“Shall we drink in the meantime?”

“Ah, yes.”

Thank goodness she offered him a drink. He caught his breath as he took a sip, he needed to explain what he liked about her daughter. This felt worse than writing his college entrance exam since tests always had a set answer. You just had to read the problem and figure out the test writer’s intent, but this didn’t. He might fail even if he came up with a good answer. Then again, that was what most essay questions were like.

“Tick, tock, tick, tock.”

That wasn’t an actual clock ticking, it was just his mother-in-law making sounds with a smile. This lady knew very well how to make a person feel nervous.

“Hold on.”

She took out a phone from her bag.

“Yeah, honey?”

It must be her daughter. Maru tensed up even more. The woman’s lips were curling up into a mischievous smile again, that wasn’t a good sign.

“Why did I come when I said I wouldn’t? Well, I finished writing pretty early today. So I wanted to come over to surprise you. Who knew you’d be the one to surprise me instead?”

She gave Maru a short glance. All he could do was to smile.

“Your boyfriend’s smiling at me.”

She put her phone on speaker mode.

- Mom! You’re with...