#:( i will simply have to visit u when i visit europe someday | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

arigathanksgozaimuch · 7 years ago

Text

fifty stars.

genre: angst, fluff, comedy? mean girl references. character/s: reader x older brother! wonho x cousin! minhyuk. overview: this wasn't supposed to happen. you were both supposed to be on the same page in everything – he's sad, you're sad; he's hungry, you're starving; he's terrified, you're more than scared. but now he's in love and you're furious. word count: 6704.

[A/N]: dedicated to the older brother I wish I'd had.

“Fifty more stars,” he had breathed against the receiver. If he had been feeling like a failure just moments ago, he felt like a hero now. “Fifty more stars and then I’d be home and we’d be together again. You can wait for that long, right? That’s not too far from now.”

By then, your sobs have simpered down to mere sniffles. It had hurt him to hear you cry, especially when he was miles and miles away, but he knew it was for the best. “Okay,” you’d said. “I can wait that long.”

“You’re not giving auntie a hard time, are you? Because if you were…”

“I’m not!” You glanced over to where the said woman was. “I only got mad after she put the shirt you left behind in the washer. Now it’s weird. It doesn’t smell like you anymore.”

You were about to start crying again when he interrupted you. “Hey, fifty stars, remember? That’s not a lot to count.”

Your head was starting to hurt from trying to hold in your sobs. Because no matter how hard you think your situation is, being parentless and living with a distant relative, you always keep in mind that it’s not as hard as your brother’s. It’s not as hard as uprooting his life to live and work in a country hundreds of miles away where he doesn’t even speak the language, just to be able to make life a little bit easier for the only family he has left. So, he tries to get by with shitty Google translate, long-distance phone calls twice or thrice a week, and counting. Just counting. The steps he has left before he reaches the floor of the office, because the sooner he gets to work, the sooner he gets to finish. The packets of instant ramen in the cupboards in his small apartment, because zero packets means he has to visit the Korean convenience store where the owner knows him, he can speak Korean, and he can feel at home. And the stars – oh, the stars. Zero stars means he’s at the airport, waiting at the boarding gate for his flight to go back home. He only stops counting when he has arrived, and you are running, running so fast towards him that the force of you jumping onto him almost sends him falling backwards. But he doesn’t, and instead he’s holding onto you so tight while crying. Because God he doesn’t want to leave anymore.

“Oh my—you’re up to my shoulder now? What happened while I was gone, did you suddenly start stretching every morning for you to grow up this tall?” he asks two minutes into the hug. Even after having been gone for more than a year – the longest you’ve ever been apart – Wonho still retains the boyish, innocent looks of a man born and raised from the countryside. You’d half-expected him to look more mature, with features hardened by months of laborious work behind an office desk somewhere in Europe, but instead he looked just so… himself.

He sets you down and inspects you from head to toe. You were just twelve years old then, but with the onset of puberty, you’ve gotten much taller than when he last saw you. Shrugging, you take the luggage from behind him. Just when Wonho was about to protest against you carrying things heavier than yourself, you transfer the handle to Minhyuk’s idle hands. Your auntie’s son, and practically your adopted younger brother, Minhyuk takes the added weight without complaint, and strolls straight to the exit, beaming.

“Why’s he all smiley like that?”

You snort, clinging onto your brother’s arm tightly. “Because he’d have his bedroom all to himself now that you’re here. Because I’m staying with you.”

Wonho’s eyebrows furrow. “You’d been sleeping in his room the whole time I was gone?”

“On separate beds, okay! You’re disgusting.”

The man only laughs, and nobody talks about when you’ll be moving back into Minhyuk’s bedroom after Wonho leaves.

You think the second, third, fourth, and even fifth time he does would be easier for you. Maybe not easier, but a lot less harder. But it isn’t. Although you were pissed every time he had to leave again, you couldn’t afford not to see him off at the airport, at least. Because every single time, more than a year or two later, you would be standing at the exact same spot at the arrivals section waiting for the same – only older – man to come running to you, suitcases and all.

