The Other Woman

Fire on Nerves

"What?!" gasping from shock Sehun abruptly turned to stare his father down.

"Of course," Namjoo calmly replied after him. Spinning attention back to her Sehun felt his brows twist together. A smile sat on her face and whether it was of mischief or if she sincerely meant it, Sehun couldn't discern.

"Lets be," her eyes sat on him, "good friends. I look forward to it, Sehun."

≈≈≈≈≈≈

"We're meeting an important friend of mine," was what her mother had announced last minute that morning. So here she was with the uncle that had greeted her yesterday. Namjoo remembered him. And she remembered his son, the one who'd torn her apart from Chorong yesterday.

Oh, she remembered him.

It was such a small world. This nitpick who had interfered yesterday was now in front of her and had all along been as close as ever. Friends? Oh no, they weren't going to be friends. And they would be no more than friends from this point forward.

"What do you think of his son?" her mother wondered when they walked out of the restaurant together.

"You sure that guy's not a pervert?" Namjoo muttered underneath her breath.

"Haejin is not a pervert! You shouldn't speak like that," her mother chided in a hushed manner. "He's a very important friend of mine."

"Sure looked like he was on to you." Namjoo commented as they crossed the lot.

"He's still married to his wife. Though I hear they haven't been on good terms for a while."

"Exactly my thoughts," Namjoo reasoned. "You should be a little more cautious about whom you want to call friend."

"Oh you," her mother shook her head. "Look at my daughter trying to teach me."

"Mom!" Namjoo squealed when the woman pinched her behind.

The smirk on her face transitioned into a motherly smile, "Always be on your best attitude around them, understand? I know you have a friend already, so I don't expect you to hook up with his son. Just be nice to him."

"Why?" she wondered. "Who exactly is this Haejin? You don't, by any chance, have anything to do with his rocky marriage?"

"You don't trust me?" her mother teased.

Namjoo shot her mother a look through the corner of her eye and scoffed.

≈≈≈≈≈≈

"Mom?" Joonmyun called out. Scanning the front corridor as he stepped through the wide front doors showed him an absence of any living being. "Namjoo?" the only noise he heard was of the wheels of his suitcase he pulled after him. "Hello?"

The manor resonated emptiness. Not even his mother's hired housekeepers were in sight which led him to wonder if the two women left in his family had gone on a firing spree again. His father had inherited the manor from his great grandfather. Following the man's death his mother, Soobin, had inherited the home along with a business she controlled externally.

He recalled those years clearly. Kim Yuchan passed away when Joonmyun was just in junior high. Still at a fresh and naïve age the men had debated intensely for days about who should be the next suitable heir. If anyone person out of their lineage took over their family would instantly lose all control of all assets Yuchan had gained during his time as Chairman. Unwilling to hand over power and what Joonmyun supposed was out of devotion, his mother stepped in. The council laughed at her for she had no prior experience to handling business.