A few months had passed since everything happened with Starship. The guys were all doing okay now, but now Super Junior was facing super drama. While we were in Japan, Kyuhyun returned from his conscription and rumors started to spread about a Super Junior comeback with the remaining members of the group, now that everyone had completed their conscriptions. Once those rumors started, the E.L.F.s, in all their glory, started protesting.
Some didn't want Kangin back because he'd gotten a second D.U.I. when I had was touring with Big Bang. Others didn't want Sungmin back for the way everything had been handled when he got engaged and married. Than there were those who didn't want Siwon to participate because a woman who had been bit when his dog was off its leash died from her injuries. On top of it, the dog was a known biter. And in the middle of it all... was Heechul, who couldn't keep his mouth closed if you paid him to, antagonizing the public.
"Have you talked to Heechul in the last few days?" Hyunseong asked me one day in the summer.
"No, why?"
"There are antis making threats against Super Junior, Hea," he told me. "And you know Heechul tends to draw ire."
I nodded at him, knowing he was right. A few days later, I got a phone call. It was Mr. Lee. After telling Hyunseong I was going out for a bit, I went to SM to see him.
"Thanks for coming, Hea."
"No problem, Mr. Lee," I replied. "But I don't know why you called and asked me to come in."
"I wanted to know if you'd take a special assignment for me."
"What kind of assignment?"
"I need someone to guard a member of Super Junior. Someone who can keep a clear head in a chaotic situation."
"Who is it?"
"Kim Heechul," he said and I realized he never found out that Heechul was my brother. "I know that you work for G-Dragon and are his personal bodyguard now, but he's on conscription for at least another two months. Hopefully, the situation will have been resolved by then. So, will you do this?"
"I need to think about this, Mr. Lee," I told him. "A lot has changed since 2011. I'm married and I have kids. Not to mention, I need to run this by Jiyong when he checks in with me tomorrow night. I don't know if he'll want me to take another job. He may not be here, but he's still paying me."
He sighed.
"Alright, Hea. I understand. Just please, get back to me as soon as you can."
"I will."
I left his office and got out of the building unseen by everyone except Johnny from NCT 127, the once scrawny trainee, who was now a grown man and debuted idol. He saw me when I was almost out of the building.
"Where's the fire, Noona?" he asked me with a smile.
"I'm trying to keep too many people from seeing me today, Johnny. I don't want people to know I was here," I told him. "Please, don't tell people you saw me today."
"What's wrong?"
"I just need to figure out what's right in a situation I was presented with. Either outcome can be bad, so I'm trying to figure out what to do. But you know I'll be fine," I said to him and managed a smile.
I walked away from Johnny, making my way down to the Han River to think.
The following evening, Hyunseong and I both talked to Jiyong before I told Hyunseong I needed to discuss work with Jiyong and took the computer into our bedroom and shut the door. Jiyong looked worried.
"What are you talking about, 'work,' Hea? You're still on maternity leave."
"Mr. Lee at SM asked me to take a side job for a while before you get off conscription, Jiyong. I told him I needed to check with you because you're my boss."
"Tell me," he said, looking worried.
I explained the meeting from the day before, seeing Jiyong get more worried by the minute.
"I need advice here, Jiyong. I know the right call is probably to just tell him no and stay here with Hyunseong and the kids. But, in the time you've been gone, Heechul has really stepped up and helped me get over the fears you yourself told me I needed to get over. Do I just ignore that and take the risk that something will happen to him now that I've finally given him the chance? I'm not sure what the right call is here, Jiyong. So I'm asking you for help. Hyunseong doesn't even know yet."
"Why?"
"I didn't want to stress him after what Starship did to Boyfriend just a few months ago."
Jiyong sighed.
