Hi guys! Once again I come with apologies for being tardy, this week was a bit grueling at work, and then today we celebrated Father's Day - which was fun and all but implied us going out of the city to my cousin's place - *deep sigh*
So, I guess I should take the time to let you guys know that next week's chapter might be a bit late, because I just finished it and sent it off to Sandy last night... but luckily we had this weeks' chapter already done.
I suck at keeping my cushion! LOL But I figured a few things last night - like with my central conflict is going to be - and I can say that chapter Nine is a bit longer than usual! :)
But before that, here is chapter 8!
I hope you guys like it, thanks for reading and thanks to Sandy for all her help.
Ps - I do know that historical Mun Seong was from the Park Clan, but I wanted to give her a different last name than Soon Deok!
to Guest: Sorry there wasn't more SoSoo in the last chapter, but I do plan to keep on writing about other chapters - Eun, Yo and Baek Ah mostly, and their relationships - sorry if that's a deal breaker for you. Thanks for your comments.
Chapter EIGHT
Present Day.
Usually, Park Soon Deok enjoyed the time she spent outside her office, either visiting clients or at the courthouse. It made her feel a little less isolated since she mostly worked alone in her firm of one. Once she became a little more established, she would hire a paralegal or a legal secretary, and maybe someday she would hire a second lawyer.
But right now, it was all on her, and she usually loved it. Except when she was sleep deprived due to having spent most of the previous night at the hospital with Kang Mung Seong. The two of them had gone to the same preparatory school and since they had both ran track and field, they had enjoyed a good 'sunbae-hobae' relationship, which they had rekindled when they realized they lived in the same neighborhood a couple of years ago.
So when Mun Seong had asked for a ride, she had been happy to comply…only that right now she wasn't the sharpest of knives due to the lack of sleep. Good thing that all she had in her agenda for today was dropping some documents for So-Oppa and then lunch with her father.
"If you need to make any changes, let me know tonight and I'll go over them with Unnie when I see her tomorrow."
"Thanks Soon Deok-ah, but I don't' think it'll be necessary."
"You two are being surprisingly reasonable with this whole ordeal. Most people in your position would be at each other's throats."
"I lost more than enough time with my daughter. I don't want to lose more by fighting with her mother, when it wasn't her fault what happened. As for Soo-yah, she doesn't hold grudges. She's almost TOO kind and relentlessly optimistic."
Soon Deok smiled. She had never heard So-Oppa talk like that; his voice actually changed when he mentioned Soo-Unnie, and even Soon Deok had noticed the way he always followed Soo with his eyes whenever they were in the same room.
"I like Soo-Unnie." Soon Deok said impulsively, "I actually remember her from when she worked here."
"She remembers you, too."
"I was always hanging around, wasn't I?"
"You still are, Honey Bear." Her father, Park So Kyung said from the door of So's office in the C-suite.
"Appa! I'm trying to be professional here! You shouldn't call me Honey Bear!"
"Don't mind me," So said, standing to greet Lawyer Park. "We're done, anyway."
"Good. I'm starving," Lawyer Park said.
"You always are, Appa." Soon Deok rolled her eyes. Then she remembered something else. "Oh! Oppa, are you coming to Jung's advancement test? It's in two weeks."
"Is he finally catching up with you?"
Soon Deok snorted, "No!" making both men laugh. After So himself, no one held more records at the dojang than Soon Deok.
"I will try to make it." Maybe he could ask Soo if they could take Seol. "I haven't seen Jung since I moved out."
"Let us know and we'll save you front row seats. You can even be in the trial if you want!"
"I´m too rusty for that, but thanks for the sentiment."
"Rusty my ass," Lawyer Park said under his breath, proud of his best student.
When Wang Mu had taken So to the dojang as a skinny 7-year-old, Park So Kyung never imagined the fighter he would become. Mu had been good—a regional champion even—but So was… single-minded, focused… he could have gone to the Olympics if he had wanted. But instead he enrolled for military conscription the second he had enough credits to graduate high school. He had competed for a while in college but refused to do Olympic trials. And the teacher inside Park So Kyung still wouldn't let it go.
Distracted as he was, both him and Soon Deok ran straight into Wang Yo. They bowed to each other, their relationship nowhere near as close as it was with Jung or So. To be honest, Wang Yo always made Soon Deok a little nervous. She didn't know how someone as gentle as Mun Seong could handle him, but as far as she knew, they had a good relationship and he was terribly attractive. All the Wang Boys were, they had all hit the genetic jackpot.
To fill the silence as they waited for the elevator, Soon Deok asked, "How is Sunbae?"
