Fic: The Heist (Part VI)
Oct. 24th, 2015 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boxxsaltzTitle: The Heist
Author: Boxxsaltz
Pairing: Yoona/Yuri
Rating: R
Summary: There was no job and no money worth the kind of brokenness Yoona endured ever again…except maybe this once.
Part VI
Waking up wrapped in unfamiliar sheets in a rich home wouldn't be alarming if Yoona was dreaming. But she wasn’t and the crisp cider smell wafting through the room was irritating on her allergies.
She was still in the east room. The patterns in the gray, high ceiling she was staring at told her that. She sat up to find her clothes from the previous night washed and ironed on a hanger hooked on the knob of the closet door. An unfamiliar nightshirt hung on her shoulders, ill-fitting but comfortable and crisp.
A harsh vibration drew her attention to the nightstand by the bed. She snatched up the phone.
--What are you doing?
For once she agreed with Tiffany. What the hell was she doing?
And where was her phone? Probably still in her bag down where Yuri put it. She cursed. She needed to call Seohyun.
She pinched the bridge of her nose wishing it could ease away her headache. The pressures of the anniversary combined with the ghost of Yuri’s hands gave her a mental hangover. She felt like a wreck. Using Yuri that way was not part of the plan. But she was easy, she was open, she was the perfect excuse to write off as business while her own selfishness had its fun.
Getting up, she got dressed and combed her fingers through her hair to tame it.
Music played from down below. Yoona followed it, taking the stairs slowly to the lower level where sun beamed through opened curtains, lighting up the entire place in an ethereal glow. It was so different from the darkness Yoona walked into the night before. She liked it. The tiles were cool under her feet and the sun was warm on her face.
The smell of food wafted from the same direction as the music. It led her into a dining room, where curtains were drawn and sunlight rained in just the same. At the head of a long table was Yuri propped in a chair, foot drawn up in the seat as she worked on a tablet leaning on a stand with a fork held in her other hand free from the small keyboard.
Yuri was pretty in pantsuits and dolled up in makeup, but there was a special sort of stunning about her barefaced, glasses, and hair tied back in a messy ponytail that made Yoona’s resolve begin to chip. It was easy to feel ashamed and admit the probably-shouldn’t-have’s outside of Yuri’s presence. Put her right before her, and all Yoona’s mind could do was remember how nice it felt - how fulfilling it felt - to be against that body and wrapped in those arms through multiple waves of pleasure.
It took a moment before her presence was realized. Yuri looked up, fixing her wireframes up her nose with the push of a finger. She blinked in surprise, leg slipping back to the floor and back straightening against the chair.
“Goodmorning.”
“Hey.”
“Would you, um...I can have Minho bring you a plate.”
“Is that okay?”
She knew Yuri understood her question. Staying over like this wasn’t Yoona’s style. Assignment or not. By the awkwardly forced hospitality, she knew it wasn’t Yuri's either. But it felt wrong to just bail when she woke up stuck here.
“It’s okay.” She motioned for Yoona to take a seat. “I’ll be right back.”
Yuri left and Yoona sank into the chair catty-corner to hers. It may be close for both their comfort but to sit at the opposite end would make the rift of tension all the more. Yoona didn’t need that. She needed to pull Yuri back into the realm of comfortability. She needed to pull out that warm, syrupy woman she found in the night who wasn’t afraid to moan her enjoyment and claw at Yoona wanting more, more-
“He’ll have your food out in a second.” Yuri held a glass of water in her hand that she placed in front of Yoona before sitting down.
“I didn’t think you’d let me stay.”
“You seemed so out of it last night. I didn’t want to put you out.”
“How many rules have you broken now?”
Yuri’s jaw flexed. Hands folded neatly on the table. “Yoona...I don’t want you to misinterpret what happened here last night.”
Yoona reworked her angle to play into what Yuri said. “This is my job. You wanted sex. I responded. What’s there to misinterpret?”
Yuri winced. “You won’t let me pay you, so I don’t mind doing this much.”
It was easy to feign offense when she felt a pang of it herself. “What? Bed and breakfast?”
“I hope you can understand.”
Minho appeared with a cart, stopping Yoona from saying more. She waited for him to lay out her dishes and cutlery and orange juice and walk away before she let anything else fly.
“For someone who said they see me as human, you sure are treating me like I’m disposable.”
Yuri’s frown was genuine but so was Yoona’s annoyance. “You know I don’t think that.”
“And I know you’re lying.”
“Lying?”
“To yourself. You can’t admit that you might actually want me.”
Red exploded on Yuri’s neck. “I don’t even know you.”
“You can get to know me,” Yoona countered. She softened, letting her next line pull them back into a calmer place. “I felt something last night.”
She traced along the back of Yuri’s hand that sat against the table with a finger. They were still running through her mind the way they'd driven into her. Yuri was gentle, but she was purposeful in each of her strokes. Her moderate pacing was something Yoona wasn't used to, more versed in the quick and mechanical, but it was everything she needed that night.
That scared her.
The line between job and personal was closing in. The line between the act and the real was blurring. She couldn't let the scales tip. She couldn't let the ways she let Yuri slip through the cracks of her walls affect the fragile, needy being on the other side. She needed to remember why she was here, why she was doing this, the person she was doing this for.
Yoona looked up to meet Yuri’s eyes that stared right back at her. She didn’t pull her hand away. Good sign. But there was a look in her eyes that Yoona couldn’t quite unpack. There were far too many things swirling in those pools than she wanted to decipher at that moment.
“Didn’t you?”
Fingers slid into Yuri’s. She held her hand against the woodgrains. Her palm was clammy and soft. Everything about Yuri was soft. No matter how she tried to do what she believed was right or keep Yoona from skipping over into her court, she was pliable.
"Miss Yuri?" Minho's voice through the room, shattering the connection between them.
Yuri yanked her hand away in shame she couldn’t hide. “Yes?”
He walked up to her side and bent over to speak by her ear. "Jung Soojung is on the line calling for Jessica Jung. She wants to schedule a coffee with you."
Mention of Jessica piqued Yoona’s interest.
"Tell her to call Miss Bae at the office and have her review my schedule to pencil her in."
"She says she wants to speak with you directly."
Yuri pursed her lips. "Take care of it, please.”
"Yes, ma'am."
He stalked away, but the air around them was no longer heated. Only a warm buzz remained, simmering enough to bring their eyes back to one another. Yuri licked her lips. Yoona remembered biting into them, sucking them, kissing them. She didn’t lie when she said Yuri was different. She was and she wouldn’t be easily forgotten.
