A/n: And….yes, unfortunately, another side chapter. Let’s dwell on the past a bit longer, eh? This chapter and the next are mostly explanation chapters. And particularly for this side chapter, there will be a lot of “new” characters here and I don’t expect you to empathize with them, much less to remember them. It’s just that they have to be there, so pardon the confusion on who’s who here.

Side Chapter 5

[The Little Murderer]

If there was anything that Jung Dong Wook regretted the most in his life, it was this.

The news of Yoon Seung Hun’s suicide reached him that morning through a brief phonecall from the Embassy, and he could feel the gravity was pulling him down, he could feel the oxygen was out of his lungs, he could feel the surge of emotions –ire, disgust, fear, guilt, sadness – twirling inside his heart.

How could it happen? How could it slip off his calculation? Seung Hun’s whereabouts should have been something that only he knew. Not only that Dong Wook had offered Seung Hun’s a sanctuary in San Francisco, but he had also secretly hired some guards around Seung Hun’s apartment there. Dong Wook had taken all possible measures to silently protect Seung Hun’s and his daughter’s life. It went without saying that being a Jung gave him a privilege to control a lot of things. His money brought the best guards, his money hired the sharpest private investigators, his money –

Money.

If money was in question, then the answer would not stretch too far from it either. The Jung might have been insanely rich, but the Jung was not the only one having a complete authority over money.

Der Märchenclub.

“Oh, no,” Dong Wook muttered, feeling nauseous all so sudden and dropping his body down to the floor the next second.

“Dear! What’s wrong?! Who just called you?” a woman, with her feminine voice, bombarded him with questions. Dong Wook looked up to see his wife, Ara –who glanced down at him with worries evident on her natural hazel eyes.

“It’s the Korean Embassy,” mournfully informed Dong Wook. “Seung Hun… was found to have committed suicide in his apartment two nights ago.”

Jung Ara was never that close to Seung Hun. But Ara’s belief on her husband was something that she had been given the credit for. If Dong Wook believed in Seung Hun, then Ara would also do the same thing. If Dong Wook cared for Seung Hun, then Ara would have the exact same feeling.

“Oh my…” the Jung lady drew her hands to her lips, unable to let a word for the next few seconds. When she finally regained her control back, she asked her husband again, “And his daughter? What about that poor Miyoung?”

“…Nowhere to be found,” Dong Wook slowly replied. He drew a long sigh and stood up. His thoughts were still disarrayed, but it did not mean he did not know what to do. The question, however, was whether he would be willing to do what he had to do.

“Ara?” Dong Wook called out for his wife.

“…yes?”

                                                      `

“Will you stay by my side through whatever decision I’m going to take from now on?”

It was nearly a rhetorical question, really. The moment Ara spoke her solemn vow when she married Jung Dong Wook eight years prior, she had no intention to take back her words, her faith, and her loyalty for her husband.

“Through everything,” she whispered. “I promised you that.”

A small smile was formed on Dong Wook’s face. He reached out to his wife and gently caressed her cheeks. “Thank you.”

Dong Wook had been friend with Seung Hun for a relatively short amount of time –at least compared to his other friends in Der Märchenclub whom he had known practically since their childhoods. Nonetheless, Dong Wook always claimed that his friendship to Seung Hun had nothing to do with time, or how long they had known each other. There was something about Seung Hun’s sincerity, Seung Hun’s dedication that Dong Wook found to be pure in the midst of the partnership and friendships formed out of duties and business. Dong Wook had thought that he knew Seung Hun the best, but Dong Wook had not been that courageous to stand by his best friend through the hardest time of his life.

Dong Wook had betrayed Seung Hun. Through silence, through dismissal, through ignorance and fear, Dong Wook had left his friend to face the worst end.

Dong Wook did not know whether Seung Hun would ever forgive him for that. But Dong Wook swore over his friend’s dead body, that he would set things back to what they were supposed to be.

However, it was not an easy ordeal.

For the first time after three years since the Fourth Generation’s Der Märchenclub meeting, Dong Wook invited the members back. It was a week after the official announcement of Seung Hun’s death, a week after Dong Wook made up his mind. The little reunion was not the most pleasant one, but all members agreed to come.

Is this how you’ve been feeling all these times, Seung Hun? Dong Wook mentally asked as he braced himself to stare back at those suspicious eyes looking back at him.

