“Miss Seo,” Seung-ho wrapped his arms around her shoulders, she didn’t resist leaning into his strong arms, taking shelter. Eun Hye let out another sigh of exhaustion. “I wish I could read what goes through his mind.” Kwan Seung-ho rubbed her back, whispering comforting nothings to her as Ji Won and Inn Woo settled back to their seat, both aiming for the last two shots on the table coincidentally. “Has he been out of his mood for a while now?” Seung-ho blurted out. The question bubbled at the tip of his tongue. “No. Not that I can recall.” Inn Woo replied. “In fact, all of this started very recently, like three days ago. He started acting weird.” “Could this be because of me?” Seung-ho thought about the time when Min-a’s mood changed, but it didn’t make any sense. He recalled it was right after Eun Hye called him by that name “Haneul” He wasn't even planning on teasing him with it, yet he got so mad that his older sister had mentioned it. “I think I should be on my
“Antarctica…Is that what you wanted to say?” Ji-ho implied, shaking her head as a small smile appeared on her face, matching Min-a's satisfactory expression as he repeated the word to himself severally. “Yeah, Antarctica…why aren’t children called Antarctica? It's such a cool name.” Min-a turned his head to Ji-ho as he completely laid his back on the black seat. “There probably are kids called Antarctica. Just not any in Korea. At least, not to my knowledge.” Ji-ho replied with another small smile, dressing his hair sideways away from his eyes before she started the car. She backed out of the parking space expertly, heading into the busy road sleekly. “You can drive?” Min-a suddenly realized she was the one driving. “Yeah, you are really drunk,” Ji-ho concluded, taking the bend into the highway. “You can't blame me, anytime we hang out, you always talk about taking a taxi because you don’t trust yourself with a steering wheel while you are drunk and—” he was cut short
Min-a instead searched his cabinet for some painkillers, but there wasn't even a single paracetamol in his cabinet. Except for his antidepressants. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Min-a sighed, resisting the intrusive thought of slamming the cabinet door, remembering that it was also a glass. Closing the cabinet door gently, he met with his reflection. Staring at him was a face that barely seemed his own. Bloodshot eyes, puffy and rimmed with dark circles, reflected a night of regret. It wasn't that bad. At least, he was still hot. Min-a winced as he took a bath, his temple throbbing with a relentless, dull ache. His mouth was dry and his tongue heavy like sandpaper. When he was done, he settled for a very large oversized plain black shirt and white light trousers. A matching black bucket hat and black Vans. He took his sports backpack along, betting on the hangover smoothie and some painkiller he was going to have, he should be fine by the evening time to p
Eun Hye finally got out of bed. Thankfully, she didn't have to treat herself to a hangover because she drank a lot of water last night, enough to keep her going to the toilet every one-hour interval. Also enough to make her sleep through her alarm when she had successfully emptied her tank. She brushed her teeth, checking for any trace of Gimmari in her teeth because that was all she could smell on her fingers right now. That was when memories from the previous night started flooding in. Her disposition drove from excitement to a dampened mood because of her younger brother. Eun Hye recalled how messed up he was, he had been acting weird since they came from the shoot but the celebratory dinner was nearly a meltdown. She wouldn't know what to do again if Min-a had started dosing again. She had her own fair share of alcohol reliance and she knew how much it could mess someone up. Yet, she just couldn't help but feel like yesterday wasn't all about the alcohol or her calling hi
“Father...” Eun Hye muttered, anxiety weighing her heart. She had totally forgotten about the deal they were to sign with Kwan Seung-ho. “Father, you know he is not a sell out, you saw it yourself. He is—” Eun Hye started before she was caught off by Jung Ju's sudden angry voice. “What are you saying? Why did you think I let him coach my son? Do you think he’s worth being my son’s teacher? look, I don’t give a damn about whatever relationship they had as long as you secured that contract” Jung Ju roared, then took a deep breath. “Father…Seung-ho is hard to convince. But I believe he's trusting us little by little. We need more-” “Time?! You weren’t about to say more time, were you, Seo Eun Hye?” Jung Ju snapped, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I taught you better than that. The more time you spend lazing around, our competitors are drafting more ways to bring us down from the top.” Jung ju sighed heavily, leaving the bed to stand by the window. Light shone bright
“I got home safely yesterday, thanks for asking..” Inn Woo commented sarcastically, bowing to Min-a. A guilty look flashed in Min-a's eyes. “I am sorry, Inn Woo. You look fine and you always do after every hangover, it makes me think that you are just this secret agent who's just good at everything..” Min-a tried being charismatic with him so could forgive him without necessarily asking for forgiveness. “Uhm, if you’d bothered to ask before, you would learn that I never even got to my room, I slept off in my garage, right beside a Blue bike.” Inn Woo shook his head. “Wait a moment..” Min-a paused, getting on his feet again, doing little jumps just to stretch his legs. He came to a halt. “I thought you had a Black bike?” Min-a asked, his face contoured with confusion. “Exactly. I took the wrong bike home. I asked Ji Won to help me call his Club Chauffeur service to ask for the owner so I could exchange it back and take my baby home. She spent a whole night withou
