Oh well. This chapter is called 'Vindicated'. Lyrics are credited to Dashboard Confessional.
-- Hope dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption
Winding in and winding out
The shine of which has caught my eye --
Chae Lim had stopped crying by the time they'd arrived back at the dojang. She recieved a warm welcome home from all of the students, and she and Master Kim bowed to each other.
"You fought very well, Chae Lim," he said, pride shining in his eyes.
"Thank you, Master," she replied.
"Master Lim! Did you fight Kyo Kusanagi?" One girl asked.
"I bet you she lost to Iori Yagami!" One of the boys laughed.
"I heard that Terry Bogard was there!" a girl shrieked.
Chae Lim felt a pang of guilt. She had promised to get Terry Bogard's autograph for a good friend of hers, Alice... and she'd forgotten.
"Oh..." Alice was standing beside her, reading her expression perfectly. "You forgot, didn't you, Chae?" she teased.
"I did," she admitted, "I'm sorry. I didn't even see him there."
"Really? Aw, shucks," Alice mumbled, snapping her fingers.
"And how is my favorite TKD princess?" That was Sonmi, Chae Lim's childhood friend. Sonmi smiled at her.
"I'm fine," Chae Lim said, a white lie. Physically, she'd never been better... but emotionally was a completely different story.
"Really? You don't look so 'fine'. Wanna tell Sonmi about it?" Sonmi asked, nudging her in the ribs.
"Later," Chae agreed with a sigh.
"Alright, how about I treat you two ladies to some food at the Dongdaemun market!" Dong Hwan offered, sliding up to the trio with a goofy grin on his face.
Home.
-- And roped me in
So mesmerizing, so hypnotizing I am captivated --
"What about Alice?" Sonmi asked.
"I meant you and Alice," Dong Hwan replied.
"You'd better get out of here..." Sonmi warned, reaching down to remove her shoe. Her taekwondo wasn't the best, but she was deadly with a red pump.
Dong Hwan skeedaddled.
"It's my treat," Jae Hoon said. "Father and I had been planning it for you, anyway."
Chae Lim flushed. "Jae... please don't take this the wrong way... but could we do it another time? I'd rather go out with just Sonmi and Alice," she said quietly.
Jae Hoon understood, like he always did. He and Chae Lim were great friends, and many people wondered why they weren't together instead of Chae Lim's friend Alice.
'Because, it's only friendship,' Chae reminded herself. 'There's a big difference between loving someone and being in love with them. I know that now.'
"Alright. You have your cellphone on you, right?" Jae Hoon asked.
Chae Lim stuffed a hand into her jeans. "N-no..." she stammered, surprised. "I must've dropped on the plane... or in..."
Alba's room.
The memory heated her cheeks rapidly.
"Are you okay, Chae?" Alice asked, looking concerned.
"Y-yeah, I'll tell you later... come on..." Chae Lim answered quickly, grabbing their hands and heading towards the door.
"You know, if I didn't know my little neice any better... I'd say she's in love!" Jhun Hoon remarked to his friend with a soft chuckle.
"True. She's a strong girl. She's probably just upset about not placing first," Kim replied. "It'd be nice if she was, though. She needs to get out. Perhaps we've sheltered her too much?" he said thoughtfully.
"Perhaps," Jhun Hoon agreed.
-- I am Vindicated
I am selfish I am wrong
I am right I swear I'm right
I swear I knew it all along --
Boarding the plane had been hell. He and Soiree and Mignon suddenly had gaggles of fans, screaming and honking at them like geese.
"We'll sign autographs when we get back! Promise!" Soiree called, hamming it up as they started through the boarding hall.
"Where are you going?" One girl screamed at them.
"To bring someone home," Mignon replied with a bright cheery smile.
"She's so cute!" a group of giggly girls, uh, giggled.
"Come on..." Alba said, steering them down the hall.
"ALBA'S SO GORGEOUS! MARRY ME ALBA!"
