WooHyun’s POV

School became undeniably different.

The tallest, hottest, and richest girls started following me around everywhere.

But I’d never really been into them.

The only girl I’d ever…

I stopped myself. I didn’t have time for this anymore. Kingka, boyfriend, lover… these things were all worthless to me now. I had to think of the many people I was representing in this moment, and strive for only the best.

Which was far easier said than done.

For me, simply staying awake and paying attention in class was terribly difficult. Even keeping my glued to the chair was difficult…

Taking notes? Pfftt… I used to say.

Now, I was struggling to follow the teacher as he taught a fourth year class on a subject I’d never been in until now.

My handwriting was so awkward, my notes so crooked…

And at lunch, I tended to go home now. My driver came and picked me up.

It was just personal preference; after all, there was no one to hang out with now.

Sungjong, Sungyeol, and Hoya only glared at me. Sunggyu, who was my closest friend now, and Dongwoo, who hesitantly waved to me across the halls, stayed out of my way for the most part. Which was expected. Both of them disliked any kind of false attention. They preferred to stay out of the spotlight, especially when that spotlight was incredibly shaky.

To use my accounting teacher’s terms, I was a very poor investment to make.

Which was exactly why Myungsoo came to see me after school.

Myungsoo’s POV

I had to smirk when I saw the house.

The house now had a huge, unavoidable, security gate around it.

It was safe from invaders, that was for sure. But I had no doubt it was also safe from escapers.

As I watched, a black limo pulled up in front of the gates. WooHyun stepped out, in his outfit, wearing his own jacket for once, instead of my old one.

I thought he was going to completely ignore me, but as the gates opened, WooHyun said, without looking at me, “Are you coming in?”

I followed him inside without replying.

“What are you here for?”, WooHyun asked me as we entered his room.

I sat at his desk as he took off his jacket and hung it neatly in his closet.

I looked at his closet, rows and rows of the most expensively tailored suits hung in ordered rows. And on his desk, ten textbooks stacked up in formidable line, and papers and pens everywhere. Most of the papers had numbers on them.

Numbers…

“Stocks”, I answered shortly.

“You want me to set up a stock for you in my company?”, WooHyun said, sitting across from me, on his bed.

So… he didn’t think the Mr.Kim holding 65% of his stocks was Kim Myungsoo, then.

“No”, I replied, “WooHyun, who is the largest stockholder in your company right now?”

“Mr.Kim”, WooHyun replied automatically. He still wasn’t following me. Of course, there were too many Kims in Korea, just as there were too many Nams.

“And what is my last name?”, I probed.

“Ki-“, WooHyun suddenly cut off with a sharp breath of air. He stared at me with wide eyes, searchingly.

I nodded.

“You’re that Mr.Kim!?”, WooHyun asked, incredulous.

“Just like you’re that Mr.Nam”, I responded smoothly.

When I pointed this out, WooHyun seemed to calm down.

“I guess it’s not so shocking after all”, he murmured.    

Of course it wasn’t. Not to him, anyway, the boy who’d had his life changed drastically in a few hours.

“So what is it you want?”, WooHyun asked me. He suddenly looked very tired, almost exhausted. But business was business.

“I want to know how you’re doing. How you’re holding up.”

WooHyun was quiet for a minute, and then he chuckled.

I stared at him warily. Was he cracked in the head?

“The business is running fine. My father’s an accountant and I have a few trustworthy marketers on my side. I wouldn’t worry about your stocks. If anything, they’ll go up just about now. It’s easy to market me right now, as I’m the new kid on the block”, WooHyun explained to me.

“I’m not worried about short term stocks”, I answered stiffly.

“I know, I’ll let you know when to pull out, if ever. I owe you that much”, WooHyun answered.

“Owe?”, I asked him, my eyebrow raised. Why did he think he owed me anything?

“Put it this way”, WooHyun said, showing me out the door, “because you asked me to change into a kingka, I was at least expecting my life to change. Perhaps not this much, but my mind was ready to change. If you hadn’t done that, I’m not sure what I would be like right now, but I know I would have been much worse than this.”

I looked at him; his words were genuine, I knew. WooHyun never could lie. But his words were so ambiguous.

“You mean you wouldn’t have taken the company?”, I asked him.

WooHyun shook his head, “That’s not what I meant.”

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

“It was good of you to come”, WooHyun said, before he shut the door in my face.

So Eun’s POV

I was ambushed on my way home, literally.

