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"Why have you called, Eomma?"
Iris was good at putting on a chipper voice when talking to her parents. Don't get her wrong, she loves her parents in her own way just as they love her in their own way. That's how they all love-in a way. She can only handle her parents in short bursts, anything beyond her withhold leaves her exhausted by the time she manages to peel herself away from them.
She calls her parents maybe too often, far too often, all to the detriment of her mental health. An attachment she can't seem to shake even in her adulthood. They're her parents at the end of the day. Any resentment she may hold for the way they raised her was disregarded as something ridiculous and childish. They did the best with what they had, rearing a child in a country that would never see her as one of their own.
"What? Is it suddenly a crime to want to talk to my child? Do you not want to talk to your mother, Iris?" It was just like her mother to become quickly defensive. It's something Iris picked up on from a young age. Never give her mother a reason to victimize herself because she'll find a way to do so. Everything was an attack and everything must be defended against.
Iris sighed, rubbing her forehead as she pulled on her slippers. Jungkook had texted her asking for help studying for an exam he had to take the next day. She was reluctant but Jungkook had begged and pleaded with her for help. So now her day was taken up by Jungkook and her morning which was beginning to look nice and quiet was now snatched away from her by her mother. "No, Eomma. I'm glad you called. I'm just kinda...distracted right now."
"I hope this distraction isn't affecting your grades, Iris. You know you cannot let those get in the way of you succeeding." You'd expect her words to be said with maternal tenderness of concern but instead, it's spoken as concern is always spoken from her parents, with cold stoicism. Iris chalked it up to simply how her parents show their worry: in calm, calculated callouses in their voices. They're the reason Iris doesn't know how to properly express emotions, nor how to properly read them. It took her moving away from them for her to finally learn that were was actually an expression for pride.
"I know, Ma, I know. My grades are just fine. It's nothing I can't handle." Iris grabbed her reading glasses and left her apartment to go to Jungkook's to help him. She let the door slam shut behind her and walked the few feet down the hall to Jungkook's door.
"Are you handling it? I doubt it."
"Thanks for your confidence, Eomma. I really needed that." Iris murmured and knocked at Jungkook's door. "I gotta go, Ma-"
"Go where? What's more important than talking to your mother?"
Iris truly didn't have the time for this. She could already hear Jungkook unlocking the door and she'd rather not argue with her mother in front of him after her brief moment of transparency the other day. "No, no. I'm not saying that, Eomma. You know there's nothing more important than you in my life." Nothing like a good ass-kissing to get her mother off her back. In moments of danger, most know the "fight, flight, or freeze" response. Little do most know there's a fourth response. Fawn. Iris knew the best way to avoid her parent's wrath was to simply appease their desires. No use in fighting them because she will lose every time. They've already made it known.
