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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 20 2017, 01:59 PM (53 Views) | |
| Min-ji Manning | Nov 20 2017, 01:59 PM Post #1 |
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People expected a lot of things from Min-Ji, a lot of things she wasn't even entirely sure where they had come from. She was pretty sure some of it might have honestly been stereotypes. She came from a Korean family – so things were very strict and her father was a hard ass about her getting into college and she was an arranged marriage! Lots of things that had some grains of truth, but had been blown so wildly out of proportion...Her family had been strict, but no more than any other parents had been. It had been typical sort of things; no going out after a certain time on a school night, studies came first, no partying, no excessive phone calls. Some of the American friends she had made along her life had spoken of parents like that but somehow for Min-Ji that was apparently too much. As for the college, well...he had wanted her to get in a good school, he had wanted her to get her first choice; every parent in the country wanted their child to get into their first choice of school. <i>She</i> had wanted to get into her first choice. But the fact of the matter was you had to be dedicated, you had to be a hard ass to achieve that considering how many people were going to school. As for the arranged marriage stuff? She didn't know where people had gotten that idea, honestly. It seemed to be from some old idea that that's just what was done. Most people hadn't liked it when she had turned around and asked if the person they were with were arranged too. They had acted so offended and demanded why she would think that of them...and she had thrown her hands in the air and asked why it was wrong for her to say those things, but for them? It was just being curious. About the only grain of truth in that was that her father and mother had tried to set her up before, just like they had tried to set up her brother. It was always "my colleague has a nice boy" or "oh when I was at the doctor, she said she has a son your age". Again, nothing that others didn't deal with too. <p> All things considered, Min-Ji figured she was probably more of a trial to her parents than her parents were to her. They had tried raising her and her brother right; they had given them the best education money could buy, they had made sure they always had support, and were always doing the best they could. They had these grand dreams that she and her brother would be part of the orchestra they were in and they'd find partners and have children who, in turn, would be part of it. At sixteen, her brother had gone off and become a pop idol. It had been a sudden thing; he had just been going out with friends and then he had come back and announced he was going to be starring in a boy band. And the boy band had been so <i>popular</i> and sure, her parents had been proud – how could they not when their child was doing so amazingly well and people loved him and saw his talent – but it hadn't been the life they envisioned for him. Then there was Min-Ji. They had probably been hoping for a demure and soft spoken daughter who knew all the right etiquette. Unfortunately, Min-Ji had always been a tomboy, playing rough games with the other kids, always getting dirty and getting in trouble for backtalking or making fun of some teacher. They had loved her, but sometimes she could hear the "why can't you be better" in their voice. She, at least, had been more receptive of the family business; she had taken up violin and she had played and practiced and worked hard at it and made her fingers bleed and even gotten a place in the company. Then she had to go and break her parents' hearts by saying she didn't want to do it. She didn't want to play music and do the same thing as they had done. She wanted to...god, she didn't even know. She had wanted to get out there and explore. She had wanted to <i>travel</i>. In the end, she was as much of a disappointment as her brother because she had chosen to go all the way to America and work on a degree for child psychology. <p> That was how she met Cameron. It had been a complete chance meeting, honestly. They had been in the same coffee shop at the same time and they had ordered exactly the same drink and it had happened to be the day the workers weren't taking names. She remembered it so clearly – they had just called it out and they had both reached for it....and then she had blurted out that she was there first. Cameron had looked stunned, maybe even a bit annoyed, before the second one came up, the exact same way. He had asked her if she always talked to people like that and she had unabashedly said that of course she did, she wasn't going to play favorites. It had been a bit of back and forth before she realized he was walking her back to campus. After that it had seemed silly to not given him her phone number. It wasn't a whirlwind romance, it didn't pick up speed way too fast...but in the blink of an eye they had gone from dating to being steady to moving in together to being married to having their first son. Sometimes when Min-Jin looked back on that, she wondered how it had all happened. But she was happy. Cameron was a good husband, if not a perfect one (perfect for her, she had always blithely stated) and his family had been very welcoming of her. It had been a bit odd to come into it and realize that Cameron's youngest brothers weren't that much older than his oldest brother's son, but...she had shrugged it off, shrugging it away because sometimes that had to happen. They had always been a good, supportive family. Until the day that Cameron's parents had passed. It had been a tragic time, everyone had been broken up about it...and then Cameron had found out that he wasn't inheriting the farm. It was all going to Christian. When Min-Ji had first heard it, she supposed it made sense. Everyone would still be working on it, they'd be pulling the weight of it, and Christian <i>was</i> the oldest. But Cameron had ranted and raved that he had better business sense than Christian ever had, that he had been looked over just because he was the second son. Things had broken apart so rapidly, Min-Ji hadn't known what happened, really. All she knew was that they had moved further away and Cameron had refused to talk to them. <p> Things were getting better, she liked to think. Cameron had come into his own with the race track and Kim and their new son had been reason enough to try and put the other Mannings into their life. The thing that had really probably brought it all back into focus, she felt, was Christian's heart scare. It was all well and good to be mad about being slighted, but no one wanted the other <i>dead</i>. Things were still shaky, Cameron was usually tense and tight mouthed going back, but they were making an effort. Min-Ji was glad – not because she thought the other Mannings were in the right (sometimes, though, she felt that), but because it hurt her to see Cameron struggling. With slowly taking themselves back into the other family's lives, Cameron was slowly, but surely beginning to relax. He was still tense, he was still scowly, but at the same time, he seemed...better. She didn't know. The thought followed her to the home office that Cameron had fixed up ages ago. She watched him silently from the door, doing whatever it was that he did – sometimes it looked like work, sometimes it legitimately looked like he was playing solitaire. It was always a toss up with him. As silently as she could, she crept into the office, crept in so maybe he might not hear her or see her reflection in the window. He had always liked having a view of things. Finally she reached him, putting her hands over his eyes. "<b>Guess who,</b>" she demanded. |
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| Cameron Manning | Nov 20 2017, 01:59 PM Post #2 |
