Onyx: Forever

by J. S. Lee

  “Since when has our son ever been a good actor?” Youngwoon returned. He looked at his frowning son. “Is this because Kate is pregnant?”

  “No,” Youngbin said, firmly. “I mean, it’s partly why we’re telling you now, but we’re telling you because I love her, and I want to be with her. I want you to see that too.”

  “This is madness,” Hyojoo told him. “It is irrational. It is foolish.”

  “Isn’t that the definition of love?”

  Hyojoo jerked her chair back and stood, before marching away, her body swaying with the roll of the ocean as she walked into the cabin.

  Youngwoon sighed and stood. “Part of me agrees with her, and I think it’s very dangerous for you to be doing this, especially as you’re an idol,” he told Youngbin. “But it’s because of that, I’m inclined to believe this is real.”

  “It is real,” Youngbin told him.

  “You’ve been quiet,” his father said, looking at me.

  I nodded. I’d been quiet because I didn’t have the language skills to tell them anything eloquently. I was just keeping up with the conversation as it was. “I love your son,” I told him, simply.

  “I will go see my wife now,” Youngwoon said before disappearing.

  Finally, I let go of Youngbin’s hand and stood, moving away from the table, out into the sun. It was a glorious day, and with the sun reflecting off the water, I was regretting not bringing my sunglasses with me, not least because they also would have been perfect for hiding behind.

  Youngbin walked up behind me, wrapping his arms around me as his chin settled on my shoulder. “I can’t believe you just told them like that,” I sighed.

  “I couldn’t think of a better way to tell them.”

  I leaned back into him and closed my eyes. The fresh sea air was blowing on my face, but it didn’t really feel like it was filling my lungs, despite the deep breath I was taking. “I’m beginning to think not telling any of them would be better.”

  “I’m not ashamed of you or the others,” Youngbin informed me, tightening his grip. “I don’t think any of our parents will understand this, but I think they will accept it.”

  I wish I had Youngbin’s confidence.

  “It’s not about being ashamed. I just think it was maybe too much.” I turned in his arms, looking up at him. “You dropped a girlfriend – a pregnant girlfriend on them.”

  “Kate, what do you think is going to happen when we get back to the resort and have dinner later. They’re going to expect you to sit with me.”

  “And?”

  Youngbin leaned over and pressed a kiss against my forehead. “You’re spending the afternoon with JongB and his family, who will tell them about you and him. And they will expect you to sit with him at dinner.”

  “And?” I asked, stubbornly. I knew exactly what was going to happen in that scenario. One of them would make a comment about me dating their son, and the other would say I was dating their son, and suddenly world war three would break out. I leaned forward, pressing my forehead into his shoulder. “We should have done this one at a time, back home.”

  “Some of us haven’t seen our parents since before we debuted,” Youngbin said. A hand went to my hair and he started stroking it. “I know it was sudden, but I think this will work out. But you’ve got to stop worrying, because that’s not good for you or the baby.”

  That was easy for him to say.

  I let my mind drift off, watching the island as we sailed past it, trying to do as he said and not worry. Life would be a lot simpler if we could just move onto a remote island like this and not have to think about what anyone else would think about us.

  Eventually, the boat circled the island and I could see the chalets in the distance. Neither Youngbin’s mom or dad had come back out onto the deck, but we had eventually gone back to sit down. “You really should go inside and spend some time with your parents,” I told Youngbin for the umpteenth time.

  “My mom needs time to cool down and process,” Youngbin disagreed. “They’re here for a week. If I go in now, it will be a lot of questions.”

  “I think I’m entitled to ask questions,” Hyojoo said. We both turned finding her behind us, her arms folded. She didn’t look angry, or even disappointed. But I couldn’t say she was jumping for joy. “You’re dating all of the members of Onyx?” she asked me.

  Of course she was going to ask me the questions…

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “And which one is the father of the child?”

  “I am,” Youngbin replied. I shot him a look. There was no way he could know that.

