The sound of bare feet slapping against marble carried from the second floor to the kitchen, followed by a crash that suggested a lamp had narrowly survived.
"Yo Jimin! Stop right there!"
Eri's voice pitched high, vibrating with that note of pure indignation only achievable by someone who had discovered an injustice. Ryan looked up from his coffee, tracking the noise as it moved overhead—a scurry of steps, a door slamming, then another crash.
"Appa," Ningyi said, not looking up from her suitcase. She was folding a scarf with geometric precision, the way Wony had taught her. "Eri-unni is chasing Yo Jimin-unni again."
"Third time this week," Wony added, zipping a compartment with a decisive tug. She sat cross-legged on the floor of the living room, surrounded by thermal underwear and winter coats. Harbin in January was unforgiving, and she had prepared lists.
Ryan set down his cup. "What did Yo Jimin hide this time?"
"Her left shoe," Ningyi said. "The Doc Martens. The ones with the platform."
"Both shoes," Wony corrected. "Eri-unni was looking for them since breakfast. Yo Jimin-unni hid them in the laundry chute last night."
Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose. He had given Yo Jimin permission to release her true nature. He had not anticipated that her true nature involved systematic psychological warfare via footwear.
The chase descended the stairs. Eri appeared first, hair wild, wearing one boot and one sock, her phone clutched in her hand like a weapon. Yo Jimin followed three steps behind, moving backward with the fluid grace of someone who had calculated escape vectors, her glasses slightly askew and her mouth curved in a smile that could only be described as predatory.
"Give them back," Eri panted.
"Say the magic word," Yo Jimin singsonged.
"There is no magic word, you psychopath—"
"Wrong." Yo Jimin ducked behind the sofa as Eri lunged. "The magic word is 'unnie.' Say it with respect. Say 'Yo Jimin-unnie, please return my shoes, I acknowledge your superiority.'"
Ryan cleared his throat. "Girls."
They froze. Eri mid-lunge, Yo Jimin mid-dodge, both turning toward him with the sudden awareness that they had an audience.
"Appa," Eri gasped, straightening up. She pointed a trembling finger at Yo Jimin. "She's violating the Geneva Convention."
"You're overreacting," Yo Jimin said, adjusting her glasses. "It's just shoes."
"It's psychological torture!"
"It's character building."
Ryan stood, moving between them with the slow deliberation of someone who had learned that sudden movements escalated chaos. "Yo Jimin. Return the shoes."
"Not until—"
"Yo Jimin."
The tone worked. Yo Jimin's mouth closed. She reached behind the sofa cushion—of course they were there, Ryan thought, of course she had been carrying them—and produced the Doc Martens, holding them out with both hands like an offering.
Eri snatched them, clutching them to her chest. "You're dead to me."
"You love me."
"I tolerate you. There's a difference."
Ryan sighed, feeling the headache begin at his temples. "Compared to you two making noise, better help Ningyi and Wony pack. They leave in four hours."
Eri turned. Her eyes, still wild from the chase, narrowed in a way that made Ryan's stomach drop. It was the look she got when she smelled weakness—like a shark detecting blood in otherwise clear water.
"Appa," she said, slipping her feet into the boots. "This is because of you, you know. Releasing Yo Jimin's true nature. She's feral now. You created this monster."
"I'll restrain her," Ryan said.
"Too late." Eri stepped closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Besides, you have bigger problems than Yo Jimin's pranks."
"Do I."
"Oh yes." She smiled, slow and wicked. "I know about the car."
Ryan's hand froze halfway to his coffee cup. "What car?"
"The one in the garage. The one that arrived at 6 AM. The one you paid for in Bandung at 2 AM while pretending to check email." Eri pulled out her phone, swiped twice, held up the screen. "Nismo configuration page. Payment confirmation. Delivery tracking. I have screenshots, Appa."
The kitchen went quiet. Ningyi looked up from her scarf. Wony stopped zipping.
