Like they were in a film, the two boys moved on instinct. It was as if they practiced their moves beforehand. Jiyong would kick them and Minho would take them out when they were falling or reaching for Jiyong.  

The middle of the club floor became the battleground for the five males while the rest of the people watched.

In the midst of the blood-curdling growls, screams of pain and menacing tackles and kicks, the two boys' eyes met for a split second and they smirked, both admiring each other's skill. Then they promptly got back to hitting the other three men unconscious.

Unbeknownst to them, someone was watching them from afar with a cruel smirk on his face. Someone with dark brown hair slicked back smoothly. Someone with cold black eyes. Someone known as the leader of the underworld.

Someone called Mr Kwon.

Mr K.

END OF FLASHBACK

---

"Your Father took me in. He said that he saw my potential and he wanted me to join his Company. Then, I was desperate. My own parents were drug addicts who had a whole load of debt, so when they died from an overdose, the loansharks came after me. They wanted me to be a drug trafficker but I refused and ran. That was when I met you at the club. At that point, I was perpetually always hungry. I slept under the bridges, with one eye open, just in case they came for me. You know something? I don't even know how old I am because my parents barely knew about my existence even in their lucid moments. Birth certificate? My mom gave birth to me at home and my father cut the umbilical cord himself.

Under the law, I did not exist.

Hence when your father offered me a home, friends, food, and an IDENTITY, it was too good a deal to turn down. The only condition was to become friends with you and never tell you that I was working for him.

It was easy since you already looked up to me. He enrolled me into your school, and I conveniently took you into my gang. Then, I really loved you like a younger brother." Minho's eyes were sincere as they looked intently at a painting slightly above Jiyong's left shoulder, as if remembering something.

Then suddenly, his eyes darkened and his brows drew tightly together as his voice sharpened. "But you ruined me. Kwon Jiyong, you were the one who ruined my life.

As if it isn't enough that you have everything -- money, a father, a home, friends -- you had to possess the one thing I wanted. I've always had a crush on Sandara. When I entered the school, her smile was the first one I saw. She seemed so positive and optimistic, as if nothing can hurt her, yet so vulnerable and in need of protection. In that instance, I wanted to own that smile so much. I wanted to be the only person that she smiled at with love. I wanted to be hers...

Do you remember? I asked you if you loved her, and you told me that she's just a friend. So I continued to love her secretly. The day that you rejected her love confession was the day I wanted to confess to her. But when I found out that she was going to confess to you, I got so, SO jealous. I hated you. I hated you who had everything. So I went to you and told you to rip up her confession letter as a joke." Minho's face twisted into a cruel smirk suddenly.

"I was supposed to be her comforter, and she would eventually fall in love with me. But I didn't expect her to leave. You don't know how much I had to beg your father to let me go to find her. But I would do anything for her. Finally, he let me go. But his condition was that I had to kill someone in front of you so that you could witness death and be a stronger man, instead of a boy.

Then, I realised that Mr K never had any intention of leaving his business to me, like he had always said. He loved you and wanted to leave the business to you. Then where would I be? I hated you even more for that. For having a father. So I let you witness death in one of the most cruel, unforgettable ways ever. Do you remember the way her limp body floated on the swimming pool, as if in eternal peace?" Minho's cold eyes that reminded Jiyong so much of his father focused on him.

Jiyong's breath was stuck in his throat. How could he forget? He had had nightmares for months. It was always the same faceless girl in the bikini suddenly looking up at him, begging Jiyong to save her. And in all the different versions of the nightmare, Jiyong could not do anything to change the tragic end. He even had to go for psychotherapy treatments so that he could at least sleep.   

Jiyong couldn't breathe as he tried to process the information. What kind of sick, cruel being had Minho turned into?

But before he could say anything, the familiar booming of his father's voice summoned the both of them back into his office.

---

Jiyong wanted to demand for his father to tell them where Dara was and why he knew where Dara went. But under his father's close scrutiny, he kept silent.

Jiyong and Minho stood side by side in front of his father's massive oak desk. Their hands were clasped tightly behind them, head bowed slightly in deference to the man that sat before them. After a long silence, broken only by the rhythmic ticking of Mr K's table clock, Mr K stood up.

"Boys." His cool voice purred. Jiyong's hairs stood on ends.

They stood at attention as Mr K walked to stand in front of them, slightly resting on the table behind him.

