I'm not actually Mars and I don't know if I like daisies. I write a lot, sometimes on Tumblr. I'd add a masterlist but it'll be blank anyway, enjoy your iced tea🥤.
Chapter Masterlist | Look what you made me do | P.S.H.
As promised, here are all the chapters in one place for the fic Look what you made me do (Park Seonghwa x OC! reader). I'm lazy and take ages to update the actual chapters, and the linking is something I haven't been doing religiously for all of them.
As an easy one step solution to this I'll update this sheet regardless of my procrastination situation. Like always, my inbox and asks are ever open :))
Due to somewhat mature themes, this work is not suggested for younger audiences. Please respect your own limits.
Summary: Lin Iseul is a formidable woman. Born in a family considered royalty in the underside of Seoul and armed with intellect to match her reputation, she moves in the city controlling her family's deals and breaking suspects. But when a man from her past comes back to haunt her, it sets off a chain of events far too grand for her to comprehend. People that she had buried with her dead friend's ashes have come to life, and at the center of it all is the most feared man in the city, Park Seonghwa. Can Iseul escape the dead's longing calls while keeping her own emotions at bay, or will she be sucked back in time to relive the worst moments of her life?
Chapter Masterlist | Look what you made me do | P.S.H.
As promised, here are all the chapters in one place for the fic Look what you made me do (Park Seonghwa x OC! reader). I'm lazy and take ages to update the actual chapters, and the linking is something I haven't been doing religiously for all of them.
As an easy one step solution to this I'll update this sheet regardless of my procrastination situation. Like always, my inbox and asks are ever open :))
Due to somewhat mature themes, this work is not suggested for younger audiences. Please respect your own limits.
Summary: Lin Iseul is a formidable woman. Born in a family considered royalty in the underside of Seoul and armed with intellect to match her reputation, she moves in the city controlling her family's deals and breaking suspects. But when a man from her past comes back to haunt her, it sets off a chain of events far too grand for her to comprehend. People that she had buried with her dead friend's ashes have come to life, and at the center of it all is the most feared man in the city, Park Seonghwa. Can Iseul escape the dead's longing calls while keeping her own emotions at bay, or will she be sucked back in time to relive the worst moments of her life?
sometimes i be saying im gonna go to bed and then i dont go to bed. frequently in fact. this is because i have the heart of an optimist and the soul of a liar
Chapter Masterlist | Look what you made me do | P.S.H.
As promised, here are all the chapters in one place for the fic Look what you made me do (Park Seonghwa x OC! reader). I'm lazy and take ages to update the actual chapters, and the linking is something I haven't been doing religiously for all of them.
As an easy one step solution to this I'll update this sheet regardless of my procrastination situation. Like always, my inbox and asks are ever open :))
Due to somewhat mature themes, this work is not suggested for younger audiences. Please respect your own limits.
Summary: Lin Iseul is a formidable woman. Born in a family considered royalty in the underside of Seoul and armed with intellect to match her reputation, she moves in the city controlling her family's deals and breaking suspects. But when a man from her past comes back to haunt her, it sets off a chain of events far too grand for her to comprehend. People that she had buried with her dead friend's ashes have come to life, and at the center of it all is the most feared man in the city, Park Seonghwa. Can Iseul escape the dead's longing calls while keeping her own emotions at bay, or will she be sucked back in time to relive the worst moments of her life?
A/N: This is not a single parent!au, rest assured.
Chapter 6
Poems and scriptures sometimes speak about the point where a human reaches their point of breaking, after which nothing holds meaning to them. When I had left my penthouse yesterday, I hadn't expected to see two people reaching it at the same time, in the same place. One of them was Choi San, gun held to my head and white with fury. The other one was me.
I think there was a farm back in Japan, with vast lush green fields around it. Yellow flowers bloomed all around my naked feet whenever I used to go there. The sky was endless and sometimes pink, and I was alone looking at it. Actually, I wasn't. But the sky was just too vast. When I was younger, I had thought they were sunflowers, and she had laughed at my mistake. "They aren't sunflowers, Isa chan." "But they're yellow! What if they're slightly small? Can they not be sunflowers anymore?" My voice rang through the field, annoyed as I was. She had just laughed merrily, finding me funny. "Isa chan, just because you don't know what something might be, doesn't make it something else. We grow our trove of knowledge, not shrink the world to fit our understanding." I hadn't understood her. It was always the same with old people. They talked in riddles and laughed at my confusion and I hated that I felt lost. And she used to call me Isa chan whenever we were there. It wasn't even my name, and she knew that. But I liked her, and Isa chan felt so nice. I had decided that if she ever called me Iseul chan or Iseul, I wouldn't respond to her. She used to call the other girl Mira chan. Her name was Mirajane, and I used to think it was so pretty. I hated it when other things were prettier than me. But Mira chan never talked to me. She used to laugh at how upset I was about Mirajane's animosity, holding my hand and taking me with her. I never wanted to leave that farm. As we walked back, even Mirajane was calling for me. See! She had finally decided to be friends. But she was referring to me as Iseul. Didn't she know that here I was Isa chan? I wanted to look back at her, but we had started walking past. Her grip on my hand tightened as she kept telling me to not look back. I think I had started to fight back. But Mirajane had stopped calling for me. Why wasn't she calling me? Did she no longer want to play? I turned around and looked back at her to find her staring straight into my eyes. "How, dare you." And I snapped back to reality.
Few things happened at once. Wooyoung moved forward to get to his friend as Hongjoong was indicating to Yeosang to get things under control. But it wasn't necessary, not a moment after San had his hand outstretched, Seonghwa had twisted the gun out of his colleague's hand and into his own. San looked dazed for a few but quickly regained composure, his venomous gaze shifting towards his senior.
