Daehyun’s POV

I wake up to my empty room once again when I remembered that I confessed my feelings to Sophie last night and she likes me back. Slowly, a smile creeps up on my face as I think about it. looking down, I notice the awkward say that I fell asleep. Wait, wasn’t Sophie here next to me? Now that I think about it, she was probably uncomfortable in my bed and went back to hers.

Happily, I get dressed and get ready for school when Youngjae comes down. “Where’s Sophie?” I ask.

“I haven’t seen her,” Youngjae replies.

“Really?” I ask. “Well, I guess she might’ve already taken off.”

“Let’s go?” Youngjae asks walking to the door.

“Not so fast,” Mom says. I groan and turn around. Why must she ruin my life?

“Yes?” I ask pretending to act like the perfect son. There are five days left until the wedding. Five more days that I can prevent this thing from happening. Today is only part one.

“Today you’re going to be riding in a different car than Youngjae,” she tells me. “You have to pick up Jieun and go to school together.”

“Yeah,” I say as I turn back around. Youngjae gives me a slightly pitied look and we both walk out the door. I kind of don’t want to hear whatever she wants to say next.

I get into a separate car and look out the window as the car drives to Jieun’s house. I have no idea where she lives, but I know that she’s going to be super annoying. I made up my mind last night when Sophie told me that she likes me. I’m going to work towards breaking things off. I just have to.

“Oppa, hello,” she says getting into the back car.

“Why are you calling me that?” I ask her. “You’re the one who’s older than I am.”

“I just always wanted to call my husband that,” she says with a bright smile on her face, one that I am disgusted at.

“Jieun, look, I don’t want to get married to you,” I firmly tell her. “I’m putting a stop to our marriage.”

“Can’t you come up with a more creative nickname than my name?” she asks as the car starts moving to school.

“No,” I tell her shaking my head. “I don’t want to do this.”

“You know, this actually happens all of the time.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“The boy and girl are reluctant to get married, more like the boy is this time,” she says while she points at me, “and then they end up falling in love.”

“Sorry, but that’s not how it’s going to work this time.”

“You can’t get out of this marriage,” she says as her voice takes a turn. “You just absolutely can’t.”

“Says who? I’m the prince; I can do whatever I want.”

“Then why were you in this marriage in the first place?” she asks as the car comes to a halt. “We’re in school now, you better act nice,” she says as she hops out of the car first.

I wait until she disappears from my sight to scream. “Is everything alright?” Jun asks turning around to look at me.

“How to stop a wedding that’s already happening,” I sigh as I lean my head back onto the seat.

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know the answer to that question,” he says with a smile.

“Yeah, I figured,” I mumble. “Well, I’ll get going before I’m late.”

“You do that,” he says as I get out of the car.

As I’m walking to class, I remember that I’ll probably see Sophie there and my heart starts racing at the thought of her. I should ask to meet up with her at lunch again like yesterday. However, once I get into class, I see that she’s not there. L.Joe isn’t in school either, but Sophie isn’t there, which makes me even more disappointed. Where could she be? Is she still at home and running late? I just sigh and attempt to pay attention in class without being so strange that Jieun notices something is off.

Sophie’s POV

“Are you sure you know someone?” I ask L.Joe as we’re walking down the street. “And why couldn’t this have waited until after school?”

“Well, it was you who decided to run away,” L.Joe says as he holds his letter and mine in his hand. “And since you wanted to run away, would it be good if you saw Daehyun the day after you ran away?”

“I guess not,” I say sighing. “I don’t even know if he noticed that I was missing yet.”

“Who knows,” L.Joe says as he checks the address on his phone once again. “This should be the place, but I don’t know what answers it would give us.”

“Hey, I want to know,” I tell him crossing my arms. “I want to know what the letter says whether you’re with it or against it.”

“I can’t leave you all alone now, so I have to be with it,” he says as he opens the door for me. “Go in.”