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Over the years, Cameron had dealt with many things in his life and many, many people who seemed determined to set him back some. There were also many people who seemed determined to judge him. There had been teachers and professors, employers, people who worked for the family farm, other students. Even, he felt many times, his own family. A part of him knew that sometimes he was just taking things further than they were. He was quick to take offense most days and he always had been, even when he was younger. It was probably a good thing that Christian had never been much of a teaser or else he would have constantly been at odds with his older brother. Not that he hadn't ended up at odds with him anyways, but their childhood would have been much more tense than it should have been if it had been different. The biggest problem, Cameron knew, was that he often knew when he was overreacting and when he was being ridiculous... but he could never back off about it. He was a proud man. Even when he knew he was wrong, he wanted to be right. He was right a lot of the time. That was what had always made him so angry, that was what had lead to his explosion when their parents had died. He knew he was a bitter fit for the farm than his brother. Christian worked hard and he was intelligent enough, but he didn't have business sense. Cameron had that sense, Cameron was the better fit for the job and he knew that his parents knew that... yet they still had given the farm over to Christian when they had died. It had been a hard, pivotal moment in his life and he had unleashed all of his anger, his frustration and his grief on his brother - and on his other brothers, as well, because they all mostly supported Christian as well. The only person who seemed to support Cameron was his wife, which he was sure hadn't earned her many friends among his brothers, his brothers' partners or their children. That was when Cameron had taken himself and his family out of his family's life, for the most part. He couldn't forbid Kim from seeing his cousins - his anger didn't run to the children and besides, he had seen how much his son pined for the playmates he had grown up with - but he could make sure that he wasn't the one that took him there. He let that fall to his wife, to his brothers, or to his brother's oldest child who could legally drive and Cameron let himself sink into another world entirely, a world both away and yet part of the life that he had grown up in. He probably wouldn't have gotten very far if it weren't for Min-Ji. It had been such a chance meeting. He had been in college, a young man just out of high school and going into school for a business degree. He had gone to get himself some coffee because it looked to be a long night of studying. He hadn't been paying much attention to anything other than his own thoughts, just waiting for the workers to call out his drink. When they had, he had walked forward to take it only to run into someone else. A much shorter young woman, somewhere around his age, reaching out at the same time for the drink. Then she had almost bristled at him and declared that she had been there first. Cameron had considered arguing with her - he had just paid for his drink, after all - but the moment that he had opened his mouth there had been an announcement of another drink; the exact same drink as the previous one. He and Min-Ji had stared at one another before they had both taken their drinks. They had just begun to wander together, talking about everything; their families, where she was from, where he was from, where they saw themselves, what they were studying. eventually, they had both realized that they were heading towards her dorm room and he had made sure to escort her right to it. Before he had left, she had hastily scribbled her number down and he had gone home that night feeling almost as if he had been hit over the head with something. It wasn't so much that he felt as if he had fallen in love right away as she had been something of a breath of fresh air; she was outspoken, a bit silly, but she had made him smile and even laugh when he was sometimes known for being too serious. He wouldn't say that she had changed him, either, but she had just filled up a part of him that he hadn't known had been pretty empty. One phone call lead to another, one coffee date lead to another. Somewhere down the line, they were both moving in together as they were finishing up their degrees, he was proposing and she was accepting - too young, many people said, but they had ignored that. Then she had been pregnant with their first child and a whole other part of him filled up with love and happiness, too. For the next fourteen years, things were the same as they had always been. He worked with his family, Min-Ji took on her own job, and they raised their son together. He always remembered looking out of the office window and watching her walking with Kim on her feet or half swinging him around, watching as the toddler slowly grew into a child and then into a teenager that was gaining the height of his father and his cousins. Things were just fine, and maybe that's why it all had to go to hell. There were all sorts of beliefs about ying and yang, about karma, about how sometimes bad had to happen for you to appreciate the good in life. Whatever the case, his father had died and set the spiral in motion. It hadn't taken much longer for his mother to pass - a broken heart, they all said - and then they had given the farm to Christian. He had always felt as if he were competing with Christian, competing for attention and love. Most of his brothers said that he was imagining it and that, really, someone like Craig was probably the one competing for the most attention. He had always felt second best, though, and this had only seemed to confirm it. The grief and the anger had boiled over. He had held onto that bitterness and anger, had left the farm and their company and had moved his family to another town. He had taken over a small track and had helped it grow much bigger. Once in awhile, he spoke to Joshua and Kim would report on the state of the family once in awhile if he was asked after he had gone to visit his cousins. Other than that, he kept himself away from any thoughts of his family. He had taken up smoking, he had gotten gruffer and angrier, and he had seen himself grow distant from almost everyone - except for his wife and his son. Except for the new son that had been born just a few scant years after the death of his parents. Life had continued on in that way - watching his sons grow and living his new life - until he had gotten a call from Joshua telling him he needed to go to the hospital, that Christian had almost died of heart failure. He was mad at his brother - mostly for never apologizing or admitting to anything and for failing to try to even compromise something with Cameron - but he knew that, deep down, he loved him, loved all of them, and he didn't want him dead. It was, he supposed, in its own way somewhat of a blessing because it had them speak for the first time in something like ten years. Things weren't precisely better, but they certainly weren't worse either. They were tense - or he was tense anyways - but at least he spoke to his brothers. At least they spoke to him. They were small steps, helped by Kim and Jae, by Min-Ji. He would be nowhere without them, he was sure. Almost as if the thought had summoned her, there was the wisp of a sound in the doorway and then there were hands covering his eyes. It was a move she had done ever since they had dated and he gave an almost wry smile at the nostalgia of it. Twenty something years and she could still make him smile most of the time. "I wonder who it could possibly be," he stated in a dry voice, letting his chair shift back and forth a little and listening to it creak. |
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| Min-ji Manning | Nov 20 2017, 02:00 PM Post #3 |
