Summary: After confronting Seojun when he sees him hugging Jugyeong in front of the bookstore, Suho processes his feelings. Unfortunately — or fortunately — he only has his sister to turn to.
Characters: Lee Suho and Lee Selena
Mentions: Suho x Jugyeong
Author’s Note: A re-write of episode 16, with a more considerate Suho and more background to what happened after he flew to US and took care of his father. Feel free to read Part 1 but this could be read separately.
PS: Italics are in Japanese.
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“Maybe Dad should be back in Korea.”
It’s stupid. A thoughtless suggestion. Suho knows immediately that it’s something inconsiderable the moment it leaves his mouth, but there’s a childish sort of stubbornness in him that has him stares straight at his sister again. It’s a good thing Selena’s at an event, and not in her store.
Suho isn’t sure yet how to face Jugyeong.
Not after witnessing the hug that she shared with Seojun.
Selena, however, doesn’t seem amused. She rarely ever does. Only towards the cameras, perhaps. Only when it is asked of her professionally. Suho suddenly feels small - at least there is something that Selena could still smile about, genuine or not. At least there is something that pushes her to put in an effort in any way that could be.
What does Suho has? An acceptance letter, and bunch of e-mails back-and-forth requesting for a deferment.
Fortunately, she doesn’t voice out that she may just be annoyed that he’s here, ambushing her on set. Selena usually knows that Suho could behave, but years ago, it’d been his own request that they don’t make their familial relationship known. Suho isn’t like their father and Selena; he can’t stand the spotlight. Doesn’t understand the appeal of being in the centre of attention.
The fact that she doesn’t point out his hypocrisy — well, Suho can’t thank her enough, feeling sorry that he’d put her in a slightly compromising position. Lately, that’s all he ever think of doing: thanking someone, then being sorry that he had to in the first place.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Selena looks at him from the mirror. Someone from the wardrobe department is fixing something on her clothes. Selena adds, in fluent Japanese, “You know Dad can’t travel that far yet.”
He knows, but —
Suho bites his tongue. He’s lost the argument. He doesn’t know what’s happening with him lately. The recklessness at booking the ticket to Korea, the determination to chase after Jugyeong whom he dumped, and then - then asking this. Asking something so stupid. All for what, the promise of searching for something he’s missing? Of finding peace in his past? Doctor Anne, his therapist, has just been spreading false promises.
Suho just feels like a wreck.
(He had thought of it, hadn’t he? That there’s a chance that she might’ve moved on. She might’ve met someone new, someone better. He thought he’d have the guts, the will, to fight for her still. To, dumbly he thought, seduce, maybe, if he had to. But that was all just fake confidence. The moment Jugyeong was in someone else’s arms, the moment he knew it was Seojun, Suho had walked away. What else could he have done? He did this to himself. He essentially gave the permission.)
(Even though he knew Seojun was lying after. He must be. Or - or even if he wasn’t, what if it was true, that Suho’s too late anyways? That he ripped off his chance the moment he ended that phone call, two years ago, and never call her again?)
“What are you thinking?” Selena asks — no, demands — her gaze is piercing.
“Just,” Suho feels his throat tightens around air. He swallows it down, but it still - hurts, somehow. “He’s alone.”
Selena rolls her eyes. “He’s a grown adult. He can take care of himself, baby brother.”
Can he? Suho isn’t so sure. Selena wasn’t really the one who had to spoon-fed their father, to help change him everyday so he could stay clean and not develop bedsore, the one who talked to him everyday when he finally did wake up. No, anything about his father directly had been Suho’s part to care for.
Selena had only come and go, visiting only to see if Suho was fed himself, that the tutors still come in, that the bills are paid, and Dad’s nurses aren’t stealing from them.
She was the silent partner: she relentlessly provide or care for on any whim their stay in US has caused them, but the distant she kept between father and herself is still ocean-wide, father being sick or not.
I have no family, he remembers telling once to Lim Jugyeong. He wonders if Selena often feels the same way.
More so, he reminisces in guilt, that Suho often asks her to not reveal them to the public. And believing that she’d been comfortable, anyways, being so far away from him. After all, wasn’t it after she left to study on her own that Selena truly soared? Without having to hover over her little brother, Selena touched the sky, reached the top.
