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𝕿𝐇𝐄 𝕯𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐋'𝐒 𝕸𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒
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Ji Eun had a smile on her face when she went to work the next day, having heard the conversation between Elijah and the housekeeper. It was starting out to be one of those days when she could actually relax, a pause in their plans as they awaited the Minister of Justice's reply to their demand.
Yo Han didn't seem to share her thoughts on the matter, but he couldn't find it in himself to to chase away the content smile on her face as she held his hand and looked out the car window. She'd become quite affectionate, well, more than usual, always needing to have some sort of contact with Yo Han.
He knew it was because he'd imprinted on her as a sort of safe house, someone who tied her to reality. Although he was terrified of doing something wrong, somehow ending up hurting her like he seemed to hurt everyone dear to him, he would rather die than voice it to her. And a small, annoying voice in his head reminded him that if anyone could handle the kind of life he lead, could hold her own despite all odds, it was Song Ji Eun.
He saw all of her, even the broken, jagged edges that she tried so hard to hide, just as she saw all of him. He hated being vulnerable, both of them did, but somehow they found themselves showing each other their true selves, true emotions, unable to hide it. Maybe that was what kept them from falling off the dangerous edge they tread, from crossing the line that they can never come back from.
She kept him from crossing that line, but sometimes he wonders if he could continue to do the same for her.
Meanwhile at the house, Kim Ga On was getting himself better acquainted with Elijah. After having surprised her with breakfast, she found herself begrudgingly taking an interest in the man. She wheeled in on him gently inspecting the cat and holding it gently to his chest.
"That's unexpected," she remarked calmly. "I don't mean you," she clarified immediately at his questioning gaze. "That cat never goes to strangers."
"I'm quite popular with street cats," he told her cheerfully. "I guess they can tell a good person from the bad, right?" He asked the cat, scratching its ear.
"Don't make me laugh," she scoffed. For some strange reason, Ga On found himself thinking that this girl was a lot more like Yo Han that he thought or she would admit.
"But not the stupid ones, I guess," he said, a devious smile on his face as she glared at him. "I mean the cat."
Elijah looked like she would have liked to say something very snide but saw the cat snuggling up to this annoying man. "She's a street cat too."
"Is she? But she looks like an expensive breed."
"Yo Han brought it home. He might not look it, but he always brings things home from the streets."
"Why do you think it's unlike him?" He asked, frowning slightly as he set the cat down gently.
Elijah scowled. "Don't tell me you also believe what they say about him on TV. "Judge Kang, the hero of justice who sided with the weak."."
"So he isn't?" He didn't miss that she didn't mention Ji Eun. She never does.
"As I thought, you are dumb." Elijah scoffed. "This cat here, she still catches mice even when we feed her everyday. Can you guess why?"
"Well..."
"Because it's fun. She's only doing it for fun. Because she's bored. How do you think Yo Han became the master of this house?" A dark look came over the young girl's face.
"Then what about Judge Song?" Ga On asked quietly.
"When it comes to Ji Eun... she's the perfect lackey for him. She'll never question him, his word is her law. But that doesn't mean she isn't capable of fighting for herself. In fact, I'd say she is even more dangerous than Yo Han."
Ga On seized his chance. "How so?"
Elijah stared at him for a long moment, making him wonder if he had pushed too far. Then, "Because once anyone messes with her, there's no second chance. She'll destroy them so thoroughly and so quietly, you can't pin anything on her even if you knew. She knows no mercy."
She knows no mercy.
She knew no mercy when she stood in front of the burning bar that had been pimping out girls and made business in human trafficking. She had known no mercy when she had spiked that CEO's drink to fall asleep in his car while driving down the lane, where she had called for the prosecutor and the lawyer to meet her.
She never hesitated to kill. She had lost too much on giving people second chances. Anyone who crossed her once, shall have no chance to do it again. She would protect her people even if it meant losing herself.
The scars that ran down her body, were a reminder of what she lost, and of what she was. She was no pillar of morals or a vassal for justice. She only sought to protect her own, even if it made her inhuman. Behind the gentle smile and amused gaze, lay a darkness so black that it consumed her, body and soul. That gentle lilt to her voice can suddenly turn sharper than the sharpest knives in the world. Behind that sympathetic gaze, was one that calculated everything.
