Thorned Rose // chae hyungwon (#31)

Thirty-one

YiWon

I brought the cup of instant noodles to the table where Chae Hyungwon is sitting at and he is still staring at me, at my every movement and not breaking any eye contact at all. He is still shocked over whatever that happened earlier at the dark alley, he saw what I did to the bunch of men and he never looked at me the same way again.

"Stop staring at me, I am starting to get a little uncomfortable and soon I will be extremely uncomfortable with you doing that to me," I told him.

"How did you even bring down that huge bunch of men? How did you even do that?" He asked me the same questions again and I rolled my eyes, I thought learning martial arts when you were younger was also a thing in South Korea. Why is he acting so surprised for?

"I told you that I was heavily trained in Judo since I started speaking, my father hired a lot of martial arts professionals to teach me martial arts and I only stopped going to the judo dojo when I turned 18 years old," I told him. "Aren't you trained in martial arts as well?"

He shook his head. "My family was poor so I never had a chance to join any classes and even though there were martial arts clubs that I could join in my middle school and high school days, I was too busy with working and studying that I don't have the time to think of anything else. I really have the interest in wanting to do martial arts but I am fully booked for my work life and I don't have the time to do my own things in my private life." He told me. "You must have enjoyed your lessons a lot and enjoyed sparring with a lot of people right?"

I shook my head, surprising him once again. "Imagine that you have the chance to do every martial art you want, you wouldn't even like beating people up after a while because you don't want to hurt them anymore even though it is only for practice."

Although I had the privilege to master judo, I never enjoyed it like all the other children who were also learning judo when they were younger. I didn't have any friends whom I can spar with, all the people that I spar with are the people that I have beaten up today, my father often calls up his men to play with me and they would end up getting injured because of me and I didn't want to hurt them at all.

So I stopped training and started working in the company that my father wanted me to and I lived my life like that for the next few years, today was the first time that I didn't feel guilty of beating people up because I used them to my fullest advantage and beat all of them up. I knew that my father would be sending people to take me back ever since I left his well-guarded empire for a simpler life but I never thought that they will be everywhere and I almost couldn't save myself if not for the mirror that saved me.

I was in a store trying out some outfits in front of the mirror where I saw a figure at the corner of the mirror and they were wearing all black, I knew immediately that they were following me behind ever since I left the house earlier and they have been planning on doing this for a long while and waiting for me to be on my own. I am always with Chae Hyungwon when we get to work and get off work, I am never being left alone for even a moment and so they didn't try to do anything to me.

But now they know that I am out shopping on my own, they see it as the perfect opportunity to capture me and send me back to Osaka as soon as possible so that I can return back to the empire that I have escaped from. And they are no match for me of course, I led them on by walking into one of the back alleys that has a dead end so that they have no way of escaping when I confront them and beat all of them up.

Chae Hyungwon caught me in the act and saw that I have brought down all of them with my own strength and my bare hands, I am lucky that they didn't have any weapons on them or I will be at a loss here. I think that my father has forbidden them to use any weapons against me in fear that they might hurt me in the process and the bloodline of the Minatozaki Family will be over, and my father probably wants me alive when they bring me back to the empire, that is why they are not armed at all.

"Are they going to come back and try to bring you back home again?" Chae Hyungwon asked me when we are leaving the convenience store and we are going home first so that he can drop him off, I still can't let my guard knowing that they are out to get me and I would still have to hide even though I am not the Minatozaki Sana that they wanted.

"I afraid so and I am very sure that my father knows where I am now, and I am afraid that he might actually come here just to get me back home," I told him.

"Do you have a picture of him or something?" He asked me and he had a sudden realization. "I forgot that you lost all of your belongings when you were out at sea, you don't have anything from your past."

"Just Google 'Minatozaki empire's emperor' and tons of his face will appear immediately, he might look like he is very open with his life but he is hiding a really dark secret and only I know about it. That is why he is trying so hard to get me back so that no one will know about his secret."