But instantly, Suho feels a wave of nausea from thinking so.
No - Selena may have been harsh, and straightforward at times. The sister who doesn’t tolerate small mistakes. But he knows more than anyone that they’ve only got another, if no one else, in this world. That, at the very least, when Dad turned his back, when Mom was gone, he could still trust in her, as much as she trusts in him.
Selena didn’t soar without him — she soars because of him.
She told him this. He has to remember it.
“Right,” Suho answers - tongue-tied. “I’m just needlessly worrying.”
“No,” Selena’s reply is quick. This time, when Suho faces her, he isn’t looking at a reflection. Selena has their mother’s face, all round and long, but hers doesn’t come with mother’s gentleness. No, hers are set in a calculating frown. Suho wonders if that’s how he looks sometimes.
Cold.
“You want Dad here as an excuse,” Suho doesn’t know what he expects. That Selena might not notice, or maybe, if his luck was good, that she won’t acknowledge it. He looks to the ground. Selena speaks again, “Why?”
Suho doesn’t answer.
“Do you not want to go back to the US?” Selena asks, and it almost hits home. Almost. Suho looks up, and he knows that she’s aware how close she is to being right.
She flips her hair. “You still have to go back either way. You were accepted to MIT.”
MIT. Any other Koreans, or any other person really, would jump ecstatically, would smile, at the mention of having an acceptance letter to the university - but all Suho does is swallow around a heartache. Since when have the United States feel so much like a quicksand - one flight over, and it’s like he’s threatened to be there for years, away from—
From Jugyeong, but he’s trying not to think about that.
Selena shakes her head. Scoffs. “You want him here because you want a reason to stay.”
He looks to her.
She knows.
Selena, for a split second, abandons her tough look. She reaches over and ruffles his hair. Like he’s ten years old again, like she’s merely promising him that she’s just a couple of doors away if he ever has nightmares about their mom again. “You don’t have to use Dad to be in Korea, Suho.”
It feels like he should.
Why else would he roam here, anyways? He thought he’d come back to see what he could do with the relationship he burned, but he’s thoughtless to not think that he might return to a land of ashes.
And Seojun... — Suho thinks with a pained chest, if it could be anyone, he wouldn’t have minded it to be Seojun. If that’s who Jugyeong chooses, then - what else could he have done? Move on, maybe.
Find a purpose.
“What else am I doing here, then?” Suho asks in a broken whisper, feeling tears prickling at the edges of his eyes. His mask of indifference, of the lover, of the praiseable son, cracking.
Selena sighs, heavy. “I told you not to get yourself hurt, baby brother.”
She sits next to him, pulls him into a hug, and Suho, he can’t help himself - he weeps.
Author’s Note: Next chapter is a re-write of how Jugyeong and Suho possibly meet one another again after episode 15! Thank you for reading
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Summary: Selena confronts Suho about a few things. Feelings are considered, circumstances are reflected.
Characters: Lee Suho and Lee Selena
Mentions: Suho x Jugyeong
Author’s Note: Follow K-Drama episode 15-ish? In an effort to fix this one particular detail akdhskdfh yes I’m not over the fact they didn’t include this in. What about it? 😤😤😤
PS: Also, in this smol au - Suho did accepted get into MIT because Selena forced him to finish his studies.
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“So, you’re dating my intern.”
“Noona,” Suho acknowledges. Lee Selena drops her wallet on the table, sits, and starts to take her earrings off. It’s a little - irritating, but fitting somehow, how she looks like she’s home, even though Suho knows she doesn’t have high opinion on the studio apartment. “No hello?”
“Hello,” Selena parrots. “You’re dating my intern.”
Suho doesn’t answer her.
Selena rolls her eyes, “That, or you’re stalking her.”
“It’s a long story,” Suho doesn’t want to talk about this. There’s just - something about looking at Selena that reminds him of the hollowness he’s been trying to keep at bay. All those time staring solemnly from Father’s hospital room out to the window, missing Jugyeong. Missing Seojun.