This time was different, somehow. You could feel it in your bones as you stepped down from the cab with Minhyuk following you from behind. Was it the fact that you were a lot older (you think) than before? With you being twenty years old now, and considering the fact that there is a huge age gap between you and your brother, there were bound to be some changes. Was it the fact that he hadn’t been home after the usual one-and-a-half-year interval he spent abroad? It had been two years since you last saw him, but you simply attributed it to his busy nights full of hard work.

“Oh! I see him,” Minhyuk exclaims, shaking your arm.

As soon as you see him walking towards you, you find your answer. While the expression on his face and the number of luggage he carries never changed throughout the years, the woman clinging to his arm was.

“[Y/N], I’d like you to meet Tiffany, my girlfriend.”

Said woman gives you a timid wave, and a sparkle from her ring finger catches your attention.

“You’re getting married?” you ask, voice barely heard over the hustle and bustle at the arrival area of the airport. Your attention was solely on the man who didn’t look the least bit guilty about hiding things as life-changing as this from you. This wasn't supposed to happen, you think. You were both supposed to be on the same page in everything -- he's sad, you're sad; he's hungry, you're starving; he's terrified, you're more than scared. But now he's in love and you're furious.

He was about to open his mouth and speak, but Minhyuk beat him to it. “Our Uber’s waiting just outside. Let’s go?” your cousin looks at you, his hands occupied with luggage you were sure weren’t Wonho’s. You were about to say something, but decided to keep your mouth shut.

While you and Minhyuk walked ahead, the couple lagged behind. “You haven’t told her about us before… have you?” Tiffany asks with a frown.

Wonho scratches the back of his head. “I’m sorry I kept stalling.”

She sighs, but skims over your quickly retreating figure from behind with a fond smile. “She looks just like you, though.”

He returns the smile and gives her hand a light squeeze. It was going to be a long day.

“How long did he say he was staying?”

Preoccupied with your phone, you were sprawled across the bedding Minhyuk laid out for you, lying on your stomach, as he fixed his own. According to his mom, if you weren’t taking the bed, he wasn’t allowed to, either. Now, the furniture acted as your barrier between your cousin.

His bedroom looked exactly the same as when you had moved out of it and into the bedroom that used to be Wonho’s. The walls were off-white, giving the room a bright and tidy kind of feel even if it was late at night and Minhyuk’s things were a mess. His study table, a sturdy wooden desk pushed up against the wall in one corner of the room, was more occupied by CDs and action figures than textbooks and pens. Clearly, anyone who enters this room would know where the owner’s interests lie.

Your room on the other side of the hall was no different. Upon entering the small space, one would immediately notice the three-by-five feet map of the world above the bed. It had been a present from your brother after the first time he left and came home. Near the bed, by the windows, was your (and Minhyuk’s, when he needs to study and doesn’t feel like tidying up his own desk) study table. It was mostly empty, save for urgent assignments and your “motivational corner”, as you call it. This “corner” was, as the name implies, to motivate you every time you see it. It was a small corkboard on which you have pinned old tests and report cards where you got A’s, cut-outs from the magazine of tourist destinations you aimed to visit someday, and, of course, pictures of your family. Or, at least, what used to be your family.

“He didn’t say, and mom didn’t ask. It seemed rude to.”

“And… the girl?” you swallowed hard, picking your words carefully.

“Her name is Tiffany and they met at work. Apparently, they’d been dating for more than a year.”

“And they’re getting married so soon?” you snort. “He’s being impulsive.”

“They’re getting married in three months, and they agreed to do it here.”

“Tch.” You toss your phone across the spread-out sheets and sit up. “What for? They could’ve just straight up gotten married in Europe and stayed there for good.”

Minhyuk mirrors your action and glares at you from across the bed. “If you had dinner with us, you could’ve asked them everything you’re curious about.”