To survive in this hellish life, one had to become a monster themselves, for she had learnt that only a monster can stand against other monsters. So it was no surprise, that she was the Devil Judge's henchman, his lover, and, if he so wished, his assassin. It took a lot to turn a gentle soul as Ji Eun so ruthless. She danced along the edge of sanity, as if she were dancing across a tightrope, one wrong step could let her fall into the abyss.
Her violin was the only thing that made her remember that there was once a time when things looked hopeful, when it seemed as if she could finally gain what she had lost. When Yo Han had laughed more, when she had finally held Elijah for the first time in her scarred, trembling arms; when the pain of their past finally seemed to start fading, when she had laughed for the first time after her abduction.
When she looked at the stringed instrument, she remembered how she had played for the Kang family on Christmas, laughing at Elijah's delighted squealing, returning the happy smile that Yo Han smiled at her. It was last time she had laughed so freely. And the last time she had felt like anything other than a monster.
She never regretted it, not once. No matter how sick it had made her at the beginning, no matter how devastated those men's family had been, she didn't regret it. She had once been gentle, kind. But that sweetness cost her more than she ever knew. Her father had been an honest man all his life. He would be terrified if he saw her now. Disgusted, at what she had become. The daughter he had taught to be kind and forgiving no matter what happened, was now a monster driven by rage and vengeance.
It was selfish, she knew, to love Yo Han. Yo Han, who deserved everything good in the world and none of the rotting evil it threw at him. Yo Han, who had lost everything, who kept hurting even now. Yo Han, who believed himself to be the monster everyone told him he was. It was partly her fault, she supposed, in letting him believe they were one and the same. But at least Yo Han went by the law, he always has. Manipulations and sleights of hands were his way, she knew. But he could have changed. He had changed, a lot, from the boy he had been. He'd been happy, with Isaac, his niece, happy that he finally had a family that accepted him, treated him as one of their own.
She could have stopped him, could have done more to convince him that he wasn't a monster. It was selfish, utterly selfish of her. Because then she wouldn't be wrong, right? If he believed so, there wasn't anything wrong in a monster daring to love another monster, was there?
"Song Ji Eun," Yo Han's voice pulled her out of her thoughts.
"Yes?" She asked, still a bit dazed.
"I asked where you want to go for dinner tonight." Yo Han repeated, trying to keep himself from frowning.
Ji Eun grinned. "Oh, you're taking this pretty seriously, aren't you? You're taking me out for dinner, what next? Are you going to take me to the movies?" She teased.
Yo Han shrugged. "If you want to, I don't see why not." He smiled as she pretended to be embarrassed.
"Kang Yo Han, since when were you such a romantic?" Ji Eun laughed. But as she looked up at him, and saw the look of soft fondness, a look he had always reserved only for her, she felt her stomach twist with guilt.
You don't deserve him, a voice hissed in her head. He's too good for you.
"I would burn the world for you." Yo Han's voice broke through her thoughts.
She looked up, startled. "What?"
"I said I would burn the world for you. And Elijah. You didn't make me a monster, darling, so stop looking at me with those guilty eyes."
How the hell did he-
"It's written all over your face. You might be able to mask everything in front of everyone else, but you can't fool me. I know you, better than you know yourself."
Ji Eun looked away, trying to hide the tears gathering in her eyes. She was supposed to be happy, she had wanted this for so long, but... did she deserve to be happy?
Maybe... it was time. Time to let him decide.
"I was thinking, before we go on that first date, we should talk. I- I have to tell you something."
Yo Han sighed, getting up and moving over to her desk. He knelt down next to her, holding her hands with such gentleness that her heart ached.
"We can do whatever you want, darling. But know that nothing you say can change how I feel about you."
Her lips twitched despite herself. "And how do you feel about me?" He only gave her a playful smile and pressed a soft kiss to the back of her hand before moving on to carry on with his work.
He insisted on picking up pizza for them on their way home, claiming loudly that he wasn't much of a listener with an empty stomach. And once they stepped foot on the threshold of their home, he swept her off her feet, causing her to yelp as he carried her to his room.
"Yo Han, put me down," she hissed.
"Don't feel like it."
"Kang Yo Han!" He ignored her with a smug smile and dropped her unceremoniously on his bed once they reached their destination.
