midnight. Even with all the air-conditioning and the size of this grand venue, Yoo Joonghyuk feels like he’s suffocating. The wine in his glass is little more than decoration, save for the few sips he’s taken from it to keep up appearances.
This is the last place he wants to be right now. Surrounded by people he doesn’t care to spend Christmas with—his relatives, his business partners, his so-called ‘family’.
What a load of bullshit.
He’d rather stay in Korea with Mia.
If not for that god-forsaken invitation sitting in his email, he wouldn’t even be here. A part of him wishes he never received it. Wishes it went straight into the spam folder. He can’t do anything about his being here, and he hates it.
God.
I need a smoke.
Loosening his tie, he takes another sip of the wine. It’s too sweet, and the alcohol’s too strong. He doesn’t like it.
He doesn’t like anything here.
The gentle lights cascading down from the chandeliers are too hot and too bright to him. The people are standing too close. There are too many eyes on him. Yoo Joonghyuk can’t seem to find one thing in here that brings him comfort other than the thought of leaving this fucking hellhole, which won’t even be happening for a few more hours.
He’d quit smoking for Seolhwa, when they were still dating. He did it for her, and in preparation for a family. He… never got it, but at least he managed to stop smoking in general. In the long run, it’s bad for his health, and he knows it.
Yoo Joonghyuk swirls his glass, watching the way the water glints off the liquid.
He could leave early.
No one would blame him; it’s normal. He’s been here since 6p.m. Just three more painstaking hours to go.
This party is sickening. Yoo Joonghyuk can’t count the number of times someone has stopped him to ask about Seolhwa. “Oh, so you did divorce,” a distant aunt lamented. Yoo Joonghyuk had watched the way she tilted her head, the way her lips pulled downwards as her eyebrows furrowed in what could only be disappointment. “That’s a pity. She was such a lovely girl—a perfect match, I’d say.” And then, as if she hadn’t said enough already, she’d asked, “Couldn’t you have settled it without separating?”
Yoo Joonghyuk still doesn’t know how he managed to stop himself from retorting with, “for the same reason your husband fucked off to another country with a girl twenty years younger than him.”
Yoo Joonghyuk had, instead, flashed a polite smile and said, “We just didn’t work out.”
It had been a mutual agreement.
That doesn’t mean he likes being reminded of it.
Seriously, he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold out. Not with everyone’s staring and whispering and asking him things he doesn’t want to answer. And who on earth chose to have this party in Singapore? Just for the heck of it? Sure, the country is gorgeous, but there’s nothing wrong with having it in Korea when most of the people here are literally Korean anyway. Yoo Joonghyuk doubts he’ll ever understand his relatives and their decisions. They’ve never clicked, and Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t about to start following in their footsteps.
“Oh, is that our Joonghyuk? It’s been so long!”
Great.
It takes a great amount of effort for him to school his expression into something presentable before turning around.
The woman in front of him is middle-aged, and wears a teal dress with too many sparkles. Yoo Joonghyuk thinks, vaguely, that she’s giving off more light than the fucking chandelier overhead.
“Yes,” he says, surprised at how polite he manages to sound. “It’s been a while, Hyori-ssi.”
Choi Hyori peers around Yoo Joonghyuk in a manner that could hardly be counted as subtle (and Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t about to applaud her for the effort if that’s what she’s going for, because she’s awfully terrible at it). He barely keeps the bemusement from his voice when he asks, “Are you looking for something?”
She straightens, blinking in surprise. Yoo Joonghyuk ignores the flush on her cheeks, glancing, instead, at the glass of wine in his hand. He doesn’t really want to look at her anymore than he has to. Time has chipped away at his tendency to stay polite in the face of older relatives he can’t be bothered to give a shit about.
He’s thirty-eight, for god’s sake.
“Nothing,” she says, in a way that clearly means something. “I was just… You know. Where’s that pretty girl you always brought with you?” Ugh. “Lee… Ah! Lee Seolhwa.”
“We got divorced,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, without missing a beat, without looking up. He sounds bored and tired. Probably because he is. So much for self-control.
“Oh!”
Fake, he thinks. So fake.
“That’s a pity.” He doesn’t bother looking at her face anymore. They tend to blur out after a while. “You were so good together.”
Thanks, he thinks wryly, as if I haven’t been hearing that the entire fucking night.
“How is she, then? What brought up the—”
“She’s still working in the hospital.” He shrugs, finally looking up to meet the woman’s eyes. He doesn’t know why he remembers her name; he ought to forget it. He’s tired. “Last I saw her, she was trying to get her PhD. We didn’t work out.”
He leaves before she can say anything else. He can already predict it, anyways; something like ‘oh, I’m sorry, that’s such a pity’ or ‘that’s a shame’. They’re all the same anyway.
At least he hadn’t been lying. Yoo Joonghyuk reckons Lee Seolhwa’s almost got her PhD by now, if she hasn’t gotten it already. She’d been studying for her doctorate degree even before their divorce.
There’s a part of Yoo Joonghyuk that wonders, as he makes his way to somewhere more isolated, whether he’s been invited just so people can ask him about his divorce. Can’t these people let it go? He’d kept it a small, private matter for a reason. How did word even get out? These people are like pests. Invasive, and always in places you don’t want them to be.
