Soyeon still couldn’t believe the big turn her life had recently taken, having a boyfriend changed everything. She was still new to this thing, she had never been in a relationship before, thus didn’t know what it felt like to be cherished as a woman every day, but it certainly did wonders to her wounded heart and caged soul. She felt alive like never before, free and happy, she finally woke up with a smile on her face and looked forward to her days, even made more plans outside the house so she could use the newly scheduled programs as an excuse to meet her chauffeur-boyfriend. Junhoe had mentioned once that it was good to finally see her in such a good mood, and he wasn’t the only one who noticed the change in her behaviour. She couldn’t be annoyed by her parents anymore, she just didn’t care and put the effort of always fighting with them into truly getting to know Hanbin. And she enjoyed every single moment of it.

Meeting the family meant so much to Soyeon and she was beyond grateful that everyone accepted her with warm hearts - well, except for Yuna, but she managed to shut her up after their race in which she demolished the girl’s big mouth, so she considered that as a win. She loved hanging out with everyone at the car repair shop, but her favourite was still Hanbin and the moments she spent with him, there wasn’t a day that wouldn’t have been memorable by his side.

Like this morning when she woke up in his boyfriend’s bed instead of home, alone, but still with that wide grin on her face that could lit up galaxies, stretching her limbs out a bit though it seemed to be a difficult task as she was completely tangled in the sheets. She didn’t really want to get up, but the muffled noises coming from outside of the room made her move, she put on Hanbin’s T-Shirt she retrieved from the ground, and walked out wearing nothing just that with her under it. It was big enough to cover most of her thighs and anyway, she had no reason to be shy in front of Hanbin out of all people, whom she eventually found in the kitchen.

“Morning,” Soyeon hugged Hanbin from behind, resting her face on his and even pressed a small kiss on the uncovered skin.

“Morning, babe.” Hanbin’s raspy morning voice totally melted the girl especially with his hands sneaking around hers, giving them a light squeeze. Not to mention that the affectionate babe got her heart beat super fast like nothing ever could. Soyeon was sure Hanbin could feel the smile forming on her lips against his back, but she didn’t really care. It was a lazy smile, one that truly showed how unbothered she remained by the world. She thought it was nice being able to do that, finally smiling without restraints or the need to do so just because her parents expected her to behave in a certain way in front of others.

“What are you making?” She peeked over his shoulder to have a better look at whatever was before him on the kitchen counter, she didn’t know if Hanbin could cook, so she was curious to find out the answer.

“Toast,” he said after long seconds of silence, sounding kind of awkward which Soyeon couldn’t understand why at first, but Hanbin willingly gave all the answers without even asking. “This is not something your amazing Japanese chef would prepare, but I only had ingredients for this.”

Soyeon snorted, properly stepping next to Hanbin, but in the meantime, not letting him go. “You spend awfully too much time with Junhoe.”

Hanbin actually laughed at this, it was true, but only because Soyeon herself spent a lot of her time in Junhoe’s company, thus Hanbin had to as well if he wanted to be close to his girlfriend.

“I don’t care about all that and you should know it. I’d rather have breakfast here with you than eat the fancy new stuff our chef always comes up with. Besides… Toast is one of my favourites, so it’s perfect,” Soyeon pressed a long kiss to his cheek, Hanbin embraced her in response to it, then cupped her face to kiss her on the lips. It was a slow, yet passionate kiss, sometimes Hanbin let actions speak instead of him.they knew without words how much they appreciated each other the way they were anyway.

They were both falling hard for each other.

Despite feeling more comfortable at Hanbin’s place than she ever felt at home, Soyeon still had to go before anyone in the mansion noticed she was out longer than it would have been normal. Although Junhoe always covered for her, she had to be cautious. She didn’t want her parents to find out her secret relationship with Hanbin because they would have instantly fired the boy and made sure they couldn’t see each other anymore, so the fear was what kept her rational, Hanbin needed to be at the car repair shop anyway.

Soyeon was glad when she saw no one except the maids on her way to sneak in quietly and unnoticed, her parents seemed to be out as usual, Mr. Jeon had important business meetings to attend and Mrs. Jeon liked to spend her free time with her lady friends exploring fancy and expensive places.

But luck wasn’t totally on her side today, and she had to find that out just centimeters away from reaching her bedroom door. Strong arms suddenly grabbed her and pinned her body right next to the door, not caring about the muffled thump and the pain it must have caused when her back collided with the beige colored wall.

“What the hell?!” She yelled but a palm covered before she could have brought unnecessary attention to them. Though it was highly unlikely as the staff was used to the Jeon siblings’ loud argues and never interfered, simply because their jobs were more precious than breaking up fights between the spoiled kids.

That didn’t mean Soyeon let Seungyeon to toss her around like a ragdoll and psychically shut her up, so she sank her teeth into his skin, which made the man retreat while cursing at her.

“Are you out of your mind? What was that about?” She didn’t wait for him to react, she pushed his chest away with a bit too much force, but she just wanted to get him out of her personal sphere as much as possible. Her heart was pounding loudly against her ribcage, blood boiled in her veins as adrenaline washed through her body from both fear and anger.

“Shut up, !” Seungyeon ordered like he was her boss to have the right to talk to her like that. After he stopped looking at his palm that had her teeth mark on it, which was probably going to bruise later as well as the major part of Soyeon’s back that was still aching painfully under the thin layer of her tank top, he glanced up at his sister with so much fire burning in his eyes that had her a bit taken aback. Seungyeon was really mad about something, and she doubted it was just the bite mark she gave him.

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out something Soyeon didn’t see clearly at first, but when he threw them at her way she realized it was a bunch of photos. She barely managed to catch one, the others scattered all over the floor, though the one in her hand was perfectly enough to make her frown.

