"A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have." — Irish Proverb
~°~
"And then what happened?" you questioned half-heartedly as you folded another shirt, already being more than familiar with this story.
It was one Nari has told you over and over again for ages, with the occasional difference in version, but the main storyline pretty much remained.
She and her stepmother were never exactly two peas in a pod, therefore Nari had the endless desire to tell you about their frequent disputes.
"So then I told her to shove it where the sun doesn't shine, and I walked away." Nari ended before a loud laugh escaped from her mouth.
The corner of your lip lifted as some sort of attempt of a smile and you simply chuckled shortly, allowing your focus to be more on your task at hand than on what she was rambling about.
You were struggling to remain indifferent around her and Jin, especially when you were in their presence at the same time.
It was a bit difficult to feign ignorance and oblivion.
But until you felt ready enough, or even just a little bit more than what you were feeling now, you had to pretend you didn't know a thing. You had to keep up with the act.
"Here you go," you heard Nari say next to you and you blinked, almost getting lost in thought.
With a wide smile, the blonde handed you the few bottoms that she just finished helping you fold.
You muttered a soft "thanks", forcing a smile at her as you took the clothes from her and carefully placed them into your luggage bag.
You and Seokjin were going to be leaving for Ulsan in the morning and you only realised how much you'd been putting off the packing part of travelling until now when Jin asked if you wanted him to help you put your stuff in the car.
And since he asked this question, Nari didn't hesitate to perk up and offer to help you out, but not forgetting to ask Seokjin if he needed assistance with his stuff, to which he quickly declined.
That honestly made you snort.
Now that you were well aware that the two were hiding something from you, you couldn't help but find it laughable how they made sure to keep up with their constant bickering and neck-and-neck dynamic. It was pretty silly.
You hurriedly shook your thoughts, hating how uncomfortable they were starting to make you.
As much as the situation was laughable in its own way, that didn't take away the discomfort and hurt you were feeling as a result of this whole thing.
You wondered how long it would be before they cracked and simply came out with it and tell you what was going on at their own will.
You scoffed.
"Huh? What was that?" Nari asked as she made her way over to you with your makeup bag in hand.
Hearing her question, you realised you had made that noise out loud. You forced out an awkward giggle, trying to wave her off with a random excuse as a way to dismiss her.
"So is your mother forcing you to come to another event?" you asked as a way to change the topic, although you weren't very interested in what she had to say about that.
But one thing about Nari, if she could spend hours speaking about herself or about anything that had to do with her in some way, she gladly would.
It was a solution you realised you always made use of with her ever since the two of you became friends. Although, it was only now that you've been paying more attention to her and your interactions with her.
Now that you thought about it, you wondered how in the world the two of you stayed friends for so long.
"Step-mother." she immediately corrected you as she casually sat down on the edge of your bed, "She's always forcing me to do things I'm not up for, she's almost like your mom in that sense,"
At the last part of her sentence, you paused and turned your head to look at her, a deep knit forming in between your brows.
"My mom?" you gave her a weird look, showing your confusion, "What do you mean?"
"She's always forcing you to attend functions you don't actually want to go to, doesn't she?" Nari looked up at you innocently, shrugging as if she was saying something completely normal.
You were about to respond to her and voice your disagreement with what she said, but when she spoke up again, you were forced to keep quiet.
"Like this memorial thing," she told you, nodding her head over at the open luggage bag on your bed, "You don't actually want to go to it. I know you don't. You're only going so you don't make your parents mad,"
You felt an uncomfortable pinch in your gut as you slowly put down the shirt you were busy folding, slowly glancing at Nari again with your face slightly scrunched up.
"You think my family is forcing me to go to this thing?" you asked her lowly and turned to face her, wondering if she was even hearing herself, "I'm going to pay respect to my grandfather, why wouldn't I want to be there?"
Nari pursed her lips, giving you a dumb look as if she was thinking that you were being dishonest, which only annoyed you more.
"I'm just saying," she began, looking down at her red-coated nails, "parents just enjoy having control, which is why they constantly make us do things in the name of 'respect',"
The furrow between your brows only deepened as you listened to her speak, making you completely forget about what you were doing for a moment.
