“The weather didn’t predict any rain.” A man’s voice says as a heavy apartment door slowly opens.

Chaerin stares up at him, searching for her friend in the man’s pallid features.

Park Hongjun is a warped caricature of the man he once was. His hair has grown down past his neck, haphazardly tied back to keep out of his face. His usual five o’clock shadow has lengthened into a scraggly beard, covering his gaunt cheeks.

“I’ll get you a towel.” He offers, turning back into the apartment.

“I made a horrible mistake.” Chaerin cries out, stopping Teddy in his tracks.

He looks at her, standing in a puddle in his doorway. Her hair is mussed against her cheeks and she wipes at her teary eyes wildly, smudging her makeup. He sighs and disappears into the dark apartment, returning with a towel.

She silently takes the towel from him with a nod before shutting the door behind her.

“Oppa, I’ve done something bad. Really bad.” She feels like a for crying as she looks at the man seated across from her.

He’s lost so much weight.

“I know about Mr. Kwon, about everything.” She starts out shakily. Her swollen eyes catch sight of a familiar face in a golden frame, perched on a bed of dying flowers. “I know what he did to her… And I know why.”

The man sharply turns his attention to her, color flushing back into his face.   

“Kwon Jiyong and Dong Youngbae are brothers.” Chaerin tells him, nervously toying with the frayed edges on the towel draped around her shoulders. “Jiyong told me what happened. And my father told me why.”

“Your father?” Teddy asks suddenly.

Her heart drops in her chest.

“My father’s company is not just only a security technology company. Back then, he had a large mercenary service of hired security guards.” Chaerin takes a shaky breath, unable to look away from the portrait of Youngbae’s mother. “My father’s men did whatever he and Kwon asked...”

“Enough.” He interrupts her, his eyes red with tears. “That’s enough. I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“I had to tell you before I told Youngbae. I had to tell you why you were arrested.”

“Shut up!” He barks out and she shrinks back into the couch.

Chaerin expected this, how could she not?

She watches the way his fists clench angrily. It scares her how much she wouldn’t mind if he were to kill her. He begins to walk toward her and she wonders if he really will.

A gentle knock at the door startles them both and he looks at her with horror stricken eyes.

“Hide in the bedroom.” He commands her in a rough whisper. She nods as she quickly scurries out of the room like a frightened rodent. They both understand the unspoken fear: It could be Youngbae.

Chaerin crouches against the door of Teddy’s bedroom, her pulse pounding painfully in her ears.

“Is Park Taeyang here?” A woman asks as Teddy opens the door.

Chaerin recognizes the voice in disbelief.

“He’s not here.” Teddy tells her gruffly. “Who is asking?”

There’s a pause and Chaerin crawls to the other side of the door, slowly cracking it open so that she peek through a small sliver.

“My name is Amy Lee, I was told this is where he’s staying in Seoul.” Her cousin tells the older man, rustling through her bag loudly. She brings out a crumpled piece of paper and gives it to Teddy to look over. A map, probably.

“I’m sorry, Taeyang has his own place now. It’s been a long time since he lived here with me.”

He hands her back the paper and Yejin’s brows knit together in frustration.

“Has he ever said anything about me?” The young woman asks desperately.

Teddy shakes his head and Chaerin can almost palpably hear her cousin’s heart break.

“You can call the YG office to get in touch with him but I can’t give you his personal information.”

“Ah, I’m not a stalker or a fan.” Yejin tells him frantically waving her hand. “We were in the orphanage together in Brooklyn.”

Teddy pauses and Chaerin struggles to see the expression on his face. She accidentally bumps the table by the door with her hips and freezes.

“What was that noise?” Yejin asks in alarm and Chaerin can feel Teddy’s glare burning a hole in the door.

“It’s just my cat. She’s a little rowdy when there are strangers in the house.” Teddy says lamely, not even believing his own quick lie.

“I will make sure to contact YG, I’m sorry for keeping you.” Yejin apologizes with a bow, her tone of voice suspicious. “Will you keep this a secret?”

“Sure, no problem.” He promises with a grimace.

The front door closes and Chaerin walks back into the room in shock. She stalks toward the door but he grabs her arm.

“Curiosity killed the cat.” Teddy grumbles as she struggles in his grip before finally settling.

Chaerin rakes her hair back into a ponytail as she sits at her desk. She’s hidden herself away, burying herself in work. She sips her coffee and logs into her email, clicking the first unread message.

She doesn’t recognize the address and goes to delete the message but the monitor goes blank. Her brows furrow as she tries to figure out what happened, reaching for her phone to call the IT Department. A video appears on the screen and she recognizes her office.

There must be a glitch with the security again, she thinks to herself. Jiyong told her that nothing seemed amiss. There was nothing wrong.

The phone drops out of her hand and clatters onto the desk when she sees the time stamp. Slowly, she begins to see the figures in the video and watches in horror at the security footage of herself and Youngbae. She desperately clicks, trying to exit out of the video but it continues to loop over and over again. A message appears on the screen and Chaerin feels like she’s going to faint.

“Deposit 500 million won into this account by the end of the week or this goes viral.”

The monitor goes blank for the final time and she slumps down into her chair. Chaerin stares at her reflection on the black screen with a desolate expression. She makes a futile attempt to get up but her hands and legs shake and she collapses in shock. Her stomach squeezes painfully, she feels like she’s going to be sick.

She never meant for any of this to happen.

She couldn’t hurt Jiyong like this. She couldn’t hurt Youngbae any more than she has. Chaerin knows that she has caught herself in a trap of neverending consequences for her actions.    

