"Oh my god, this is so beautiful!" 

"Not as much as you, but..."

"Cheesy little thing, I love you!" the Yeojin jumped into Jaejoong's waiting arms and was spinned around a few times, then let back down. 

"I love you too..." Jaejoong said with a smile. "But I'm quite hungry, just so you know." 

"It's your fault the food's so late; let's eat." Yeojin chuckled. The violins started playing a softer music as they started eating. After the dinner, they walked hand in hand to the metallic scarlet Audi S7 sportback Yeojin had always been so proud of. She had bought this car the day she had become the chief brand officer and she loved it like her baby. For the very reason, Jaejoong had never got to lay a finger on the wheel of this beauty, let alone drive it. Today would be no different. Yeojin got to the driver seat and turned the raido on as she waited for Jaejoong to take his seat as well. She found a soft, relaxing music channel, then started driving. 

"Who chose the necklace?" she asked after a short silence.

"Kyojung did." Jaejoong answered.

"Ahh, no wonder. I didn't think you'd be so tasteful as to pick such a pretty thing, I wasn't wrong." Yeojin muttered. Jaejoong sighed annoyedly.

"Yeah yeah, sure; as long as you remember to wear it for a while..." he said, exasperatedly. 

"I'll wear it if it goes with my clothes; picked with no feelings, mind you, such a jewelry has no more value than the others for me." Yeojin retorted. 

"So Yeojin-ssi continues to surprise me." Jaejoong snorted to himself. Yeojin glanced at him for a second.

"Why, may I ask?" Yeojin said, mockingly. 

"I thought you were starting to have way too much fun lately; I assumed maybe you forgot this was forced, after all." Jaejoong said. Yeojin's face dropped. 

"You can't drop it for one second, can you. For nth time, if you're stuck together with me at least you can try not to be enemies; I did nothing bad to you!" she snapped. Jaejoong only grumbled.

"Yeah yeah, sure..." 

Yeojin muttered a few curses under her breath and turned up the volume of music as well as tuning into a heavy metal channel. She tried to ignore the existance of the overly stubborn kid sitting next to her. He annoyed the life out of her sometimes, she just want to beat him up with a spiky bat until he was no more than a bloody pulp... okay, maybe not that much; but that's how annoyed she felt. She pulled up her baby to the garage and got out, she didn't look if Jaejoong was off and locked the doors. Then without stopping she went into the house. 

She had been trying to be nice to him for a while now and all he ever did was turn her down every single time. They couldn't even be friends. The fact that all those lovey moments were simply lies was starting to hurt her, even though she would never admit. She never wanted to be in a forced marriage; to her, it wasn't forced and she would have never accepted if she knew it was forced on her. But still, she had hoped that he would get used to it warm up to her in time and things wouldn't be bad. Was she that horrible? She had never thought herself as someone horrible, so did he? Why did he? 

She tried to work in her room for a while; but in the end, she sighed and gave up. Well, he was like a kid and he wouldn't be opening up anytime soon, she needed to get over it and make up with him. Not for him; but for herself. She didn't like the "I'm so not talking to you, hmph!" kind of attitude, it bothered her. She got out and went into the kitchen. Jaejoong must have been working all the time too and who didn't like waffles? When she got there, she saw that Jaejoong was there too, in his blue checkered pajamas, looking messy. 

"What happened?" she asked, surprised. Jaejoong looked at her as if he was trying to decide something. Then he looked away and opened the door of the fridge. 

"Couldn't sleep." he said simply. Yeojin looked at the time. It was already past 2 am and she had never noticed. She sighed. "Why are you still up?"

"Was working." she shrugged and walked up to Jaejoong and pushed him aside. 

"Hey!" Jaejoong said. 

"Just wait at the table for once, please? Thank you." Yeojin said as she picked up the milk bottle from the fridge. 

"Whatever." Jaejoong mumbled and did as he was told. Yeojin sighed and smiled at him.

"I'm amazed that you never get tired of that attitude." she said and picked up a pot to warm up the milk. 

"What attitude?" Jaejoong said. 

"That." she said. "Forever trying to live like two strangers with me while we have to act out the cheesy lovers on the outside... you really should have picked an acting career." 

"If I was given a choice." he shrugged. She turned to look at him. He wasn't looking at her and he looked more vulnerable than she had ever seen her before. She decided that it was better to give him his space and turned back to the milk. 

"You wanted to be one?" she asked. There was a short silence.

"Maybe?" Jaejoong said, his voice slightly mischevious, "Well, what does it matter now? The CEO of a great company also works."

"I guess so..." Yeojin mumbled, pouring down the lukewarm milk to a glass and adding just a little cocoa and sugar in it. She brought it to Jaejoong waiting at the table. "Everybody likes cocoa, right?" 

"Never thought about it, I guess they do." Jaejoong mused, sipping on the warm drink. 

"Mom used to make this for me before she passed away. I didn't like milk; but she always said "everybody likes cocoa, right?" and I could never say no because I loved chocolate. If I said I didn't like cocoa, she would tell me that then I shouldn't eat chocolate as well because I don't like it." Yeojin said. Jaejoong chuckled.

"It's different, though, isn't it?" he said. Yeojin nodded. 