"I stopped attending memorials ages ago, I never saw the point of it." she continued, absolutely oblivious to how her words were rubbing you the wrong way, "My stepmother became even more of a bitch after this, it's honestly something I've always found funny,"
"You know it's not really a good idea to speak about your mother like that," a new voice jumped into the conversation, saving you from having to respond to Nari.
You looked over your shoulder and watched Jin step into your bedroom with his hands stuffed into his pockets as he leaned on the wall beside the door.
Noticing his damp hair, you almost gushed at how attractive the sight was, carefully paying attention to the few drops of water that would land on his clothes every now and then.
Damn, did he look fucking good.
It annoyed you to no end, how this man could literally wear anything and still somehow manage to look like a darn Greek god. As cliche as it was, you always felt like his attractiveness was probably enough to feature in a teen romance novel.
His looks would fit the perfect appearance of a love interest in a romantic comedy.
The man could even wear a trash bag and make it look like it was the trendiest thing one could wear.
Irritated with yourself for having the nerve to admire him given your current circumstances, you internally rolled your eyes and gave yourself a distasteful scoff in your head. Things have been rocky with the two of you and the man was practically being dishonest with you about whatever the hell was going on between him and Nari, and yet you were still somehow able to point out how beautiful he happened to be as if it was anything new.
What a beautiful liar he was.
Softly clearing your throat and shaking your head lightly, you turned away from the man, afraid that he'd catch you staring at him, something you'd always found yourself doing, and sometimes you weren't even aware that you were doing it.
And yet right now, even amidst all of that, you still somehow found the ability to admire him.
You were even more annoyed about catching yourself in such an act.
This was definitely one of the moments where you genuinely wanted to knock your head a couple of times with a gavel.
Clearly, you weren't in the best state of mind.
"Where the fuck do you even come from?!" Nari burst out and you snapped out of your internal moment and looked back at her. Her face was all scrunched up, showcasing her supposed confusion about your best friend's choice to make his presence known.
"None of your business, dumbass." Jin dismissed her arrogantly as he got himself off the wall and turned back to you, "What do you want for dinner?"
"I'm not really craving anything specific so you can make whatever," you answered and turned your attention back to the last few items that still needed to be packed away, knowingly doing this to also take your attention off of him and Nari.
Having them in the same vicinity actually made you a bit uncomfortable. You just prayed that they wouldn't pick up on it, knowing that it would only lead to the confrontation you were still putting off.
Nari pursed her lips, deciding to loudly chime back into the conversation, "You're going to burn the whole building down, stupid!"
Seokjin scoffed, "Why is it your problem anyway? You don't even live here."
"But my best friend does." she retorted confidently, standing up to rummage around in your closet.
Best friend?
Usually, when she said this, you simply brushed it off as a joke, because it didn't really make sense to give the title to someone you occasionally spoke to and hung out with once in a blue moon.
You had to fight back a snort.
"If you're talking about y/n, you're wrong," Seokjin told her and snorted humourlessly with a deep-set scowl of irritation now on his face, "She already has me. I'm pretty sure just one best friend is more than enough,"
Nari scoffed.
"Identity theft is a crime,"
Nari rolled her eyes at Jin's words, "I'm going to ignore you now because you're not making any sense,"
You heard the man scoff yet again at her words, "You won't say anything because you know I'm right."
Nari's jaw clenched but, this time, she remained quiet. Instead, she turned away from Jin and went back to searching for something in your closet, which only seemed to please him in more ways than one.
You couldn't understand how just the other day they seemed quite comfortable and shit with each other without you around, but now that they were in your presence, they were acting as if they were a cat and dog, butting heads like sworn enemies.
Seokjin let out a low chuckle without saying anything else and soon stepped out of the room, leaving you and Nari by yourselves once more, allowing you both to continue with what you were doing before he arrived.
"Hey, y/n?" you heard her call out, and you turned your attention away from the door Seokjin had just walked out through and refocused on the closet that was only getting messier by the passing minute, "What's the time?"
