by Con Template
“An Soo Jin,” he began sternly, locking her stubborn gaze with his own.
There were so many pained emotions in his eyes that Soo Jin felt like someone had knifed her heart. Despite how unaffected she wanted to appear, she could not deny that seeing his hurt pained her. She remained quiet as his soft, melancholic voice filtered into the night.
“All the secrets pertaining to my family have been spilled except the last one concerning her.” His eyes searched hers, imploring her to finally give in. “Tell me. Let’s unearth all the secrets so we can move on with our lives. I’m sick and tired of always being consumed with the shadows of the past. Do me a favor and tell me. Don’t let me go through this again.”
Soo Jin considered not telling him, but the agony in his eyes was too much for her to bear. Against her better judgment, she decided it was time to reveal the truth.
“No one killed her,” she admitted quietly. Unable to retain eye contact with him, she averted her gaze to the city lights. “Your mother committed suicide.”
Tae Hyun regarded her with the utmost curiosity. He had a plethora of questions. “What happened when you were there?”
Soo Jin took in a lungful of air, getting lost in the panoramic view while recounting emotions she didn’t want to feel. Her memories played out like a movie in the backdrop of her mind.
“Nothing shocking, nothing mind-blowing, nothing that turns this world upside down,” she told him truthfully, remembering everything vividly. “I snuck in, I brought her to the bathroom, I couldn’t kill her, and then I left. No one was there with your mother. She killed herself. There’s no twist to it; it was just her.”
In a world so callous, brutal, and unforgiving, the truth was that Tae Hyun’s mother died because she had committed suicide. It was nothing more, nothing less.
Tae Hyun exhaled sharply, staring at her with soft eyes. “Why didn’t you kill my mother?”
“Because she was already dead after your father’s death,” she answered, recalling how broken his mother was when she found her. “She was breathing physically, but her soul was long dead after your father passed.”
“I remember how she was,” he whispered, finally making peace with himself that the truth had been in front of him this whole time. His mother truly did kill herself because she wasn't strong enough to go on after his father's death.
“When I saw her that night, she begged me to kill her, to end her life because she had planned on doing it anyway. But for some reason I couldn’t do it, so I left her. When I went home, the next day it was all over the news that she died. I knew then that she committed suicide after I left. Young Jae knew I was there. And because I wanted to be his second in command, I took credit for it. I suggested to him that it should be a secret only because I didn’t want to mess with the truth.”
“Why didn’t you kill my mother, Soo Jin?” he asked again, suspecting that there was more to what Soo Jin was saying.
Her stomach clenched as she replayed the simple, but memorable, conversation she had with his mother.
“She was nice,” she uttered, meaning every bit of it. “She was really nice, and I didn’t want to kill her.” Soo Jin was quiet for another long moment before she looked him dead in the eyes and said, “Why would you do this to yourself, Tae Hyun? Why would you want to fall in love in this world? Love is a disease—it makes you interdependent, it makes you weak. How can you be dependent upon someone else for your happiness when life is so fleeting in our world? You have to know that the only thing that awaits you if you choose this road is misery. Are you completely out of your mind?”
“Humans are greedy,” he replied simply, not apologizing for his feelings.
She laughed mockingly and rose to her feet. She stared down at him with reproachful eyes. His stubbornness made her angrier and angrier by the second. Why couldn’t he see things as she did?
“Do you see how ridiculous you’re being? How silly it is for you to chase after me when you know that our fate in this world was set the moment we were born? We have always been enemies. It couldn’t be more evident with everything my father did to your family and the battle that awaits us in the future. We can’t change our lives and we can’t escape fate.”
“Are you done talking?” he asked impatiently, standing up and stepping closer to her.
“No, I’m not done talking, you idiot!” she snapped against her better control. She had lost it. “You’re being a stupid snob, and I’m trying to knock some sense into you!”
