The juk arrived quietly, a large stone pot set at the centre of the table alongside small dishes that followed without announcement: braised lotus root, seasoned spinach, a plate of golden-edged pajeon still faintly sizzling. Simple food, but the kind that took care in its preparation.
"Do you have family in Seoul?" Ji-young asked as she ladled the congee into his bowl.
"No." Jaemin fiddled with his chopsticks, not daring to begin eating until his hosts did. "My parents live in Suncheon, together with my younger brother and sister." He hesitated. "They visited recently."
"It must have been good to see them."
"It was." It had also been complicated and exhausting and two of the strangest weeks of his life, but he left that where it was. "They worry. I guess I haven't given them much reason not to, lately."
The last sentence slipped out before he could stop it. He pretended he hadn't, focusing on sipping his tea.
But Ji-young didn't pounce on it. She simply let it sit, before saying with quiet understanding, "Families tend to worry regardless. Whether you give them reason to or not."
"Omma would know," Nakyung offered, the words coming out thick through juk-filled cheeks. "Oppa gave her zero reasons to worry about him, until suddenly he gave her approximately a thousand all at once."
When Ji-young shot her daughter a look that was as much warning as it was amused, Nakyung protested, "It's true though!" But she cast a brief, sideways glance at Jaemin that was almost conciliatory, a small acknowledgement that her comment had perhaps landed too close to something sensitive. She reached to place a large slice of pajeon in Jaemin's bowl. "Here, eat."
Jaemin murmured his thanks and lifted the pajeon to his lips. The food was good. Simple and clean, the kind of thing that was difficult to make taste like anything, but this certainly tasted like something. Something good. Jaemin hadn't realised how hungry he was until the first mouthful.
The three of them ate in comfortable silence until Ji-young spoke again.
"The Seoul Philharmonic has been through a difficult time," she observed conversationally. "I followed some of it in the news, although I'm more than aware that what's published isn't always what's true." She gave a small sigh. "How far the Fourth Estate has fallen.
"But the SPS, in contrast, has improved significantly. From the small snippets we've seen, the orchestra sounds close to how they used to, back when they were in their prime." She smiled at Jaemin. "And you've only been with them since…?"
"January." The word came out raspy, and Jaemin cleared his throat. "It's been about four months."
The face Nakyung made in response, directed at her own bowl, spoke volumes. Jaemin knew exactly what she was thinking: only four months, but very eventful ones, too eventful, and not in the best of ways. But she had the grace not to lay that out in the open after her mother's earlier reproach, and instead focused on loading her pajeon with more gochujang than was strictly necessary.
"Only four months, and the orchestra was resurrected under your instruction." Ji-young was nothing if not an expert at reframing, deliberately ignoring her daughter's silent reaction. "I'm sure they wish they had found you sooner. Which orchestra were you with, before?"
"I—" The assumption in her question tripped him, made him stutter. "I—I wasn't—" He stopped, then took a breath. "I wasn't on any stage. I was trying to lay low."
There was a slight pause before Nakyung gave voice to the question that begged asking: "Why?"
Jaemin was silent for a long moment, putting his chopsticks quietly down on the tabletop. "Someone," he said at last, "made it very difficult for me to continue music."
Since the moment he'd regained consciousness less than an hour ago, things had been unfolding so rapidly that he hadn't stopped to remember. There were things, details from Vienna, that had surfaced in the Command-induced slumber, that he didn't feel ready to confront yet, not on his own, let alone with an audience.
But both women were looking at him now, waiting. Despite Nakyung's bluntness, he sensed that they would accept whatever he chose to tell them, and the conversation would move on.
But they had been dragged into this mess created by the ghost of his past long before he had even had the opportunity to meet them, and now that he was before them, he owed them an explanation.
"He was someone I trusted," Jaemin continued, eyes and voice lowered. "We studied together, in Vienna. I thought—" He stared down at his porridge, then quickly corrected himself "—Never mind, it doesn't matter what I thought. What matters is that I had reason to stay out of his radar."