“I think it was a mistake calling you here,” Yuri said quietly.
She wouldn’t meet Yoona’s eyes again. Just in that, Yoona knew she spoke empty words. Still, it was a blow. She felt her chest throb.
“You don't believe that. But, okay, I’ll go.”
Yuri bit her lip. “Minho can drive-”
“It’s okay, President. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you anymore.” Placing down her handkerchief, she stood, bowed, and left.
-/-/-/-
Yoona rushed up the apartment steps, fumbling with her keys that she couldn’t get out quickly enough. She entered in a flurry, kicking off her shoes in hast.
“I’m home!”
Silence ensued for seconds before she heard anything.
"Yoona." There was distress in Seohyun's voice.
She found her on the floor of her room, hand pressed against her chest gasping. The laundry was spilled out of the basket beside her, scattered along the floor. Yoona panicked, dropping down to her knees beside her.
"Juhyun?”
She held up a finger, signaling for a minute. Yoona gripped the hand. She held it against her chest, so Seohyun could feel the controlled rise and fall of her breathing.
"Should I get-"
Seohyun shook her head. Yoona grimaced. She was trying to be strong. She was trying too hard like always. Every concern about Yuri immediately evaporate. Seohyun was her world - her real world. She was all that mattered. She was the one who made her feel whole. Seeing her like this, thinking that this might be it, Yoona felt a part of her begin to fade away.
“Ju,” she pleaded with the single utterance.
Eyes began to water.
Yoona didn't wait. She grabbed the oxygen machine and set it into place.
She waited at Seohyun's side until she relaxed and color came back to her cheeks. Still, Yoona did not ease. She could only imagine what would’ve happened had she come home a second later. She should’ve been there to help. She should’ve been there to greet Seohyun in the morning, to take the workload for herself, to ensure she was fine and breathing in the middle of the night.
Stupid assignments and stupid Yuri didn’t matter if she lost this.
“You shouldn’t push yourself.”
“You can’t keep doing everything for me”
“Until you’re better, I will.”
“Where were you?” Seohyun ticked in a mix of anger and sadness.
Yoona’s mouth clicked shut. That hurt. It hurt because it was her fault. She should’ve been there.
“I’m sorry.” It was all she could say.
Seohyun softened, forgiving her as easily as usual. But none of her forgiveness came without another tally on the chart of Yoona’s guilt.
"Is it getting worse?"
A nod.
"What can I do?"
She was at a loss. She didn’t know anymore. Machines didn’t work, the medication didn’t work, her overworking herself and trying hard to cut Seohyun’s strain in half didn’t work.
Sad eyes met hers. She knew what it meant. Day to day living in the apartment would not be enough for her anymore. Yoona hated to admit it, but she had to. Seohyun already resigned herself to the fact. There was honestly no going up for her and soon Yoona would have to accept it until they were no longer a name on a waiting list.
“Okay.” Yoona brought Seohyun's hand to her mouth, kissing at her pale knuckles. This would be the hardest thing for her to do, but she knew they had no other choice. "Let’s get you dressed.”
-/-/-/-
Yoona slammed the warehouse door shut. Sunny greeted her with a wave as she walked across the room, bottle of juice and snacks in her arms. Yoona’s wave was halfhearted. She hated leaving Seohyun at the hospital like this, but it was what they agreed would be best for her. The only comforting part about it was that Yoona knew she was in good hands. The money Tiffany gave her ensured that she could put her in a place better than the one she’d taken Seohyun to before.
"The others are on the way."
Sunny plopped into her large, desk chair. Yoona pulled up a stool to sit. Her elbows rested on the table and chin on her fist watching as the Galaga screensaver gave way to a multiscreen setup of opened files and projects.
"How was your sleepover?"
Brilliant until Yuri had to go all stubborn on her.
"I don't kiss and tell."
Sunny winked. She double clicked the mouse to bring up the schematics for the Ion building. Only half of it was complete. Next to the window was a satellite view and a fragmented map etched with highlighter markings and scribbles.
"Everything Tiffany knew about me, you found that out didn't you?"
She patted the top of her central monitor. "This sucker can find almost everything and anything. You hid pretty well, but we eventually dug you up. It wasn’t easy.”
"If you can find me you can find anyone.”
"Who's the target?"
She was nervous to say. "A donor.”
Her faith in doctors no longer held and sitting by Seohyun’s side in that hospital room for the past few days only served to wane her hope even more.
Sunny gave her a sad smile. "I'll see what I can do."
Yoona didn’t know how to voice her appreciation. She wasn’t used to asking others for help. She could help herself. But things were now beyond her and that killed her.
The door banged opened to let the others in. Tiffany led them back with Taeyeon and Sooyoung on her heels talking quietly to one another. Yoona got up the same time as Sunny who snatched up her laptop.
"Miss Im,” Tiffany greeted. Yoona accepted and pocketed the envelope handed to her. "To the briefing table."
"Hey, pipsqueak.” A lanky arm draped over Yoona's neck, stopping her from getting too far.
"Hey, Mantis."
"About the other week. I, uh…” she scratched nervously at her messy, short hair. “I didn't know, you know?"
Yoona got it. It was a terrible apology, but she didn’t take Sooyoung for being elegant in the ways of speech. "Another shooting lesson and we'll call it even."
"Deal." She ruffled her hair and slinked away.
Yoona sat beside Sooyoung while Tiffany and Sunny took the other side leaving Taeyeon at the head. Her eyes found Taeyeon’s who nodded her acknowledgment. She still didn’t know how to feel about Taeyeon or her standoffish behavior directed at her but now wasn’t the time to dwell on the questionable actions of her boss.
The projector screen came to life with the click of the remote and Taeyeon began the brief.
“Today is Ion’s Annual Winter Showcase. This is the one time of year where they invite businesses and the public into their main hall to view the latest projects and future innovations. The joint project we're targetting with Z1 won’t be on display, but that’s not our goal. Today we will concentrate on bypassing their security. Sunny.”
“Sooyoung and I came up with a new tech we think will be able to get us access to their security system.” Charts and graphs and diagrams filled up the screen in a mirrored image from her laptop. “It’ll cloak itself as part of their mainframe and bounce back the zero’s and one’s I need to finally get in. We tried it on an embassy and it worked, but their security is nowhere near what we’ll be dealing with.”
“But we’re confident.” Sooyoung lifted a hand.
Sunny high-fived her. “Eighty-nine percent confident.”
“What’s the other eleven percent?”