And how Selena would come by sometimes. How she never quite judged him, but it’s - similar. Her staring is just as heavy still.
“She was the girl you kept staring at in your phone,” Selena quips. She’s smart. She’s always been smart. Smarter than Suho, even.
Maybe she’s the one who should’ve gotten into MIT, Suho thinks quite depressingly, not really knowing where’d he put the acceptance letter. In a drawer somewhere. Blue file, right? Or was it green?
“Was she the one you left behind?”
“Was that the reason you decided to hire her as an intern?” Suho shoots back, now sitting across from her. He’s serious. And he knows she knows that he’s serious. Suho suddenly feels a wave of guilt coming back like waves to the shore - was his family’s influence directing Jugyeong’s life? Would this be called manipulation? Would this mean he has the upper-hand, again living only in the shadows of his family while they place him in their lives however they see fit?
Because he doesn’t want that. Not with Jugyeong. Never with Jugyeong.
“I thought she looked familiar,” comes the ugly confession from Selena. Fuck, Suho thinks, already feels like he could cry. He wants to chase her out, wants to have this upcoming panic attack in his own company, but Selena leans back against the chair. Her hair flops with her movement. “But no - she applied like most interns did. And I see a potential in her.”
Suho’s eyes glance up.
So, you see it, apart of him bites in relief.
“Plus, she’s a fan. She said it several times, in fact.” He knows. After all, wasn’t he the one bugging Selena for her touring schedule a few years ago just so he could prepare the surprise for Jugyeong? “She’s been disappointing me lately, though.”
“She has?” Was it because of him? He’d come back uninvited, he’d return like he never left. Right. Stupid. Why had he thought that was ever okay? Shit, what if Selena fires her? Would it be because of him? Suho’s stomach drops. “She’s - she’s been having a hard time—”
“Why are you making excuses for her, baby brother?”
Selena’s voice comes out in steel. Suho thinks he recognises it; sometimes he mimics it. Where had they gotten it from, he wonders? By themselves? Because Father was always charming, and their mother .... she was always so gentle-hearted. But not Lee Selena and Lee Suho. They’re made differently; they came out jagged and sharp.
“I’m not,” Suho argues, but that’s a lie, he knows.
Selena doesn’t buy it.
“You’re lucky we’re related and you don’t work for me,” She stands up then, caresses his face. Just like she would do back then, whenever she finds him hiding in the crooks and quiet places of their family villa, trying to hide from the world. She grasps at him like she wants so desperately to save him, save her little brother, but they’re both so helpless, hands tied behind their backs. What could she have done about a father who wasn’t there? How could she have played the role of a mother when that wasn’t hers?
And then Selena left to study. Suho was on his own again.
“I won’t give her special treatments if that’s what you’re worrying about.” Selena says a moment later, passing him to enter the kitchen. Suho could see now that there are boxes that she’s brought splayed on the table. Cookware, utensils, plates and cups: all in new white boxes wrapped in plastic.
He touches it.
Suho feels bad, for a second, that he found her irritating at all.
“Whether she dates you or don’t, it won’t affect how I oversee the people who works under me.”
Suho feels the tightness in his chest breaks apart. Good, he thinks. That was the one thing he knew he could’ve counted on his sister, that she rarely plays around when it comes to the reputation she built, the career she had, but - it still unnerves him. Is this really a good thing? Shouldn’t Jugyeong has some benefits, after all?
“You should tell her,” Selena’s voice grows softer. Suho looks to her sister: his fierce, determined older sister. Even in the face of gentleness, she has the foundation of a solid concrete and metal. Storms couldn’t have tumbled her down. Suho wishes, a little desperately, that he could have only a minuscule of that strength for himself. “That we’re related. Or you’ll drive yourself mad with thinking you deceived her.”
Suho doesn’t say anything.
“Have you taken your medication?”
“I was going to have dinner first,” He tells her, taking hold of the boxes in plastic and carrying it over to the kitchen counter. Selena’s effort is seamless; she receives what he puts down, and begins to unpack. Suho could only follow.
“Good. I’ll have dinner with you.”
Suho looks down, slows his own movement.
