Chapter Seventeen

-Meanwhile with Dongwoon and Jinhee-

“What did you want to talk about?” Jinhee asked when they got to the staircase. A look from her made her maids scurry off.

“About the restaurant, I didn’t mean to criticize you. I just didn’t want you to always be the one giving. You’re too nice, like way too nice. Mina can be a brat, and I know you’ve always wanted a little sister – I just didn’t want you to think Mina would be a good choice.”

Jinhee sighed, looking out the window, “I bought her the phone so the conversation would end.”

Dongwoon frowned and waved his hand at her vaguely, “That too, I don’t want you to have issues with people who think you think you can solve all their problems by throwing money at it.”

She snorted, “But I do, if it can be solved with money, I solve it.” Jinhee shrugged, very self aware. “What was more irritating was that you let that girl hang all over you because you’re too nice. Unless you actually like her, then I take it back.”

“That’s not it. I’m just not interested in rejecting some poor girl who’s still in middle school. That would be too harsh for me.”

“Precisely, I knew that, but then you go and tell me I was playing too nice.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I know it’s not my place to worry about what you’re doing anymore, I just still worry. That’s all.”

“Okay…” She nodded simply, expression not changing.

“I care about you.”

“I care about you too. I’m worried if you continue to egg the girl on, that she’ll really attack you.” Jinhee giggled.

“I think I can protect myself from a little one like her.”

“Not if she drugs you.”

“That’s demented.” He grimaced.

She hummed, “Why not? It’ll be like a fairy tale, with you as sleeping beauty.”

“Wasn’t it Snow White that got poisoned?”

“Both did, just differently. And Sleeping Beauty was the one that was in her sleep, not Snow White. Hence, you’re going to be Sleeping Beauty.”

“I forgot, you say the darnedest things.” He laughed.

“Yeah. Well anyway, you’re forgiven.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? You know my personality.”

“You don’t say anything without being absolutely sure.” Dongwoon nodded and hugged the small girl. “I’m sorry, and thank you.”

Jinhee smiled and melted into his arms. Then her nose bunched up and she had to pull away. He smelled like a middle school girl. Dongwoon winced and looked down at himself. He could still smell it too.

“Hey Jinhee!” Doojoon grinned and appeared as if out of nowhere. He was smiling, but his eyes were asking if she needed a getaway plan. She nodded slightly. “You said you were going to show me your tarantula!”

Jinhee chuckled as she didn’t have a tarantula – yet. “Right! Come on then!” Jinhee pulled him forward and left Dongwoon at the bottom of the stairs. He was tempted to follow, but Jinhee’s bug collection was just too formidable a foe. “You’re the best.” She giggled to Doojoon.

“I know.” He puffed his chest out in pride.

“Do you need to shower too?”

Doojoon stared at her in shock, his mind going to a place she hadn’t intended.

“You know this house does have more than one bathroom…” She laughed at his relieved expression. “Why? Showering with me is too scary for you? Contrary to what some rumors say about me, I’m not made up of bugs. I don’t suddenly turn into a thousand roaches in the water. Anyway, do you want to shower? We have guest pajamas you can wear. I already instructed the maids to give the others guest clothes too.”

“Okay. But I do want to look at your collection first.”

“You can do that while I shower.” Jinhee led him to the separate room she had in her room for her little friends.

When she was done with her shower, Doojoon was staring at a butterfly cocoon in her glass tank.

“When does it hatch or whatever?”

“It’s been too long, I don’t think it will.” Jinhee sighed.

“That’s so sad.” Doojoon said and Jinhee agreed.

“Here you go.” Jinhee handed him a set of sleeping clothes. “Go ahead and shower in my bathroom. I’ll be in here when you’re done.”

He nodded and left her to play with her ant colony and grasshopper population. He came back to her letting a hissing cockroach crawl on her arm.

“Done?” Jinhee glanced over at Doojoon, placing the roach back in its man made habitat. He nodded, completely unfazed by her actions. “Okay, let’s go back to the movie room.”

When they got down the stairs, she made him piggy back her the rest of the way, he smiled and complied easily. She wasn’t one to make others follow her childish whims, not since she got into high school anyway, but Doojoon made her comfortable enough to do things she considered annoying activity and feel un-judged doing so. Only Junhyung and Dongwoon ever did that for her and Dongwoon more than Junhyung.

“We’re back!” Doojoon announced, letting Jinhee get off his back and onto a chair.

“We’ve been discussing whether or not we were going to tell you about some predictions we made.” Dongwoon shifted nervously at the twins’ words. “Don’t worry, not that one.” Jinsoo assured Dongwoon. “That’s for her to find out herself.”

Jinyoung continued. “We predict some circumstances that will cause you to be homeless in a few months. For reasons we cannot say, and for how long we cannot say either.”

“Really? This is your attempt at being a better cousin? Being cryptic? You and I hate you.” Jinhee glared at them.

“We can’t tell you too much, or else everything will go all wrong.”

“Next, circumstances will have it that you’ll be doing a lot of lying soon.”

“I’m always lying, what’s new?” Jinhee chuckled.

“Totally unrelated, but I recently decoded a letter with the intents of an attack on your family. So be cautious of that too.” Jinsoo finished.

“Wow.” Jinhee nodded. “Okay. That’s all?”

“You’re not even worried about that?” Haneul laughed.

“It’s not the first time.” Jinhee shrugged.