He exhaled heavily, shoulders slumping.
"He was the one behind the media attacks on the SPS, including… the latest one. He thinks he owns me, and in trying to get to me, he's laid siege on the orchestra, on Do-hyun… on all of you."
He paused, struggling to find words that would explain things, but, finding none, could only offer: "I'm sorry. None of this would have happened if Do—if not for me."
The room was very still. Ji-young's expression had not changed dramatically, but something in it had sharpened. Not with surprise, but with the particular focus of someone who had suspected the shape of a thing and was now watching it come into focus.
"I did try." Jaemin's voice was barely above a murmur now. "I thought if I went to him, he'd leave you alone. Leave Do-hyun alone. He promised." There was the spark of pain again, spreading cold outwards from the scar on his nape, a phantom scent of black tea making the nausea rise in his gut. "He said if I went to him, he wouldn't release the second envelope."
Nakyung leaned forward. "Second envelope?"
"He said he had documents. Financial records, names of doctors, evidence of—" His voice snagged. He couldn't look at Ji-young. "Evidence that could be used against you." The words came out in a rush now, an unsteady but rising tide.
"Seo Jaemin-ssi."
"I tried to go, I really did, but Do-hyun stopped me. I don't know if he's already sent it, if he's already filed something or contacted the media, or—"
"Seo Jaemin—"
"I'm sorry," he whispered, the words spilling out of him in a choked rush. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to reach your family. I tried to stop it. I've been trying to stop it for months and every time I think I have a handle on it, he just—"
"Jaemin."
He hadn't realized that his hands had begun to shake until another's came down over his, warm, firm, and steady. Jaemin, startled, finally met Ji-young's gaze, his eyes bright with the effort of not letting the panic fully break through the surface.
The expression on Ji-young's face was not soft, not exactly. It was the expression of a woman who had already done her grieving, already made her calculations, and arrived at her decision before he had even sat down at her table.
"I don't know if Do-hyun ever mentioned this to you, but I am a lawyer." Her voice was not loud, but the certainty of her words cut through the haze of panic that had been threatening to take over. "Most of my family have been, for generations. There is very little that could be filed against me that I am not already prepared for. If and when this man, whoever he is, decides to release those documents, I will be ready."
Jaemin stared at her, and she continued.
"I don't know the full story, and I'm not asking for you to share it with us now, but it doesn't sound like any of this is actually your fault. You are not responsible for the actions of someone who has been targeting you. And," she persisted even as Jaemin swallowed hard, "you are not responsible for protecting me from consequences I have had decades to prepare for." Her hand tightened over his. "Do you understand me, Seo Jaemin-ssi?"
For a long moment, Jaemin searched the dark gaze that held his. There was no fear, no regret, only a deep resolve. Only when he nodded did she give a small smile and move away, reaching for the teapot to refill his cup.
Nakyung, who had been watching all of this from behind a carefully neutral expression, let out a long breath through her nose. Picking up her bowl and chopsticks once more, she said with the air of someone deciding that there had been enough serious things for one afternoon:
"Right. Your stalker tries anything, we'll chop him down. I mean," she hurriedly corrected herself before Ji-young's sharp gaze could land on her, "Omma will end him. Won't you, Omma?"
She shot her mother a sugary-sweet grin, to which Ji-young simply shook her head, not deigning to reply.
Satisfied, Nakyung shifted her attention back to Jaemin. Something in her gaze had shifted; not quite warm yet, but no longer guarded in the same way that it had been all afternoon.
"Anyway, eat up, quick. I'll show you where you can spend the afternoon, if you don't want to stay cooped up in the tea room with us. This house has been too quiet since we got back, and I wanna see what magical music you've got up your sleeve."
Ji-young's expression, as she lifted her teacup, held the faintest trace of something quietly pleased.
"Show him the main practice room," she said.