Allie’s POV

I stare at Woohyun. Is he serious? He’s asking me to accept his heart. I can’t say anything but just stare at him, it’s like I’ve lost any methods of speaking that I’ve learned. “Woohyun…I,” I begin.

“I got you, didn’t I?” Woohyun asks pointing at me.

“What?” I ask as I’m unable to grasp the situation.

“I wasn’t really asking you out,” he clarifies.

“Oh,” I say slightly disappointed. Why I’m disappointed I don’t really understand.

“I was just…testing,” Woohyun says. It seems like he’s trying to find an excuse for saying it. Does he really like me? “So, do you think that those sound like good lines?”

“Yeah,” I say nodding my head. “Who are you preparing them for?” I can’t help but be a little curious.

“No one right now,” he says avoiding my eye contact. “They just came to my mind and I thought that I should test them out. Sorry for using you.”

“It’s alright,” I quickly say with a smile, but for some reason I don’t exactly feel like smiling right now.

“Yeah,” Woohyun says with the atmosphere becoming slightly awkward between the two of us. “You like Myungsoo, right?”

I immediately look at Woohyun. “Why do you suddenly ask that?”

“I just get the feeling sometimes.”

“I haven’t seen that guy for so long now,” I say thinking back to the times that I spent with Myungsoo. “Are we even considered friends anymore? Does he think about me sometimes? Has his old lifestyle returned? Those are questions that I tend to ask myself sometimes. Stupid, right?”

“It’s not stupid at all,” Woohyun says in a comforting way.

“We used to be best friends in elementary school and now we’re reunited as we’re in college, but now we’re just living our separate lives. Quite a journey, right?”

“That is, but listen to me when I say this,” Woohyun says. I turn my face and look at him. For some reason his eyes seem so sad, it’s like he’s concerned and worrying about something. The look in his eyes looks like he’s trying to give it all in this conversation but his heart isn’t in it. He was so happy when we first came here, what happened? Could it be that he really does like me and wanted to ask me out?

“Say what?” I jokingly ask attempting to ease up the tension between us.

“If it’s meant to happen, then it will happen. You and Myungsoo are both fools for not realizing it.”

“Realizing what?”

Woohyun doesn’t respond to my question and simply gets up off of the bench. “Let’s get you back to your apartment, it’s getting late.”

I don’t say anything in response and simply follow behind Woohyun thinking about what he said.

Myungsoo’s POV

Back in Japan once again, the feeling is a little bittersweet. So many things happened the last time that I was here. Actually, I never thought that I would come back after what happened between my grandmother and I, but if things are starting to go in the way that I think they are, then I have to return, there’s no other choice for me.

I step out of the hotel wearing very laid back clothes. I’m not going to go see my grandmother just yet. Hopefully, if things go the way that I’m planning, she won’t even know that I’m here yet.

Placing the sunglasses on my face, I start walking around Japan. I’m actually going to walk near my grandmother’s house and near the company just in case I see any sign of Sunggyu. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to find him in the first place. I should’ve just made Sungjong come with me.

“Are you looking for someone?” I hear a voice say behind me in Korean. I turn around and see someone that I don’t recognize. “Long time no see, right?”

“Who are you?” I ask. I even take my sunglasses off for a second to see properly and I still don’t know who is standing before me.

“Don’t tell me you can’t recognize me, I’m Yuri.”

“Yuri?” I ask looking her up and down. “You look nothing like Yuri.”

“You haven’t seen me for a while.”

“Only like a month or two,” I state. “In that short period of time you’ve undergone this transformation? But how did you know that I’m here?”

“I have sources,” she says. “So are you looking for anyone?”

“Nope,” I say shaking my head. I don’t feel bad lying to her at all. “I’m just spending my leisurely time here.”

“Then why doesn’t your grandmother know about your arrival?”

I don’t answer Yuri and just stare at her strangely. How in the world does she know that I’m here in the first place and how does she know that my grandmother has no idea about it? Something definitely sounds fishy about this whole thing.

“I’m not here for business, I’m here on my own time, so she doesn’t have to know anything,” I say as I begin to walk away. “Goodbye.”

I leave Yuri standing there. I don’t know why she knows all of those things and something just gives me a creepy feeling. How can one person change so much within the course of a month? It just doesn’t make sense.

