[CONTENTID1]Thoughts[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]Chapter Six[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

Jakyung found her way to a balcony and was leaning against the railing, taking sips from the Aunt Roberta cocktail she had mixed for her and the three guys. The music was bleeding out from the sliding glass doors, but she didn’t mind the background noise, as it helped to keep her mind from wandering too much. She hated it when her mind wandered.

She hated it because it usually wandered to that day 10 months ago when she was told that her Nana’s cancer had relapsed, and this time it was terminal. They said she wouldn’t make it past the next summer. 365 days, they’d said. The best doctors her richer-than-sin parents could afford and they’d said a year. A year.

Nana died two months after her diagnosis.

All her life, Jakyung had lived with her Nana. When her parents decided to move back to Seoul when she was 9, Jakyung opted to stay with Nana in Anyang. Occasionally, Taekyung would come to visit, but their parents hardly ever came themselves. They didn’t come after Nana was first diagnosed with cancer when Jakyung was 12. They didn’t come when Jakyung was 15 and Nana needed to have surgery to remove a tumor. And they didn’t come when, on a routine check-up, Nana was told that her cancer was back stronger than ever. They didn’t even bother to send a card. They only sent Jakyung the name of the doctors Nana should see in Seoul.

Jakyung only saw them at the company events they made her go to in order to keep up the façade of a normal family. They were too busy training Taekyung to take over the family business to visit. It was her duty as the youngest child, they’d told her, to take care of her ailing grandmother. Nana would only smile and pat her back and tell her that in their way, their parents were looking out for her.

Jakyung never believed it.

Her parents ran an international imports company that had branches in China and the US, so their time was split between the three countries. When she was younger, she had been allowed to go on the trip sometimes, but as she grew older, and Nana got sick, she was forced to stay in Korea and be the good filial daughter.

She never resented Nana. In fact, she loved the time she spent with the woman who was closer to her than her own mother. Nana taught her about the real world. Nana taught her how to cook, and how to mix drinks and how to fix a loose spark plug. Kris wasn’t too far off when he said that Nana must have been one wild granny. She was.

Park Ok-Ja was a woman with hair that never seemed to want to stay straight, and with a temper to match her wild hair. Jakyung didn’t know her grandfather, but she knew that the man fell in love with Nana for her wild spirit and carefree ways. After his death, Nana chose to open up a lounge in downtown Anyang that was a hit amongst the middle-aged singles in the city. They wouldn’t party like the younger set, but they certainly knew how to get down, and Nana had no problem catering to them. Sometimes, the older woman even entrusted the bar to Jakyung while she went to “schmooze and booze” as she called it.

Immediately after Nana died, Jakyung’s parents brought her to Seoul in a sad attempt to give her a change in pace. They didn’t know enough about her and her closeness to Nana to realize that Jakyung would never just get over it. They expected her to move her whole life, change everything she had come to be, to fit their ideal image of a daughter. They spent months sending bodyguard after bodyguard to fetch her every time she ran off back to Anyang. The babysitters, as Jakyung not-so-affectionately called them, never quite caught on to how she would slip out of their watch in the first place, and that was another reason Jakyung was grateful to Nana. The old woman knew how to lose a tail better than anyone, and taught the skill to Jakyung soon after her parents moved to Seoul and sent bodyguards to make sure she didn’t get into any trouble.

Jakyung took a shuddering breath as a cool April breeze set goose bumps on her arms. She glanced down at the drink in her hand and inwardly groaned at the sight of the last dregs of blackberry liqueur pooling in the bottom of the glass. This is why she didn’t like her mind wandering. She never knew how may drinks she consumed when she wasn’t paying attention, and she hated the feeling of vulnerability she was left with when she realized how far removed she’d taken herself from her surroundings.

“I would ask how an angel like you ended up in a hell hole like this, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with one of my friends kind of kidnapping you.”

Jakyung spun on her heel fast, and her body wavered, not having had time to adjust to the amount of alcohol in her system. Hands were around her waist and a body pressed close to her own before she knew what was happening. She stared into the eyes of the guy that prevented her from falling and blinked. He let go of her slowly and took a step back. She let out another shuddering breath and turned back to the balcony railing. He tentatively took his place by her side, unabashedly staring at her.

“Didn’t I ask you not to ever touch me?” Jakyung asked softly, gazing out at the pool in the backyard. She heard a soft chuckle from beside her and saw Suho grin out of the corner of her eye.

“Well I couldn’t just let you fall over,” he said. “How chivalrous would that have been? Besides, I saw Kai lifting you up on the bar. How scandalous.”

“That kid’s got scandal written in neon paint across his forehead,” Jakyung snorted.

“You’re a lot friendlier today than yesterday,” Suho noted. Jakyung shrugged.

“It’s probably the alcohol talking.”

“Yeah, probably.”

They stood in silence before Jakyung straightened up, tugged the edge of her dress down and walked back inside. Suho could only stare as she walked away, wondering about the girl who was too lost in her thoughts to notice how she captivated those around her.

++

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Jakyung ignored the throaty voice and kept her