“Noona,” he calls, suddenly feels as if he has a fist right in his throat, and he’s working his voice around it. Suho feels like he’s back to being ten years old, scared, and not being sure who to hold. Their grandmother, Selena herself, or the ghost of their parents. “Thank you.”
“Do you love her?” She asks instead, without even looking up. “The intern.”
He doesn’t hesitate. “So much.”
“Then be careful, baby brother.” She’s strict. Never one for sentimentality. Almost like Jugyeong’s own sister, Heegyeong, except there’s always warmth in the Lim family, in how they move and talk and communicate. The Lees, not so much. “Don’t overdo it. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Jugyeong doesn’t hurt me,” not like he has. The pain inside his chest blooms.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t hurt yourself.” Again, the sharpness in the way she replies. Selena means business. Suho probably should gets used to this - but he just isn’t.
“Thank you,” Suho whispers, but he feels inadequate. Like it isn’t enough. He’s right - he can’t look at Selena for too long. All those time in the hospital, all those moment he almost called. She knows too much about him, his sister, and Suho’s not used to it.
(But maybe it is a good thing. Maybe it’s - nice, even, to know he’s seen by his family. That Selena always comes back, no matter the time and place. The sister who did save him: finding him this place after he didn't want to be with Grandmother anymore, setting up his therapy sessions, forcing him to finish his studies.)
“Thank you, Noona.”
“Silly boy. Stop crying. Here—” Selena hands an open set of spoons and forks. “Put this away.”
You think they are keeping Selena as Suho's sister? Him referring to her as "that person" worried me
Oh! This is a good question!
I actually have the same thought. I’m still 50/50 on it generally - mainly because we’re already at episode 10, and there are only 6 episodes left, therefore the arc where Selena plays a heavy part — which was during their young adult years — might get cut off, or they’re merely keeping Selena as an incredibly minor role.
This saddened me, because again, I do have a few other theories about the Lee Family such as the fact that, in all honesty, their mom is still alive, and would put Suho through another huge arc and/or character development. Which was why the author is slowly incorporating more and more of Selena and Suho’s family life. But - again this is a webtoon-based theory, aaaaand I might just be overthinking 😆
But yes, back to the questions, I do have a lot of belief (more like: hope) why Selena might be identified as a Lee later, and the reasons are:
Selena has been foreshadowed to come into the show since episode 1, implying that she will always be entering Jugyeong’s life.
There are tons of make-up tutorials out there? And the one video Jugyeong showed, which was coincidentally Selena, (and Jugyeong didn’t even mention a name or anything) Suho already knew who it was and brought her to an event not from any random make-up guru or any random make-up event, but it’s to Selena herself; implying a familiarity.
The “I’m sure she wasn’t good from the get-go” dialogue and the tv show cleverly overlaid that with Selena’s echoed dialogue came over, “You’re still better than when I first started wearing make-up.” — again, could be a clever way for the show to foreshadow there’s a connection, or it could be nothing.
The actress for Selena, I believe, posted a video or a tiktok (I’m not sure which; but she has a tiktok specifically for Selena which is quite awesome) and she tagged it as #leeselena
But yes, there are still chances that Selena won’t or could not be named a Lee — mainly due to the time constrictions — but I really hope she does. There’s also an issue wherein the writers of the K-Drama wanted to showcase again and again that Suho’s incredibly alone i.e. via comparisons with Jugyeong’s family, and Seojun, who has many loyal, albeit goofy, friends.
So, that’s another reason why they might not include Selena as a Lee family, just to push further the fact that Suho’s very much on his own - which is ridiculous! In the webtoon, even with the revelation of his sister later on, Suho was still alone and living primarily by himself during high school.
I think it would be a good addition to the K-Drama, personally, because we would be witnessing first-hand how much child neglect in a family could effect children — and how that affected siblings’ relationships too. Because, even if Selena is a much better family member to Suho compared to their father, she was still very absent, very independent a lot of the times - much like I imagine Suho was trying hard to be.
Okay, this has gotten so loooong, but thank you for asking! I hope this answer helps, and tell me if you think Selena will come to play a role in the K-Drama or not 👀👀👀