“But I didn’t want to see them both!” Annoyed, you cross your arms over your chest. “And I’m still mad that you carried her luggage back at the airport.”

As if he knew that it would annoy you further, Minhyuk laughs. “Oh come on, why are you so bitter? He’s old, he was bound to get married at some point.”

“Not without telling me he was dating first,” you whine. “I get that we’ve been separated for a long time, but that didn’t mean I kept things from him. He even knows of that time you asked your crush out for prom but got rejected—”

“Hey!”

“—so really, it’s not like he has any reason to keep this from me. He used to tell me everything,” you sigh, remembering your situation all over again. “He’s the only one I have left. By the time the wedding is over, I’d be all alone all over again. But, you know, it’s not like I’m not used to being abandoned.” You shift to lie down on your back and stare up at the ceiling. The lump in your throat that had been present all morning refused to be swallowed back down to the deepest pits of your gut.

You hear shuffling from Minhyuk’s side of the room until he pops into your vision after having crawled the width of his bed. “Hey, he’s not the only one you have left. All this time, you’ve had me and mom all along, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He blinks at you from above when you don’t respond. “And besides, it’s not like you can’t catch up with hyung until he gets married. Three months is enough time.”

“Three months is…” too short, you wanted to add. Your brother has been gone, at least, for the most part, for almost a decade. And you don’t think those ten years can be compressed into three months of catching up. With wedding preparations probably on the way, you wouldn’t even get ahold of your brother for the whole three months.

But maybe without those preparations, you could have your brother all to yourself. Or, better yet, without the wedding… “Just enough time!” you exclaim, surprising Minhyuk. You push yourself up by your elbows and turn to face him with a meaningful grin on your face. “Just enough time to stop the wedding.”

“Stop the wedding?!”

“Okay, maybe not stop, but just postpone it. What do you think?” You clasp your hands together, your mind already teeming with ideas that don’t seem to end. “Wonho’s – what, thirty-three? What’s the rush? He can wait longer, which means the wedding doesn’t have to be in three months. Maybe in six months. Or a year. Or a decade. Or never. But that’s not my problem anymore. The problem is, are you in this with me or not?”

The boy hesitates. “Will you promise not to bring me down with you, in case our plans don’t work? Hyung promised me that I’d be one of his groomsmen—”

“Traitor!” You smack his arm.

He backs away from your side of the room and rubs his forearm. “Do you want someone to scheme with you or not? And even if I’m in on this, and I’m not saying I am at the moment, what do I get from siding with you?”

You sigh, not having thought this through. But with your desperation, you manage to come up with a fair bargain. “I need you with me on this, okay? And if you do take my side, I’ll buy you donuts once a week for three months.”

He snorts. “Pft. I’m not falling for that. You’re a cheapskate. You could always just buy the cheap, undeserving-to-be-called-donuts donuts. I’m gonna need something more valuable, [Y/N].”

Sighing, you eye the figures by his desk. “How about I buy you one of the toys missing from your collection?”

“Hmm, well played, well played.” Minhyuk rubs his chin thoughtfully and you laugh, giving him a gentle push by the shoulders.

“Okay, I’ll take that as a yes.” Happy, you lie back down on the floor and wriggle to get yourself under the blanket, pulling it up to your chin afterwards. “Go get some sleep. We have plans to work on tomorrow.”

You’ve never had a serious argument with your brother since you can remember. With the thirteen-year gap, there wasn’t much to be fought about. No arguing about stealing each other’s clothes, no bickering when you see each other in school (because you don’t), and no sibling rivalry for your parents’ attention. Because by the time you were born, Wonho was past his punk-rock, Friendster, and My Chemical Romance phase (though you still have pictures of him with fake lip piercings and bangs so long you swear they’re not bangs anymore). Even when he left for Europe without telling you his plans until a week before his scheduled departure, you didn’t avoid him.

You do now.

Partly because you were still upset about him not informing you of the current status of his love life – and you talked to each other so often that him forgetting about it or not having the chance to tell you aren’t valid excuses – and mostly because you’re afraid that you might blurt out your plans.