"Nuh uh!" Mignon said, putting her hands on her hips. "He's going to marry Chae Li--"
Soiree clapped a hand over his new girlfriend's mouth. "Let's just say my bro's taken, girls! Sorry!" he shouted to the fans.
"Go... the sooner we get on the plane, the better," Alba muttered, pushing them along.
"Alright, alright, Mignon is going!" Mignon huffed.
-- And I am flawed
But I am cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself --
"So, come on, spill it, Chae!" Alice began excitedly, as they walked down the crowded street of the Dongdaemun market.
Chae Lim looked around. "In a minute... I want a kimchee burger..." she said, then headed to a stand. "Kimchee burgers?"
"Sohn Chae Lim!" the vendor exclaimed. "The girl who is well on her way to--"
"Getting a kimchee burger?" Sonmi guessed. "Make it two."
The vendor went to work making the burgers. He was actually going to say 'becoming the next crown jewel of Taekwondo, like her master, Kim Kapwhan', which would have left Chae Lim very flattered and speechless, but he left it alone.
When they were done, the girls took their burgers, paid, and continued down the street.
"So..." Sonmi began again, "tell us. Who is he?"
Chae Lim choked as she swallowed her bite. "Wh-what?" she stammered, coughing.
Alice patted her back. "Come on, we know it's a guy! Who? Who? Is it someone you met at the KOF?" she asked.
Chae Lim couldn't really deny it any longer, or that would be lying. Above everything else, she hated liars. "Yes.." she admitted.
"Oooh! Is it Rock Howard?" Alice guessed.
"Who?" Chae Lim asked.
"Terry's adopted son!" she squealed.
"Alice, stop it. Chae Lim is not going to become Terry Bogard's daughter in law, so would you just CHILL?" Sonmi said, shaking her head. "Just tell us who it is. He'd have to be someone amazing to tangle you up in knots like this."
'Tangle me up in knots... that's just what you do, Alba. You rotten bastard,' she thought.
-- So clear
Like the diamond in your ring
Cut to mirror your intentions
Oversized and overwhelmed
The shine of which has caught my eye --
"The guy that won," she said vaguely, hoping that they wouldn't know who that was.
"Alba Meira?" Alice blurted out, shocked.
Chae Lim's eyes widened.
"Isn't he a gangste--" Sonmi began, then realized exactly what Chae Lim's problem was. "He breaks the law, and you're a goody-two shoes! You think that if you guys got together, Master Kim would have a heart attack and throw you out of the dojo!"
Chae nodded guiltily. That was basically it. It was alright to show criminals the errors of their ways and help them reform (like Master Kim and Master Jhun Hoon had done for Chang and Choi) but she doubted it was okay to date them.
No, in her case, it was not okay to be in love with a criminal.
"The heart wants what the heart wants, Chae... You can't fight it," Sonmi said coolly. "You stress out over way too much... you should ask Master Kim for some time off from training. You need it the least anyways."
Chae Lim shook her head quickly. "No," she said. She couldn't stop training... not when she was going to enter the next KOF, not when she needed something to keep her mind off of him.
"Yes. You can collect your thoughts about this guy and sort out your feelings and all that stuff. Who knows? You could find a way to make it work, you know?" Sonmi said, and Alice nodded her agreement.
"No... I have to keep training. I wasted three years for this tournament, and I didn't even win," she replied.
"You would've gotten third. For a first timer, that's great!" Alice encouraged.
"But, I didn't win... I lost, when I was so close!" Chae said, taking a furious bite out of her burger.
"Yeah, and you're losing right now!" Sonmi insisted. "You're not even giving him a chance? What, did he do something to hurt you or offend your sense of honor and justice, Chae Lim? Christ, everyday I hear you complain about how you're sick of the girls at the dojang falling all over you and how you'd like a guy to look at you like that for once! Maybe he is looking at you like that!" She half-shouted, red-faced as she stared down her best friend.