"Don't fuck with me Seonghwa, not right now." Seonghwa looked at me quickly before his eyes went back to San, slight surprise on his face. "Is there something more to this that I am not aware of?" "What else did you find out about the woman." "Hadn't realized I was answerable to you Sannie." "You are today. What. Did. She. Do." And Seonghwa did something very unexpected. He looked at me, very subtly. Throwing all of my weight behind this one gamble, I shook my head once, just as subtly. But it was enough for him to pick it up. "-there's time for it later, get back." Wooyoung was trying to drag his friend back, and it seemed like Park had closed all channels down for questioning. San was glaring at me as he muttered things under his breath and the others had uncertainty written on their faces, waiting for more clarity.
I wanted to command my legs to get up, eyes to blink, hands to move, anything that brought back sensation to my otherwise numbness. I could feel San still shooting venom in my direction, subdued by Wooyoung and forced to listen to his underboss. I knew in my mind that this truce wouldn't last for too long, not when San was finding out about what actually happened all those years ago.
I vaguely registered Hongjoong moving towards Seonghwa from the corner of my eye with purposeful strides. It was probably the first time since I had been brought here that Seonghwa was looking at his boss as he spoke. He clearly hadn't expected San's outburst, probably what made him keep his personal agenda aside for a few and discuss the situation at length.
Seonghwa had always been levelheaded. Make no mistake, his ego and pride knew no bounds. He was free in ways Hongjoong wasn't, and he'd never shied away from using that freedom for his own dirty work as far as I remembered. But he was still smart, coldly practical, blunt to the point of cruelty and more cunning than anyone else. Back then, he'd been a bit more brash but the viciousness never dulled, even with time. News about his conquests reached my ear long after we had moved out of each other's bed, and orbit. My father had never especially liked him, even less so after the their infamous altercation. My uncle refused to talk about Seonghwa. Both of them had their reasons, but Park had loyalty only to himself and his interests. It was perhaps why the old guard wasn't too fond of the Ateez devil, and I had always suspected he rather enjoyed their distaste for him and spared no chance to rub them all the wrong way. But one thing had always been the same with him, I thought as I focused on the conversation between number one and two. Seonghwa always got what he wanted, no matter who paid the price.
Kim Hongjoong rarely looked frantic. As a matter of fact, nobody from his upper echelons had ever made so much as a distressed face in public before. Which was why his current predicament was different, to say the least. His calm composure had long since dissolved and a more determined, urgent expression covered his face while Seonghwa had his jaw set deep in thought. The fact that I still remembered what that expression meant bothered me a bit more than it should have.
“I’ll escort the lady out.”
Jaemin said, his voice like glass breaking in the room; everybody stopped for a moment. He walked towards me, extending a hand which I gratefully took. Getting up on slightly shaky legs which were more so due to the conversation and its implications than the fatigue itself, we beelined towards the exit of the room. I was well aware that I couldn’t leave just yet, but getting a break from the ghosts of my past sounded amazing right now. “Lin.” I looked up at the man who had brought me out just as I walked a few steps away from the door. “We’ll get only a few minutes until someone comes out of the room. We don’t have time, so listen carefully.” Bang Jaemin was older than the people on the other side of the door, but he wasn’t old. Just older. Maybe a person in his late thirties, average height and build, and somewhat round. "Whatever Seonghwa wants, give him. Cut a deal for your own sake. You haven't been in the game for a long time, so you don't know what he has become. Find a believable, ironclad reason for being present at Lee's warehouse. You do not want to face him without that. Throw someone dispensable under the bus if you have to. But distance yourself from the enchantress." "What's the catch." I asked. "Hmm?" "What do you get in return if I'm out of this mess?" Jaemin laughed. "I get two things out of this." He mulled his words over, like he was thinking his words through. "I get Park's undistracted head back into the game." Huh. "I don't think that will be a problem." I told him honestly, to which he only shrugged. "I like to make sure." "And the second reason? Why are you helping me get out?" Jaemin sighed. "Because the enchantress was a kind woman." And he turned around and left.
What. What the actual fuck. I stared at Bang Jaemin's retreating back slightly openmouthed, completely dumbstruck. Maybe I should be following him, and I would've had he not said those words. Did he even know what he'd said? "The Enchantress. was kind?" "I wouldn't know. Personally never had the honour to meet her. They say she was hot though." Yunho said from behind as I turned, expression unchanged. "But hey, that's just hearsay from my part." He said in mock surrender, his hands raised slightly as he took in my astonished face. I quickly policed it back to a blank stare as much as I could given the events. "You should wait here. Seonghwa should be out in a minute." I contemplated just dashing for it, but I didn't know where I was. My phone was back in there with Kang Yeosang and I had no means of finding a way home. Cutting a good deal was the smartest way back home. But before that, I needed to have a nice chat with Kim Hongjoong. He'd crossed a line and he knew it. It would be a cold day in hell before I was letting him off the hook this easily. I needed to verify the severity of the contents in the drive, and then think of an equally wrong act from their end. None of these bastards were clean, and none of my family was stupid to not keep record.
I decided to take in my surroundings while I waited for the devil reincarnate to come out. There were voices from the room still, from the ones remaining. Yunho and Mingi had left, and the youngest of them didn't look at all bothered about what was happening. I didn't even know what he did, if I thought about it. The passage outside wasn't a long one, the hall more of a discussion room. There was no use trying to listen to what was happening inside as their voices were extremely muffled. The door opened, with San storming off after a quick murderous glare in my direction. Wooyoung followed, face tensed and eyes trained on his friend. Not a moment later Yeosang came to call me in.
The scene inside hadn't changed much, but at the same time it had changed a lot. Seonghwa had his eyes trained on the flash drive in his hands, fingers twirling it around. Hongjoong watched my step as i walked back in. Yeosang turned around and dug in his pocket, fishing out my phone and handing it to me before going out of the room himself. I put it in the back of my jeans as I picked a different chair to sit in this time.