The next morning, you make sure to wake up early and have a heavy breakfast, after skipping dinner the night before. As you rush to get to the bathroom before anyone else does, you first have an awkward face-to-face encounter with Tiffany, who was also on her way to the bathroom. Her face breaks out into a huge grin as she greets you a good morning. But you only stare at her, with your face all puffy from sleep and your hair in a bad kind of disarray. Without any sort of response, you enter the bathroom and take your time, as if to annoy her on purpose.

By the time you got out, all ready for another day of classes, you’re surprised to find Minhyuk on the other side of the door. He is holding a folded pair of jeans and an old t-shirt to his chest, while his towel hung from his right shoulder. Before you could even fully get out of the bathroom, he already makes his way in, closing the door shut after you leave.

You see the two people you dreaded to see the most by the dining table. Wonho’s head snaps up at the sound of you approaching, and he opens his mouth to speak, but you don’t hear what he says over the unusually loud clashing of stainless utensils against each other as you pick up your spoon and fork. Carrying your own bowl with you, you fill it up with food to your heart’s content and sit the farthest away from the couple.

“Do you want more?” Your brother looks up from his food to where you were sitting, and now Tiffany was looking at you too. “I asked auntie to make scrambled eggs since I knew you—”

“Minhyuk!” You cut Wonho off and poke at your food harshly on purpose, shifting your attention to the hallway, where the bathroom door was out of sight. “Hurry up, we’re gonna be late!”

Said cousin shouts something back from where he is, though to you, it sounded incoherent at best. When a good minute passed and Minhyuk still wasn’t at the table, you gobble up your food as much as you can. Because the sooner you were finished, the sooner you could leave. And the sooner you leave, the less you’d hear from your brother, whose failed attempts to talk to you broke your heart. You want so much to talk to him and hug him (you had a streak of hugging him tightly every time he arrives that was unbroken until now), but the offended and upset part of you prevailed. If he could keep stalling about telling you his girlfriend – or his upcoming wedding, for that matter, then you could keep stalling about talking to him as well.

The worst struggle you’ve had with good and evil before was when you and Minhyuk find a stray cat on your way home from middle school. You both knew that your aunt – Minhyuk’s mom – was allergic to the furry animal, but you entertained the idea of keeping it anyway. Pebbles, as your cousin had named it, was a black, female tabby cat with pretty brown eyes and the softest pink paws you’ve ever seen. She seemed to have escaped her owner, judging by the collar around her neck (which was almost entirely hidden by fur). Agreeing to keep her unbeknownst to your aunt and his mom, you and Minhyuk merrily went on your way, immediately providing food and water for the cat as soon as you arrived home. She was found out pretty quickly, just the day after you got her. As soon as you got home, you both got scolded by your red-nosed relative. By then, she had already sent the cat away, and you never saw Pebbles again.

Now, it was safe to say you were in a dilemma. Stuck between wanting your brother to be happy and wanting to have your brother back again, you wanted to annoy Tiffany just enough for her to postpone the wedding, but not too much for her to cancel it completely.

At first, you tried harmless pranks that, you admit, were all absolutely childish. Like that one time you hid all of your brother’s and his girlfriend’s shoes on the day they have to meet with their wedding coordinator. Minhyuk rated the strategy a five out of ten, because while the couple became almost an hour late for their meeting, they were able to find yours and Minhyuk’s shoes to wear, anyway.

Then there was that time you asked Minhyuk to steal Wonho’s laptop for a quick second, just so you can play with the invitation file your brother had saved in his computer. You remembered the good half-hour laugh you’d had with your cousin at the sight of the couple’s distress after seeing their names switched on the invitations – Wonho had been listed as the bride with Tiffany as the groom. And they’d only seen it after the letters have been stamped and mailed to faraway relatives and friends. You believed that the strategy would do the trick this time, because then they’d have to revise the invitations, and printing wouldn’t get finished in an instant. Resending them would also take a matter of days, not just minutes. But all your hopes were crushed after they receive a phone call from one of Wonho’s old high school friend, who commended the couple for being funny and creative because of the ��error”. This compliment went way over their heads, you think, because they decide not to reprint the invitations anymore. “We can just say we did it on purpose!” were the exact words that came out of your brother’s mouth.