“How may we help you?” Inn Woo asked cheerfully, staring between both of them. He could sense the sibling tension. “Bom, can you give us like five minutes?” Eun Hye asked in a nice voice, calling Inn Woo a nickname that always makes his heart flutter. He didn't need to be told twice after that lovely heartwarming gesture before he took his leave. Inn Woo nodded at Min-a, before trying to give Eun Hye an awkward handshake, which he failed to do because of his shyness. He then whispered to Min-a to bring the food along, pretty sure Eun Hye also heard. When they were alone, the annoyance in Min-a's eyes became even more visible. “What do you want?” He snapped, staring down at her. The sudden coldness in his voice startled Eun Hye. She moved back a little, the hurt in her heart radiating all over her face. “Are you still mad at me because of yesterday? Because I don't even know what the fuck I did to get you this mad in the first place.” Eun Hye sounded
Inn Woo stood by the sidelines, watching the next set play since Min-a was taking forever to talk to his older sister. She did have his one hundred percent love and support since she brought food because that was all that mattered. After at least 15 minutes of switching from foot to foot and watching amateurs play, he decided he had had enough and was starting to get scarily hungry. Tired of waiting, Inn Woo turned around just in time to face Min-a storming towards him with a pissed-off countenance, only to stride angrily past him and across the court towards the locker room area. He stared after him in disbelief before turning around again to see Eun Hye walking off toward the parking lot. The food she brought lay on the bench untouched by any of them. Confused and torn apart, he tried to run after Min-a only to have the ball fly past his face, missing his nose by just a few inches. Inn Woo took that as a sign. “I hear you, universe. The food first.” He ran t
Duncan has done so many difficult jobs on his way to the top. Jobs that made him question his decision to take it in the first place. Living in the Seo household for the next 6 months was a decision he was starting to question and it was only the fourth day. A graveyard had nothing on stillness in the Seo's household right now. Min-a stayed shut in his room. Eun Hye also wouldn't come out either and their father was out of the question for him. Duncan eavesdropped on their conversation last night and he heard everything. Including the insulting slap, Seo Jung Ju gave to Min-a after he mentioned sucking cock. That was part of the reason why Duncan gave Min-a almost an entire day to himself to collect his traumatized mind together. Though, he still hovered close, once in a while checking if Min-a came online or eavesdropping by his door for any movement. Then he would do the same for Eun Hye. It was exhausting, truly exhausting to be checking on two grown adults, but what
Jung Ju took his attention away from his screen, looking above his glasses to stare at Eun Hye, “I saw it.” He replied simply, going back to clicking on his keyboard. Eun Hye had to stifle a scoff. His expression was so melancholic, almost neutral like he was silently mocking her. “When Min-a shows up, I will review the contract.” Jung Ju said out of nowhere. On cue, Min-a pushed the door gently, slipping inside and appearing beside Eun Hye. “Good, you showed up.” Jung Ju muttered unenthusiastically. He moved his chair closer to the table hunching over the contract book. Sending both of them a cold glance, he flipped the cover open. Eun Hye could feel her soul leaving her, with every page he flipped and every neutral expression his face held, she felt herself getting paler. She inhaled through her teeth, a deep shaky breath that caught Min-a's attention. “Where the hell did you get that contract from?” Min-a hissed at her, nudging h
“Older sister, for the love of god, don't even for once fucking say you did it to protect me from being exploited by Father because you were doing no different. Don't say you knew I won't be able to handle the heat because I was the one doing the dirty jobs for you.” Min-a shot to his feet, attempting to walk out before stopping in his tracks. “I don't feel sorry for you, just so you know. What hurts is that I would still be dragged down by your own mess.” And with that, he stormed off to the back of the house, a place he barely came to. It harbored the only indoor swimming pool they had. He had no plans of getting wet, he only wanted to pretend it was the beach when he stirred the water, so it sounded like water clapping against the shores. Time flew by insanely fast when you weren't watching its every move. No one had to inform Min-a that his father was home. The temperature in the house significantly dropped. A night maid popped through the black screen glass door