"But when I was small, I didn't know that. To me chocolate was a block of cocoa and milk so if I ate it but didn't drink it, it wouldn't make sense to the small me, mom used that to make me drink milk. When I got big enough to tell the difference, I already liked milk the way it was." she said. When Jaejoong stayed silent, she continued; at least he was listening to her. 

"She was a smart woman, my mom; especially with kids. When I was at high school, there was a time I started to think nobody would ever love me. She told me that it wasn't that no one would; but someone would come and sweep me off my feet only when I was ready for love. Apparently, I never got ready for love. That was the only thing she was right about. She'd be sad if she saw me like this." Jaejoong basically buried his face in his glass after that. She didn't know if he was still listening; but after short, she continued anyways. "She wanted a son, actually; after me and my sister, she got pregnant again, with a boy. I was at high school at that time. My father would cuddle her stomach and sing lullabies to the baby she carried. He loved to say that we had a prince on the way."

"Prince, my ..." she heard him mutter.

"Hm?"

"Nothing. I never knew you had a brother." he said. She decided to ignore the previous comment he had made. Maybe she had only imagined it. 

"Because I don't have one... it was the 6th month of her pregnancy, we were all expecting the best. I knew that there was some trouble with the baby and the womb; but they said it wasn't something too bad if there was good control and everything would be okay. It would be the last baby for mom; but she didn't want another baby anyway so it was also okay. We were all thinking on names by then... but one night, we woke up with mom's screams. When I ran out of my room, I saw dad carrying mom out. He screamed at us to stay at our room and wait for his call. My mom's night dress was deep red. I pushed my sister into her room and didn't let her out. She was still at primary school, there wasn't much she could do to oppose me or dad; but once mom and dad left, I went to their bedroom. It took me a while to realise I was looking at a blood stain and it wasn't a giant red pillow in the middle of the bed. There was too much blood, everywhere." Yeojin looked down to calm herself. It wasn't always that she talked about this part of her past. She had no idea how she had come to this from simple cocoa milk; but she was way too deep in to stop now. She took a deep, shaky breath and continued. 

"I knew that dad wouldn't call us for a while. I locked the door of mom and dad's room and took my sister to hospital. Dad wasn't even mad at us, he just hugged us and cried silently. We waited and waited in front of the operation room for the doctor, hours later somebody with a bloody scrub came out. I don't remember anything he said; I just remember the apologetic look on his face and the way he shook his head... and that my dad broke down after that. My sister was screaming at the man and crying; but I didn't feel anything because nothing made sense. I stopped my sister and the man with the scrub went away. Later, they brought us in front of the glass wall of the room full of incubators with babies in it. They showed us one of them. My sister leaned on the glass wall and just said "Murderer. I hate murderers. He's not my brother." I remember dad trying to negotiate; but nothing worked. To sister, the baby had killed mom so it was a murderer and it deserved to be hated. Soon after that, the baby died as well. My sister believed that it was divine justice... so only the three of us were left; father, me and Heejin." she finished, looking away and wiping her eyes. Even though it had been so long, it still was painful to think or talk about those times.

"Thanks... for the cocoa." Jaejoong said and got up, without looking at her. She wathched him silently as he put the glass in the sink and walked out of the kitchen. So he really didn't give a damn. Right after he got out, though, Yeojin heard his quiet voice.

"Maybe he was lucky to have died." 

She could hate the man then and there, without a thought, if only she hadn't thought the same thing before. She was sure his reason for making such a comment was different; but it was one of her dark secrets, the fact that she had thought the baby was lucky to be dead. If he had lived, he would have a sister who hated him, one bigger sister and a father who secretly blamed him but never showed. He would forever know he was responsible for his mother's death and even if he didn't think about it first, it would be drilled inside of his head. He wouldn't have the perfect life dreamt for him. He would be no prince. He would be an outcast in his own family. He was probably lucky that he didn't live. 

Yeojin sighed deeply and opened the fridge once again, for her sleeping pills. After her mom's death, she had a period where she couldn't sleep a wink for nights and was taken to get professional help from psychiatrists. It wasn't like she was still in major depression or anything; but for the times she got nightmares, she kept sleeping pills ready in her hands. She was absolutely certain that she would get a nigtmare tonight, if she didn't take one. 

She swallowed the pill and went to her room, took out her mom's picture. 

"I'm sorry, mama..." she sighed, "I know I promised you that I would never stop looking for love that time... I guess you're quite disappointed, yeah? Well, I can promise you now that I'll at least never lose hope about friendship. Does that still work? I guess it doesn't... well that's the best I can offer you for now. I'm just hoping for the best. So don't worry about me, okay? Wherever you are, though I'm sure you're in heaven... and hey, I'm sorry for wishing him dead too; but it was still the best for him. He must be with you now too. At least you're not too lonely there. No, I'm not lonely either! Maybe at nights; but I still cuddle up with Jasmine, so it's okay. Mom... I wish you were still here. I miss you..." 

She wiped her eyes and put the picture away. No matter how long had passed, you could never stop missing your mom. Even if it healed, it would never stop hurting somewhere in your heart. She reached out for her pink fluffy teddy bear and cuddled it under her blanket, sniffling her nose. Jasmine was the bear's name and she knew all of Yeojin's secrets; knew her better than anyone. The bear's existance comforted her and with the pills taking effect, she slowly drifted off to a restless sleep. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hope you liked the chapter, please do comment! thank you very much <3