Kyungha gets a call in the middle of the night. She groans, rubbing her eyes that burn from the light illuminating from her phone. “Hello?” She slurs with sleep.

“Sorry to call you this late. You were the only person who picked up,” the man tells her.

“Who’s this?” She questions, her mind clearing ever so slowly.

He tells her that he’s at one of the upscale bars downtown, and there’s a lady—Minjung—who won’t stop drinking. As much as she’d hated Minjung, Kyungha wasn’t completely coldhearted.

So through the fog of sleep, she tells the man that she’ll be there in twenty. Kyungha dresses in the dark, throwing on a sweatshirt and wrapping a scarf around her neck.

The January air is freezing, and it stings her nose. She sneezes, kicking her legs to warm herself up. Her Uber arrives, and she nods off during the car ride. Her driver ends up shaking her awake.

Exhausted, she forces herself out of the car and she heads into the bar. The bouncer asks for her ID, and she quickly flashes it, and then she’s inside. There aren’t many people. In her peripheral, she spots the bartender serving up drinks behind a glass bar top.

The place oozed with sophistication. She scans the velvet seats and marble tables. The bar is lightly lit, so she doesn’t catch sight of where Minjung is until a man waves at her.

She figures that it must be the same man who’d called her. He smiles at her. “I didn’t want to leave her before you came. It’s dangerous for a woman to be alone at this hour,” he explains.

Kyungha nods, thanking him. After he leaves, she finds a seat beside Minjung who is currently playing with the olive in her martini.

Minjung drunkenly tilts her head over to Kyungha, her cheeks splotchy. Glaring, she snorts. “Gosh, I must be sleeping with my eyes open. I can’t believe I’m seeing this right now.”

Kyungha clears . “Actually, you’re not dreaming, and I’m here to take you home.”

“ing hell,” Minjung curses quietly, her head plopping on the counter. “Why are you always in my way? Get out of here. Scram.”

The younger girl wrinkles her nose in distaste. “What is it with drunk people and their ungratefulness?”

Minjung swats a hand in front of Kyungha. She easily dodges. “I don’t want you here. Go away.”

Pinching her temple, she attempts to remain calm. “Why are you drunk out of your mind? Shouldn’t you be celebrating now that you’ve won?”

Minjung narrows her eyes into slits. She runs a hand on her cheeks, wiping away the tears. “Celebrating?” She throws her head back in a disbelieving laugh. “It was fun while it lasted. Let me just put that out there.”

Kyungha’s eyebrows knit together. “Did something happen?”

The woman across from her throws her a disdained look. “Are you a moron?”

“Minjung,” she warns. “I don’t have to be here. I couldn’t care less about you, but I care about my mom and Henry, so you better stop dragging me into your stupid mind games. I’m done. You’ve ruined the good in my life. What more can you do to me?”

Minjung drops her head again. “You’re so ing nice. It’s disgusting.”

“I’m leaving,” Kyungha announces.

“I’ve never won against you, Do Kyungha. Do you know that?”

Kyungha scoffs. “You’re drunk.”

“But I’m not stupid. Sit down, little sis. Let me tell you about the sad tale of Park Minjung,” the woman slurs, swirling her glass of alcohol.

The younger reluctantly sits back down. Frankly, she wasn’t interested in anything Minjung had to say. Kyungha just wanted to be left alone. She was attempting to fix her life again, but this, these little incidents, weren’t helping her.

“Once upon a time, a prince and a princess fell in love. And then—“ She laughs self-deprecatingly into her hands. “—they lived happily ever after!”

Kyungha stares at her in disbelief. “Are you ing kidding me right now?”

“I never said I was done talking, princess,” she stresses, waving her hand drunkenly. “The two had a baby girl. They named her Minjung. She was the prettiest, most cherished baby girl in the entire land.” Minjung exhales, clicking her tongue. “Is what I’d like to say, but the princess wasn’t happy with her life. She cheated on the prince, and then she was pregnant with another precious child. The princess forgot about her firstborn.” Minjung snorts. “More like she’d forgotten the girl even existed.

But not to worry, the prince’s heartbreak would soon come to an end as the princess got what she’d deserved. She died in childbirth when Minjung was ten. As the little girl grew up, she’d felt empty and constantly, she was searching for something.

But of course, the stupid girl didn’t know what she was even looking for. So she wanted everything and the prince was too weak to say no to his little girl. So—“ She takes a swig of her martini, and continues, “he gave her everything the world had to offer. All the toys. All the pretty boys. She’d never heard the word ‘no’ in her life.

Stupid ,” Minjung spats. “She got ahead of herself. Cocky. She thought she could win everything in life if all she did was flash her smile and doll-like eyes. But she was wrong. She met a boy with the name of Oh Sehun.”

Minjung giggles under her breath, and Kyungha begins to feel sick as she realizes where the story was heading.

“He was the prettiest boy she’d ever seen. Oh, the girl just had to have him, but—“ Minjung pauses to gasp dramatically, her eyes round. “—surprise! He told her the word she’d thought she would never hear in the span of her lifetime. No. Can you believe the audacity?”

Kyungha wants to say, can you believe your own audacity of thinking you own the world? But she doesn’t. She stays quiet, pursing her lips.

Minjung continues, leaning back in her chair. “It only made the fire blaze in the girl’s fire pit. She was obsessed with winning him over. Why wouldn’t he let her date him? Why wouldn’t he even sleep with her when she’d offered just one night? She grew desperate, and then she finally figured out the answer! He was head over heels for another princess. Come to find out, she’d was from the opposite spectrum—another kingdom.

