This Fic is the prequel to my other fic Violets are Blue. You can find me on tumblr: fromthedeskofelizabeththird
Nari was sure that she would never forget her first RFA party. She had fastened her dress with shaking hands and almost thrown up at the sight of the venue. Given everything that she and the others had been through leading up to that point, she knew that it was somewhat ridiculous to feel so anxious, and yet there she was with clammy hands.
It seemed that she spent the night moving from one camera to another. She would finish smiling for one picture only for a different member of the press to step forward and call for her attentions.
Mrs Han! They called, lifting their cameras the second she turned her head.
Mrs Han! They called, before asking what colour her dress was going to be.
She considered at the time, smiling to each and every camera lens, that she loved Jumin dearly but if one...more...person-
"Mrs Han!"
Seven had been quiet for much of the party thus far, but he cackled at her expression as he lowered his phone camera.
"Not you too !" she cried out.
"Do you have any idea how much these pictures are worth?" he asked, turning his phone so that she could see. Nari remembered every pixel in excruciating detail: her wide-eyed expression and ever so slightly shiny face.
She was too busy pretending she knew what she was doing to admit that she felt like a deer caught in the headlights of some poor stranger's car. And so she faked confidence. Laughed at the picture as if it delighted her and mentally searched the room for Jumin as if he were a piece of driftwood in maelstrom.
Where is he ? She thought, accepting a glass of wine from the nearest member of the waiting staff. He can't have gone far .
As it turned out, she need not have worried. He stood amid the largest group of reporters, explaining what his impending engagement meant for the future of C&R. Nari sipped at her wine, watching his relaxed pose and rehearsed answers and found herself a combination of jealous and intrigued. Was she ever going to be as comfortable in front of a camera as he was?
As the press all but tripped over one another to ask another question, an older gentleman crossed the party hall and stood beside her, sighing as he slipped his cell phone into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Two lapses of judgement occurred that evening.
There were no photographs on the walls of Jumin's apartment: a fact Nari had never before considered. As an unfortunate consequence, however, she did not recognise Chief Han even as he stood beside her, having spent the best part of half an hour on the phone to his legal team decrying Glam Choi. Furthermore, in the chaos of multiple revelations happening at once, he did not recognise his future daughter in law. Even considering his current circumstances, Chief Han had a weakness for beautiful women and Nari was nothing if eager to please.
"Pardon me, but I don't believe we've met," said Chief Han, reaching for her hand.
Much of Nari's communication with guests at the party was via e-mail and so naturally she did not know anyone's faces. She reached for a handshake enthusiastically, only to receive a kiss to the knuckles.
"I…"
It would be rude to express discomfort, she told herself, glancing over at Jumin's interview, which carried on in full swing.
"It's my first party," she grinned. "I'm a little nervous, if I'm honest."
"You hide it well, my dear," said Chief Han, lowering her hand with a less than discreet brush of the thumb across her ring finger. "Are you here with anyone?"
"I'm waiting for my fiancé."
"Ah, that's a shame," said Chief Han. "I would love to take you for dinner."
"Oh," she said, "I-"
Fortunately, Jumin's interview ended at that very moment and the conversation ended there, for he approached their location with every member of the press in hot pursuit.
"Oh," he glanced from Nari to Chief Han. "You're together, good. We should pose for a family photograph."
" Family photograph?" said Chief Han.
" Together ?" said Nari.
Nari never forgot the resulting picture; she and Chief Han smiled falsely to hide their embarrassment, all while Jumin's face was completely unreadable.
"We need to talk," he said the moment the photographers were satisfied, leading her away into the crowd without a further word to his father. All in all, it left her wondering if she had done something terribly wrong.
"I...Jumin," she said, wondering if she should have done further research on the company.
Should she have recognised Chief Han on sight? Had Jumin expected her to? Suddenly her hands were clammy all over again and she tightened her grip as they crossed the party hall. If his hand slipped from hers, she was half convinced she would fall right through the floor.
Up until recently, she had valued herself on her independence. She never presumed to say so out loud, but deep down she laughed at the overreliance of her friends on their significant others. She had always been a free spirit, with few things in life she honestly could not live without, so it was an uncomfortable development to arrive in Jumin's penthouse and be confronted with genuine, unyielding desire.