Sunny shrugged to Tiffany’s question. “Their system could fry our gadget and we’ll have to start from scratch.”
“Or do it the old undercover and break-in way.” Sooyoung flashed Yoona a smile. The memory of her in drag popped to mind. Now that she thought of it, it wasn't even that good of a disguise. She scoffed.
Tiffany turned to the head of the table. “Taeng. What do you think?”
“I trust Sunny.”
“Hey.”
“And Soo.” She smiled at Sooyoung’s playful finger gunshots at her. “Tiffany, explain the operation.”
Her tablet emerged to take over the projector screen. The entire plot went up and Yoona reviewed it as Tiffany explained. "Sooyoung will be on rooftop to get us our ears while Sunny will be on the ground to make sure we get us our eyes. A few Z1 executives will be there. Tiffany and I will pose as another business to see if they'll take us behind the scenes as well as get a visual on the type of on foot security they have. We might be able to get an insight of their floorplan to see how many levels down they're conducting the project.”
“How do we even know they're doing this at Ion?” Yoona interrupted.
“All the biology has to be conducted at Ion because they have the labs for it. It would draw too much attention to cart hazardous materials from their facility to Z1 then it is to ship the tech into Ion.”
It made sense.
“Yoona,” Tiffany continued, “you'll go inside to help Sunny since she'll be stationary in the van making sure all of our connections work. Kwon will be there. What will benefit us is if you can get to her files. It'll help us know if she's in on the project or not."
Yoona nodded. "I can probably get a keycard."
"Sunny, will that be enough?" asked Taeyeon.
"For top level it is. Any access to the labs has stronger security. I'll be able to know what type once I get into their system."
Sooyoung agreed, arm stringing over the back of Yoona’s chair. “Even if we can’t get visual, audio will be better than nothin’. I’ll get things configured as fast as I can.”
"Sooyoung’s right,” said Taeyeon before turning to Yoona. “Anything you can get us, we'll use."
"You got it, boss."
“Anything else?” asked Sunny booting down her laptop.
Tiffany motioned to Yoona. “I need Im to stay back with me.”
Taeyeon nodded. "Set your watches. We'll reconvene in four hours.”
-/-/-/-
She waited on the couch in the lounge area, poking a the sand in a large, zen garden set on the center of the coffee table. Tiffany emerged a few moments later, dressed down to trainer tights and a sports bra that showed off the flatness of her taut stomach.
"Change."
Yoona caught the bushel of clothes tossed at her. A pair of sweatpants and a simple muscle tee unrolled in her hands. Undoing her jeans, she began to change.
“How’s Juhyun?”
The use of Seohyun’s given name was more of a shock than the sudden question. No one called her that or asked about her but herself. How could they? No one knew she was there and no one but doctors and now the cube knew of her condition.
"She’s back in the hospital."
"How severe is it?”
Yoona shrugged. "Nothing we can’t handle.”
"We'll help you. We're doing this for her, too."
Yoona’s jaw tightened. She’d heard that line too much. At the end of the day, when this was all over, Tiffany and the others would be no more than those people she once knew. All they were was a vehicle to get to the destination Yoona hoped to arrive. They may be part of the journey, but they were just hitchhikers picked up in the middle who offered their two cents for a new tank of gas.
"Thanks, but I've taken care of it."
Changed, she followed Tiffany through another door into a smaller room adjacent to the main cube room. Mats laid out along the floor with weights and exercise machines against the wall. A punching bag hung back in a corner beside a rack of different sized gloves. Mirrors mounted on an opposite wall glared their shadows back at her until Tiffany flicked on the overhanging lights that lit up half their faces.
"This is where you say, 'welcome to my sanctuary'."
Tiffany eyed her with a hint of a smile. "Welcome to the diamond."
That was close enough of cooperation for Yoona.
"Do you have any fight training?"
War flashbacks of judo practice when she was eight hit her. That lasted about three months until she begged her dad to take her out. He did much to her mother's relief.
“None. Teach me your ways, sensei."
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “I learned quickly self-defense classes taken as a teenager weren’t enough for this lifestyle. After the incident, I made all of us take up to a certain level of combat training.”
“What incident?”
Tiffany shook her head and handed Yoona a roll of tape for her hands.
“I hope you never have to use this teaching, but it’s good to know. For your protection and the ones around you."
Yoona taught herself her own things for reasons just the same. Fighting wasn't one of them. She relied more on wit and deception to avoid and get out of tight situations. Remembering the way Sooyoung easily overpowered her and put her on the floor at the club suddenly put her lack of skill into perspective. She had a mouth, but she was unmatched against Sooyoung's gun and Tiffany's reflexes. That night could've been her end.
Stepping onto the mat, she stood opposite Tiffany who tied back her hair. Yoona didn't take her for a fighter. She was built small and walked with a back so straight you could skewer her perfectly through. She wouldn’t doubt her, though. All of the members had a sharpened skill set in something that made Yoona seem like a novice.
"Hit me."
“What?”
“Hit me.”
She wasn’t ready, but Tiffany was waiting. Yoona threw a punch. It landed on Tiffany's face, snapping her neck sideways. She didn't even blink.
"Again."
She swung. Tiffany dodged and countered with a swift fist into Yoona's stomach. She groaned out of surprise.
"Again."
Another attack and another counter. Two jabs hit her square in the gut and Yoona backed up, hand up to signal her need for a second. Tiffany let her have it, eyes staring down her nose at Yoona who held herself up on her knees. She didn’t know what was more intimidating, Tiffany in a business suit or Tiffany poised to fight.
“Ready?”
No, but Yoona nodded anyway. She stood up, fist up to block. Tiffany came at her quick. She threw one fake and one punch. Yoona was lucky enough to block a few of them, but the ones that hit her skin stung.
A knee blindsided her and Yoona lost her balance as it collided with her hip.
“Your last encounter with Kwon, what was it for?”
Yoona grunted and got back to her feet. “What do you think?”
"I didn’t get a report. For every meet up you have to report back to Taeyeon or me. If not, your motives look suspicious. We can't have that."
"I knew you were kinky, but this is a next level perv if you want me to spell out all the orgasmic details."
Tiffany rushed forward and Yoona dodged. She left her back open. Hands grabbed her quickly. One arm wrapped around her neck from behind while the other secured her arms at her sides.
“I’ve been there,” Tiffany hissed. She tightened her chokehold. “I know how hard it can be to carry the worries of someone you care about along with the pressures of an assignment. I put you on Kwon because I thought you could handle it - that you could put personal matters aside.”
