Thank you again to everyone that has reviewed this and "The Heart's Prism". I very much appreciate it. I have a new one-shot I have been working on that I'll post in the next few days once I finish it. I really wanted to get this out as well when I realized it had been just over a week since my last update. Work and school have been crazy for me, plus adding in fighting a migraine off and on all week. Yay being a walking barometer right now with the winter storms hitting. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter.
Ga Eul lifted her head as she heard the soft knock on the frame of her door. She sat up more on her bed when she saw Jun Pyo standing just inside of her door, his hands tucked behind his back. If he had been wearing his regular pants, she knew he would have them in his pockets. With his shoulders slightly hunched, she could see that he was trying to make himself smaller, something he often did when he felt like he was going to receive some sort of emotional blow or was facing something he didn't want to but knew he had to. It made her realize that he was finally coming to talk to her about the things she had said the day before at the lounge. When she had gotten back the day before when Ji Hu had dropped her off, she had immediately sequestered herself in her room for the night, then had taken off for school early that morning. She had, somehow, managed to avoid Jun Pyo and the other members of the F4 all day. She had even pulled out of dinner with everyone that evening, once more sequestering herself into her room. However, living in the same house as Gu Jun Pyo was not going to get her out of talking to him about what happened and the fact was, she could not dodge seeing or talking to her brother for long.
"Come in, Oppa," she said. She watched Jun Pyo's tall frame relax much more than he had been from a simple word. Their discussion was not going to be easy, but the fact that she was calling him oppa without hesitation was like a balm to Jun Pyo's nerves.
"May I?" Jun Pyo gestured to the edge of her bed. He only took a spot on the edge with his leg tucked up when she nodded her approval. He plucked at the fabric of her comforter, trying to find the right words to say to her.
"Ga Eul, you know I don't blame you for any of what is going on right now, right?" he finally said.
"But I do," Ga Eul admitted quietly. Jun Pyo lifted his head, a frown marring his handsome features. Ga Eul lifted a slim shoulder at his confusion. "If not for me, you wouldn't have to fake an engagement nor would you be having such issues with-."
"Stop," Jun Pyo said. "First of all, that's not entirely true." Ga Eul tilted her head confused. "I've had a bit more time, and a discussion with Appa, to realize that Kang Hee Soo had been planning this engagement for some time. And he brought up a good point. If not for discovering you, he would not have discovered through Bon Ha-sungmo that he was never legally married to that woman and she would continue to try and have more say in my life because I would still think she was my mother."
"But-," Ga Eul said.
"No buts, yeodongsaeng," Jun Pyo said. "Even if this was, your fault, as you say. I'd rather face this a million times over than to face not ever having you in my life." He reached forward and took Ga Eul's hand. "You are my yeodongsaeng and I would walk through fire to have you and keep you in my life. I'd rather have you in my life than to be the heir to Shinhwa and everything that entails."
Tears immediately slipped onto Ga Eul's cheeks before she moved and wrapped her arms around her brother's neck, crying into his shoulder. She felt Jun Pyo bury his face against her neck, her skin dampening from his tears as he held her tight as they both cried. Still clinging to one another, Jun Pyo shifted until they were sitting and leaning against her headboard. Ga Eul had shifted until she was laying with her head on her brother's shoulder, his long fingers stroking her hair.
"I just hate seeing you fight with Jae Kyung-eonni," Ga Eul said. "I hate seeing you so twisted over all of this."
"Why did it have to be her? She's so annoying," Jun Pyo grumbled. "Yah!" He tried to shift away as Ga Eul twisted a pinch into his side. He glared at his sister as she sat up to look at him.
"You are just as annoying," Ga Eul pointed out. "But have you not realized or seen why she seems so annoying to you?"
"Because she's a monkey," Jun Pyo said then ducked when Ga Eul smacked him. "Stop!"
"She's not a monkey!" Ga Eul said.
"She's clingy!" Jun Pyo said. "Like a monkey!"
"So are you!" Ga Eul said with a laugh. "You realize that it started out because she wanted to make things believable until we can settle the situation with Kang Hee Soo."
"I am not- what do you mean started out?" Jun Pyo said. Ga Eul rolled her eyes.