This girl was unbelievably naive. Minjung wanted to kick the little girl to the side of the curb. She didn’t understand what Sehun saw in that girl. Her innocence? Her beauty?

ing hell. I was more special. So much more special than you.”

The glare that Minjung shot her was fierce, but there was also desperation—like she was clinging onto her beliefs because if she’d let go, then she’d fall and lose everything. “I didn’t care if he was in love with you. I wanted him, and lucky for me, I have a dead mother to do the trick.”

Kyungha’s jaw unhinges. “You manipulated him?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Minjung scoffs. “I’d call it charming, but whatever floats your boat, little sis. Anyway, he’d eventually softened up enough, and I made him mine. I just needed to press some buttons, and everything fell into my hands. His mommy issues made it easy as counting one, two, three,” she sings the numbers, flashing them on her fingers. “I didn’t really care if what he felt for me was pity. As long as the little girl got her guy, it was all good. But still, he’d never have his full attention on her.

He kept searching for the girl from the rivaling kingdom. What an idiot. He’d missed out on the main entree, me.”

Kyungha rolls her eyes. “Right because you’re the loveliest flower in the garden.”

Minjung sneers, “oh come on, little sis. It’s not polite to interrupt storytime. Didn’t your mother teach you any better?”

“You’re ing sick,” she snaps.

The latter ignores her and decides to continue, “that day when you came to his apartment. He wasn’t there. He was out looking for you.”

Confusion pricks at Kyungha like a persistent thorn in her side. “What do you mean? I was at Kyung—“ She stops, realizing that she’d been staying at the public library the entire day to avoid Sehun.

Minjung laughs. “You were so easy to fool. I just had to put on a costume, and you believed me just like that. Do you even love him, Do Kyungha?” She doesn’t wait for Kyungha to answer and rambles on, “you have so, so little faith in your man.” Minjung taps Kyungha’s nose with her index. “Careful, don’t let him find out. You might hurt his feelings.” Then, she gasps theatrically, clutching her chest. “Too late. You already did. That’s why I got the chance to pick up his pieces. We were steady for three years, and then I felt it. He was growing tired of me. And frankly, I was tired of him too.

Always so hesitant to touch me. His kisses felt like afterthoughts. So I made the mistake of cheating on him. I slept with one of his colleagues. And he found out. I thought it was over, but then I had an idea. You see, there was a funny, timely coincidence. I was pregnant, and Sehun, oh my poor innocent boy, I told him it was his—“

Kyungha grounds her jaw. “It wasn’t his, was it? It was his colleague’s?”

Minjung throws her head back, cackling, “bingo! But like I said, it’s easy charming him into getting what I want. I made him stay—I trapped him—and things were finally back into place.

But then I saw the swell in my stomach, and I felt sick. Utterly disgusted. So without telling him, I got rid of it—“ She sighs into her hand. She says it so casually that it was almost like she didn’t care that she had an actual child—like she didn’t care that she’d taken advantage of Sehun’s soft spot.

He was responsible enough to stay even if he didn’t feel anything, which was far off from any other man that she could vouch for.

Kyungha had never seen anyone who had gone so far beyond, crossing every single line there was. Morals. Responsibilities. She lets her eyes roam over this Minjung, the woman who suddenly looked different in Kyungha’s eyes. All she could see was a monster behind a pretty smile and pretty words.

Minjung spent years manipulating Sehun unapologetically—toying with Kyungha, making Sehun the bad guy in her eyes. She’d torn two people apart for her own entertainment.

“Did you love him?” Kyungha asks, her voice dropping to a chill. She was merciless.

Minjung tilts her head, her lips. “No. I couldn’t actually love someone who has eyes for another woman—a girl,” she spats out the last word like it’d disgusted her.

But Kyungha felt the irony reach the deepest parts of her bones. Minjung had no right to feel disgusted. She was blinded by her own actions. She wasn’t guilty, and she’d keep pulling the strings if she were allowed to.

“How did the engagement end?” Kyungha finally asks her last question.

Minjung hums, “he found out that I went through with the abortion, and he’d also found out the truth from his colleague that same day. But it wasn’t him who left, I did. And believe me, it was my biggest regret. I should’ve stayed. He would’ve given me a chance. He’s still so adorably weak. I just had to use my cute little tragic story of a girl whose mother died on December 31st, and he didn’t even question it. You know how he is—weak. Docile. Malleable—”

Kyungha didn’t want to hear anymore. She stands up abruptly. “Shut up,” she snaps, losing her composure.

“But I’m not done,” the latter pouts, blinking her eyes with feigned innocence.

“You forget that a conversation involves two people and so does a relationship. You don’t deserve him,” Kyungha reiterates, planting her feet firm. “Sehun deserves the ing world, but instead, he got you—he’d had the luck of stepping on a pile of , and I’m going to dispose of that for him.

I thought he was an for protecting you, but I get it. You’re ing demented. It wasn’t his story to tell because he was the victim. And Sehun is so much higher than you could ever dream to be. He wouldn’t sully anyone’s reputation no matter how much they’ve wronged him. So, you can go yourself, Minjung. Because I’m done, standing by and watching you destroy the man I love.”

Then without another glance, Kyungha traipses out of the godforsaken place—away from the nightmare that no longer scared her.

Because finally, her mind was completely clear.