[CONTENTID1]Toy[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]Chapter Twenty Five[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

Jakyung stared blankly at the line of trees. She had been staring at the same spot for ten minutes and she knew that the others would be wondering where she was. She had told them she just needed fresh air and had ended up on the balcony, staring out at the inky black sky.

She had come to a few realizations in the week since the incident at the pier. She realized that her plan, her wish to remain aloof and unattached was a complete and utter failure. She had become close to EXO and she wasn’t going to allow herself to feel bad about it. If she did, she would think about the inevitable end and pain she would have to deal with when she lost them, and she hoped that that moment would never have to come. Even if she didn’t know all of them equally well, she certainly trusted all of them with her life.

She had also realized, with morbid clarity, why her brother had hidden the “family business” from her for so long. The violence she could do, the gore she could do, the illegal activities she could do. What she could not stand was knowing that people had died for her. She had already lost her grandmother – who had treated her like the daughter she never had – to illness and she wasn’t about to sit back and wait around while her friends and even those she didn’t know died because of her.

And so her final realization was that she could not remove herself from this life. Park Jakyung was a lot of things, but a coward she was not. Mark’s little gift had left her shaken to her core, and she had resolved to kill him herself. She didn’t care how long it took, and she didn’t care how it got done. She was going to kill him, and she was going to enjoy it when she did.

So as she stared out at the line of trees, she finally felt the last shred of herself break away. All her childhood and teenage pain came in a flood of emotion that should have brought waterworks, but she had cried her last tear when she saw the mutilated bodies of innocent men and women taunting her from their morbid gallery at the pier.

“Jakyung?”

She turned at the sound of Xiumin’s voice calling for her from the sliding door. He wasn’t surprised to be met with her normal blank countenance and slid the door shut behind him as he joined her at the railing.

“It’s really hard to see you like this,” Xiumin told her. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Where’s that spitfire girl with the wicked tongue? I miss my Mario Kart buddy – I still have to challenge her to a Rainbow Road rematch.” Jakyung tried to laugh at his lame humor, but it got stuck in , and she cleared it awkwardly.

“I’m scared, Minseok,” She whispered, keeping her eyes fixed at the trees. His eyes widened at the use of his given name. He wasn’t even aware that she knew it, and so to hear her say it with such a tender voice made his heart flutter for just a moment.

“Mark Tuan scares me more than anything in this world,” she admitted. She hated the vulnerability in her voice, but she knew that this was the first step in her goal. If she didn’t admit it, she would never be able to move past it towards her revenge. “I hate him more than anything in this world. I want to kill him. I’m going to kill him.”

Xiumin stared at her. He had never really known the extent of her relationship to Mark Tuan, but he didn’t have any doubts now that she had said it plainly. What concerned him was her declaration that she would kill him. Even though she was rough, and could be very easily hurtful, he had never thought she could have it in her heart to kill.

“My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth,” She continued, taking his silence as a cue to do so. Her voice had grown cold, and he did not miss her blatant borrowing from Hamlet’s famous speech. “What will it be like, I wonder, to have him suffer at my hands the way I have suffered at his?”

“Is that what you truly want?” Xiumin asked after a moment. Jakyung leveled her gaze with his, and he felt the same rush of attraction he had when they’d had in the closet at school. It had been a while since she had looked at him so intensely.

“I want a lot of things Minseok,” there it was again, his name. “But I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted before.” The conviction with which she said those words made a shiver run down his spine.

“Okay,” was all he managed to say. Jakyung smiled a genuine smile and it was a that time that his attraction for her was teetering dangerously past lust.

“Let’s go back inside. The others might think we’ve gotten up to something.” The Jakyung he was used was back as if she had never gone at all, and he followed her back into the house. Just as she had expected, they received a few curious looks, but Jakyung just brushed it off and resumed her spot next to Yixing on the couch.

Unbeknownst to her, when she had gone off to the balcony, they had been discussing what to do about Mark Tuan. They had been avoiding the topic around her for fear of another breakdown, but once she was out of earshot, they had finalized plans to confer with Taekyung about the incident and make sure that Mark Tuan died a most terrible death. What they didn’t plan on, was her own declaration of her intentions.

“I’m going to join my brother at the company, and I’m going to kill Mark Tuan,” she said abruptly, and Kris, who had walked into the room sipping on a glass of water, promptly spat it back out in surprise. She gave him a grossed out look and rolled her eyes. “Any objections?” Silence.

“Good,” Jakyung clapped her hands together and gave them the same smile she had given Xiumin. No one missed the crazed look in her eyes, but no one spoke up either. They hadn’t been this caught off guard in a while.

The doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of dinner, and the spell of silence was broken.

As soon as dinner was over, Kai dragged Jakyung out of the kitchen and to his room.

“Are you out of your mind?” He asked. Jakyung shrugged and met his concerned look with one of indifference. “Taking an interest in the business side of Park Imports isn’t bad. Killing Mark Tuan? How in the hell do you expect to do that?”

“Miracles don’t happen overnight Kai, I’m not stupid,” she brushed off his concern like it was a piece of dust. “Mark used to work for my father. Said father is now comatose in a hospital, and Mark Tuan is let lose like an abandoned dog. I can’t not do something about it.”

“And killing him is the solution to your problems?” Kai asked incredulously. “What happened at the pier… that wasn’t pleasant, and I can understand your fear but—”

“No, you don’t understand my f