Joon was being sincere. I knew he was but I couldn’t bring myself to believe that it was actually happening. I stared at his face, into his eyes, trying to figure out what to say back but I kept silent, a stunned look on my face. He stepped away and turned his back to me, putting a hand to his head.

                “Chaerin, do you know why I told you about Jiyong? Why I told you when I wasn’t supposed to just yet?” he suddenly asked, turning back to face me.

                I shook my head no, now thinking about it.

                “It’s because I didn’t want to lose you. No, because I can’t lose you. I know it sounds ridiculous to you right now, but you’ve become part of my life and this family and I can’t lose you to him. Stay with me, stay by my side.”

                I was stunned and I felt my heart begin beating faster. I didn’t know what to say. He was still staring into my eyes and I tried to find a hint of lie, a small part that would prove he was lying and just messing with my head. But I couldn’t and finally let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

                Joon walked closer to me and took my hands into his.

                “Stay with me?”

                I didn’t know what came over me, but I hugged him. It was a bittersweet moment: finding out that my best friend was only using me and finally being with the man I fell in love with. He wrapped his arms around me and I heard him sigh and then chuckle. He pulled away and looked at me, almost as if he were trying to read my face.

                “What?”

                But before he had any time to answer, I heard the front door open. Crap, Dad was home. We both looked at each other quickly before he headed for the window to leave. If my father caught him in the room with me, I had no idea what would happen next. And, of course, as luck would have it, I had a nice chance to find out. Before Joon had a chance to open the window to leave, my father stepped into the room.

                “Chae –” he froze when he saw Joon standing next to the window and I saw the rage begin building up. His face was slowly getting redder and I knew he was going to blow up at any moment.

                “Daddy, please calm down. It’s not what you think at all,” I immediately stepped in front of him to get his attention from Joon to me.

                “Mr. Lee, it’s really not what you think, I can explain,” Joon began walking towards us and I almost applauded him for the courage. Granted, he’s normally faced with life-threatening situations anyway, but this was different. To my father, he wasn’t Joon, the tough leader of the gang MBLAQ. He was a young boy named Joon, in his daughter’s room…at night.

                “Explain,” this was my father’s testing voice. If Joon failed, it was all over. How in the world was Joon going to explain this to my father? What kind of lie was he going to come up with?

                “I came over because I was asking Chaerin when you would be home. I would like permission to date your daughter.”

                If someone were to drop a pin outside the house, we would hear it in this room. No one had ever been this courageous before with my father and I knew he was going to be harder on Joon because of it.

                “And why should I let you date my daughter? What are your plans for the future with her?”

                “I plan to have a long life with her. She’s different from anyone I’ve met: strong, courageous and yet very gentle and sincere in whatever she does. After knowing her for a while, I’ve come to like her a lot. I would like to date her, sir.”

                My father stayed silent, studying Joon’s face and the answer. It was a pretty good answer; his silence was lasting longer than usual.

                “How do I know I can trust you, boy? What do your parents do?”

                I looked at Joon and quickly saw his face harden at the question. It’s still a tough question to answer, no matter how many years pass by.

                “They’re dead,” he answered, almost coldly. I could feel my father’s anger go down as he studied Joon’s face again.

                “I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m still hesitant to let you near my daughter. What do you do?” his anger had gone down, but not his testing. There was almost nothing in the world that could make my father pity a person. Good quality, I must say.

                “My parents left me their estate and I’ve started working on my degree in…business management recently,” Joon spoke as if he was speaking to a commanding officer in the military. I was almost proud of him for that.

                “How old are you, boy? Shouldn’t you have started school a while ago?”

                “I’m 22, but I didn’t get my head together until last year when I realized that I should probably learn to do something with my life. That way, I wouldn’t have to rely on my deceased parents’ belongings to keep me going. If you allow me to date your daughter, I vow to always make her happy and to keep her safe no matter what,” the determination in his eyes was getting to my father. I could see his shoulders loosen as he studied Joon’s face. But he wasn’t only studying his face anymore, he was taking in every bit of information he could from Joon’s posture to his clothing.

Joon was going to pass this. My father had nothing on him and I could almost feel the excitement burst as I thought about my father finally approving of a boy, more than that, the fact that the boy was Joon. But then I saw it; the dreaded slight twitch in my father’s eyes. He’d seen something in Joon that didn’t make him happy and it would be hard to change his mind.

“Fighting anyone lately?” my father’s sudden question surprised not only Joon but me as well. Did he know something? Had he put two and two together from seeing a picture of Joon at the station? I had always thought that Joon and MBLAQ were safe from the police, that they had never been seen. Did someone give out information? I looked at Joon who glanced at me quickly before turning his attention back to my father. I felt my heartbeat quicken; what if he knew about it all and was just playing clueless until now?

“I’m sorry?” Joon asked, his voice had turned questioning like my father’s. Of course he would want to know how my father knew it, but he wasn’t an idiot to admit it.

“You have callouses on your knuckles; who have you been fighting?” my father was now standing taller, now clear that it was his instinct telling him that Joon was no good for his daughter. I gulped, waiting for Joon to answer but before he got a chance to, my father walked to my room door and opened it.

“I know what my intuition is telling me, and I’m going to listen because it hasn’t failed me yet. I don’t trust you, Lee Joon. You may seem like a good guy, but I don’t buy it. I don’t want to see you near my daughter again.”