Once she saw that she got your attention, you met her expectant eyes for a second.
You reached down beside your luggage bag and grabbed your phone. Looking down at the screen after you turned it on, you were soon met by the cute lockscreen along with the time, a weird nostalgic feeling hitting you once your eyes met the image.
"It's six thirty," you answered her after a few seconds but kept your gaze on the picture you had set to be your lockscreen.
It was a photo of you and Seokjin last summer when both of you went to Bali for vacation. It was almost a celebration of some sort for getting through another year of university.
In the picture, you were both standing on the gorgeous balcony of the hotel room you were staying in, with the beautiful blue water and sunset in the background. Jin had a bottle of vodka in his free hand with his other arm casually holding your waist.
You were dressed in a white cut-out bikini set with a large sunhat on your head and a yellow beach towel lazily hanging around your shoulders. Seokjin, on the other hand, had simple swimmer shorts on, that had a couple of colourful and vibrant prints scattered all over, contrasting with the plain black background of the shorts. You both had wide smiles on your faces, and you couldn't help but feel your heart swell at the bittersweet memory.
It was probably one of the best holidays you've had.
One of the best memories was made during that vacation. Or at least almost made.
Even though Seokjin definitely didn't remember what had happened — you did. And, to this day, you continued to think back to that very moment with your only regret being the fact that you allowed it to end before it even really started.
As much as Jin didn't remember the fact that he came so close to kissing you that day, you did. Being the only one sober between the two of you at the time allowed you to be completely aware of what was going on around you.
He had brushed his lips so lightly over yours, breathing heavily as you subconsciously did the same, scared to pull away but even more terrified to take the leap and make any sort of move on him, the risk and desire made it hard for you to make a decision on your side.
You recalled how tiny goosebumps rippled and decorated your skin as a display of your strange anxiety and anticipation, how your heartbeat blazed in your eardrums like the intense chorus of a choir, how your belly fluttered with raging butterflies, and how everything around you seemed to come to a halt — it was just you and him. You and Jin.
The tension between the two of you in that moment was beyond palpable. So much so, that it could've almost fooled you into believing that he must've somehow felt something for you for even a split second, something that urged him into nearly fully initiating a thing as intimate as a kiss.
A kiss with you.
But you knew better than to indulge in that silly fantasy since you were far too familiar with the kind of person he actually was.
A fuckboy. You had to remind yourself in case you forgot.
He dabbled around with women more often than you could probably count.
Due to his intoxication that day, he must have just thought you were one of his fuck buddies when he came so close to kissing you that day.
It was almost laughable that you had stupidly allowed yourself to fall for your best friend even more during that moment and let things go down the way they did back then. Even if, technically, nothing really happened, you still felt like the moment was obscure and bizarre enough to be of some level of significance.
You knew that mulling over this for so long was dumb, you knew better than anyone, especially when it was clear as day that he was not one to commit to nor have much interest in a serious relationship of any kind.
The most serious relationship that he would ever really let himself get into is a friend-with-benefits kind of relationship, with no strings attached, just pure fun and pleasure for both parties. or years, that is how things have been. You were well aware.
It was even more laughable that you remained in love anyway. It was ridiculous.
"Shit." you heard Nari suddenly curse out, pulling you out of the short-lived reverie you had unknowingly got yourself sucked into.
You looked at her and you began to watch her bolt back and forth across the room and hurriedly start to gather her things from your table.
"Heiran is going to be so pissed," she muttered to herself, a newfound look of panic crossing her face.
Hearing her words, your eyebrows knit again as you silently watched her run around the room like a headless chicken. You were kind of caught off guard by the sudden switch in the mood.
You had to fight back a snort at her panicked state after you heard her stepmother's name, instantly thinking back to what she had been blabbing about just minutes before. Yet here she was freaking out at the thought of the angry woman, after insinuating that she simply viewed her as nothing but a joke.
How ludicrous.
"Y/n, I'm so sorry. I have to go." she rushed out, shooting her eyes around the room to make sure she had all of her belongings as she headed back to your closet.
