Chapter Text
This was a day Simon had been dreading since attending MU.
It’s officially been a month, and of course, his parents want to do a ‘check in’.
To see how he’s settling in, they say.
He’s attended Scarlet and Sven’s ‘check-ins’ - he knows how fake that statement is.
It was essentially a subtle interrogation, trying to find out as much as possible from their kids. See if they’re on the right track, see if they need to step in with anything that might be…unsatisfactory.
They took this thing very seriously, even though they never said it.
Mom was even flying back from a shoot all the way in Korea just to have this quick dinner.
He’d spent the last week planning out how this was going to go.
Practicing responses that would appease them, ensuring things like his manners and body language were in check, reminding himself that - under no circumstances - should he talk too much about his roommate and anything else his parents wouldn’t approve of.
He’d gotten closer to Patrick, his enthusiasm was irritatingly infectious sometimes, and he wasn’t as terrible as Simon was anticipating.
Still, Patrick was…not up to their standards.
His parents finding out that his roommate only ‘passed’ quizzes and ate junk food regularly - in addition to majoring in cinematography of all things - would be a disaster, and a surefire way for Simon to be back under their intensely watchful eyes.
His gaze strayed to the clock again.
He’d been checking it non-stop for almost an hour, like a nervous tick he couldn’t shake.
Despite all his planning and practice, he couldn’t deny the twisted feeling in his gut.
He was nervous.
It was irrational - it wasn’t like he was hiding some big secret from them - but that didn’t make the feeling any less real.
Father was in His office wrapping up a meeting before the dinner, and Mom was unpacking her luggage.
Dinner was in 10 minutes.
It was just him and Sven in the room.
“Y’know, I honestly thought they’d postpone this dinner - with Mom being in Korea and all that.”
Sven grinned, either trying to lighten the mood or to rub it in his face.
Knowing him, it could be both.
“All this trouble for one lousy dinner that’ll last 30 minutes tops. Better not mess it up, little bro!”
Simon only responded with a curt nod, watching Scarlet’s car now pull into the driveway.
Although Simon wasn’t a ‘people person’ at all, he still caught it.
The inflection in Sven’s voice at the end, the undertone of jealousy, the way his impish grin was too large but his eyes too narrowed to convey something fully genuine.
All this trouble for one lousy dinner.
All this trouble for Simon.
The air was thick with both anticipation and trepidation, suffocated by the silence.
Simon heard the usual sounds of utensils, deafeningly loud to his ears, and tried to keep himself cool.
It was only a matter of time before they started asking questions, and it didn’t take long before he was proven right.
“So, how has college been for you, son?”
Father was the first to speak, as he often always is.
He sat at the head of the table, His rightful place, but also to watch the reactions of everyone else.
“Good. I’ve settled in well, and I scored full marks on my first quiz.”
Another period of silence.
Father nods his head slightly in approval.
That didn’t mean anything, though. Simon knew this was just the beginning.
“You have a roommate, yes?”
Simon mimicked Father’s small nod, rehearsing the lines he’d thought of in his head.
“His name is Patrick. Sophomore. Majors in Sociology. All-round average student.”
Sociology was the best he thought Patrick could actually pull off if something ever happened.
He said something about Theatre and embodying the role of a person or whatever, and he’s so extraverted he should realistically know a lot about people. Besides, wasn’t Sociology just advanced gossip?
Sven gave him a brief, curious look.
He knew Patrick, he was in the Procrastinators Club. And he definitely didn’t major in Sociology. Regardless, he shrugged and continued to eat his food.
“Mn...good.”
And by ‘good’, Simon knew what He really wanted to say was ‘acceptable’.
“When are the application results being announced?”
Of course, Father was talking about the engineering program.
“They said the estimated time was late this month. A lot of people signed up for the program.”
Those stupid results haunted him. The anticipation was almost killing him, and it always found a way to stay right at the back of his mind.
It was raining outside. Simon couldn’t recall when it started, because the night was clear when they all sat down to eat. He wished there was thunder, to block out all the questions his parents had for him.
Sven and Scarlet were both silent, but they were both listening intently, Simon knew. He did the same thing when he was in their place.
Scarlet had coffee next to her. Who the hell chose coffee as a drink for dinner? He was half convinced she’d give herself a heart attack from it, among other things.
“You’re not taking quinoa, dear?”
His Mom spoke up for the first time this dinner, soft and gently prodding, and her question caught him off guard for a moment.
He cursed internally, wondering how he didn’t pick that up before. Silently, he moved to put some quinoa salad on his plate, but the damage had already been done.
Although Mom was often absorbed in looking in the mirror or whatever phone call she was having, she was incredibly perceptive when she wanted to be.
He didn’t take the salad right away.
It implied he was slipping when it came to diet now that he was on his own.
It implied that he might be slipping when it came to other things, too, and he just wasn’t telling them.
