Chapter 43 - Ready

We stared at each other for a solid minute and Wonho still didn't move the slightest. It was the first time I saw him this shocked and I clenched my teeth, walking towards him. “This is why you don't have any money to spare for Changjung's surgery? I can't believe you stooped so low.”

He finally snapped out of his frozen state and shot a glance at the house behind me before burying his hands in his pockets, seemingly calm and composed. I noticed the dark bags under his eyes and his slightly messy hair while he shrugged. “Then don't believe it.”

I let out a snort, panic getting the better of me when an image of my former general appeared in front of my eyes. “You expect me to just take this without a word? Wonho, do you even know how ing horrible these houses are? What they do to them in there?”

He his lips and averted his gaze. “You don't have to tell me.”

“Oh, I don't? How wonderful”, I spat and pushed past him, deliberately slamming my shoulder into his. “So you're a frequent caller there now, huh? Must be fun. Got nothing more to say?”

“Hyungwon, you don't understand-”

“What more is there to understand?”, I shot back, glaring at him and his breath hitched. I huffed again. “And I was beginning to believe you were actually a decent guy. Joke's on me.”

“Now hold up, get your together”, the blonde interfered, grabbing me by the arm. “Pardon my language but I'm not going there to some forced e.”

“So you're going there to talk about stocks and banking to do your job, is that what you're trying to tell me? And you believe I'd buy that?” I couldn't hold myself back, the spiteful words just flowed out of my mouth without stopping. As he had probably been blocking that room for the two weeks he hadn't really come home there was something really fishy about him. “Let me guess: You don't work as the banker everybody believes you to be.”

“You don't know anything about me, Hyungwon.” Wonho's voice was deep, scary and dark but when I looked into his eyes I could see pain and panic. Something was wrong and I would have asked but he just kept talking, trying to explain himself. “I'm helping someone out, okay? You're in no position to lecture me about those houses, I know more about the that's going on in there than you and you can't convince me of the opposite.”

I could have let it go. I didn't need to get along with Wonho in the first place. Why was I even making an effort? If that's what him belonging to the drug category of 'Lust' meant I might as well give up on him. But that couldn't be everything to him. Minhyuk trusts this guy, I thought, there must be more to him. I felt disappointed in Wonho but his shaking eyes and tensed jaw told me that there was something he had to say.

I ripped my arm out of his grasp and crossed both of them in front of my chest. “I'm listening. Helping out? You'd better make this convincing.” I might as well hear him out now.

“It's a longish story.”
“Can you tell it before we get home? Then go ahead, I'm just so keen on hearing your story.”

“Not that long, just-” He pressed his lips together and closed his eyes for a moment before nodding. “Okay, let's try this, here we go: I ran away from home four years ago but recently found out about something of interest to me. I know you're gonna hate me more-” Wonho looked at the house again with a sigh, “-but that house actually belongs to my old man. You could say it's Satan's den.”

“Your old- Wait, what does this-”

He motioned me to get going so that we'd move away from that place and walked ahead. “Seokjoon. Formerly Shin Seokjoon, husband of Han Ji-yeon, father of...father of Shin Eunji and me, Wonho. Manager of more than eighty brothels in Korea, making a fortune with sending young women to hell.” Wonho pressed his lips together and took a deep breath. “My father.”

“I-” I didn't know how to react, settling with simply frowning at him for a while.

He chuckled just to sigh a moment later. “Anyway, you're right. I'm not working at a bank. Though I did until not too long ago.”

“You- Okay, okay, wait. Your father owns that house. You ran away from home for some reason. You're jobless? But how does this explain that you're frequenting that place?”, I finally got to my point, angry at him for not just telling me what I had asked for. “You said you ran away from your family so why are you here now? Dammit, Wonho, stop making riddles out of every damn thing.”