"Do you mind if I borrow this dress?" she said loudly but her voice was still somewhat distant and muffled since her head was practically stuffed in the closet.
"Which one?"
"The one that I got you for your birthday," she answered and soon pulled out a white dress, holding it up so you could see what she was referring to.
You didn't want to lie — you honestly forgot about that dress entirely.
Now that you thought about it, you didn't actually remember ever wearing it.
At the thought, you forced back yet another snort.
"I promise I'll bring it back. It's urgent." Nari spoke up again in a hurry, breathing hard and rushing out her words so much that you almost couldn't understand what she was saying.
You blinked, still confused, "Yeah, sure..."
She muttered a quick 'thank you' before rushing off to throw the rest of her items into a tote bag that she often borrowed from you in moments like this, this wasn't a first.
Nari then ran out shortly and you stayed where you were, staring into the direction she had just run off into before she soon returned just moments later with a phone charger dangling from her hand, continuing with her search around your room as you silently watched her.
"Why is your friend running around like a madman?" a deep voice suddenly spoke from the door, making you jump at the sudden sound.
You immediately turned around and soon found Seokjin standing at your door with a small plate held up in his hand and a simple sandwich placed on top of it.
"What the hell?" you hissed at him, giving him an unimpressed glare, "You scared me, dumbass."
"Oops?" he shrugged and grabbed his sandwich with his free hand, taking a bite from it before putting it back down onto the plate once he swallowed, "I just wanted to show you the snack I was having before dinner,"
"You're s-"
"Y/n!" you heard Nari shout, successfully stopping you from continuing with your semi-banter with Seokjin, making you glance at her.
"I'll call you this weekend okay?" she breathed out, waving quickly at you as she walked towards your bedroom door.
Nari pushed past Jin and made her way out of the room without another word said, The white dress she was borrowing from you was draped over one of her arms, and her own stuff was in the tote bag that hung from her shoulder.
Both you and Seokjin mindlessly followed after her, the tall man staying close behind you.
"Bye?" you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion, just before she rushed to the door. Seconds later, slammed the door closed soon after stepping out after shouting one more 'bye'.
"Let's go to bed," Jin said from behind you, after a few moments of silence as the two of you looked away from the front door, quickly moving on from Nari's very sudden departure.
"But it's only almost seven o'clock." you scrunched your face up in confusion and glanced up at him, almost getting weak in the knees the second your eyes met, "And didn't you say you were going to make dinner?"
"Okay. And?" he raised his brow at you with a casual shrug before he took another bite from his sandwich.
"What do you mean 'and'?" you asked him as you softly hit the back of his head and started to walk past him, heading back to your bedroom, "I'm not going to bed now."
"Okay, then let's just chill in my room for a bit, then we can get started with dinner," he suggested once again as he followed closely behind you once more.
"Last one there is in charge of dinner for the next week!" you yelled suddenly as soon as the thought came to mind.
You immediately bolted towards his room before he could even get the chance to actually process what you said.
You might as well pretend that everything was back to normal by being playful with him, at least until you were ready to speak up about everything you were keeping to yourself.
It took a few delayed seconds for Jin to figure out what you meant, but once he did, he let out a shout and began to run after you. However, by the time he made it to his room, you were already getting yourself comfortable enough to lay on your back with a devious, proud smirk adorning your face.
You let out a loud laugh as you saw the man pause at the door, annoyed eyes staring back at you as you continued to shamelessly laugh in his face.
"Start brainstorming a menu, sweetheart." you laughed at him, waving at him teasingly and watching him slowly walk further into the room with a dissatisfied scowl on his face.
"You're the worst," he grunted and lightly kicked the door closed behind himself, making his way over to the bed and putting his plate with the half-eaten sandwich onto the bedside table.
He then casually dropped his body on the bed beside you, and said nothing as he rested his head on your shoulder slightly.
Your heart skipped a beat as if this was not a normal thing you did with each other.
"I'll get back at you one day for being so sly, Peanut," he breathed out, and lifted his head up a bit to look at you, "You tend to forget I'm older than you, cheating your elders is rude,"
"We're only two months apart, doofus," you deadpanned, mindlessly starting to run your fingers through his hair once he looked away.
