CHAPTER 4 – MY BIGGEST FEAR IS A PERSON II.

FLASHBACK.

2021. PAST. SEOUL.

HELL PENTHOUSE.

☠️ SORA ☠️

It took me eight years of torture, hard work, rehab, and therapy to be able to take two steps without my legs trembling; I could go out and play without having to be pushed around in a wheelchair, and I avoided A-Jun with every life pulsing in my veins.

I made sure we had zero encounters. I even stopped going to the big family's breakfast, lunch, and dinner, surviving only on snacks. It went on for weeks. My mother didn’t ask; it was as if she didn’t even notice I wasn’t at the dining table. Everyone was on edge. They were families, but enemies. Everyone was just looking for an opportunity to stab each other in the back, so she was too occupied to notice my absence.

A-Jun noticed my disappearance from day one, and I guess he hated it. One evening, he walked into my bedroom, and I saw him mixing something in a glass. I immediately knew I was in danger. The more steps he took closer, I took steps backwards until I hit my bed, nowhere else to run.

“Instead of running away from me, run far away from this family; everyone is just as crazy,” he snarled. Every word he said to me hit a nerve. I tremble at the mere sight of him, but when he speaks, I crumble. “Here… drink,” he said calmly, stretching out the drink.

He wanted to frustrate me so much that I’d run away, unable to bear it. I shake my head frantically. I can still remember myself crying so hard and considering whether I should take the drink from him or scream so my mother would rush in to help, and I took the second option because there was no way I was going to drink that weird mixture.

I screamed as loud as I could, in between the choking sound and tears, but no one came rushing into my room, not even the bodyguards standing right outside my door.

“The Don can’t hear you,” he blurted out. “She is busy with something more important to her than you are. And your bodyguards? They are asleep. I drugged them.”

Then the horror began to sink in, my entire sanity cried code red. I’m screaming even louder now, “Get away from me! leave me alone! Please leave me alone.” I remember begging.

Indeed, his existence was the worst thing that ever happened in the history of my life; I should have just been left at the orphanage.

“If you just drink this, I’ll leave you alone…” I heard a savage twenty-year-old say to me.

I'm fifteen, not dumb.

“What’s in that?"

“Just veggies… and a few drugs that would paralyze you for a while, maybe it would convince you to leave as soon as you can move again."

I just finished spending eight years in a wheelchair; surely he won't make me go back to that.

With trembling hands, I reach for the mixture. It can’t be that bad, can it? He can’t be that evil, I bet it’s just juice. Veggie juice. He’s trying to scare me. One sip.

Just one sip, and I collapse to the ground. A-jun grinned; he was satisfied with the outcome of his deadly experiment.

“Will you get out of the family?” he asked calmly, too calm for someone who set up such a heartless scene. “You are better off as an orphan, don’t you think?”

For once in my life, maybe because I was close to death, I summoned the courage. I spat in his face and yelled back at him.

“NO! I can’t leave this family; I belong here now. Also, I will become the next Don. Once I do, I'll make your life a living hell."

I meant it.

Since I was adopted, this is A-jun's 3rd attempt at murdering me, and there wouldn’t be a 4th attempt. Who knows what he'd cook up next to torment me?

A-jun was furious that evening.

I was determined to get away from him, far across the globe where he’d never reach. The next morning, I didn’t even wait for whatever drug A-jun made me drink to clear from my system; I crawled to my mother’s study.

I can still see the disappointed expression she had on her face to see me in such broken condition whenever I close my eyes, a condition my cousin put me in. But I wasn’t going to wait and see if I could fight back; I couldn’t fight A-Jun. He’s different, right from the start; he lacks what everyone has, empathy. And no amount of therapy gave that back to him.

My mother only agreed to send me to Africa after I agreed to be back whenever she summoned me, to do whatever she wanted. And the next morning, I was on the first flight to Africa, not failing to see the angry expression on A-Jun’s face. An expression that told me I was borrowing trouble, and he's the debt collector. I knew that whenever I returned, I'd be praying for a miracle and he'd be the one writing my fate.

☠️☠️☠️☠️

2026. PRESENT. SEOUL. HELL PENTHOUSE.

Elbowed back to reality, everything is now clear to me. What I actually fear most is not my family, or going to prison, my biggest fear is the person known by the world as A Demon, A-jun… my cousin. I try to make myself feel better by telling myself, nothing scares me, I’m not a kid… that kid anymore. But the fact is… I’m terrified to the bones. If he was that horrifying at ten, worse at twelve, and brutal at twenty, I cannot begin to picture what he would do to me now at twenty-five.

My vision blurs, and my chest tightens; I am hyperventilating so hard I can no longer tell if the figure I saw down the hallway is real or just a trick in my mind. In panic, I snap my gaze towards the end of the hallway where I saw him, my eyes dancing around like a scared, trapped cat, but all I can see are walls and empty spaces.

A-jun wasn’t there; I simply hallucinated it. The fear of A-jun is legit driving me nuts.

I tug at my hair in frustration, sighing as my gaze frantically searches my surroundings, just in case he plans to pop out of nowhere and slit my throat.

“Soldiers!” I yell in fear, swallowing hard, and men rush towards me. “Aren’t you supposed to be protecting me? What are you doing standing in front of my mother’s study?”

“You asked us to remain there, miss,” one of them says.

My face twists in anger, “That was when I was going in, dummy. Aren’t you aware that the most dangerous place for me is this penthouse? Now I just saw A-Jun….”

Both men react very quickly; they pull out their guns in an instant, their gaze travelling from one end to the other as they stretch their guns, ready to pull the trigger at any moving thing.

I raise my head up tiredly, “I was hallucinating!” I yell. “Next time, wait until I finish my sentence.”

They clear their throats, and I roll my eyes, “Which dim-witted agency sent you over? I’d honestly feel safer being protected by a ‘beware of dog’ sign.” I retort disappointedly, and they quickly bow their heads in apology.

Their apologies don't help at all in feeling less than a mouse in a trap. I am going crazy, and I really hate to admit it.

A-Jun is driving me crazy even in his absence.