"Pardon?"
"Mun Seong-unnie?" Soon Deok explained, "I meant to call her earlier to ask how she spent the night, but I haven't had the time."
"I'm afraid I don't follow."
Growing a little nervous under Yo's inscrutable gaze, Soon Deok stammered on, "He-her hand? She burned it last night and I drove her to the hospital."
"She what?" Yo fairly yelled, causing the office to stop in its tracks as his phone pinged with the alert for Mung Seong's messages. Looking at the screen, he saw it was yet another voice message. She had been sending them all morning, and Yo felt ashamed that he had found them vaguely annoying.
But that shame was nothing compared to the realization that Mun Seong had been hurt and hadn't called him… because she felt like she couldn't.
-000-
Soon Deok hoped she hadn't gotten Sunbae in trouble, but it weighed on her as she made her way to her office later that day. Her father had even brought her half a dozen cupcakes from her favorite bakery to make her feel better about the whole scene with Wang Yo.
When she got to her office building, Soon Deok made her way up to her floor, but instead of going right to where her office was, she went left and opened the door without bothering knocking.
As usual, the headquarters of HB Toys was happily buzzing with activity. HB Toys occupied all the other offices in her floor—they were technically her landlord and let her have her office space (in one of the most sought-after buildings in Seoul) for peanuts, basically—and there were always people running about, trying to meet various deadlines.
Up until she had set up her office here, she hadn't known how complicated running a toy company was. But at HB, people always seemed happy, which was what she needed right now. No one really bothered her when she walked inside. A few of the less frantic people waved at her and she waved back, sauntering toward the back office. She hoped that he wasn't too busy.
As usual, Wang Eun was calm in the midst of the happy chaos of his company, with music playing loudly as he nodded his head in rhythm and fiddled with some tools at his work table. Soon Deok sighed dramatically and let herself fall into the large couch in the corner of the office.
Eun stopped what he was doing, pushing whatever he was working on into one of the many cubby holes of his work table and turned towards her. "Miss Park, to what do I owe the honor?"
"I didn't sleep. I might have gotten Sunbae in trouble with your cousin and I need you to eat cupcakes with me."
Eun smiled. "Do you want some milk with that?"
"Chocolate if you have any," Soon Deok answered, feeling better already as she watched Eun pull out a frosty chocolate milk from the mini-fridge behind his desk.
Wang Eun sat next to Soon Deok and listened to her talk about her day, not caring that work was going to pile up for him. His staff knew to not bother him when Soon Deok visited him. They, as practically everyone who knew him, had long since figured out he had a massive crush on the pretty lawyer.
Everyone knew it, really, except for Soon Deok.
-0-
Twenty Years Before
Even as a second-grader, Park Soon Deok understood more than people gave her credit for. She understood her Umma had died, that her Appa was struggling, and that the strain of running a law firm—the firm her parents had started together when they graduated law school—and raising a small, grieving daughter, was too much for Park Soo Kyung.
That's why they had to leave their old house and move in with her grandparents, into the Dojang the Parks had run for generations—and where her father had never really stopped teaching martial arts, even as he made a name for himself as a lawyer. She knew her grandparents needed help with the dojang, and that her father needed help raising her. And that one of his appa's friends had offered him a good job at his company.
Soon Deok understood why they had to move. She really did.
That didn't mean she didn't hate her new school—which was a lot closer to the dojang—or the way the other kids kept making fun of her for being the new girl, for her rumpled clothes and messy pigtails, for being a tomboy (her own halmeoni was a tomboy herself, a fierce martial artist, and knew almost as little about being lady-like as Soon Deok did).
Plus, she really missed her Umma.
She tried not to be too sad around her dad, but the hole in her heart was still there.
Currently, Soon Deok was trying to both not break down in tears and avoid starting a brawl in order to get her lunchbox back from the kids that had taken it from her. It was one of the last things her mother had bought for her when Soon Deok was about to start first grade; in one of the last days her Umma had been well enough to go out by herself.
When the ringleader of the boys tormenting her had thrown the lunch box down and the hinge that kept it closed broke, Soon Deok had lost it. She had jumped at the boy and before long they were rolling around in the mud. A teacher had come to pull them apart and dragged them into the principal's office.
The principal had been in the middle of scolding her, when her father arrived and made a big scene, asking why his child was being scolded but not the bullies that that taken her things, and why hadn't the teachers been paying more attention and so on, until the principal had to apologize.
It had been the most animated Soon Deok had seen her appa since the funeral, and for that alone, getting into a brawl had been worth it.