“But Dad – !” I tried to argue but he cut me off.

“Lee Chaerin, I don’t want to hear anything from you right now. I was going to leave this part out and wait to see if you’d tell me any time soon, but you’re living in a house that’s not even yours. You’ve stopped going to school. You don’t even talk to your old friends,” it was time for me to cut him off now.

“Friends?! Dad, since when did you let me have any friends that now I’ve stopped talking to them? You’ve scared them all away because everyone is a ‘bad influence’ on me!” I had stood up to my father and snapped at him. I saw the shock in his eyes and immediately felt horrible for doing so.

“We’ll talk later. You, out.” He glared at Joon.

Joon glanced at me before he bowed to my father and said goodnight, leaving me and my dad alone in my temporary room. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, my anger overpowered my guilt and I crossed my arms, looking away from my father.

“Chaerin –”

“So you don’t trust that I can handle myself that much that you went and investigated me? Is this the so-called work that you had been doing? Because wow, Dad, I’m so glad you’re working hard while trying to “spend time” with me here.”

“What do you expect me to do, Chaerin? You barely call anymore and even worse than that, you don’t even pick up your phone. Your mother is worried sick that something’s happened to you so I came here to see what was going on. Chaerin, if something’s wrong, tell me. I can help you, you know I can. I won’t get mad, I won’t ask questions and you’ll still be able to live here. Just tell me what’s going on and I’ll help you through it.”

I looked at my father and knew that soon I would burst it all out. I would tell him everything that had happened and he would make it better. He always made it better when something went wrong in my life. And then my phone vibrated in my hand. It was a text from Joon. Seeing his name on the screen, I almost hated myself for wanting to rat them out.

“Nothing is wrong, Dad. Nothing,” I said, looking to the ground this time. I didn’t know what else to tell him.

“Then explain this house and why you’re not going to school.”

“This is where I live at the moment, Dad. I’m rooming with a friend. She’s actually gone for a trip, but she’s gonna be back next week. It’s not a lie, I promise,” I had gotten better at lying, it seemed. My dad looked at my face and believed me. He actually believed my lie and I felt horrible doing that to him. I never lied to my father about anything and if I tried to, he would know right away. I started getting mixed feelings about keeping it all a secret. What had MBLAQ turned me in to? I’d stopped going to school, stopped living my whole life…and…for what? They’d kill me if I told anyone? I had been through too much with them to not be trusted. What was stopping me?

“Chaerin?” my father’s voice snapped me away from my thoughts.

“Daddy, can we just drop it for tonight?” I pleaded with him. I didn’t want to tell him any more lies. I just wanted the night to be over.

“Fine, but I’m still not agreeing to this Joon character. He still gives me a weird feeling,” I saw his face harden when he thought about Joon.

“I don’t see why. He’s a really nice guy and a good friend. Just…think about it? Sleep on it?” I gave him my best ‘I’m your little girl; you want me to be happy, right?’ face. He took one look at me and sighed.

“I’ll think about it. But I doubt my answer’s going to change. Something about him doesn’t feel safe and I’m not always going to be around to protect you.”

“Dad, he’s not dangerous, I promise,” I laughed and went in to hug him. I knew that he always wanted the best for me, even if he didn’t have the greatest ways of doing so.

“Go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said and gave me a kiss on my head. He turned and walked into his room to sleep. I could tell he had had a long day and was tired. When I saw him close the door, I immediately went to check the text that Joon had sent.

Meet me outside the house. We need to talk.

Something about the phrase ‘we need to talk’ gave me a bad feeling. Nothing good ever came out of that and I was scared to find out what it was. I walked towards the front door and made sure I had a knife on me. After joining MBLAQ, I was more conscious of the dangers outside; especially if other gangs knew who I was. As I walked out, the cold wind sent a chill down my spine. I scanned around me and saw Joon standing under a light post and started walking towards him. He saw me and gave a small smile. I felt my heart flutter and smiled back. This was probably one of the few genuine smiles that I had seen from him. He had his hands in his pockets and looked away. When I reached him, he suddenly hugged me and whispered ‘hey.’

“Something wrong?” my arms automatically wrapped around him.

“It’s your dad.”

“My dad? What about him? Did something happen?” I pulled back to look at his face. He sighed and moved his hands to my shoulders.

“I don’t like that you have to lie to him, Chaerin. The way you fought with him tonight. I don’t want that happening because of MBLAQ and because of me. He’s right, Chaerin. I’m not that good of an influence and he’s got a right to not trust me with his daughter. I’m not exactly the safest person to be around.”

I didn’t like where this was going. Was he going to break up with me the same night that we got together? I wasn’t going to give up that easily. If I could talk sense into my father, I could definitely talk sense into Joon.

“You better not be breaking up with me,” I said, pulling away and crossing my arms. He cocked his head a little and gave me a quizzical look before he smiled, pulling me right back into a hug.

“Never,” I could hear the smile in his voice and hugged him back. We stayed like that for a while. I kept my head on his chest, my ear over his heart and could hear it beating calmly. I wanted to stay like this forever, in his strong arms. Even though I knew I wasn’t completely safe being with a gang leader, I knew that I would be safest there. He pulled back from me and smiled, ruffling my hair in the process.

That was when I heard it again. The dreadful sound.

A gunshot.