Ryan felt the blood leave his face. "You checked my laptop history."
"You left it open. I was looking for movie downloads. Found a shopping spree instead." Eri tilted her head. "How much was it? Don't lie. I saw the number."
"It's—" Ryan stopped. Swallowed. "It's a classic. It appreciates in value."
"That's what you said about the Bugatti."
"Different category."
"Same bank account." Eri turned to Yo Jimin, who had been watching with renewed interest. "Yo Jimin-unni. Appa bought a new car. Without telling Eomma."
Yo Jimin's eyes widened behind her glasses. "Again?"
"Again."
"Is Eomma going to kill him?"
"Probably."
Ryan held up both hands. "It's already in the garage. It arrived this morning. I was going to tell her—"
"When?" Eri asked. "After the divorce?"
"We're not married."
"Technicality." Eri grabbed Yo Jimin's wrist. "Come on. Let's go see Appa's midlife crisis before Eomma comes home and murders him."
They ran. Of course they ran. Ryan stood in the kitchen, listening to their footsteps fade toward the garage, and wondered when, exactly, he had lost control of his household.
Park Minjeong appeared from the hallway, phone in hand, her expression neutral. "Appa. There's a Nissan GT-R R35 Nismo in the garage. Is this the vehicle you purchased?"
"Park Minjeong—"
"It's an interesting choice. 3.8-liter V6 twin-turbo. 600 horsepower. 0-100 in approximately 2.7 seconds." She looked up, her eyes analytical and completely without judgment. "May I sit inside?"
"Everyone just—" Ryan gestured helplessly. "Yes. Fine. Go."
Park Minjeong walked toward the garage with the purposeful stride of someone who intended to run diagnostics. Ningyi and Wony exchanged a look, abandoned their packing, and followed.
Ryan stood alone in the kitchen, surrounded by half-packed suitcases and the wreckage of his secrecy.
---
The Sima Entertainment conference room smelled of new carpet and anxiety. Eilen sat at the oval table, her notebook open to a blank page, listening to the marketing director explain concepts for Crimson Velvet's 2018 comeback. The words blurred together—concept photos, color theory, brand alignment—a familiar language she had learned to speak fluently but rarely felt.
Park Seulgi sat to her left, doodling in the margins of her schedule. Windy was on her right, perfectly upright, her expression attentive but her fingers tapping a silent rhythm against her thigh. Joey and Yeli sat across, both staring at their phones under the table, their shoulders shaking occasionally with suppressed laughter.
"—and for the title track, we're considering a dual concept," the director was saying. "Mature but playful. Something that acknowledges Eilen's public—"
Five phones buzzed simultaneously.
The sound was jarring, a digital chord cutting through the corporate hush. Eilen felt hers vibrate against her hip, then Park Seulgi's, then Windy's, a cascade of notifications that made the director pause mid-sentence.
"Sorry," Windy murmured, reaching for her phone automatically. "Group chat. Family emergency."
"It's fine, take a moment," the director said, though his smile tightened.
Eilen pulled out her phone. The screen glowed with the group name: Always Chaos. Forty-seven new messages.
She opened it.
Eri: Eomma. Appa bought a new car again.
Eri: [Image.jpg]
Eri: [Image.jpg]
Eri: [Image.jpg]
Eri: Look at this. LOOK.
Yo Jimin: Eomma, do you know Appa bought a new car? Because we didn't know. We found out because Eri was stalking his browser history.
Eri: I wasn't stalking. I was researching. For academic purposes.
Park Minjeong: It's a Nissan GT-R R35 Nismo edition. 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6. Approximately 200,000 USD depending on import taxes and customization. Appa is wasting money again.
Ryan: …
Ryan: What wasting? This is a classic car. Its value always rises.
Eri: It's still wasting money.
Ryan: Not wasting. This is man romance. You know.
Eri: Man romance?
Yo Jimin: What does that even mean?
Eri: It means Appa is cheating on Eomma with a car.
