A Matter of When
@yusachii from here
Well no duh, her inner thoughts would retort, leaving her to feel more relieved than ever that she was able to swallow down the urge to taunt him with sarcasm. Yooyoung had known Ryu for longer than she’d known almost anybody, and therefore was well aware he wasn’t exactly the most pleasant person to piss off when you wanted his help. Since her days as a young girl he’d practically been on speed dial for things like being bored, needing an excuse to escape her parents (or boarding school), or just needing a ride home from being somewhere she should’t have been. Even now that she was twenty three years old, that still seemed to be how things were. In times like this, it no doubt came in handy that that was the case. “Well that makes two of us, I have no idea where this even is,” She spoke into the phone with a tired sigh, leaning back into the driver’s seat of her car out of clear defeat. It wasn’t the first time she’d beckoned him to her aid during the walk of shame, though this seemed to be a whole new level for her. The party had been lame and so she wasn’t drunk, not even a little bit. Just… out of fuel… literally. What good was an expensive foreign car if she couldn’t even remember to keep it running? A silence lingered on the line for a moment while she shifted forward to peer out of her window to take in her surroundings another time. “Just…. google ‘creepy back roads outside of Seoul that don’t show up on GPS’ or something. I don’t know, isn’t this how slasher films start?” In that moment she seemed to catch herself getting a little impatient, and lately she’d been working on learning to communicate better to the people who helped support her through life. Lord knows she could never make it on her own. Still, the darkness surrounding her dead vehicle had her feeling antsy enough that she didn’t have the patience to be even slightly patient,“Can’t you just hurry up? It’s literally freezing here.”
OH TO BE YOUNG WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY.
Yooyoung was very much who Ryu was at her age. He did it all. Escaped boarding school for a party on another continent, check. Stolen a car to race down Monaco’s roads, check and triple check really. Been so drunk he and a lady friend forgot they were in fact on the balcony yet continued their acts of desire, check. The prestige of his name had saved him time and time again. Perks of having hands in every business sector in the nation and having a warlord for a father.
The older he got, the more he took to his liberties. But waking in Italy, only knowing so by the thick native accent whispered into his ear, when he was expected on site miles away, piles of sheetrock waiting to be moved, those nails wouldn’t hammer themselves, those two didn’t quite go together. He could act irresponsible and that selfish only when he didn’t understand the weight of what came with his name. Beyond living on top the pedestal it provided, there were duties. Those duties were met first hand. Entitled games of boyhood washed away when stories of sick children, overheard pleas for overtime, and the constant pressure of witnessing the hardworking nature of men and women, just trying to get by, became the new reality.
He grasped that new reality, conscious that his behavior wasn’t his own anymore. There would be no more private acts done in public, simply because they couldn’t wait. One bad scandal meant profit loss which then meant layoffs. It wasn’t just his life, his pleasures anymore.
Yoo was still free to enjoy the liberties of wealth without the care of how it was earned. He didn’t fault her for it. He had encouraged it, setting the example, then assisting her bad behavior. Owning that, he indulged her, smiling as she denounced his change of heart. One day she would grow out of it. Until then, he ensured she didn’t cause harm to herself or her family.
Which is why he was about to have that conversation, yet again. Her bratty tone came through his phone on speaker, giving HIM orders. Q and her team knew her well, they did the grunt work enough times to see that she wasn’t arrested or dead, too many times it consisted of both. That tone was i r r i t a t i n g. He let her speak though, reading over the papers on his desk, signing where he needed to, never interrupting her. The conversation in the room had softened. For the brat on the phone, business was being quieted, all because Ryu had to answer her call.
Two more places on the document before him needed to be signed but he dropped the platinum and gold pen, eyes closing as he leaned into his chair. “Lee Yooyoung, who the fuck do you think you called?” he began, each word leaving his mouth slowly yet sharp, delivering his displeasure. “Did I accidentally accept your father’s deal to take you off his hands?” He paused for a brief moment then continued, “no, right? Did I get engaged Q?” he asked, right hand pointing off in her direction.
No, sir but we need those files signed faxed off tonight.
He smiled and opened his eyes, looking toward the woman with no expression on her face, then back to the phone on his desk. The smile vanished, “and even if I was suddenly your owner, do you think I would be the one to call if you got stuck on a dark road? That is the quickest way to get all that’s promised from our union without any of your shit.”
Then he chuckled, slow at first until a smile retook his lips but that irritation was still there.