  “How can a person possibly love six people at once?”

  Once again, Youngbin answered. “The six of us love her, mom.”

  Hyojoo finally looked at her son. “I’ve got all week to question you.” Youngbin turned red and looked over at the ocean. Hyojoo turned to me and gave me an expectant look.

  “I’ve never thought about it,” I told her, honestly. “I love them, and I don’t question that.” I chewed at my lip, trying to find the words to articulate how much they meant to me. Failing, I went for simple. “They mean everything to me. Youngbin will hate me saying this, but I would do anything I could to protect them if I have to.” That did earn me a dark look. “I… I love them,” I finished with a lame shrug.

  Youngbin’s mom finally sat down. As she did, I realized Youngwoon was lingering to the side. “Son?” Youngbin looked over at his mom.

  “Mom, before you say anything, the only thing that is as important to me as Onyx is Kate. You kept telling me to follow my dream. My dream was Onyx. Onyx led me to Kate.”

  Tears welled up in the corner of my eyes.

  Damn hormones.

  Before I could wipe them away, Hyojoo was staring at me. Youngbin might have been a spitting image of his father, but I knew where he got his intense stare from. Very slowly, she nodded her head.

  제13 장

  Don’t Worry

  By late-afternoon, I was starting to feel myself relax. I knew I still had to ‘meet’ five more sets of families, but it was as if Youngbin’s family had taken the edge off my nerves.

  My worries weren’t completely unfounded, and I had to remind myself that even though I had been getting worked up about it, most normal girls didn’t have to meet six different sets of parents. Most normal girls also weren’t dating idols.

  But, as I kept reminding myself, the most important thing that I couldn’t allow myself to forget, was just how much Onyx cared for me.

  The afternoon was going to be spent in the pool. Apparently, just behind the tree line, was a swimming pool with a section suitable for children. I had no idea who had picked the activities, but honestly, being told what I was going to do, in advance, was a lot easier. I knew what to expect and what to dress for.

  In this case, it was a bikini, a pair of shorts, and my flip flops. My hair was loose, and I had taken all of the jewelry off I normally wore, aside from the bracelet CX had bought me.

  The door to Sungmin’s room was closed when I left my room. Maybe he really was working on the comeback. I knew a lot of work went into making an album. It didn’t mean he had to hide away in his bedroom, especially not when there was a whole chalet and I was hardly in it.

  All I was aware of was my own ‘schedule’ – whose parents I was meeting on what day, and what we were doing. I wasn’t sure what the others were doing, until I walked past the central area. Xiao was there with his family, playing something that could have been dominos, but I wasn’t close enough to see. He waved at me as I walked past.

  I followed the path along, and as mine met with a second, a small blur of hot pink barreled into me and wrapped itself around me. I looked down, finding Mina clinging to me.

  “You’ve got a better tracking device than your brother,” I muttered, leaning down to scoop her up. “Hey, pretty lady.”

  “Mina?” I heard JongB calling.

  I took a few steps towards his voice and h
e appeared around the side of one of the chalets. “I’ve got her,” I told him.

  JongB jogged over to me and took her from me. She clung to him like a monkey and I was sure that if he let go, she would stay exactly where she was. “Mina, stop running away!” he scolded her. He looked to me, giving me a grateful smile. “Eomma says she’s developing her independent explorer streak.”

  “She’s not the only one who won’t stay where she’s supposed to,” I said, giving him a pointed look. “I can see where she’s learning that from.”

  “Shhh!” JongB hissed at me. “Don’t say that! Eomma will-”

  “Eomma will what?” Joomi appeared with Tom and Robin, and she looked mildly amused.

  “Eomma will shower me in love and affection because I’m her favorite firstborn,” JongB declared as they joined us.

  “And that right there is why I wanted you to finish high school,” she said, rolling her eyes. She turned to me. “At least we can be grateful for consistency with Jongsub.”

  I chuckled. I liked JongB’s family. Even if things hadn’t gone well with Youngbin’s parents, I would still have felt a little less nervous when it came to spending time with them.