With all these people trying to convince him to get her back or find another spouse that would benefit the business, he wonders who the boss of the N’Gai Group really is—him, or them?
What a load of fucking bullshit. At some point, Yoo Joonghyuk really might tell his elders to fuck off and stop bothering him.
Yoo Joonghyuk pushes open a glass door that leads to an open space outside the venue, enclosed by concrete railing. There are thick, white pillars on either side of him, and a bulb emitting soft, yellow light hangs from the round ceiling.
He takes a deep breath.
Finally, he thinks. Some fresh air.
If he’d had any cigarettes with him, he’d have popped one out by now. He wishes he never came, and now he’s seriously thinking of a valid excuse to go home early. There aren’t even any lollipops here, despite all the little runts running around the place—and he can’t believe that this is what brings back the urge: a stupid Christmas party that’s just too big for its own good.
Yoo Joonghyuk takes a seat on one of the plush leather sofas, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.
Man.
He wonders if anyone would buy it if he used his sister as an excuse to just go home.
Okay, maybe he’s had too many cups to drink.
He hadn’t meant to drink at all, actually, but the moment he’d stepped back into the venue, he already had another ahjumma asking him about Seolhwa. He’s sick of it. Sick of being asked and sick of hearing her name from their sick mouths. “Have you been keeping in touch with her?” She’d asked, and at least three other people around her had turned their ears their way in a not-so-subtle way.
He’d nearly thrown that glass of fucking wine in her face. He’s sure his scent soured at that moment, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Sometimes,” he’d said, sounding strained. “She’s busy, and we aren’t seeing each other anymore. We’re on friendly terms, that’s all.”
“So there’s… no chance of you guys getting back together?”
At this point, Yoo Joonghyuk had had enough. He stared her down and let his scent fill the room. He watched her wince and lower her gaze. He watched her, and then he’d said, “We divorced for a reason.” He turned away. “And it seems like no one here has accepted that fact but me, which I find rather ironic, don’t you think.”
At least no one’s asked him about Seolhwa ever since that conversation. He thinks the scent did it, along with the expression on his face. He isn’t sure what it looks like right now, but if it’s enough to make children hide from him, then it must be pretty bad.
“Ah… Joonghyuk-ssi?”
Yoo Joonghyuk nearly breaks the glass in his hand.
The girl in front of him is young. She looks like she’s in her early twenties, or her late teens, but Yoo Joonghyuk knows her to be nineteen. Her hair is black and smooth, braided prettily and held in place by small, flowery clips. Her eyes are round and innocent, her lips full. The black dress she wears is simple and elegant, sleeveless… but it hugs her well enough to leave nothing to imagination.
He’s never been so glad to be tipsy. He doesn’t think he can handle any more of this shit sober.
“Boram,” he says, nodding his head at her. She smiles at him, but he doesn’t smile back. And yet, it doesn’t fade.
A man and woman show up behind her, and Yoo Joonghyuk bows his head in acknowledgement.
“Boram-ah.” the woman—Boram’s mother—says. “I didn’t think you’d find him so soon.”
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Boram’s father begins, with an amiable smile Yoo Joonghyuk knows not to trust, “It’s been a while.”
If only it had been longer.
“Yes, uncle,” he responds, voice tight. He doesn’t move as they step closer. “It has.”
Actually, maybe he isn’t tipsy enough for this.
“Boram-ah, why don’t you get to know Joonghyuk more?” Boram’s mother suggests, subtly pushing the girl forward. Yoo Joonghyuk watches her take a step and hesitate, only to be pushed forward again by her mother. With enough force this time that it makes her stumble, and Yoo Joonghyuk catches her by the arms.
Yoo Boram. His second cousin. Alpha. She certainly smells like one—of some sort of perfume and pine. A classic alpha scent.
“That won’t be necessary,” he says tightly. “I’ll be leaving soon. It was nice seeing you again, auntie.”
“Oh, but she just got here!”
There’s fear in Boram’s eyes when their gazes meet. Yoo Joonghyuk hopes his gaze is apologetic enough. Neither of them want to be here.
“That’s a shame,” Yoo Joonghyuk responds, letting her go and stepping away. “But, really. I need to go soon, and having her stay would be a waste of our time.”
“But it would be good to speak a little more with her, you know, since she might become your—”
“Thank you for the lovely conversation, but I’m taking my leave tonight.” Yoo Joonghyuk whips out his phone and texts his driver without bothering to keep up appearances anymore. His voice is tight and laced with a bit of panic. “Thank you for the offer, auntie.”
“But—”
“I hope you can all enjoy the rest of your dinner. I’ll be taking my leave. Goodnight.”
Yoo Joonghyuk tries not to run when he weaves through the crowd, but he’s sure that he ends up doing it anyway. The venue is too hot and too full of people, and eyes, and whispers.
Boram.
Yoo Joonghyuk hopes it’ll never come to that.
When he finally slams the door shut and snaps at his driver to bring them both back to the hotel, Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t think he’s ever felt so relieved in his life.