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“At first,” I admitted.

Youngjoon tilted his head to scrutinise me, and it was an effort not to look away.

“You didn’t stop when you ended things?” he asked politely enough, but the question itself was so confronting that even in English it might have been considered rude.

My mouth twisted, and I fought to keep my eyes from narrowing. I glanced over to see how Jihoon’s mum was reacting. She was still staring down at her lap, but her jaw was tightly clenched. I saw Jihoon turn to me from the corner of my eye, but I laid a hand on his thigh under the table.

“For a time I did,” I said with an ease I didn’t feel. “But then I decided to keep going with it.”

He made a humming noise, like he was considering my answer, and I got the impression that nothing I could have said would have been correct.

“Why? Korean is not such a global language. If you wanted another language, why not Spanish or German? Even Mandarin would be more useful,” he scoffed.

“It felt like a waste,” I bit out, and then forced my jaw to relax. “I’d spent so long learning. It felt like a waste to give up. Also, Korean is very global now,” I said in a tone that was perhaps a touch impolite, but by that point I was just matching his energy.

He huffed, but inclined his head.

“You said you work with my son. What do you do? Not another singer?” he asked in the same tone someone might use when being presented with a chocolate teapot.

I gritted my teeth and tried to pass it off as a winsome smile as I answered. “I’m a music journalist. I’m following the tour. Reporting on it.”

“A journalist?” he asked sharply.

“A music journalist,” I clarified. “I write about the tour, specifically.”

I almost softened towards the man when I remembered that this was probably an important distinction to someone who had watched his family be chased by paparazzi, and seen his own mother be chased from her home after his brother had died. I studied him for a moment, and wondered if that was a part of the reason why he had such disdain for Jihoon’s career. The thought occurred to me then that perhaps Baek Youngjoon resented Jihoon for what had happened.

His mouth relaxed, and he nodded before he picked up his spoon and pulled his bowl back towards himself. Without looking at me, he asked, “Is my son taking care of himself?”

I blinked and swung my head round to Jihoon before I could think to moderate my response. I quickly turned back to Youngjoon.

“Not as well as he should,” I said, honestly but as kindly as I could manage.

Youngjoon hummed. “Perhaps you could remind him.”

I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice, but I didn’t think I managed it. “I will.”

And just like that, the conversation around the table moved on. I stared at Jihoon, who returned my stunned expression. His mum looked like she wanted to add something, and I watched as she swallowed down whatever it was, but the lines around her mouth softened.

His aunt and uncle went back to asking Jihoon about what countries he’d been to, but now I was invited into the conversation. They asked for my opinions on the shows and the different vibes at each stop. Soojin crawled into Jihoon’s lap, and he absentmindedly played with her pigtails. Gradually, the tension faded and eased into something resembling normal.

Night had begun to threaten the horizon by the time we left. Jihoon promised his mum he’d be back once he’d dropped me at the hotel, and I watched her hand linger on his arm as she looked at him.

We drove back in not-quite silence, and for once it wasn’t just me whose thoughts were loud. Eventually, I got him to open up.

“It’s the first night we all will be under the same roof, at the same time,” he said heavily. “Every time I visited over the years was to visit Halmeoni,” he admitted, confirming my suspicion. “Usually, my appa was away. On business, or perhaps he just did not want to see me.” He shrugged, but there was no mistaking the bitterness to his voice.

“We took turns staying at the funeral hall. We were not all in the same place, at the same time. This will be… strange.”

“Strange good, or strange bad?” I asked in as neutral a tone as I could.

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “Both, maybe. We will see.”

I didn’t ask if he’d come back to the hotel later, because I didn’t want to make him feel like he had to. I had to remind myself that not everyone was lucky enough to have the kind of relationship I had with my parents.

We parked the car, and he walked me up to the hotel room. We paused outside the door and he kissed me softly, cupping my face as he stared down at me, saying with his eyes what he said to me the night before. And then he left.

It was late when he came back. But he did come back.