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To the average, law-abiding resident of their pristine suburban neighborhood, the household at the end of the cul-de-sac was an absolute, unmitigable enigma.
On paper, they were the neighborhood’s crowning jewel of high-society glamour. Luka—once the nation’s most captivating teen idol and actor, whose melancholy gaze had defined a generation of cinema—was now a fiercely successful, wealthy scriptwriter. He was a man of quiet, sharp angles, always wearing gold-rimmed glasses, moving through life with the silent, untouchable grace of an aristocratic cat. He made an astronomical amount of money from the comfort of his sprawling, sun-flooded study, writing masterpieces when he was bored and editing manuscripts when he wasn't.
Then there was his wife, Hyuna.
Hyuna was less of a person and more of a localized meteorological event. A former actress herself, she had famously and spectacularly retired young following a fiery, front-page media scandal that she still gleefully laughed about over breakfast. Nowadays, she ran a local, grease-stained automotive garage down the road. She spent her mornings elbows-deep in smoking engines alongside her chaotic head mechanic, Dewey, and a frequently visiting Dr. Isaac—who was technically a fully licensed medical doctor but spent so much time loitering at Hyuna’s garage that neighbors suspected he treated car engines and human lungs with the exact same set of wrenches.
The genetic jackpot of this wild union was their eighteen-year-old son, Yuna. He stood well over six feet tall, possessing his mother’s rich, dark skin and a towering, athletic frame, topped off with a shock of bleached-blonde hair. But when he looked at you, it was terrifyingly familiar; he carried his father’s piercing, intensely sharp golden eyes.
But it wasn't their striking, mismatched aesthetics that made the neighborhood gossips stop dead in their tracks. It was the lifting.
It happened anywhere. It happened at any given time, completely devoid of warning or context.
On a crisp Tuesday afternoon, a neighbor pruning their hedges might look across the street to see Hyuna walking home from work. She would be covered in a light sheen of motor oil, casually hoisting Luka over her shoulder like a sack of premium, imported potatoes, continuing a loud, animated conversation about brake pads while Luka’s legs dangled effortlessly against her chest.
On a Thursday morning, Yuna would be spotted in the front yard, his massive frame shifting flawlessly as he scooped his father into a sweeping, textbook bridal carry. He would walk Luka from the front porch to the passenger seat of the car simply because Luka’s chronic heart condition was acting up that morning, and the older man had left his inhaler sitting on the kitchen island.
To an outsider, it looked bizarre. Shocking, even. A display of utter madness.
But to Hyuna and Yuna? It was a pure, unadulterated power flex.
In their minds, carrying the patriarch of the house wasn't just a matter of convenience; it was a demonstration of raw physical dominance and domestic utility. It proved they were strong, it proved they were capable, and most importantly, it established a very clear hierarchy of who was in charge of the family logistics.
Luka, for his part, did not mind it in the slightest. Over two decades of marriage and eighteen years of fatherhood, he had grown entirely immune to the sudden shifts in gravity. When his wife or his son abruptly grabbed him by the waist and hoisted him into the air, Luka didn't gasp, claw, or kick. He simply adjusted his glasses with one hand, kept his papers held high in the other, and let himself be transported. It was immensely comfortable, it saved his delicate heart the unnecessary cardiovascular strain of walking up the driveway, and he deeply understood his family’s primal, territorial need to show off.
"Honestly, every time I walk past their driveway, it's like watching two lions taking turns dragging and playing with a prize bunny," Ivan remarked one Saturday afternoon. He was leaning lazily against the chain-link fence of the neighborhood park, a pristine leather jacket slung over his shoulders.
"Don't insult bunnies," Till grumbled from beside him, fiercely aggressively sipping a lukewarm iced coffee. "Luka isn't a bunny. He's more like a smug, expensive cat that somehow convinced two apex predators to act as his personal, 24/7 chauffeur service."
The neighborhood park was currently a designated hotspot for their entire, tightly knit circle of friends. After the chaotic, glittering, and exhausting days of the entertainment industry, the whole group had migrated to this exact suburban bubble to raise their families. It was a haven of retired talent and current stars.
Mizi had happily stepped away from the silver screen years ago to run a cozy, wildly popular local café down the street. Her wife, Sua, had taken the ironclad discipline of her childhood acting days and funneled it straight into a ruthless law degree, transforming into a formidable, sharp-suited defense attorney.
Ivan, of course, was still thriving at the absolute peak of his career as a top-tier actor and high-fashion model, his face plastered across billboards downtown. Till, a former teen modeling prodigy, had successfully transitioned into full-time, critically acclaimed method acting, though he still dressed like he was about to start a garage fight.
Naturally, because the universe enjoyed symmetry, their children had inherited the collective, deeply ingrained weirdness of the group. Anyone outside their circle found them terrifying. But within the neighborhood? It was just Saturday.
Across the manicured grass of the park, Yuna was currently sitting on a park bench, lazily scrolling through his phone. Luka was leaning right against his son’s side, his eyes closed, resting his head heavily on the teenager's broad shoulder while his fingers idly tapped against a new script draft.