Eri: Eomma, Appa is cheating with his car.
Ryan: …
Eri: He's not denying it.
Yo Jimin: The silence is damning.
Park Minjeong: Statistically, sports car purchases by men in their mid-twenties correlate with feelings of mortality and the need to reclaim youth. However, Appa is twenty-five with the mentality of someone much older, so the data is inconclusive.
Eri: He's having a midlife crisis at 25.
Yo Jimin: Can you have a quarter-life crisis?
Eri: Appa invented it.
Eilen pressed her lips together. She could feel the heat rising to her face—not anger, but the absurdity of trying to maintain professional composure while her family aired their chaos in real-time.
"Is everything alright?" the manager asked, leaning forward.
Eilen looked up. Five pairs of eyes watched her—Park Seulgi's dancing with amusement, Windy's wide with concern, Joey and Yeli barely containing their laughter, the director's narrowing with confusion.
"My husband," Eilen said, her voice steady, "bought a new toy."
"Toys?" The director blinked. "For the children?"
"No." Eilen smiled, small and private. "For himself. A car."
"Oh." The director sat back, relieved. "That's... nice?"
"It's very nice," Park Seulgi said, her voice barely controlled. "He has excellent taste. Probably."
"Very fast taste," Windy added, then clamped her mouth shut when Eilen looked at her.
Yeli made a sound like a kettle boiling over. Joey kicked her under the table.
Eilen typed a response, her thumbs moving quickly.
Eilen: Appa is not cheating. I will handle it. Yo Jimin, stop hiding Eri's shoes. Eri, stop checking Appa's browser history. Park Minjeong, stop calculating Appa's psychological profile.
Eilen: And all of you, stop messaging during my meeting.
She set the phone face-down on the table. It buzzed again immediately. She ignored it.
"Sorry," she said to the director, her smile warm and impenetrable. "Family logistics. Please continue."
The director cleared his throat. "As I was saying... the concept needs to balance maturity with accessibility..."
But the room had shifted. Park Seulgi was biting her lip, Windy's shoulders shook silently, and across the table, Joey had tears streaming down her face from the effort of not laughing. Eilen caught Yeli's eye—the girl mouthed "Midlife crisis" and Eilen had to look away, out the window, to the gray Seoul sky, to keep from laughing herself.
Her phone buzzed again. She didn't look. But her hand found it under the table, squeezing it once, feeling the vibration of her chaotic family against her palm like a second heartbeat.
---
The Nissan GT-R sat in the driveway like a guilty secret made metal. It was white, angular, aggressive in a way that Ryan's other cars weren't—the Bugatti was excess, the Van had been necessity, but this was something else. This was speed for the sake of speed.
Ryan stood beside it, hands in his pockets, feeling foolish. Ningyi and Wony sat on the front steps with their luggage stacked beside them, small suitcases with bright tags. They were trying not to stare at the car and failing.
"Appa," Ningyi whispered. "It's low."
"Very low," Wony agreed.
"And loud?"
"Probably."
"Will Eomma fit?"
Ryan sighed. "She'll fit."
The gate clicked open. Eilen walked up the driveway, her meeting bag slung over her shoulder, her hair loose from the bun she had worn earlier. She moved with that loosened posture of someone who had spent the day performing professionalism and was now allowing herself to be tired.
She stopped when she saw the car. Her head tilted. Her mouth opened, closed, then curved into a smile that made Ryan's chest tight.
"Jagiya," she said. Softly. Dangerously.
"Johyun," he replied. "I can explain."
She walked around the car. Once. Twice. Her fingers trailed along the hood, the spoiler, the side mirror. When she reached him, she stood close enough that he could smell her perfume—something woody, warm, nothing like the floral scents other women wore.
"Nismo," she said.
"You know cars?"
"I know you." She leaned against the driver's side door, arms crossed. "Oppa, can you explain?"
Ryan looked at his shoes. Then at her. Then at the girls on the steps, who were watching with the intensity of children witnessing a marital dispute.