…
Four questions. It took four questions for them to wrangle out the information they were hounding for.
Simon could hardly believe it, trying to swallow down his food bite by bite as a pit expanded in his stomach.
When he was at Scarlet and Sven’s ‘check-up dinners’, he always thought that all they needed to do was try harder to hide things.
That they were slipping up all by themselves and didn’t keep everything in check enough.
Now that it was his turn, he realized how easy it was his parents to get what they wanted.
Now, he felt it all. The stress, the pressure, the expectation. Grabbing hold inside of him and squeezing.
He glanced at Father, and he suddenly felt every bit like the young boy he once was when he saw it.
His disapproval.
The narrowed, sharp eyes; the stone cold face; the subtle scowl.
Simon had slipped.
Simon had disappointed them.
Simon had disappointed him.
At this point, the conversation was already over, and this belief was further confirmed when Mom turned her focus away from him and onto Scarlet.
“Find a nice boy yet?”
“No, Mom. I’ve told you already - I’ll think about dating after college.”
He could barely hear the conversation - his heart sinking and blood roaring in his ears - but he tried. He couldn’t afford to crack now.
He noticed that this was always the inevitable conversation Scarlet would have with their parents. “Has any man caught your eye?”. Even though Scarlet’s been proud and single and very much uninterested in boys since high school.
Simon wondered, silently, whether his parents had picked up on the fact that most of the time, Scarlet scared away all of the boys that were potential dating material.
He swore she did it on purpose, but she always acted ambivalent, blaming it on her general image.
“And how’s Senior year?”
Father re-entered the conversation, and Simon noticed the slight twitch as Scarlet’s jaw clenched ever so slightly.
She had failed to secure the title of Student Council President. For all her accomplishments, there was always one failure that drove her mad.
Often, the cause was a certain detested roommate Scarlet had.
“It’s going fine.”
The response was curt, and everyone in the room knew why.
“I’ll have to excuse myself. There’s a club meeting I have to attend.”
Mom and Father let her go, surprisingly.
Probably because she wasn’t their center of interest at the moment.
Simon couldn’t understand Scarlet sometimes.
How she always seemed to be on the move, always doing something. It was admirable, sure, but it was also infuriating.
It was always a quiz or a club meeting or cheer practice or whatever else Scarlet managed to cram into her schedule. It was like she pre-planned everything for the day and just went about executing it, not even stopping to think before moving onto the next thing she had to do.
Like she was trying to sprint through everything as fast as she possibly could.
Just as Simon managed to reach the bar, Scarlet had already raised it up again with whatever projects or competitions she’d participate in.
Simon needed time.
Time to carefully think things through, to calculate the pros and the cons, to find the best way of approaching something and then building up a solid plan with several steps and extra plans if anything went wrong.
Sven…didn’t seem to have a plan, Simon noticed.
He spent some time going in loops, then chose a plan of action seemingly out of the blue, and then got bored of it after a few hours, if so much.
If he didn’t understand Scarlet, he understood his older brother even less.
It seemed ridiculous to even refer to him as the older brother with how he always chooses to act.
Simon hated the fact that Sven always played the part of the clown, but the part that irked him the most was the fact that Sven could get away with it.
He sat snuggly in the middle of the Gwon siblings.
Nothing was expected of him.
He was literally re-taking Calculus, literally only a year above Simon’s own class, and his parents could only manage to sigh in disappointment and move on.
Sven could play the fool because he was the only one with the freedom to do so.
He was broken out of his wandering thoughts when the plates were cleared.
He didn’t remember finishing his food, but he did.
He didn’t remember Sven leaving the table, but he did.
Father had another meeting to attend, which was why this dinner was always meant to be a quick thing.
It was just him and his Mom.
“You know we do this for your own good, dear. You’re almost an adult, we’re just looking out for you.”
Mom’s smile was soft, nurturing. Simon wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not.
“Of course, Mom.”
He couldn’t manage a smile of his own, but Mom seemed satisfied, her hand moving to cup his cheek like she always used to do when he was younger.
“You know you’ll always be my baby boy, right, dear?”
Simon could only manage a nod, too many thoughts swirling in his head. Mom didn’t seem to expect an answer, instead picking up her coat from her chair and leaving the dining room.
He was alone.
Patrick’s words came to the forefront of his mind. ‘Forget what they want for a second. What do you want, Simon? Like, if there were no expectations, what’s your dream?’
He had some time to mull it over, putting some genuine thought into it.
He was taken back to when he was younger, not even in middle school. The time where he could truly think of what he wanted to be.
Who he wanted to be.
If he had no expectations, no controlling parents, no need to perform, no need to reach the ever-rising bar - who would Simon Gwon be?
…
He couldn’t answer that.
Well, he could, actually.
//
..He’d be anything but a Gwon.