The man scoffed, "Still older,"
You rolled your eyes at his words as you sat up and allowed Seokjin to move a bit and rest his in your lap instead, letting you play with his hair again.
However, he wasn't there for long a before he suddenly stood up, grabbing his sandwich and taking one more bite from it before putting it back and turning back to face you, the look in his eyes now suddenly turning dark.
Without saying anything, Jin calmly got back onto the bed and began to crawl over to you with a mischievous yet devious expression sported on his face, the switch was so sudden that it had you gulping shortly.
The smirk that you just had on your face quickly disappeared and you started to shuffle backwards instinctively as soon you noticed his actions, but you felt your back hit the headboard of his bed just moments later, preventing you from moving any further.
Shit.
This made Jin smirk smugly, and he kneeled before you as a light chuckle left his mouth.
"Dead end." he joked lowly before taking your ankles into his hands and pulling you down so you landed on your back in mere seconds.
Your breath hitched in your throat and you could swear that your heart even stopped beating for a spilt second as a weird shudder ran through you.
Before you could process anything, Seokjin crawled over you until his face was almost hovering over yours completely.
Your breath hitched once again, and you tried to force him off of you by placing your hands onto his chest and pushing at it as a way to try and get him away from you.
Your heart thumped against your ribcage and you found yourself gulping over and over again as you tried your best to feign nonchalance and keep on a poker face, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of affecting you the way he actually was.
He let out a low grunt lowering his gaze to your hands on him before looking back at your face again. Without saying a thing, the man grabbed both your hands into one of his large ones, forcing your hands against your chest to prevent you from pushing him any more.
"Stop." he laughed and then suddenly started tickling your sides with his free hand, almost immediately having you squealing and gasping for air after only a few moments.
"Jin! Stop!" you shouted through your laughter, trying to twist your hands from his grasp as you struggled to find some sort of escape from him.
After what was probably only a couple of seconds that felt like the longest minutes of your life, Jin finally put a stop to his torture on you, but he didn't move from his spot on top of you, only removing his hands from you.
You stared at him and he stared right back as you were breathing hard, trying to catch your breath again as your chest rose and fell slowly.
Heavy silence poured over the room and you began to feel your heartbeat picking back up once more, newfound tension now creeping into the atmosphere, a tension that was quickly beginning to feel thick enough to be sliced through.
Seokjin dropped his head with a loud breath slipping past his lips, his hair gently grazing over your chin for a second, making your body tense up subconsciously as you stared up at the ceiling nervously, gulping repeatedly.
"Y/n..."
You simply forced out a meek hum in response because of how tongue-tied you suddenly found yourself becoming as a strange lump seemed to form in your throat.
"Fuck it." he muttered lowly and slowly raised his head to lock eyes with you once again.
Before you knew it, you felt Jin push himself up slightly so that he could be at eye-level with you, hovering over you more, his light breaths now sweeping over your face.
Your heart immediately stopped momentarily as his eyes set themselves intently on yours, and you felt a harsh surge of panic rush through your veins as you noticed his face starting to come closer to yours at a pace that was beyond slow, but also seemed to be charging towards you, all at the same time.
As soon as you felt the very light and delicate brush of his lips over yours, the gush of panic crashed over you as your heart leapt into your throat.
Alarmed and without a thought, you mindlessly shot your head to the side to avoid his bewildering approach, and immediately used all your might to throw yourself to the side and out of his trap.
With a loud thump, you landed harshly on the ground beside Jin's bed and a pained groan slipped from your throat sooner than you could think of anything else but the throbbing at the back of your head and in your ass.
Squeezing your eyes shut, you continued to groan, barely hearing your best friend call out to you worriedly as he rushed over to your side with widened eyes.
Searing pain snuck into what truly felt like your entire skull. You raised a hand to cup your forehead, ignoring Jin who was trying to get your attention to check if you were okay.
