Family cooks. Baby-sitters. Youtube. Other exchange students in America. But not from maternal kindness or sibling closeness. Seokjin's impression of his parents is monolithic, with more in common with statues made from diorite than the flesh or blood they're supposed to be. He'd become better in the last year, living alone.

"My parents will probably be at some showy party with my brother," he says without thinking. Quickly, he smiles like it sounds like his idea of hell (actually, it does, but he can't pretend to wish a little bit that he'd been wanted there. "I'll probably be free and bored at home if you don't all come over. I'll buy a cake for us."