“She’s been targeted ever since she was born – even when she was in her mom’s womb.” Dongwoon nodded.

“Dongwoon’s saved my life a couple times.” Jinhee chuckled. “Junhyung nearly drowned for me before. Now I just hire extra, what did you call them? Ninjas, I hired extra ninjas since going into high school.”

“Are they here now?” KiKwang stared at her, wide-eyed.

“Yes/Of course/Duh.” All three Ahn girls nodded.

“I have five almost all the time. But I usually send them off when I can, and they aren’t allowed to follow me to certain places or with certain people. Very few people can even tell when they’re around anyway. Junhyung noticed a few times, but thought they were out to get me when we were younger.”

“Somehow, this one always knows.” Junhyung gestured to Dongwoon. “He even talks to them.”

“You just don’t read the signs.” He chuckled in response. “And I talk to them because they get bored. Jinhee fights her own fights and rarely lets them do anything.”

“Precisely why I send them away all the time.”

“Not all the time.” Dongwoon grinned, “I saw you that time you trained with them.”

“It was just playing.”

“You had your hands tied behind your back and you were fighting one against three. That’s a really strange game.”

“I was proving that I could handle tough situations myself. And it was training. When did you even see us do that?”

“I stayed after school because I had to talk to the teacher. I saw it all behind the school.”

So Eun scoffed in disbelief, “So you saw Jinhee with her hands tied behind her back, fighting three people, but you did nothing?”

“Like I said; read the signs. Her hands were tied with her own necktie. Jinhee would never allow an enemy do that to her. She had to have done it herself.”

“Correct.” Jinhee smiled and nodded.

“Aren’t you worried about being homeless?” Jinyoung yawned.

“Of course I’m worried about you predicting I’ll be homeless. What will happen to my parents? The company? The employees? What caused it, and could it be prevented? What did we not foresee to have caused us being homeless? Where will we stay? Should I make provisions now to get us by while we are homeless? Where should I stock my money up for this? I know we’ll survive even without all the money we have now, but what will happen to our employees if our business went under? We have employees all over the world who need to support their families.”

“Don’t worry. Everything is good, only you are homeless.” Jinsoo smiled.

“Well, that brings forth a bunch more questions. What the hell did I do to get kicked out? It better be worth it.” Despite her blunt words, Jinhee looked visibly relieved.

“Can’t tell you.”

“Of course you can’t.” Jinhee rolled her eyes. “No use freaking out about it now. I’ll figure it out when it happens.”

They watched movies, all of them finding a place to snuggle up and sleep. Somehow, Jinhee ended up between Dongwoon and Doojoon. She would have been fine sleeping next to Doojoon, but Dongwoon was getting noticeably comfortable next to her, and she was getting more and more nervous. He noticed that the closer he got to her, the closer she inched to Doojoon. Doojoon was more than aware of all this and wrapped an arm over her shoulder to let her snuggle in closer to him.

“Be my body pillow. I’m cold” Dongwoon grinned and pulled her into him. Doojoon stared at him in shock. The Dongwoon he knew would never do this.

“Ah, you’re right. I’ll go get us blankets.” Jinhee quickly jumped up and left his inviting arms to get blankets.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Doojoon asked his best friend.

Dongwoon opened his mouth to answer, but then started sniffing the air. “You smell like Jinhee. A lot like Jinhee…” He started sniffing Doojoon closer to be sure. “Did you use her shampoo and body wash?”

“First of all, get off me.” Doojoon rolled his eyes and pushed his friend away from him. “Second of all, why do you care what I smell like?”

“Did you shower in her bathroom?”

“Yeah. So what? It’s not a big deal. It’s not like we showered together.”

“It kind of is. Very few people get to go into her room at all, let alone shower in her bathroom. Guys are especially kept out…”

“Why are you two sitting so close?” Jinhee asked, coming back with a blanket for them. “Never mind. Here you go. You two can sleep here, and I’ll sleep over there with Jinsoo and Jinyoung.” She dropped the blanket on them and left.

“I thought you were going to sleep in the good looking guys sandwich?” Jinyoung smirked at Jinhee when she approached their couch bed.

“Things change. Can I sleep here?”

“You’re welcome here, but I don’t think you’ll sleep here tonight.” Jinsoo chuckled.

Just as Jinhee was going to ask what she meant by that, she left herself being lifted off her feet by Dongwoon. “I’m borrowing her. You two sleep tight and sweet dreams.” He brought her over to an empty couch bed, “We’re sleeping here.”

“Not with Doojoon?” Jinhee pointed to where Doojoon was, watching them.

“No.”

“But he has a blanket.”

“One is already being brought down for us.”

“Oh…”

“What’s wrong? You don’t like this? We used to sleep like this all the time.”

“That’s not it. It’s fine. We’ll sleep here…”

Dongwoon sighed, “You can go over to Doojoon if you’d like, but I’ll be here.” He scooted away from her and laid down, closing his eyes.

“I’ll sleep here.” Jinhee smiled and moved in closer to him. He smiled and wrapped his arms around her to hold her tight against his body.

Later, after they were all sleeping, Jinhee’s mother came down to check on her daughter and her friends. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of her precious daughter sleeping so closely to Dongwoon. She gritted her teeth and left the room, barely getting any sleep herself that night.

Wow. This was pre-written 4 years ago. I was such a different person and yet still the same. I completely forgot about this story. I'm not even a B2st/Highlight stan anymore....