“And you’re being a fucking annoying brat!” he shouted back. “Do you realize that every excuse you gave has nothing to do with us, but everything to do with the world we live in?”
“It factors in!”
“It’s annoying me!” he retorted, breathing sharply. “I’m sick of all these revelations that do nothing but ruin my present and my future. I’m so fucking numb from this world. I’m so fucking numb from losing my parents. I’m so fucking numb from losing a brother who wasn’t actually my brother, but I loved him like my brother nonetheless. I’m so fucking numb from everything.”
He swallowed tightly, the resolve illuminating his eyes.
“Everything makes me numb . . . except for you.” He extended his hands out, his palms cradling her cheeks with adoration. “You’re the only thing that matters. Nothing else matters and nothing else will ever matter.”
Soo Jin laughed dryly. With effort, she pulled herself from his grasp. She backed away from him, staring at him with pity in her eyes.
“Do you remember that night at the supermarket with Yoori? When you guys slipped?” she asked, reliving memories she didn’t want to relive. The only reason she did was because it was her last ditch effort to help keep her opponent a God. She wanted to save him from himself—she wanted to save him from her. “Later that night, you told her about the two things conflicting you and how you had to choose between them. You ultimately chose choice number one and you asked her to remind you every now and then that ‘to get into a position of power . . . some actions are unavoidable.’”
Her eyes grew severe, urging Tae Hyun to see the light.
“You look distracted, Tae Hyun,” she told him flatly, “heavily so. I want to remind you that in order to get into a position of power—to become the Lord of our world—some actions will always be unavoidable. One of those actions is forsaking the idea that I’ll fall in love with you. All I want is a battle with you, the glory of defeating another God in this world, and my throne. I don’t want to love, I don’t want to be human, and I don’t want you—not now, not ever. Get that through your stubborn head and start being the intelligent King you were raised to be. You’re acting like a fool right now.”
She had hoped her pearls of wisdom would be the rationale he needed to knock some sense into him. To her greater disappointment, the nostalgia that seeped into Tae Hyun’s eyes when she brought up the past made her regret bringing it up in the first place.
“Do you remember when I asked you for advice about what to do? Which choice to choose? Do you remember what you said?”
Although she said nothing, she did remember.
“You said, ‘Just follow your instinct. Whatever you want more, I’m sure your instincts will go after that in the end.’” He expelled an agonized breath and smiled. It was a smile filled with faith and gleamed with hope. “Today, I met with my Advisor, my best friends, and my little sister. During our meeting, I told them that this world means nothing to me. I told them, ‘fuck the bylaws of our world, fuck anyone who stands in my way, and fuck the fear of death and misery because from this moment forth, I’m following my instincts and I’m not letting anything or anyone deter me.’”
Soo Jin scoffed to herself, already walking away. “You’re hopeless, aren’t you? Why am I still here?” She set off for the awaiting elevator. She was not going to be a participant in this shit show. “I can’t be around this! This is your death sentence, buddy. Whatever you want, it’s up to you. You’ll simply make it ea
sier for me to kill you when the time comes. Bye.”
“An Soo Jin.”
He came to her so quickly that she couldn’t even think.
One second she was power walking towards the elevator and the next, she was whipped around and lifted up from the floor. On instinct, her legs curled around Tae Hyun’s hips while her arms wrapped around his neck. When his enticing lips pressed against hers, an explosion of fire penetrated her soul. Unable to contain her own womanly desires—even though she knew it was so damn wrong of her to give in—she parted her treacherous lips and allowed herself to fade away with him.
In that instant, all the pain they felt ceased to exist. The only thing that mattered was the scorching kiss that seemingly erased all the troubles out of Soo Jin’s life. All that she was left with was the gift of life.
There may have been witnesses to her lapse in judgment as Tae Hyun easily pressed his body against hers, but she didn’t care. There may have been eavesdroppers who might hear her whimpers while he moved them across the empty roof, but it didn’t matter.
