Just Business And Pleasure - A Jumin Han Fanfic

Chapter Eight

Nari POV

Jumin’s thumbs rubbed over the back of her hands. Nari watched the circles they made, her throat tightening. She opened her mouth to speak, but sound didn’t come out as heat rushed to her forehead, around her neck, choking her. Her vision blurred as a tear tumbled from her eye, followed by another.
“If you want to walk away—” Nari swallowed, she found herself gripping his hand. “You can go. It’s fine. I—Whatever you want to say.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because neither of us choose this.” She stared off to the side, biting her bottom lip. “Nether of us asked for this. We didn’t want it.”
“You are right, I suppose.” Jumin gave a small tug on her hands. “But that was then, and we are now. And the only place I want to be, is here, with you.”
Nari blinked, a tear rolling down her cheek. She pressed her lips together.
Jumin took one of his hands away, and caressed her cheek, brushing away her tears. “Do you want me here, Nari?”
Her voice failed her again, so she nodded into his hand.
“Then it’s settled.” Jumin sat up straighter. “You need to make preparations for the wedding. Sooner rather than later.”
“Jumin—"
“I see no reason to delay.”
“Jumin—”
“I have some time next week.”
Nari gave a soft laugh. “You want me to do all of it? By next week? That isn’t how this works. And don’t you want a say on any decisions?”
He gave her a small smile, and cupped her cheek, before leaning forward and placing a tender kiss on her lips. “I want whatever you want, my love.”
“Oh, sorry.” Duri stopped in the doorway, hand on the door. “I didn't think you'd be in here, doing that. I can come back.”
“No, it’s okay.” Nari pulled Jumin’s hands away from her face and held them in her lap. “Can we lunch? I need to speak with Duri.”
“Of course.” Jumin glanced at his watch. “I will pick you up at noon and you can spend the afternoon making decisions.”
“Thank you.”
He kissed the top of her head again and stood, excusing himself.
Duri walked around the room, dropping down in the chair behind their mother’s desk. He pulled out a letter from the inside of his jacket, leaning across the table as he held it out to her. She tugged at the paper wedged between his fingers, unfolding it.
“The solicitor wouldn’t give me this in your presence. My eyes only.”
The letter, which was typed, was directed to her brother and even the text inside specified that Nari was ever to find out the contents. Duri wheeled the chair back, pulling open a cupboard at the bottom of her desk as 5hr letter told him too. It also told him the code, and to burn everything found inside.
“Well, what do you know? Secret safe.”
“Why would she lie? She’s dead, Duri.”
“So do you want me to destroy them, or do you want to see what she's been keeping from you?” He slipped off the chair, and sunk to the floor. “Nari Baker?”
“What?”
“Don't know.” He pulled out a stack of letters, and set them on the floor next to him. “There's a shit tonne of letters here address to Nari Baker. Oh this batch has your name on it.”
There must've been over 50 letters stacked up on the floor next to him.
“This is…” He unfolded the piece of paper in his hands and then swore, pulling a letter out of one of the bundles and ripping it open. “That fucking bitch.”
“What is it?”
“I always thought that you were her only redeeming feature, that she actually gave a damn about something other than herself and this place, but it was all just business to her.”
Nari took the letter from his shaking hand.
“Your father was trying to get in touch with you for years, and she was telling you that he didn't give a damn.” Duri reached into the safe to get the last items out. “Of course she fucking was.”
She dropped the letter, leaving Duri on the floor with his anger as she crossed the corridor walking past her assistant's desk stepping inside her office without even a word of acknowledgement and began searching her desk.
“Miss Song, I--is everything okay?”
“I got a letter last week. Where is it?”
“Which letter?”
“From the… from the man saying--”
At the bottom of her desk drawer sat the letter, back in it’s envelope. Identical handwriting. Nari dropped back into her chair. Did that mean it was true?
“Miss Song, is everything okay?”
“Fine.” She didn’t take her eyes of the envelope. The man who had been there at her dinner with Jumin, may have really been-- “I’ll send you over some wedding venues later. Would you be able to arrange viewings?”
His eyes widened. “You’ve set a date?”
“No, not yet, but we will soon. Also, I’ll speak with Duri, but my mother’s office will need to be cleared out.”
“Of course.” He went to leave, but paused. “Are you okay?”
Nari just shrugged off his question. How could she answer that? Caught between grieving for her mother, and finding out that she had barely known the women conflicted her feelings.
After a moment to compose herself, she picked up the letter and returned to her mother’s office, where Duri was still kneeling on the floor. He hadn’t opened any more letters, but he was flicking through whatever loose papers he had found.
“I don’t get it. She must’ve known I’d show you.”
“Why? It’s not like we get on.”
“We don’t get on Nari because of her, because you always defended her. We were inseparable growing up.”
Nari didn’t remember a time when they’d got on, let alone inseparable. All she could remember from her childhood when they were young was Duri blaming his father’s death on her and her mother. Was that what she remembered? It was what her mother had always told her, but now that she thought, she had never been in the room when they fought, Duri had always sent her away, and not long after that he had gone to a school in another country.
“I got this last week.” She held out the letter to him, and Duri, after a pause, took it. “And the incident, at dinner with Jumin, was this man, or at least someone claiming to be him.”
“I don’t know what to say, Nari.”