Defeated once again, you plopped face down on Minhyuk’s bed from the moment you arrive from school until your cousin came home.

“Goodness always prevails, [Y/N],” he says, as if to further twist the imaginary knife driven into your chest. Instead of directly asking you to lie down properly without your legs dangling from the edge of the bed, he chooses to walk around your lying figure to get his glasses from his bedside table, and then he’s back to his study desk. “Why not just go with the flow and quit trying to sabotage the wedding?”

“Because I don’t want to!” You burrow deeper into the mattress. “I don’t even know Tiffany. How am I supposed to be okay with Wonho marrying somebody who’s a total stranger to me?”

“Then get to know her. Spend some time with her. That might change your opinion about her.”

“Pft. Yeah, we could do that. Why don’t we braid each other’s leg hairs too while we’re at it? Don’t be stupid, Hyuk,” you quip, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Because how could you easily befriend someone whom you already have a bad impression of? You don’t even open up to strangers, people whom you have neutral feelings towards. What makes him think you’d open up to someone you hate? And besides, it’s not like you would want Tiffany to open up to you either. You certainly don’t think she can tell you more about Wonho – because you, of all people, would know your brother better than anyone else. Maybe Minhyuk was talking about you getting to know Tiffany, as a person, better? Nonsense, you scoff. Why would her favorite food, favorite color, or favorite flowers be of any importance to you? Unless…

“On second thought,” you add quickly. The change in your tone doesn’t surprise the boy busily working on his assignment. “Maybe we can be friends, after all.”

“Say what now?”

“I said I’m gonna try and be friends with Tiffany.”

So you do, getting started on the strategy little by little. You stop dodging her when you meet her in the kitchen. You begin to respond to her questions – at first with affirmative mhm’s and a handful of okay’s thrown here and there, but eventually you engage in full-blown conversations with her. The sight of the two of you watching TV together in the living room makes Wonho’s heart swell, but he pretends not to notice. But you notice that he notices. And you notice that Tiffany notices too. You see it in the way she tries to make you more involved in the wedding preparations, asking you about your opinion on certain matters like the music at the reception and the color scheme.

You don’t let this faze you, however, because as soon as you realize that she’s trying to undergo a strict diet to maintain her weight before the wedding, you prepare to strike. Armed with Kälteen Bars straight from the mail, you approach Tiffany one morning and hand her one.

“What’s this?” she asks, immediately looking at the undecipherable labels you didn’t understand either.

“You said you were trying to lose weight, right?” you respond, taking another bar for yourself and peeling the wrapper. “Well, my friend from school recommended these nutrition bars. He’s part of the school’s cheerleading team, so I figured these really helps him keep his weight balanced.” You don’t mention that said “friend” is actually Minhyuk. He might not be part of the cheerleading team, but he’s in the school drumline, so that kind of counts.

The expression in Tiffany’s face shifts from confusion at your sudden change of attitude, to surprise at your unexpected kindness, to gratitude at your thoughtfulness of her situation. You both take a bite out of the bar, and immediately her face contorts into one of pure joy.

“Oh my god, this is amazing!” she exclaims. “Like a candy bar but healthy.”

“I know!” you say, smiling, as you take a bite from your own. In a few weeks, if you remember correctly, she’ll be having another fitting for her wedding dress. By then, she’d be surprised to realize she’d gained weight. And then they’d realize they only have two choices left: either to have the dress tailored once again, or to just postpone the wedding altogether. You wish it’d be the latter.