“You thought you could sleep with the enemy without me finding out?” Seungyeon practically spat the words with so much hate that could have sure killed if it was possible.

It was all her and Hanbin on the pictures, holding hands, affectionately kissing and hanging out with others from the car repair shop hence most of them were taken in front of it. The first time in her life, Soyeon really didn’t know what to say. The lump in started getting bigger and bigger by each passing second they spent in heavy silence, she felt like a careless teenager that was caught doing something wrong which was ridiculous, yet she couldn’t help it. Her brother was the last person she wanted to find out about them, now she felt her new family, her love being jeopardized by her own flesh and blood, and the thought alone almost made her cry. Soyeon knew her brother was powerful enough to break them apart - or God forbid, hurt them - if he wanted to because despite all the humiliating insults about her sleeping with Hanbin that night, he would have never let her date someone who wasn’t as rich as them. It also hurt his pride that Hanbin was his self-chosen enemy just because he existed under the same air as Seungyeon did.

“Say something!” Seungyeon growled, hitting the wall next to her head which made her body tremble a little, but she bravely held the eye contact with him.

“You’ve been following me around?” Soyeon spoke as calmly as she could, right now this was her best weapon against him, plus she knew if she raised her voice and talked to him the same manner he did, it would have only added fuel to the fire.

“No, but I have friends everywhere, little sister,” he answered smirking, but that was more like a snarl at this point.

So now she couldn’t go anywhere she pleased because she had to fear someone would report it to her brother? Hell no!

Soyeon pursed her lips, steeled her gaze and smashed the picture in her hand into her brother’s chest. “So what? Who I spend my time with is none of your business, so stay away from us!”

“Not so fast, little sister,” he yanked her back as she was about to go inside her room. “You,” he pointed at her, “will be the one who is going to stay away from him, unless you want our dear parents to know about your free time activities as well.”

“Hmm, no, I don’t think so, brother,” she forcefully pulled her arm out of his clench, now not just her back, but almost her whole body was aching all over thanks to this bastard. “Go ahead and tell them, but then I will tell daddy that you were the one who pushed his little girl into Hanbin’s arms by putting me as the prize of your little racing competition, how do you think he would react?” The little devil in Soyeon enjoyed seeing the frown on Seungyeon’s face, they ended up at a place where they couldn’t get back from, neither of them, but that also meant that their well-being depended on the other’s mercy, because if one of them talked, they would both go down for sure.

Thus without adding anything further, Soyeon walked into her room, slamming her door shut and closing it in case her brother wanted to follow her. She could only hold herself together until she reached her bed, then she collapsed onto it, bursting out in tears - just another usual outcome of her fights with Seungyeon. It was emotionally and sometimes even physically draining to stand up against him.

Later on in the evening, after Soyeon spent the whole day cuddled up to her pillows on the bed, she decided to take a long bath and while the water was pouring into the bathtub, she examined her body in the mirror. She couldn’t see her whole back, but maybe it was for the better, because a bit bigger area started to get purplish below her bra than she would have expected, though it still didn’t look as bad as she initially thought and felt.

“Animal,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head and turning to see how much water had been already collected in the tub, right when her phone started ringing.

The name ‘Chauffeur’ flashed on the screen, it was a bit painful for her to name Hanbin like that, but it was only for precautions. If any of her parents saw him calling her, it would have been less suspicious this way, still a bit risky as Hanbin originally had to keep contact with her through Mr. Lee, but at least she could feed some bull about having his number. Naming him simply Hanbin would have been too personal.

“Hey hey,” she picked up the phone after the first two rings, not wanting to make him wait, and honestly, she was always excited whenever Hanbin called. The mere fact that she was talking to him now made her happy, letting her forget about his brother and all the new trouble that came with today’s wild encounter. “What’s up?”

“Soyeon,” Hanbin breathed into the speaker, he seemed like he was struggling with talking. The strange way he sounded immediately alerted Soyeon.

“Hanbin? What’s wrong?” She quickly went to turn the water tap off and sat on the edge of the tub. She didn’t like how Hanbin didn’t answer at first, that meant no good.

“The car repair shop… it burned down,” Hanbin forced the words out quietly, and Soyeon didn’t have to see him to know it pained him to say this out loud.

“What?! Oh my god, are you guys okay? How the hell did this happen?”

“Yeah, we’re all good. The fire started out in the back, so we had time to get out as soon as we noticed it, but the whole place burned down. We don’t know what happened, and unfortunately, we don’t have cameras inside or back in the alley.”

Soyeon had to grab onto the edge of the bathtub to keep herself composed. She didn’t want to believe this was happening, first her brother found out about them, now the shop was gone? What kind of cruel joke was bad luck playing on them today? Even though her heart clenched at the sad and horrible news, she was utterly relieved that no one got hurt. She didn’t know what she would do if the fire left any of them injured or… dead. She didn’t even want to think about the possibility of that.

“Thank God you’re all okay! You’re still at the shop? I’m coming over,” she instantly stood up and practically ran to her closet to find the first piece of decent clothing she could quickly put on.

“Yes, but don’t come here, police and press are all over the place. Meet me back at my place in an hour,” he didn’t even tried to stop her. Hanbin wanted nothing more in these moments than to be able to hug his girl tight and seek comfort in her arms.

“Alright, see you in an hour. Just hang in there, I love you,” she hang up. Only after that did she realize what she said, the words came to her so naturally that she haven’t thought about the consequences, that none of them had said this very meaningful thing to each other before. Soyeon hoped that she didn’t upset Hanbin with her careless action more because he sounded disturbed enough already. Or maybe that’s why he wouldn’t even notice she said she loved him?

Either way, she quickly got dressed and hurried out the door, too eager to be with Hanbin in these hard moments. She could worry about saying I love you later if it actually became a problem.