As I walk through the streets of Japan, memories of Allie start flooding my brain again. Recently, she’s been on my mind more than normal. When she initially left, she was on my mind all of the time. Slowly, it got better, but recently, the feeling is starting to come back. Why, I have absolutely no idea.

I find my way to a quiet café where I sit to have some small breakfast before going out to do what I set out to do here. Sitting in the café only makes me think about Allie more and our first meeting. It was both of our clumsiness that caused us to meet. I guess it was like fate that day.

Staring at the people that are passing by as I finish up my small breakfast, I suddenly take a double take as I look out the window. Quickly, I finish up what I was eating and throw it in the trash before running out of the café.

“Hey, wait,” I say through the crowd of people. Most of them probably can’t understand me since I’m speaking Korean, but I know that the person I’m following can. “Wait a minute, wait up.”

I see her turn around and face me. She looks right at me before she turns around probably hoping that we didn’t see each other, but we did, there’s no denying it now. “Uee!” I call out again to her. “Wait up.” If there’s a person who knows where Sunggyu is, it has to be her. It just has to be.

Allie’s POV

I wake up in the morning and get Cecelia up to go to school. “We have a substitute teacher today,” Cecelia announces as she’s eating her breakfast.

“You have a substitute? Where did your regular teacher go?” I ask curiously.

“She took a vacation,” she simply says.

“Oh,” I say nodding my head. I’m not entirely sure what else I would be able to say. It’s none of my concern whether Uee goes on vacation or not.

After a little bit, I drive Cecelia to school as I go to my job at the café. This morning is just like all of the others, there are numerous people who come in. Recently, the café has gotten more popular with the young people that attend the university, and even though the university is on a break right now, the people still come back because it’s a part of their routine.

“Good morning, Hoya-oppa,” I say greeting him as he comes in. He’s part of the normal morning crowd as he recently moved here to be closer to Cecelia and me along with Woohyun, Sungyeol, and Myungsoo. I guess friends really do stay with each other for a long time, well, friends that share a special bond do.

“Good morning, Allie,” he brightly says. “I’ll just have my usual.”

“Your usual it is,” I say as I put it into the register. I actually don’t even need to use the register since he orders it every day, but it’s for record purposes. “Woohyun-oppa isn’t with you today?”

“Nope,” he says shaking his head. “I think he had to work today. Do you know what happened to him?”

“What happened to him?” I ask. “I don’t know anything, why?”

“He just seems a little…off.”

“Isn’t he always like that, oppa?” I ask with a laugh.

“Yeah, but things just seemed a little different, stranger than before,” Hoya says describing the feeling.

“I’m not entirely sure, sorry,” I apologize. “I’ll go get your order now.”

While I get Hoya’s order together, I can’t help but think about what he said. Should I have taken Woohyun’s confession seriously? Should I have told him an answer even if he said he was just joking? Even if he said he was joking, it didn’t seem like he was. It seemed like Woohyun was entirely serious as he told me that he liked me, or maybe that was just another one of his personality traits. That person is really so strange that no one knows what he’s thinking of half of the time, even the people that have spent most of their lives with him.

“Oppa,” I say delivering Hoya his breakfast, “do you believe in fate?”

“Fate?” he asks as he takes a sip of his coffee.

“Yeah, like fate bringing Myungsoo and me together after all of these years or the fate that split us apart from each other.”

“I guess you could call that fate,” Hoya says thinking about it. “I mean, it was completely out of your control to get together and split apart.”

“The splitting apart part I’m not entirely sure about,” I say avoiding eye contact with Hoya for just a little bit. “We both initiated it.”

“Well then maybe you both should initiate getting back together.”

“We were never together in the first place.”

“It surely seemed like you were together.”

“But we weren’t,” I clarify. “It’s just that…circumstances brought us together and circumstances split us apart.”

“Then blame it on the circumstances. Are they all better?” Hoya asks.

“You could say,” I say thinking about it.

“Then what’s holding the both of you back from seeing one another? Why are you both trying to avoid each other at all possible costs?”

For the second day in a row I’ve had to deeply think about something, more specifically, I’ve had to think deeply about something concerning Myungsoo. Why have I been avoiding him all of this time? What are my feelings towards him exactly? I’m not even sure myself of these things. Am I avoiding him because I’m afraid?