She struggled to get the words out. "I do put them aside.”
Yoona jabbed her elbow into TIffany's side. Once, twice, three times.
She released her.
Yoona gasped for air, hands on her throat.
But she didn’t have time to catch a breather.
She ducked a swing. Tiffany was fast. She kept on her toes, bouncing. Her eyes constantly moved, staying focused and calculated. She looked lethal despite her outward appearance. Yoona knew better than to generalize someone by how they looked. It was always what lie beneath it all that held the truth.
"She’s weakening every day."
She really hated it when others talked about Seohyun.
"Seohyun's strong."
"You're not."
"I'm holding us together."
"You can barely hold yourself together."
Yoona charged for her. Tiffany easily pivoted out of the way and kicked her leg into her back. Yoona stumbled, knee hitting the mat for a second. She bounced back up. She wasn’t going to let Tiffany take control of her that easily. She was in control.
“Weak.”
Yoona sneered. “Get off my back, Hwang.”
“Attack me!”
She tried again, getting close enough to Tiffany to swing. She was sloppy in comparison, arms flying in uncoordinated jabs that Tiffany blocked easily, one right after another.
“She’ll die, Im.”
“No, she won’t.” Yoona punched.
Tiffany blocked. “And there’s nothing you can do.”
She put her all into the next hit. It struck Tiffany so hard in the face she stumbled backward. Yoona used the moment to strike again. She readied herself to take another blow at her stupid face, but she wasn’t thinking of any other part.
Tiffany ducked and her foot snapped out, knocking the wind right from her stomach. Yoona went sprawling. The force of the ground pushed what little breath remained in her out when her back banged against the mat.
She wanted to get up, but the lack of oxygen kept her down. She wheezed as weight fell over her, pinning her to the ground. Tiffany was on her, hands gripping her wrists and bolting them to the floor beside her head before they could lash out.
“Get. Off. Me.” Yoona jerked upwards.
She got loose only for hands to slam her back down. Her head bounced on the mat. Hard.
“You proved my point.”
“Fuck you,” she wheezed.
Like the strike of a cobra, Tiffany slapped her and immediately pinned her wrist back down.
“Be quiet.”
Yoona swallowed down the words she wanted to spit. She didn’t want to be struck again. Not when her head was spinning and throbbing. She was smarter than this. She needed to get herself together. Use her damn head - something that she always lost a little when Seohyun was brought into the mix.
She hated the fact Tiffany exploited her weakness like that. She hated the fact she allowed Tiffany to use it and win with her weakness like that.
“Don’t move,” Tiffany commanded. When she realized she wasn’t going to do anything, she stood up to tower over her. Tiffany spoke softly but curtly. “You're not just here because you're good at what you do. You're also here because you have a reason to succeed. Just like us. The only difference between you and us is that there's still hope of saving the one you're protecting. You can keep shutting us out or you can allow us to carry some of your weight with you.”
"Are you a con artist or are you a shrink?" Because the last time she checked, this wasn’t what she signed up for. She wanted the opposite - to be left alone.
“We’ve all been there!” Tiffany snapped. She caught her own temper and relaxed, hiding whatever that tiny show of vulnerability was quick. “We know how one slip can ruin everything. I won’t allow that. I won’t allow you to mess this up. The deeper we get, the less room for error we have. I need you at your best, Im.”
Yoona knew that. Tiffany was preaching to the choir.
“Sounds like someone has their own issues to deal with, huh, Steph?”
A foot snapped into Yoona's jaw.
The force rolled her onto her stomach. She coughed, letting saliva taint the mat beneath her. The arms she held herself up on gave out. Her body was aching and spent. She wasn’t strong enough to get up and make another move. She didn’t have the will to get back to her feet only to be brought down again. She was no match. She could do nothing. She was powerless.
Tiffany was right. She hated that she was.
Yoona felt tears well up in her eyes. She be damned to let them fall in front of her.
“There’s a shower through that door. Take it easy the next hour.”
Her teeth gritted in attempts to hide the tremble of her voice. “Go to hell.”
Placing a towel beside Yoona’s head, Tiffany stalked off.
The door banged shut behind her.
-/-/-/-
"You're alive."
Yoona rolled her eyes and slid the van door shut. The right side of her face was numb from the icepack she’d had against it all day. Tiffany’s kick was bad, but the swelling was even worse. Luckily it went down enough for her not to look like a puffy faced hamster anymore. She couldn’t say the same about the bruises on the other parts of her body.
“How does it look?” she asked, dropping into the chair next to Sunny.
The back of the van was gutted to accommodate screens and equipment with a privacy window sectioning off the front seats. It was like the setup plucked out of a crime movie right into real life.
“Better than Soo looked the first time. You’ve got a hard head.” Sunny knocked on her forehead with her knuckles. Yoona glowered though she found the gesture enduring.
"What put the log up her ass anyway?"
Sunny blew a long breath past her lips. "She wasn't always like that. Believe it or not, you never used to be able to shut her up. She had one of the loudest laughs. We would have to leave her behind on some assignments because one joke and she'd blow our cover. She even used to bake. Shit at it, but she tried.”
"What turned her goo into crust?"
Sunny's expression faltered. "She...there’s a lot that happened."
Cryptic. Yoona pursed her lips. The complete shift in Sunny’s body language kept Yoona from pressing for more. She could tell there was something being kept from her. She could tell it the same way she could with Tiffany.
"Where do you fall in all of this?"
"I'm one of the original recruits. The government doesn’t really like hacktivist. Go figure,” she snorted. “There were a few of us. The cops caught one and promised a shorter sentence if he named the rest of the ring. Taeng came to visit me in jail a few months later. I knew who she was - she was younger and wilder back then. I wanted out so I volunteered for the benefits of staying off the radar and she posted bail.”
Yoona didn't understand Taeyeon at all. “You trusted her?”
“Hell no, but I’d pick bozos over bars any day. I was going to stick around for a while, build up a base, and ditch once I found someplace new. In that time, I figured out that Taeng was alright.”
“What about Tiffany?” All Yoona knew was that she was carted off to Korea and Taeyeon worked her voodoo magic to reel her in. Considering how far up Taeyeon’s ass she was, Yoona knew there had to be more.
“She was after me. Their friendship comes from family ties more than the con. The Kim’s sort of raised her when she got here. Her father, he’s a busy man. You can fill in the blanks. You could say Tiffany feels indebted to them. She’s lost a lot, too, and when everything happened...she kind of....”
“Went Jekyll to Hyde.”
