Page 37 of From Paris to Seoul

I let out a dry laugh. “If by ‘good background,’ you mean rich parents and a degree from a top university, then yeah… he doesn’t.”

Yae-rin sighed exasperatedly before throwing a punch at my arm. “Aigo. You might as well have hooked up with a handsome French man—that would’ve caused fewer problems. At least they wouldn’t be familiar with our system and expectations.”

I peeked at her from under my arms. “You think there’s no way that I could… that we could…?” I trailed off, unable to even finish the thought.

We could have… what?

Those six days in Paris really were just a movie, like he said. A dream. A fantasy. Not real life.

And even if—and that’s a big if—we somehow managed to be together against all odds, would it even work? Would we end up driving each other crazy?

Relationships aren’t just about burning passion and fluttering hearts, are they?

Yae-rin exhaled heavily, rubbing her temples. “You know why our family is like this, right? Remember Uncle…”

“…Suk-jin?” we finished together.

Uncle Suk-jin—my dad’s youngest brother—had become something of an urban legend in our family, the you-know-who, a name unspoken at family dinners or any formal gatherings.

At first, he was the golden child. He joined the family company and quickly secured a high-ranking role. But then, he met a woman—one who, let’s just say, didn’t come from the same world as our family. He fell hard.

A few years into their marriage, she conned him. Drained their joint account, somehow managed to sell off properties they had bought together and disappeared without a trace.

What followed was a long, exhausting legal battle that left scars on the entire family. As for Uncle Suk-jin, he chose to leaveeverything behind and start over in Thailand. No one has heard from him since. Thankfully, they never had children together.

Yae-rin leaned back against the headboard, arms crossed. “So, yeah. That’s why Mom and Dad are the way they are. It’s not just about money or prestige—it’s about control. They think they’re protecting us from making the same ‘mistakes.’” She sighed, shaking her head. “And I think they’re just scared.”

I exhaled slowly, staring at the ceiling. “Scared of what?”

“Losing us. Losing face. Losing their version of what life is supposed to look like.” She shrugged. “To them, love isn’t a gamble worth taking unless the odds are completely in their favor.”

I chewed on her words, my mind drifting back to Baekhyun—the way he laughed, the way he listened, the way he teased me. The way he made me feel like more than just someone’s daughter, someone’s fiancée, someone’s carefully planned-out future. With him, I didn’t have to be perfect all the time—I could just be myself.

“They’d never accept him,” I murmured.

Yae-rin was quiet for a moment before nudging my leg with her foot. “But do you?”

I turned my head to look at her.

She met my gaze evenly. “Forget Mom and Dad for a second. Forget their expectations. If none of that mattered, would you want to be with him?”

Would I?

The answer came to me so clearly, so overwhelmingly, that it almost scared me.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Yae-rin smirked. “Then I guess the real question is… what are you going to do about it?”

I didn’t have an answer.

Instead, I lingered in Yae-rin’s room a little longer, wrapped in the kind of comfortable silence only siblings could share. But my thoughts kept looping back to our conversation, her question repeating in my mind over and over.

Eventually, she shooed me away, mumbling something about needing rest.

Back in my room, I flopped onto my bed—one of the few perks of being newly unemployed: nowhere to be in the middle of the day. I stared at the ceiling, my thoughts restless.

Mostly, they were about him.

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