Chapter 09: Unexpected

"I hate you! I absolutely cannot believe that you had the guts to do that!" Jae Kyung crossed her arms across her chest as she and Woo Bin sat inside Woo Bin's car. Woo Bin's stunt apparently freaked out Jae Kyung's new friend, much to the Don Juan's sheer delight and amusement.

Woo Bin chuckled on his seat as he steered drove. "It's called a strategy, Ha Jae Kyung. Heroes in history have always used strategies to gain an upper hand." He said and continued driving. "Say, I just won our bet, didn't I?" He asked, adding more salt to Jae Kyung's injury.

"You did not! You cheated!"

"Like I said, it was a strategy. Technically, you didn't get the guy. I won. Fair and square." Woo Bin explained with an amused smile on his face.

Jae Kyung, on the other hand, looked like she wanted to murder someone as she threw dagger stares at the renowned Don Juan. "You didn't say anything about allowing any intervention!" Jae Kyung pouted like a child throwing a petty tantrum.

"Ah… But you didn't say anything about not intervening." Woo Bin stated the sentence in such a way for him to gain the upper hand in the argument. For someone who has the mafia for a family, Song Woo Bin wasn't academically brilliant like Yoon Ji Hoo but he was street smart and that was enough to outwit anyone who went against him, even the quirky heiress herself.

"Unfair…" Jae Kyung continued to pout with her arms across her chest.

"So what will it be? Don't tell me you won't keep your word on our bet? Tsk, tsk… Don't tell me the JK Group heiress doesn't have a word of honor? That would be such a shame…" Woo Bin pretended to innocently imply as he sat by the steering wheel. He knew that for someone as naïve as Jae Kyung, it would be easy to manipulate her emotions and make her agree to uphold the bet.

Jae Kyung huffed disgruntled. "Fine."

"You're going to be my slave for a month?" Woo Bin asked.

"Fine but I have rules."

"Arasso… What are they?"

"Hmm… When I get hungry, you have to feed me ASAP. You don't disturb me late at night because I have my beauty sleep. Hmmm… Don't ask me to things I hate like going to the hospital because I really hate hospitals. And if we're in a different country from each other, you don't have any authority over me. What else? Ah! If you go shopping and you're bringing me with you, I get to choose your clothes." Jae Kyung itinerated. "That's all I can think of at the moment but I'll add some more…" She added.

"That's slavery for you? Amazing…" Woo Bin shook his head in disbelief. Clearly, Jae Kyung's idea of slavery applies only to her. Average employees who were not even slaves can't even afford the privileges she mentioned. "I've got one objection though. You can't stop me from making you do things that you hate because you can abuse that rule. Say for example, I asked you to fetch me a glass of water and you'll say you hate fetching water, then automatically, you can disobey your master a.k.a. me, so not that rule. I can promise not to take you to any hospital though…"

"Alright. Fair enough." She agreed. "HEY! Where are you taking me? This is not the way to the hotel I was going! I have a party to attend!" She anxiously spoke as she realized that Woo Bin had somewhere else to go in mind. And apparently, she also realized that starting that very moment, she was Song Woo Bin's slave.

"We're going to my house, slave. Since you're my personal slave now, you'll have to stay with me and attend to my needs at all times." Woo Bin grinned. "And since I think you've shopped enough clothes to last you a month, I don't think you need to go home and get some more clothes. Lastly, since you seem to be best at doing things on your own, I reckon you don't need to ask permission from your parents."

At the thought of staying at Song Woo Bin's house, Jae Kyung immediately clutched her dress by her chest as she looked accusingly at Song Woo Bin with a terrified and somewhat suspicious expression on her face. "What are you going to do to me?"

Woo Bin looked side-ways and noticing the terrified expression on Jae Kyung's face, he chuckled. "Yah, yah, yah… What are you thinking about?" He asked. "You're going to have to stay with me because I'm going to teach you how women's mind work when it comes to things such as love, relationships and marriage since you react so idealistically at something so elusive, in my opinion. You have to observe what I do to understand my point. And aside from that, we can also plan what to do next with the non-existent sex life of our friends."

