“I belatedly learned that I was adopted by Omma. I think it was when I was in sixth grade. Omma named me Cheondoong. She said she didn’t know who I was called. She said that some strange guy approached her and gave me to her. The stranger didn’t mention anything and just left. She said she was amazed that he knew how she couldn’t bear a child. So I was a blessing, she said.

 

“The moment I reached second year in middle school, I started searching for you. We lived in Jeju and I had to fly to Busan. I worked and studied at the same time. Also, I roamed Busan, expecting that I would meet you halfway. Two years passed but I was still unable to. That was when I thought that maybe you were not in Busan. It turned out I was right. A year in Seoul, a year of hard work and persistence, finally paid off,” Cheondoong explained.

 

Dara just listened from across the table, holding her brother’s hand as she didn’t look away from his face. She didn’t divert her gaze as she was like memorizing every detail of her brother’s face – her brother who she never seen grew into a man. She was afraid that when she looks away, someone would snatch him away from her that would separate them again. Suddenly, another tear escaped her lids.

 

Cheondoong saw this. With his free hand, he wiped it off her cheek. “Noona, don’t cry anymore.”

 

Dara smiled. But another tear came. She tightened her hold on his hand. “I’m just so happy. I never really expected this, Sanghyun. I never really thought I would meet you like this,” she paused, having to choke down a sob. “I just…you just don’t know how much I have dreamed about meeting you again. Every night, I would have that dream of Appa separating us and me calling out to you while you were in that cab. You might not remember it well, but I did. And it tortured me.”

 

“Noona…”

 

Dara smiled again and buried her face on her palms. “I’m sorry. I just can’t help it,” she sobbed. “I’m just so happy.”

 

Cheondoong stood up and went to his noona’s side. He hugged her tight to himself as he shushed her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was as if red covered Jiyong’s eyes when he arrived at the club and an unwanted sight welcomed him. Narrowing his eyes, he ran towards one particular table. In an instant, he was able to grab the woman’s wrist and he pulled her out of the club. The expected protests and struggling weren’t heard though as it was all silent even as they arrived at the parking lot.

 

When he was sure that they were out and that man wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop, he faced her, not letting go of her wrist. It was still raining and their clothes started to become drenched.

 

“What were you doing?!” he scolded right away. He didn’t even notice the woman’s tears because of the rain that kept on falling. “I told you to be careful! I told you not to go to that club again! Look at what happened! Didn’t you swear to me that you won’t flirt? What happened to that promise eh?! Am I that unimportant to you that you could just say those words to me without meaning it?!”

 

Dara just stared at him, her eyesight blurry from the tears she had been shedding. Despite Jiyong’s scolding, she couldn’t stay mad at him because of his false accusations. She just let him be.

 

“Couldn’t you at least stop making me worry, Dara?! Couldn’t you at least stop hurting me?!”

 

“Jiyong,” Dara called, her voice shaky, from crying and from the cold of the rain.

 

“Couldn’t you see tha—“ Jiyong got cut off when a sob escaped . Dara leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed, muffling her cries. “W-What? I’m s-sorry. I didn’t mean to—“

 

“I found him,” Dara said through his chest, hiding her stained face but making sure that her voice wasn’t muffled enough for him not to hear her.

 

“What?”

 

“I found Sanghyun,” she said again, lifting her head to gaze up at Jiyong. There was a smile through the tears and Jiyong could really feel the overwhelming happiness she felt.

 

Jiyong finally realized what she meant. He looked towards the club; and by the entrance, Sanghyun was staring up at them, with a smile drawn on his lips.

 

Jiyong returned his gaze on Dara who buried her face on his chest again. “I’m…I’m so hap—“

 

An explosion was heard. Jiyong immediately covered Dara’s head as they fell to the side. He secured her in his arms as the explosion echoed in the night. He lifted his head to check where the explosion came from. To his surprise, his motorbike was already on fire, along with the vehicles parked beside it. Since it was raining, the fire didn’t take long and eventually weakened.

 

Jiyong saw a guy in black running towards them. He pulled his gun from his holster but when he fired it, he found out that it was unloaded. He looked for his extra ammunitions but it was too late as the culprit was able to arrive just in time to land a punch on Jiyong’s face, causing him to lose hold of his gun.

 

Dara screamed as she saw with her own eyes how Jiyong got hurt. Instinctively, she backed away, scared of the culprit. Seeing how the culprit and Jiyong fought with fists, she felt useless. She was scared, having to witness Jiyong’s nature of work. She didn’t really know anything about his and her other brother’s job of being assassins, except that they would come home wounded and she had the job of treating them and cleaning up after the mess they made in the living room and their bedrooms.

 

The culprit continued on beating up Jiyong, who didn’t have a chance to defend himself. He was clearly caught off guard. Jiyong heard Dara’s screams. For a while, he looked back and shouted for her:

 

“Run away! Get out of here!”

