Appalled, Sehun found himself staring at her feeling quite breathless. This was what he’d least expected. He had thought of hugs, kisses, and possible romance; not this.

No ounce of warmth showed on her face and he was shocked at how calm she was when meeting with him alone. Shouldn’t she…want to cry or feel pain? Why weren’t those on her face? Why wasn’t there any kind of longing expression there?

Where was his Namjoo?

She turned away from him to refocus on the waves lapping by, “Up to you then.”

His eyes sat on her back with his heart sinking every bit of the way. The waves could possibly drown him from where he was. Then without a word he sat down beside her after gathering himself. He would have to listen without a choice and Namjoo was here to tell him something. He would listen, he would…but he really didn’t feel prepared.

“My father died,” Namjoo started, her strong gaze on the water, “he didn’t like you, remember? Despite the opposition, I came out to see you anyway. I know now I was in the wrong. He had a reason for not liking you, I didn’t know it until I was told he was in the hospital. My dad…” Namjoo stopped to press her lips together and blinked rapidly, “was in his last stage of liver cancer.”

Sehun’s eyes widened.

“I was told a woman had been stopping by,” Namjoo went on, “that woman was your mother. I found packets of unused money in his drawer; do you know where they came from?”

Sehun searched the waves for a voice to answer him. No, he didn’t know…

“Your mom had the guts to use me as a threat against my father, who was dying,” Namjoo spoke emphasizing each word heavily. “Do you know where she found me that day?”

Namjoo waited for him to answer, but he didn’t.

“The hospital.” Namjoo told. “She knew my father was in the hospital when even I, his daughter, didn’t know. What’s wrong with this picture, Sehun? Tell me what’s wrong with it.”

Sehun only shook his head fearfully.

“No, I…I know she’s cruel…but she’s not like that…”

Namjoo rolled her watery eyes before parting her lips to turn away, “My father died even when I took the money for his surgery. The money that was meant to take me away from you, in which my father died for, killed him.”

She cried, he saw the tears fall, but there was no sound of heartbreak. Namjoo wouldn’t release it.

“Have you lost a parent, Sehun?” Namjoo asked. “Because I lost two. My father’s last words to me were an apology and a hope for me to be happy. Do you think I could have been happy then when he died because of me? That I received an apology instead of the words of support or some kind of love? That every time when I see his urn, I will think of you and what your mom did to him? What kind of foul things your mother may have said to ridicule him and his daughter? That money is greater than pride?

“No, it doesn’t work like that.”

Namjoo shook her head.

“It was to save my father or to have you. I couldn’t leave the father who raised me in place of my mother. No one was there for him when he died. Do you know how sad it is to die alone like that?”

The tears continued streaming down her face, but Namjoo only continued to speak calmly. How that was possible, he didn’t know.

“The money was a guarantee I’d have nothing to do with you anymore. You don’t exist, you stopped existing in my world when my father was taken into the E.R. for surgery,” Namjoo told. “It didn’t matter what happened to me, I just didn’t want my father to die alone, but he still did. I came late because I was with you. Do you know how much that hurts me? I abandoned him to have you, Sehun; my dad, the one who raised me. The worst is when a daughter leaves the person who raised her up. 

“Yes, I had your son, but I don’t want your mother to do to us what she did to my father. I’m not going to go through that and have my son watch as I get slapped with money. I won’t have him grow up like me.” Namjoo shook her head again. “Go your own way, Sehun. I’m sorry you had to find out about Ki Hoon like this. We have our own futures to start and if we meet again, don’t greet me.”

Things were running inside his head, but he didn’t know where to start or end. Wasn’t it unfair that looking at him would remind her of her father? What had he done, but give her all his love?

He was baffled, speechless, and stupefied.

Namjoo was hurt, but wasn’t he hurt too?

How did all of this line up to make some sense?

Sehun sat there beside the unopened can of beer trying to piece everything together hours after Namjoo left. The fact that Namjoo had no one but her father since the beginning dawned on him. Sehun knew that, yet he never did take the chance to remind her to look after her father. Was he really the point of reason that she became ignorant about her father?

Had he loved her greedily and selfishly that he dismissed everything and everyone around them? Had his love…been like that? Is that what Namjoo realized and made her angry? Had he been so cooped up with escaping his world and pulling her into another realm that he made her abandon what she had?

He covered his eyes with a hand. What was his wrong? Why couldn’t he exist in her world? Why did his mother and money keep doing this to him? When they had been the reason for Namjoo’s leave, why was he branded as the victim between them? Why was he the one who had to hurt? Why was he the one left behind?

Why couldn’t it make sense?

