When she walks through the door and slips off her heels, Jiyong is waiting for her. Chaerin laughs bitterly to herself, thinking that he’s always waiting for her. She wipes the tears from her eyes and looks at him standing with his arms crossed against his chest.

“Were you with Park Taeyang?” He asks in a low voice after seeing her distraught and makeup smeared face. She nods in response and he walks toward her, grabbing her in a tight hug as she struggles against him.

Chaerin steps back, trying to move out of his hold but his arms tighten around her. She tries to push him away but he holds her down, accidentally slamming her against the wall as she continues to step back. He looks at her with wide eyes and reaches for her to check if she’s injured. Her hand recoils and she slaps him hard across the cheek, her long manicured nails slicing his skin. She freezes as she watches the droplets of blood slowly dribble down his cheek. Jiyong stares at her miserably with his bloodied face, silently falling down onto his knees and holding onto her legs.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” He cries as he rests his head on her knees. “If you left me I wouldn’t be able to live.”

“I’m not hurt,” She whispers to him soothingly, feeling his hot tears on her bare skin.

“Park Taeyang is dangerous, you can’t trust him. He wants to hurt me and destroy my family.” He holds onto her more tightly as he sobs, Chaerin gently his hair to calm him down.

She begins to realize that Youngbae was kidnapped for a reason, that it wasn’t a coincidence he was taken on their way to the Kwon Estate. The police were wrong and Kwon Jiyong was never the target. She pulls away from his grip and he lets go, staying crouched lifelessly on the floor. He looks up at her slowly and notices the fear in her eyes.

“The only way to hurt me is to hurt you. He can take away my money and my power and my name, but…” His voice is raspy from crying, his face a mess of tears and blood with his hair disheveled. “But the only way to kill me is to kill you...”

She backs away silently, going to her room. Her legs collapse as soon as she closes the door. Chaerin sobs uncontrollably in confusion and terror, remembering Teddy’s words to her at the bar.

You won’t be happy if you know the truth… The truth will destroy you.

She wakes up curled up on the floor wrapped in a blanket with a pillow under her head. A note left on the floor next to her tells her that Jiyong has gone to Paris for a business trip. She stretches before going to take a shower, letting the hot water wash over her sore muscles and scald her skin. Being alone in the apartment is oddly unsettling, even though Jiyong is gone she still feels his presence.

After getting dressed, she goes to her car and drives quietly after putting the information into her GPS. She parks smoothly and gets out of her car, a light summer rain falling around her. With a bouquet of flowers in her arms, she walks into the memorial hall.

“Omoni, I brought these for you.” She lays down the flowers next to a portrait of smiling woman. Her fingers brush against the glass, tracing the outlines of her face and trying to remember she had ever seen her smile so brightly. For as long as Chaerin could remember, Youngbae’s mother had always been around the Kwon Estate. She was always there but Chaerin had only ever spoken to her a few times. Even though Jiyong bossed her around, she was always quiet and kind.

“I found your Youngbae-ah, omoni. He’s home safe now.” She says the words but doesn’t fully believe them, not sure how safe Youngbae really is. A hand touches her shoulder and she jumps in surprise, turning around to see Teddy Park.

“What are you doing here, Chae?” Seeing the flowers in his arms, she makes the connection that Teddy and Youngbae are brothers after all.

“I’m just paying my respects to Omoni.” She answers, watching him curiously as he lays down the flowers before telling his mother happy birthday.

Teddy looks up at her and his eyes widen in shock. He pulls Chaerin aside and she follows him, confused. When they’re hidden from sight behind a wall, he pauses and Chaerin shakes out of his grip.

“Are you crazy?” She hisses in exasperation but he interrupts her, pointing back toward his mother’s memorial. Taeyang walks toward where they were standing only moments ago.

“You should leave now,” He tells her as he walks her to the exit. “You can’t let Youngbae know that you saw him here today. He can’t know that you visited our mother’s memorial.”