'Love?' Woo Bin thought. He has seen two of his friends drastically change because of such a thing. And yet, he has yet to experience it himself. He has never allowed anyone to get too close to him. Other than the F4, nobody else has had enough close contact with the Don Juan. And it wasn't because he didn't like mingling with people. He wasn't anti-social at all. It was just simply because it was better that way. Being the son of a mob boss did his reputation wonders ever since he was a kid, and apparently, he carried it with him up until he was all grown-up.

He has yet to meet a girl who could stand up for herself and match his fierceness. So far, though, no woman with such fierceness has dared cross his paths.

Either that, or he simply hasn't recognized her yet.

-oOo-

"Omeoni, why did you tell me you were going to make Ga Eul assist a Swedish guest? I could have come in place of her!" Yi Jung ranted in front of his own mother without Ga Eul's knowledge. He was extremely angered by the fact that his mother allowed Ga Eul to handle a foreign guest by herself without any translator. Much more was the fact that the guest turned out to be a male.

"Did she tell you about it?" Ga Eul's mother, Kim Young Ran, asked calmly, seemingly unaffected by her son's outburst.

"I saw her with my very own eyes. And I even met your guest!" Yi Jung pronounced slowly to enunciate his point. "Tell me, Omeoni, what do you get out of this? Do you like seeing my wife suffer?" He asked with an irked expression on his face.

Kim Young Ran finally settled down the documents she was reading and looked straight into his son's eyes. "It's called hardening her." She answered simply. She rose up from her seat and went to stand by the windows to stare outside. "Being a woman married off to a man of the So household entails a lot of very unexpected things. I'm simply trying to harden her to withstand whatever the future holds."

Yi Jung smirked. "You don't know my wife, Omeoni…" He said with a mocking smile as he looked at his mother. "You don't what she's capable of."

Unknown to Yi Jung, his mother's lips was curved into a smile while her back was turned on him. "Well, it would be interesting to get to know her then…"

"Arasso… I don't exactly know what you're planning, but if you hurt my wife-"

"Me? Hurting your wife?" Kim Young Ran suddenly faced her son. "Why would I do such a thing? I'm only sympathizing with someone who holds the same place as I am. Someday, you will inherit the family business and everything that comes with it. And when that day comes, we'll see who will hurt your wife. It's either me… or you. We don't even have to wait for that time to come. For all I know, after some time, you might just hurt her yourself." There was a sharp look on the face of Yi Jung's mother that somehow, Yi Jung knew that his mother was picturing the image of his Father at the back of her mind all along.

"I won't hurt her." Yi Jung said steadfastly.

"Don't be so sure…"

After the seemingly brewing argument with his mother, Yi Jung sighed and composed himself before meeting his wife who was waiting for him by the car. After an afternoon dealing with an unexpected guest and her mother's sharp accusations, Yi Jung only wanted to be with his wife and spend some time with her. Even though they were already man and wife, a lot of things seemed to have suddenly popped out and prevented them from spending more time with each other.

"So how did it go with your mother?" Ga Eul asked as soon as Yi Jung settled on the driver's seat.

"Same as usual…" He gruffly replied and turned on the ignition. He didn't feel like telling Ga Eul what happened between his mother and him, so he decided to change the topic of their conversation instead. "How was your afternoon?" He asked.

"Well, you saw what I had to take care of." She said referring to Mr. Kristofer Valfrid. "Other than that, I'm going to be the head of a new research team so, I guess, it's going to be more work." She shrugged and pouted at her husband because more work entailed more time away from him. And he surely wouldn't like that.

"I knew it. Right from the start, I knew that living with my mother is not a very good idea." Yi Jung declared. "She's taking you away from me!"

"Yeobo, we've talked about this, right?" Ga Eul pleaded softly.

"Yeah, but… But she's even making us sleep in separate rooms!" He complained.

"Alright… If that's what's bothering you so much, I'll try talking to her about it." Ga Eul appeased. She was a bit scared of Yi Jung's mother but trying to talk to her wouldn't really kill her, right? Besides, it was for her husband and it's only going to be a talk. What so hard about that? She tried to convince herself but the doubt was still there.

"Arasso… If you say so." Yi Jung sighed again. "You do realize that we're going to have dinner later with my mother, right? Want to eat out?" He asked instead.

"Nah… I think I want to spend some dinner time with her." Ga Eul refused with a smile.

"Okay… Whatever you like… Do you have anywhere else to go today? Like grocery? Or shop a little?" Yi Jung asked again.