"You are so oblivious, Oppa," Ga Eul said. "Jae Kyung-eonni likes you."
"Wah?" Jun Pyo said. "She… no she doesn't."
"Yes, she does," Ga Eul said. "She genuinely likes you now. It started out just putting on a good show for Kang Hee Soo, but now she wants to get to know you because she likes you. And frankly, I think you could like her if you stop being so stubborn."
"Why would I want to like anyone after Geum Jan Di?" Jun Pyo grumbled. Ga Eul arched an eyebrow. "How can I like someone after the person I liked kissed my best friend after I did everything to show her I liked her? Then when I was hurt protecting her she never reached out to me, then accused me of trying to get with her best friend who happens to be my yeodongsaeng?" His voice rose with each question.
Ga Eul reached up to stroke back some of the errant curls that fell onto Jun Pyo's forehead. She had never realized how much the situation with Jan Di had affected her brother. Her fingers stroked along Jun Pyo's cheek. "Not everyone is Geum Jan Di," she said quietly. "As much as I want to mend my friendship with her eventually, the fact is that she was wrong in everything she did. And she wasn't right for you. That doesn't mean every woman is going to be like her. Besides, despite the difference in social status, you and Jan Di are too similar to be together."
"How are we similar?" Jun Pyo demanded. Ga Eul simply smiled softly at him.
"You are both terribly impulsive," she said. "You both can be incredibly selfish at times. Neither of you thinks before you speak or act a good amount of the time. And you hate admitting when you are wrong."
"Yah," Jun Pyo said. "I'm not that bad!"
"No, you aren't. At least not anymore," she said. A soft laugh escaped when he gave her an incredulous look. "When I first met you, you were the most infuriating person I had ever met next to So Yi Jeong. The stories Geum Jan Di told me didn't endear you to me either. The way you bullied people and treated everyone as less than you because of who you are."
"Not making me feel better right now," he said.
"The difference now, unlike Jan Di, is you are changing. Or rather, I see you changing. She might be, but it's slower," she said. "You started to learn during the competition between you and Ji Hu-sunbae that not everything could be how you wanted it to be. You obviously cared for Jan Di, otherwise, you wouldn't have risked yourself to save her from Lee Jae He. Then discovering everything about me, you've shown that being a good orabeoni is important to you so you've started changing and adjusting. Becoming a better man."
"How can you say I am?" Jun Pyo asked. "After everything from yesterday when you got mad at me."
"Because I can see it," Ga Eul said. "And you are going to have moments of doubt or when you slip, it's all a part of growing. I go through the same. Yesterday is a perfect example. I think I am okay with everything, but at the same time I had been holding in how much I felt like this entire mess is my fault."
"Even if it's not?" he asked.
"A part of it is," Ga Eul said. "But." She put up a finger when he started to protest. "As you said, some of it may have been inevitable because it's who Kang Hee Soo is and she wants to have her way. I'm creating a different set of obstacles for her, but she's still going to try and find a way around me or use me to her advantage."
"Over my dead body," Jun Pyo growled.
"Oppa..." Ga Eul gave him a look. She sighed when he simply looked back, stubbornness washing over his features. She should not have been at all surprised by that either. "Can we just focus on something else? Perhaps you get to know Jae Kyung-eonni instead of fighting against her?"
Jun Pyo grumbled as he leaned his head back against her headboard. "You are determined to play matchmaker," he said.
"I'm not saying you need to like her back in that way," Ga Eul said. "While it would be nice if you did, maybe at least start with becoming her friend? You may discover you like her more than you realize. And the fact is, she can use some more friends. You two are not that different after all."
"How can you say that?" Jun Pyo asked.
"Very easily. I know how you were raised and Jae Kyung-eonni has said how she was raised. The only difference between the two is that she had a bit more freedom, but she was just as sheltered. In a lot of ways, it's why she acts as clingy as she does because she doesn't know any different. She didn't have other members of an F4 the way you did," Ga Eul said. "But you are both heirs to conglomerates, though she has been hands-on more than you have since her mother stepped in and took the reins back from her father."
"What do you mean?" Jun Pyo asked with an arched brow.