"Jiyong, I am going to name you as my successor. The ceremony is in two weeks." Mr K announced, his arms folded in front of him.

That caught Jiyong's attention. His head snapped up and he looked into his father's eyes in confusion. "What? I mean, Father, I don't understand."

"The clan members are pushing me to name one. I'm not getting any younger." Mr K simply stated.

"But I can't... I don't want to be involved in the businesses you do." Jiyong frowned as he forced himself to hold the stare into his father's eyes. He had always known that his father was involved in the triads. The way he had always gone to nightclubs to meet men in dark business suits told him that much. How his childhood friends like Oh Mirae knew and taught him how to fight confirmed that fact. But only after seeing the girl die in the swimming pool did he have the complete idea of the kind of rubbish that his father was involved in. And he did not want to get caught up in that.

"You think my business is dirty, or because you want to find your little lover of yours?" Mr K wore a cruel sneer on his face as he regarded his son.

"Both." Jiyong raised his chin and tightened his jaw in defiance.

He expected his father to get angry and hit him. He expected his father to send in men to keep him in solitary confinement until Jiyong changed his mind.

Instead, Mr K turned to reach for a letter that was sandwiched in between the pages of a book. He smirked as he handed the letter to his son.

Jiyong's mind swirled in confusion as he took the letter, opening it.

---

Dear Sandara Park,

I know why you left the USA with Chundong. I know how much is left in your bank account. I know that you need money desperately. So here's my proposal.

I've bought over the bet from the group of girls called f(x)

There is still a month and a half left to the end of the year, to the annual event, and to the end of the bet. Get Kwon Jiyong to say that he loves you by then and I will pay for your full tertiary education, all food, lodgings, clothes, and everything you need.

I don't care if he's your friend or anything.

The only clause is that you cannot fall in love with him, and you can't tell anyone. I'm sure you're well aware of that.

If you tear up this letter or disregard our bet, I will know. And I know how to make your worst nightmares come true.

Enclosed is a check to help you live to the end of the one and a half months.

Yours sincerely,

Mr K

---

Jiyong read the letter, trembling with rage. His hands started shaking from anger as he threw the letter at his father's feet.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Jiyong yelled angrily, his eyes glared at his father who was still calmly smiling at him, as though he knew something Jiyong did not.

"If you're not taking up the role of the successor because you're afraid of what that girl thinks, I can assure you that she doesn't love you at all. She has fulfilled the contract and just last night, I sent men to deliver her the plane ticket, money, and everything she needs to study and live overseas. Why am I doing this? To break your heart so thoroughly such that you'll become an evil ba$tard like me." Mr K smirked.

"I don't believe you... She loves me!" Jiyong yelled back in a disbelieving tone. He shook his head slowly as he eyes his father with a painful look in his eyes.

"Maybe she does. But she didn't say it when you told her that you loved her. So are you sure she loves you?" Mr K mocked his son.

"I'll go to the airport and get her back now. I'll show you!" Jiyong sprinted towards the door of the office, already ready to run to the airport. His hand was already on the door handle when his father spoke up.

"It's too late, son. Her flight departs in 15 minutes. And besides, I have banned her from coming back to Korea in the next two years, and I've banned you from leaving Korea in the next two years."

Jiyong's blood froze in his veins. He turned to his father slowly, with a murderous look in his eyes. "Why? How?" He whispered dangerously.

Mr K had a taunting look in his eyes. "Son, I am determined to make you successor. I know you're not willing so I will do everything in my power. This is the least I can do, since I am the most powerful man in Korea. Half of the most powerful people, politicians, soldiers, scholars, are funded by me, so what is placing a ban on two people. The only way you can remove the ban is by becoming the most powerful man in Korea. Take over my position."

Jiyong took four large steps and grabbed his father by the collar roughly, pushing him against the table. His father only smirked.

"Fine, if that's what you want, FATHER, I will be your successor, and I will make you regret today and everything you have done."

Jiyong released his father, and without a second look back, he raced to the airport.

---

On the road there, tears blurred Jiyong's vision as he could only think about his beautiful Dara. All her smiles, jokes, laughter and nonsense. All the craziness that he had been through with her. He couldn't live without her. It was too painful.

Then thoughts about the letter that his father wrote to Dara drifted dangerously in his mind. Did Dara really sacrifice a relationship with him for money? But she wasn't so superficial... Was she?