For the first time in her life, she had felt awkward; navigating the uncharted waters of her own complicated feelings with the sole consolation that Jumin was easily as confused (if not more so) than she was. She had not expected to care so much about him and it was something of an inconvenience that she did. She told herself repeatedly and often that he just happened to be the person she connected with the most on the messenger and, after the party, her life would go back to normal. The longer she stayed with him, though, it became less of a promise and more of a warning.
After the party, the spell would be broken and no one would remember her name. She, who had waited on Jumin's every word, remembered how often he alluded to 'give and take'. To charming rich women into handing over their signatures. It had not escaped her attentions that perhaps he meant to use her too; after the party, the RFA had no need for her.
In her dreams, she wandered the dance hall long after everyone had left; a ghost with cold lips and lonely eyes that everyone remembered but nobody missed. Wasn't that what became of free spirits in the end?
He guided her away from the dance floor and through the back door he entered upon his arrival. It led out into the areas ordinarily reserved for employees, such as the kitchen, the staff room, a number of offices and the back door to the building.
It occurred to her even as she saw the door in sight how immeasurably composed she was. Truthfully, she had held herself together remarkably well only the previous night too. She left the penthouse with V, feeling confident that it was the right thing to do, only to find herself confronted by the emptiness of Rika's apartment. It did not matter how many of the doors she peered through or corners she examined; she was not going to find Jumin choosing a book to read to her or neatly arranging the pancakes he had made for her.
It seemed far too easy to say that she missed him. Her feelings were far more complicated than words alone would allow. Everywhere she looked served as a reminder he was not there. The empty bed; the wardrobe full of Rika's clothes; the way she folded her dirty clothes in much the same manner that she had for his maid.
She did not not want to spend the rest of her life apart from him, but she did not know how to say so. She gripped his hand, wanting to tell him that when he called her the night before, she had hung up the phone and dissolved into tears, feeling the weight of his absence like a dozen pillars of stone.
He led her into one of the offices and closed the door behind him, leaning back against it with the full weight of his body.
"Thank goodness for that," he said. "I thought we were never going to escape."
"Jumin," she said, "what…"
If this was to be the moment he declared it all a trick, she wanted to be ready to hold her head high as if the illusion was hers all along. She refused to give him the satisfaction of accepting the blame for a bruise to her heart.
But in the end, he reached to embrace her and she crumbled into his arms, all of her previous resolution forgotten. She knew that she should have been angry with herself, but found she couldn't bring herself to. It was safe there in his arms.
He reached up to cradle her face, leaning his forehead into hers.
"I've missed you," he said and Nari wondered how she had managed to so utterly convince herself of the worst. Once, not long ago, she might have laughed at exactly that sort of paranoid behaviour.
How strange .
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, taking in the feel of his dinner jacket and the softness of his hair.
No , she thought, taking in the way he closed his eyes at her touch, not strange.
She had had nothing to lose before. Now she had everything.
The office was small; built to store keys and staff uniforms. Jumin smiled and took hold of her shoulders, pushing her two steps back and into the nearest wall.
"Let me look at you," he said, as if he meant to hold her at a distance. Nari lowered her arms from his shoulders and linked them around his waist, wanting him closer than he could ever be while clothed.
She had forgotten Chief Han. Forgotten the press. Forgotten everything but the taste of dry wine on his lips and warmth of his body.
"You look beautiful," he said, his forehead touching hers as he leaned in for a kiss. "V is going to be quite cross with me."
"V?"
"He told me not to leave the dance hall," said Jumin. "If I did, he said that he might never get another chance to talk to me...which is awfully melodramatic, even for him."
Nari could not help but giggle at that.
"I think he knows you better than you know yourself."
Jumin sighed.
"It is true that now we are away from the party, I'm not sure I want to go back. You are," he chuckled and squeezed her closer, "so pure. You bring out the worst of my greed. I can't stand the thought of sharing you with a room of strangers, not when I want you all for myself."
His gaze dropped to the floor. She stroked his jawline.
"Anywhere you go," she said. "I'll follow."
Wherever he went, she was home.