All that mattered was Tae Hyun.
He kissed her with possessive, male dominance that spoke of incomparability—a promise that no other man alive would ever be able to claim her and drive her over the edge like him. He held a hand out, his palm holding her face to his while his other hand wrapped around her small waist, silently promising her safety if she gave herself to him.
Soo Jin let out a needy whimper. She was utterly immersed in him. She couldn’t stop kissing him and couldn’t stop her hands from grabbing the edges of his shirt. She ripped it apart with ease, sending buttons flying everywhere. Exploding with need, she flattened her hands over his sculpted chest, silently declaring her claim over him.
The Queen was so deliriously lost in kissing this gorgeous creature that she didn’t even process that she was already in the elevator until Tae Hyun pulled his decadent lips away from her. With an exhale of a lustful breath, he carefully deposited her legs back onto the ground. He imparted one final, heart-stopping kiss on the cheek before he backed away from her, his tantalizing abs peeking seductively through the rip in his shirt.
Pressing the lobby button on the elevator, he retreated backwards from the elevator, holding her undivided gaze with his.
His eyes were filled with lust not yet sated, but satisfied for the time being. Then, those tempting lips of his rose into a charming smirk, triggering her to gasp for air. She belatedly realized what had transpired.
Her eyes enlarged from shock.
Holy fucking shit.
What did she just do?
With her chest rising and falling, she fell back against the elevator wall. Her worst nightmare had come true: she had not only unknowingly encouraged Kwon Tae Hyun to chase her, but she had also intimated to him that she was an easier catch than she had let on.
She swallowed uneasily, doing a terrible job of regulating her rapid breathing.
Despite the fact that she felt numb and dead from Young Jae’s horrible revelation, she had never felt more alive from Tae Hyun’s kiss. She clenched her fists, cursing the joke that was her life. What a terrible thing it was for a God to feel alive. Feeling alive only meant that you were human, and Soo Jin knew all too well the debt that fallen Underworld Gods must pay when they become human again.
And, God help her, she thought, she would do everything in her power to evade Tae Hyun until their epic battle. Being around him was no longer acceptable. She did not like the things he did to her and she most certainly did not like the emotions he elicited. No single man should ever be able to hold such power over the Queen of the Underworld.
Don’t fall, she told herself, hardening her emotions as the coldness returned to her eyes. Don’t fall for him. You know the debt that all fallen Gods pay. No man will ever be worth it. No one will ever be worth your demise.
“An Soo Jin . . .” Tae Hyun called out, his melodic voice dispersing over her like soft rose petals. He couldn’t appear more beautiful standing there like a sin for her desires. He also couldn’t have looked more dangerous, like the angel of death coming for what was left of her soul.
The elevator door started closing as he smiled warmly, his deep brown eyes staring at hers with love. Then, as if reading her rampant train of thoughts, he imparted words of assurance that would inevitably lead the revered Queen to label him as a threat to her existence, ignore him like the plague, and avoid him at all costs for the days to follow.
“I promise it’ll all be worth it. Every splendid, euphoric, and magical moment of it will be worth it.”
“Love is every God’s worst nightmare . . .”
12: The Queen’s Forbidden Fruit
With a blindfold covering her eyes, Soo Jin took a slow and deliberate step into the arena of her estate. The breeze from the air conditioner stirred around her, following her as her boots echoed across the tiles. Soo Jin tilted her head and carefully listened to the sound of those breathing around her. Although she could not see them, she knew that they were everywhere . . .
After leaving Tae Hyun in Japan and taking a private plane back to Seoul, Soo Jin had been unable to categorize her disjointed thoughts. She could not stop thinking about the mind-blowing kiss they shared or the emotions he elicited from her. She could not deny how his very existence affected her. This type of affliction was a foreign one for her. She was not the type of person who could be easily disconcerted. She was raised to possess power over every aspect of her emotions and to be a master at keeping her feelings controlled.