Sungjong and Hoya grabbed both my arms, and Sungyeol clapped his hand over my mouth.

“Hey, easy”, Dongwoo warned them.   

“What’s going on?”, I tried to say, but it came out all muffled, “Wuzzgoinon?”

“We’re just taking you out for ice cream”, Sungyeol said slyly.

I sighed. “Can’t you just talk to me here?”, I asked them, “Canyoojusstoktomher?”

“Be quiet! You’re going to get spit on my hand!”, Sungyeol told me.

So I quietly let them lead me to the ice cream shop. We were quite the walking attraction; all bound together like a strange creature.

“What kind of ice cream do you want?”, Sungjong asked me, after we’d shoved, tripped, and stumbled our way through the ice cream store entrance.

“Are you supposed to be nice to me?”, I asked him, once Sungyeol had taken his hand off my mouth to order Avocado and Cotton Candy Ice cream?

 Sungjong shrugged, “Just tell me.”

“Vanilla”, I answered, “I hate chocolate, can’t stand anything chocolate.”

“A triple chocolate scoop for the miss here”, Sungjong called out to the ice cream scooper.

I rolled my eyes and sighed.

Sungjong smirked at me, daring me to challenge him. He was looking down at me, his long eyelashes pointed towards me.  

“You look like a girl”, the words fell out of my lips without a moment’s thoughts.

Sungjong looked angry for a split second before he said, “Oh, well, it’s not my fault if I’m prettier than you.”

I rolled my eyes and let that one go.  

“So…”, I said, when I’d gotten my disgusting triple scoop of ice cream, “Is this all to sabotage my good looks so Myungsoo won’t like me anymore?”

“We could care less about you and Myungsoo”, Sungjong said, arrogantly.

“Yeah, we want to know what’s up with you and WooHyun”, Hoya said, studying me intently.

“What?”, I asked, caught totally off guard.

“You have to have done something to make him like you. I mean, he doesn’t just fall for girls…”, Sungyeol told me.

I was about to insult them all and tell them that I had absolutely no idea why WooHyun had ever liked me when I saw Dongwoo mouthing something at me. I stared at him, trying to make sense of it. Dongwoo sighed and mouthed more obviously.

MAKE. SOMETHING. UP.

His mouthing turned into coughing as all the boys turned to look at him.

Should I trust him?

“Oh, uh, we, um, we’re friends”, I said, trying my best to lie. I could feel the blush creeping up my neck.

“Oh…. Really, how much friends?”, Sungyeol asked me, aggressively poking his fork at me.

“This much”, Dongwoo mouthed to me, spreading his hands apart as far as they could go.

I looked at him quizzically. I barely knew WooHyun!

“Um… this much?”, I tried to say, spreading my hands apart about a foot apart.

There was silence.

“Is that a lot?”, Sungyeol asked, suddenly.

“I don’t know… it’s a lot if we’re talking about finger-length… Not so much hand-length”, Hoya answered.

“Okay, but what about on a scale of arm-length?”, Sungjong asked.

Dongwoo sighed, “Okay, So Eun-sshi, on a scale of one to ten, how much do you like WooHyun?”, and he mouthed to me, “Ten.”

What? What was the purpose of all this?
Without announcing myself, I suddenly got up and left the ice cream shop, bewildered and frustrated.

What was going on?

I heard the boys yelling at me to stop from behind, but I completely ignored them and started running towards my home.

I had almost turned the block when I felt someone grab my hand. I turned around, it was Dongwoo.

Damn, he ran fast.

“So Eun-sshi, wait”, he breathed out.

I yanked my arm away and said, “What the hell was that all about? I don’t even know WooHyun.”

“Those guys weren’t after truth, you know. They’re really angry about how they just got thrown away by two of their closest friends… They would’ve made something up about you and WooHyun to split up you and Myungsoo, so it was better for you to just smooth it over by saying you and WooHyun were just friends…”, Dongwoo told me. I could tell he was being earnest with me, so all of my anger suddenly disappeared.

I felt empty, all of a sudden. How was I supposed to respond to him? I mean, this guy, whom I’ve now known for all of one hour, is watching out for me? He’s never talked to me before in my life! Not even when Myungsoo dropped his kingka status like a bomb…

“What’s going on?”, I asked Dongwoo, dropping my defensive attitude.

Really, why was Myungsoo so tense about WooHyun and why was everyone so tense about my relationship with WooHyun? 