+++

That morning when he arrived, Namjoo was brewing coffee in her small kitchen. She was dressed and prepared for the day unlike her usual self. Namjoo wasn’t ready for work this early nor did she take the time to brew her own coffee.

“This is strange,” he commented, “what’s the occasion?”

“I’m heading out in a few minutes,” she turned to look at him before turning back to the counter.

“Why? What’s the occasion? I thought we were going to do something.”

“Me too,” he thought he heard her say it quietly.

She didn’t make movement for a few seconds as if thinking of something. Did she have something to say to him?

Finally shifting around she told, “I thought about it overnight. There’s something I need to do.”   

“What is it?”

Namjoo generally had a calm demeanor, which seemed to have built everlasting walls around itself. She seemed to have become calmer and calmer throughout the years, expressing less of what was inside her. Luhan thought she worked too hard at burying everything into her heart; it made him feel sad that Namjoo chose not to do anything about it.

“Will you wait for me?”

Luhan trained his eyes onto her for any sign of any emotions. There was none.

In the end, he nodded, “I’ll wait for you.”

After Namjoo closed the door after her he made his way into the bedroom to find Ki Hoon safely tucked underneath the Nemo blanket he’d gotten for him despite Namjoo’s opposition. Ki Hoon talked a lot around him and his parents unlike Namjoo, but he also tended to hide himself in the depths of silence like his mother.

Ki Hoon’s neck was slightly twisted to the side and he was breathing deeply. Luhan thought he looked exactly like his father. It wouldn’t make him love Ki Hoon any less.

Throughout pregnancy, Namjoo had lived with them. Her health had been bad and the doctor had said she was too underweight to be carrying a child. He could only imagine how she’d scrapped for food during the freezing weather. To save her, he never asked how she managed to survive. Looking at her then had hurt him.

Namjoo barely smiled while pregnant. Sometimes while she ate in his kitchen, she would cry silently to herself and he’d pretend not to see. Luhan had tried to cheer her up by offering her candy when she was done and she’d accept them with a tiny smile. He thought she looked really perfect when she smiled. She had a celebrity’s smile.

He heard her laugh for the first time when she held Ki Hoon in her arms. Her gaze had held adoration and so much happiness, it enchanted him. They gleamed, they sparkled, and they spoke of so much things she never said. And she had cried when she held him until she sobbed; it broke his heart to witness it. Luhan wanted to hug her, but he didn’t know her well enough to offer his acts of comfort.     

His home felt like a full house when Ki Hoon came. In the nights while he and his parents tended to the fitful Ki Hoon, he’d walk in to see Namjoo sleeping tiredly with half the blanket drawn over her. 

Even now, Luhan wanted to take the burden off her shoulders and promise her an easy life. He wanted her to live happily now.

Ki Hoon moved awaking him from his thoughts. His eyes opened dreamily and he looked around before seeing him.

“Hey, little guy,” Luhan greeted. “Finally up?”

“Mommy?”

“It’s just me.”

Ki Hoon crawled up before wrapping his short arms around his waist and leaned against him. “I like Han Han.”

“I like you too, little man,” Luhan placed a hand on top of his hand to his head.

In place of the man who should have been with Namjoo; Luhan had held, dressed, bathed, and fed Ki Hoon as if he were his own. He’d been there for Namjoo when no one had. No one and nothing could take the two of them from him. 

+++

Namjoo’s heart was burning, but since when had it stopped burning?

Her love for Sehun couldn’t justify her father’s death. Namjoo couldn’t face herself because of her foolishness, her naivety. The love for Sehun had blinded her and it was impossible to look at him without thinking of how her father died in the hospital. And Namjoo hated it for every which way it made her drown in guilt.

They had nothing to do with each other anymore. She would take it as that, she would leave it as that.

When she reached the top of the steep hill she saw Luhan standing outside of the house with Ki Hoon in his arms. A smile flashed across their faces when they saw her and he waved while Ki Hoon screamed out for her.

A father for Ki Hoon and someone to look out for her would still be good enough for her.

Warmth penetrated through her skin and Namjoo smiled while holding back tears. This was picture perfect and it fit well into her low life. Things were falling into the right place.

“Mommy!” Ki Hoon jumped in Luhan’s arms before he let her son down.

Namjoo felt him run at her and hug her legs pressing his face into her knees before looking up at her, “Where you go?”

With a smile Namjoo placed a hand on top of his head, “Do you want to go play today? Lets go play today.”

His face beamed with a smile before she ushered him into the house and straightened up to look into Luhan’s face.

“Did you wait long?”

“I would say I didn’t wait long,” Luhan spoke with a dainty smile, “but I waited long enough to think about something.”

The curiosity raised her brow.

“First,” he began, “where did you go this morning?”