"I saw it," he said. "In Bandung. At 2 AM. I couldn't sleep, and I was looking at—"
"Porn?" Eri's voice floated from an upstairs window.
"Eri, go away!" Ryan shouted.
Laughter. Then a door slamming.
Ryan took a breath. "I was looking at cars. And this one... it's a classic. They stopped making this model. The value rises every year. It's not like the Bugatti, that's just... this is different. This is—"
"Man romance?" Eilen supplied.
He winced. "You read the chat."
"I read the chat." She reached up, adjusted his collar with a familiarity that still made his breath catch. "I'm not forbidding you to buy a car. It's your hobby. Your money. Your..." She paused, searching for the word. "Your need to go fast when everything else is slow."
Ryan blinked. "You're not angry."
"I'm not angry." She patted his cheek. "But tell me first, okay? Not because you need permission. Because I want to know what makes you happy at 2 AM."
"Okay," he said. "Next time, I tell you first."
"Good." She turned to the girls. "Ningyi. Wony. Everything ready?"
They stood, brushing off their coats. "Everything ready, Eomma. Nothing left behind."
Eilen opened her bag and pulled out a credit card. Black, simple, hers. She held it out to Ningyi.
"Take this," she said.
Ningyi looked at the card, then at Wony. "No need, Eomma. Appa already gave us his card before."
"Don't use Appa's card," Eilen said, her voice firm but gentle. "Use mine."
"But—"
"Ningyi." Ryan spoke quietly. "Listen to your Eomma."
The girls exchanged a look. Then Ningyi reached out and took the card, her fingers closing around it carefully, like it was something precious.
"Yes, Eomma," they said together.
Eilen nodded, satisfied. She turned back to Ryan, her expression shifting from maternal authority to something softer. "They grow up fast," she said.
"Too fast," Ryan agreed.
"Harbin is cold. Colder than Seoul."
"They have coats."
"They have us," she corrected. "For now."
---
Incheon was chaos at 4:00 PM—a sea of winter coats and rolling suitcases and that restless energy of people leaving while others watched them go.
Ryan walked with his hand on Ningyi's shoulder, Eilen beside Wony. They moved through the terminal with unconscious coordination, having learned to navigate crowds together—Ryan clearing space with his presence, Eilen steering with a hand on Wony's back, the girls carrying themselves with the practiced posture of children taught not to bump into strangers.
But they were noticed.
It started with whispers. Then phones raised. Then the distinct sound of camera shutters—digital, but somehow still audible in the acoustics of the departure hall.
"That's them," someone said.
"The girls from the photos."
"Is that Eilen? She looks different without makeup."
"That's the boyfriend. The billionaire."
Ryan kept walking. His expression didn't change, but his hand tightened slightly on Ningyi's shoulder. She looked up at him, her eyes wide but not afraid.
"Appa," she whispered. "People are taking pictures."
"I know," he said. "Don't look. Keep walking."
Eilen moved closer, her arm brushing his. She smiled at a fan who approached, tentative, holding out a phone.
"Unnie," the fan said. "Can I...?"
"Not today," Eilen said, warm but final. "We're saying goodbye to our children. Please understand."
The fan nodded, stepped back, but the phone stayed up. The photos continued.
At the international departure gate, they stopped. The sign for Harbin glowed above them, gate 47, the characters both familiar and foreign.
"Remember," Ryan said, crouching slightly to be eye-level with Ningyi. "Every four hours. Not text. Call. We want to hear your voice."
"Every four hours," Ningyi repeated. "Even if we're sleeping?"
"Especially if you're sleeping," Eilen said. "Wake up and call."
"But—"
"Ningyi," Wony interrupted, her voice dry. "They're worried we'll freeze to death or get kidnapped by penguins. Just agree."
"There are no penguins in Harbin," Park Minjeong would have said, if she were here. But she wasn't, and Ryan found himself missing her factual corrections.