  We followed the path, Mina refusing to let ‘SubSub’ put her down. It was a short walk through the trees but there were rabbits everywhere. They were smart enough to stay off the path, but I could see their twitchy noses as they stood on their hind legs as we walked the path. “Look at the rabbits,” I said to Mina, but she was too enthralled with her biggest brother.

  “Look, Mina,” JongB said, turning his body and walking sideways to point her at the trees. “Rabbits.”

  Mina let out an excited squeal, clapping her hands, and they ran. “Rabbits!” she cried.

  “Next time,” JongB said, wincing as she started to wail.

  “Look, Mina-bear,” Robin said, swooping in to the rescue. “The swimming pool has a slide.”

  The rabbits were forgotten about. I wished I was a child and able to forget things that easily.

  The swimming pool was shaped like a donut with a small island in the middle which had three slides coming off it. It wasn’t any deeper than two feet at the outer edges, but according to the numbers on the island, it went to eight feet.

  After collecting a towel that had been left out for our use, I picked a lounger under a parasol and laid it out. On the other side of me, Joomi was helping Mina out of her t-shirt and shorts, while JongB was blowing up a pair of inflatable arm rings. They were bright pink like the neatly folded clothes and also the swimsuit that Mina was wearing.

  “Robin, don’t let her go too deep,” Joomi said as JongB’s younger brother led her to the water.

  I watched the two of them play as JongB took the lounger on the other side of me. “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t have brothers or sisters,” I told him. “But I can’t think of many of my friends who have siblings who would have played with them like that, especially with him being quite a few years older. It’s nice.”

  “Robin is good like that,” Tom said. He was sat just behind us at a table, his eyes fixed on the children. “He wants to be a teacher when he grows up.”

  I could see JongB scanning me, like there was a bug crawling on me and he was trying to keep an eye on it. “What?” I asked him, half-suspicious, half-wary of some giant stinging thing swooping down and killing me.

  “Where’s your phone?”

  I tilted my head. “My phone? The chalet. Why?”

  The next thing I knew, JongB was in front of me, picking me up and onto his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. I let out a squeal as he ran towards the pool and leaped into it.

  I. Was. Going. To. Drown. Him.

  I pushed my feet down and resurfaced, just as JongB came up. With no warning, I pounced on him, dunking him. The second he came back up, he sent a wave of water cascading over me. I splashed back, like a dolphin playing around.

  And then I realized Mina was laughing her head off at the side of the pool. JongB dove under the water, swimming straight to her. When he surfaced, he did in a sleek motion, only to spray her in the chest with a mouthful of water. She giggled harder as she splashed him back.

  OK, it was kind of cute.

  I wasn’t sure I needed throwing in the pool though…

  I swam to the side and pulled myself out, frowning down at the soaked shorts. JongB was lucky it was hot and sunny. I sensed him behind me as I unbuttoned the shorts and slipped out of them.

  “Well, hello there, sexy mama,” he said with a wolfish grin.

  “You are a…” I glanced over his shoulder, trying to work out how far away I was from Mina and Robin. “D-i-c-k,” I told him, spelling the word out, just in case.

  “Yeah, but you love me really.”

  I gave him a withering stare. “Funny how you made me forget that.”

  “I can’t believe you two aren’t dating,” Joomi said, amused.

  If Tom’s attention had been on the kids, it was now on his wife. “Leave them be, dear. You know JongB said he wasn’t dating Kate.”

  “No, I didn’t,” JongB said.

  Joomi sat upright. “Are you two dating?”

  JongB gave her a grin and wrapped his arms around me as he gave me a back hug. “You bet we are!”

  “Oh, Kate, you have my deepest sympathies,” Tom told me.

  “Ya!” JongB objected, his mouth falling open. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

  Tom rolled his eyes. “I am, except I think I like Kate more.”

  “Hold up!” Joomi interrupted, walking over to us and scratching at the back of her head. “You two are dating?”