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People always seemed to expect Min-Ji to change Cameron; plenty of her friends had seemed to think she was going to mold Cameron into a brighter and happier person, but...well, she as only one person, she had always pointed out. She could only be herself and he would be himself and honestly she didn't think he needed to exactly change. He was everything he needed to be in this life – he loved her and laughed at her stupid jokes and tugged at one of her braids when the thought occurred to him. He adored Kim as much as any father loved his child and Jae was in the same boat, though the both of them had gotten those moments of exasperation that came with raising kids. She supposed the only thing she could really try to change him on was his bitterness towards his family and that? Well, she had always sided with him on that. She liked Christian, but Cameron had the business degree, he had the plans. It had seemed unfair to reject that, just because he was the second son. She still wanted things to smooth over, but, well...Things happened, she supposed and she had confidence that one day, Cameron would patch things up properly. After all, he still talked with Joshua. He still talked with Dusty, who was practically family. Things were on shaky ground with Christian, but they were taking steps fix things she liked to think. She decided she was going to focus on the here and now, though, because Cameron was always going to be Cameron and that was the only constant in their lives. "<b>It's the most beautiful woman in the world,</b>" she declared, moving her hands to his shoulders so she could press a kiss to his cheek. People called Cameron a grouch and she supposed she could see where they came from. Cameron did have a personality that tended to more sour outlooks, but Min-Ji had never minded. Maybe it was because he put up with her tendency to barrel ahead into things that she knew better for. <p> She moved away from him, shifting around until she could hop up to sit on the desk. "<b>You've been working for hours,</b>" she pointed out. "<b>I think you've been here since before I woke up. I thought today was suppose to be our days off.</b>" Min-ji had made peace with the fact a long time ago that she was going to have to share Cameron with the world. Oh, when she had been younger, she had been less understanding. She had wanted Cameron to herself, she hadn't wanted him going off with his brothers or his friends because they were still so much in love and they <i>needed</i> each other. Every couple had that phase where all they wanted was each other. Then, hopefully, they grew up. For her and Cameron it had been still during school; they had had their time when they only wanted to see each other...but then classes came and they needed to pass their degrees. Then had come Kim, their little oops baby. She still remembered lying awake next to Cameron and just announcing it randomly that she was pregnant and causing him to almost fall out of the bed. The thing was you could be a boyfriend and girlfriend and be stupidly into each other, but you couldn't be a dad and mom and do that. Not if you wanted to be a good parent. Kim had been an accident, but...but they had both wanted him, they had both cherished him. Of course they were going to have to cut out more chunks of their lives to have him fit. And when they had gotten proper jobs? Jobs they had spent years getting their degrees for? That was more chunks of lives. Raising a child had been a process that left them without much time or energy for each other. Jobs had been important for them to all survive, thus even less. Min-Ji had accepted it, she pouted about it some days, but she had accepted it. She had never wanted to be a wife that had sighed and moaned that she never saw her husband; partly because said husband was living his life so they were all taken care of and partly because Min-ji would be a hypocrite for the fact that she seemed unable to make time herself. Despite all that, she could only handle it so much before she got annoyed. She loved Cameron, which meant she'd like to <i>see</i> him once in awhile. <p> Without much thought, she reached out to take his hand, pressing it together with hers. Honestly she was still amazed that his hands were so damn <i>big</i> some days, something he never appreciated her saying out loud. It only soothed him a little bit for her to say that she had hamster paws in comparison to his, but it was always true. She wasn't even entirely sure how he had gotten such big hands. The nose was easy, all of his family members tended to have big noses and ears, but hands? "<b>Kim called,</b>" she said, still playing with his fingers. "<b>He's doing really well. He loves being able to spend time with his cousin, who apparently has a boyfriend now.</b>" Honestly, Min-ji was glad Kim had moved to New York. Less understanding people might have said it was because she wanted the house. Usually if someone accused her of that (or tried to sound like that's why they would do it), she just pointed to Jae. No, she was glad because Kim had been slightly isolated since Cameron's fight with his brothers. Long years of the only getting to see his cousins occasionally. He had played with his cousins every day of his life until Cameron had the falling out. Sure, Min-ji would take him over, but ever since she had had her collapse when they were suppose to be going home, Kim had been gun shy, as if her taking him to visit family had caused it rather than Min-ji's heart. Sometimes Kim's uncles would come pick him up, but everybody was adults. They didn't have time to go about picking people up and dropping them off. Kim had been lonely. Now though? Now he was off and living with his cousin and he had all the freedom an adult could have. She hesitated a tiny moment. "<b>He sort of needs money though. He kind of spent it all.</b>" Kim had sounded so <i>broken</i> about that and embarrassed. He knew his parents didn't have a ton of money. When Kim had been born, they had put money into a fund that, when Kim was old enough, would be for college or for an apartment on whatever life path he decided. Him going to Juilliard had kind of ruined that. Finally, her parents had stepped in. He was going to be following in their foot steps, so it only made sense that they would help with it all. Most of it was being paid for by her parents, his "allowances" for various things came from her and Cameron from that fund, and he had been told in the most kind words that if he wanted more money, he could find a job. It was the best financial way they could do things, really. It had worked so far; Cameron seemed to be thriving and his meltdowns never had anything to do with a lack of money. <p> One of the things she missed about the time before Jae and Kim was just being Min-ji and Cameron. It had been way too many years since they had been just them, they had fallen too quickly into the roles of dad and eomma. IT felt like a conversation didn't go by that wasn't about their kids. It was something she had made peace with years ago, but...she supposed a part of her was still sad. Some days she thought she missed out on getting to go off and do whatever with Cameron, though some said that she had gotten it out of the way. Then Jae had come along and they were doing it all over again. "<b>We need a date night,</b>" she declared. "<b>Where you aren't working constantly and Jae is off giving gray hairs to someone else.</b>" |
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| Cameron Manning | Nov 20 2017, 02:00 PM Post #4 |
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Cameron had heard many people over the years say that they had no idea why he was with Min-ji. A few of those people had been friends, coworkers. A few had even been family. When people looked at Cameron, they saw someone serious and someone who was nothing more than a grouch. When they looked at Min-ji, they saw someone who was almost his exact opposite. Of course, no one really knew them in the way that they knew each other. It was wrong to say that Min-ji had changed him, because she hadn't. Not fully. Nor had he changed her; not fully. But they had learned to grow and compromise and adapt to and with one another. And Min-ji had taught him some things, just as he was sure he had taught her. She had definitely taught him the importance of his family. He worked, and he worked hard, but he had always found time for her and for their children even when it felt like there weren't hours enough in the day. And he was glad for that lesson, because he had come to rely on her and on the boys more and more over the years, especially after he had estranged himself from his family. She had also taught him the art of relaxing - which was probably why half the time she caught him in here playing around with the computer games or just staring out of the broad window and watching the leaves, rain or snow fall from the sky. After a few seconds, Min-ji dropped her hands to his shoulders and leaned in, her lips pressing against his cheek in a familiar way as she declared that it was the most beautiful woman in the world. He turned his chair just a little so that he could see her more fully and he gave her a small smile. "There's no doubt about that," he told her. Even after all these years, he had yet found anyone that was like her and he was glad for that. It made her all the more perfect and special. Min-ji finally pulled away fully and Cameron just followed her somewhat with his chair, turning it back again as his wife moved to take a seat on the desk. Years ago, he might have