But Kwon Tae Hyun was something else.
He wasn’t the best of them, and he wasn’t the worst of them; he was simply the most dangerous one of all.
He was the one who captivated the Queen in her with his impressive fighting abilities and cunning mind. He was also the one who captivated her human self. Though “Yoori” was long dead, Soo Jin was smart enough to deduce that the death of a counterpart—who owned her body for a good three years—did not mean that the residual feelings that counterpart felt died as well. In matters pertaining to sexual frustration, Soo Jin could not deny the desire she felt for the King of Serpents whenever he was in close proximity. The simple truth was that he was a threat to her entire existence. This was why, for the days following their trip to Japan, she opted to avoid him until she had better control of her own body.
In addition to avoiding Tae Hyun, Soo Jin was also preoccupied with thoughts about her family. She felt her heart ache at the reminder of Ho Young and Young Jae, and then she felt her heart clench in agony at the thought of her father. The very scene of the three of them together one last time—right before her brothers killed her father—haunted her.
Only in my world, Soo Jin thought with immeasurable sadness, wishing to herself that she was stronger than this pain.
She exhaled tightly and stowed those dreadful thoughts away. The only purpose they served was to bring her down and make her weak—the very human aspect she promised herself long ago that she would never fall victim to again. She no longer had time to be weak. She had to get stronger; she had to become more powerful. And the only way to do that was to train her mind, body, and what was left of her soul.
For the days that followed, Soo Jin made up for lost time by training every minute of everyday to prepare for the biggest fight of her life. The scheduled war with Tae Hyun was now a mere week away. Every single day, Soo Jin could be found on the grounds of her Siberian Tigers’ estate, wielding swords with precision, shooting guns with accuracy, and knocking her Siberian Tigers to the ground with unrivaled ease.
While Soo Jin was training herself, she was also training her Siberian Tigers. It was said that one night of training with the Underworld Queen would lengthen a gang member’s life for a month, for the skills and wisdom they acquired from her was invaluable. The Queen, no matter how young in age, petite in stature, and cruel in nature, was a skilled mentor. She did not believe in raising soldiers; she believed in raising future Kings and Queens.
This was why more than three hundred of her Siberian Tigers were in attendance at the arena. Lips sealed shut, they watched in rapt silence as their Queen fought with twenty-eight of their brothers and sisters.
With the darkness from the blindfold encasing her eyes, all Soo Jin could use was her other four senses—primarily her hearing—to determine the location of the twenty-eight Siberian Tigers training with her.
She took inventory of all the sounds around her. She calculated the proximity of their breathing, assessed the sounds of ruffling, and after she sensed the fear that emitted from them, the positions of all twenty-eight Siberian Tigers became clear in her cloaked eyes.
Boom!
“Ugh!”
“Ah!”
The first three spin kicks, four elbow-punch combo, and five axe kicks was what sent her Siberian Tigers flying throughout the room in pain. The next seven sweeping leg kicks and thirteen bone-vibrating punches set forth a productive night of training that she knew would successfully educate the ones around her. While fighting with the Siberian Tigers on the ground floor, Soo Jin shouted out coaching instructions to those sitting in the stands. She did all this while the blindfold continued to encase her eyes; it didn’t deter her ability to conquer her twenty-eight opponents.
“I promise it’ll be worth it . . .”
His cursed words haunted her mind as she dismissed all of the Siberian Tigers from the arena. His blasphemous words continued to occupy her thoughts as she jumped on the balls of her feet and kicked, punched, and demolished a punching bag with all the aggravation that she had. There was a plethora of emotions that she couldn’t compartmentalize. To worsen her already fragmented state, she also felt handicapped with a certain dissatisfaction that had plagued her since she regained her memories. She did not understand what the malady was. She just felt utterly incomplete; she felt numb to everything around her.
To some degree, Soo Jin would even daresay that she was quite bored with her life.