"Iseul." Hongjoong said in a way of greeting, a weirdly calm expression on his face. This did not bode well for me. If he was in control ,then it meant I was fucked. So I regarded them both with a neutral gaze, unsure of just how worse this encounter was going to get.
"What explanation do you plan to give my family? Because understand it, Kim Hongjoong, you will give an explanation for all this. And you will give a good one." I said to him as I looked at Seongwha. He was the one I needed an answer from. He stopped twirling the device in his hands, pushing himself off the couch he was resting on. There was a flat screen in the room as well, I realized as he flipped a wooden decoration off the wall to reveal a large TV. I realized what he was going to do as I watched him switch it on and plug in the 'proof' into the socket. A few seconds later there was a folder open with a multitude of pictures and a few videos, but what caught my eye was the huge collection of scanned documents. My stomach churned. I knew what those documents were. I had made those documents. I caught Hongjoong's eye, who was sitting close. I got my phone out, using this opportunity to figure out just where the fuck I was.
"You aren't too far from your residence." I looked at Hongjoong who was monitoring what I'd been doing. I ignored his words and the fact that he knew where I lived, continuing with my task. He was right, I was in the city. I was in one of their buildings near the offices, I realized as I saw the map. It was 6 in the morning. I'd been gone since last night, which wasn't a long enough time to alert anyone of my absence. I could ask one of the twins to pick me up, they wouldn't be too far away. I knew I'd told Hongjoong to have an explanation ready for my uncle but if this was heading towards the direction I thought it was, I wasn't very keen on involving my family too soon and the twins were my best option to keep this under the covers. I looked back at the screen, knowing what would be on it. Seonghwa had been waiting for my attention, it seemed as he clicked on one of the videos. To nobody's surprise, it started with an old footage of me. "Stalker." I muttered to which he chuckled. "You have no idea." By the time the whole clip had finished, it was all I could do to even stay upright in the chair.
Seonghwa had watched the whole clip with an unfazed expression, almost robotic looking by the screen. It was obvious that this wasn't his first time doing it. Kim Hongjoong on the other hand clearly had not seen this particular compilation before. He didn't give away much but the micro changes in his demeanor every now and then gave away his slight disbelief.
"Shall we talk terms now?" Was all Seonghwa asked later, an evil glint in his eyes and a calm yet victorious expression all over his face. "What do you want to achieve, Seonghwa?" I finally asked him. He closed the distance between us, picking out the chair adjacent to mine to lounge in. "That can all be discussed at length in some time. For now, you can clean up. It will be a long talk after that." "And where do you expect me to freshen up?" "I'll drive you." "No thank you." "It wasn't a suggestion, Iseul. I'm driving you. It is far simpler that way and you know it. I'm not having you walk around like this," he gestured to my situation, "at the crack of dawn." "And where will you drive me?" I asked, turning to his side. "Home." he said simply, as if that was obvious. I scanned his face for some foul play. "Someone else can take me." "No." "You went through all of this, just to let me go?" His face hardened almost instantly. "You aren't getting anywhere, princess. Don't get crazy ideas in that pretty little head." "You are fucking impossible, Seonghwa." I fumed as he got up, no doubt to walk to the parking lot. "Whatever makes you happy, princess." he replied without even turning back.
"You should follow him, Iseul. If you are done with your lovers' spat." I glanced at Hongjoong slowly, my exasperation loud. He showed no sign of moving from this room. "This is far from over, Kim. Don't think either one of you are safe. I will come for all of you." I seethed in his direction while I got up and angled for the door in long strides wanting to catch that infuriating existence who was hellbent on making my life a big fucking mess.
A/N: Whoo! This is so,so late. But what can I say, stuff happens. Happy reading!
A/N: This is not a single parent!au, rest assured.
Chapter 6
Poems and scriptures sometimes speak about the point where a human reaches their point of breaking, after which nothing holds meaning to them. When I had left my penthouse yesterday, I hadn't expected to see two people reaching it at the same time, in the same place. One of them was Choi San, gun held to my head and white with fury. The other one was me.
I think there was a farm back in Japan, with vast lush green fields around it. Yellow flowers bloomed all around my naked feet whenever I used to go there. The sky was endless and sometimes pink, and I was alone looking at it. Actually, I wasn't. But the sky was just too vast. When I was younger, I had thought they were sunflowers, and she had laughed at my mistake. "They aren't sunflowers, Isa chan." "But they're yellow! What if they're slightly small? Can they not be sunflowers anymore?" My voice rang through the field, annoyed as I was. She had just laughed merrily, finding me funny. "Isa chan, just because you don't know what something might be, doesn't make it something else. We grow our trove of knowledge, not shrink the world to fit our understanding." I hadn't understood her. It was always the same with old people. They talked in riddles and laughed at my confusion and I hated that I felt lost. And she used to call me Isa chan whenever we were there. It wasn't even my name, and she knew that. But I liked her, and Isa chan felt so nice. I had decided that if she ever called me Iseul chan or Iseul, I wouldn't respond to her. She used to call the other girl Mira chan. Her name was Mirajane, and I used to think it was so pretty. I hated it when other things were prettier than me. But Mira chan never talked to me. She used to laugh at how upset I was about Mirajane's animosity, holding my hand and taking me with her. I never wanted to leave that farm. As we walked back, even Mirajane was calling for me. See! She had finally decided to be friends. But she was referring to me as Iseul. Didn't she know that here I was Isa chan? I wanted to look back at her, but we had started walking past. Her grip on my hand tightened as she kept telling me to not look back. I think I had started to fight back. But Mirajane had stopped calling for me. Why wasn't she calling me? Did she no longer want to play? I turned around and looked back at her to find her staring straight into my eyes. "How, dare you." And I snapped back to reality.