gotten irritated and told her to not do that. Nowadays, he didn't even bother. She would just say something sarcastic in response and he had learned that anything that was scattered about could easily be picked up. She had taught him to be more flexible, he supposed. "It hasn't been that long," he commented in response to her words. Over the years, they had both had to come to terms with a lot of things. Their youth had been taken from them. That, of course, was their own fault. They hadn't been careful and Min-ji had gotten pregnant. Since they hadn't wanted to abort or give the child out for adoption, they had kept him. Kim had been a blessing - a mostly not very fussy child to boot - but he had still been a baby that had required the attention of two people who were a bit young to be getting married and having a child. There had been plenty of times Kim had been carted off to class with Min-ji and off to the farm with Cameron. Through the years, they'd both had to learn how to balance classes, a marriage and a child and then work, a marriage and a child. Cameron was the worst offender - a family trait, or so he'd been told - but Min-ji had had her share of late nights and long hours, too. It was inevitable, it seemed, that they should sometimes miss out on the time they wanted to spend with one another. There had even been one or two things that Cameron had missed with Kim or that Min-ji had. Unavoidable things that had made him feel as if he were the worst parent in the world for days. They had both always tried to make time for him, though, and make sure that if one of them couldn't be there the other would be. "But you're here now and I'm taking a break now, aren't I?" he asked. He hadn't been doing much anyways. He had stopped working about thirty minutes ago in favor of just thinking of all the times he had watched Min-ji and Kim or Min-ji and Jae or even Kim and Jae go traipsing by his window. Min-ji reached out to take his hand and he let her, just idly watching as she pressed her much smaller hand against his larger one. It was something that had always seemed to fascinate her and that she always loved to do. He had always pointed out that she was smaller so of course her hands would be smaller but that still didn't stop her being amazed with it nonetheless. Most days, it didn't even bother him in the least to let her be so scrutinizing over his hands although it did confuse him. He blinked a little, letting his attention drift back to her as she began to speak. Inevitably, a lot of their conversation tended towards Kim or Jae. It was the downfall of starting their lives as parents so early although with Kim living in New York some of that talk had started to branch out to other subjects here and there. Not that he minded, precisely. Plenty of people thought he didn't love his sons for some reason but they were the most important things in his life. He always wanted to hear about them. "I'm glad he's so happy up there." And he was. He had worried that maybe Kim might become homesick or he might not like the school, that he might not like the city or become some kind of a target. And he was glad that he was up there with his cousin, with Joshua a phone call away for help. There was still bitterness in him, but Christian's children hadn't done anything. Joshua he had kept a tenuous contact with and he was glad that Kim had them there. His son had suffered the most from the separation of the families because he had grown up with Parker, Roy and Law. They had all been thick as thieves, even adding in Lori when she had come along. Then the fallout had happened and it had been the one guilty point in the whole thing for Cameron. He snorted a little as Min-ji added that Parker had a boyfriend now. "You're a gossip," he told her. His attention sharpened somewhat as Min-ji also dropped that Kim needed money. Cameron would never deny his son anything, but he could still feel his lips thin and tighten somewhat. They weren't rich. The Manning family had always been well off, but there had been good years and bad years and horses cost a lot of damn money. Cameron had taken a hit in his own finances when he left them all to their farm and taken over managing a racetrack. Putting a child through college was expensive. Putting a child through Julliard was astronomical and only the help of Min-ji's parents had meant that Kim could go. Kim had been set up a monthly allowance to help him with other costs and to teach him how to budget. Apparently that lesson hadn't been going very well. "And why does he need more money? Spent it on what?" Their son was not a reckless man. Cameron almost worried that he had gotten into some kind of trouble and needed to bail himself out of it. Surely he would have mentioned if he had been hurt or something like that? He let himself be distracted from his worries by the younger woman. She would have mentioned if Kim had been hurt. Clearly it was something that he had done that he was ashamed of. He wasn't shy at all but he also didn't like making a big deal about things, which was probably why he had asked his mother first. After all, Kim knew his father had a temper and could be sour while his mother would probably laugh about what he did first. He shook his head a little as Min-ji stated that they needed a date night and to let Jae go off and give someone else gray hairs. "Do you really want to curse someone else with Jae for a night?" he asked wryly. He loved his youngest son but he could admit the boy was a handful. He took after his mother in so many ways and Cameron knew he'd started getting more than one white hair because of the kid. "So we'll have a date night," he said after a moment, agreeing easily to her demand. It was almost always to give in to her demands because they usually weren't all that outrageous when you got down to it. He brought her hand up to his mouth, pressing a light kiss against the back of it. "Wherever you want to go. But you get to figure out who is going to watch Jae." |
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| Min-ji Manning | Nov 20 2017, 02:00 PM Post #5 |
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Once, long ago, her parents had more or less said that she was going to regret marrying Cameron. They had meant it in the kindest of ways – she had been young, but not young enough to read the discussion as some kind of brutal declaration that she was going to regret what she had and there would be no help for her when she realized it. Her parents had always been surprisingly open armed when she and her brother had gotten older. Add to the fact that by the time she had met Cameron, she had all ready broken out of the life they had planned for her anyway. But they had looked at Cameron and they had looked at the fact that she was pregnant and said she was going to regret it. She was marrying to give the baby a father. When she pointed out that she and Cameron had been dating for awhile to begin with, that this was just going to push their plans up a little sooner or even just made them discuss the fact of marriage sooner, they had said that children changed everything. Admittedly she had reacted like a scalded cat, demanding if that was what it was like for them when she and her brother came along before she scampered off to be sulk. They had apologized for it all, but she had always gotten the feeling that they thought she was still going to regret it. Cameron wasn't enough like her to be a long term match. Children changed things, for better or for worse. They were too young. She was glad they had proved them wrong, though. She didn't think there was a single moment she had ever regretted being with Cameron, which she had always thought very strange. Wasn't it normal to have doubts? Wasn't it normal to look at the person across from you and think about the could have beens, the thoughts of what they had given up for this person? She was pretty sure the only time she had regretted marrying Cameron was when she gave birth both times and that had cleared up when she had been handed her babies. "<b>See, I knew I kept you around for some reason. No one else tells me I'm pretty like that.</b>" She had prided herself on not being like some women in that she had accepted long ago she was going to age. She was in her forties, she had two children, it would be too hard to main magazine like beauty with a lot of factors like those. <p> She reached out, pressing two fingers to Cameron's forehead as she made a face at him. "<b>It's clearly been so long you forgot you don't argue with your wife.