I follow behind L.Joe and enter the building. It’s a building for one of the universities around here that apparently has a Chinese teacher that can read the letter. After doing some researching last night, we found one that would be able to translate the letter to English without having to translate it to Korean first because that could be messy and things could be lost in translation.

After finding the person last night, L.Joe e-mailed them and asked if we were able to come and apparently the only time he has an open slot is during our school hours.

“Where is it, where is it,” L.Joe mutters to himself as he reads the board looking for the name. “Ah, here we go.”

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Down this hallway, I presume,” he says looking down it. “To a Mr. Zhang, he should be the one that can translate it for us. He’s the one I contacted after all.”

After some twists and turns in the hallway, we both finally stop outside of a door that has Mr. Zhang printed onto it in English. L.Joe looks down at me and I give him a nod. “This is nerve-wracking, isn’t it,” I say.

“A little,” he says as he takes a deep breath and knocks on the door.

“Come in,” the voice inside rings. Slowly, we both open the door and are face to face with Mr. Zhang. “Hello, you must be L.Joe and Sophie,” he says greeting us both in English.

“Hello,” we both say.

“It was nice of you to meet us on such short notice, Mr. Zhang,” L.Joe says as he beckons for us to sit in the seats.

“Please, just call me Lay,” he says with a smile. “It’s my nickname and the students use it more often than Mr. Zhang or Yixing, which is my first name,” he explains.

“Well, Lay,” I hesitantly say. “My friend and I were wondering if you were able to translate these letters for us.”

L.Joe hands over the letters and Lay gives them a look. “What are these letters for?” he asks as he probably skims them.

“We’re not sure,” L.Joe says. “You see, our parents just passed away and on the day of their funeral, we were each handed a letter that was written in Chinese. I already had mine translated, but I lost the translation. Sophie here wanted to know what hers said and you could probably translate mine, unless they say the same thing, then you could just not translate one.”

“Well, looking it over it seems that they aren’t the same,” Lay says.

“They aren’t?” L.Joe asks pretty shocked.

“No, it seems like they have some varying factors. What is it that each of your parents did, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“We don’t have a clear answer,” L.Joe says. “At least I don’t. Do you, Sophie?”

“I do, I think,” I say. “At least, I’ve heard that my parents were people who were sent on missions and helped bring Korea and China together.”

“And what did you say your name was?” Lay asks as he gets closer to me.

“My name is Sophie Karp,” I tell him.

“Are your parents your actual parents?” he asks raising an eyebrow.

I shake my head. “I’m adopted,” I respond.

Daehyun’s POV

Throughout the whole day I miss seeing Sophie. Surely she would’ve told me if she weren’t going to be in school. Is this payback for when I wasn’t in school? Did my mom kidnap her or something? Wait, why am I thinking that? Surely my mother didn’t kidnap Sophie, that’s just outrageous.

“What are you thinking about?” Jieun asks sweetly in my ear. Immediately I turn and glare at her. “Just asking,” she says as she slightly shies away.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want to get married?” I ask her. “I don’t like you and I will never like you.”

“So you’re thinking about Sophie,” she says. “Where is your little girlfriend?”

“Did you do anything to her?” I ask staring straight into her eyes.

“Why would I do anything to hurt your precious girlfriend?” she asks scoffing. “Like I would do something like that. I have at least a little bit of class.”

“Sure you do,” I say rolling my eyes.

“Hey, just because I want to get married to you and feel jealous because of Sophie does not mean that I would go as far as to kidnap her.”

I stare at Jieun, she’s probably right. Just because she wants to marry me doesn’t mean that she’ll actually go and kidnap the person that I like. Heck, Jieun doesn’t even know that Sophie is the one that I like, unless she has a hunch. I guess I was over thinking since Sophie isn’t there.

“Sorry,” I manage to squeeze out of my lips.

“It’s alright, you must be worried about her,” Jieun says sighing.

“What can I say?” I ask with a hint of awkwardness in my laugh. “We’ve been friends for six years, best friends at that.”

“Of course, it would be natural for you to worry about each other.” Instead of jealousy in Jieun’s voice, it’s now more like pain and sadness more than anything. Still, that won’t change my mind in determining who I like.