"JK Group is not Ha Jung Min's," Ga Eul said. "He is a high executive in the same way Kang Hee Soo was at Shinhwa. The company actually is from Jae Kyung-eonni's mother's family. She was in charge until just before Jae Kyung-eonni was born, leaving Ha Jung Min in charge of the business in order to raise their daughter. However, about two years ago, they started having troubles, and when she looked into things discovered Ha Jung Min had made some very crucial business mistakes. Ones that Kang Hee Soo learned of and started using to exploit JK Group and say that they needed to merge with Shinhwa over. What Kang Hee Soo didn't know is that Ahw Hyeu Sun had stepped back into the business and taken control once more without removing Ha Jung Min to save face. In doing so, she's been grooming Jae Kyung ever since. For the past nine months, many of the business decisions have been primarily made by Jae Kyung."
"Then how did she not know about this farce of an arranged marriage?" Jun Pyo asked.
"As I said, Kang Hee Soo didn't know that Hyeu Sun and Jae Kyung were involved, so all of her dealings were with Jung Min," Ga Eul explained. "Since he had already started negotiations and hoped that his wife would back him, he believed the lies that Hee Soo was telling him. When he finally told Hyeu Sun, she was in agreement that a merger would be in the best interest of both companies. It wasn't until the party and Appa explaining everything that they discovered Hee Soo's lies. And the night of the party is when Jae Kyung was made aware of the engagement. Apparently, Hyeu Sun had only been told the night before, so she hadn't even had a chance to talk to Jae Kyung about the arrangements."
"This is so twisted," Jun Pyo said, bumping his head against her headboard. He felt her hand cradling the back of his head as he continued to thump his head. He arched a brow at her.
"What Appa didn't tell you is that Kang Hee Soo lied even further," she said. "I only found out yesterday and was going to tell you at the lounge when everything else happened instead."
"What else did she lie about?" Jun Pyo asked.
"One of the reasons Ha Jung Min was so angry was because Kang Hee Soo told him that Appa and you had agreed to the engagement," Ga Eul said. "So it was a blow to them to discover that you had no idea about any of it and it made them look bad as if JK Group was desperate to merge with Shinhwa."
"Is there anything that woman won't do to ruin our lives?" Jun Pyo growled.
"Oppa," Ga Eul said quietly. "You realize that Lee Bin-sachon is investigating if she had anything to do with Eomma's accident, right? Meaning that there is a very real possibility that she had a hand in her death and what should have been my death."
"I know," Jun Pyo said, pulling her into a hug. "It terrifies me because I am very worried that she had something to do with your attack as well. Especially since pictures of you and your association with Yi Jeong were sent to his abeoji with the note of wanting him to see who his son was associating with as if to make the So family threaten you the way Kang Hee Soo threatened Geum Jan Di."
"That's the other thing to also remember," Ga Eul pointed out, her head resting on her brother's shoulder. "Kang Hee Soo is the reason Lee Jae Ha became interested in Jan Di and ended up kidnapping her to get to you. I honestly believe that she only hired him with the intent to get Jan Di away from you and didn't do her homework enough to know he was related to Lee Min Ha, so wouldn't know that Lee Jae Ha wanted to harm you for what happened to his brother."
"I think you are right regarding that," Jun Pyo admitted. "One of her shortcomings is not looking deep enough to understand what could come back and bite her in the ass. A part of me hopes that will be the case to discover how she is potentially associated with Eomma's accident and your attack."
"It's been so many years, that it also scares me what she has done to keep it so hidden if she was involved," Ga Eul said. "And if Halmeoni had anything to do with it."
"What do you mean?" Jun Pyo asked.
"You've heard the stories Bon Ha-sungmo and Jun Hee-eonni have said about how Halmeoni really disliked Eomma and how quickly she insisted Appa supposedly marry Kang Hee Soo. I just hope it doesn't mean that she helped Kang Hee Soo hurt Eomma if she did have something to do with the accident," Ga Eul said. "I think that would destroy Appa to know that his own eomeoni had something to do with the death of his beloved wife and missing out on the last nineteen years of my life."