</b>" Except they were a couple that both did and didn't argue. To look at them, she felt like people would have expected them to argue all the time. They were both different types of bull headedness; Cameron was the sort who would wrap himself in cloaks of 'I'm right' and build himself a tower and refuse to come down, Min-ji would knock her head against whatever was standing in her way as if she thought that maybe she could wear it down. Put those two together and you would logically have this unending fight for power, to have the last word, to be the right one. Some days were like that, sometimes there was something one of them saw and they refused to back down. Mostly, though, they had learned to work around it. It helped, she felt, that generally speaking Cameron didn't upset her apple cart; he kept in his own line of business, never telling her how to run her life, so she didn't have to knock her head against his. Most of the time she agreed with his side of things anyway, which was good for them, she supposed. Did that mean that they never argued? No. They argued about a few things before – Cameron talking with his brothers, Min-ji's parents butting in as much as they did, when Jae acted out, when Kim was...well, Kim. It wasn't feasible, nor did she think it was particularly healthy to assume that no relationship was going to be strife free. It was one of those things that some days she felt like she was always arguing with Cameron, just like he probably felt those some days too. She snorted a tiny bit as he posed his question. "<b>That's considered cheating, you know. You don't get to say it's happening <i>now</i> when I've all ready made the complaint.</b>" Honestly, it probably was one of her pet peeves, though less in this situation. She hated when people said they were doing things now – well of course they were, because Min-ji had engineered for it. For Cameron, she would make an exception because sometimes he was just sitting in his office, not really working but not ready to deal with the rest of the household. Not that she could blame him; Jae was over the top almost all the time and she probably wasn't much better. <p> She moved to lace their fingers together and it was an odd fit but she found that it felt absolutely perfect for her. She loved the feel of it, the awkwardness just...made it seem more their own. She fit with this hand and she didn't know if she would fit any other. "<b>I was worried at first,</b>" she sighed a little. "<b>I was worried that he would struggle without us or that he would feel...I don't know, isolated. Being away from home, being so <i>far</i> from home is a lonely experience. Even with Parker, I was worried he would miss out about things here. It always use to bother me hearing about my brother's accomplishments but never being there to see it or hearing about my parents doing this or that. You know you're loved, but you're not there and you just feel...out of the loop. It adds up.</b>" She had hated feeling that way, she had hated feeling like she wasn't a part of her family even more, even when nothing extreme had happened. Everyone always talked about being strangers in their family's lives because they never heard anything, but she had felt like one because she heard everything and she wasn't experiencing it. She wasn't living it. She had been cut out of that life, but she had cut herself out. Kim was sensitive, she didn't need to be a genius to see that. If she had felt that way, how must Kim have felt? He was always a little gun shy and so serious but maybe having Parker with him helped some of that. "<b>I suppose that's just the issue of parents, huh? Don't quite know how to let go.</b>" She had never thought she was the type of person that would suffer from empty nest syndrome. She had thought with how the kids had both been easy and how exhausted she had felt at the day's end, she would have been happy and looking forward to it. But she had honestly never thought about Kim moving away. She still wasn't thinking about Jae moving away, but...it was inevitable, wasn't it? Kim was an adult now and one day Jae would be and it was normal for adults to go out and live their adult lives. She waved her hand. "<b>I'm watching out for my nephew and son. I heard the guy's on the older side. That seems a bit weird, don't you think?</b>" Kim had sounded so hesitant when he had described Parker's boyfriend. At first he hadn't even said they were dating, it was just a friend but even then he had seemed older than Parker. She pushed away the thought as Cameron's eyes seemed to sharpen just a little and then he was making the demand she knew he would make. There had probably been a reason Kim had told her rather than his father. "<b>Well,</b>" she said a little slowly, "<b>he went to go see a Broadway show....and apparently he had a crush on the main actor and he proceeded to go to every showing for like a week.</b>" It wasn't typical Kim behavior...but he had sounded dopey in love when he had told her about the man who had been center stage, waxing on and on about him. <p> At least Cameron wasn't completely losing his temper. He seemed like the type that would be a hair trigger one, but he had mellowed or maybe he had never been as bad as people thought. Min-ji could never tell. Instead he just pushed forward like he always seemed to. She snorted a little. "<b>I like to think of Jae as the kind of curse that branches out slowly but thoroughly.</b>" She loved Jae; she adored him and if she were honest, he had more of her personality than Kim...but he was a whirlwind, he was someone who pushed at all the buttons. Not because he was being cruel, but just because he was excited and got bullheaded when he was really feeling like it and not everyone was ready for that or they thought he was being raised wrong. She couldn't help brightening as Cameron said that they'll have a date night. "<b>Really?</b>" she couldn't stop herself from sounding eager. She wanted that. She wanted a nice...long evening where they went out and had a nice dinner at their own pace and maybe they took a walk or went to see a movie that they wanted to or...just anything that was just them. The smile she had softened a little when he lifted her hand to kiss it. "<b>Oh you make it sound like it's hard,</b>" she rolled her eyes a little, "<b>Dusty <i>loves</i> Jae and Jae loves Dusty. Well, I'm pretty sure Jae loves Dusty's dogs but he can't have the dogs without Dusty, so.</b>" It had surprised her, honestly, because Dusty was crankier than Cameron some days and seemed like the kind of person who hated children and animals. Then she had found out he raised dogs, had a rescued fawn, and had a hand in raising all the other Manning and Lee kids. |
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| Cameron Manning | Nov 20 2017, 02:00 PM Post #6 |
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People had thought that Cameron and Min-ji weren't going to make it. No one had ever come out and explicitly said that out to either of them, but they made it very clear in their actions, tone and expression. They were too young, they hadn't been together long enough, a child changed (or ruined) everything. They were going to regret getting married, they were going to regret keeping the baby, they would regret this or that. Cameron - and Min-ji - hadn't been stupid. They had known it was going to be hard. They had known that their personalities weren't precisely the same or that they would slot up perfectly. They had known that having a child would be difficult. Of course, what they had known had only been guesses. They hadn't known how hard it would be. It was tiring and trying and there had been plenty of days where Cameron had regretted something or days where he and Min-ji had just about been at their wits end and had been at one another's throats... but he had never fully regretted his choices. Times could be hard, Min-ji could be difficult to deal with or Kim could be in the midst of one of his few meltdowns or, even now, Jae could be getting into trouble... but he had never regretted loving Min-ji, being with her, in having Kim or even in having Jae. They were the best parts of his life. He might regret circumstances around them, frustrations that welled up, but he had never regretted them. He snorted a little at the words, reaching up to tug on her hair. "They'd better not be. That's my job." Cameron had never been precisely the jealous type, but there had been times over the years where he had