Without intending for it to, her eyes darted toward the side of her home. Lifting her head up she peered into his eyes.

“I went to see Sehun.” Namjoo told. “His name…is Sehun.”

The smile in his face died, but he didn’t jump to conclusions. He waited.

Lowering her eyes she pressed her lips lightly together, “He comes from a rich family. My mother died when I was young, so my father raised me. You get where I’m coming from, don’t you?”

Luhan still said nothing.

“I met Sehun when I was still studying in college. At that time I didn’t know his mother had her eyes on us and behind my back, went to offer my father money to take me away. He never told me about it, so I became an insolent fool,” Namjoo pressed her lips together to form a bitter smile. “It was just puppy love; you know when you forget everything because you’re head over heels.”

“Namjoo…”

“No, listen to me,” Namjoo told, “my father was dying and I didn’t know it. I took their money to save him, but he didn’t survive the surgery. I can’t go back there. I’m not supposed to have anything to do with him anymore. Luhan, please help me protect Ki Hoon.”

A kind of surprise lit his face and his brows curved together in concern and sympathy. For the first time he saw nervousness break into her worrisome face. Hugging her, his hands settled onto her back and the back of her head with a determined weight of strength. Inside his strong arms of security, Namjoo knew she could trust him without a doubt.

+++

Everything inside his home seemed to be gleaming. The lights were luminous as if some spell had been cast on them before his arrival. The chauffeur was waiting for him outside of his apartment and with no choice had been forced into the car.

Dinner, as his mother wanted, would happen.

Heated anger flared underneath his skin, but Sehun fought to contain himself even when his mother walked toward him in her flashy heels and gown embedded with millions of beads.

“I waited long enough, oh! You smell. Hurry and go take a shower. I’ve picked your outfit for you already,” his mother shot her head back and plugged her nose. “Hurry, they’ll be here in an hour.”

Without a word he headed up the marble staircase and like a robot found his room without even looking around. If he were blindfolded he’d still be able to find his room.

Tossing his clothes to the floor he stepped into the shower, his mind a bitter mess without resolution.

Let things go on then, he bitterly decided.

Wrapping himself up into the bathrobe made available to him he wanted to laugh at how well his mother had prepared everything as if he had already moved back. Clothes were laid out on his fluffy bed just as he was told. Before grabbing them he swiped a finger against the white blanket. To his surprise the maid had probably been told to keep his room as clean as possible in wait for his return.

His mother was really adamant on having her way and he had just gotten that particular trait from her. Sehun was quite stubborn himself as well. He’d have what he wanted. He’d make things his way.

Dinner started well all because he chose not to open his mouth. Sehun let his mother do the talking since she always enjoyed entertaining guests. The only one thing she was probably good at was opening . He honestly didn’t think she had the skill for anything else.

“Yes, the engagement ceremony. We must definitely have one,” his mother firstly agreed. “Anytime this month will do. What do you think, Hayoung? Does that sound good?”

She lifted her head up from the glass she’d been staring at to look around. Her lips parted when she turned to look at Sehun as if wondering what was right to say. Annoyance slapped him before he finally set the utensils in his hand down.

“There’s not going to be an engagement.” He said underneath his breath.

“What?!” His father raised his voice.

Staring right back at them he felt himself burst. Of the things his mother may have done to Namjoo’s dead father infuriated him. How could she…who did she think she was? His mother, who he still believed had bits of good in her, ruined his life. And how could he ever forget the things Namjoo told him? How would he ever be able to let go of the fact that his mother and her money made his Namjoo leave him?

Sehun ended up shouting, “You had no right! You had no right! You already have your throne of diamonds and taking everything away from me isn’t enough already? Haven’t you had enough already?! How could you have done it?!” Slamming his hands against the table he stood, “You took everything!”

“Oh Sehun!” His father hardened his eyes to glare at him.

“What…what is this? Have you gone crazy?” His mother questioned.

“Yes, I am crazy,” Sehun replied with utmost atrocity, “why don’t you, mother, get engaged in my place?”

Sehun stared at them with a partial glare before walking off.

In the private study Sehun found himself chugging down a glass of vodka minutes later in hopes that it’d make him forget the worst. As Namjoo’s words signaling the closure of their relationship processed through his head he felt heaps of anger and sadness build through him. It wasn’t going away; nothing was getting better.

When the door opened he let out a loud scream before flinging the glass forward. It swished past Hayoung like a bird before slamming into the wall, cracking before falling to the floor. 

***Namjoo's story is only 90% finished here. We don't know how she ended up on the streets. She didn't tell Sehun about her sufferings, but only what happened. Maybe Luhan will tell that end of the story for her.