Few things happened at once. Wooyoung moved forward to get to his friend as Hongjoong was indicating to Yeosang to get things under control. But it wasn't necessary, not a moment after San had his hand outstretched, Seonghwa had twisted the gun out of his colleague's hand and into his own. San looked dazed for a few but quickly regained composure, his venomous gaze shifting towards his senior.
"Don't fuck with me Seonghwa, not right now." Seonghwa looked at me quickly before his eyes went back to San, slight surprise on his face. "Is there something more to this that I am not aware of?" "What else did you find out about the woman." "Hadn't realized I was answerable to you Sannie." "You are today. What. Did. She. Do." And Seonghwa did something very unexpected. He looked at me, very subtly. Throwing all of my weight behind this one gamble, I shook my head once, just as subtly. But it was enough for him to pick it up. "-there's time for it later, get back." Wooyoung was trying to drag his friend back, and it seemed like Park had closed all channels down for questioning. San was glaring at me as he muttered things under his breath and the others had uncertainty written on their faces, waiting for more clarity.
I wanted to command my legs to get up, eyes to blink, hands to move, anything that brought back sensation to my otherwise numbness. I could feel San still shooting venom in my direction, subdued by Wooyoung and forced to listen to his underboss. I knew in my mind that this truce wouldn't last for too long, not when San was finding out about what actually happened all those years ago.
I vaguely registered Hongjoong moving towards Seonghwa from the corner of my eye with purposeful strides. It was probably the first time since I had been brought here that Seonghwa was looking at his boss as he spoke. He clearly hadn't expected San's outburst, probably what made him keep his personal agenda aside for a few and discuss the situation at length.
Seonghwa had always been levelheaded. Make no mistake, his ego and pride knew no bounds. He was free in ways Hongjoong wasn't, and he'd never shied away from using that freedom for his own dirty work as far as I remembered. But he was still smart, coldly practical, blunt to the point of cruelty and more cunning than anyone else. Back then, he'd been a bit more brash but the viciousness never dulled, even with time. News about his conquests reached my ear long after we had moved out of each other's bed, and orbit. My father had never especially liked him, even less so after the their infamous altercation. My uncle refused to talk about Seonghwa. Both of them had their reasons, but Park had loyalty only to himself and his interests. It was perhaps why the old guard wasn't too fond of the Ateez devil, and I had always suspected he rather enjoyed their distaste for him and spared no chance to rub them all the wrong way. But one thing had always been the same with him, I thought as I focused on the conversation between number one and two. Seonghwa always got what he wanted, no matter who paid the price.
Kim Hongjoong rarely looked frantic. As a matter of fact, nobody from his upper echelons had ever made so much as a distressed face in public before. Which was why his current predicament was different, to say the least. His calm composure had long since dissolved and a more determined, urgent expression covered his face while Seonghwa had his jaw set deep in thought. The fact that I still remembered what that expression meant bothered me a bit more than it should have.
“I’ll escort the lady out.”
Jaemin said, his voice like glass breaking in the room; everybody stopped for a moment. He walked towards me, extending a hand which I gratefully took. Getting up on slightly shaky legs which were more so due to the conversation and its implications than the fatigue itself, we beelined towards the exit of the room. I was well aware that I couldn’t leave just yet, but getting a break from the ghosts of my past sounded amazing right now. “Lin.” I looked up at the man who had brought me out just as I walked a few steps away from the door. “We’ll get only a few minutes until someone comes out of the room. We don’t have time, so listen carefully.” Bang Jaemin was older than the people on the other side of the door, but he wasn’t old. Just older. Maybe a person in his late thirties, average height and build, and somewhat round. "Whatever Seonghwa wants, give him. Cut a deal for your own sake. You haven't been in the game for a long time, so you don't know what he has become. Find a believable, ironclad reason for being present at Lee's warehouse. You do not want to face him without that. Throw someone dispensable under the bus if you have to. But distance yourself from the enchantress." "What's the catch." I asked. "Hmm?" "What do you get in return if I'm out of this mess?" Jaemin laughed. "I get two things out of this." He mulled his words over, like he was thinking his words through. "I get Park's undistracted head back into the game." Huh. "I don't think that will be a problem." I told him honestly, to which he only shrugged. "I like to make sure." "And the second reason? Why are you helping me get out?" Jaemin sighed. "Because the enchantress was a kind woman." And he turned around and left.
What. What the actual fuck. I stared at Bang Jaemin's retreating back slightly openmouthed, completely dumbstruck. Maybe I should be following him, and I would've had he not said those words. Did he even know what he'd said? "The Enchantress. was kind?" "I wouldn't know. Personally never had the honour to meet her. They say she was hot though." Yunho said from behind as I turned, expression unchanged. "But hey, that's just hearsay from my part." He said in mock surrender, his hands raised slightly as he took in my astonished face. I quickly policed it back to a blank stare as much as I could given the events. "You should wait here. Seonghwa should be out in a minute." I contemplated just dashing for it, but I didn't know where I was. My phone was back in there with Kang Yeosang and I had no means of finding a way home. Cutting a good deal was the smartest way back home. But before that, I needed to have a nice chat with Kim Hongjoong. He'd crossed a line and he knew it. It would be a cold day in hell before I was letting him off the hook this easily. I needed to verify the severity of the contents in the drive, and then think of an equally wrong act from their end. None of these bastards were clean, and none of my family was stupid to not keep record.
I decided to take in my surroundings while I waited for the devil reincarnate to come out. There were voices from the room still, from the ones remaining. Yunho and Mingi had left, and the youngest of them didn't look at all bothered about what was happening. I didn't even know what he did, if I thought about it. The passage outside wasn't a long one, the hall more of a discussion room. There was no use trying to listen to what was happening inside as their voices were extremely muffled. The door opened, with San storming off after a quick murderous glare in my direction. Wooyoung followed, face tensed and eyes trained on his friend. Not a moment later Yeosang came to call me in.