The fear started to infiltrate back to his mind. But it only took Ara’s reassuring squeeze around his hand and her calming smile to make him gather his courage again.

Dong Wook skipped the idle talk and went straight to the point.

“What have you done to Seung Hun?”

The question was simple, but the answer was not so.

After nearly a minute of silence, Si Hoo from the Kim family became the first one to give his response. “Nothing. We know that you two were close to each other, but we were equally as shocked when we heard the dreadful news.”

“Dreadful?” Dong Wook echoed blandly, trying to find the sincerity in Si Hoo’s words.

“It was a great loss of one of our brothers –“

The comment ignited a fury that Dong Wook did not realize he possessed. “You’ve never considered him as a part of our brotherhood!” he yelled. He nearly wished that his wife would stop him from making more scenes, but to Dong Wook’s relief, Jung Ara sat firm, showing her endless support towards her husband without having to proclaim it out loud. His wife’s silent support coaxed him to let out more of his suppressed thoughts. “Y-you all have always hated him! Envied him! And when he was trying to do the right thing to d-do, y-you killed him.”

Kwon Hyuna stammered. Dragging her shivering fingers to her red-tinted lips, she responded, “H-how dare you accused us for murdering someone, Oppa! Yoon Seung Hun committed a suicide. We have nothing to do with it!”

What a brilliant actress, Dong Wook thought.

“I’ve got the proofs. The private detective I hired has the proof,” challenged Dong Wook. A mild shrill ran through his spine when he caught the way Choi Myungsoo’s eyes darkened and Im Junghyun’s fist clenched.

Seung Jo, a man known for his temper from the Cho family, stood up and slammed his hands to the table. “So what, Dong Wook?! That bastard was threatening us! He was tryingto destroy our families! Do you think we should just stand by and watch?!”

“You could have spared his life!” Dong Wook shouted back, still not believing that they would admit it already. So soon, so effortless (please deny it, my friends).

Somewhere within his heart, Dong Wook prayed that his accusation would not be true. Seung Hun might have been his friend, but so were the other members of Der Märchenclub. As much as he had known the rotting tradition and darkness that shadowed all of their families, Dong Wook still hoped for something good beneath all those hideous looking pretenses.

Seung Jo had just proven him wrong.

Pretenses gone, the truth bit him harder than anything Dong Wook had ever encountered.

“That bastard won’t stop! He is trying to make us penniless, he is trying to ruin our good names, the honors that our families have been protecting for generation –“

“We never have good names to begin with!” Dong Wook screamed. “We’ve been living our lives through lies and pretenses! What we are now is something that is –“

“Don’t be naïve, Dong Wook. The world has never questioned morality anyway,” lazily interrupted Kim Hyungseung, who was sitting next to him, with a smile. “Seung Hun tried to act heroic and look where it got him now.”

The comment blinded Dong Wook.

Before his wife could stop him, before Hyungseung could prepare himself, Dong Wook laid a powerful punch on the Kim’s face. “Seung Hun is ten times better than you!”

The Kim heir, taking off his usual sly grin, was ready to fight back for his dignity. But before he could do so, his older brother beat him to it.

“Hyungseung, refrain yourself,” Kim Si Hoo mandated as he firmly grabbed his younger brother’s arm. The angered Hyungseung glared at his brother, but one calm, authoritative glance from Si Hoo was enough to make Hyungseung sit back again. Displaying a look of disgust to Dong Wook, Hyungseung then cast his glance elsewhere.

Si Hoo took charge of the situation from there. “And what are you going to do now, Jung Dong Wook? Your family might be clear from Seung Hun’s investigation, but that does not mean you are ready to throw away your own brotherhood this way, right?”

“Who knows?” retorted Dong Wook. “As you’ve said. The Jung has not done anything wrong. I have nothing on stake if I–“

“You turn your back against your so-called best friend. Is this your way to make yourself feel better about yourself?” challenged Si Hoo. “You once betrayed your friend. And now you are going to betray your other friends?”

Cho Seung Jo suddenly laughed as he clapped his hands. All eyes were looking back at the man, and he only replied in a nonchalant manner, “Sorry, sorry. It’s just that Si Hoo Hyung’s words reminded me of something. The Jung is indeed a traitor.”