You didn't care to respond to your best friend, millions of thoughts and "what the fucks" flashed through your head at the speed of light, only making the headache you were getting even worse than it already was. Your head seemed to pound harder the more you tried to wrap your head around what the hell just happened, and why you allowed your instincts to make you literally throw yourself onto the ground like a freaking idiot.
"Y/n," you heard Jin say breathlessly, his voice holding absolute shock, and confusion, along with something you couldn't really recognise, "What the fuck was that?"
You groaned, eyes still squeezed shut, " I could ask the same thing,"
~°~
With a half-finished glass of wine held in his large hand, Hoseok stood in the middle of the large hall filled with a crowd of insufferable rich people, waves of arrogance and tides of superiority complexes practically oozing from every single one of them.
He let out a sigh which he hoped would at least momentarily drown out the orchestra that was loudly playing classical symphonies at the furthest end of the large hall.
He wished he could've been elsewhere at this very moment, preferably with Jimin or even with you. He did not want to be in this place one bit. Surrounded by all these cocky brutes was truly making him sick.
Even though this was something he's had to be a part of in such a way, it was never something he could ever find himself getting used to. The elitism and arrogance in the air always managed to make him feel like he was suffocating.
Maybe he could go check up on you after leaving this stupid place...
He was at yet another event that his mother forced him to attend. The same event that pushed him to change the previous plans he was starting to make about possibly taking you another date.
But luckily, instead of cancelling the date completely, his best friend Jimin, suggested that he instead make the first date even more memorable to make up for the cancellation of the second official one.
A weird tingle struck his gut at the thought.
Although he didn't really understand what his friend meant initially because it wasn't like you were necessarily aware that he was thinking about having another date any time soon. But because he wasn't exactly against the idea, he decided to go along with it and took Jimin's offer of assistance in putting the whole thing together.
And in the end, the date ended up going really well, and he had to admit that it was all thanks to Jimin.
If he was being honest, he didn't actually plan on asking you to be his girlfriend so soon, and yet he did.
It kind of just came out.
And once the words left his mouth, he couldn't take them back, no matter how much he really wanted to — sort of...
He couldn't lie and claim that it did not send a little jab to his heart when you told him that he first needed to prove himself to you before you pursued anything solid with him that night, but regardless of that; he understood where you were coming from. You were right, and he understood and respected that.
If anything, he found it admirable, even if it wasn't necessarily a big deal.
Besides, it wasn't like he was pressed for time, he could take this slow and court you more carefully. He knew that dating you would be a good idea and would benefit him well in the long run. Being careful with it was probably the best way to go about it.
Hoseok then released a quiet sigh of boredom as he slowly swirled the little amount of wine that was left in his wine glass and watched as his mother continued to introduce him to the thousandth person that night, a woman named Kim Heiran and her husband, Kim Daeshin.
From what he heard his mother mentioning at the start of this entire conversation, they were allegedly old friends of both his mother and his dad.
Apparently, they had not seen his mother since his father's funeral — which was just over two years ago.
Hoseok found this information quite weird since this was the very first time that he was meeting this couple. And for them to be claiming to have been at his father's funeral is something that he was seriously struggling to remember.
Since, as his father's first and only son, he was the Chief Mourner, he was sure that, even if he didn't necessarily remember everyone that came to the ceremony, he would at least remember funeral attendees who were supposedly good friends of his deceased dad.
But instead of voicing his suspicions, he decided to bite his tongue, brushing it off as just another baseless gloat coming from the wealthy in order to make themselves look good or something. Nothing new.
"You have gotten even more handsome over the years, Hoseok." Kim Heiran said to him with a smirk on her face, practically clutching onto her husband's arm, almost as if she were holding on for dear life.
"Thank you," Hoseok said with a forced smile on his face.
"So what are you up to lately?" Kim Daeshin asked Hoseok as he let his wife strangle the life out of his arm, "I hear you'll finally be taking over the agency once you graduate."
Hoseok sighed after hearing the words that had just come from the older man's mouth.
If he was being honest, Hoseok didn't really want to take over his parents' business, it wasn't something he ever found himself having an interest in.