grumbled over someone looking at his wife or the suggestion that someone was hitting on her. He knew he didn't own her, but he still couldn't stop himself from looming sometimes - like a bat, she had teasingly told him. He had always said she must be seeing some very large bats back in Korea if she thought he even remotely looked like one. He scrunched up his face slightly as Min-ji reached out to press two fingers to his forehead. "I don't think that rule was ever in effect," he pointed out. Oh, he'd heard people jokingly say it before. It seemed to be a common stigma that marrying was supposed to make you miserable and that a woman would be some kind of constant nagging presence in your life. Cameron just always assumed that meant you had married the wrong person - or maybe that you were being an asshole. Sure, there were days that he hadn't picked up his fair share of the slack but that was part of being a human being. There had equally been days where Min-ji hadn't picked up her share of the slack. Work and family and health and just general moods got in the way of everything being perfect but he never remembered really, truly arguing before. Not with anything that they couldn't apologize and come to some term of agreement on. Sometimes, the boat rocked but it never tipped or went under and that was important. They were always able to even things out. "Well, too be fair you weren't in here until now so you have no idea whether or not I was taking a break or not," he pointed out. Honestly, she probably knew that he had been taking a break because it was a habit of his to just sit at his desk and stare out the window and think. It had always been his habit to do so and she had walked in on him plenty of times just doing that. So since he wasn't bent over an email or a stack of papers, she could likely figure out what he had been doing just by looking at him as she came into the room. Cameron looked away from Min-ji to glance down at their hands as she laced their fingers together. He had always teased her about how small her hands were, but he loved it at the same time. Their hands fit together and yet, at the same time, he could dwarf her hand in his. He had always loved that. There was something very pleasing about taking her hand and feeling that not only did their hand slot together nicely but that he could just hold all of her hand in his own. He supposed it was the part of him that rather liked the fact that Min-ji was shorter than him. She wasn't what you would precisely call dainty, but she had always been short and he had liked being able to tower over her or pick her up with very little thought at all. "At first?" he asked. "You're still not worried?" The words were a slight tease, but they were true. He wouldn't think that their worry over Kim - or Jae - would ever fully disappear no matter how happy or satisfied their children seemed to be. "He probably does feel scared and isolated, even with his cousin there. You did when you left. I think most people do. He's tough, though." Kim had always been anxious and uncertain, shy and a little withdrawn, but he had toughed out so many things in life. "And he's probably slowly getting used to it, too." He also was probably not likely to tell them even if he was struggling. Kim was fairly good at keeping things to himself until he absolutely had to say them. He smiled a little at Min-ji's next words. "It'll be the same with Jae." He was sure they would both breathe a sigh of relief when Jae was old enough to go to college or move out but, at the same time, they would worry just as much as they had worried about Kim. No matter how trying their children were, they were still their children. Cameron watched Min-ji as she waved a hand at his calling her a gossip. He frowned a tiny bit. "How old?" He told himself to not get caught up in it. After all, he was still somewhat distant with the rest of the family. He couldn't help but to worry when he heard something like that, although... He blew out a rough sigh. "Parker is an adult, though." He was only a year older than Kim, but Kim was long past the age of being a teenager, too which meant Parker was even further away. They could both technically do as they wanted, within reason. Cameron told himself to be calm. It didn't do anyone good to be angry and, really, when was the last time that Kim had done anything awful... ever? Maybe that was what made him worry more. It was so out of character for Kim that he worried something had gone wrong. He kept his gaze trained on Min-ji and then he sat back in the chair, tilting his head back with a groan. "Every show," he repeated, willing himself to not get mad still. Kim didn't do rash and terrible things. He was a good kid who had sighed over his money as a toddler and said he couldn't buy things because he didn't have enough. He had always been good with money. He supposed there were worse things to lapse on. He hoped Kim had learned his lesson from this and it wouldn't be a repeated lapse. "Must have been one hell of a show. I hope he at least got an autograph." The years of being with Min-ji and the boys had helped - somewhat - cool his temper. His fight with his siblings had helped prove that he still had a formidable one, but he had tried to curb it over the years. Especially when he had a son as sensitive as Kim was. He wasn't perfect by any means but he'd always done his best to never yell at either Kim or Jae (or Min-ji) if he could help it. He echoed Min-ji's snort at her words. "That's... a very accurate description," he said after a moment. He loved his sons, both of them, but Jae could be very trying at times. He was very loud, very in your face and full of endless energy. Kim had been an insanely easy child to rear and Jae was... definitely not. There weren't many people who could consistently deal with Jae. He smiled as his wife brightened at him. "Really. We'll find a nice place for dinner and then maybe a movie or a concert or... whatever is going on in the big city." They didn't do it as often as they should. Now that Kim was in New York, though, maybe they could have more opportunities. Cameron gave another snort at her words. "Well, Lord only knows why but thank goodness for small favors." He liked Dusty, he always had. He had retained his friendship with the dour man even after the falling out with the rest of the family. It had been Dusty, after all, who had come to tell him of some more important bits of news that he normally would have known. He couldn't quite figure out why Dusty liked Jae - or Jae liked Dusty - so much but he supposed he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. |
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| Min-ji Manning | Jan 10 2018, 05:12 PM Post #7 |
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Min-ji never liked to borrow trouble. Borrowing trouble made worries settle where they didn't need to. It was one thing she had tried to teach both her boys – Jae had taken to it a lot easier than Kim had, but that was what happened when you had little people that developed their own personalities. She didn't like thinking about things like 'why haven't we had bigger fights', because that always seemed to lead to trouble. She had kept in touch with friends from high school, women that had changed in ways different from her but she liked them all the same, and some of the stories they had told. They were happy with their husbands, they always said, but things seemed wrong. They started picking things apart – sometimes they unearthed things like they were getting cheated on, but usually it resulted in things like their husbands saying they couldn't live in a situation like this where they had felt like they were under suspicion. Why couldn't they be happy, their husbands had asked. Min-ji had gotten in trouble a couple of times before when she had posed that question to her friends. She didn't want to stir the pot with Cameron because they worked. There was nothing he did that was even remotely suspicious to her. Some might say his late hours meant something, but she had had her fair share of late nights. That didn't mean that she was cheating on him. Some said the fact that she let Cameron be friends with women was just asking for trouble and they hadn't appreciated that Min-ji had pointed out that men were very capable of having friendships with the opposite gender and have it not mean anything. She didn't think people were nearly as geared for sex as some thought. But then again, who knew? Maybe she was living in some fantasy