This chapter was very difficult to write for me. It was a combination of having absolutely NO time for anything but work and sleep, plus the realization that this story has come to its conclusion (just an epilogue left to finish up), something that I knew would happen but hadn't anticipated getting to this point. I make no firm promises, outside of hopefully by the end of the month, as to when the epilogue will go up. It will not be nearly as long as some of the other chapters of this story, it's going to be a way to tie a nice little bow on it. And with heading into a very busy season at work, I may find it difficult still to find time to write. For now, please enjoy this update.
Once upon a time, Ga Eul thought she understood bone-weary exhaustion. When she had to deal with the exhausting transition from being a commoner with no one to rely on to not only having a wonderful family but also learning that family was amongst the four richest in the country she thought she knew exhaustion. She could not even compare that exhaustion with how she felt now after the incidents of the last month.
Between people recovering in hospitals, to the media constantly surrounding everyone as everything came to light, to the funerals of those who did not survive what happened, Ga Eul could fully admit that she was heading into bone-crushing exhaustion.
Today was a culmination of some of those events- Miranda's funeral, the start of Ku Yoon Gi's trial, and the verdict in Park Sung Ho's trial. While she refused to go to the last two, she needed to go to the funeral. She and Miranda had not been friends, but she had hoped maybe she could have come to know her the same way she had gotten to know Sunny after Miranda had helped her escape and offered her a second chance. Unfortunately, Miranda had never woken up and had laid in a coma for weeks from the injuries she had sustained when they were trying to escape. Eventually, her body gave in and she passed away.
Sunny, for all that had happened between herself, Ginger, and Miranda, was crushed when she was told about both women. She admitted that she had no real remorse for Ginger, except sadness from so many years of friendship wasted due to obsession. Miranda's death hit Sunny much harder. She, like Ga Eul, had hoped for a second chance with the woman, especially after hearing how she had risked herself in the effort for both she and Ga Eul to escape.
"You ready?" Woo Bin asked Ga Eul gently as she stepped off the step at the Gu mansion. She looked up and saw him helping Sunny stand from where she was seated. She was still moving stiffly, not fully recovered from her own gunshot wound.
"I am," Ga Eul said. She looked over as the front door opened and Ji Hu walked in alone.
"Where are Oppa and Yi Jeong-sunbae?" Ga Eul asked.
"They are going to Sung Ho's verdict hearing," Ji Hu said. "I told them I would come with you, Woo Bin, and Sunny to the funeral."
"You going to be okay with going?" Woo Bin asked him gently. While Ji Hu had not voiced his remorse to any of the other F4 members, Woo Bin knew him well enough that he wished he could have seen Miranda's changes sooner, and just maybe he would have listened to the message she had left faster to track down where they were being held by Sung Ho which could have prevented Miranda from being killed by the man.
"As much as I would like to have changed the outcome, I know it's impossible," Ji Hu said. "The only thing I can do now is be there to say goodbye."
Ga Eul walked over and looped her arm through Ji Hu's. "We'll make sure that she is sent off properly," she said quietly. He patted her hand as Woo Bin slipped Sunny's arm into his. The four people headed for the door and stepped out, heading to the car that would take them to the funeral service.
She knocked gently when she arrived at the door. After a moment, it opened to reveal Yi Jeong. He smiled gently before silently stepping aside to allow her to enter. He closed the door behind her before reaching to take the basket and carried it to the table. Ga Eul turned to make sure the door was locked before joining him at the table.
"Are you all right?" she finally asked as the silence dragged on a little as Yi Jeong began to remove the food items from the basket.
"He got what he deserved," Yi Jeong said. "The death penalty. But all I kept thinking is how I wanted to be the one to take his life for all he did to you."
"I am glad that you were not the one to do so," she said softly. "We just found each other, regardless of the trials we faced. I do not want you to lose your future because of me."
Yi Jeong shifted to cup her face in his hands, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "You are my future," he said gently before lowering his head to touch foreheads with her.
"You are mine, but I won't lose you because of him either," Ga Eul said, stroking her fingers along his cheek. "I know you, like the rest of the F4, wanted to take care of him yourselves. But I can't lose any of you."
"We almost lost you because of him," Yi Jeong said, his voice pained. "He almost cost your father and uncle their freedom. Sunny almost died, Miranda did."
"I know," Ga Eul said, a tear slipping from her eyes. "His obsession cost lives and almost cost us our futures. But I don't want him taking anymore."