"He isn't," Chae Lim said, frowning at her. "He looks at me like I'm some... playtoy at his disposal. I'm not some gangster's ho, and I won't ever be," she said coldly. "He can play lord of the Southtown underworld, and I'm going to train here in Korea, and if we meet again, we meet again... if not, whatever."
-- I am Vindicated
I am selfish I am wrong
I am right I swear I'm right
I swear I knew it all along --
"Stop fucking running away... do you really believe in this justice bullshit--"
"It isn't bullshit!" Chae Lim shouted, dropping the remaining burger on the ground, her fists clenching.
"Do you really believe in it so much that you might be giving up a good guy?" Sonmi asked.
A few people were staring at them as they stared each other down in the Dongdaemun market.
She had admitted that he wasn't evil... that he was a 'good guy'. So what was holding her back?
The distance. The difference in their lives. The sudden-ness of it all.
Sonmi's cellphone rang. She answered it, and handed it to Chae Lim.
"It's your gangster," she said with a smirk.
-- So turn
Up the corners of your lips
Part them and feel my finger tips
Trace the moment, fall forever
Defense is paper thin --
"Chae... don't talk alright? I have your cell phone--" Alba began.
"And you're what? Going to hold it hostage until I throw myself at your feet and beg you to take me back to Southtown with you?" she interrupted.
"I love you."
That caught her a bit offguard.
"Are you... kidding me...?" It sounded like she was having a hard time catching her breath.
"Where are you?" he asked, looking around as he walked down the busy street, Soiree and Mignon not too far behind.
"Dongdaemun market..." Chae breathed into the phone. "Answer me? Are you joking around?"
"Don't run away, just... talk to me a second..." He took in a deep breath. He wasn't used to this, just pouring out his feelings (especially over someone elses cellphone) and he could tell that she wasn't either. "Did you hop a plane to Seoul because you don't like me, or because you don't like the fact that I kissed you?" he asked.
-- Just one touch and I'd be in
Too deep now to ever swim against the current
So let me slip away
So let me slip against the current and let me slip away --
"Neither... I just..." she bit her lip, while Sonmi and Alice looked on with bemused smiles.
"Go on, tell him," Sonmi encouraged.
"It wouldn't work... it's too far..."
"I'll commute," he joked, cracking a smile. It felt good to hear her voice and know that she was close and didn't hate him.
"But... the gang... Mephistopheles..." she began, tears pricking her eyes.
"Over. You think I'd keep it after Duke left? Most of them are still loyal to him... and most of them just stood there while he had Fate killed by some British bitch," he replied. "Any more problems?"
"Just one," she said, calmly exhaling. "How can you love me so quickly?"
"You're everything I'm not, and everything I admire about people..." He answered honestly, smiling. "You're beautiful and honest, and you care for people. Even when you don't know them. And you're not afraid to change your mind..."
"You care, too..." She spoke into the phone, feeling tears course down her cheeks for the second time that day. "Or, you wouldn't be here."
"I care about you..." He took in another deep breath. "So, change your mind about us?"
"Chae Lim!" Mignon waved, giving away their position across the street.
Sonmi's cellphone fell to the sidewalk as Chae Lim looked over. The pink-haired girl waved, and Soiree offered a boyish grin.
Alba snapped the cellphone closed, and folded his arms over his chest, a grin playing on his pale lips.
"St-stay here..." Chae Lim stuttered to her friends, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear as she started across the street.
She walked right up to Alba, throwing her arms around the redhead's neck. She kissed him, hard, and he obliged by kissing back.
Soiree and Mignon cheered, and proceeded to do the same.
"You know, it's times like this that I wish I had a boyfriend," Sonmi remarked to Alice.
"You know..." Alice began. "I could set you up with Dong Hwan."
"Hm... he's kind of cute," Sonmi agreed. The duo linked arms and went off to make an honest man out of Kim Dong Hwan.
-- Slight hope
It dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption --
Rawr, Alice and Sonmi aren't OCs. They appear in Chae's story. But, yes, this is the end. Hope you enjoyed it. Leave me reviews! -whine.-