 

But because of the distraction, he was beaten up harder until he couldn’t make sense of his surrounding anymore. He was dizzy and weak as finally, he became as limp as a vegetable.

 

Dara, despite being told to go and run for her life, stayed at the scene, seeing the next thing that happened. The culprit pulled out a knife from his back holster and walked towards Jiyong.

 

Before the culprit could even attack Jiyong, someone grabbed him from behind. It was Cheondoong, grabbing him by his neck, strangling the culprit using his arm. With Cheondoong strangling him, he lost his balance. However, he was wise enough to elbow Cheondoong. The latter still held on though, even though he bended momentarily and coughed blood. But, the culprit was able to cause a gash on Cheondoong’s arm, causing the latter to lean away, holding onto his bleeding arm. The culprit then kicked him on the gut, causing him to fall on his .

 

“Sanghyun!” Dara screamed at the younger guy.

 

The culprit then diverted his attention to his initial victim, who was writhing in pain on the ground, flashing his smirk and his knife on hand.

 

Seeing this, trembling, Dara crawled on the drenched pavement, trying to be inconspicuous. Finally, she reached Jiyong’s unloaded gun lying a few feet away from them. With shaky hands, she loaded it with the bullets that lay just beside it. Her head kept on whipping to their direction, seeing that the culprit was closer to Jiyong.

 

Finally, after what seemed to be years, she was able to load the gun. She aimed the gun towards the culprit. She shut her eyes and fired several times, screaming at the same time so that she wouldn’t be able to hear the loud gunshots.

 

A pair of arms held on to her, stopping her to fire.

 

“Noona, open your eyes. He’s unconscious! Stop shooting!”

 

Dara trembled as Cheondoong snatched the gun from her and helped her stand up. They ran towards Jiyong, who was half-conscious.

 

“We have to call 119!” Cheondoong shouted through the pouring rain.

 

“No, no,” Dara shook her head, her eyes wide as she saw Jiyong’s wounds. “Help me. Let’s bring him to an alley.”

 

Although surprised and hesitant, Cheondoong helped her as they limped towards an alley a few blocks from the club. Fortunately, there weren’t people in the streets as it was raining hard. And those random passers-by who were running through the rain with covers above their heads were too busy finding shelter to even notice them.

 

As they finally arrived, they made Jiyong lean on the wall. As they did, Dara noticed a red spot on Jiyong shirt. Quickly, she raised his shirt and saw a stab wound just at the bottom of his lung. She heard a gasp from Cheondoong.

 

“Noona, we need to get him to the hospital,” he suggested.

 

“No,” she said and then fished out her phone. “Call Seunghyun-oppa. Tell him where we’re at.”

 

Hesitating, Cheondoong called TOP. Although he knew Jiyong should be brought to the hospital, he complied his noona’s orders.

 

Meanwhile, as Cheondoong was talking to TOP, Dara covered Jiyong’s wound with a handkerchief. She then diverted her gaze to Jiyong.

 

“Jiyong. Jiyong, keep your eyes open,” she said, crying. She lightly tapped his cheeks. In a second, Jiyong opened his eye. “Jiyong, are you alright?”

 

A small smile crept on his lips and he limply raised his arm and wrapped it around her and pulled her towards his body.

 

“Don’t…cry,” he whispered breathlessly. “I…don’t want…to see…you crying.”

 

“Jiyong,” she called repeatedly, unable to stop herself from crying. With her free hand, she hugged him back. “Please… Jiyong…”

 

Meanwhile, as Cheondoong finished his phone call with Seunghyun, he turned to the two. The sight he saw was Jiyong kissing the side of Dara’s temple as he hugged her tight to himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After what felt like forever, the hired doctor came out of Jiyong’s bedroom. Dara immediately approached him, followed by Cheondoong and TOP at his sides.

 

“How is he?” Dara asked.

 

“Fortunately, it was between the ribcages where he was stabbed. It was just centimeters under his left lung and above the other organs. If it would have been his lung that was punctured or any other vital organs, it would have been crucial. Also, it wasn’t that deep because it seemed that the person who stabbed him was interrupted midway. It was like he planned it to be a deeper stab than what actually happened. Right now, let us not disturb him for a while. He’s asleep. He might wake up after a few hours. I advise you, Miss Park, to also take a rest,” he explained.

 

Dara breathed a sigh of relief as she leaned on the wall again.

 

“Thank you, Doctor Lee,” TOP thanked the doctor as they escorted him out of the house. The doctor was hired by them and paid a lot of cash to keep this case a secret. He was a classmate of TOP’s in high school and was one of the few trusted ones.

 

TOP turned to Dara who looked exhausted as ever. She gazed up at him.

 

“I want to see him,” she pleaded.