“You’re being too idealistic,” Minhyuk says, bursting into your shared bedroom. Although he’s never seen Tiffany for the past few days without a Kälteen bar in her hand, he remains realistic. He tosses his backpack by the door and marches to where you were. He sinks down into the mattress, just below your feet, and the sudden weight causes you to pull one earbud out of your ear. “Have you ever considered that maybe Kälteen won’t make Tiffany gain weight? Like, her metabolism might not be the same as most people. Or what if she’s pairing the diet up with rigorous exercise, and we just don’t notice because she does it when we’re in school?” He lies down on his side with his left arm supporting his head upright. “I never knew you were such a bad tactician.”

“You’re right,” you sigh.

“About you being stupid?”

“No, dumbo.” You roll your eyes and take your earbuds out completely, running your hands through your hair in frustration afterwards. “I just realized I’m being too slow, but I’m completely out of ideas. If you’re so good a tactician, you have to help me out.”

The two of you sit in silence after a while, contemplating your next move. Not for the first time since your brother came home, you entertain the idea of giving up completely and just letting the wedding happen without you trying to sabotage it. You miss Wonho, after all. You can’t remember the last time you’ve gone this long without speaking to each other. Maintaining your stubborn attitude, you try your best to keep your distance, even if he makes it hard by equally trying his best to get nearer.

He knocked on your door one afternoon while you were busily typing up a paper and hunched over your laptop. “You busy?” he asks after prying the door open just enough to poke his head through.

You only hummed in response, eager to frustrate him by giving one-worded answers until he gives up completely and leaves. Wonho didn’t pay attention, however, because he continued asking anyway. “Wanna go out and watch a movie with me afterwards?” he said slowly, as if cautiously choosing his words. “We haven’t… really talked since I came home, you know.” You didn’t pay him any attention, but you felt his eyes intently fixed on you. After a few minutes of silence on your end, he sighed and closed the door behind him as he walked away. That didn’t mean he was giving up, however, because for the past few mornings since then, you kept waking up to some of your favorite food spread out on the breakfast table. Your heart wavered at his perseverance, but you stood your ground.

Your cousin, though, was a different story. The fact that Minhyuk adores Wonho like his own brother wasn’t helping your cause. Besides his single mother, all Minhyuk ever had, really, was you and your brother. And you being constantly present, especially when Wonho used to be gone, makes him a little more loyal to you. It surprises you up to this day that the boy never managed to spoil your plans by blurting them out accidentally.

Just when you thought said boy has fallen asleep, he jolts up and snaps his fingers like he’s had his Eureka moment. “You know what else is Tiffany obsessed about besides her diet?”

Pursing your lips, you pause to ponder for a moment. And then it hits you. “Her hair!”

Minhyuk frowns. “Yeah, she’s obsessed with her hair, too, but not as obsessed as she is with her — wait for it – wedding dress!”

“Oh my god, yes, I can put gum in her hair,” you exclaim in delight, clasping your hands under your chin and not really paying attention to what the boy in front of you is blabbering about. “I can put so much gum in her hair until she’s forced to cut it all off. And then she’d be devastated, too devastated, that she’d be more willing to grow her hair out for a few months than push through with the wedding with her short hair—”

“Hear me out!” the boy groans, putting a hand over your mouth to shut you up. When he wouldn’t release you from his grip, you stick your tongue out and lick his palm, making the both of you shudder but for different reasons – you because of the taste, and him because of the sensation. Nevertheless, after he has rubbed his palm repeatedly over his jeans, he continues. “Okay, listen. I heard the dress is arriving in a few weeks so she could test it out and make sure of the fitting. Once it’s here, we can do everything forbidden around it, like drink coffee or juice, or paint beside it and accidentally knock over cans, I don’t know.”

“Yeah.” You chew on your bottom lip and nod. “Yeah, we could pull that off.”

Minhyuk pumps his fist into the air. “Yes! Okay, I’ll be in charge of that. Now, what was it you were saying about her hair?”

