Chap. I : THE ANGEL’S FALL
The righteous pleasure
When a butterfly flaps its wings for the first time, when she comes out of the cocoon in which patiently remained hidden from the world, her life will last one day ...s he will die at the end of that little moment of freedom.
The doors of the hallway inside the huge villa parted in front of him, he could hear the sound of his footsteps on the marble floor echoing through the high walls. The waiters bowed deeply and then leaded him toward the door that separated from the huge hall where the party was taking place.
He stopped for a moment to adjusting his domino ... just for checking that his mask was well rested on his face. The theme of the party that was selected from one of the richest businessmen in Seoul, was the Venetian Carnival ... an original way to entertain the high class and announce the engagement of his heir with another young member from the same class.
He entered the room while the waiters closed the doors behind him. A concert of Renaissance music played in the background. The soft light made a magical atmosphere in the room while the women and the men wore clothes in Venetian style. The masks of women made their faces fascinating and intriguing, the bright colors of their clothes were designed specially to attract the attention of men.
"Ahhh ... a very well done Vanity fair", he thought with a half smile.
He turned his gaze around the room, observing the crowd with a bored look ... until he saw HER ... he recognized her immediately because of the red dress. She was the only woman he knew that could dare so much ... she lived only for this: to be idolized.
She was in the middle of two guys ... kids maybe ... certainly younger than her. She laughed mischievously while looking at them, shaking her beautiful head in a fakes innocent and lively ways. He knew that nothing she did was innocent. She had never been innocent ... instead she was spoiled, capricious, selfish .. that was the woman she was.
"My noona is falling down .. really?! Kids ...? "He thought shaking slightly his head with a lazily grin plastered on his face.
But could they fall lower than the hell that their lives were? Could they escape from that cage of loneliness, regrets and hate, from that sick and tragic passion which made them like prisoners?
He watched her while she was building her web of charm around those unwary young boys .. he wanted to scream them to run away, do not fall into her trap ... do not expect anything good ... because she will thrown them into the pit of hell, a place where she had forced him to stay ... and God, he knew that it wasn’t a nice place to stay... but then he thought that on its way to dissolution, he was no different from her.
She saw him and immediately looked away, pretending not to have noticed his presence. She turned her attention to the two boys. She put her hand to the chest of the boy on her right, she winking and smiling while him in a sensual way.
She always did it, she loved hurt him and take him to the brink of a precipice, despite the time elapsed and she was the one who put him away from her life, throwing him like an useless paper... she still wanted to have power over his soul, she wanted to be conscious that he still belonged to her.
It was love what he felt? Maybe ...
or maybe it was just a sick form of passion.
The innocent love for her had died a long time ago, she had burned it along with what remained pure in him ... as far as he knew, at this very point, the only thing that remained of his old self were just an empty shell and a damned and foolish soul.
Maybe someone in the future would come to ask him to pay for all his sins, he would be forced to look back at his dissolute life ... but it was not that day.
It was not jealousy what he felt ... it was like an old habit hard to forget, and to which he had learned to resign. She wanted to play with him, and he would have please her.
He approached the trio with a relaxed attitude. The carefree smile on his face was the only thing made visible by the mask:
"... I don’t think it's a good idea for you two to so easily sell your soul to this witch!" His joke full of sarcasm attracted the attention of the two boys who turned their heads to him, they were a bit uncertain, not knowing how to take that joke.
“Even idiots ...!” the smile on his face widened even more.
At that moment a crystalline laugh erupted from the woman.
"Aish jinjjia this namja ..." She shook her head again with a flirtatious smile on her face. She turned to the boys dismissing them with a quick wave of her hand, then she walked over to him:
"Yaaa Lee Min ho! Do you want to destroy all my friendships! "
Min Ho laughed briefly and looked back into her eyes ... those eyes that once were his whole world, for which he had denied everything ... his family, his future, and even himself.
"Tell me why you insist so much to make me come to this kind of circus?"
"Circus?! .... Once you liked this kind of places! Mmm let me think ... well what can I say? I asked you to come because the theme of this festival reminded me of the good times spent with you in Venice ... do you remember? "
Min Ho let out a laugh full of sarcasm, he looked at her raising his eyebrows:
"I can’t believe, even Yoon Eun Hye, the most cynical woman in this world, can indulge on the memory lane?! Be Careful noona … it’s a dangerous path! "He added lowering his voice in a sensual way.
Eun Hye touched his arm and looked into his eyes, an intense look rich of deepest meanings:
"... I've always loved the dangerous paths!" She whispered near his ear.
He struggled to restrain himself, her voice had always a damn effect on him.
He was bound to her by years of torment and passion, it was a flame that had become a shocking fire, leaving only ashes in the end, but he could not completely get rid of it.
He has had many women after her … after had become the demonic creature that she had created ... they were women whom faces he could not even remember, women who mingled in the crowd of faces in the background of the sheets. He had enjoyed his power over them. He had savor the manipulation over their soul like Eun Hye did over him before... but everything had failed to erase the memory of her, the desire for her .. maybe because a creature could not get rid of its own creator.
He sighed heavily:
"You're getting old Yoon Eun Hye-ssi" he looked down at her with scorn "... a melancholy old !"
She playfully hit him on his arm "Yaa you didn’t think I was old last time we had ... if I'm not mistaken it was only a month ago ..."
Min Ho looked at her with a half smile, to the ears of any listener, that woman was flattered because she felt feelings for him... but he knew her well: she just wanted to remind him that he belonged to her, and anytime she requested , he would run to her. She thought to be the mistress of his body and soul ... and he did nothing to correct this illusion, because it was fine for him
… because an empty shell has no soul to protect.
Eun Hye had become for him a little break from his existence that was made up of women who left him nothing. She reminded him that he once had a heart, he had loved, that he had been young and crazy, drunk of life and hopes. It was painful to admit that it was his own executioner to remind him that life, that being, that it was no longer his self.
When he was with her, in those moments, he savoring the joy that when he was twenty he had love her unconditionally, and this same passion made him swallow a cruel poison. He still loved her? He hated her? Maybe both, maybe none. The only thing he was aware of was that she looked more and more like a faded memory from which it was hard to come off.
"What have you done during this month? We haven’t seen each other for a long time ... " Her question caught him almost by surprise, interrupting his thoughts. He took a short breath and turned his gaze to the crowd of people in the room.
"Hmmm ... I've been busy hunting fresh meat!" He said slyly.
"Fresh meat!? The widow Choi?! She could have at least forty years! Really, I think you're falling a little low! You had choose an easy prey ... I think that idiot jumped on you as soon as you have spoken to her! "
"Ahhh Noona ... in truth it was not that simple! Our beautiful widow had been faithful to the memory of her late husband for several years ... may he rest in peace, poor soul ... "
he took a glass of wine from the tray of the waiter who passed by him, and turned his gaze toward her with a mischievous smile :
"She isn’t forty, and I would not call her old ... unless you consider old yourself, because she is only two years older than you!" ... She Seemed upset about what he said , the witch had always been vain. Suddenly the thought of her worried about her physical ageing put him in a good mood:
"My vain noona! I i
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