"Come again?" Jung-kook questioned, unsure whether he understood his friend.

"I'm asking if I can have your blessing to marry your boyfriend," Sae-Ron repeated.

"Heck, no! Do you even have to ask?" Jung-kook responded.

"Well, that's settled then. I'll tell Uncle Nam you said no." Sae-Ron quipped.

"Wait, what?" Jung-kook queried, more confused than he was a mere moment ago ever since their conversation started.

"Uncle Nam has been trying to get me and Taehyung together and we refused. But he told us we both have no say in the matter, so we wondered what if a third person disagreed..." Sae-Ron briefly explained.

"Then what?" Jung-kook inquired.

"He said he'll think about it," Sae-ron replied.

"And all this time, you knew where Taehyung was and you somehow forgot to mention it???" Jung-kook demanded an answer.

"No! I planned to tell you!" Sae-ron remarked with a sad look on her face. "But they begged me not to because your mother may do more than evict them if she ever finds out."

"Don't they trust me enough that I will protect them with my life?" Jung-kook fumed.

"What can you really do, Oppa? You cannot even defend yourself. How do you expect them to believe that you can convince your mother that they're good people and not merely hanging around you because you're rich?" Sae-ron told the young master the truth he did not want to hear.

"I.... I suppose you are right," Jung-kook partly admitted. "But can't you see I'm suffering too?"

Sae-ron glanced at Jung-kook, unsure what to say. She realized her friend was afflicted but didn't she suffer too? And what about Uncle Nam? He surely didn't ask for any of it. He worked hard on the farm for several years. He poured blood, sweat, and tears into the land that he couldn't even call his own, and only because his son was too close to the young master, that his whole life unravelled in an instant.

Was that fair? Life certainly wasn't.