January 18, 2007

"Come on sweetie! If you don't hurry we're going to miss the movie!"

"I'll be ready in a couple minutes, ok?"

"If you're not ready in 3 minutes I'm leaving you behind!"

Hayoon giggle at her boyfriends empty threat, he won't leave her behind. She looked into the mirror and stared at her reflection looking for any flaws in her hair or makeup. She turned off the lights in her bathroom and went to her closet to pick out her shoes, deciding on a pair of black and white converse for the couple's relaxed date night. She went down stairs and grabbed her coat, already starting to go out the door.

"Waiting on you slow poke!" Hayoon yelled to her boyfriend, but there was no sarcastic comeback. "Yay! Let's go!" There was still no reply. Hayoon closed the front door, keeping it unlocked. She quietly walked towards the kitchen, noticing that the swinging door was moving very slightly. Moving closer to the door she heard shuffling. "Come on, let's go." Hayoon tried to keep her voice from sounding shaken. There was a big crash and then silence from the kitchen.

Hayoon moved away from the kitchen door and went to her coat closet, she grabbed her KEL-TEC P3AT pistol and checked the magazine for bullets. She moved towards the kitchen again, the pistol's safety no longer locked.

"One. Two. Three." Hayoon whispered before pushing through the door and pointing the pistol into the empty kitchen. "No one?" She pushed herself against the refrigerator and started her way out of the second swinging door of the kitchen which led to the dining room.

"Gotcha!" Ryeowook yelled from behind the china cabinet. Hayoon pointed the gun towards the cabinet and fired three rounds. All, luckily, missing her boyfriend.

"Woah! What the Yoon?" Ryeowook yelled at her.

"What are you doing?" Hayoon yelled back. "You scared the out of me! What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that it'd be a fun, harmless joke! But you almost killed me! Why do you have a gun?"

"For self defense you dumb-!"

They tried to keep their faces straight, but to no avail. They both busted out laughing.

"Dumb-?" Ryeowook said in between giggles, "Really?"

"I'm sorry I almost shot you. Can we go to the movies now?" Hayoon said, trying to add humor to the serious situation. Ryeowook nodded his head and they both left for the movies.

January 22, 2007

After the shooting incident, Hayoon thought it was time to tell her boyfriend of three years the truth about her family.

"So then, I was telling them to back off, you know being the big manly guy I am. Then one guy was like, 'I don't think you have the guts.'. And then BAM! I punched him in the nose so hard, there was blood everywhere. You should have seen the looks on their faces, they were so scared. Nobody even bothered to help the guy with the bloody nose, they all just ran for the hills. And that's how I got my bullies to back off. Aren't I cool, Yoon?" Ryeowook looked at you, expecting you to be in amazement of his manly story. "Yoon? Stuck up in your thoughts again?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry."

"What are you thinking about, you've been in space all day."

"Um. I don't really know how to tell you this, but," Hayoon took a deep breath. "I think it's time I told you about my parents and maybe you could meet my mom."

"Really?" Ryeowook looked surprised. Hayoon had always refused to talk about family affairs. Hayoon nodded slowly, carefully watching his reaction. "I would love too!"

"Ok, but first, you need to know about my mom's line of work. You have to promise not to freak out."

"Is she a stripper? Because then that's a deal breaker." Ryeowook said jokingly.

"What? No!" Hayoon laughed a little. "She's a business woman."

"That's it? My mom's a business woman too, no big deal sweetheart."

"No. That's not it. Her business is kind of, well, different."

"Different?"

"Yeah, she um." Hayoon looked around the small, almost empty, coffee shop. "We should probably go somewhere else to talk about this. How about the park?"

"Ok." Ryeowook said suspiciously, "Why can't you tell me here?"

"There's a lot of cameras here, and you don't know if there could be wire taps around." Hayoon said with a straight face.

"Cameras? Wire taps? What are you talking about?"

"Just come on, let's go for a walk."

Hayoon grabbed onto Ryeowook's arm and pulled him out of his seat. They thanked the baristas and left the coffee shop. Hayoon was silent, as was Ryeowook. She was thinking of the right thing to say to not completely freak him out.

"Can you tell me now?"

"My mom, she, uh." Hayoon looked around and spoke quietly. "She, uh, she's a."

"Come on, Yoon! Spit it out!"

"Shhhh! Keep it down." She placed her gloved hand over Ryeowook's mouth. She stopped walking and held onto Ryeowook's hands, making sure he can't run away. "She's the leader of an organized crime gang. She runs the mafia around here. She owns rackets and businesses, she helps politicians win elections, she supplies other gangs with 'goods'." Hayoon looked down in shame. She didn't choose to be the daughter of a mafia boss.

"Oh." Ryeowook cleared his throat. "That's um... that's a job."

"I'm sorry. Just know, that I'm not like her, and I don't plan to be."

"I understand that, but wow." They both remained silent for a couple of minutes. Ryeowook's eyes shifting around, thinking and processing the information given to him. Hayoon's eyes trained on Ryeowook to gauge his reaction. He looked down at her and sighed, his grip on her hands loosening a little. She lost him, it's too much for him to handle. Hayoon moved to look at her shoes, accepting defeat.

"I get it. You don't want to be with-"

"So when can I meet her?"

Hayoon's eyes shot up and looked at him in a amazement and wonder.

"What?" She asked quietly.

"When do I get the honor of meeting your mother? Hopefully soon, because I would like to have her blessings."

"Blessings? What blessings?"

Ryeowook knelled on the floor and grabbed a small black box out of his coat pocket. Hayoon gasped and put her hand that wasn't holding Ryeowook's to .

"Kim Hayoon, will you marry me?"