"Let's just go home. I'm tired and I want to rest a bit before facing your mother for dinner."

"Alright. I just need to go by my work shop to get a few things and we'll go straight home."

After a few minutes of driving towards Yi Jung's work shop, they finally arrived. It has been quite a while when Yi Jung closed his work shop and didn't allow anyone to come in, not even Ga Eul. He said it was in preparation for his exhibit. The truth was, he just didn't want Ga Eul to see each and every pot he designed with her as the sole inspiration. Now that the exhibit was over, Ga Eul missed seeing the unruly mess her husband made inside his work shop.

"You haven't cleaned up yet." She said as soon as she saw mounds dried clay which was left in a corner.

The whole work shop was a mess. The spinning wheels weren't kept properly. Broken vases and pots were still not disposed of, even the floor was grimy. But instead of cleaning up, the only thing Yi Jung did was to pick up a box and a few envelopes on top of his unkempt work table.

"I'm going to have someone clean it up later. I only went back here because of this." He grinned at his wife.

"What's that?" She asked.

"This is one of the pots which was supposed to be included at my exhibit… But I didn't include it." He said with a smile on his face as he set the box on his work table and opened it before his wife. "I've decided to keep it for my wife." He added and finally lifted the pot that was inside the box.

The pot was large, quite larger than Yi Jung's other creations. The mouth was big as well, it was big enough to fit a fist inside it, and it was curing slightly inwards. The body was straight and it was about a foot taller. What was distinct about the pot was the vivid colors that graced its outer surface. The colors were abstract added with glittery crystals of different colors placed randomly along the pot's body. Aside from that, along the middle part of the pot's body was an inch tall see-through crystal which made it possible to see its content.

"Wow…" Ga Eul gushed. "Is this really for me?"

"Yes." Yi Jung smiled. "It's for you and for our children." He replied as he walked around the table and approached his wife. "I was thinking that if we were to have children, I would like to treasure everything about them." He encircled his arms around his wife's waist and stared at the pot with her. "So I created a pot of memories…"

"Pot of memories?" Ga Eul echoed as she clasped her fingers with her husband's.

"Yeah, we're going to fill it together with memories… lots and lots of memories like… maybe we could put a picture of your first pregnancy in it. Or maybe, we could fill it with letters, diary entries, pictures… Basically, everything that we think is memorable." He replied as he lovingly held her.

"Aww… I like it… No. I love it!" Ga Eul radiantly smiled at her husband as she turned around to face him and placed a loving peck on his lips. "Thank you, Husband." She said.

"You're welcome, Wife." He replied with a smile.

"I think we better get going." Ga Eul said with a hint of regret on her voice. She wanted to spend more time with her husband in private but she knew that if they stayed longer, they'll probably miss dinner and that wouldn't be good.

Yi Jung pouted but nodded nonetheless.

The couple was about to leave the work shop when Ga Eul suddenly heard the sound of a baby crying.

"Do you hear that?" She asked while standing by the door of Yi Jung's work shop.

"Hear what?"

"Sshh!"

Ga Eul followed the sound and found herself standing outside his husband's workshop, specifically, standing in front of an unknown box with a letter on top. Picking up the unopened letter, Ga Eul opened the box and found an adorable baby girl draped in white linen clothing. Ultimately, Ga Eul was surprised to see the baby. She even felt sympathy for her and contempt for whoever heartless person who just simply left the infant with no one to care for it.

She picked up the baby and cradled it in her arms. "Awww… Who would have the heart to leave you out here?" She cooed.

"A baby?" Yi Jung asked in disbelief. "Where did you find it?"

"Inside the box. Someone left her here." Ga Eul replied with a sad expression on her face. "I can't believe someone would have the heart to leave her here. She's all alone… She can't even protect herself yet." Ga Eul was apparently, overwhelmed with sympathy to read the letter. Her mothering instincts instantly kicked in.

"That's it? She was just left here? With nothing with her?" Yi Jung asked.

"Nothing… Just a letter." She said. "Oh, yeah, can you read it for me?" She handed the letter to Yi Jung and had him read it.

Dear F4,

Please take care of the baby.
I don't have the power to keep her.
since you fathered her, might as well
raise her up.

As soon as Yi Jung finished the letter, he was met with Ga Eul's ferocious stare.

"So Yi Jung! What is the meaning of this?"

To Be Continued…