 

TOP shook his head. “You heard the doctor, Dara. He needs to rest and you do, too. How about a sleep, eh?”

 

Dara shook her head. “I don’t want to. I want to be beside him when he wakes up,” she insisted.

 

TOP sighed. “Let’s stay here downstairs.”

 

Although it wasn’t what she wanted, she agreed. Initially, the three of them were just seated on the couch, with the occasional sniffs and cries from Dara and TOP’s comfort he gave to her, by wrapping his arms around her and soothing her with his shushes. After a while, Dara’s head was already leaning on TOP’s lap.

 

All this time, Cheondoong kept his distance and just observed them from afar. When Dara was already asleep, he went to the couch nearest to TOP and decided to ask him the questions he had been meaning to ask.

 

“Why can’t you just bring Jiyong-hyung to the hospital instead? He could have been put to danger from the length of time he was put in idle. He might have lost a lot of blood,” he asked.

 

TOP eyed him, keeping his hand on Dara’s hair as he it. “I guess we don’t have a choice but tell you. It seems like Dara trusts you already.”

 

“What are you saying? Of course she does, I’m her brother.”

 

TOP nodded. “I’ve figured that out. Anyway, kiddo, we’re the kinds of people you should not associate with,” he said. Seeing the intended confusion, he continued. “We’re paid assassins.”

 

Cheondoong’s eyes widened, not knowing what to say. “Even Sandara-noona?”

 

TOP laughed silently. “Of course not. The four of us, me, Jiyong, and two other hyungs who are not here as of now. I already called them and they are on their way from their respective missions. We’re being paid to kill unwanted people in business, entertainment industry, and others, even a whole family.”

 

“Why do you do that?”

 

“It’s our job. We do this for money. We use the money we’re being paid for personal reasons. Most of them, though, go to the whole family, and that includes Dara.”

 

“Why are you associating yourself with noona?” he couldn’t help but ask a little bit angrily.

 

“Your noona is supposedly someone who helps in the house, cooking, cleaning, and washing the laundry, because we couldn’t find the time to do it. That was why we adopted her. However—“

 

“You adopted her to be your housemaid?” Cheondoong’s voice went a little higher, but hushed once he reminded himself that Dara was asleep.

 

TOP shook his head, chuckling. “Let me finish first, kiddo. That isn’t the case. Although initially, that was the plan, however, Dara became this house’s princess. Teddy-hyung is the one who was so fond of her, dressing her up, cooking different meals for her. She was basically his doll. Kush-hyung, on the other hand, was fond of annoying her. And so does Jiyong… well, I mean, especially Jiyong. He always gets on her nerves. He doesn’t go a day without annoying the hell out of her. As for me, well, we weren’t that close,” he somberly said.

 

Cheondoong’s eyes narrowed.

 

“So, you see we don’t abuse her here. She’s really in good hands. We treat her well. You don’t have to worry about that. However, one thing she usually does is being the family nurse. With our dangerous jobs, our lives were always on the line. So, she took the role of that. She treats our wounds, cure our sicknesses, even more crucial cases like pulling out a bullet,” he said. “She does this on her own will.”

 

“Why didn’t she treat Jiyong-hyung now, though?” he asked.

 

“You’ve seen how scared she was, how trembling her hands were, how much tears she shed. She wasn’t in the right mind. Fortunately, she knew it. She knew that she couldn’t work in that state of mind,” he explained. “I know she’s scared she might hurt Jiyong in the process of curing and treating him. She was too scared.”

 

There was silence between them. Only the pouring rain outside of their house was heard. TOP still had his eyes on the sleeping Dara, while Cheondoong never left his gaze on them.

 

Finally, after a while, he decided to speak up. “Are you sure you see noona as a family?”

 

TOP lifted his gaze towards the younger guy and furrowed his brows.

 

“Jiyong-hyung and you look at noona differently. There seems to be a deeper meaning behind those gazes.”

 

TOP scoffed and lowered his head. “I try to hide it but it naturally comes out,” he said and gazed up at him again. “I love her.”

 

Cheondoong’s brows furrowed. And TOP could say that he was angry.

 

“But, she loves someone else, someone who has been beside her most of her life, who has been taking care of her all this time, who has been protecting her from all kinds of danger. This is the same man who she cared for all this time, thought of as a brother but seemed to have a deeper meaning behind those worry and care. This is the same man who she cried for tonight,” he said, a bitter smile creeping on his lips. “The same man who made me realize I don’t have a chance for her, the same man who had the same feelings for her, and the same man who looks at her with love.”

 

“You don’t –“

 

“You are not thinking the same way as I do right now, right?”

 

Cheondoong shook his head and stood up. “He might love her. She might love him back. But being in this family only gives her more danger,” he said and walked towards him. “I’m going to get her away from all of you.”