After Eun Hye’s fourth glass, it occurred to her that she never really filled Heidi in on her ordeal with her father, especially the aftermath. Heidi was her assistant, so she decided to discuss further possibilities like herself being replaced by a more compatible man from the board; so the old fellows could finally sleep at night. Since Seo Eun Hye assumed the role of CEO for one of Seo's premier assets, their Digital Advertising agency, the male members of the corporate board consistently opposed her. Each task she undertook only intensified the pressure on her to deliver efficiently. Taking her last gulp and emptying the wine bottle, she concluded her last option was to face the heat in the kitchen. The only issue was her father was the chef. Spacing around to calm her anxiety, Min-a crossed her mind again. She left her room and headed towards his side of his glass mansion, dropping the empty bottle on the kitchen counter on her way there. Eun Hye met
“Teacher and student my foot…” Duncan smirked. “I guess Min-a does have a type.” He walked away from the half-done painting to the others on the walls. Some were unhinging, reminding Duncan that he would never fully understand the kid's twisted mind. The most captivating was a dashing play of Red and black. If anyone could portray angst, using nothing but color palettes to depict struggle and elegance, it was Min-a. That was his specialty. He didn't need to paint human beings. As Duncan remembered him saying; “Feeling is not a human quality, feeling is an energy that can be shown through any medium, from sound to silence.” “This boy only grows scarier everyday.” Duncan muttered to himself, leaving the gallery worthy experience behind to finally sit on his bed. The bed dipping didn't even wake Min-a up, he had his long hair sprawled across his face. Duncan was amazed by how lush and long it had become since the last time he saw him a
For most of the ride back to Seo’s Family home, Duncan Laurence and Seo Eun Hye spent it catching up on each other's lives and accomplishments, which included the fact that Eun Hye made it to the CEO status she always dreamed of being as a kid. They got to the mansion somewhere around five in the evening after Duncan made them stop at his favorite ice cream spot around the corner. It had gone through an entire renovation and a lot more ice cream flavors had been added to its serving menus. “I don't know if it's just me but I think Mr. Kwan doesn't really like me..” Duncan still felt unsure because he barely knew the guy. He just met him today and yet, nothing about him felt receptive. It was almost like he was back in the Netherlands again where he was seen as a foreigner just because he had bold Asian genes. “Kwan Seung-ho?” Eun Hye couldn't help but laugh. “If only you witnessed our first few interactions. He is a straightforward person and very b
Duncan chuckled, shaking his head as he racked his mind for memories. “I think I was there when he was born.” He muttered proudly. Seo Eun Hye rolled her eyes at his revelation. She filled in for Duncan, giving Kwan Seung-ho the details she knew he was asking for. “Deon is like our closest buddy while we were growing up. I mean, at one point, I thought Min-a had an infatuation, like a ‘man crush’, or something for Deon because of the way he followed him everywhere..” Eun Hye smiled fondly at the memories of Little Min-a wanting to sit on Duncan’s lap no matter the space around them. And Duncan never once complained or pushed him away. “Man crush?” Seung-ho did not like that choice of phrase at all, it didn't taste good on his tongue. “Yeah..that was a pretty accurate definition.” Duncan nodded. “Min-a was the most adorable kid. He was such a lively little turbo-energy boy.” He reminisced with fondness in his eyes. “He would make us
After Duncan Laurence’s mother's death, he moved back with his father to The Netherlands where his father worked and lived with their extended family. His mother, Kim Haera, was best friends with Jin Eun Min, Min-a, and Eun Hye’s mother. As devastating as her death was for little Duncan, it didn't stop him from chasing his dream in Architecture for it was all he could remember doing as a kid. Drawing was the similar ground that brought him and Min-a closer despite their age gap of 4 years. He was the first to recognize Min-a's artistic skills and so he got him his first set of canvas and paintbrush on his 10th birthday. Min-a, unlike other kids, didn't start art by drawing their favorite cartoon character or a friend, he started by drawing shades of different lighting because he wanted to see how it made him feel. That was Duncan's confirmation that Min-a was a special kid. His views still hadn't changed about him as he sat on the waiting bench fo
“I kept screaming “Haneul” while he jerked in my arms, convulsing. He said something like “Sorry, Mother.” before he lost consciousness. But after he woke up, he said he didn't remember anything, so we never talked about it. I think the name always triggers him after he does something he knows he shouldn't.” Eun Hye finally met his eyes with her teary ones. Seung-ho pulled his hands away from Eun Hye’s. This information only made him feel worse. “Mr. Kwan.” Eun Hye was about to warn him not to let Min-a know about this when her phone vibration disrupted her. Thinking it was Min-a, she picked it up fast. “Min-a?” Eun Hye called out in excitement. “No, Deon. I have been at the Seoul airport for 2 hrs now. Weren't you supposed to pick me up?” Duncan sounded stressed. His plane had been delayed for a whole 24 hours and still, his designated chauffeur was not on time. “Oh shit, I’m so sorry., Deon. It was actually Min-a, who was supposed to come g