Author's note: This is the generally safe-for-work version, though there will be naughty parts.

Nothing can help me but that beauty.
There was a dawn I remember when
my soul heard something from your soul.
I drank water from your spring
and felt the current take me

                                               - Rumi

Ji Chang Wook had sat bitterly on the bench, quietly cursing himself. He had wanted more than anything to pull her into his arms. To show this mystery girl all the pleasures that could be had if she would only let him.
 

But she had stood there silent, refusing to look at him. He had been this close to just taking her anyway; but then he had pulled back. The intensity of what he felt terrified him. What kind of monster was he becoming? 
 

And so now he sat, with shaking hands, trying to calm the demons inside. Filled with digust and loathing that he had even thought of despoiling her innocence for a few moments of pleasure. She was a hardworking girl probably doing her best to make a living while he indulged in useless amusements because he was numb inside. What the hell was he thinking?

He puffed on his cigarette and even without looking he knew her eyes were watching him.

She didn't say a word, but he muttered out some inanity anyway to justify his bad habit. His Omma had nagged him about it and some well-meaning friends had warned him he was killing his lungs with the amount he smoked; but this thought sometimes filled him with a dark pleasure. 

Ever since that bitter day when he had realized Life wasn't kind and Fate was a fickle B*tch, he had been slowly tempting the powers that be to smite him down. Each outrageous act that tormented his CEO and got his name in the papers for the wrong reasons amused him. 
 

The fact was, he had never bothered to contest the contract he and the CEO had signed. In his early days of rage and anger he had contemplated finding a lawyer and taking the whole damn thing to court. He was penniless, true, but even if he never recovered one cent he'd get the bitter satisfaction of exposing the whole sham. But then he realized, he'd also expose his own gullibility and for some damn reason, his pride wouldn't let him.
 

He had owned nothing then but his name. 
 

And so, the past couple of years he'd been pursuing projects with a vengence to make sure that name was synonymous with success. Offers now were flying at his feet. His legions of fans had grown and in their eyes he could do no wrong. Even the media, always keen to tear people down, worshipped breathlessly at his feet. In that much at least the CEO had not lied. At the pinnacle he, Ji Chang Wook, was unstoppable.
 

So why the hell then did it all feel so meaningless? He had shown them all he could make it. Through sheer determination he had risen above the wreckage and rebuilt what he