Sunny paled. Yoona knew that look. The one where you played back every painful moment all at once. Yoona was sorry she struck that chord. These girls were much like her, pasts forever haunting them.
"It’s almost time to move in,” said Sunny, switching them back into comfortable territory. “Are you ready?"
"Suit me up."
Sunny smiled and spun her chair to snatch something off the desktop. A tiny, black rounded piece was handed Yoona’s way.
"Put that in your ear. You'll be able to hear and talk to me and the others at all times."
Sunny held up a small, clear tube attached to the prongs of a plug except one of them was hollow. Inside was a tiny coil like a wire. When she shook it, the coil began to unravel and wiggle.
"This is a nematode. Find an outlet and insert this vermin tech right inside. It'll travel through the electric currents and attach itself to the mainframe. If successful, they should be able to bounce a semi-cracked script of the security coding back to me. It'll be enough to tap into a few of their cameras."
"Will it work?"
"By my eye bags, it better work." Sunny dropped the tube into Yoona’s purse and tapped it. "You're equipped with a taser, pepper spray, car keys, ID and cards, a transmitter for the radio, and a pack of gum."
"Peppermint?"
"Wintergreen. Don't chew it. It has an enzyme in it that triggers severe nausea."
Yoona dropped it right back in. "For enemy use only."
“Tiffany left a car for you in the back lot. Just hit the clicker and it'll beep for you to find when you’re ready to go." Sunny gave her a pat on the back. "You're all set. Go get'em.”
-/-/-/-
The Ionic Building of Science was much bigger than Yoona remembered. She walked in like the others, blending with the crowd. Kiosk outlined the lobby staffed by workers in business suits with their display screens, pamphlets, and practiced smiles. Most of the visitors were dressed the same with a few locals wandered in off the sidewalk. A group of university kids, mimicking the look of professionals, clumped close by their professor.
Across the room, she saw Taeyeon, blonde hair covered by a black wig. Beside her was Tiffany, hair in a bun and tortoise shell glasses pretending to be her assistant. Her eye caught Yoona’s for a second before turning away. Her makeup was flawless. It would have to be to cover up the bruises Yoona knew she left on her face.
A banner held Zero1’s logo over a station with a large monitor and table spread with tiny models of devices that looked like cellphones. Yoona wandered over to it, joining the small group that stood by listening to the man speaking from behind the table until he was done.
The crowd began to mumble and mingle about the product once his presentation ended. Yoona was about to go when a body showed up at her side. Yuri cut her a dry look.
"President Kwon.”
Her attention turned to the man behind the table, returning his bow. "Mr. Park.”
"Thank you for allowing us a spot in your showcase." God, they sounded fake as hell.
"My pleasure." She turned to Yoona. "Find anything interesting?”
“It’s all very impressive.”
Yuri's cheek twitched. “If you like this then you should see what's on display at table seven. I’ll show you."
She expertly steered Yoona away without breaking her plastered smile. They merged with the rest of the crowd, letting the flow of spectators take them across the room and their joint voices shield their words.
“What’re you doing here?”
She threw Yuri's last words right back at her. “I wanted to see you."
Yuri's glare held no strength.
“You’re not going to run me out, are you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Good. I like seeing President Kwon in action. Sexy.”
Yuri side-eyed her. “Does your mouth know no filter?”
“You didn’t seem to mind that night.”
Red blazed along Yuri’s neck. Something poked her arm it was a keycard. "Room A104. I'll meet you there in five minutes."
Yuri sauntered away, hand tossing her hair so it hid the blush yet to fade from her skin.
"That was easier than expected,” Sooyoung spoke into her earpiece.
"You shouldn't doubt the power of my charm."
“You need something to compensate for your lack of ass.”
“It’ll take more than a microscope to find yours.”
“Ladies. Focus.” Tiffany hissed.
Sunny’s chuckling entered the line. “Now's your chance, Yoona. Go."
She weaved through the masses, head swiveling and eyes moving like any interested spectator. She read the signs on the wall, finding the right hallway and snuck around the corner. She glanced back, checking for security before ducking beneath a stanchion and hurrying to the room marked 104.
Waving the card in front of the sensor, the locks released and she stepped in.
It was a small space set up like a meeting room. Navy colored blinds held sunlight from the windows giving the interior a tint of blue. Yoona went to the closest wall in search of an outlet. None.
"Find one?"
"Not yet."
She hurried to the opposite wall. None. What sort of meeting room didn’t have-
"Kwon's headed your way," Tiffany whispered. "You have fifteen seconds."
"Pick it up, Bambi."
She hit the most back wall where a podium was shoved into the corner. She pushed it aside. Bingo.
"Yoon-"
"Found it.”
Sifting through her purse, she snatched the nematode and dropped to her knees. Stabbing the prongs into the socket, it sparked. The worm inside came to life, uncoiling to its full length before rushing into the outlet.
"Done."
"Yoona?"
She shot to her feet. Dizziness hit her at the speed and she blinked it away, pushing on a smile.
"Keycard, please."
Handing it back, Yuri swiped it through a small slit on the lock device so that numbers shined on the backing. Punching in a code, the numbers flashed red then went away.
"Fancy security." She'd have to figure out another way to pocket the keycard and get that code.
"I’m still getting used to it." Yuri moved to the far side of the room so she was out of eye line of the door window. Yoona followed. “You can’t come here like this.”
She laid it on thick. "I couldn’t stop thinking about you."
"Awww." Sunny giggled into her ear followed by Sooyoung’s gag.
It took everything in Yoona not to react.
"We can't do this,” Yuri sighed.
Yoona sank down to sit on the table. "Why not?"
"Because I'm-"
"-Always being watched. So what? You and I both know what happened wasn’t a mistake.”
Yuri faltered. She slumped against the wall, eyes refusing to meet Yoona's. Anything she'd say to counter Yoona would be empty considering. Yuri had her chance to shut her down, cut her off, kick her out. She was too telling in her actions. They spoke the truth against her words. And Yuri knew it.
"Like you said, loneliness breeds desperation."
Yoona smirked. "Desperation doesn't kiss like that."
“Why’re you doing this?”
She looked truly conflicted. Yoona almost felt bad for having to press into her so hard. But if she had to be honest with herself, she enjoyed this. She enjoyed getting under Yuri's skin. She enjoyed seeing her slowly fall little by little.
“I can’t help it.” Yoona slipped off the desk. She took a step forward. "Not when I’m near you.”
Yuri pinched her eyes shut. "You're playing with my head."
