Chu Sojung rarely cared about anyone.

But Kim Hyunjung was an exception.

Hyunjung was the only person who wasn't scared of Sojung. Sojung felt normal when she was with Hyunjung. Hyunjung didn't run away or flinch at the sight of Sojung. Hyunjung made sure Sojung knew that she wasn't afraid of her.

Chu Sojung never got attached to anyone.

But Kim Hyunjung was an exception.

And it was because of Chu Sojung that Kim Hyunjung was now in danger.

Hyunjung went to her classes after staying the night at Sojung's penthouse. Sojung dropped Hyunjung off at the campus. Hyunjung wasn't working that night, so she had no reason to see Sojung for the rest of the day. Hyunjung happily walked off into the university building, whilst Sojung stayed parked up. A few minutes later, a black Rolls-Royce pulled up next to her. Sojung rolled her window down and the person in the other car did the same.

"We can take it from here." The woman in the car said. "Xuanyi's already in the building. Hyunjung will be safe."

"If anything happens, no matter how small, please tell me." Sojung said.

"I will. But we'll make sure everything will be fine." The woman said.

"Thanks, Meiqi." Said Sojung, before she rolled her window back up and drove off.

Hyunjung arrived just in time for her lecture and took her usual seat. There was a girl she'd never seen before sat in the seat next to hers. Hyunjung figured that she'd transferred from another course or something, then the girl introduced herself.

"Hi! I'm Xuanyi. I just transferred here from China. I hope you don't mind me sitting here." The girl, Xuanyi, said.

Hyunjung smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Xuanyi. I'm Hyunjung, and I don't mind you sitting by me! It'd be nice to have a new friend in this class anyway."

The teacher came in and started to hand out the newest assignment, so Hyunjung focused her attention on the work, whilst Xuanyi texted Meiqi.

"Made contact. Subject safe."

Chu Sojung never meant to become a "gangster", or whatever people wanted to call her. In fact, she'd lived an okay life. When she was younger, her parents would take her to church every Sunday.

She was a bright student in elementary school and had a lot of friends. From the way things were going, Sojung was going to grow up to be a responsible, smart adult with a promising life. But then when high school came along, Sojung fell in with the wrong crowd.

She started smoking, skipping school, and not returning home for days. Then she joined a gang. She was nobody important at first, just someone who delivered goods to people, but soon Sojung grew bored of that and so had a few others, so they branched off and made their own gang, Sojung being the leader.

When Sojung's parents found out what she'd been doing, they were horrified and urged her to stop. So Sojung pretended she had and went back to school. She was the leader of her own gang, she had people to do things for her. Sojung managed to graduate and her parents expected her to go to college, but Sojung didn't.

Sojung worked on expanding her empire and started earning a ton of money. Her gang were doing all sorts now, but that meant they were also being noticed by rival gangs who weren't fond of them. But if anyone got in Sojung's way, all it took was a bullet and they were gone.

Sojung was ruthless. Brutal. She didn't care about anyone. She'd murdered more people than she could remember and had people in her gang kill even more. They were becoming unstoppable. Sojung never took any of the drugs her gang dealt. The only bad habit she had was smoking, but she was managing to cut down.

Eventually, Sojung had enough money to buy a penthouse. She wanted her own quiet space. Her parents had already disowned her at that point, and she was tired of sleeping at a different house every night. After buying her penthouse, Sojung got a car. She learnt to drive so she could use it and never had to use public transport.

At that point the public were terrified of her, seeing her face plastered over various murder accusations. Everyone knew she was responsible for her crimes, but the police never had any evidence. There were even rumours of the gang bribing the police to keep things quiet, but if you asked any of the gang then you wouldn't live to hear the answer.

So how did Chu Sojung, one of Seoul's biggest gangsters, end up befriending Hyunjung?

Sojung had originally gone to the bar that night to relax with some friends and talk about business when she saw the girl at the bar. When she approached and Hyunjung didn't even know who she was, she knew that she liked Hyunjung. She was different. Sojung felt a connection and wanted to get closer to Hyunjung. She knew that the girl's friends wouldn't approve, but Hyunjung didn't seem to care. Hyunjung wasn't in it for the money or bragging rights. Hyunjung just seemed to want to be friends too, and that made Sojung feel normal for the first time in so long.

But with all good things, bad things must come too.

Someone must have seen them together at some point and noticed Sojung taking a liking to Hyunjung. Things like this had happened in the past. If Sojung got close to someone, her enemies could hurt them to get to her. So Sojung never got close enough to anyone for it to hurt when they were taken away. But she couldn't let that happen to Hyunjung. She wanted to be friends with Hyunjung, so she would have to protect the other girl.

That's why she'd hired Meiqi and Xuanyi. She'd known them for a while and had people protected by them before. She knew they were good at their job. When Sojung had explained the circumstances to the two, they were somewhat surprised.

"The way you talk about her, are you sure you're just friends?"

"Do you have a crush on her? That's cute."

"I've never seen you care so much about someone before."

"She is pretty though. If we weren't already engaged to each other, I'd hit on her."

Sojung kept telling herself it wasn't a crush.

But there was only so many lies she could tell.