Myungsoo’s POV

“Why are you in Japan?” Uee asks me.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I say looking at her.

“I asked you first.”

“Fine,” I say rolling my eyes. It’s easier than just arguing with her. If that happens, we’re both going to get nowhere in this conversation that needs to move along quickly. “I’m here on some personal business. So I answered it. why are you here?”

“For some relaxation time. Isn’t that such a coincidence, we’re both here for relaxing,” Uee says with a gentle smile.

“Yeah, of course,” I say uninterested. “Do you know where Sunggyu is?” I ask getting straight to the point.

“Sunggyu? Why?” Uee asks slightly confused.

“Because you guys are always together.”

“No we aren’t,” she refutes.

“Yes you are, if you’re in Japan, he has to be around here somewhere, right?”

“I haven’t seen Sunggyu for a month,” Uee says breaking the news.

“A month?” I ask in pure shock. “Why haven’t you seen him in a month?”

“Because I just couldn’t take him anymore.”

“Or you didn’t want to get put behind bars for your crime,” I mutter to myself. Thankfully, Uee didn’t hear me. I’m not entirely sure on whether or not Uee had any part in the kidnapping, but she’s not completely innocent. I believe that she had to at least know something about it.

“Did you say something?” she asks.

“Nope,” I say shaking my head. “So why did you guys break up?”

“He got too annoying,” Uee complains. She then starts naming off a bunch of things that annoy her about Sunggyu. I never thought that I’d see this day coming. As much as I should be happy that Sunggyu and Uee broke up, strangely, I feel nothing. Should I even really care that this has happened?

“Well, what comes around goes around.”

“That’s true,” Uee says with a smile.

“But I’m never going to get back together with you.”

“Who said something about that?” Uee asks with a confused look. “I never wanted to get back together with you.”

“I was just putting it out there,” I say putting my hands up in my defense. Uee nods her head. “So, you’re here on leisure time. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching?”

“Yeah, but I thought I just needed a simple vacation,” Uee says. “School is almost done for them anyway.”

“You couldn’t have waited a week then?”

“It was too long,” she complains. She probably just wanted to party and live up the single life like she used to, even though we were engaged at that time. I’m glad that there are no hard feelings now, at least no hard feelings that I’m able to detect. Uee seems to like living the single life more than being tied down to someone.

If Uee and Sunggyu broke up, then is that the reason why he’s in Japan now? To find her?

“So I’m guessing that you’re in Japan looking for me?” Uee asks.

“Nope.”

“Then what are you doing here? If you asked about Sunggyu then it’s obviously not to relax.”

“Says who? I’m just curious about his whereabouts.”

Uee doesn’t bat an eye about my reasoning. I guess he does know about the kidnapping or something about what happened between us in the room. I don’t even know if she knows about us being half-brothers. Uee is a mysterious person that likes to keep her information hidden until the right time to reveal it.

“How are you and Allie doing?” she asks changing the subject to lighten up the mood a little bit.

“We’re not together,” I say looking down at the ground.

“Why not?” Uee inquires.

“We’re both living our separate lives without each other. We don’t even contact each other.”

“Why not?” she asks again. “I thought you guys were a good couple. She brought the old you back, that’s something that I would never be able to do, but you like her.”

“I know,” I say nodding my head. “I already told her.”

“You already confessed? Why, little Kim Myungsoo is already growing up. What did Allie say in response?”

“She never gave me an answer,” I tell her.

I don’t know why, but for some reason I feel like I can confidently confide in Uee. It seems like she’s changed. Maybe Sunggyu is the bad influence. She said that she hasn’t seen him for about a month now. Is Sunggyu the one that brings the bad out of people?

Allie’s POV

“School is almost ending soon,” I tell Cecelia as I pick her up from school. “Aren’t you happy?”

“Very,” Cecelia says with a bright smile. “Now I can play with choding-oppa all day long.”

“Yes, now you can.”

As I drive back to the apartment, I can’t wait any longer. I bet Cecelia’s not even expecting it and today’s her birthday. Today, Hoya, Woohyun, Sungyeol, and I planned a surprise birthday party at the apartment. The guys said that Myungsoo couldn’t show up, but it’s not even like I want him to know where we live anyway. I don’t know why, though. It just feels like he shouldn’t know.