"You're playing with my heart.”
Yoona closed the distance between them. Yuri had nowhere to go and no other choice but to let Yoona trap her against the wall all over again. Hands smoothed landed on Yuri’s waist and smoothed along her curves.
"Don't throw me out,” Yoona cooed. There was only weak resistance as she pulled her off the wall enough for their bodies to touch. “Not yet. Not before you've had a chance to try."
Yuri’s fist rested against Yoona’s shoulders keeping her from closing in too quickly. "You’re not the first to say any of this.”
Foreheads pressed together. "Who says I can't be the last?"
Saying those words did something to Yoona. They sounded like lines plucked right off the page of a sappy, cliche, romance novel, but they were loaded. She saw the question hit Yuri hard. Yoona’s chest twinged. She might be the one playing with Yuri’s head, but she was also the real one playing with hearts. There was no way to completely detach herself from the entire situation. Not when Yuri was looking at her with those timid, expectant, lidded eyes. Yoona couldn’t remember the last time someone genuinely looked at her that way.
"You don't understand. This is hard for me.” Yuri dropped her head away.
Yoona drew her gaze back with a finger hooked beneath her chin. "Let me soften you."
She pressed their lips together. Yuri’s appetite was far less in comparison to that night, but she still took the bait. Nice and slow and easy. She ate up the kiss with a gentleness that Yoona liked only from her. It made her feel like she was being slow dipped into hot wax.
Yoona pressed in deeper, hands slicing down to take Yuri into her palms.
"No, no. Not here." Yuri removed Yoona's hands and returned them to her back.
“I want you.”
Yuri whimpered. “God, Yoona. You can’t do this to me right now.”
“I want to do everything to you right now.”
She kissed at Yuri’s jawline. Her neck craned back giving Yoona access to the soft skin there. She nipped soft enough not to leave a mark but hard enough so Yuri could feel the little pricks of sensation. A hand cupped her cheek, leading her back to plump lips.
"Come tonight,” Yuri breathed into the kiss. She ran a hand through her hair. Yoona loved the way it felt to have nails graze along her scalp.
“When?”
"Eight o'clock."
“I’ll be there.”
Like second nature, she leaned in to kiss her once more. Yoona started to wonder where the act began and she ended. She didn't know. All she knew was that pretending to fall quickly for Yuri was easy and kissing her with breathless, inducing depth was easier.
"I'll go first."
Yuri pulled out of her hold, fixing her clothes back into order before she left.
“Good job you no good, dirty fox.”
Yoona laughed but on the inside she was pulsing. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
-/-/-/-
She dressed to match the class of the car she drove. Tiffany left it to her so she didn’t feel any guilt taking it on something deemed business (and she didn't feel bad for using up the tank before returning it after that brawl either).
“Kwon residence.”
“Minho, it’s me. Again.”
The door opened a second later showing Minho in the frame.
“Miss Kwon stepped out for a moment.”
“I can wait.” She went to step inside, but Minho kept her from advancing. "It's okay. She's expecting me."
He frowned. "Now isn't the best-"
“Yul?”
Yoona peered over Minho’s shoulder. Jessica Jung looked as if she’d stepped right out of a fashion magazine depicting the latest in sexy, chic, business wear.
Reluctantly, Minho moved aside to let her in. Yoona glanced at him knowing all too well what he was thinking. One slip and she could mess this up for Yuri even if Jessica was keen on what team Yuri batted for. She doubted an escort was something anyone wanted to flaunt around and introduce to business partners. She was glad there was a coat covering the black, sequin dress she wore just for Yuri's wandering eyes.
“Oh. Hello.” Jessica smiled with perfect poise. Her voice was high but dignified. Her makeup pronounced but clean. She embodied everything that those pictures said about her - chic, classy, collected, and cold.
Yoona straightened her back. “Hi.”
“I didn’t know Yuri was expecting other guests.”
“I’m family, actually.”
Jessica’s eyebrows lifted. “Beauty is genetic.”
“The papers don’t do you justice.”
“The media is kind to no one.” She combed a hand through her glossy, honey blonde hair, pearly whites beaming in a haughty smile poorly cloaked in humility. “Are you her…”
“Cousin." She saw Minho eye her from where he hovered at the end of the stairway. "I don’t get to visit often now that I live in China.”
"Hen gao xing ren shi ni.”
Yoona responded without a beat, "Wo ye shi."
Jessica smiled. Yoona passed her test. She thanked Fast Fingers Fei for those mandarin lessons at the club ages back.
“Should we wait in the parlor, Mr. Choi?” Her voice was so sugary when she addressed him. Yoona cringed at the cavity she felt forming in her molars.
"Right this way."
Yoona couldn't help but remember her first night with Yuri in here. She hid her smirk with a polite smile when Jessica sat on the couch where Yuri planted those first, tipsy, needy kisses on her arm. She felt a sense of pride knowing Jessica probably hadn't even gotten that much from her. But who was she to be jealous?
"How long are you in town for?"
Yoona hated small talk. She hated deliberate prying, information grabbing small talk even more. "A few days. Yuri's kind enough to let me stay with her. More room."
"You could get lost in here."
"Minho's had to call search and rescue on me more than once."
Jessica gave a fake laugh, hands folding over a crossed knee. Yoona glanced down. She squinted in the dim light. There was something off.
The sounds of a garage opening and closing creaked through the walls. Alarm system chimes rang and Yuri entered in followed by her in the flesh. She pause at the entrance to the parlor, surprise coloring her face when she saw Jessica and Yoona both stand at her arrival.
“Chairman Jung.”
“Welcome home.”
“I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I dropped by since you hadn’t returned my calls.”
Yoona could see why Yuri would want to avoid her. The woman was frightening stunning and seductively conniving. Not once did Yoona put her guard down and not once did Jessica stop analyzing her every move.
“I hope you haven’t waited long.”
“Oh, no. Your cousin has been humoring me.”
The only show of confusion Yuri gave was the shift of her eyes in Yoona’s direction.
“She’s good at that,” she went along. Yoona relaxed.
“Should I return another time? I don’t want to come between family affairs.”
“No, no, stay. I’ll have Minho start some tea and we can talk.”
“I’ll only take a bit of your time." Jessica turned to Yoona. "Is that okay with you?"
“Yeah, go. Talk business. Don’t mind me. I’ll wait upstairs and grab a shower?”
Yuri nodded. “Go ahead.”
“It was nice meeting you, Chairman.”
“And you.”
