CHAPTER 2 – THE REASON

Woo Bin sighed as he began pacing along the bridge, closing his jacket against the chill air of early spring. "What's the reason?" he had asked his girlfriend as she dumped him.

Now it was time to ask himself the same question. If he had closed his eyes to the real reason for his dependency on his friends, it was because deep down he knew the only answer such a question could lead to and it seemed pointless to even acknowledge what couldn't be changed.

With the singular exception of F4, everything in his life began and ended with his father, utterly defining his destiny. He had to confess he had mostly profited from his father's dominance. He enjoyed the power and privilege that came from his position as "Prince" Song of his father's criminal rule, especially when it had enabled him to protect the people he cared most about.

Yet, if he were to be totally honest with himself, then he had to also confess that those feelings he confided to Yi Jung so long ago had never left. Despite all of the advantages he had enjoyed, when he thought of simple, honest families, like Jan Di's, the foulness of his father's world burned in him.

It had only been the companionship of his F4 friends, the few who truly accepted him as his own person, that had allowed him to push away the shame and disgrace to smile and focus on the good things in life. After all, what other choice did he have?

And that was what it always came down to – the concrete wall at the end of all his thoughts and the reason he usually ignored them. He was the only heir to his father's underworld empire and his father wasn't the sort of man you could walk away from without consequences, even if you were his son…especially if you were his son.

Looking back over the last twenty years, Woo Bin could see how he'd always danced around his eventual fate, spending his time on frivolous pursuits and hanging out with his friends. Hiding, he thought to himself and he leaned back against his car and looked up at the sky.

As long as he had been with F4 he felt he could cope with his life, enjoy the moment and pretend the future would never come. But without their presence in the past few years, there'd been little to forestall the direction he always knew his life would have to take. His friends had all moved on, filling their lives with purpose and meaning – and left him alone with his bleak truth.

For a while he had continued to try to conceal these feelings from himself as he carried on with life as he had done before, filling his days with shallow, pleasure seeking pursuits – the clubs, the parties, the girls, the cars - these had always served as an acceptable distraction when his friends had been the core of his life.

As time went on, however, without F4 as his foundation, his usual activities left him empty somehow, and drawn into his father's world even more. The wall he'd built around his searing conscience wore thinner and thinner until the very air seemed to grow thick with his shame and he was surprised that everyone around him didn't choke to death on it.

He had hoped with this reunion with F4 that things… well, that he could go back to the way things were before but he knew now that it was impossible. For his friends this was a good thing, as time brought about changes for them that could only lead to happiness while he, Song Woo Bin, was being left behind in the dark.

Woo Bin grimaced and cast one last look, almost of resentment, at the inky water passing silently below him, climbed back into his bright yellow sports car, punched the accelerator in frustration and tore off into the black night.