The scene inside hadn't changed much, but at the same time it had changed a lot. Seonghwa had his eyes trained on the flash drive in his hands, fingers twirling it around. Hongjoong watched my step as i walked back in. Yeosang turned around and dug in his pocket, fishing out my phone and handing it to me before going out of the room himself. I put it in the back of my jeans as I picked a different chair to sit in this time.
"Iseul." Hongjoong said in a way of greeting, a weirdly calm expression on his face. This did not bode well for me. If he was in control ,then it meant I was fucked. So I regarded them both with a neutral gaze, unsure of just how worse this encounter was going to get.
"What explanation do you plan to give my family? Because understand it, Kim Hongjoong, you will give an explanation for all this. And you will give a good one." I said to him as I looked at Seongwha. He was the one I needed an answer from. He stopped twirling the device in his hands, pushing himself off the couch he was resting on. There was a flat screen in the room as well, I realized as he flipped a wooden decoration off the wall to reveal a large TV. I realized what he was going to do as I watched him switch it on and plug in the 'proof' into the socket. A few seconds later there was a folder open with a multitude of pictures and a few videos, but what caught my eye was the huge collection of scanned documents. My stomach churned. I knew what those documents were. I had made those documents. I caught Hongjoong's eye, who was sitting close. I got my phone out, using this opportunity to figure out just where the fuck I was.
"You aren't too far from your residence." I looked at Hongjoong who was monitoring what I'd been doing. I ignored his words and the fact that he knew where I lived, continuing with my task. He was right, I was in the city. I was in one of their buildings near the offices, I realized as I saw the map. It was 6 in the morning. I'd been gone since last night, which wasn't a long enough time to alert anyone of my absence. I could ask one of the twins to pick me up, they wouldn't be too far away. I knew I'd told Hongjoong to have an explanation ready for my uncle but if this was heading towards the direction I thought it was, I wasn't very keen on involving my family too soon and the twins were my best option to keep this under the covers. I looked back at the screen, knowing what would be on it. Seonghwa had been waiting for my attention, it seemed as he clicked on one of the videos. To nobody's surprise, it started with an old footage of me. "Stalker." I muttered to which he chuckled. "You have no idea." By the time the whole clip had finished, it was all I could do to even stay upright in the chair.
Seonghwa had watched the whole clip with an unfazed expression, almost robotic looking by the screen. It was obvious that this wasn't his first time doing it. Kim Hongjoong on the other hand clearly had not seen this particular compilation before. He didn't give away much but the micro changes in his demeanor every now and then gave away his slight disbelief.
"Shall we talk terms now?" Was all Seonghwa asked later, an evil glint in his eyes and a calm yet victorious expression all over his face. "What do you want to achieve, Seonghwa?" I finally asked him. He closed the distance between us, picking out the chair adjacent to mine to lounge in. "That can all be discussed at length in some time. For now, you can clean up. It will be a long talk after that." "And where do you expect me to freshen up?" "I'll drive you." "No thank you." "It wasn't a suggestion, Iseul. I'm driving you. It is far simpler that way and you know it. I'm not having you walk around like this," he gestured to my situation, "at the crack of dawn." "And where will you drive me?" I asked, turning to his side. "Home." he said simply, as if that was obvious. I scanned his face for some foul play. "Someone else can take me." "No." "You went through all of this, just to let me go?" His face hardened almost instantly. "You aren't getting anywhere, princess. Don't get crazy ideas in that pretty little head." "You are fucking impossible, Seonghwa." I fumed as he got up, no doubt to walk to the parking lot. "Whatever makes you happy, princess." he replied without even turning back.
"You should follow him, Iseul. If you are done with your lovers' spat." I glanced at Hongjoong slowly, my exasperation loud. He showed no sign of moving from this room. "This is far from over, Kim. Don't think either one of you are safe. I will come for all of you." I seethed in his direction while I got up and angled for the door in long strides wanting to catch that infuriating existence who was hellbent on making my life a big fucking mess.
A/N: Whoo! This is so,so late. But what can I say, stuff happens. Happy reading!
A/N: This is not a single parent!au, rest assured.
Chapter 6
Poems and scriptures sometimes speak about the point where a human reaches their point of breaking, after which nothing holds meaning to them. When I had left my penthouse yesterday, I hadn't expected to see two people reaching it at the same time, in the same place. One of them was Choi San, gun held to my head and face white with fury. The other one was me.
I think there was a farm back in Japan, with vast lush green fields around it. Yellow flowers bloomed all around my naked feet whenever I used to go there. The sky was endless and sometimes pink, and I was alone looking at it. Actually, I wasn't. But the sky was just too vast. When I was younger, I had thought they were sunflowers, and she had laughed at my mistake. "They aren't sunflowers, Isa chan." "But they're yellow! What if they're slightly small? Can they not be sunflowers anymore?" My voice rang through the field, annoyed as I was. She had just laughed merrily, finding me funny. "Isa chan, just because you don't know what something might be, doesn't make it something else. We grow our trove of knowledge, not shrink the world to fit our understanding." I hadn't understood her. It was always the same with old people. They talked in riddles and laughed at my confusion and I hated that I felt lost. And she used to call me Isa chan whenever we were there. It wasn't even my name, and she knew that. But I liked her, and Isa chan felt so nice. I had decided that if she ever called me Iseul chan or Iseul, I wouldn't respond to her. She used to call the other girl Mira chan. Her name was Mirajane, and I used to think it was so pretty. I hated it when other things were prettier than me. But Mira chan never talked to me. She used to laugh at how upset I was about Mirajane's animosity, holding my hand and taking me with her. I never wanted to leave that farm. As we walked back, even Mirajane was calling for me. See! She had finally decided to be friends. But she was referring to me as Iseul. Didn't she know that here I was Isa chan? I wanted to look back at her, but we had started walking past. Her grip on my hand tightened as she kept telling me to not look back. I think I had started to fight back. But Mirajane had stopped calling for me. Why wasn't she calling me? Did she no longer want to play? I turned around and looked back at her to find her staring straight into my eyes. "How, dare you." And I snapped back to reality.