"Ahhhhhhh..... Ahhhhhhh.... Apeunda, it hurts so much!!!" Jiyong grabbed his chest that held a painfully beating heart and screamed in anguish. Tears flowed uncontrollably down his face as he tried to focus on the road. He pressed down harder on the accelerator so he could get to the airport faster.

Maybe Dara didn't get on the plane. As long as she didn't get on the plane, they would be fine. They could find a way to solve the problem. Together.

*RING RING RIIIIIINGGGGG* Jiyong's phone rang noisily. Thinking it was Dara, he quickly picked up the phone.

"DARA! WHERE ARE YOU?!" Jiyong yelled urgently into the phone.

"It's me. Minho."

"What?" Jiyong said, irritably. He just wanted to get to his angel, and didn't want to hear nor see anything else.

"Do you remember the car accident that Dara's parents died in? Do you know that it was no accident? Your father caused it. He knew that you had fallen in love with Dara and he wanted to kill her in order to break you and your soul completely. He planned the accident and paid off the hit-and-run driver. He said it was a pity that she didn't die. But it is your fault for falling in love with her. Her parents blood is on your hands, Jiyong-"

Jiyong couldn't hear anymore. He could only hear the slow pulsing of his blood in his ears as his car cut through the lanes of traffic on the road. His vision that was already blurred with tears, grew blurrier still as overwhelming thoughts and guilt clouded his mind.

So he didn't notice when he beat the red light.

He couldn't see the large cement mixer that charged towards him, honking furiously as Jiyong's car was in its way.

 But he felt the impact.

The way the glass of his windshield and windows of his car instantaneously shattered and flew in slow motion towards him, he saw.

The large dent in the passenger-side of the car, he saw.

The way his entire world shifted and then flipped over in slow-motion, the colours of the cars in front of him, he noticed.

He heard the loud bang.

He heard people calling and yelling, in his blurred field of vision, blurred by a thick viscous red liquid.

From the corner of his eye, he saw something dripping from behind him. The gas tank was leaking.

A door in his car was somehow pried open. The screams and yelling were louder now, making his headache worse.

Someone dragged him out of the car, pulling him through all the glass that littered every surface of his precious car.

He opened his mouth to groan, but was choked on smoke, gas, and his own blood that was smeared all over his face and matted his blond hair, turning it reddish brown.

He cracked open one eye and tried to smile at his saviour, a burly middle-aged man, but he was too tired.

Ahhhh, let me fall asleep for now... I will say hi to you later, ahjussi... I promise. Jiyong thought as he closed his eyes and out.

---

Jiyong cracked open one eye.

He saw a white ceiling, bright light pouring through a window on his right.

Home? But the bed didn't feel like home.

He swiveled his eyes back and forth as best as they could. They felt dry and it was painful to see. He saw flowers and fruits and ribbons at the foot of his bed.

A nurse in a white gown came in to check on his vitals.

When the nurse came to his side, he tried to open his eyes wider and crack a smile. But what came out was a grimace. His face hurt.

The nurse took one look at him and ran out, shouting, "He's awake!"

Followed that, TOP ran into the room.

"Yah GD!!!!!!" TOP stood at the doorframe as he yelled in his low voice that cracked with emotion. His eyebrows were tightly knit in anguish as he rushed to his best friend's side, to hold his hand.

"You look like ." Jiyong managed as he looked at his best friend.

TOP was speechless with emotion as he simply looked at his friend, tears falling out of his eyes. TOP had huge eyebags, and dark circles around his eyes in a dramatic fashion that symbolised the lack of sleep. His face lost its usual healthy glow and his lips were pale.

"How long?" Jiyong croaked, his voice sore from disuse. He meant to ask how long had he been out for, but his throat couldn't manage the words.

"Two months, Jiyong. It has been two months since Dara left and you got into this tragic accident... You almost died!!! You don't know how my heart stopped when I saw you lying there, with blood all over every place I could see... You don't know how scared I was!!!" TOP couldn't take it and blurted out all his pent-up emotions.

Jiyong opened his mouth but nothing came out.

TOP looked at him with worry.

Jiyong opened his mouth and tried again, croaking slightly but incoherently.

TOP reached for a glass of water and put a straw to Jiyong's lips so he could drink.

"Who is Dara?" Jiyong finally said.

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Author's note:

Thank you for 11 000 views!!! HOORAYYY!!!

FOR 360 SUBSCRIBERS AND FOR ALL YOUR COMMENTS!!!

*throws kisses*

do tell me if you like it!

love, hannahnah