Donggab knew well the reason why Yubin was choosing to stay in Korea and taking over her father’s clan leader role. He could tell her intentions from their last private conversation. She definitely wanted to find the killer of her father and she sure did not want whoever was responsible for her father’s death to be the one taking over Gwangju. The thing was, was she going to pretend that she was accepting her father’s suicide in front of everyone so she could discreetly find or bait the killer?

Just then, he caught Yubin’s eyes again. Damn it, why did it feel like she could read his mind? Donggab tried to turn away from her eye contact but once again he found himself getting in momentarily. He should know how to control himself. He had been around beautiful women before and he mostly could control his . Donggab managed to turned away from her eyes when Kush threw yet another question at Yubin.

“I’m really curious about your stories as King of K-town, Yubin-sshi. I mean some even call them myths because they were quite unbelievable stuff.” Kush asked. “There was one I was really curious. Is it true you made a gang leader kill himself? And not by force?”    

Yubin shook her head. “I did not force him with threats or anything to kill himself. I just simply told him to kill himself coz he was never ever gonna get to me.”

Kush laughed out loud but realized no one joined him in laughter. He then turned to Sim D and asked “You believe that ?”

Sim D just shrugged and waited for Yubin to continue.

“He was a psycho who was going around causing havoc and brutal torture to my men and even some innocent people…” Yubin added. “I found out he did all those things not because he hated me and wanted to overthrow me but he wanted to get my attention and have me. I finally let him have my attention and told him firmly he could never have me so he might as well kill himself. He did not attack me. Instead he went home quietly. The next day he killed himself in his own apartment.”

“It wasn’t your men who killed him?” Kush asked.

“I told my men to only kill if he attacks me or any of them. He was alone in his apartment when he put a bullet through his mouth.”

When she found everyone in the room looking confused at her, not sure whether to believe her or not, Yubin added. “But of course it sounds crazy. I guess only a mentally disturbed person would do something like that.”

Donggab decided to get everyone back on track. “Anyway, I’m sure most of you will get to know Yubin better when we continue to meet during our monthly clan meetings…For now we should also introduce and perhaps familiarize Yubin about our brothers-in-arms clans.”

“I have done my homework on the clans, Donggab-sshi.” Yubin informed and then added. “Actually since everyone has been asking me questions, I do have a question I would like to throw to the floor now.”

She looked at Donggab for approval.

“Sure…go ahead.” Donggab said.

“Do you all really think my father committed suicide?” she asked the board members. Silence set in for some moments before Sim D broke the ice.

“If I’m not wrong, there was a suicide note that forensics confirmed it was his own hand-writing.” Sim D highlighted.

“I know that and I have looked at the note a million times. I still think it was forged.” Yubin said.

The clan leaders looked at one another and then Kush spoke up. “You think he was murdered?”

“I think one of you ers is responsible for my father’s death. That’s what I think!” Yubin stated calmly. Then she stood up and emphasized with her firm stare scanning everyone in the room. “And I’m gonna find out who and kill the mother-er with my own bare hands.”

With that, she walked out of the room as gracefully as she had arrived earlier.

Guess Donggab was wrong about Yubin going discreet. She was playing offense now.     

=====

Kim Yubin was the only child of the late Kim Bangman. Old Bang found so much of his virtue and character in his daughter that he decided to groom her into the next King of K-town. When Yubin turned 24, Old Bang passed on his K-town to her charge and flew back to Korea, Gwangju to bring some order to his hometown which was troubled by a young and ruthless triad leader. He took down the gang easily and gained a huge following. And the rest they say was history. Yubin kept her father’s legacy as King of K-town well in LA while her father stayed on in Gwangju for several years as clan leader.  

That was what most people knew about Kim Yubin. But there was a dark secret about her that no one knew. A secret that only her parents and her knew and vowed to keep it to themselves forever.

Yubin had a strange ability. She was born with a unique ability to read colors in people’s eyes. Not the physical colors of their eyes but the inner soul of them. She did not understand it when she was a child. She would tell her mother that her mother’s eyes were bright pink and her father’s eyes were hot pink. Her mother got worried and brought her to a doctor to check if Yubin had color-blindness but the doctor reported that Yubin was fine and could read colors correctly. Yubin explained to her parents she could only see the other unique colors when she looked deeply into their eyes. Other than that, she could see people’s eye colors as they were. Her parents advised her against revealing her special ability because it was for her own protection. She agreed because she hated how she was always called a stupid freak whenever she told other people their “real” eye color.

As she was growing up, she was able to decipher the meaning of the colors in people’s eyes. She felt that the colors could tell a person’s soul and feelings. She knew that pink was good, just like her parents. She deciphered that green was bad. It depicts anything immoral like greed or hypocrite and yellow would be the worst kind of evil. Sometimes the colors could be somewhat mixed and some also tend to change in a person too. Red was a color Yubin only knew about and managed to decipher when she was in her late teens. And it was mainly in the eyes of the opposite . Sometimes a boy’s eyes would be pink but when she touched or kissed him, it would turn red. Not to mention when she had , all she saw was hot red in the guy’s eyes. So to Yubin, red was the color for lust and passion but red as love was kind of subjective. Then there was blue which was more like a neutral color. It could be both good and bad. It could be good as someone having a conscience but it could be bad as the person had done bad things to feel guilty. She remembered she had a boyfriend whose eyes turned blue after several months of dating. She decided to tail him one day and found out that he was seeing another girl. So yeah, her special ability could bring her the hurtful truth too. After Yubin became King of K-town, she hardly got into any relationship. Though there were men who wanted her, there were also a number who were intimidated by her mafia status.

Another color that Yubin occasionally saw was purple but it was mostly a sub-color accompanying a main color. And this was a rare color which was something Yubin had yet to decipher. The psycho gang leader who killed himself had yellow eyes but there was a purple glow surrounding the yellow in them and Yubin was not sure if it was a good or bad color. Even Yubin was surprised when he did not get mad and raged brutal force on her after her frank rejection, instead he looked sad and left her alone, and then killed himself the next day. At that time, Yubin wondered if the purple in his eyes was a suicidal trait.

And recently, she had seen purple again. It was in the eyes of Shin Donggab. His eyes were bright pink surrounded by the purple glow. Good thing the pink was there which made her believe he had a righteous and kind heart and she knew he would never kill a fellow pink like her father. But the purple was a mystery to Yubin. If only she still had her parents around, she could casually talk to them about this mysterious color and what it meant. Now that both her parents were gone, Yubin had never felt so lonely in this world. 

Alone in her bedroom in her father’s bungalow, Yubin stared at her mirror self and looked into her own eyes. But she could see nothing except her tears. Yes, the only person in the world that Yubin could not read the colors in their eyes was HERSELF.