“Right! Okay, well, I was saying something about putting gum in her hair, right? But I thought of something better.”

“What, like burning her hair down to the scalp?” Minhyuk prods, but you only shake your head.

So when the supposedly relaxed Sunday morning was started with an ear-piercing shriek coming from the bathroom, Minhyuk is the first person to come to the rescue – or, at least, that’s how he wanted it to look like. He only wanted to be the first person to know what happened, not like he was going to help out in case he was needed. The bathroom door swings open, revealing a very distraught, green-haired Tiffany. She is standing by the sink and looking at her reflection in the mirror. Judging by the dryer in her right hand and the hair brush in her left, Minhyuk is able to put two and two together without having to ask Tiffany herself. Wonho arrives a few seconds late, rushing to the woman’s side and doing his best to comfort her. “What happened?” he mouths at Minhyuk, who only shrugged in response.

He rushes back to his bedroom where you were already awake and waiting. “From a scale of your snot to a broccoli, how willing are you to eat her hair in all its green glory?” you ask, holding up the small box of hair dye solution you had used to mix with Tiffany’s shampoo. “Remind me to dump the bottle as soon as they’re out to the hairdresser’s or whatever, okay. You don’t want your mom to have that hideous hair, do you?”

Before you could hurl the box at your cousin’s face – Minhyuk was already shielding himself with a pillow – the bedroom door opens, revealing a sniffling Tiffany. “[Y/N]?” she calls out, and you immediately let the box in your hand fall to the floor.

“Yeah?” you respond, preparing yourself for the worst. Had she known it was you all along? Was she going to tell Wonho about what you’ve done? Or, more importantly, was she going to move the wedding to an earlier date just to spite you as revenge? But your worst fears remain unrealized.

“Would you want to go to the hairdresser’s with me? I feel like you’re the only person who could understand me right now,” Tiffany explains, slowly crossing the length of the room to approach you.

You don’t find it in you to say no, however, because the next thing you know you’re being dragged along into different shops and stalls by an excited Tiffany, after her earlier hair dilemma was quickly resolved.

In time, you begin to realize why Wonho had chosen to marry Tiffany. She was, you think, a pure soul. Quick to smile and slow to anger, she grew up in a loving family with her as the only child. This, she explained, pushed her to be as outgoing and lively as possible to make a lot of friends, with your brother turning out to be one of them. You learn this from having spent numerous more days with her after the hair incident.

It would have been easier to hate Tiffany if she falls short of what your standards were for your brother’s girlfriend, but she wasn’t. In fact, she wasn’t even the least bit despicable, which frustrated you to no end. If she were, then you wouldn’t have to feel bad every time you sneak another nutrition bar into her purse or pour enough amount of dye solution into her shampoo to make the hair color last longer.

And just when you were absolutely ready to put all the sabotaging and delaying tactics behind you, they catch up to you in the form of none other than your clumsy, orange-juice-bearing cousin. It’s the day Tiffany was second-most excited about, with the wedding day being the first. It’s the day her wedding dress gets delivered to the house by the tailor himself.

Elegantly detailed and sewn, it was, you think, the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. You don’t realize you’ve been gawking at it until Tiffany points it out with a chuckle, saying, “You can touch it, if you want.”

So you do, and you marvel at the way the combination of silk and satin and lace feels on your fingertips. It looked even more beautiful when Tiffany came out of the bedroom wearing it. After looking at herself in the mirror, she turns around to look for you. And when your eyes met, she immediately clutched onto your hands, squeezing them, as if she was eternally grateful to have you share in her experience.

The moment would have been perfect, you think, if not for your cousin’s arrival. He walks like the oncoming storm, about to destroy everything in his path. And destroy he did. You don’t know how he did it, but one second he was standing perfectly still, taking small sips from his orange juice, and the next he’s on the floor while holding a now empty glass. The once immaculately white piece of art becomes tainted with a dash of orange by the hems. Everyone in the room emit gasps of horror, except you.