"Hea, I think you know that the triplets are still babies and need their mother. You know Hyunseong loves you and would be heartbroken without you. And I don't want you putting yourself out there when I'm not there, honestly, especially after all the years of pain Kim Heechul put you through. But, he did step up when you asked him to and I won't ignore that," he said. "You're a great bodyguard, Hea. You always have been. Your instincts are strong. What are they telling you now? Because that's what you should do. You always trusted your instincts when you were working and that's what you need to rely on right now. You have my opinion on whether or not I want you working for SM. The answer is no. But Heechul is your brother, who finally started acting like one. If you feel like you have to do this, he's your family. Just tell Hyunseong before you agree to it. Don't hide this from him."
"I won't," I promised him.
"I have to go. I'll check in next week, Hea," Jiyong said, disconnecting the call.
When I got off the phone with Jiyong, I stayed in the room for an hour, thinking about what he told me. After a while, I knew what I needed to do. So, after the triplets were put to bed that night, I sat Hyunseong down and told him what was going on.
Heechul's POV:
Leeteuk told me he went to Lee about getting me protection. I wasn't happy about it, but since he told me about it two weeks ago, and I hadn't heard anything else about it, I was hoping the subject had been dropped. Everyone knew that I wouldn't just run and hide because a bunch of assholes who wanted to make threats were running their mouths. I had a bigger mouth and I wasn't afraid. I wasn't some scared kid they could intimidate and I wasn't going to hide at home.
Things were just out of control because with the announcement of our comeback for later this year, people were divided about whether or not certain people should still be part of the group. My opinion was it was all bullshit. After all the time that's past, they still want to hold the past against certain members of the group.
By September, things were moving forward for Super Junior, but things were still tense. We had released three singles, and the month was almost over. The album was scheduled to be released in just about a week or so. The guys were all excited for the comeback, but I was hoping for the chaos of the threats to die down. I wasn't the only one getting threats, but Leeteuk was the only one who realized I provoked the antis so they focused more on me than any of the other members in the group. The only other person who would have realized it probably would've been Young Woon, but he had actually quit not long after the announcement of the comeback, trying to spare the rest of us the stress of everyone stirring up his past DUIs.
We had just released the video for "Crown" the night before. From what we could all see, it was being received well, but the antis were being themselves, and I provoked them as I usually did. I was out early in the morning for some air and some quiet before the chaos of the day started when it happened.
"It was only going to be a matter off time before you made the wrong move, Kim Heechul," I heard from behind me. "Now that you did, you're going to pay for all the shit that comes out of your mouth."
I turned around smirking... to find someone with a gun pointed at me. Somehow, I kept my cool, but inside I was trying to figure out what to do. His finger was on the trigger. I heard the explosion of the shot, but I didn't feel anything as I fell.
"Get in the red sedan, Heechul!" I was ordered. "It will take you to SM."
I didn't question the order. I followed it, getting in the red sedan, recognizing the driver when I did.
"Who gave me that order?" I asked him as he started driving me to SM, where I would be safe.
"Your bodyguard, Mr. Kim," he replied.
"Who is my bodyguard?" I asked him.
"Shim Hea, Sir."
I felt my heart fill with ice as I realized my baby sister had just saved my life, and that she was the person Lee had hired to protect me. He probably didn't even know she was my sister. Instinctively, not wanting to believe the driver, I picked up my cell phone, calling the only person who could give me the truth.
"Hello?" he answered on the second ring.
"Hyunseong? It's Heechul."
"What are you calling me for at this hour?"
"Where is my sister?"
"Working."
My heart started racing as the truth set in and I dropped my phone, hyperventilating.
Hea's POV:
The shot hit me in my side, but I wasn't bleeding that badly. It clipped off the vest I was wearing to protect myself. Out of my periphery vision I saw Heechul was safely in the sedan before I got up to chase the shooter who ran when I knocked Heechul out of the line of the shot. I had the advantage that I was small and fast, so with the streets of Seoul being fairly clear in the early morning hours, I was able to keep him in my sight.
I chased him half a kilometer before I had him cornered. We got into a hand to hand fight, which, I ultimately subdued and restrained him in. I was dragging him out of the alley with his hands zip tied to bring him to police headquarters when I fell to the ground, on top of him. A minute later, as I started to struggle for air, the cause of my issue came over to me.
"You may have saved your charge for now, but he'll mess up again," he said grinning. "And you won't be there to save him."
"He's too smart for you. He won't make... the same mistake... twice..." I said, smirking at him, knowing that even as I was screwed, the camera in my vest was getting the images of the person who had shot me, just as it had the person who shot at Heechul.
Even if I didn't get away from them, the images were being sent to a file on Mr. Lee's server to be used as needed. They'd be found based on those pictures. No matter what happened in that moment, I knew Heechul was safe. I smiled, as I shed a tear of pain for what I knew I was also about to lose, as he came closer to me, with his gun drawn.
Heechul's POV:
I had been at SM for two hours, and we hadn't heard anything from Hea. I had demanded Lee get his ass into the building as soon as I got there.
"What the hell were you thinking, hiring Hea?!" I demanded of him.
"She's one of the best bodyguards out there, Heechul," he said to me calmly. "We've gotten serious threats to your life."
He sat down at his desk, turning on his computer and unlocking it.
"Then where is she?! It's been too long!"
He typed in some things and pulled up some files, clicking through them. I don't know what he was looking at, but he excused himself from the room for a minute before he came back and sat down again.
"What the hell is going on?!"
"Heechul, I'm going to have to wait until later to finish this discussion with you," he told me. "Please go meet up with Leeteuk and the rest of Super Junior until I can come explain."
"Fuck you! Tell me what the hell is going on! You went behind my back and hired a bodyguard to shadow me and now she's missing, but you won't tell me what's going on when I was the one who got shot at this morning! What happened to my baby sister?!"
"What did you say?" he asked me.
"What happened to my baby sister, Lee?"
"Are you saying...?"
"Kim Hea is my baby sister... we have the same father," I said, finally breaking, scared of the possibilities.
He pressed a button on his intercom and had Leeteuk sent for. A few minutes later he rushed to my side.
"What's going on?" Leeteuk asked.
"Did you know that Kim Hea was Heechul's sister?"
"For almost two years now. Since she married Shim Hyunseong of Boyfriend, Sir. Why?"
I didn't like the look on his face.
"When you came to me for a bodyguard for Heechul, I hired Hea, Leeteuk," Lee started explaining. "Heechul was shot at this morning, and Hea was there to protect him..."
"Is she okay?" Leeteuk asked.
I saw the way he hesitated.
"When Hea finally agreed to take this job back in August, she set up her tech to feed back to my server, so it would automatically save onto my computer. This way, no matter what happened when she was on the job, any evidence on threats to you would be saved, even if the cameras disappeared."
"Are you saying you have pictures of the man who shot at me this morning?"
"Yes."
"What else do you have pictures of that you're not saying?"
"Heechul... I'm sorry, she was shot, approximately half a kilometer from where you were picked up this morning. We have shots of the second shooter," he said.
"Second shooter?" Leeteuk asked.
"She had already subdued the first one."
"You think she's...?" I started, but couldn't finish the sentence.
"We'll find out soon enough," he replied. "The police were notified of her approximate location right after I saw the pictures. If she's alive, she'll be rushed to the hospital for care. If she's not... her husband will be notified before they come back here, Heechul. I'm sorry. I had no idea that you even had a little sister."
"That's my fault. I made her life a living hell until last year. We couldn't be in the same country, let alone the same room until then," I told him, unable to accept that Hea might not be here anymore because she saved me. "We didn't start to finally try to get along until after she'd had her triplets."
Leeteuk put his hand on my shoulder, but I was staring out the window at this point.
"How old are her kids?" Lee asked.
"They'll be three on December 19th, Sir. One week after her third wedding anniversary," Teuk answered for me.
"I didn't know that her kids were so young or that she was so newly married," he said, sounding regretful. "If she had told me, I would've told her to forget it. She seemed unsure about this. I asked her to think about it. A few days later she accepted."
Hyunseong's POV:
After the phone call from Heechul, I called Jackson, Donghyun, Jeongmin, the twins, and Min Woo. They were all at my house. The twins and Min Woo were with the triplets. I even reached out to Jiyong's superior officers to let them know that I thought that something might've happened to his bodyguard. They asked for details, and asked that if there were any concrete details to call back with those details.
Jackson, Donghyun, and Jeongmin were in the living room with me when the doorbell rang. I answered it, and my blood ran cold. It was the police.
"Are you Shim Hyunseong?" one of them asked me.
"Yes."
"Are you married to Shim Hea?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Shim, I'm sorry to inform you, that your wife was killed this morning, apparently in the..." one of them said, but at this point I couldn't process it.
"Mr. Shim?" he asked me, but at this point, Donghyun and Jackson were at my side.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"My family raised Hea, Officers," Jackson spoke up. "What did you need?"
"Since we don't need an identification for Mrs. Shim, we were asked to bring the next of kin to SM entertainment," the officer said. "For any answers you may need about what happened."
"Hyunseong, we can go together," Jackson offered. "If you don't mind helping the others watch the babies, Donghyun?"
"How about we follow you?" Donghyun countered. "I don't think any of us want to be away from each other right now. And I think if Hyunseong goes too far from the triplets they'll start crying and won't stop until he comes home. Babies tend to know these things. But, I'll stay behind and help get them ready to go. She was your sister, Jackson."
"Thank you," Jackson said, bowing.
Jackson grabbed both mine and his jackets and led me after the officers. When we were in the backseat of the car I looked at him.
"Jackson, I..."
"Don't. You loved my Jiějiě with all your heart. Regardless of her not being with us physically anymore, you're still part of the Wang family," he said to me. "I'm always going to be there for you and those babies because they're part of Jiějiě, and she would want me to be there. I just want you to know how thankful I am for how much you loved her. My entire family is."
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
We got to SM and were brought straight to Lee Soo Man's office. Heechul and Leeteuk were already in there. Heechul looked at me and he was broken.
"Hyunseong... I had no idea until this morning, when the driver told me who my bodyguard was, what was going on," he said. "I'm sorry."
"I know, Heechul. Hea didn't want you to know she took this job," I said to him.
"I didn't know either, Hyunseong. I spoke to Mr. Lee in July about getting Heechul a bodyguard, but that was the last it was brought up. I didn't know anymore than Heechul did that Hea was his bodyguard," Teuk said, sounding as in shock as Heechul.
"The only ones other than Lee Soo Man, Hea and whatever driver was working with her as an escape route for Heechul, were myself and Jiyong. It was how Hea wanted this done. Neither of us really liked the idea of her doing this, but since she and Heechul had come so far since last year, neither of us could really argue her wanting to protect him, either. We both understood why it was important to her. We just both prayed it would never come down to the day where she needed to put her life on the line," I explained, not really reacting.
"Does Jiyong know yet?" Teuk asked.
"No. His commanding officers have an idea that bad news is coming. They're just waiting for the exact details. Mr. Lee, if you could make that call, please? Jiyong needs to be here when she's put to rest."
"Of course. But may I ask why Jackson Wang is here?" he asked.
"Because when my cruelty led Hea to be pushed away for more than half her life before she came to SM in 2010, it was Jackson Wang's family who took care of her for that time. He has been a better brother to her than I could ever have hoped to be," Heechul admitted.
"Do your managers know?" Mr. Lee asked.
"Not yet," Jackson admitted. "I rushed out without telling anyone."
"I'll have my assistant contact them," Mr. Lee replied.
"Thank you," Jackson said, bowing to him. "But can you tell us what happened to Jiějiě now?"
Before Mr. Lee could start, Donghyun was led into the room. I looked at him questioningly.
"I left the others with the rest of Super Junior to play with the triplets," he said to me. "I know you wouldn't want the babies in here to hear this, and I don't think that Jeongmin, Youngmin, Kwangmin, or Min Woo will be ready to hear something like this."
"You're probably, right," I agreed.