Dong Wook seethed in anger. “Don’t talk about my family –“

“Exactly, Dong Wook,” another voice demanded –this one was the man from the Choi family, Myungsoo. “Family. In the end, we do what we have to do for our families. Stopping Seung Hun might have seemed horrendous at first, but we are all doing it to save our families –“

“You’re not protecting your families! What you are protecting are only your images, your wealth, your names –“

“And those are what define our families, aren’t they?”

Dong Wook was silenced.

Was this why Seung Hun had always been disgusted with Der Märchenclub? Der Märchenclub was indeed the club for the elite, the brotherhood of the wealthiest heirs and heiresses. And at the same time, the club stood to protect the ugly-hearted people pampered in expensive suits and dresses. It was an exclusive club established based on decades of corruption, of false brotherhood, of fallacies…

Dong Wook chuckled humorlessly. “Seung Hun was right. Der Märchenclub is a cursed brotherhood.”

“It’s not, Dong Wook,” stated Choi Myungsoo. “It has always been an honorable brotherhood. It was you, however, who invited the Curse inside.”

“Seung Hun is not a curse.”

“Look at what we are now, Dong Wook? Had you not stubbornly dragged Seung Hun in, none of –“

“Don’t blame him for –“

“I’m not blaming him. I’m blaming you,” Choi Myungsoo clarified.

“So it’s my fault now?”

“And you are wiser than to make another mistake, Dong Wook,” calmly stated Si Hoo as he took a sip of his coffee.

The statement was far from being a threat. But the message hidden behind it was easily understood. Dong Wook was no exception.

Gritting his teeth, the Jung man then turned to face the Kim heir. “And if I do, Si Hoo? What? Are you going to stop me too?”

Si Hoo put his cup of coffee back to the table. The main heir to the Kim Empire spoke the line simply, casually.

Truthfully.

“With all cost, Dong Wook.”

“I’m sorry, Ara,” Dong Wook confessed to his wife on their way back home from the chaotic meeting that he held with the other members of Der Märchenclub. “I’m sorry. My selfishness will now put our family to –“

“Don’t regret what you’re doing, Dear,” Ara assured. “You are doing the right thing. And I will stand by your side no matter what happens, remember?”

Dong Wook shook his head. “That’s why, I’m sorry. You don’t have to stand by my side –“

“You’re my husband, Dong Wook. And this is a decision that I will never regret.”

A sad smile crossed Dong Wook’s face. He was indeed the luckiest man on earth for having Ara as his wife. Ara had been the flower, even within their little society. The beautiful and graceful Ara, who at the same time, possessed a heart stronger than any other women Dong Wook had ever known. How he wanted to protect his little flower, his family…

“Do you… think that their threat was serious, Ara? Would they really dispose us that easily?”

Ara exhaled a tired sigh. “We can never know for sure.”

“We have to protect our family, Ara. Seoul is no longer a safe place for our family.”

“Are you suggesting that we have to move out of town?”

“We can stay in our villa in Auckland, until the situation calms down.”

“It will never calm down, Dong Wook,” Ara told Dong Wook what he regretfully had to concede as a truth. “At least not for a long time. Maybe we can have another talk with them again?”

“They will not listen.”

“We have not tried.”

“We tried today, remember?”

“We can try again,” Ara insisted.

“It will be useless, Ara,” Dong Wook stated, his tone was final.

Ara was silenced and they mutually decided to drop the subject there. Kissing his wife’s forehead, Dong Wook slowly laid his tired body down to their bed. He tried to forget the events that occurred that day, but what he forgot was another thing instead.

That Ara was not only the most beautiful rose; Ara was indeed a rose whose thorns were the sharpest.

“What a…pleasant surprise,” Kim Hyunseung noted as he descended down the stairs of the Kim estate. His eyes lit up when he saw the figure of Jung Ara, sitting gracefully like a princess she was, in the living room of the Kim Estate. “What business brought you here, Ara?”

“Oppa,” Ara began. She had come to the Kim Estate –knowing that the Kim had the biggest chance to influence the other members. The Kim had most of their family members in Der Märchenclub anyway. And Kim Si Hoo was almost silently dubbed as the one most respected in Der Märchenclub. The Jung lady knew that bringing her husband along would not solve the problem, as the Kim probably had already had their prejudices against Dong Wook. Ara was a woman who knew her strategy.

But the question was, whether she knew how to play such strategy.

“Is your brother home? Si Hoo Oppa?”