"Well," Mrs. Park says loudly, breaking the spell as she refills my tea cup. "A swimmer! That explains the appetite. Eat more rice cakes! You need the carbs!"
"Yes, eat!" Dohwa chimes in. "We need you strong if you’re going to drag Donghwa out of his cave."
"We should come to a meet," his mother decides, clapping her hands. "Honey, write that down. When is the next one? We’ll bring a cheering section. We can make signs!"
"Please don't make signs," Donghwa groans, dropping his head back against the couch.
"We’re making signs," Dohwi whispers to me with a wink. "Glitter ones."
I sit there, holding my tea cup, and feel something inside me unclench. A knot I didn't even know I was carrying—the fear of being too loud, too new, toomuch—starts to loosen.
They aren't judging me. They aren't weighing my value. They’re just... listening. They think my dad’s business is interesting. They think my swimming is impressive. They thinkI’minteresting.
I look at Donghwa, who is currently bickering with his sister about glitter, and the bond hums in my chest—a warm, steady vibration of contentment. I take a sip of tea, and for the first time all day, I don't feel like an imposter. I just feel... welcome.
After a good half hour of back and forth the family conversations lulls, dissolving as the three siblings bicker and Donghwa's parents watch with faint amusement.
I need to move. The nervous energy that’s been vibrating under my skin since we drove through the gates hasn't fully dissipated, and sitting still is making my leg bounce again.
I murmur a quiet excuse about stretching my legs and stand up. Nobody seems to mind. Donghwa is busy trying to prevent Dohwa from looking up my swim meet schedule on her phone, so I take the opportunity to drift toward the perimeter of the room.
I wander over to a heavy mahogany side table near the bay window, drawn by the clutter of frames. It’s fascinating. In my house, photos are staged. We hire photographers, we coordinate outfits, we pick the best take. Here, the frames are mismatched—silver, wood, ceramic—and crowded together like a chaotic little crowd.
My eyes snag on a small, tarnished silver frame near the back.
I lean in, squinting. It’s a black-and-white photo of a small boy, maybe seven or eight. He’s sitting at a piano—thesamepiano that’s sitting five feet away from me right now. His legs are too short to reach the pedals, dangling in mid-air, but his posture is terrifyingly perfect. His back is straight, his small hands are poised over the keys like claws, and his face...
I let out a soft breath. He has the exact same expression he wears in our lectures when he’s bored by the curriculum. Intense. Serious. Like he’s trying to decode the secrets of the universe through sheer force of will.
"He was eight in that one."
I jump slightly, turning to find Donghwa’s mother standing at my elbow. I didn't even hear her approach. She moves with a quiet grace that seems impossible.
She smiles at me, warm and conspiratorial, and reaches out to pick up the frame. She holds it gently, her thumb brushing over the glass with a look of such profound fondness that it makes my chest ache a little.
"He started lessons at six," she says softly, looking down at the mini-Donghwa. "We didn't expect much. This piano has been in the family for four generations, but truth be told, we mostly used it as a very expensive shelf for flower arrangements. None of us have a musical bone in our bodies."
She laughs lightly, a self-deprecating sound. "But Donghwa... he sat down on that bench and it was like he’d been there in a past life. He was instantly obsessed. We couldn't get him to come to dinner. We couldn't get him to go outside to play. He would just sit there for hours, frowning at the keys until he got the sound exactly right."
I look from the photo to the real piano, imagining a tiny, stubborn Donghwa refusing to leave the bench. It tracks. It tracks so hard.
"He’s... intense," I offer, unsure if that’s the right word to use with his mother.
"He is," she agrees, placing the photo back on the table with care. She sighs, but it’s a happy sound. "It was only downhill from there, I’m afraid. We realized very quickly that he had an artistic soul. Which is a bit of a genetic anomaly for us."
She gestures vaguely around the room, at the bookshelves lined with legal texts and history volumes. "We’re a very boring family, Sihwan. Lawyers, judges, scholars. We deal in facts and precedents. And then here comes Donghwa, painting on the walls and playing concertos before he could do long division. By the time he was fifteen, we had enough of his sketches and canvases to open our own art gallery. The attic is still full of them."
She shakes her head, looking over at her son, who is now holding his head in his hands while his sisters cackle.
"We should have guessed, really," she murmurs, almost to herself. "The way he powered through everything. The sheer stubbornness of him. We should have known he was an Alpha even before he presented."
I blink, my attention snapping back to her. "You... didn't know?"
It seems obvious to me. Donghwa screams Alpha. He smells like winter and dominance. He walks into a room and the air pressure changes.
She turns her gaze back to me, her smile turning wry.
"It was a surprise," she admits. "A big one. You see, the Kangs have been a Beta line for generations. My husband is a Beta. I’m a Beta. His sisters are Betas. We assumed Donghwa would be the same. We raised him to be gentle, to be studious."