Jun Pyo tightened the hold he had around his sister, a soft frown forming tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Then I hope we find out that she didn't have anything to do with it," he said. "Because Appa has had enough heartbreak to last him a lifetime. He doesn't need that either."
"You should have listened to Kang Hee Soo," Lee So Hue said as she slammed the refrigerator door shut in the small apartment she shared with her partner. "Maybe then we wouldn't be squandering for money now that our meal ticket is gone!"
Chu Young Jun clenched his jaw to keep from lashing out at the woman from where he sat in their living room, flipping through the paper in the hopes to find something that would yield them money in order to live now that they were no longer receiving the money they were supposed to get each month for ensuring that Ga Eul remained out of the eye of Gu Bon Hyeong. Of course, they hadn't believed that anyone such as Geum Jan Di could be close to the Shinhwa heir and therefore put Ga Eul into the orbit of the Gus.
"Perhaps if you had bothered to save the money we got instead of spending it all, we wouldn't be in this position," Young Jun said. "Especially as we never spent a dime on the little bitch as soon as she was old enough to work for herself."
"Oh, so this is my fault?" So Hue asked. "I wasn't the one that ignored the signs that Geum Jan Di would end up meeting Gu Jun Pyo once she was admitted to Shinhwa University. It was inevitable that the little brat would end up causing that snit of a child to cross paths with her biological family. Why they didn't just kill her as a baby, I'll never know."
"I'd take care how you speak about Gu Ga Eul from now on," a voice said from the doorway of the small apartment.
So Hue and Young Jun both looked over to see the handsome young man standing in the door frame before he pushed off and entered the apartment, shutting the door behind him. "Who are you and why are you entering my home without permission?" Young Jun demanded.
The young man smirked. "I'm the reason you are still able to live in this apartment," he said. "And I'm the reason you'll get the chance to receive a substantial payment. As long as you do what I tell you to."
"And what exactly is that?" So Hue asked, eyeing the man critically.
"That's what I love about people like you," he said. "The moment you see the potential for a significant payout, you are all ears to what you could be receiving. Makes it easier to get things done."
"You don't know us, young man," Young Jun said.
"On the contrary, Chu Young Jun," he said. "I know everything I need to know about you. And how you were the ones that kept Ga Eul away from the Gus. An admirable thing to do, by the way, but now that she's with them she's become something much more significant to take advantage of. Which is where you come in."
"As you said," Young Jun said. "She's with the Gus. So our job is done."
"Not yet," the man said. "At least that job is done, but I have a new one for you."
"Which is?" So Hue asked.
"I want you to kidnap Gu Ga Eul."
Young Jun scoffed. "Are you insane? Gu Bon Hyeong would have our heads!"
Park Sung Ho smirked. "He would have to find you first," he said. "All you have to do is kidnap her so that I can serve as the hero to rescue her. My men will be there to assist in the rescue and act as if they are arresting you. Instead, as I am playing the dashing hero to a distraught Ga Eul, you'll both be whisked away from here with a very full bank account."
Young Jun and So Hue looked at one another, both licking their lips at the idea of a monetary windfall.
"Of course," Sung Ho continued. "It means that you will have to leave Korea and never return. Because the moment it's discovered that you have conveniently disappeared, you'll be hunted and if you step foot on Korean soil once more, the Gus will come at you with everything they have. Not to mention the Songs."
Young Jun paled at the idea of not only two of the richest families coming after them, but one of them with known ties to the mafia. He glanced at his partner before looking at Sung Ho. "You can guarantee our safety?" he asked. "And the money?"
"Of course," Sung Ho said in confirmation.
"Then we don't need to be in Korea anymore," Young Jun said.
"Perfect. I'll be in touch to work out the details." Sung Ho turned away from the duo, who were already thinking of ways to spend the money they would get and where they could be relocated to. Park Sung Ho simply smirked, his own ideas moving through his mind as he left the apartment. Kang Hee Soo may not be good at tying up her loose ends, but Park Sung Ho would ensure that he did not make the same mistakes that she did. He would ensure that he would not only get into Gu Ga Eul's good graces and begin ingratiating himself into her life to have her, but he would make sure that no one knew he had a hand in orchestrating it to begin with.