Mountain Rose

06. The Love of a Daughter

"The more the darkness covered the sky, the brighter the stars shined."

Apink, Remember

Something bounced off the wall outside my room.

I put the final touches to my makeup, putting on my earrings. "What's going on out there?" I yelled, getting up and walking to my door, "At the rate you're going, you're going to bore a hole in my wall!"

I spotted a sword outside my room, before looking at my father pinning a giggling Jungkook to the ground.

"Do you yield?"

My brother squirmed. "No!" he cried, letting out a yelp as my father pressed harder, "Alright, alright, let me go!"

"Say it first, you dirty fighter."

"Fine! I yield! Father, I can't breathe!"

I placed my hands on my waist. "He's going to lose the fight later if you keep draining his energy," I nagged.

My father chuckled, helping my brother up to his feet. "He's stronger now. Almost had me down, too, if I lost my touch."

My brother shoved him playfully. "Which will be soon, old man."

I folded my arms over my chest. "Don't be rude, Jungkook. Go and get ready for the fight."

He walked away, head bowed. "Sorry."

Father watched him go. "Oh, Eunji, the day your brother leaves this house is the day he will miss being disciplined by you," he commented, "You look lovely."

"Don't distract me from the fact that you owe me a story," I huffed.

"And quite a story it would be, if not for the fact you look utterly divine."

"Your compliments aren't necessary," I said, twirling around, "But thank you."

"Jimin, don't forget to send the parcel to Mrs Eun down the road!" my stepmother said from across the courtyard, before she noticed me. "Eunji, oh my, you look beautiful."

I forced a smile. "I have to be, if I want to make the noblemen part with their money," I told her, "Mistress Song has been teaching me some tricks. Just yesterday she told me the way I bat my eyelashes can determine which man looks my way. I might just think of being a courtesan after all, Mother. You'd be so proud."

Her reaction was so comical that I almost laughed.

"What's all this?" Father asked, looking back and forth between us two, "Become a courtesan? At Mistress Song's?"

"That's not- I didn't mean-" my stepmother sputtered.

I beamed, feeling smug. "She said – and I quote – I should join Mistress Song's House of Sl-"

"Jung Eunji, you're nineteen," my father chided, as my stepmother stormed off, "you test your mother so; you know she doesn't mean it."

"You're always defending her," I whined, walking over to him and brushing the sand off his hanbok, "She waits until you're gone, and she tries to match me with every eligible bachelor in town!"

"Who is it this time?"

"Kim Taehyung. Jimin's friend. He's a year younger than me!"

"Young blood. I'm sure you look eternally sixteen."

I scoffed. "I'd rather die."

"You prefer older men, then?" he egged.

"How about no men?"