Chaerin nods, realizing that it’s better if she acts as if she doesn’t know anything at all. She wants Youngbae back but she’s starting to understand that it could be more dangerous than she had ever imagined. On the drive back to the apartment she attempts to remember Omoni’s death. At the time everything was quickly dismissed as grief over losing her son but if the Kwons were connected to Youngbae’s disappearance, then they could be responsible for Omoni’s death, too. For Jiyong to be so scared he had to have done something to deserve revenge. Chaerin pulls over at the side of the road, tears blurring her vision. Her hand covers as she cries, thinking about all of the lies and deception. She had spent so many years of her childhood in that house. Her stomach feels sick just thinking about all of the things that could have happened in the house without her knowing. There was so much that she didn’t know, she was too naive. She starts to get dizzy and leans her head against the steering wheel in an attempt to make the world stop spinning. In her bag her phone starts to ring but she ignores it as she closes her eyes. It continues to ring again and she finally takes it out of her bag to see who’s calling.

“Yes, omoni?” She answers, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Chaerin-ah, I came to your apartment to surprise you but you’re not here. Where are you?” Jiyong’s mother asks in her high pitched voice and Chaerin holds the phone farther away so she doesn’t hurt her ears.

“I had business to take care of but I’m on my back now, omoni.”

“What kind of business did you have to take care of on a Sunday?” Her voice is critical and Chaerin sighs but is otherwise quiet. Jiyong’s mother quickly changes the subject when she’s not given the gossip she was expecting. “What time will you be back, Chaerin-ah?”

“I’ll be there in half an hour, omoni, so please wait for me.” She hangs up the phone and tries to fix her makeup in the mirror so that Jiyong’s mother doesn’t notice she had been crying.

Jiyong’s mother is perched on the couch when Chaerin gets home, reminding her of Jiyong. The older woman looks like an aristocrat sitting straight as a pin with a fur coat draped over her thin frame and diamonds weighing down her body. When she notices Chaerin she gets up to hug her, an overwhelming aroma of strong perfume filling her nostrils as she smiles brightly before pulling away.

“Would you like anything to drink, omoni?” Chaerin asks and Jiyong’s mother almost immediately answers.

“Wine, please.” Chaerin stifles a laugh as she pours a glass of wine for her guest and a glass of water for herself. When she brings the drinks back out to the living room, the older woman eyes her suspiciously. After taking a sip of wine, she looks at Chaerin’s water with a perfectly arched brow. “Are you pregnant?”

“Omoni!” She almost spits her water out at the rich woman’s question, her eyes widened. “I’m not pregnant, I’d just rather have water than wine right now.”

“Alright.” She concedes, but her voice says that she doesn’t believe her. “I would love to have grandchildren but I would prefer them after marriage.”

Chaerin smiles politely and slightly bows her head in agreeance.

“What brings you here for a visit, omoni?”

“Do I need a reason? I just wanted to see my precious daughter in law.” She answers haughtily and it’s Chaerin’s turn to not believe her. The Kwon family always had reasons for their actions. “You and Jiyongie should come to the Estate more often. Is your boss feeling better after having to leave so suddenly?”

There it is.

“Yes, omoni. It was anemia from being overworked in his first couple of months as president but he’s feeling a lot better now.” Chaerin says matter-of-factly and Jiyong’s mother nods, sipping her wine again. She gives Chaerin a long look before speaking again.

“There isn’t anything going on between the two of you, is there?”

“No, omoni, of course not. He’s my boss. Our relationship is strictly professional.”

“My Jiyongie must be so jealous that you have such a handsome young boss.” She says with an immature pout that doesn’t match her age. “You should probably quit soon, anyway.”

“Why should I quit my job?” Chaerin asks, looking at her in shock.

“You’ll be marrying Jiyong soon, you won’t need a job.” She shrugs as she finishes off her glass of wine. “Your job will be taking care of your husband and having children.”

“Jiyong oppa knows that my job is important to me.” Chaerin tries to keep her voice from wavering as she defends herself. “He would never ask me to stop working, even if he hates my job. There are plenty of chaebol’s wives who have careers.”

“Even so, it doesn’t make sense for you to work for YG Corporation. Jiyongie will get you a job so you can quit working there. There are too many rumours about Park Bom and Hongjun, and that Taeyang, too. I don’t think it’s good for you to get involved with YG Corporation any longer.”

“Yes, omoni. I understand.” Chaerin says finally, sighing in defeat. She knows that there’s no winning.

Chaerin sits at her desk after Jiyong’s mother leaves. The printer buzzes as a piece of paper slowly prints. She takes the paper out of the printer and looks at it carefully, ghosting her fingers over the characters at the top of the page.

Letter of Resignation

She sighs and folds the paper, putting it into an envelope. Holding the sealed envelope delicately in her hands she looks at it for a while before tucking it into a drawer. Standing up from her office chair she stretches out her back before crawling into bed. She snuggles into her comforter, pulling it up so that it only exposes her eyes as she surrounds herself with the smell of fresh linen and lavender. Chaerin checks her phone but Jiyong hasn’t texted or called her at all. She attempts to sleep but she tosses and turns before looking at her phone again to check the time. She had never felt this uncomfortable on her own before, to the point that she can’t even sleep. Reaching for her phone again she calls a contact, listening to the dial tone on the other end before she hears a voice.

“Chae? Are you alright?” He yawns before speaking, his voice sounding sleepy and adorable. She wonders if he noticed that he used her nickname, her stomach flurrying with butterflies.    

“I’m sorry for bothering you,” She whispers even though she’s all alone in the apartment.

“What’s wrong?” The drowsiness is gone from his voice and he sounds concerned instead.

“It’s nothing, I just called you on accident. You should go back to bed.”

He’s quiet on the other line and she hopes he didn’t actually hang up.

“Is that true?” He sounds calmer now and his smooth voice comforts her as she further buries herself into her bedding.

“You told me to call you when I couldn’t sleep.”

“Then I’ll tell you a story so you can fall asleep.” He says and she can almost hear his smile.

Grinning, she turns over onto her back and her hair creates a halo across the pillow as she holds the phone to her ear.

“One day, the Sun was rising and shining brightly over the earth when he saw beautiful white flowers.” He begins. “When the beautiful white flowers saw him they closed their petals and hid away. The Sun became confused and asked the flowers why they went into hiding as soon as they saw him.

‘We only bloom for the beautiful glow of the Moon,’ The flowers told the sun. ‘Your harsh, bright rays are too powerful but the Moon is gentle and kind.’

The flowers tell him about the Moon who glows against the glittering stars after the Sun leaves the sky and night falls on the earth. The lovely Moon soothes all of the creatures on earth until they fall asleep. The Sun had been too busy warming the earth to know about the Moon. He talks to the earth about the Moon and the more stories he hears, the more he yearns to meet the Moon. Sometimes the Moon goes away but she always comes back. The Moon changes shape and is beautiful and pale against the dark night sky. Hoping to see the Moon, the Sun chases after her day after day but each morning she disappears.

‘I’ve fallen in love with the Moon,’ The Sun tells the moonflowers as he rises in the morning. ‘Will you describe her to me, what shape did she take last night?’

‘The moon is gone,’ The flowers tell him. ‘We told you, Sun, she fades away each month until disappearing into the night sky.’

The Sun feels sad knowing that the Moon did not glow in her sea of sparkling stars. He shines brightly on the earth in the blue sky but he is sad. Even if he never got to see the Moon he was at least comforted that she remained watching over the moonflowers at night.

‘My dear and beautiful Sun,’ He hears a voice call out to him as the big fluffy clouds float along. In the bright blue sky he sees the Moon, white and glowing in the day time.

‘Lovely Moon, why are you in the day sky instead of the night sky? The moonflowers missed you.’

‘I’ve always loved you, Sun. I follow after you in the sky and each month I am able to be with you in the day, even though you shine too brightly to see me among the clouds. My beautiful glow is because of you, I’m only able to be seen because I reflect your sunlight.’

The next day when the Sun rises the Moon is no longer there but he knows that it won’t be long until he can see her again.”

Taeyang listens to her gentle breathing over the phone, glad that she was able to fall asleep.

“Goodnight, Chae.” He tells her, hanging up the phone.

“Goodnight, oppa.” She whispers to the empty room before closing her eyes, smiling peacefully as she drifts to sleep.