“Look, So Eun-sshi-“, Dongwoo started to say, but he was suddenly interrupted.

“I can take things from here.”

It was Myungsoo, who’d apparently appeared out of nowhere.

“So Eun-ah, I’ll take you home”, Myungsoo said quietly.

“And what makes you think I want to go home?”, I shot back.

Myungsoo looked at me warily, “We can go wherever you want.”

I sighed and walked out to him.

We turned and were about to walk out when Dongwoo said, “Myungsoo, how’re you doing? How’re you holding up?”

Myungsoo stiffened and I thought I saw something flash in his eyes, but I couldn’t be sure.

“I’m fine”, Myungsoo said, “but it was good of you to ask.”
‘~

“Myungsoo”, I pulled on his arm, “Wait. Stop.”

He did come to a stop, but when he stopped, he didn’t seem to be looking at me. His eyes were focused elsewhere.

“Myungsoo, what’s going on?”, I asked him. He wasn’t even paying attention.

“Myungsoo”, I grabbed his arm, “what’s going on with you and WooHyun?”

His head snapped up and he said abruptly, “Nothing.”

I looked at him searchingly…

“What’s going on with you and your parents?”, Myungsoo suddenly asked me.

I crossed my arms and said, “I don’t know. But I did, I would tell you.”

Myungsoo nodded, “And when I know what’s going on between me and the boys I’ll tell you, okay?”

He sighed and pulled me closer to him, “I just need some time…”

I felt myself weakening, but I said, “I feel like you already know, you just don’t trust me.”

Myungsoo just looked at me and didn’t say anything.

So that’s how it was…

I gently pushed him away and said, “I’ll walk myself home.”

~

When I got home, I wanted nothing more than to shower and sleep. But I had a math test tomorrow and I couldn’t afford a bad grade in that class. If I had less than a 3.8 unweight GPA when I graduated, I wasn’t going to inherit my parent’s company at all. This semester was the last semester. Straight A’s and One B would get me a 3.8 GPA. Chemistry Level 4 was a for-sure B, so I had to keep the rest of my grades up…

I was studying when my parents came into my room.

They came and sat on my Queen-sized bed and watched me study for a few minutes before my father said, “So Eun, we want to talk to you.”

I looked up, put my pen down, and swiveled my chair to face them, “All yours”, I said.

“Were you studying for your GPA?”, my mother asked me. Her smile was off…

Feeling uneasy, I said, “Yeah, I have a math test tomorrow.”

“So Eun”, my father said, “you don’t have to study anymore.”

“What?”, I asked them, completely confused, “Why not?”

“Because…-”, my father started.

“Because there’s no company to inherit anymore!”, my mother burst out, and then began to sob hysterically.

My father patted her back soothingly and whispered in her ear, “We said we would stay strong for our daughter, remember?”

But I wasn’t… I couldn’t… really… understand…..

“We-“, I started, and stopped.

“So-“, I tried to say, but I couldn’t finish.

“I’ve been struggling for a while”, my father answered, “It was about time the company fell… but I still have a chance at selling the corporation. I’ll be busy, and often out of the state to make sure regulations have been met and all that…your mother agreed to come with me… but…” my father looked at me and said softly, “I think you should finish high school and graduate. You can come travel with us afterwards, if you decide to…”

Suddenly it was hard to breath. Suddenly it was hard to see.

“You’re leaving me?”, I said, choking.

“Just for a bit”, my father said, soothingly, but my mother wailed and threw her arms around me.

“Honey”, my father tried to continue, despite my mother’s wailing, “I was thinking… I know you’re close with Myungsoo… and your mother and I trust him sincerely… I was thinking, for the remainder of the year, would you live with Myungsoo? We’ll pay your half of the rent and everything, but for your mother and I, our hearts would rest a little easier if we knew you weren’t by yourself.”

I was wholeheartedly against this request, but when I saw my father struggle to keep from tearing up, I gave in.

“Yes”, I whispered hoarsely “Yes, I’ll do that.”

My father nodded and got up.

“Where are you going?”, I asked, my voice breaking. My hand reached out for my father.

“To go talk to Myungsoo”, he answered. He gave me the slightest smile before he left.

My mother wailed again but I stopped crying with a hiccup.

I wouldn’t cry.

I couldn’t cry.

I had to be strong.

For my parents.

I wrapped my arms around my mother and her hair, whispering,” Shhhh….”.   

a/n: hello readers. thank you for your time! <3