"So. You wanted to talk, so talk."
The smile immediately left her lips, replaced with a somber expression. She took a deep breath, as if to steel herself.
****TRIGGER WARNING, MENTIONS OF R**E, S**C**E, M**DER, DO NOT READ IF THESE DISTURB YOU!!!****
"Those two years that I went missing," she started hesitantly. "Before I ended up where you found me... the night I went missing..."
It was just another night like any other, dark and cold as she sighed behind the billing counter of the convenience store she worked at. Her thin clothes did little to help her shivering. When the door to the store opened, she looked up, a smile lighting her face, expecting to see Yo Han to walk through. He was the only one who came at this time, to keep her company.
Her face fell a little at the sight of three boys entering instead. They were clad in black clothes, a mask covering the lower halves of their faces. She tensed, sensing that something was wrong. They came straight to the counter, not even bothering ti pick anything out.
"How may I help you?" She asked tentatively, standing her ground. That was her mistake, she should've run like the wind when she had the chance.
"Fuck, I hate that look on your face." One of them growled.
"Excuse me?" She backed off a little, but there was nowhere to run. The store didn't have a back entrance and one of them was blocking the front door.
"Look at this bitch, still glaring at me. Refuses to learn her place." The same guy snarled, pulling his hand back to strike her. She immediately whipped out a pepper spray she always kept on her personal, spraying his eyes generously.
"If only you'd covered your eyes instead of your mouth." But it was a victory that only lasted seconds.
"The next thing I knew, everything went dark. When I woke up, I was in a warehouse of some sort. Those three... I had picked a fight with them earlier that day, at school. You weren't there and I didn't want to make a huge deal out of it, but, they'd been talking shit about my dad, so I couldn't just let it go."
Yo Han's gaze grew darker, but he still said nothing, letting her find her words and tell him her everything.
"They- they forced themselves on me. Again, and again, and again. They'd cut me, burn me-" she cut herself off, eyes screwing shut as she tried to reject the memories that came up, her hands starting to shake.
Yo Han glanced at the scars on her arms, gritting his teeth. "Those bastards, those fucking- if you'd told me, I would have found them and ripped them apart-"
"You promised to listen," she reminded him gently, instantly shutting him up even as he fumed silently.
"I don't know how long it was before one of their fathers found out what they'd done. He took me out of there, and pimped me out instead, so I couldn't reveal what was happening. I couldn't leave that place and every time I tried, I got... promoted."
She grinned bitterly at Yo Han's questioning gaze.
"I got more and more perverted and cruel 'customers'. People who like to torture inflict pain. Sadistic, depraved and filthy bastards." A faraway look entered her eyes. "At one point, I tried to end it all. Well, it wasn't just once. They kept finding me, though, and treating back to health. Can't afford to lose their biggest cash cow."
"When you got me out of there, after burning that place down and the whole accident with that CEO and the attorneys... I tracked them down. Those three boys and their fathers."
She met his eyes squarely. "I killed them. I tortured them, made them scream and scream until they lost their voices. I pulled out their nails, broke each finger, pulled out their tongues and let their corpses be eaten by pigs."
"I'm a murderer. I wasn't being just, I wasn't being righteous. I did it because I wanted them to vanish off this earth with as much pain as I felt because of them and more."
The words were coming out in a rush now, an unstoppable tirade. "Everything I touch is ruined. My father and grandmother died because of me, and in trying to avenge them, I became someone that they would spit on and condemn as a monster. I am broken and twisted beyond repair and-" she cut herself off. Undeserving of your love. It hurt to say that.
Yo Han stayed silent, processing this information. But his hands never let go of hers.
"You seem to think that I'm very righteous, need I remind you of my title, darling?" He finally said.
"I chose this path on my own, and I'm not doing this to be good. I'm doing this for the same reason you killed those men, so how does that make you a monster but not me?" He demanded.
"Monster or not, broken or not, you are my Song Ji Eun."
A/N: Sooo, I'm not dead, and I most certainly haven't forgotten this book. Also, how and when did this reach 9k reads???? And thank you so much for the 400 votes, y'all, I can't believe so many people like this!! It makes me so happy that you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it! Also, a little hint, we're gonna see a lot of fluff between Yo Han and Ji Eun next chapter!