Chapter 7: 6
Only one woman ever sat at the table in the middle of the family dining room. Lee Yoo-Jin was surrounded by her husband, at the head of the table, and her son, to her right. The seat across from her was always empty. Jung Hoseok had always been fated to eat next to this empty seat, his gaze irrevocably fixed on his half-brother. Lee Yoo-Jin hardly ever smiled, presenting an icy face topped by a crown of pride. Jimin had often admired his mother for her strength.
All his life, Jimin felt he was the son of a deputy. Tonight, he felt like Lee Yoo-Jin's son. He had no idea why. It was an intuition that whispered in his ear that she was doing something that called for respect.
"Soon, Kang Min-Ah will join our family and embellish her name by giving birth to our heir."
Jimin almost choked on the wine that burned his throat. Lee Yoo-Jin pretended not to notice his sudden restlessness. There was something else torturing her mind; something infinitely sweet.
She had barely touched her plate when she stood up under her husband's indifferent gaze.
"I've got work to do" she declared before leaving the room.
The tension that always prevailed in her presence disappeared. Deputy Park was still dining in silence. He had never felt anything but contempt for her. The day she gave birth to Jimin, he began to loathe her even more. Park Jimin was a loved one, but he was also the product of the union of duty and hatred. That was what set him apart from Hoseok. Deputy Park had loved his eldest son's mother deeply. For this reason, he had done everything to make Lee Yoo-Jin miserable.
However, Lee Yoo-Jin was not the kind of woman who got her happiness from other people's approval. She got her happiness from the things she loved. And she loved her lover's voice more than anything.
"Where are we going, Madam?" Kim Seokjin asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
"To the office" she replied.
He nodded and drove off. Seoul flashed by, bright and dazzling, behind the car windows, but it was the tiny flashing light from the onboard camera glued to the windscreen that captured Lee Yoo-Jin's attention. This relentless eye followed her everywhere, listening to her every breath.
"We've arrived, Madam."
She waited for the driver to open the door. She got out and stood motionless for a few seconds in front of this gigantic building that belonged to her. This place was hers. But she couldn't feel at ease. The car took off again, without her, and drove away. She sighed. She stepped into the building. The cameras had to see her enter if they were to believe her lies.
She came out thirty minutes later. The parking lot was empty. She reached the sidewalk and hailed a cab. With a smile on her face, she gave the driver an address.
Yes, Lee Yoo-Jin hardly ever smiled. Yet she always smiled when she was rushing after her lover.
The building in front of which the cab dropped her off was nowhere near the luxury of her company's building and far from the comfort of Deputy Park's huge mansion, but it was over here that she smiled the most. She quickly climbed the stairs of this lift-less building. She was a little out of breath, a little disheveled by the time she reached the top, but her heart was beating deliciously in her chest. She was hungry, too. She hadn't eaten anything from her plate at dinner because it wasn't the food she was craving. She wanted to eat something lovingly cooked for her.
She took out the apartment key and opened the door. She stepped inside and was overwhelmed by the delicious smell. She hastily removed her heels and untied her hair. She hated tying it up, but she had no choice: a woman of power had to have her hair tied up. A woman of power should not be too feminine. A woman of power had to be the embodiment of an untouchable, cold, proud goddess.
When she caught sight of him from behind, cooking, she stood there for a few moments, petrified by the love she felt for him.
He was the love of her life.
He was proof that love has no age.
She slipped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his back. The warmth radiating from his body warmed her icy heart.
"You're here at last" he said. "You took longer than usual."
"I took the opportunity to put away a few files."
"I've missed you."
"I haven't been that long" she retorted.
"I've missed you, not the woman who sits silently in the back seat and never hints at a smile."
"I missed me too" she agreed.
He turned to face her. He put his hands on her waist and looked at her closely.
"You're beautiful when you're with me."
She gently caressed his face, immortalizing Kim Seokjin's youth under her fingers.
"Jin" she said, smiling.
He kissed her. She put her arms around his neck to bring their bodies closer together. In two years, he'd given her more respect and love than her husband had in a lifetime.
Lee Yoo-Jin and Kim Seokjin's love story was one of the most beautiful. It had taken eighteen years for the world to allow Lee Yoo-Jin's soul mate to be born; it had taken another twenty-five years for fate to reunite them.
Our hearts still beat at the same rhythm" Jin whispered to her.
Jin. A simple syllable. Yoo-Jin and Seokjin. Jin. So they can find themselves when they say each other's names.
"Yoo-Jin, don't go back to him tonight."
She looked at him in silence.
"I'm not going back tonight" she answered. "Tonight I'm staying with the man I love."
***
Jungkook's house was completely impersonal. This was what struck Taehyung most when he first entered it. Nothing, neither the furniture nor the paintings, showed the singer's personality. Jungkook had been placed in this house like an action figure in a doll's house. He was an extra character in his own life.
Taehyung had an irrepressible urge to take him by the hand and drag him away from this nightmare. But he could not. So he sat down next to the camera, facing Jungkook, and went live. To promote the documentary, Jungkook's agency had wanted a live interview to be broadcast, to show the singer's and the project's sincerity.
"What word best describes your life?" asked Taehyung.
"Unreal" replied the singer, smiling.
"What word best describes your future?"
"Uncertain."
Silence.
"I think a singer's career hangs by a thread" he added hastily.
"If you had to name the person you hold most dear, who would it be?"
It was a simple question, to which everyone answered their mother's or father's name. But at that moment, the wires controlling Jungkook broke and he escaped his puppeteer's control.
"Min Yoon-Gi" he replied without a moment's hesitation.
Instantly, the name his owner had renounced had come into the light.
***
Deputy Park watched Jeon Jungkook's interview with a closed face. Beside him, his secretary was agitated.
"Min Yoon-Gi. Bring him to me. He's with his mother."
A few minutes later, the secretary entered the office accompanied by Min Yoon-Gi. The young man kept his head down.
Under the deputy's insistent gaze, the secretary forced Yoon-Gi to remove his shirt, revealing his bare chest. The secretary forced him to turn around so that the deputy could see his back. Jimin's father smiled at the numerous scars that tore the whiteness of his skin. It was he who had inflicted them, all of them. For decades. Deputy Park had never laid a hand on his sons. But he had needed an outlet, someone who wouldn't repeat to anyone what he had to endure. Jimin had always been convinced that Yoon-Gi had been the victim of a car accident that had scarred his body forever.
The beatings had stopped when he agreed to give up his name. But that name had just been uttered in front of thousands of spectators.
"Can fame save you? No. I'd have you and your name burned. And if he keeps talking too much, Jeon Jungkook will follow you to the grave."
""Her" will take you down first."
It was the first time Yoon-Gi had spoken directly to Deputy Park.
""Her"..." he laughed. "But what can the Slayer of Kings do against the power of a god?"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone