youngha didn't know what to expect when sunghoon asked to speak with her privately. the six of them had pulled over to a jjimdak (steamed chicken) restaurant in andong, with jake saying that he wanted to eat good korean food after a long time in australia, and claire needing to stretch her legs after sitting in the car for nearly two hours.

sunghoon had been slow to turn the key in the ignition back towards himself to turn off the car, facing youngha with a sense of apprehension youngha didn't know sunghoon had. she'd always known him as the self-confident (almost obnoxiously so) boy who chased after his dreams with no sense of guilt or worry.

and most of all, sunghoon never asked to speak to her privately. in fact, in all twenty years of their friendship, youngha can count on both hands the number of times that the two of them had had a long conversation with just the two of them.

so she nods, worried that sunghoon might be in some trouble, and follows him to pretend to be readjusting things in the trunk of the car as the rest of their friends file out of the car and into the restaurant.

"hey, you guys coming?" jay calls out, the last one in the line to enter the restaurant. youngha nods and puts her hand over her eyebrow in an attempt to mimic a hat as she squints at jay under the glaring sun.

"yeah, we're coming! we're just readjusting the bags," youngha replies. jay motions coming over, seemingly asking if the two of them need help but youngha shakes her head, waving him off. jay pauses for a moment, looking at sunghoon and youngha a moment longer, an unreadable look in his eyes before he enters the restaurant.

"what's up, sunghoon? are you okay?" youngha asks. sunghoon sighs before turning around to lean backwards into the trunk so that he was resting on the bags shoved into his trunk.

"have your parents said anything strange to you lately?" he says after a beat of silence. youngha wracks her brain as she tries to recall her parents saying anything particularly strange to her. youngha's parents were known in the friend group for being more on the eclectic side and had always been the 'cool parents' in her own eyes and the eyes of her best friends. as such, them saying things that were out of the norm in other households were likely in the norm in their own household. but even so, she can't seem to pick out anything particularly strange that they might have said.

"no, i don't think so. why?" she asks, stepping forward into the shade that the trunk hood provided.

sunghoon shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. "i don't know. my parents said something kinda weird to me the other day and i figured if they were saying stuff, then your parents would be saying stuff too."

youngha wants to press, since it was already strange that sunghoon was saying anything to her out of out people but she figured that sunghoon confiding in her wouldn't be a recurring occurrence if she pushed her luck any further.

"yeah, i haven't really heard them say anything unexpected to me. but if i hear something or if i remember, i'll let you know, okay?" youngha says, offering sunghoon a soft smile. sunghoon watches her for a moment before a quirk of his lips tugs them upwards. not by much, but hey, a win is a win.

just then, jake pops his head out of the clear strips of plastic that served as the door of the tiny chicken restaurant. "guys! you should come in soon - it looks like claire's gonna eat the whole thing and honestly, i'm not too far behind her!"

"coming!" youngha and sunghoon shout back in unison. they close the trunk hood of the car and head inside the restaurant, one of them quick to put the matter out of their mind and the other unable to think of anything but that.

+++

the rest of the trip to pohang is relatively underwhelming, with claire and jake (the main sources of noise pollution in their car) falling asleep. jay and seoyeon were exchanging music recommendations quietly in the back of the car, so neither of them were really paying attention to sunghoon and youngha at the front.

youngha had her nose pressed to the window, practically becoming one with the window itself to look at all of the views they were driving past. 

"don't lick the window, i don't remember the last time i wiped it down," sunghoon mutters under his breath, and youngha just turns to stick her tongue out at him before looking back out of the window, albeit a little further from the screen of the window itself.

she looks back to see sunghoon already looking at her, a strange look in his eyes before she turns to the window once again. she catches her reflection in the sideview mirror and perhaps it was just the color of the bright sun but for some reason, it looked as though her face had gone...red.

strange.

maybe she was coming down with a fever? youngha put it out of her mind, focusing once more on the scenery, only to turn around to face jay and seoyeon, who were listening to the same song on the walkman.

"we're in pohang!" youngha squeals, clapping her hand over her mouth when she realizes that her volume had woken claire, who shivers for a second before falling back asleep on jake's shoulder. jay practically rips the earbud out of his ear, flashing youngha a million watt smile.

"finally!" seoyeon says, looking out the window to take in the view.

everything is just like it had been since before they could even remember. the same crystal blue waters. the same impossibly large bridges that extended over the water. the winding streets that interwove different monuments and local attractions, making the whole city a large and loving community. the feeling of the gentle breeze in the air. the smell of ocean waters.

everything was perfect.

"first things first," jay begins, whipping out the list of reminders their parents had left them. while the pohang house had been owned by their parents for the past twenty years (they had bought it at the age of twenty-five, after pooling together money between the twelve of them) this was technically the first time that the six of them would be in the house by themselves.

in the word's of sunghoon's mother, "we built this house with our bare hands over twenty years. we hope you guys don't destroy it within twenty seconds."

to which claire's father had rolled his eyes with a good-natured smile. "ever the one for dramatics, jihye."

youngha wants to tune jay's recount of the rules out to pay attention to the twisting and turning roads that would lead them home but she figures that it would do good by at least sunghoon's mother (even if no one else really cared amongst them) to listen.

the reminders were simple.

1. no getting up to unnecessary trouble. (addendum: if you do get up to unnecessary trouble, don't let it get out of control. if we don't know about it, it didn't happen.)

2. look after each other. (addendum: don't let anyone do anything so dumb it'll be a cautionary tale instead of dad/mom lore.)

3. this house is generational. make some good memories. (addendum: nothing to add.)

there were other reminders too, that were much more personalized.

1. don't spend all of your time on the beaches, youngha. (addendum: there are other wonderful things to explore in the city - do some soul searching!)

2. don't spend all of your time inside, sunghoon. (addendum: soul searching!)

3. jake, don't throw a rager the first day back. (addedum: clean. up. also, maybe third day.)

4. claire, don't go chasing after any boys. (addendum: make sure they chase after you instead.)

5. seoyeon, your clothes look great, now let them leave and do their own thing. (no addendum)

6. jay, don't be such a rule follower. (addendum: ask jake about this one.)

the last one gets a laugh out of everyone, including sunghoon, who's successfully parked the car in the driveway of the pohang house, the car coming to a halt as people begin to pile out.

"i cannot believe that jake's mom called you a stick in the mud," claire snorts, gesturing to sunghoon to open the trunk. jay looks at her, affronted, before looking back at the list of reminders.

"that's...that's not true," jay mumbles, squinting at the paper carefully before shoving it back into seoyeon's hands. "it wasn't jake's mom. it was mine..."

jake crosses his arms over his chest, head tilted upwards as if he were deep in thought. "i'm not too sure if she insulted me or praised me."

"jake, when it comes to you, there's never a right choice."

"aww, that's so sweet, claire."

"that wasn't a compliment."