world where Cameron wasn't feeling the press of middle age and life lost because they'd been stupid and had a baby early. But when he reached out to tug one of her pigtails, she thought they were doing okay. She laughed, biting the tip of her tongue just a little at his response. "Well thank goodness. Though..." she murmured, "my personality seems to scare them off more, so it's more like you were the only candidate for the job." Because Korean men weren't as awful as stereotypes made them out to be, but there was certainly a cultural thing there; they expected wives to be kind and gentle...and Min-ji's personality was pretty intense. It was worse from an American stand point, she found; men looked at her and saw an Asian and suddenly she was suppose to be this demure thing that was shy and bashful and quiet and needed a man to show her how to do everything. She grinned at the way his face scrunched up, finding it endearing and maybe a little bit handsome. Cameron, she had found, had one of those faces that people either one hundred percent agreed with her...or they thought she was a bit weird and couldn't see it. Some people just couldn't appreciate the face that was put before them, but that was okay, Min-ji would appreciate it for everyone. "Yeobo," she said it sweetly, like how her mother talked to her father, "it's always in effect. Especially because I want to be right, hello." Of course Min-ji wanted to be right most of the time. It was another reason her parents had been so hesitant about her and Cameron – they were both the sorts of people that wanted to be right and didn't care to hear about how they were wrong. At the same time, it had become more of a joke in their relationship. They'd hear people talking about how this person or that person thought marriage was this...big scam or something that was suppose to be all for...what she didn't know. With how some people talked, she didn't understand why they had gotten married in the first place. People always talked about the nagging wife and had looked confused when she admitted that she had totally nagged Cameron, but then he also nagged her. Sometimes they just got in these weird funks and they needed the other to go 'take out the trash, go spend time with the kids, do this, do that' because otherwise nothing would get done. And she somehow doubted people understood that it was less of a "wife always had to be right" and more "certain people always had to be right". "So what you're telling me is I'm going to assume my version is right, you're going to assume your version is right, and our marriage is saved for another week," she teased him. Of course he had been taking a break, or he would have needed a little bit more patting down and she would have felt a little bit more guilty about coming in. Sometimes, sometimes there was a part of her that wished that they hadn't missed out on these quiet moments when they were younger, that they had been smarter when it came to protection. She loved her sons, but a part of her wished they could have just had quiet moments like this more often. At the same time, she doubted things would have fallen into place like this if they had waited for kids – Kim would have probably been too young to form deeper friendships with his cousins, Cameron probably wouldn't have made the small steps he had with patching things up with his brothers, they would have had more time consumed with Jae being a baby. No, she wished she had this silence, but she wouldn't have traded it. Not for a million reasons, she felt. This was, in essence, perfect for them. "Okay, maybe I'm still a tiny bit worried. A tiny bit, not much." Except she always wanted to know when Kim was home from classes, when he was safe at home. She wanted to know that he was eating food that was at least somewhat good for him, that he wasn't starting the whole 'starving artist' thing too early. She knew he would be okay, but it never really stopped. It was kind of annoying, in a way. She sighed softly as he went on to say that Kim was no doubt scared and isolated. "I hate it," she admitted reluctantly, "I want him to be here at home with us or at least close by. I don't want him to be out there feeling like he's all alone and like he doesn't have us anymore. I know he's strong enough to make it through anything, but I don't think I am." She loved Kim. He was her first born. She had understood everything when she had held him after he was born; she had felt all that love people talked about you were suppose to feel. The thought of him sitting in apartment in New York, feeling like he was missing out on Jae's life or losing time with his parents or like he wasn't a part of them anymore made her heart hurt. Kim was made of stronger stuff than she was sometimes. "He's forty," she frowned. "I know Parker is an adult and there's nothing inherently wrong. It's just...weird to me." She was use to age gaps; she knew plenty of old high school classmates that had had age gaps in their marriages and that had been fine. But that had never been anyone close to her, that had never been her nephew, who was very sweet and smart and soft spoken. Maybe she was just thinking too much on stories and the idea that the older someone was, the more they were willing to manipulate. She had wanted to ask Kim what, exactly, Parker's new...boyfriend saw in Parker, what did they talk about, what kinds of things did they do together, but she knew that was probably a little more invasive than she was suppose to be. She wanted to know why, exactly, a forty year old man wasn't dating someone more in his age range. She watched as Cameron leaned back, groaning slightly in a way that she had become used to when it was Jae causing problems. At least he wasn't mad yet – she felt like even if he had been mad, it would burn out before he got hold of Kim – and that was something. "I mean...he apparently got a date out of the deal," she offered. Because Kim had been so excited about that, he had babbled so much about it, telling her that he was going on a date with a Broadway star, eomma, and he was so handsome and so talented and so many other things. She was glad that Cameron had settled in his life like this, that his anger wasn't so quick anymore. She was sure some people would assume that that meant he was abusive or something ridiculous like that, that she had had to get "use" to his temper or something, but it was just Cameron. It was just something of a temper that flared, just like any body would have if you knew what button to push. Cameron just had a lot more buttons than anyone else. "Jae is very sweet and lovely and energetic – he's also nine and a pain in the ass." Most people, she felt, were supposed to think their children were angels or devils. The ones who thought they were angels swore they could do no wrong, while the ones who thought they were devils thought everything was their fault. Jae was, simply put, a pain in the ass like any other kid his age. He could behave, but he always wanted to be doing something, he wanted to help or work or do something with people. It had gotten slightly worse when Kim left, but that was simply because Jae's most common playmate was suddenly gone. No one as ever going to replace his big brother. She wanted to squirm as he confirmed that they would do something, anything. "Ah, what will we even talk about with an entire evening alone?" It was the curse of being a parent...but she also recognized it was the curse of being a married couple for over twenty years. Even if they hadn't had kids, what would they be talking about on dates anyway? There wasn't much conversation after a decade, even, outside of "how was your day" or "remember when we did this here". She didn't care, though. She'd take it. She'd take it because she loved Cameron and wanted to spend time with him, even if they wound up talking about how the kids were doing. She shook her head a tiny bit. "Jae loves him because no doubt Dusty lets him get away with murder all while not realizing Dusty is probably stricter than we are. And despite everything, I think Dusty just likes kids, despite...the awkwardness he had before." It felt like Dusty's divorce from his first wife was both a big secret and not at all a secret, just like the nasty break up with Dom had been. And none of the Mannings, not even Cameron, was out of the loop when it came to how devastated when the relationship with his daughter deteriorated to the point where she didn't come out to Kentucky anymore. Edited by Min-ji Manning, Jan 10 2018, 08:06 PM.