Few things happened at once. Wooyoung moved forward to get to his friend as Hongjoong was indicating to Yeosang to get things under control. But it wasn't necessary, not a moment after San had his hand outstretched, Seonghwa had twisted the gun out of his colleague's hand and into his own. San looked dazed for a few but quickly regained composure, his venomous gaze shifting towards his senior.
"Don't fuck with me Seonghwa, not right now." Seonghwa looked at me quickly before his eyes went back to San, slight surprise on his face. "Is there something more to this that I am not aware of?" "What else did you find out about the woman." "Hadn't realized I was answerable to you Sannie." "You are today. What. Did. She. Do." And Seonghwa did something very unexpected. He looked at me, very subtly. Throwing all of my weight behind this one gamble, I shook my head once, just as subtly. But it was enough for him to pick it up. "-there's time for it later, get back." Wooyoung was trying to drag his friend back, and it seemed like Park had closed all channels down for questioning. San was glaring at me as he muttered things under his breath and the others had uncertainty written on their faces, waiting for more clarity.
I wanted to command my legs to get up, eyes to blink, hands to move, anything that brought back sensation to my otherwise numbness. I could feel San still shooting venom in my direction, subdued by Wooyoung and forced to listen to his underboss. I knew in my mind that this truce wouldn't last for too long, not when San was finding out about what actually happened all those years ago.
I vaguely registered Hongjoong moving towards Seonghwa from the corner of my eye with purposeful strides. It was probably the first time since I had been brought here that Seonghwa was looking at his boss as he spoke. He clearly hadn't expected San's outburst, probably what made him keep his personal agenda aside for a few and discuss the situation at length.
Seonghwa had always been levelheaded. Make no mistake, his ego and pride knew no bounds. He was free in ways Hongjoong wasn't, and he'd never shied away from using that freedom for his own dirty work as far as I remembered. But he was still smart, coldly practical, blunt to the point of cruelty and more cunning than anyone else. Back then, he'd been a bit more brash but the viciousness never dulled, even with time. News about his conquests reached my ear long after we had moved out of each other's bed, and orbit. My father had never especially liked him, even less so after the their infamous altercation. My uncle refused to talk about Seonghwa. Both of them had their reasons, but Park had loyalty only to himself and his interests. It was perhaps why the old guard wasn't too fond of the Ateez devil, and I had always suspected he rather enjoyed their distaste for him and spared no chance to rub them all the wrong way. But one thing had always been the same with him, I thought as I focused on the conversation between number one and two. Seonghwa always got what he wanted, no matter who paid the price.
Kim Hongjoong rarely looked frantic. As a matter of fact, nobody from his upper echelons had ever made so much as a distressed face in public before. Which was why his current predicament was different, to say the least. His calm composure had long since dissolved and a more determined, urgent expression covered his face while Seonghwa had his jaw set deep in thought. The fact that I still remembered what that expression meant bothered me a bit more than it should have.
“I’ll escort the lady out.”
Jaemin said, his voice like glass breaking in the room; everybody stopped for a moment. He walked towards me, extending a hand which I gratefully took. Getting up on slightly shaky legs which were more so due to the conversation and its implications than the fatigue itself, we beelined towards the exit of the room. I was well aware that I couldn’t leave just yet, but getting a break from the ghosts of my past sounded amazing right now. “Lin.” I looked up at the man who had brought me out just as I walked a few steps away from the door. “We’ll get only a few minutes until someone comes out of the room. We don’t have time, so listen carefully.” Bang Jaemin was older than the people on the other side of the door, but he wasn’t old. Just older. Maybe a person in his late thirties, average height and build, and somewhat round. "Whatever Seonghwa wants, give him. Cut a deal for your own sake. You haven't been in the game for a long time, so you don't know what he has become. Find a believable, ironclad reason for being present at Lee's warehouse. You do not want to face him without that. Throw someone dispensable under the bus if you have to. But distance yourself from the enchantress." "What's the catch." I asked. "Hmm?" "What do you get in return if I'm out of this mess?" Jaemin laughed. "I get two things out of this." He mulled his words over, like he was thinking his words through. "I get Park's undistracted head back into the game." Huh. "I don't think that will be a problem." I told him honestly, to which he only shrugged. "I like to make sure." "And the second reason? Why are you helping me get out?" Jaemin sighed. "Because the enchantress was a kind woman." And he turned around and left.
What. What the actual fuck. I stared at Bang Jaemin's retreating back slightly openmouthed, completely dumbstruck. Maybe I should be following him, and I would've had he not said those words. Did he even know what he'd said? "The Enchantress. was kind?" "I wouldn't know. Personally never had the honour to meet her. They say she was hot though." Yunho said from behind as I turned, expression unchanged. "But hey, that's just hearsay from my part." He said in mock surrender, his hands raised slightly as he took in my astonished face. I quickly policed it back to a blank stare as much as I could given the events. "You should wait here. Seonghwa should be out in a minute." I contemplated just dashing for it, but I didn't know where I was. My phone was back in there with Kang Yeosang and I had no means of finding a way home. Cutting a good deal was the smartest way back home. But before that, I needed to have a nice chat with Kim Hongjoong. He'd crossed a line and he knew it. It would be a cold day in hell before I was letting him off the hook this easily. I needed to verify the severity of the contents in the drive, and then think of an equally wrong act from their end. None of these bastards were clean, and none of my family was stupid to not keep record.