“You can't keep running forever.” He buried his hands in his pockets and the more he said the quicker he talked as though he were afraid of me interrupting him. “I-I'm looking for someone who was taken from me ages ago. I thought maybe she could be here once I was told about this house, as delusional as it may sound. The chance was one in a million and before you ask, no, she's not here. But I hoped to finally find her and I just had to check. I grew frustrated. I know I don't look like it but not a single day passes without me thinking about her. I want to see her again, I'd do anything.”

There was pure and unconcealed devotion in his eyes and I found it hard to believe that Wonho, our Wonho, could center his whole existence around one girl. “But if she's not here, why would you keep coming?”

I watched as his expression went from calm to furious in a matter of seconds. “There's another girl in there that needs protection. And when I say girl I mean it. She's just a child. Eleven years old, maybe twelve. It was coincidence that I found out about her.” He was trying hard to calm down and took deep controlled breaths as we kept walking down the street. “How sick do you have to be to force a child to be a e? A damn child! And my father knows.”

His rage grew stronger and stronger and ended up striking me as well. A child. I slung my arms around myself, digging my nails into my sides and began to understand. I remembered what the military guy had said at the arsenal. That Korean scum has been blocking my room at the house for weeks now! I tried to put the pieces together myself and glanced at Wonho. “You're just blocking her room?”

“I do it to keep her safe. I can't get her out of that place so I need to protect her otherwise. Nobody deserves to have to work there but a child? Of course me frequenting that place attracted attention and I-” His voice trailed off leaving me staring at him until he found his voice again. “I was confronted with my cruel old man again. The...th-the rest is my problem. You don't really need to know more about my dysfunctional family.”

Silence.

I tried hard to filter the most important information from his tale and furrowed my brows. “So, basically you gave up your job to block a room at a brothel because there's a minor in there. Correct?”

Wonho scratched the back of his neck. “Now that I hear it like that I could have explained it in one sentence as well... Yes, that's the gist of it.”

“So nobody can get to her even when you're not around? She's a hundred percent safe?” He nodded, causing me to shake my head in disbelief. “Sounds weird. Why would they let you have your will, they don't usually pity their tools.”

“I know, weird, right?”, he retorted with an empty chuckle. “It's because I'm Seokjoon's son, I guess. I'm the one who will inherit that business after all and I could just fire them once my time comes. I'll fire them anyway but they don't need to know yet.”

“That's-” Yeah, what is it?

I had been too quick to judge Wonho, yes, but who wouldn't assume the worst knowing that this guy was sleeping around without restrictions? I glanced at my bag, feeling the guilt of a bad conscience creeping into my mind. It could have been the other way round; what if he had found me borrowing weapons from a Chinese weapon arsenal? He would have interpreted it the wrong way as well.

I clenched my teeth, closing my eyes for a moment. “Sorry for jumping to conclusions.”

“You should trust me, Hyungwon. You can, I swear. The worst I do is sleep with willing ladies and I'm a hopeless romantic at heart. I can't do any harm – the rest is just pretense.”

“I'd reconsider that romantic part. It doesn't go with the first half”, I muttered, pulling my bag closer to my body. The worst I do is assassinate people. One point for you, blondie.

My companion shrugged and put on a smirk that showed me how relieved he was to have resolved that misunderstanding between us. We walked in silence for a minute before he spoke up again. “Now that I shared my tragic story with you-”

“I didn't ask for all the details.”

“-why don't you tell me about your intense reaction back there? I was stunned. You never get emotional.”

“That's not-”

“Guys like him are the worst. He loves going to a nearby jìlóu. You know what that is? They say you can have lots and lots of fun there.”

I had my eyes locked on the ground in an instant, a well-known scenario playing out in my head like so many times before.

I didn't know what to do and just stood there, swallowing hard as the man walked up and down in front of me. “I'm sorry. I won't make this mistake twi-”, I tried again but he cut me off with a wave of his hand.

“You know, it's been a long time since scum looking like you stood i