"I love you, Ga Eul," Yi Jeong said softly. His head shifted until he could move his lips to hers and pressed a kiss to her.
Ga Eul's hands were hardly idle as they trailed from his cheeks and along the sides of his neck until her fingernails dug into his shoulders, her body shifting closer to his. One of Yi Jeong's arms moved until it encircled her waist and pulled her against him tightly. Her arms moved to wrap around his neck, her legs immediately wrapping around his waist as she felt him lift her to set her on the edge of the table.
"Wait," Yi Jeong whispered. "Ga Eul... we-."
Her finger pressed to his lips, stopping him. "I want this," she said quietly.
Yi Jeong pulled back a little to look into her eyes. He studied her face a moment. "Are you sure?" he asked softly.
Ga Eul nodded, leaning forward to press her forehead to his. "I know you have been holding back," she said. "Because of everything that has been going on and because of your past, but I want this."
"I don't want you to regret it," he said, his breath warm against her lips.
"I could never regret it with you," Ga Eul said.
"I've never... not here," he said. "But the door..."
"I locked it after I came in," she admitted.
He pulled his head back, surprise obvious on his face before dimples formed as he smirked. "Why Miss Gu, did you come with the intent to seduce me?" he teased her.
A blush rose on her cheeks, but she tried to look coy. "Is it working?" she asked. She squeaked as Yi Jeong pulled her against him and lifted her in his arms, forcing her to tighten her legs around his waist. She saw him smirk as she had to bite her lip to keep from groaning as she felt the obvious feel of his need against her.
"Definitely," he said before turning to carry her to the back of the studio where he had his own room for those nights he worked too late on his pottery.
"You are leaving?" Ga Eul asked as she sat across from Jan Di at the porridge shop where Jan Di still worked. She smiled at Bom Choon Sik as he brought a bowl of her favorite porridge to the table. He gently patted her shoulder and left the two women to talk.
"I am," Jan Di admitted. "It's a good opportunity for me."
"You barely know English," Ga Eul pointed out.
Jan Di grinned and nodded. "I know," she said. "But I've started studying more and Jae Kyung-eonnie is arranging for someone to help me when I get to California. She also is working with their swimming coach to get me into a good physical therapy course while I study until I can officially join the team."
"This is really what you want?" Ga Eul asked her, poking her spoon into her porridge.
"You know?" Jan Di said. "Maybe a few months ago I'd have said no, but now? It really is. This is a chance I never thought I would get ever either. I mean I know that I was accepted into Shinwha with the thought of a swimming scholarship." Jan Di lowered her head, stirring her porridge before she took a bite. She swallowed quickly before speaking again.
"I know I didn't share with you when I started having issues with my shoulder because of work things I was doing, but now I have a chance to live a dream I thought would only ever be just that. I never expected that I could have a shot at an actual scholarship for swimming," she finished.
"To be fair, a lot of things have been going on the past few months in my own family," Ga Eul said. "If I were still working here I probably would have-."
"No," Jan Di said. "It's all me. I've been thinking a lot since finding out you were a Gu and how I treated you before that and I realized you were very right in what you said. I am selfish."
"Jan Di..." Ga Eul started.
"No, let me finish," Jan Di said, smiling a bit. "I am selfish. I always accepted you were at my side no matter what happened, so I got complacent that it wouldn't matter if I asked about you or not because you were there. You were something and someone I didn't have to worry about."
Ga Eul winced at her blunt words. Jan Di immediately put her spoon down and reached for Ga Eul's hand. "Sorry, that came out harsher than I meant," she said. "What I am saying is that I need to do better and I need to recognize it isn't all about me, but that I also need to handle things myself."
"An injured shoulder though," Ga Eul said.
"I know, and that's why I finally confided in Jae Kyung-eonnie when she noticed that I was having some struggles with pain," Jan Di admitted. "I noticed around the time of Yi Jeong's troubles. You were so upset over that, I didn't want to add to it. I tried to hide it, but I guess that day I couldn't from her and she got out of me what was wrong."
"You could have told me," Ga Eul said.
"I know," Jan Di said. "But I'm starting to learn that I need to stand on my own and realize how I present myself to others. Because of how I was with you, I never thought of how I came across. So I think this move is a good one for me. I think it'll help me grow as a person." She squeezed Ga Eul's hand and pulled her own back.