I decided to take in my surroundings while I waited for the devil reincarnate to come out. There were voices from the room still, from the ones remaining. Yunho and Mingi had left, and the youngest of them didn't look at all bothered about what was happening. I didn't even know what he did, if I thought about it. The passage outside wasn't a long one, the hall more of a discussion room. There was no use trying to listen to what was happening inside as their voices were extremely muffled. The door opened, with San storming off after a quick murderous glare in my direction. Wooyoung followed, face tensed and eyes trained on his friend. Not a moment later Yeosang came to call me in.
The scene inside hadn't changed much, but at the same time it had changed a lot. Seonghwa had his eyes trained on the flash drive in his hands, fingers twirling it around. Hongjoong watched my step as i walked back in. Yeosang turned around and dug in his pocket, fishing out my phone and handing it to me before going out of the room himself. I put it in the back of my jeans as I picked a different chair to sit in this time.
"Iseul." Hongjoong said in a way of greeting, a weirdly calm expression on his face. This did not bode well for me. If he was in control ,then it meant I was fucked. So I regarded them both with a neutral gaze, unsure of just how worse this encounter was going to get.
"What explanation do you plan to give my family? Because understand it, Kim Hongjoong, you will give an explanation for all this. And you will give a good one." I said to him as I looked at Seongwha. He was the one I needed an answer from. He stopped twirling the device in his hands, pushing himself off the couch he was resting on. There was a flat screen in the room as well, I realized as he flipped a wooden decoration off the wall to reveal a large TV. I realized what he was going to do as I watched him switch it on and plug in the 'proof' into the socket. A few seconds later there was a folder open with a multitude of pictures and a few videos, but what caught my eye was the huge collection of scanned documents. My stomach churned. I knew what those documents were. I had made those documents. I caught Hongjoong's eye, who was sitting close. I got my phone out, using this opportunity to figure out just where the fuck I was.
"You aren't too far from your residence." I looked at Hongjoong who was monitoring what I'd been doing. I ignored his words and the fact that he knew where I lived, continuing with my task. He was right, I was in the city. I was in one of their buildings near the offices, I realized as I saw the map. It was 6 in the morning. I'd been gone since last night, which wasn't a long enough time to alert anyone of my absence. I could ask one of the twins to pick me up, they wouldn't be too far away. I knew I'd told Hongjoong to have an explanation ready for my uncle but if this was heading towards the direction I thought it was, I wasn't very keen on involving my family too soon and the twins were my best option to keep this under the covers. I looked back at the screen, knowing what would be on it. Seonghwa had been waiting for my attention, it seemed as he clicked on one of the videos. To nobody's surprise, it started with an old footage of me. "Stalker." I muttered to which he chuckled. "You have no idea." By the time the whole clip had finished, it was all I could do to even stay upright in the chair.
Seonghwa had watched the whole clip with an unfazed expression, almost robotic looking by the screen. It was obvious that this wasn't his first time doing it. Kim Hongjoong on the other hand clearly had not seen this particular compilation before. He didn't give away much but the micro changes in his demeanor every now and then gave away his slight disbelief.
"Shall we talk terms now?" Was all Seonghwa asked later, an evil glint in his eyes and a calm yet victorious expression all over his face. "What do you want to achieve, Seonghwa?" I finally asked him. He closed the distance between us, picking out the chair adjacent to mine to lounge in. "That can all be discussed at length in some time. For now, you can clean up. It will be a long talk after that." "And where do you expect me to freshen up?" "I'll drive you." "No thank you." "It wasn't a suggestion, Iseul. I'm driving you. It is far simpler that way and you know it. I'm not having you walk around like this," he gestured to my situation, "at the crack of dawn." "And where will you drive me?" I asked, turning to his side. "Home." he said simply, as if that was obvious. I scanned his face for some foul play. "Someone else can take me." "No." "You went through all of this, just to let me go?" His face hardened almost instantly. "You aren't getting anywhere, princess. Don't get crazy ideas in that pretty little head." "You are fucking impossible, Seonghwa." I fumed as he got up, no doubt to walk to the parking lot. "Whatever makes you happy, princess." he replied without even turning back.
"You should follow him, Iseul. If you are done with your lovers' spat." I glanced at Hongjoong slowly, my exasperation loud. He showed no sign of moving from this room. "This is far from over, Kim. Don't think either one of you are safe. I will come for all of you." I seethed in his direction while I got up and angled for the door in long strides wanting to catch that infuriating existence who was hellbent on making my life a big fucking mess.
A/N: Whoo! This is so,so late. But what can I say, stuff happens. Happy reading!
A/N: Something that has been in my drafts for literal years. One of my first ever bits. Idk why but felt like posting. Happy reading!
The elevator doors could not have opened sooner as I dragged my tired, fatigued self to the entrance of my house.
The nameplate at the door gleamed bright in its silver majesty, an expensive design which was a gift from a friend when we had bought the penthouse.
Mr. & Mrs. Jeon
It read in elegant cursive. Well, the names on it didn't mean much beyond the doorframe, Jungkook and I had spent all seven months of our married life pretending that the other person in the house wasn't related to us. We weren't enemies, I thought with a forlorn sigh while pushing the door open. But we weren't friends either. I fiddled with the keys just a little more, to let him and whatever woman he had brought in today know that I was back and they should tone it down.
It was wishful thinking on my part though, as the voices only grew louder in intensity. Just another day, another afternoon in my life. Suddenly, the noises got even louder. I was sure someone was whisper screaming, and a lot of ruffled sheets. I winced in pity for the woman, I knew Jungkook was strong. If he decided to have mercy, she would walk out on her own two legs. If he didn't....I pushed the thought out of my head as I massaged my temples.
Jungkook and I had married each other for only one reason- we did not want to marry someone else who had expectations from the whole arrangement. We quite agreed on the fact that we didn't wish to live with liabilities so close to us. We both worked too much, earned too much, spent it on ourselves, and did not ask questions. It suited us both, and we acted civil enough in front of people. Behind closed doors, we meant nothing to each other. A win-win situation, as they called it.