Yoona hit the stairs and skipped up to the east room. Waiting a few minutes, she wandered into the washroom and turned on the shower for show and dropped onto the bed. Her heart was racing. She didn't know if it was because of her own cover almost being blown or worry that Yuri would ask her to leave after being put at risk with Jessica. She wanted neither. She wanted the latter even less.
Taking off her coat, Yoona wandered across the room. She needed some air to cool the nervous sweat on her back.
Unlatching the tall, balcony doors, she left them open and walked out into the night. It was dark on the side of this estate. Far off were the lights of twinkling like distant stars. She was reminded of a night with Seohyun, curled up on a blanket on top of a hill.
"Do you see that space between those stars? If I die, that's where I'll be so when you look up you'll still find me."
"You'll always be with me. Here."
"To infinity."
"And beyond."
A shadow emerged on her left. Yoona blinked away the needles of tears. Thinking of Seohyun like that pricked her heart lately. Tiffany was right to challenge her. She was barely holding on now that Seohyun was in this stage. She wasn't that strong.
"I used to come out here after fights with my dad,” said Yuri. Her voice was smooth and steady but dynamic against the quiet. “I would stare at the city and tell myself there was somewhere better out there. I never wanted to be part of this. I was my father's insurance policy - an easy plug if something went wrong. I never thought it would happen and now I'm stuck."
"Me too." However, the best place to Yoona was a place stuck with Seohyun. She was already there.
Yuri sighed, eyes blinking away from the lights down to her hands that hung over the railing. “I'm sorry for Jessica. I didn't know she'd be here."
“I hope what I did was okay. I kept it family so she wouldn’t get jealous.”
Yuri blinked. “Jealous?”
“She was flirting with you, Yul."
Yuri's mouth parted in surprise. She shook it off, but the color in her cheeks remained. "You're mistaken."
"Her eyes were all over you.”
"You're teasing me."
"You like the thought of it."
"I like the thought of shutting you up with a kiss right now more."
"What are you-"
Yoona liked kissing Yuri, but there was something electrifying about Yuri kissing her first. The way her hand always cupped her face, pulling her in and holding her in place made Yoona smile against her mouth. She drew Yuri in with a hand behind her neck that slipped down to her shoulders.
"You're tense."
"She winds me up.” Yuri hummed when Yoona began to massage her shoulders.
"Not what I want to hear when you're kissing me."
She chuckled. "I’m sorry...and I'm sorry for what I said that morning."
As much as Yoona hated to admit, that left a sour taste in her mouth. Her pride may or may not have been a little hurt that Yuri didn’t so easily give into her advances, but there was more to it than that. She felt like she was being kicked out and used. Two things she was used to but two things she didn’t want from Yuri.
"It reeked of bullshit anyway."
Yuri broke away from the kiss. She stared Yoona in the eye, foreheads still pressed together. There was clarity in her gaze, something Yoona never saw when drinks were involved. Now there was nothing in the way, not even that hesitant glint she had at the Ion Building. Yuri was open enough in that second for Yoona to look in. She didn’t know if she liked that.
"I haven't stopped thinking about you either.”
Yoona tensed. She didn’t know if she liked that either, so her mind said. The jolt in her stomach said differently. She definitely didn’t know how to feel about that or the shivers she got when Yuri’s hands smoothed down her sides.
"You're different."
"Good different?"
"Unexpectedly different." Hands snuck up her dress, palming at her ass. Subconsciously, Yoona's hips rolled forward to grind against her. “You make me want you in all the wrong ways.”
Yoona nipped at her bottom lip. “I’m liking this way.”
Yuri allowed her to claim her lips again. She'd fallen for that fleshy bottom lip, grown addicted to having it in her mouth. Yoona sucked it gently as thumbs hooked around the band of her underwear.
“This," Yuri said as she began tugging fabric down Yoona's hips, "is only one of them."
"I'd like to see the others."
Yuri grinned shyly. "In time."
"Is this you saying you're giving us a chance?" Her underwear slid down her ankles.
Yuri turned her to face out across the yard. She leaned against the railing as Yuri whispered into her ear, "This is my way of saying I don't want to be alone anymore."
Yoona's stomach twisted. She heard a whisper in the back of her mind echo Yuri's words in her own way. "I don't want to be afraid anymore."
She silenced them quickly. Now was not the time. She needed to keep the wall in place. She needed to filter Yuri into the part of her that could easily be broken away. She didn't need her getting deeper into her head, opening up tiny doors in parts of Yoona left dusty and untouched.
"You're a romantic aren't you, President?"
The sides of her dress inched up. Yoona shivered as cold air hit her bare thighs and chilled the moisture between her legs.
"Hopelessly."
A hand eased her forward so she bent over the metal bar. The base of Yoona's stomach burned with anticipation. She hardly let anyone take control, but the way Yuri did it with such slow, sensual grace didn't make her think twice about dropping the reins.
Fingers ghosted over the swell of her ass and she shivered when Yuri placed a soft kiss right below her ear.
"I thought we could start over with this."
Knees hit cement behind her and Yoona gripped the bars. With hands on the inside of her thighs, thumbs spread her folds for a nimble tongue to glide between her legs.
All rational thinking cut off there.
Part VII
-
Author: Boxxsaltz
Pairing: Yoona/Yuri
Rating: R
Summary: There was no job and no money worth the kind of brokenness Yoona endured ever again…except maybe this once.
im yoona, kwon yuri, r, yoonyul
AN: Shout out to Lewin and Christine for volunteering to help me with languages I don’t know.
Part VI
Waking up wrapped in unfamiliar sheets in a rich home wouldn't be alarming if Yoona was dreaming. But she wasn’t and the crisp cider smell wafting through the room was irritating on her allergies.
She was still in the east room. The patterns in the gray, high ceiling she was staring at told her that. She sat up to find her clothes from the previous night washed and ironed on a hanger hooked on the knob of the closet door. An unfamiliar nightshirt hung on her shoulders, ill-fitting but comfortable and crisp.
A harsh vibration drew her attention to the nightstand by the bed. She snatched up the phone.
--What are you doing?
For once she agreed with Tiffany. What the hell was she doing?
And where was her phone? Probably still in her bag down where Yuri put it. She cursed. She needed to call Seohyun.
She pinched the bridge of her nose wishing it could ease away her headache. The pressures of the anniversary combined with the ghost of Yuri’s hands gave her a mental hangover. She felt like a wreck. Using Yuri that way was not part of the plan. But she was easy, she was open, she was the perfect excuse to write off as business while her own selfishness had its fun.