The office door swings open with a bang and Assistant Gong calls out her name, running toward her. The young woman tries to help her up but Chaerin’s legs are numb and it’s getting harder for her to breath. Her vision begins to blur, there’s a strange metallic taste in . clenches tightly and she tries to cry out but the sounds are faint.  

“Help! Please, someone help!”

Her assistant’s screams sound strange and warped to Chaerin as she crumples into the floor. She stares up at the ceiling blankly, her entire body giving into tremors. A large hand slams the side of her face onto the floor and she gasps out, unable to see. Another hand grabs onto her painfully clenched fist trying to pry her fingers away as her nails dig into her palm drawing blood.

Then, the world explodes into a brilliant cacophony of nothingness.

Chaerin opens her eyes slowly and squints like a newborn, trying to lift her hand to shield her eyes from the blinding overhead light. Her arm is too sore to lift, her whole body feels heavy as if she’s been chained to the floor. She coughs and feels so raw she wonders if she really had been screaming.

The first face she sees as her vision clears belongs to Lee Soohyuk.

“What happened?” She croaks out, rolling her head like a ragdoll so that she can face him. She pretends not to see the gentleness in his expression as he looks at her with glazed eyes, slowly the hair from out of her face.

“You had a seizure.” He clears his throat, removing his hand from her hair. “Assistant Gong is on the phone with your doctor now but it’s not unusual for you to have one this soon after your concussion.”

“A seizure? It felt… worse than dying.” Chaerin confesses, slowly trying to rise from the floor. “You know so much about this. You helped me, didn’t you?”   

Soohyuk averts his gaze to the doorway and his expression turns strange, guarded.

“Where is she?” A woman calls out in panic and Chaerin meets the frantic gaze of her cousin as she rushes through her office door. “Chaerin!”

“I’m fine, I’m sorry for worrying you.” Chaerin apologizes as Soohyuk helps her up to stand.

“Lee Soohyuk? Thank you so much.” Yejin says suddenly, bowing to the tall lawyer. “I’ll take her to the doctor and then bring her home.”

The older girl guides Chaerin out of the building and she wants to melt away, ashamed of the curious gazes.

“Should I be eating this?” Chaerin asks, taking a paper bag from her cousin as she sits on the older girl’s couch. After the doctor, Yejin had insisted on treating her to food and having her stay with her.   

“Why not?” Yejin asks through mouthfuls of a hamburger, her feet curled under her calves. “You had a seizure, not a heart attack.”  

“I suppose.” Chaerin admits, scooping ketchup with a french fry and delicately placing it into .

“Speaking of heart attacks, Lee Soohyuk seems to be around you pretty often. A lawyer, a doctor… What can’t he do?”

“Unnie, it’s not like that.” Chaerin whines quietly, refusing to look at the probing eyes of the older girl. She chews her food thoughtfully before pausing. There’s no one that Chaerin can go to, that she can trust. She’s had to hold everything in and suffer quietly. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but only because it’s eating me up from the inside.”

Yejin hangs on Chaerin’s every word as she tells her about the time she was sick, the date that wasn’t a date, the secret meetings. The night of Jiyong’s birthday party, the escape to the ocean, the kiss. The video tape. She tells her everything.

“Chaerin, I had no idea.” Yejin pats her knee, sympathetic tears prickling at the corners of her eyes.

“I can’t get him out of my mind.” Chaerin confesses. “Lee Soohyuk.”

The way Yejin looks at her makes her feel the main character in a melodrama. She feels ridiculous but she knows that this is the only way she could tell her cousin about her situation. She couldn’t tell her about Youngbae, not after what she had overhead.

“I hate hurting Jiyong.” Chaerin says honestly. “I know that this is something that could never happen. I’m just fooling myself, I’ll hurt so many people by being selfish.”

“Don’t say that.” Yejin offers supportively. “Have I ever told you about my first love?”

Chaerin looks at her expectantly, her heart clenching at the thought of what she might say.

“We went to high school together, he was almost exactly a year older than me.” Yejin muses, her eyes faraway. “We both wanted to go into business. I didn’t really have a choice but he did. He was so smart, he could have done anything in the world. Anyway, I’m telling you this because he wrote a short story in a creative writing class. It was called ‘The Sun and the Moon.’”

Chaerin sits in silent shock, hearing the familiar story told back to her. She’s sure that Yejin is aware that Chaerin knows Taeyang and that they once worked together.

“Maybe some loves are only meant to be felt quietly. If we feel guilty over this love, it will destroy us, won’t it?” Yejin sadly looks over at Chaerin, the older girl now looking for her words of reassurance but she has nothing to say. Yejin nods, staring at the empty wrapper balled up in her hands. “You need to cut things off with him, Chaerin. I know it will be difficult since you and Soohyuk work together but it’s the only way.”

“Actually,” Chaerin confesses suddenly. “It’s more than that.”

Yejin listens as Chaerin tells her about the sins of her father. The lies, the accident, the ledgers. The older girl looks genuinely shocked which reassures Chaerin that she’s either an amazing actress or just uninvolved.

“Uncle did all of that to Lee Soohyuk?” Yejin asks in horror. “He and Mr. Kwon?”

Chaerin nods, drinking what’s left of her flat Diet Coke. She had to embellish to make the story fit, she wasn’t lying. It would make it all easier when Yejin found out the truth, wouldn’t it?

- - -

Author's Note: Surprise! I'm sorry it took so long to update, I am forever grateful to everyone who has supported this story. I want to thank everyone who has subscribed, commented, and upvoted. I am so appreciative! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, something BIG is coming. Are you ready?

ps. I told you this was secretly a ChaeHyuk story haha (◕‿~)