“I forgot to tell you this morning because we were in such a rush, but happy birthday Cecelia!” I tell her as we pull into the apartment.

“Thank you unni,” Cecelia says with a wide smile.

“You thought I forgot, right,” I say poking at her.

“I did,” she says looking at the ground.

“Don’t worry, unni didn’t forget,” I say as I stick the key into the apartment door.

I open the door and the lights are all off, but that’s normal when we come home. Suddenly, the three of them pop out and yell surprise to Cecelia who slightly screams from the surprise.

“What is this?” she asks looking around at all of the decorations.

“It’s your birthday party,” I state. “Your friends are going to be coming over a little later. I told their parents about having a party for you, but the oppas wanted to surprise you.”

“Thank you oppas,” Cecelia says bowing to every one of them.

“Hey, before your friends get here, let’s open up your gifts,” Sungyeol suggests. Cecelia has a big smile on her face as Sungyeol takes her to the couch where he and Hoya give their gifts. Woohyun comes over to help me as I set up the table of food.

“Should we give Myungsoo a call for Cecelia’s birthday?” he asks. I didn’t know that it felt this awkward between people after a failed confession. Was last night even a confession?

“She would really like that,” I tell him.

“Okay, then I’ll call him right now,” Woohyun says taking out his phone. “Cecelia, I have a bonus present for you,” he says going over to the couch.

“Oppa!” Cecelia yells into the phone.

“Happy birthday Cecelia,” Myungsoo says. It’s the first time that I’ve heard his voice in a while. Why am I feeling like this? “You’re sad that oppa’s not there for your birthday, right?"

“Yeah,” Cecelia says sadly.

“Well, oppa will make it up to you by taking you wherever you want to go when I get back, alright?”

“Is it a promise?”

“It’s a promise,” Myungsoo announces, “and everyone in the room can hold me to it.”

“Okay, you promised,” Cecelia says with a bright smile. I smile at the sight while I go back to preparing for her party.

Myungsoo’s POV

It felt nice hearing Cecelia’s voice after a while. I knew that today was her birthday, thanks to yesterday’s warning of Sungyeol. I was meaning to call her beforehand, but I guess I didn’t realize the time.

In the short while, I gave up the search of Sunggyu, just for a little bit, while I spent some time with Uee. We mostly talked with each other, something that definitely needed to be done because of the bad terms that we ended on before. I feel like I’m a new person and it’s all thanks to Allie. If it weren’t for her, I don’t know where I would be today.

“I guess I’ll get going back to my hotel,” I announce as we walk out of a store.

“And I’ll go back to mine,” Uee says.

“Do you want me to go back with you?” I suggest.

“No, I’m fine. I’m strong, I can take care of myself,” she says.

Every time I look at Uee, I can’t help but think about how much she’s changed since the last time I saw her. Is it really Sunggyu that brings the bad out in people?

As Uee and I are going to make our separate ways, I suddenly hear the news broadcast from the television that is near the store.

“As we speak, there is a hostage situation currently happening in the Kim Corporation whose base is in Japan. There are not many things confirmed right now as it is a dire situation. The only thing that is currently identifiable is that the man who is responsible for this situation is from Korea, a man by the name of Kim Sunggyu.”

I immediately turn to look at the screen in that moment and what I see isn’t to my liking. None of is it to my liking. Sunggyu has caused a lockdown in the company and is holding someone hostage. Is he holding my grandmother hostage?

I look for Uee but then realize that she doesn’t completely understand Japanese, so she could never know what was said in the breaking news report. Immediately, I run to the company without ever looking back.

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What is Sunggyu going to do? Is Myungsoo going to save the day? Who is the hostage? Will Allie and Myungsoo get reunited? Why did Woohyun say that he was just joking to Allie? What is up with Yuri's drastic change?

So many questions, but sadly, I think I feel an ending coming to this fanfic soon. But don't worry, there's still going to be the sequel.

Speaking of the sequel, you guys are always so close to each other. Vote in the poll before this fic is over. The results are always so close, but for right now, having a time jump is in the lead, but not by much. It's just like the vote for having a sequel or having it be a lot of chapters long. Don't forget to vote. The votes could turn :)

Anyway, here is Chapter 26. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed :D