Chapter 3

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~ Cha Estate, Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Wookyung drove his car to the hills, watching as the wild expanses slowly broke into the manicured lawns of Cha Estate that he knew so well. He felt an indescribable feeling... seeing his childhood home. It was something between dreadful and disgusting, he wanted to run away from it but then also watch as he set it on fire. He wanted to steal all the beautiful memories, the bricks that meant something and tear the rest down.

Soon enough, the backend half of the glass and concrete mammoth, "Mideum" manor came into view. The name both fit and belied the structure. It wasn't that it wasn't home to him... or that he particularly despised its form, it was, after all, just a body of stone. It was unfortunate that this was suppose to be his cradle. But with the way his father owned everything... in a way that it must reflect exactly his ideals.

Mideum felt like an ode to his milestone of his family, a wife... a son... a servant...

An achievement made only to look meritorious and never to cherish the reward...

Such a model family...

Neutral, metallic, minimalistic, artistic, modernistic, abstract. Cha Wonsik hated what didn't comply to him. He hated sentiment and chaos. Life... he hated creases, or signs of being lived in, he wanted it to be cold, imposing, intimidating. A model house. Like in catalogues. "Mideum" was supposed to speak for him, to be him just as much as he was, a principle Mr. Cha applied to everything that came from him...

Even his only son.

So no wonder he hated it so much. Cha Wookyung flashed his hand to the guest arrival monitor, announcing the son's presence. His father was not the only hollow, chrome sculpture. The rest of his distant, ditzy family called him a black sheep as a joke, owing to his drinking, smoking and sexing contrary to the straight-laced patriarch but he knew better than to shy from a label that set him apart from his father.

Good or bad, he wasn't going to be an inch of him. Wookyung eased into the main driveway, driving up the front for maximum shock effect. There were multiple entryways but he wanted to make a novelty of an entrance back to "Mideum", to show his father that had still emerged with the same brass and talk as before. In spite of his attempts to lock him up, which, he believed was the purpose behind sending him to Paris.

Why else would the decision be so set in stone? Especially after getting his life back on track in Seoul. He was living alone, thriving in the college club of his choice, doing small-time editing for college magazines, working an internship with Sinwan Publishing House... What else was left for him to prove? That's why he saw it as petty revenge, as a backslap manner of discipline against his actions that he didn't approve of.

His insolence, disregard, disinterest in taking over the company, his father saw him as an unruly source of humiliation and took it upon himself to beat into shape outside the picture so that no one would notice. Was it so easy to rub blood from the brow? He won't let it slide that easily. Despite having been incensed at the ugly riddance, Cha Wookyung was not going to back down.

He wanted to pursue his rebellion and he made sure that he indeed made the best of his opportunities in France and came out of school better equipped for an independent business with a shrewdness equalling if not exceeding his father's. More importantly, he wanted to show him that he still had the gall to return to Seoul after every string Wonsik pulled to ensure that he never did.

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~ Drive Through, "Mideum" Manor, Cha Estate, Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Cha Wookyung thought to break the metallic rod gate at first, it was an old dream of his to bust it down, sending the Porsche flying through the middle, causing it to slam on either side, uprooting the hedge and breaking the lampposts. He was almost about to accelerate into it, doing his heart's bidding when something obstructed his grand plans for material destruction.

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