He hugged Ningyi first. She went into his arms easily, still small enough that he could enclose her completely, her chin hooking over his shoulder. She smelled like the vanilla shampoo she used, like home.
"Take care," he said into her hair. "Don't fight with Wony."
"We never fight," Ningyi mumbled.
"You fight constantly. It's okay. Just... be safe."
He released her. Eilen took her place, pulling Ningyi into an embrace that was different—tighter, longer, the hug of someone who had learned to love through presence rather than biology.
"Eat on time," Eilen said. "Don't sleep late. Call every four hours."
"Yes, Eomma."
"And Ningyi—"
"Yes?"
"Don't let Wony carry all the bags. She's stubborn. She'll hurt her back."
Ningyi laughed, a wet sound. "I won't."
Then Wony. Ryan hugged her and felt how she had grown—taller, sturdier, the princess posture giving way to something more solid. She didn't cry. She never cried at goodbyes. But her fingers gripped the back of his coat hard enough to wrinkle the fabric.
"Appa," she said, her voice muffled.
"Wony."
"Don't buy any more cars while we're gone."
He laughed, surprised. "No promises."
She pulled back, her eyes dry but bright. "Take care of Eomma. She pretends she's not worried, but she is."
"I know," Ryan said. "I will."
Eilen hugged her longest. They were similar, the two of them—both learning to lead, both hiding softness behind competence. When they separated, Eilen's hand lingered on Wony's cheek.
"Come back safe," Eilen said. "Both of you."
"We will, Eomma."
The boarding call echoed through the terminal. The girls picked up their bags, small figures in matching coats, and walked toward the gate. They turned once, waved—Ningyi's arm high and enthusiastic, Wony's small and precise—and then they were gone, swallowed by the crowd of travelers.
Ryan and Eilen stood together, watching the empty space where they had been. Around them, the terminal continued its roar—announcements, footsteps, the eternal hum of public space. Someone was still taking photos. Ryan could feel the lens aimed at his back.
"Three years," Eilen said quietly.
"What?"
"Three years since they first arrived." She took his hand, her fingers threading through his with the ease of long practice. "Remember? Ningyi was thirteen. Wony was eleven. They were so small."
"They're still small," Ryan said.
"No," Eilen said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "They're not. That's the problem."
They watched the plane through the glass—white and anonymous, preparing to carry their children into winter. Ryan thought of the first night, when Ningyi had called him Appa by accident, delirious with fever. He thought of Wony's first perfect dance recital, the way she had looked for him in the crowd. He thought of all the moments he had collected, hoarded, built into a life he hadn't expected to have.
"They're growing up," he murmured.
"Yes," Eilen said.
"Too fast."
"Yes."
"Will they remember this?" he asked. "When they're older. Will they remember that we were here?"
Eilen squeezed his hand. "They'll remember," she said. "We don't give them a choice. We're too loud, too chaotic, too much." She paused, smiling. "They'll remember the cars, and the shoes, and the group chats. They'll remember that we were here."
The plane began to move, taxiing toward the runway. Ryan watched it, feeling Eilen's warmth against his side, the weight of her trust, the impossible luck of having found her twice.
"Johyun," he said.
"Mm?"
"Next time I buy a car—"
"Tell me first."
"I'll tell you first."
"Good." She turned her face up to his, smiling, and for a moment the cameras didn't matter, the watchers didn't matter, only this—her eyes, his hand in hers, the life they were building one chaotic day at a time.
The plane lifted off, white against gray sky, carrying their children toward cold and adventure and the future they were growing into. Ryan and Eilen stood together, watching until it disappeared into cloud, their fingers intertwined, their family scattered but whole.
"Let's go home," Eilen said.
"Home," Ryan agreed.
And they turned away from the glass, away from the watchers, walking back toward the car that waited in the parking garage—fast, excessive, ridiculous—and the life that waited in the mansion, warm and loud and never, ever quiet.