'Are you alright?' Mr. Lee asked when you were finally at his house again.
Somehow his question was what broke you.
The tears came out of nowhere and started flowing down your face. You quickly tried to hide it by covering your face with your hand.
'Oh,' Mr. Lee breathed.
The emotions flooded you now that your anger had subsided. Your heart felt like it had broken, shattered into a million pieces. Even your knees were having a hard time holding you up. You swayed and Mr. Lee quickly grabbed you by your waist.
His smell penetrated your nostrils and once again you found that familiarity and soothing feeling that crept up on you. You didn't care anymore. Tired and sad, you leaned into him, your hands grabbing the front of his shirt as you sobbed into the front of his shirt. For a second Mr. Lee froze. Then slowly, he put his arms around you in a warm embrace, one of his hands rubbing your back slowly as the other lay on your head, thumb caressing your hair.
For the first time in more than a week, you felt safe. Truly safe.
He had been right.
He was home.
Mr. Lee held you for what seemed hours until your sobs had subsided and you were simply breathing in slowly and deeply with some hitches now and then.
Your eyes were closed as you leaned against him, his head on top of yours. You never wanted to leave that spot. You wanted to universe to disappear and just stay like that for eternity.
'Do you want to go to bed?' Mr. Lee asked, breaking the spell and making you realize who was attached to the body you were holding onto so tightly.
You nodded, too tired to answer him with words.
'Can you stand?' Mr. Lee asked, his hand shifting back to your waist again to hold you.
You nodded again but as soon as he took a step back you swayed again.
'Apparently not,' Mr. Lee chuckled. 'Shall I carry you?' he asked you.
You looked up at him with big eyes, surprised. His eyebrows were slightly raised but his lips were turned upwards.
His was so handsome...
'Okay?' you breathed completely taken aback by his suggestion.
Mr. Lee instantly swooped one arm underneath your back and one under your knees, picking you up princess style. The movement seemed to cost him no effort whatsoever.
Unsure what to do you wrapped your hands around his neck for support. You could see the corner of his mouth curl at your action.
Carefully he carried you up to your room, putting you on the bed with delicacy en ease.
'Will you be alright?' Mr. Lee asked as you crawled under the soft white blankets.
You nodded, at him, unable to leave his face with your gaze.
'Do you want me to stay with you?' Mr. Lee asked, his voice so soft that it almost sounded hoarse.
Your heart instantly started beating faster but your rationality had already answered his question by shaking your head.
'Hmm. I'll leave you then. Good night,' he said as he got up and turned around to walk away.
You uttered a hoarse 'Thank you,' but you weren't sure whether he had heard it or not.
When you woke up the next morning you felt a mess.
Embarrassed, tired, weak, angry, frustrated, and confused all at the same time.
You sat up in your bed.
Your bed.
You looked around you, the whites of the furniture in the room almost blinding you.
This was now your room.
You knew right away when you made the decision to leave your clan yesterday, that that would be it. The end of it. The start of a new life.
You looked beside you on the nightstand to check the time, only to find a note on top of it.
It read:
Dear Y/n,
I hope you had a good night's sleep and that you are well-rested and feeling better.
I did not want to wake you for breakfast so I left it for you on the dining table.
Unfortunately, I had some urgent business to attend to in town, so I will be gone till noon.
Please feel free to do, or go wherever you want.
If you need me, there is a phone on the nightstand which has my number on speed dial.
Yours truly,
Lee Dong Wook
His handwriting was neat and you read the note twice.
He seemed to put so much care in his words.
You couldn't remember the last time your own father had asked you whether you had slept well, or to call him when you needed him.
You picked up the phone that had been placed underneath the note. It was the newest model of a luxury brand phone.
Although you secretly felt slightly disappointed that Mr. Lee had gone, you knew it was for the better. You needed time to think. To clear your mind.
You got out of bed and stretched, suddenly noticing your suitcase standing next to the door.
Right.
Maybe unpack and think.
You rolled the suitcase over to the walk-in closet and started to unpack.
Now what?
You had lived your entire life in the protection of the Buja clan. You had been homeschooled by Eomeoni and when you had asked your father to go to college he had said he deemed it unnecessary.
At that time you had thought it was because you would take over the business from him anyway so there was no need for you to learn another trade.
Anger started to rise again in your heart.
But now none of that seemed relevant.
You never had any other friends behind Binna. How could you? You stayed home mostly and when you did go out there was always a bodyguard there with you.
You looked out of the window. The thought of going out without a bodyguard...
Liberating... but also very scary.
You weren't quite sure if you were ready for that just yet.
You put some clothes on the rack as you mumbled to yourself.
'Now what?'
You had no experience. Barely any life experience. Well, not the normal kind at least.
Would you be able to get a job?
But what would you do?
You had never thought of anything else than running the clan. Everything you had done, practiced, tried out, was so you could take over from your father one day.
But was it what you wanted?
But what else could you do?
It had been your life. How could you ever be someone else, something else?
And did you even want that?
To abandon everything? The entirety of your existence up till now?
'No,' you said resolutely to yourself.
No, you would not do that. You couldn't do that.
The more you thought about it, the stronger you felt that your aspirations hadn't changed. Wouldn't change.
But then what?
Start your own mob from the ground up?
A noise distracted you and you looked down. Your tummy was rumbling.
Time for breakfast.
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WRITERS NOTE
Once again a little less eventful chapter but I promise you it will get better soon sorry xD
I just go where the story take me, and apparently it needed quite some backstory?
Anyway I'm currently working up to the smut parts and I promise it'll be good, just keep hanging in there xD
Thanks for voting and commenting!