The door to the guestroom opened, and a small, petite woman with smudged make-up walked out of it. Correction- tried to. She looked pissed for some reason as she saw me and I raised one perfectly groomed brow at her. Recognition shone in her eyes as she glared, and I could see Jungkook's shadow looming behind her at the room's entrance. He hadn't defiled our bedroom at least.
She looked behind to talk to him perhaps, but I wasn't going to have much of that. "Door's straight ahead." I calmly spoke. She looked genuinely surprised at my words, like she expected me to be mute and it was even more vexing. Jungkook, sensing that told her, "You should go home." She was someone in his office, I guessed. The clothes looked like she was. Jungkook did not bring home people he worked with, so she must have been from another department.
She gave me one last look that I didn't care about as she made to leave, but wobbled in her ugly heels.
I got up from the couch, frustrated and fished out a painkiller from my tote bag to give her. She refused once, just as I had expected her to but I pushed it again. "Just take it, goddammit. And get out of my house. Water is on the table."
She murmured something under her breath, on the lines of the opportunist and tied him for money and ambitious bitch. Nothing of which I hadn't been called before. My marriage was broadly portrayed to be all of the above, and with my position in my company also a high paying one that I had beaten three men to, it was nothing short of obvious.
I took a deep breath and looked her square in the eye.
"Listen, wench. I am a managing director in a multinational company, earn more than mine and your weight in gold, have a husband of a similar stature and at the end of the day bear the name and wear the ring of a billionaire. You, on the other hand are sleeping with a man far above your paygrade, and his wife doesn't even care. That, is how low you are in life. " She looked positively terrified by now. Jungkook was silent, but I could feel his dark gaze trained dangerously on me. Good, I wanted him to watch. Without sparing a glance in his direction, I continued.
"So I will tell you once more, to get the fuck out of my sight. And close the door while you leave."
She nodded once, eyes like a deer's caught in the headlights. All her swagger seemed to be gone now as she made a beeline towards the door.
Jungkook was coming out in the foyer, hair tousled and torso naked when he froze as the woman said one last sentence before leaving, "He moaned your name as he came." And the door closed.
A/N: Something that has been in my drafts for literal years. One of my first ever bits. Idk why but felt like posting. Happy reading!
The elevator doors could not have opened sooner as I dragged my tired, fatigued self to the entrance of my house.
The nameplate at the door gleamed bright in its silver majesty, an expensive design which was a gift from a friend when we had bought the penthouse.
Mr. & Mrs. Jeon
It read in elegant cursive. Well, the names on it didn't mean much beyond the doorframe, Jungkook and I had spent all seven months of our married life pretending that the other person in the house wasn't related to us. We weren't enemies, I thought with a forlorn sigh while pushing the door open. But we weren't friends either. I fiddled with the keys just a little more, to let him and whatever woman he had brought in today know that I was back and they should tone it down.
It was wishful thinking on my part though, as the voices only grew louder in intensity. Just another day, another afternoon in my life. Suddenly, the noises got even louder. I was sure someone was whisper screaming, and a lot of ruffled sheets. I winced in pity for the woman, I knew Jungkook was strong. If he decided to have mercy, she would walk out on her own two legs. If he didn't....I pushed the thought out of my head as I massaged my temples.
Jungkook and I had married each other for only one reason- we did not want to marry someone else who had expectations from the whole arrangement. We quite agreed on the fact that we didn't wish to live with liabilities so close to us. We both worked too much, earned too much, spent it on ourselves, and did not ask questions. It suited us both, and we acted civil enough in front of people. Behind closed doors, we meant nothing to each other. A win-win situation, as they called it.
The door to the guestroom opened, and a small, petite woman with smudged make-up walked out of it. Correction- tried to. She looked pissed for some reason as she saw me and I raised one perfectly groomed brow at her. Recognition shone in her eyes as she glared, and I could see Jungkook's shadow looming behind her at the room's entrance. He hadn't defiled our bedroom at least.
She looked behind to talk to him perhaps, but I wasn't going to have much of that. "Door's straight ahead." I calmly spoke. She looked genuinely surprised at my words, like she expected me to be mute and it was even more vexing. Jungkook, sensing that told her, "You should go home." She was someone in his office, I guessed. The clothes looked like she was. Jungkook did not bring home people he worked with, so she must have been from another department.
She gave me one last look that I didn't care about as she made to leave, but wobbled in her ugly heels.
I got up from the couch, frustrated and fished out a painkiller from my tote bag to give her. She refused once, just as I had expected her to but I pushed it again. "Just take it, goddammit. And get out of my house. Water is on the table."
She murmured something under her breath, on the lines of the opportunist and tied him for money and ambitious bitch. Nothing of which I hadn't been called before. My marriage was broadly portrayed to be all of the above, and with my position in my company also a high paying one that I had beaten three men to, it was nothing short of obvious.
I took a deep breath and looked her square in the eye.
"Listen, wench. I am a managing director in a multinational company, earn more than mine and your weight in gold, have a husband of a similar stature and at the end of the day bear the name and wear the ring of a billionaire. You, on the other hand are sleeping with a man far above your paygrade, and his wife doesn't even care. That, is how low you are in life. " She looked positively terrified by now. Jungkook was silent, but I could feel his dark gaze trained dangerously on me. Good, I wanted him to watch. Without sparing a glance in his direction, I continued.
"So I will tell you once more, to get the fuck out of my sight. And close the door while you leave."
She nodded once, eyes like a deer's caught in the headlights. All her swagger seemed to be gone now as she made a beeline towards the door.
Jungkook was coming out in the foyer, hair tousled and torso naked when he froze as the woman said one last sentence before leaving, "He moaned your name as he came." And the door closed.