“Look, Jieun, I don’t mean to come off as mean or controlling or anything,” I say as I begin to apologize to her. “I just…I just don’t want to go through with this marriage. If it were up to me, I would’ve never come back to Korea in the first place. My mother called and told me that I should come back or else she would personally come. Back then, no one knew about me being a prince. Not one person in my school knew, not even Sophie. So coming over here, telling everyone that I’m a prince and that I’m getting married. I just can’t do it.”

“I understand,” Jieun says gathering her books as the lunch bell rings. “I understand that you don’t want to marry me.”

I watch as she walks away, but I don’t chase after her, that would probably only put more fuel on the fire, which is something that I don’t want to do.

I sigh as collect my books to make my way to the roof, even if Sophie isn’t here today, I’m not in the mood to spend lunch with Jieun and she probably feels the same way. Sitting on the roof, I look out into the city that is technically mine, but I don’t want it to be. Why does my mother always have to ruin my life? Maybe I could get my father to be on my side about this whole marriage thing. Perhaps he would be able to help me.

Even if he does, that still won’t change my mother’s mind. She’ll make me go through with this marriage until the day I die. Everything I say won’t have an effect on her. I’m sure of that. Maybe I should just run away like my aunt did. I should just run away and make a new life for myself. It’s not like I’m completely helpless when it comes to other languages, but I would have to find Sophie first. I would want her to run away with me.

But I already made Sophie come to Korea with me. She would be happy going back, it’s the place where she was raised, maybe not where she was born, but still, it’s her home. Korea isn’t her home. I don’t even know why I made her come here in the first place. Besides her parent’s funeral being here, but after that she could’ve gone back home; only she would’ve been alone.

Nothing that I seem to be doing seems right anymore. “What are you doing up here?” I hear Youngjae ask.

“What are you doing?” I ask pointing at him.

“Getting away from all of the girls that are bothering me because they found out I’m your cousin.”

“Sorry,” I apologize. “Since the marriage announcement it was bound to come out sooner or later. I didn’t want to ruin your playboy image.”

“It’s alright,” he says giving me a smile as he sits down next to me. “It wasn’t really working, anyway.”

“Well, you still are a dork,” I tell him causing Youngjae to hit me. Just for this moment, this moment with Youngjae I’ll enjoy myself. When the bell rings for the end of lunch, I have to go back to worrying about everything in the world.

Sophie’s POV

“Where were you born?” Lay asks. He’s continuing to bombard me with questions.

“In Korea, why?” I ask.

“You don’t look Korean to me, that’s why,” he says as he flips through some papers. I don’t know what that does, but he’s doing it.

“And you look young to be a professor,” I tell him.

“Well, that’s because I am,” he says chuckling. “I’m probably not much older than you, but I’ve skipped a couple of grades.”

“Still,” I tell him. “What does it matter where I was born or when my birthday is or the fact that I was adopted?”

“I think it could help you find out who your parents are.”

“I still don’t get it,” I tell him.

“Did either of you ever hear of this myth that I can’t think of the title for?” he asks.

“If you don’t know the title, then how are we supposed to know it?” L.Joe asks.

“True,” Lay says pointing at us. “I’ll just tell you the story anyway.”

“Go on then,” L.Joe says.

“Well, it was a stormy night in the house that was used for vacation by the rich people of the land, in China, might I add. This story comes from there. Moving on, within the stormy night, there was a person who wanted to seize power from these rich people. That night, while the rich people were sleeping, he was going to go to their house and set it on fire in hopes that they would die.”

“Couldn’t he get the power another way?” L.Joe asks.

“You’re missing the whole point of the story and it’s a myth anyway,” Lay says before he continues. “Anyway, he set the house on fire, but the family was successfully able to escape. Once the ashes and the fire were put out, they discovered that their child was missing, the youngest. People say that that child still roams around today.”

“How in the world is that a myth story?” I ask.

“It’s just a story and I felt like telling it,” he says shrugging his shoulders.