Still, the next day, when she had to pull her lunch out of the paper bag her grandmother had used to pack it, Soon Deok couldn't help but mourn the loss of her lunchbox. Her father had promised to pick her up from school today and take her to buy a new one, which was good, but Soon Deok knew it wouldn't be the same.
Occupied with these gloomy thoughts, she didn't notice the small boy that approached her until he was sitting right next to her.
"I think this is yours," He said, startling her by holding out a lunchbox. Soon Deok was surprised to realize that it was her lunchbox and that it was in much better shape than last time she had seen it, when the teacher that had taken her to the principal's office had thrown it into the trash.
"I fixed the hinge and cleaned it up," The boy proudly went on. "There was a scratch on the side, but I covered it with one of my best stickers." He pointed.
Soon Deok was speechless for all of three seconds before throwing her arms around the boy. "Thank you so much!"
"Yah! It's not a big deal!" He said, patting her awkwardly. "Just wanted to help a pretty girl."
Soon Deok pulled back and laughed. "I'm not pretty, but thank you. I'm Soon Deok, by the way."
"I'm Eun. Wang Eun."
-00-
Present Day
Seol took to Wang So like a duck to water, so much so that it was almost scary at times. Soo had always thought Seol was like her character wise—chatty, curious, and hyper sometimes. But when she saw father and daughter together, Soo could clearly see their similarities
Myung Hee always told her how when she had been a child, Soo hadn't been able to sit still, her mind going full speed ahead most of the time. For her, focus and patience took effort. They were skills she had acquired when she had gotten her work ethic. But for Seol and So it came naturally.
Whenever So came over to their apartment (which was pretty much every night), Seol would immediately stick to him. Sometimes he would read to her, or they would put puzzles together. So even endured tea-parties and whatever cartoon Seol was obsessed with at the moment.
In the end, telling her that Wang So was her father was easier than Soo had expected. Seol accepted the explanation for So's absence—that he had to take care of his sick father—and his reassurance that he wouldn't leave ever again; and added him to her life like he had always been there.
Co-parenting Seol turned out to be surprisingly easy… but as that part settled, the old feelings of their unfinished relationship, which they had buried and ignored for years now, began to rise to the surface. Not to mention the magnetic attraction between them.
Even a nun would have been aware of Wang So as a man, and Hae Soo was no nun.
"Are you busy this Saturday?" So asked her one night after they had tucked Seol in, and he gathered his things to leave. It really was the stuff of her fantasies, seeing So and Seol together, when she could pretend they were a happy family for a few hours every day when he came over.
"Not really, why?"
"Lawyer Park is having an exhibition at the dojang, and my brother Jung is having his advancement trial. I thought that perhaps you and Seol would like to come with me. She hasn't meet any of my brothers yet—only Baek Ah—and maybe you two could come have dinner at my place afterward since you haven't seen it yet."
Hae Soo suddenly smiled. "I remember you took me to an exhibition at the dojang for one of our first dates."
"I probably wanted to show off." So smiled back. Martial arts were one of the few things he had always been confident about.
"I'm sure I was very impressed." Soo giggled.
It was that giggle broke through Wang So's restraint; he had always loved when Soo laughed but when she giggled and scrunched up her nose like that… he always felt like kissing her, and before he knew it, he had cupped her cheeks and they were drawing closer, but before their lips actually touched, Soo turned her face away.
"I think we should sort out Seol first, before we...I mean, we haven't even talked about us and-"
"Let's talk then," So said, resting his forehead against hers for a moment before he startled nuzzling her hairline, dropping little kisses against her skin.
"We can't just pick up things where we left them."
"Why not?"
"Because I spent the last five years thinking you didn't want me and you probably thought the same… we both got hurt."
"I'm over it."
"It's not that easy."
"If there is a chance I can fully have you back in my life, then it is."
Soo took a deep breath and let it out in an exasperated huff. "God, you're stubborn."
"You like that about me."
Soo pursed her lips and gave him an incredulous look, before finally giving up. The man was irresistible when he set his mind to it. "Let's just take things slow, okay?"
Wang So, sneaky that he was, nodded and then quickly pressed his smiling lips to hers, stealing a kiss as if they were still teenagers.
"Okay."
Author's Note: From next chapter:
"Soo-yah, this is my brother Jung-ie."
"Hyung! Don't call me that. It's embarrassing." Jung whined, making Soo laugh, which annoyed So.
"It's nice to meet you. Your brother used to tell me a lot about you." She offered her hand, and Jung took it even though So glared
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Also... you know how I said I wanted to give Madame Oh some romance? how would you guys feel about it being with Soon Deok's dad? Just a thought.