I sat down next to Heechul. Donghyun and Jackson stayed on either side of me. Mr. Lee explained how, with the photos and videos from her body cameras, they had pieced together what happened and told us what happened in Hea's last moments. When I realized that she had been shot multiple times, but the second time would have let her struggling to breathe, I finally started crying. The idea that Hea was at the mercy of these assholes... it was too much.
Donghyun and Jackson had their hands on my shoulders as I dropped my head into my hands. Heechul threw the vase on Mr. Lee's desk into the wall.
"She was barely 21 when you hired her to protect Taemin, Soo Man! Why the fuck would you bring her in to protect me?!" he shouted at him.
"Heechul, he didn't know Hea was your sister," Leeteuk tried to soothe him. "He didn't do this to try to hurt anyone, especially not Hea."
"I'm sorry. Mr. Shim. Mr. Wang. Heechul. I'm so sorry about what happened today. I never conceived that it would ever come down to this," he said.
Taemin burst into the room at that point, with Baekhyun, Kai, and even Taeyong trying to hold him back.
"Tell me they're fucking lying!" he demanded, looking at Lee Soo Man, then at the rest of us in the office. "Hyunseong? No... tell me Hea's just hurt or something..."
I looked at him.
"Taemin... I'm sorry, but I can't," I told him, struggling not to cry for his sake.
"She's supposed to be on fucking maternity leave! She's supposed to be safe, at home with her babies! Why the fuck was she out there on the streets this morning?"
"I hired her to protect Heechul, Taemin," Lee Soo Man told him. "Against the many threats against his life."
We all saw the moment when Taemin's grief turned to rage and he blamed Lee Soo Man, but none of us were fast enough to stop him. He punched him so hard he hit the ground. That's when Jackson finally got him off of Soo Man.
"You made her leave me all those years ago and now because of you she's dead! I hate you!" he shouted at him as Jackson moved him further away from Soo Man, towards Baekhyun, Kai, and Taeyong.
The cops made a move on Taemin but Soo Man waved them off. Taemin collapsed in his grief. I couldn't just stand there and ignore his pain. I got up.
"Donghyun, stay with Jackson and get the rest of the details, please?" I asked him. "I just... I can't."
He nodded at me and I walked over to Taemin.
"Come with me, Taemin," I said, struggling to be strong for the boy I was the same age as who cared so much about the woman I loved.
Before I left the room I looked at Lee Soo Man.
"I understand that you have your issues with Wu Yifan, Lu Han, and Huang Zitao, Mr. Lee. But my wife loved those guys. I expect you to make an exception to your lawsuit issues over their departures and allow them to return to Seoul for her funeral. Please bring Lay and Zhoumi back as well. I'll call Henry," I told him and left with Taemin.
I led Taemin to Super Junior's practice room.
"I don't want to hang out with Super Junior, Hyunseong," he told me as I opened the door.
"But do you want to spend time with Yeona, Hyunseong Junior, and little Jiyong?" I asked him and he couldn't help but smirk as he made his way over to my kids, something that made him smile every time he saw them since they had been born, even given the circumstances.
He went over and started playing with the triplets and the guys. I sat off in a corner and dialed Henry. He picked up right before it would've gone to voicemail.
"Hello?" he asked, not knowing my number.
"Henry?"
"Yes. Who's this?"
"My name is Shim Hyunseong. I married Kim Hea?"
"How is she?"
"That's why I'm calling you," I started. "She was killed while working this morning, Henry. I'm calling because I wanted to give you the chance to make arrangements to return to Seoul before I lay her to rest."
"I... She..." he started. "I'll be there by the morning, Hyunseong. Thank you for calling me."
I heard his breath hitch as he hung up. I put my phone in my pocket, closed my eyes and just leaned my head against the wall.
Three days later, with Jackson, Boyfriend, Jiyong, Heechul, Taemin, my kids, and so many other people who loved Hea around me, I laid her to rest. I was only 27 years old, but was already a widow with three toddlers to raise on my own. It rained that fall day, something I thought was fitting as I looked around. On the day I buried my wife, I could see the remnants of the falling blossoms from the trees on the grass.