  JongB nodded proudly. I could feel him puff out his chest behind me.

  “I didn’t think you were allowed to date in that contract,” she mused, looking at her husband who frowned and then nodded. “Isn’t this going to get you in trouble?”

  “Not with Atlantis. They know,” JongB replied.

  I sighed. “I can’t say the fans would be happy if they found out though.”

  JongB stepped out from behind me and draped his arm over my shoulder. “That’s true. So, please don’t go telling all your friends that I have a girlfriend.”

  Joomi looked momentarily stunned, blinking. “Girlfriend… that sounds strange.” She shook her head. “Jongsub, I could announce it at the next P.T.A. meeting, and no one would understand the significance of this.”

  “I’m not worried about the P.T.A., I’m worried about the Korean women you have tea with every weekend.”

  “I know better than to say anything there.” She gave me a wide smile. “I’m glad someone could finally see JongB for the incredible young man he is. But good luck trying to get him to tidy up after himself.”

  “Eomma!”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t have the messiest room in the dorm-”

  “I spend my entire time in the dorm picking up after Xiao!” JongB objected. “I’m one of the tidiest in our dorm. And we’re not in a dorm anymore, anyway,” he huffed, folding his arms. “We got a house.”

  “You and Kate?” Joomi’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head.

  “Me, and Kate, and the rest of the guys,” JongB told her.

  I closed my eyes with a sigh.

  “Why would you all live together?” Joomi asked, confused.

  I was starting to understand how Sungmin felt most of the time as I tried to not rub at my temples. I didn’t have to deal with JongB’s mess, just his incurable foot-in-mouth disease.

  “Because we’re all dating Kate.”

  I was regretting not drowning JongB.

  I opened my eyes and found both Tom and Joomi staring at us with the same reaction Youngbin’s parents had: Confusion and disbelief. Tom rubbed his hand over his jaw, opened his mouth, and then closed it.

  “At the same time?” Joomi asked, slowly, her eyes twitching back and forth between us.

  I nodded my head.

  Tom shrugged and then sigh
ed. “So long as you’re careful.”

  “About that,” JongB said, sheepishly.

  Joomi sat down heavily on the sun lounger.

  “Mrs Im!” I cried, ducking down in front of her. “Are you OK?”

  Joomi waved her arm, trying to get me to leave her alone. “I thought we had this covered, call me eomma…” she looked up at JongB and sucked in a deep breath. “You’re a grown-ass adult and you have a beautiful girlfriend, so I get it, but I thought we’d successfully covered the need to ‘wrap it up’ when-”

  “Eomma!” JongB objected, cringing.

  His mother’s eyes narrowed. “Im Jongsub, if you can’t talk about sex, you certainly shouldn’t be having it!” Tom stepped forward, placing a hand on her shoulder. Joomi looked at me. “Congratulations, Kate. I’m sorry for not saying that sooner, but I was a little surprised. How far along are you?”

  “I think just over seven weeks,” I told her, warily. Yes, I was hoping JongB’s parents were going to be the ones to take the news the best, but I wasn’t expecting them to be congratulating me. “I’m going for my first scan when we get back to Seoul.”

  She nodded, patting the lounger beside her. I sat, perching on the edge. “It will be too early to tell the sex of the baby, but you’ll be able to get a due date. I assume you’ll be having the baby in Korea, or will you be going back to your parents in America?”

  “I’m staying in Seoul,” I told her.

  She quickly mouthed something – it looked like she was counting, before looking to us both. “When you know your due date, let me know. I will leave Tom with the kids for a couple of weeks and come over. With seven of you in the house, it will make it a little easier, but sometimes, you just need your halmeoni. Don’t worry, I will stay with family so that I’m not intruding on you, but I’ll be close if you need some help.”

  I would have hugged her if JongB hadn’t gotten there before me.

  “But how are you going to manage being an idol and having a child?” she asked as JongB pulled away.

  JongB looked at me before looking back to her. “We’re still trying to work that part out.”