Suddenly, the bushes rustled. Hyuna jogged into the clearing straight from the garage, wiping her grimy hands on a red shop rag. Without breaking her stride or saying a single word of greeting, she marched up to the bench, bent at the waist, and scooped Luka up into a flawless, high-altitude piggyback ride.
Luka didn't even blink. His eyes remained half-closed as his arms automatically looped around her neck, his sharp glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose just an inch. He didn't stop reading his script.
A passing jogger slowed down to a crawl, staring at the sight with wide, deeply distressed eyes, completely unable to process why a grown, elegant man in a designer trench coat was being carried like a backpack by a woman covered in transmission fluid.
"Look at that," Till noted, pointing his coffee cup at the runner. "They're scaring the locals again."
"Let them stare," Ivan chuckled, his head tilting back as his sharp, vampire-like teeth flashed brilliantly in the autumn sunlight.
Suddenly, a heavy, familiar weight dropped onto Ivan's left arm. His oldest son, eighteen-year-old Eunha, had walked up silently behind him. Without a word of warning, Eunha clamped his jaws directly down onto Ivan’s forearm, biting fiercely into the thick leather of his jacket.
A second later, a blur of motion hit Ivan’s legs. The six-year-old twins, Ren and Rene, sprinted out from behind a slide, scaled Ivan’s thighs like tiny, feral tree trunks, and aggressively bit down on his left and right wrists. All three boys shared Ivan’s distinct, razor-sharp teeth—a genetic trait they utilized entirely for affection.
Ivan didn't even flinch. He didn't break his posture. He simply reached down with his one free finger to pat Ren's dark hair. "See? Every family has a love language. Ours is teething."
"It's terrifying is what it is," Till muttered, though the corner of his mouth twitched upward. He reached down, wrapped his hand around the back of Rene’s shirt, and hoisted the six-year-old off Ivan’s wrist, letting the boy chew aggressively on his own heavy jacket sleeve instead. "You and your clones are destroying my entire autumn wardrobe. I have a photoshoot on Monday, Ivan."
"They do it because they love you, Till," Ivan purred, entirely unbothered by the teenager still clamped onto his forearm like a lamprey.
A few yards away on a large plaid picnic blanket, Mizi and Sua’s children were expressing their own devotion in a much quieter, though equally intense, fashion.
Eighteen-year-old Mia, sporting a stunning mane of pinkish-black hair and her mother’s sharp, analytical purple eyes, was furiously snapping aesthetic, high-speed photos of the chaos on her digital camera. Beside her, five-year-old Zian—who looked like a miniature, perfectly pressed clone of Sua, complete with dark hair and intense, golden-brown eyes—was sitting cross-legged, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he furiously worked a yellow crayon across a piece of construction paper.
"Look, Mama! Look, Mommy!" Zian called out proudly, hoisting the paper high into the air toward Sua and Mizi. "It's Auntie Hyuna and Uncle Luka! I drew the muscles!"
Sua looked up from a mountain of legal briefs, her stern, professional expression instantly melting into a soft, proud smile. "Beautiful, Zian. Your shading is excellent. And that is a remarkably accurate anatomical representation of a fireman's carry."
Mia giggled, adjusting the collar of an incredibly baggy, oversized green flannel shirt that clearly did not belong to her. "Hey, Mom, do you recognize this shirt? Because I completely raided your closet at six in the morning. It matches the autumn vibes today."
Mizi burst out laughing, leaning over to wrap a warm arm around Sua's waist. "I knew it! I spent twenty minutes looking for that flannel this morning! Just promise me you won't get flour all over it later when we bake those lemon tarts, okay? It's my favorite."
"No promises!" Mia flashed a peace sign, instantly turning her camera on Eunha, who was still attached to Ivan's arm.
Back on the grass, Hyuna finally trotted over to the picnic area and gently, expertly slid Luka down into an empty lawn chair. The moment his feet touched the grass, Yuna stepped up like a seasoned bodyguard. He draped a thick, fleece blanket over his father’s shoulders, checked his breathing with a keen, highly trained eye, and popped open a fresh water bottle, pressing it into Luka's hand.
"Good form, Mom," Yuna murmured, cracking his knuckles as he stared down his mother. "But your lifting height was a little low on the transition. I'm carrying him back to the house later. My turn to flex."
"In your dreams, kiddo," Hyuna grinned broadly, throwing her arm around her son’s massive shoulders and shaking him violently. "I've still got the better grip strength from throwing tires around all morning. You've got a long way to go before you out-lift your mother."
Luka adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, taking a slow sip of the water. He looked around at the absolute, beautiful circus surrounding them—the teeth marks left on leather jackets, the stolen flannel shirts, the clicking camera shutters, the crayon drawings, and the raw, unyielding physical flexes that defined his wife and son.
To the rest of the world, they were an untamable freak show. But to them, it was just a regular Saturday afternoon in October.
"Just ensure that whoever wins the right to carry me back does not drop my manuscript," Luka said smoothly, a tiny, deeply amused smirk playing on his lips as he turned the page of his script. "I have a publisher deadline on Monday, and I will not have my pages covered in lawn clippings."