“What did you do?!” you snap, taking the glass from Minhyuk’s hands before they could create any more damage than what has already been done.

“What did I do?” he snaps back, confused. “Wasn’t this your plan all along? I was only helping you execute it!”

Your eyes widen, realizing the consequence of his words. From beside you, Tiffany tenses even more. “[Y/N],” she calls out, and you can’t find it in you to look at her directly in the eye. “You… you wanted this to happen?”

Behind her, the already panicking tailor makes an attempt to remedy the stains, but Tiffany halts him before she speaks again. “I thought—I thought we were okay?”

We are okay, you wanted to say. Over the weeks of getting to know Tiffany, you realize how you very much want him to marry your brother. And you were about to tell her that and explain everything, but she has already grabbed handfuls of her dress and stormed back into the bedroom, with only the tailor following after her.

Wallowing in shame and regret, you rush to your room and make sure you were completely pressed up against the small corner of the room. You wish, at the moment, for the walls to take you in and swallow you whole so you don’t have to deal with the mess you’ve created yourself. The tears haven’t come yet, making your head hurt so much that you don’t notice someone else coming to your rescue.

Wonho sits quietly on the floor, his knees bumping against yours ever so slightly. The look on his face scares you, because you couldn’t tell if he was internally furious or about to banish you out of the country for the sins you’ve committed. Before you could open your mouth to apologize and explain yourself, he beats you to it.

“I love you, you know,” he whispers softly. “More than anything in the world.”

And the way he says it makes you remember all those unexpected long-distance calls during wee hours of the morning when he’s feeling homesick and he just needs to hear you speak in the godawful dialect he had tried so hard to fix. At your parents’ funeral, he held onto you as tightly as he held onto his tears to keep from crying, because big brothers don’t cry. Not when you can see, of course, and not when he’s waving goodbye to you at the airport before he leaves for a completely foreign country where he knew no one and spoke not a single word of the language. And at the end of the day, no matter how far away he is or how impulsive his decisions may seem to you, he is your brother.

By then, the guilt has overwhelmed you to the point of crying, like a bucket filled with water tipping over. With tears streaming down your cheeks, you uncurl yourself from the ball you’ve made for yourself and embrace him, as what you should have done the moment he arrived. You sob on his shoulder, effectively ruining his shirt, but neither of you minded. With you stammering your apologies in between breathless sobs, Wonho does nothing but listen, murmuring responses occasionally, but most of the time humming his approval as he runs his hand up and down your back to comfort you. He even laughs at you after seeing snot dripping down your nose, which he wipes with the front of his shirt. But he continues to cradle you in his arms like an infant until he was sure the storm has passed and you had finally calmed down.

“I must say,” he says after a while. “The green… whatever you put in her shampoo was an excellent job.” You shoot him an incredulous look, to which he retorts with, “Oh shut up, I knew it was you. But really, that scared the hell out of me.”

“Does Tiffany know that it was me, too?”

He shrugs. “I think so, but since her hair’s back to normal, I don’t think she’ll hold you against it.” And he shifts his attention to you. “She’s nice, you know. She might seem upset about the dress now, but she’ll be okay once the problem is solved.”

“She’s too nice,” you wave him off. “I don’t think anyone else could’ve handled all the mess I’ve created as better as she did. And that was a lot of problems I’ve caused.”

You feel Wonho’s shoulders shake in laughter, but you pretended not to notice. “When’s the wedding again?”

“In about two months,” he says and, when your face fell, quickly adds, “We have all the time in the world before the wedding to – I don’t know, what is it you do with your friends, again? Karaoke? Shopping? Those kinds of things. And hang out, most importantly.”

“By ‘all the time in the world’, you mean…?”

He counts backwards in his head. “Fifty days, more or less. That’s still a long time, you know.”

“You mean, fifty stars?” You raise an eyebrow, leaning your head against his bicep.

“Yeah,” he repeats, smiling to himself. “Fifty stars.”

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