TOUGH ROMANCE || scoups || BOOK ONE

05

Hani

"What room are you in?" Seungcheol asked. I realised we were already back at the motel.

"Why?" I asked with suspicion.

He exhaled slowly as if I was on his last nerve, "so I can drop you off at your door."

Oh. "Nine."

"You leave your door open?" He asked a second later, his mouth tight.

"Yeah that's the way it's done back home!!" I deadpanned. "We do it to show our neighbours we trust them!!!"

He gave me one of those long frowny looks.

"No. Of course I didn't leave it open. I closed it and locked it."

He pointed towards room number 9.

The door was wide open.

"Oh."

He put the car in park where it sat in the middle of the lot with more force than necessary. "Stay here."

I blinked as he got out and stalked towards my room.

I was in deep thought until I remembered what I had left in that room and how very much I didn't want Seungcheol, of all people, to see it.

"Wait!!" I jumped out of his Sedan and ran after him. But he didn't stop, he didn't even slow down.

I quickened my pace and jumped infront of him making him walk into my palm.

"Get your ass out of my way, Hani." He ordered.

When I didn't comply, he placed a hand on my stomach and walked me back until I was standing infront of room 08.

I don't know what it said about me liking his hand there.

"You don't have to go in there!!" I insisted. "I'm sure it's just housekeeping?"

"Does this place look like it can afford housekeeping?"

He had a point.

"Stay." He said again before entering the room.

"Shit" I muttered as his foot passed the doorframe. I lasted 2 seconds before following behind him.

The room had been unappealing, to say the least, when I'd checked in less than an hour ago.

The orange and brown wallpaper was peeling in long strips. The carpet was of a dark green and felt like it was made out of the scrubby side of a dish sponge. The bathroom fixtures were Pepto Bismol pink and the shower was missing several tiles.

But it was the only option within 20 miles, and I'd figured I could rough it for a night or two. Besides, I'd thought at the time, how bad could it be?

Apparently pretty fucking bad.

Between the time I checked in, stowed my suitcase, plugged in my laptop, and left to meet Chae, someone had broken in and ransacked my room.

My suitcase was upended on the floor, some of its contents strewn across the ground.

The dresser draws were pulled out. Closet doors left open. My laptop was missing. So was the zipped pouch of cash I'd left in the suitcase.

"Sucker" was scrawled across the bathroom mirror in my favourite lipstick. Ironically, the thing I didn't want my big friend here to see, the thing that was worth more than whatever else had been stolen, was still there in a crumpled heap in the corner.

Worst of all, the perpetrator was sitting on the bed, dirty sneakers tangled in a clump of sheets. She was watching a natural disaster movie. I wasn't good at guessing ages but I put her solidly in the teenage section.

"Hey Mi" Seungcheol said grimly.

The girls brown eyes flitted away from the screen to land on him before returning to the screen, "Hey Cheol."

It was a small town. Of course the town moody and the child felon knew each other.

"Okay look." I said side stepping Seungcheol to stand infront of the thing in the corner that I really didn't want to explain.

"I don't know if child labour laws are different here in Riperia. But I asked for an extra pillow, not to be robbed by a pint sized criminal.

The girl spared me a glance.

"Where's your mum?" Seungcheol asked, ignoring me.

Another shrug. "Gone. Who's your friend?"

"That'd be your Aunt Hani."

She didn't look impressed. I, on the other hand, probably looked like I'd been shot out of a canon towards a brick wall.

"Aunt?" I repeated, shaking my head in hopes that it would fix my hearing.

"I thought you were dead" the girl stated, staring at me with vague interest.

"Nice hair."

"Aunt?" I said again.

"Mimi is Chae's kid." Seungcheol explained slowly.

"Chae?" I parroted on a croak

"Looks like your sister helped herself to your stuff." He observed

"Said most of it was shit." The girl said.

I blinked rapidly. Not only had my sister stolen my car, she had broken into my motel room, ransacked it and left behind a niece I didn't know existed.

"She okay?" Mimi asked, not taking her eyes off the tornado that just returned to the TV screen.

"She" was probably me and I was definitely not okay.

I grabbed a pillow off the bed. "Will you two please excuse me?"