"Besides, time away from my parents will help them realize how they also come across and how they need to grow. Jae Kyun-eonnie is going to see if she can find a way for my brother to be an exchange student in America too or in England so that my parents don't rely on him the way they did me," she finished.
"If this is really what you want, then I support you completely."
"You have been very quiet tonight," he said gently.
"I feel conflicted," Sunny admitted. She rested her head against his.
"About?" Woo Bin nudged gently when she did not continue her thought.
"After everything that's happened," Sunny said. "What right do I have to feel happy or elated?"
"What right do I have to be a part of such happiness when people die?" Sunny asked. "When people have gone to prison or worse?"
"Let me counter-question," Woo Bin said. "Why don't you have the right?" Sunny turned to look at him, confusion creasing into her brow. He tugged her closer, his hand coming up to smooth the furrowed skin.
"Sunny, you were hurt as much as others were," he said. "You were shot by Kim Saeng Yu under Park Sung Ho's orders. Before that, you were tormented for months by Ginger and Miranda, even thinking the F4 were the ones behind it. Your sister's husband wanted to rape you under your own roof, and she had the nerve to blame you when she found out. She had the nerve to torment you pretty much all your life."
"That doesn't mean..." Sunny trailed off, another tear sliding onto her cheek.
"I will never minimize your pain, Park Sun Ja," Woo Bin said firmly. "And I am not going to let you either."
Sunny lifted her chin, the flesh trembling as she fought tears. "You never call me Park Sun Ja."
"I prefer calling you Sunny, because it always matches your smile," Woo Bin said with a soft smile of his own. "But I need you to hear me." He clamped one arm firmly around her waist, while his other hand came up to hold her chin in place gently.
"You deserve happiness," he said. "You deserve to be happy and to feel happy. You deserve love, friendship, and every positive thing in the world. You made mistakes in the past, we all have. You can't pin your worth in life on what you did before or how others treated you. You can only move forward and grow."
"You've had doubts about yourself," Sunny said.
"You're right," Woo Bin admitted, his thumb caressing her chin. "It's probably why I can speak confidently to you now about it. I still struggle and so will you. But Yi Jeong reminded me, that no matter how embarrassed I feel about who I am, and who I am meant to be in other's eyes, some see me as more. Some see my worth and who I am deep down. Discovering Ga Eul and who she is has made me see that even more. And I plan on seeing you through it as well because I intend on spending the rest of my life showing you and telling you that you deserve every good thing in life."
A soft smile tugged at the corner of Sunny's mouth, her fingers curling into the edge of his jacket. "Why Song Woo Bin," she said, her tone soft and teasing. "Are you confessing your love to me?"
Woo Bin grinned and shifted to brush his lips against hers. "If you haven't realized by now that I'm in love with you, then I don't mind spending every moment telling you where my heart lies," he said. Sunny's only response was to lift her head to kiss him properly, letting the tears she had been holding back flow, except she knew that the tears of sorrow she had been holding back before were now tears of happiness instead.
She was just pouring herself something to drink in the kitchen when she heard the shuffling of feet. She glanced over her shoulder to see her brother's silhouette in the doorway of the kitchen.
"Jan Di get off safely?" he asked as he walked over, slipping onto a bar stool around the island in the kitchen.
"She did," Ga Eul said. She lifted the pitcher of juice to him before putting it away when he shook his head that he did not want any.
"You took a while to come home," Jun Pyo said, his hands clasping together. "Everything okay?"
Ga Eul sipped her juice before taking a breath, gathering her thoughts before she answered him. "Yeah," she said, though her tone was off. She glanced at him, seeing his head tilt with a slight frown. "Just... some feelings I didn't fully realize I had surfaced and I needed a little bit of alone time to process."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Jun Pyo asked. Over the months since discovering he had a younger sibling, he had been slowly learning to navigate when it was appropriate to demand answers from his sister. The events following her discovery made it harder for him to not fly into overprotective mode, so he still found himself struggling to find a balance between giving her freedom to keep things from him. He was finding it especially hard knowing that his sister was in a relationship with one of his best friends, so there were really going to be times she would not want to discuss things with him so that they had a balance between him and Yi Jeong as well.
Ga Eul smiled a bit and shifted until her elbows were resting on the counter. "Watching Jan Di leave made me realize how guilty I had been feeling over the past few months," she admitted.
"Guilty?" Jun Pyo asked. "Why? You didn't do anything wrong? Did she make you feel that way?"