“Well, if you could please just translate those letters for us, we’ll gladly get on our way because you probably have a class soon, right?” L.Joe asks.

“You’re right,” he says looking at his watch. “I have one in ten minutes, and I’ve been done translating these for a while now. When I was writing things down, you probably thought I was writing down your answers,” he says looking at me, “but I was writing down the translation.”

“Then why didn’t you give it to us earlier?” I ask.

“Because I thought I should just tell you that story,” he says as L.Joe and I head towards the door of his office. “Anyway, it was nice meeting you guys. Feel free to come back here any time.” L.Joe and I nod our heads at his comment as we make our way out of the building.

“That guy was strange,” I say as we begin walking.

“I’ll say,” L.Joe says as he holds the papers. “But at least he wrote down the translation.”

“That’s good,” I say as I stare at the papers in his hands. “But what was the purpose of the story anyway?”

“I don’t know,” he says shrugging his shoulders. “I guess he just wanted to tell it like he said.”

“You know, when he gets older, I think he might be a senile old man.” L.Joe laughs at my statement. “I’m serious; if he’s already telling stories like that now, imagine what he’s going to be like in ten years.”

“I don’t even want to imagine it,” L.Joe says as we continue walking. “Why don’t we go get some lunch, are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” I say nodding my head.

“How about we get it at that place by the school again, unless you have somewhere else you’d like to go.”

“What if kids from school spot us?” I ask.

“I’m pretty sure they won’t,” L.Joe says giving a confident smile. “Plus, it’s a tent, they would have to physically walk in there. Let’s go.” With that, L.Joe grabs my hand and begins taking me to the food stall to eat.

Daehyun’s POV

I get home from a long day of school to a flustered Hyosung. “Noona, what’s wrong?” I ask.

“Have you seen Sophie today?”

“No,” I say shaking my head. “I was going to go up to her room to see if she was there, why?”

“She’s not there.”

“She’s not?” I ask surprised. “What do you mean she’s not there?”

“I mean she’s not there. What other meaning is there behind it?”

“I don’t know,” I say shrugging my shoulders. “I just thought you meant that she went out or something.”

“You really didn’t see her in school?”

“Really. I didn’t see her leave this morning. Of course, I had to go to school with Jieun, but whatever.”

“Going off topic for a moment, how is that working out?”

“Alright,” I say. “I think she’s going to start calling off the marriage soon.”

“Is that your plan?” Hyosung asks with one eyebrow raised.

“Never mind about my plan,” I say suddenly remembering about Sophie. “Explain what you mean by Sophie isn’t in her room.”

“It’s better if I just showed you.”

Hyosung grabs my arm and takes me upstairs to Sophie’s room. Without even knocking, Hyosung opens the door. I look around and I see that it’s empty.

“It’s empty,” I say looking around. “But it’s always looked like this, Sophie doesn’t keep anything in her room, normally and she cleans up after herself well.”

“Well, when I open the drawers,” Hyosung says going over to the closet. “These are empty too.”

I go over and stand by Hyosung to see the empty drawers where Sophie kept her stuff from home. Suddenly, it hits me. “No, no,” I mutter.

“Well, someone finally caught on,” she says. “But really though, we have a problem.”

“Do you think Mom forced Sophie to leave? Do you think she’s on a plane back to America right now?” I worriedly ask.

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen Mom today yet,” Hyosung admits. “If Mom thinks that Sophie is a threat to your marriage, she could’ve done anything, you know that.”

I stare at the empty closets once more before I take off running to go see Mom. “She has to know, she had to do something,” I tell Hyosung.

“Where are you going?” she asks as I run down the hallway.

“I’m going to go see Mom. This is stopping right now,” I say as I make my way to her office.

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How is Daehyun's plan to stop the marriage going to work? What is he going to do when he finds out that Sophie ran away? Why did Lay decide to tell the story? What are the letters translated to?

Here is Chapter 16. Hope you enjoyed :D

And there is the introduction of a new character, Lay from EXO-M. He'll be making brief apperances.