Chapter Fifteen #2
“Mr. Seo, Mrs. Seo,” I start, tight with formality, “thank you for having me, I’m sorry it’s taken so long to—”
Hyunwoo’s mother is already moving, crossing the space between us in three quick strides, and before I can finish my greeting she sweeps me into her arms. The embrace is careful, mindful of my belly, but firm and warm.
Her familiar scent wraps around me, floral and warm, the scent of the woman who was as much a maternal presence in my childhood as my own mother.
She used to smooth my hair back when I cried over scraped knees.
She used to set an extra place at the family table when my parents worked late so I wouldn’t eat alone.
She was the one who drove me to the hospital when I broke my wrist falling out of the oak tree because my own parents were on shift and couldn’t leave.
She pulls back to look at me, her hands on my shoulders, and says, “Oh, Yugyeom, look at you.” Her voice catches slightly and she looks momentarily speechless, her eyes moving over my face and then dropping to my rounded belly with an expression that holds too many things for me to sort through.
Surprise. Tenderness. A little bit of pride.
She places a hand on my stomach, gentle and sure, and holds my eyes.
“Are you uncomfortable? Are you having any pains?”
I shake my head, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. “No, nothing like that. I’ve been well. Really.”
Hyunwoo’s father comes up behind his wife and takes my hand in both of his, giving it a companionable squeeze. He looks me over with a wry smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes and says, “Look at you, boy. Dragged into our son’s mischief once again, huh?”
Hyunwoo’s mother rolls her eyes with exasperation.
She shakes her head, her gaze swinging to Hyunwoo with a glare that could strip paint, and says, “Honestly, who could possibly be surprised?” She gestures between the two of us.
“We should’ve just arranged the bonding straight out of high school.
Maybe if we’d had the sense to set you two up properly when you came of age, we could’ve avoided all the headaches of this one’s unruly bachelor years.
” She jabs a finger in Hyunwoo’s direction without looking at him.
I blink, thrown completely off balance by this.
I came in here braced for disapproval, for tight smiles and loaded silences, for the unspoken judgment of a wealthy family confronting the reality that their heir’s omega is the son of their household staff.
Instead, Hyunwoo’s parents seem united in thinking this was the match that made the most sense all along.
That they should have simply formalized what was already obvious to everyone except, apparently, the two people involved.
Hyunwoo’s mother guides me to the comfortable sofa with a hand on my lower back, settling me into the cushions and immediately directing a servant to bring in food and refreshments.
Within minutes there’s a tray on the table in front of me bearing my favorite barley tea, an array of snacks that includes the exact brand of honey rice crackers I’ve been craving for weeks, and a plate of the homemade mandu that the estate’s cook has been making since I was a kid and that I haven’t tasted in years.
The sight of it makes my eyes sting and I have to look down at my lap for a second to collect myself.
They ask how I’ve been feeling with genuine parental concern, his mother settling beside me on the sofa and taking my hand while his father sits across from us in an armchair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
She asks about the first trimester, whether I had morning sickness, how bad it was.
I tell her it wasn’t terrible, mostly just fatigue and some nausea in the mornings that passed by the fourth month.
She asks how Hyunwoo’s been caring for me, her tone carrying a clear undercurrent of “and he’d better have been,” and I glance at Hyunwoo, who’s standing by the window with his hands in his pockets looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
I tell her honestly that he’s been attentive, that he hired a personal cook and makes sure I take my vitamins and goes to every appointment with me.
She nods, satisfied but not surprised, like this is the bare minimum she expected from her son.
His father asks if I’m eating enough, if I’m sleeping well, if the baby’s been active.
I tell him she kicks constantly, especially at night, and he laughs and says Hyunwoo was the same way in the womb, that his mother barely slept for the last two months because Hyunwoo treated her uterus like a personal gymnasium.
I’m starting to relax, the warmth of their reception melting my anxiety layer by layer, then the doors open again and everyone rises.
Hyunwoo’s grandmother enters the room.
She’s a formidable woman in her eighties who moves with the unhurried authority of someone who has commanded empires and buried rivals and outlived every person who ever doubted her.
Small in stature but enormous in presence, her silver hair pinned in a neat chignon, her back straight as a rod, her dark eyes sharp and clear and missing absolutely nothing.
She’s dressed in a traditional hanbok of deep navy silk with silver embroidery, and she carries a wooden cane that I’m fairly certain is more weapon than walking aid.
I bow automatically, deeper than I did for his parents, the deference ingrained so thoroughly that my body performs it without consulting my brain.
She stops in front of me and looks up, because even at eight months pregnant and hunched slightly forward I’m still significantly taller than her, and examines me with those sharp, assessing eyes that have been evaluating people and finding them wanting for the better part of a century.
“Strong,” she says after a moment, nodding once. “Healthy. Good and sturdy for childbearing.” She reaches out and pats the side of my belly with a papery hand. “That’s what I like to see.”
Then she turns to Hyunwoo, and before he can open his mouth or take a single step backward, she whacks him over the back of the head with her cane with a force that is startling coming from an octogenarian.
The crack of wood against skull echoes through the sitting room and Hyunwoo yelps, ducking too late, his hand flying to the back of his head.
“The correct sequence,” his grandmother says with iron conviction, “is to claim your omega and then impregnate them, you wretched boy.” She punctuates this with another swing of the cane that Hyunwoo barely dodges, stumbling sideways.
“Not the other way around! Were you raised in a barn? Did I not pay for the finest education money could buy? What is the point of sending you to the best schools in the country if you can’t even manage the basic order of operations? ”
I laugh. I can’t help it. It bursts out of me so loudly and suddenly that I clap a hand over my mouth, my shoulders shaking.
Hyunwoo’s mother is pressing her lips together, clearly fighting her own smile, and his father has turned toward the window with suspicious speed, his shoulders remarkably rigid.
Hyunwoo rubs the back of his head, wincing, and says, “I’m not bringing Yugyeom back here if all everyone does is assault me.”
His grandmother grabs his ear. She seizes it between her thumb and forefinger with the speed and accuracy of a striking cobra, twisting hard enough that Hyunwoo’s entire upper body bends sideways toward her, his face contorting in a grimace of pain that looks genuinely impressive for a grip applied by a woman who weighs maybe forty-five kilograms soaking wet.
“You will bring him back as often as I tell you to bring him back,” she says, her voice low and deadly, her fingers not releasing his ear.
“And you will bring my great-granddaughter to this house the moment she is born, and you will treat this omega with the respect and care he deserves for carrying on the Seo family line, or I will write you out of the inheritance so fast your head will spin and leave everything to the Busan cousins. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Grandmother,” Hyunwoo says through gritted teeth, bent nearly double, his ear turning red in her grip. “I understand. Please let go of my ear.”
She releases him with a final twist that makes him hiss, and then turns back to me with an expression that transforms so completely it’s like watching a different person step into her skin.
The stern, terrifying matriarch softens, her lined face creasing with a smile that reaches her eyes.
She takes both of my hands in hers, her grip surprisingly warm and steady, and looks up at me.
“You were always a good boy, Yugyeom,” she says warmly. “Your parents have served this family with honor. I’m glad it’s you.”
My throat closes up completely and I can’t speak for a long moment, just standing there holding this tiny, terrifying woman’s hands while my eyes burn and my baby kicks against the inside of my ribs.
I manage a bow of my head and a thick, “Thank you, Grandmother,” using the familiar address she insisted I use as a child, and she pats my hands once before releasing them and turning to bark orders at the servants about preparing a proper meal.