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| Cameron Manning | Jan 17 2018, 01:02 PM Post #8 |
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Cameron remembered all too well when he and Min-ji had announced they were getting married. He remembered the confusion from family and friends alike, the disappointment even, the judging. Of course they were getting married because she was pregnant. Plenty of people had hinted at that or even just outright said it. His own parents had pointed out, gently, that he didn't need to get married, it wasn't the fifties anymore. No one had seemed to understand that they had talked about marriage several times already it had just always been a 'in a few years' conversation. This had just sped it up. He couldn't deny, of course, that it had been hard. They were young people in the middle of college, trying to deal with marriage, with pregnancy, with a baby - it had been hard and there had been plenty of times that they had both argued and probably both wondered why they had gone through with it at all in the moments of highest stress. Cameron knew, though, that he would look at Min-ji when she was asleep on one of her psychology books or he would pick up Kim when he was in a rare moment of fussiness and he knew why they had done it. They had done it not because they had to - there were plenty of options available to them; they could remain together without marrying and raise the baby, they could separate and still raise the baby, they could separate and never speak to one another, they could remain together and abort the baby, there had been the option of Min-ji's own parents offering to raise the baby - but because they wanted to. They had wanted the struggles and the strife because there had been the moments where Kim looked up at them and laughed and things were good. There were the moments when he put a blanket around Min-ji or she was ordering yet another pizza after a failed cooking attempt or they were walking, swinging Kim in between them, and life was okay. He smiled a little as she laughed at him. He gave a light snort at her words. "Some of us are braver than others, I suppose." Truthfully, he had never had a problem with Min-ji's personality. There were times they both clashed, but they had always been adults about it. Maybe it was their upbringings or maybe Min-ji's textbooks made her think about ways to approach problems more than a normal person but they had always licked their wounds and then come back to talk about their issues. She challenged him and, honestly, he enjoyed that more than most people thought he would. Cameron couldn't stop his nose from wrinkling up further at the all too sweet, almost cloying, voice. He knew that voice because that was the voice that Min-ji used when she wanted to tease him or she wanted to make it perfectly clear that she wasn't being serious - that she was, in fact, being a bit more vicious than she was portraying. It was only confirmed when she used that nickname for him that she used more than his actual name. That had been something that had taken him an awful long time to get used to but nowadays it didn't turn a hair. It was almost more jarring nowadays to hear her use his actual name than that. Other people didn't seem to get that but, then again, other people didn't seem to get a lot about their relationship - or any relationship. His own family seemed to be happy and healthy and content in their relationships, but outside of their family? There were so many people that complained about their spouse and it had never made much sense to him. Even when his wife annoyed him at times that didn't mean he didn't love her and love spending time with her. It just meant they were getting on each others nerves and needed a break. He gave a small smirk as Min-ji spoke again. "Isn't that how our marriage has always gone? It seems to have saved us for many years." It was a bit of an exaggeration but not wholly. There had been plenty of times that they'd both just pretended to keep the other one happy but he also knew she was mostly joking. They didn't avoid their problems like so many seemed wont to do and that, probably more than anything, was what kept their marriage flourishing. The amount of time that someone had asked if they didn't think that he and Min-ji had rushed it, the amount of times that someone had joked about being tied down too early, about having kids too early, was something that had always stuck in the back of his brain. Of course they both thought they had rushed it. Of course they both had regretted, at times, having kids too early. He didn't think anyone who hadn't gone through it could understand how absolutely exhausting it was to go to college, work and have a small baby that demanded all of your attention all at the same time - all while trying to keep a happy and healthy relationship going. There were days when he remembered that they had both essentially lost out on the years that others had been given. It would be a lie to say that he hadn't had regrets when Kim was having one of his rare bad moments, up in the middle of the night crying and they couldn't get him to stop. It would be a lie to say that they had never had a fight about money or about how they did things. It was unrealistic. But Cameron didn't think he would change things. In a way, it was almost nice because Kim was able to grow up with friends around his own age, because even Jae didn't have to worry too much about his parents being so old that they would pass away when he was still far too young to deal with it. They had been given an awful lot of time with their children and, in the end, Cameron had enjoyed his life even with the ups and downs. He didn't think he would change it now. He gave a small laugh, one that didn't even fully escape his mouth, as she admitted that she was worried. "I thought so," he said with a small smile. The fact of the matter was that he was too because Kim had always been sensitive. There were times that Cameron honestly didn't know where he got it from because Min-ji was loud and brash and while Cameron was quiet he wasn't a sensitive man, not like Kim was. It was something that always made him worry about his son because you never quite knew what was going to upset him and how he would react to stress - and they couldn't be there to take care of him now that he was an adult and in another state. After a moment, Min-ji went on and he could only smile - a bit painfully - at the words. "I guess that's a feeling every parent has." Because he felt the same. "He's not alone at least." Cameron might have had a falling out with his brothers, but Kim had remained close to his cousins. He lived with Parker now and while Kim had always been thick as thieves with Roy more than Parker, Cameron privately thought it best to have someone with a much more level head living with him out of state. "And he has friends, or so we've been told." It wasn't the same, but at least their boy wasn't isolated either. He was silent for a moment as Min-ji spoke again, just playing with their joined fingers, thinking. He could very well understand what she was saying because the thought made him vaguely uncomfortable as well, but Parker was closer to thirty than anything. "Well," he finally said. "He's an adult. All we can do is keep an eye on things." Parker was smart and cautious, Kim was smart and cautious; things would be fine, or so he hoped. He brought his free hand up to scrub over his face before he gave a snort. "I sure hope he got a date out of it if he spent that much money." He would have to have a word with Kim, but at least he was more grudgingly amused than mad at his son. He didn't want to start yelling at him just... impress on him how important it was to not do things like that. "I'll wire him some money tomorrow," he finally said, a tiny bit reluctantly but he could no more let Kim suffer than he could just decide they weren't going to take care of Jae anymore or something similar. Cameron couldn't stop himself from snorting as Min-ji said Jae was sweet but also a pain in the ass. "His grandparents would say differently." Because, as with most grandparents, they absolutely adored their grandchildren. That thought always came with a tiny pang as he realized how much his own parents would have adored Jae. They had loved all of their grandchildren, but they had never really gotten the chance to meet Jae and while Cameron had his anger issues that didn't mean he didn't miss his parents every day either. They probably would have loved Jae and thought his antics were funny... but they would never know now. Just like they would never see the fact that Kim went to Julliard, that all of their grandchildren were blossoming into careers that came from a love of their life and their home, that they were starting to become adults and settle down. "You mean you don't want to hear the same stories we've told each other for over twenty years? I thought that's what couples did." He moved his chair just a little, resting his arm on the arm rest and his chin in his hand as he smirked up at her just a bit. At times, their conversation seemed to center around their children and they had accepted that... but Cameron knew there was more to talk about. They had friends. They had family. They had separate jobs that involved lots of very different stories. They had horses, for crying out loud. There would be things to talk about and if they went to see a movie there would be even more to talk about. He had never tired of talking to her in their time together and he doubted that was going to start now. He was quiet for a moment as Min-ji, of course, pinpointed exactly why Jae liked his uncle Dusty and why Dusty liked him so much. "I think he finds Jae funny, too," he pointed out. Because Dusty had that wry sense of humor that would find a challenging child funny - especially when he could just give him back. Unspoken was the feeling that Dusty probably also used having Jae around to cope, at least somewhat. "Well, I'm not going to complain if he's willing to agree to watch Jae for a night. It's been far too long." It was easy to let life get in the way of time together but maybe they could take some of that back now. Edited by Cameron Manning, Jan 23 2018, 12:01 AM.
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8:41 AM Jul 11