Ga Eul laughed lightly as she heard his voice shift in annoyance. She reached over and grasped his hand to calm him. "No, she didn't," she said. "I honestly did not realize I had been feeling any sort of guilt until that moment, which is why I needed time to process."
"I'm... confused," Jun Pyo admitted.
"For as much as I was upset at her for the things she said before she found out I was your sister and how I told her over and over that it wasn't up to you all to reach out to her about me, I did feel guilty for how so much changed when it was discovered who I am," she admitted. "Suddenly everything was different, and in an even more extreme way than just Jan Di being admitted to Shinhwa when she was. For her, she changed schools and dealt with bullying, but to be honest, we had dealt with that even before."
"I'm learning that it happens no matter what," Jun Pyo said. "I only wish I hadn't..."
"I know," Ga Eul said. "But despite the change in school, nothing else really changed for Jan Di. I mean, yes, she got to do things she never would have such as going to New Caledonia, but she was still Geum Jan Di. There wasn't an outrageous change. And to her, I was always there. Until I wasn't."
"You are not here to be Geum Jan Di's person," Jun Pyo pointed out, but not unkindly. A definite change from before when he had wished nothing more than to not have Jan Di in Ga Eul's life after the incident at the porridge shop.
Ga Eul smiled softly at her brother, reaching over to take his hand. "I know that," she said. "But to be fair to her, and me, because of my caretakers, I never knew life as anything but being her person. All of a sudden, my world expanded beyond recognition. Between my new identity and her careless words, everything she and I had known for so long imploded. We had to learn to navigate brand new paths, and for the first time, I didn't need Jan Di like I used to. I think that maybe deep down, that part of me that had always been her person felt guilty because if she wasn't there, I didn't need her. But maybe she did need me."
"Did something change?" Jun Pyo asked. "I mean, I know she went off to the United States, but I mean more than that."
"No, that was it," Ga Eul said. "But the decision was solely hers. In the aftermath of everything, and even in the eye of the storm of everything, Jan Di realized she didn't need me. At least not the way she used to and had relied on. With help from Jae Kyung-eonnie, she realized she needed to rely on herself and she needed to grow. So she took the steps to do that on her own and is helping her brother do the same so he doesn't have the issues she did because of their parents being dependent on them. Since she did that, and she held to it by getting on that plane, the guilt I had been feeling lifted."
"I am going to assume that was a good thing," Jun Pyo said. "Or did it create more guilt?"
Ga Eul rested her chin on her hand. "Honestly? It did a little," she admitted. "It created a twinge of guilt because I felt relieved to not feel a guilt I did not even realize I had been feeling."
"Is that the true guilt you needed to process or the first guilt?" he asked.
"A little of both, I think," Ga Eul said. "I think I needed to process that had felt guilt in the first place, then I needed to process the guilt I felt over relief. I also needed to remind myself that the feeling of relief does not mean I don't want Jan Di in my life. It just means that my focus can be on myself as Gu Ga Eul, and not focus on who I am as a part of my friendship with Jan Di. We were associated as a single entity for so long in our lives that I haven't fully had the chance to establish who I am as an individual as much as I should have. I have more since discovering I am a Gu than I had before that, but I think some of that guilt was because I still felt like an imposter, plus I felt like my new identity was leaving Jan Di behind."
Jun Pyo slowly nodded his head. "You were," he said. "Not in a bad way, necessarily, but I understand what you mean. I can see how that would bring you guilt. With your capacity to love and forgive, you would have wanted Jan Di to grow as well."
"Mm," Ga Eul said, nodding as she twisted her glass before she took another drink. "At first it seemed like she wasn't growing. I am beginning to think that guilt was because I saw that and yet I couldn't hold myself back to accommodate her. Now that she is pushing forward with a dream she never thought she would truly have, and working towards growing in maturity, I no longer feel like I have to hold back."
"Because you don't," Jun Pyo said. "I know it would have hurt you, but you have to know that none of us would have allowed you to hold back who you are and what you will become for her."
Ga Eul smiled and reached for his hand. "I know," she said. "You are right, it would have hurt. I am glad that it seems that it is not a necessary hurt to have. Now her future path depends entirely on her, while mine depends entirely on me."
Jun Pyo grinned, squeezing her fingers. "That's all any of us can ask for," he said. "And that goes for myself as well. Just know that I will be right there to support you no matter what."
"As I will be there to support you, Oppa."