All he really wanted to do was open his own dance school with studios across the country, but his mother never really agreed with that dream, she always told him that it was simply a failure waiting to happen, that it wasn't a solid dream.
The only people who seemed to support him with this dream were Jimin and his father — who was no longer around.
Reluctantly shrugging his thoughts off, trying to hold in his annoyance before he answered, simply for not only his mother's sake but also for the snobbish couple in front of him.
"Yeah. It seems so..."
The couple and his mother continued to bug Hoseok for well over an hour until Hoseok decided to announce that he was planning on making his departure a matter of ten minutes. However, before he could even say a word, a familiar short girl with long blonde hair suddenly made an appearance next to Kim Daeshin, breathing heavily as she smoothed out the white dress she had on with her left hand and fixed one of the pins in her hair with her right.
In distaste, Hoseok clenched his jaw at the sight of the female. Even though he knew she would be at this event but he still hoped that she would not actually come since she normally managed to weasel her way out of attending these events.
"Look who finally decided to show up." Kim Heiran sneered as she stared down at the shorter girl who simply chose to ignore her, and instead turned her attention to Kim Daeshin.
"Evening, Appa." she smiled up at her father and exhaled softly, bowing respectfully at him and everyone else in the little group, "I'm sorry for being so late. I got caught up with something."
"Hello, my angel. All that matters is that you did make it after all." Kim Daeshin smiled back at the younger woman as he shrugged off his wife's arms and reached out to give the girl a tight hug, earning himself a hard glare from the said wife.
"I've missed you a lot." he told his daughter once they pulled apart, holding each other's forearms as they spoke, seemingly in their own little bubble, "I was hoping to see you again before I leave again on Tuesday."
The girl twisted her lips into a silly pout, "I'm going to miss you a lot,"
"Let's hope nothing comes up on Monday so we can have dinner," he said with a soft smile before finally turning to face everyone else standing there as if he had just only remembered that they were still standing there, "as a family." he added as soon as he made eye contact with his wife.
"It's good to see you again." Hoseok's mother smiled at the girl once she finally got her attention after having waited for what must have felt like an eternity for the impatient woman.
"Likewise." the short girl smiled softly at Hoseok's mother and gave her one more bow before turning to Hoseok,
As soon as their eyes met, the girl's soft smile quickly turned into a suggestive one and she forcefully locked their arms together, pulling Hoseok closer to her as she greeted him, "Hey, my love."
"Hi, Nari."
Hoseok sighed and quickly looked away before she could say anything. Turning to his mother, he, once again, decided to finally leave this place, especially now that Nari was here.
Not only was her presence alone irritating enough, but it was also the fact that his arrival would get the parents talking.
They would all soon start to pester them about the non-existent relationship between him and Nari, a relationship they have been fighting to set up for years now.
And on top of that, knowing the sort of person the girl was, he knew that it would only be a matter of time before she would choose to put him in a tight spot as well and start to whine about anything that he must've done that didn't sit right with her.
If he were to leave her to do so, he knew for a fact that the first thing she would probably complain about would be the whole necklace thing that she was bitching about when she randomly showed up at his apartment the other day.
"I'd love to stay," he began to say, putting up the biggest kiss-ass act of the decade as he forced a smile, "but I have somewhere to be."
He placed his empty wine glass on a round tray that a passing waiter held in her hands before he continued to speak "It was good seeing you all. I hope to do this again sometime." nope, "Enjoy the rest of your evening."
And without any more words said and before any of those people could get the chance to protest, he quickly took his leave and soon left the large building with a headache quickly making itself a resident in his skull.
Getting into his car as soon as it was brought over to him by a valet, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, trying to get rid of the irritation he was feeling from the whole evening.
If he didn't already know it, he most definitely knew now that he really wasn't cut out for this lifestyle.
It was unfortunate that one could never exactly choose their parents and the sort of environment that they would be raised in.
He needed to find his way out of this hellhole sooner or later. Before he loses his mind.
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Hey guys!!
I took forever, I know, I apologise...
How was this chapter? It's the longest one so far so I would love to hear your thoughts!!
~J🌻