Getting up, she got dressed and combed her fingers through her hair to tame it.
Music played from down below. Yoona followed it, taking the stairs slowly to the lower level where sun beamed through opened curtains, lighting up the entire place in an ethereal glow. It was so different from the darkness Yoona walked into the night before. She liked it. The tiles were cool under her feet and the sun was warm on her face.
The smell of food wafted from the same direction as the music. It led her into a dining room, where curtains were drawn and sunlight rained in just the same. At the head of a long table was Yuri propped in a chair, foot drawn up in the seat as she worked on a tablet leaning on a stand with a fork held in her other hand free from the small keyboard.
Yuri was pretty in pantsuits and dolled up in makeup, but there was a special sort of stunning about her barefaced, glasses, and hair tied back in a messy ponytail that made Yoona’s resolve begin to chip. It was easy to feel ashamed and admit the probably-shouldn’t-have’s outside of Yuri’s presence. Put her right before her, and all Yoona’s mind could do was remember how nice it felt - how fulfilling it felt - to be against that body and wrapped in those arms through multiple waves of pleasure.
It took a moment before her presence was realized. Yuri looked up, fixing her wireframes up her nose with the push of a finger. She blinked in surprise, leg slipping back to the floor and back straightening against the chair.
“Goodmorning.”
“Hey.”
“Would you, um...I can have Minho bring you a plate.”
“Is that okay?”
She knew Yuri understood her question. Staying over like this wasn’t Yoona’s style. Assignment or not. By the awkwardly forced hospitality, she knew it wasn’t Yuri's either. But it felt wrong to just bail when she woke up stuck here.
“It’s okay.” She motioned for Yoona to take a seat. “I’ll be right back.”
Yuri left and Yoona sank into the chair catty-corner to hers. It may be close for both their comfort but to sit at the opposite end would make the rift of tension all the more. Yoona didn’t need that. She needed to pull Yuri back into the realm of comfortability. She needed to pull out that warm, syrupy woman she found in the night who wasn’t afraid to moan her enjoyment and claw at Yoona wanting more, more-
“He’ll have your food out in a second.” Yuri held a glass of water in her hand that she placed in front of Yoona before sitting down.
“I didn’t think you’d let me stay.”
“You seemed so out of it last night. I didn’t want to put you out.”
“How many rules have you broken now?”
Yuri’s jaw flexed. Hands folded neatly on the table. “Yoona...I don’t want you to misinterpret what happened here last night.”
Yoona reworked her angle to play into what Yuri said. “This is my job. You wanted sex. I responded. What’s there to misinterpret?”
Yuri winced. “You won’t let me pay you, so I don’t mind doing this much.”
It was easy to feign offense when she felt a pang of it herself. “What? Bed and breakfast?”
“I hope you can understand.”
Minho appeared with a cart, stopping Yoona from saying more. She waited for him to lay out her dishes and cutlery and orange juice and walk away before she let anything else fly.
“For someone who said they see me as human, you sure are treating me like I’m disposable.”
Yuri’s frown was genuine but so was Yoona’s annoyance. “You know I don’t think that.”
“And I know you’re lying.”
“Lying?”
“To yourself. You can’t admit that you might actually want me.”
Red exploded on Yuri’s neck. “I don’t even know you.”
“You can get to know me,” Yoona countered. She softened, letting her next line pull them back into a calmer place. “I felt something last night.”
She traced along the back of Yuri’s hand that sat against the table with a finger. They were still running through her mind the way they'd driven into her. Yuri was gentle, but she was purposeful in each of her strokes. Her moderate pacing was something Yoona wasn't used to, more versed in the quick and mechanical, but it was everything she needed that night.
That scared her.
The line between job and personal was closing in. The line between the act and the real was blurring. She couldn't let the scales tip. She couldn't let the ways she let Yuri slip through the cracks of her walls affect the fragile, needy being on the other side. She needed to remember why she was here, why she was doing this, the person she was doing this for.
Yoona looked up to meet Yuri’s eyes that stared right back at her. She didn’t pull her hand away. Good sign. But there was a look in her eyes that Yoona couldn’t quite unpack. There were far too many things swirling in those pools than she wanted to decipher at that moment.
“Didn’t you?”
Fingers slid into Yuri’s. She held her hand against the woodgrains. Her palm was clammy and soft. Everything about Yuri was soft. No matter how she tried to do what she believed was right or keep Yoona from skipping over into her court, she was pliable.
"Miss Yuri?" Minho's voice through the room, shattering the connection between them.
Yuri yanked her hand away in shame she couldn’t hide. “Yes?”
He walked up to her side and bent over to speak by her ear. "Jung Soojung is on the line calling for Jessica Jung. She wants to schedule a coffee with you."
Mention of Jessica piqued Yoona’s interest.
"Tell her to call Miss Bae at the office and have her review my schedule to pencil her in."
"She says she wants to speak with you directly."
Yuri pursed her lips. "Take care of it, please.”
"Yes, ma'am."
He stalked away, but the air around them was no longer heated. Only a warm buzz remained, simmering enough to bring their eyes back to one another. Yuri licked her lips. Yoona remembered biting into them, sucking them, kissing them. She didn’t lie when she said Yuri was different. She was and she wouldn’t be easily forgotten.
“I think it was a mistake calling you here,” Yuri said quietly.
She wouldn’t meet Yoona’s eyes again. Just in that, Yoona knew she spoke empty words. Still, it was a blow. She felt her chest throb.
“You don't believe that. But, okay, I’ll go.”
Yuri bit her lip. “Minho can drive-”
“It’s okay, President. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you anymore.” Placing down her handkerchief, she stood, bowed, and left.
-/-/-/-
Yoona rushed up the apartment steps, fumbling with her keys that she couldn’t get out quickly enough. She entered in a flurry, kicking off her shoes in hast.
“I’m home!”
Silence ensued for seconds before she heard anything.
"Yoona." There was distress in Seohyun's voice.
She found her on the floor of her room, hand pressed against her chest gasping. The laundry was spilled out of the basket beside her, scattered along the floor. Yoona panicked, dropping down to her knees beside her.
"Juhyun?”
She held up a finger, signaling for a minute. Yoona gripped the hand. She held it against her chest, so Seohyun could feel the controlled rise and fall of her breathing.
"Should I get-"
Seohyun shook her head. Yoona grimaced. She was trying to be strong. She was trying too hard like always. Every concern about Yuri immediately evaporate. Seohyun was her world - her real world. She was all that mattered. She was the one who made her feel whole. Seeing her like this, thinking that this might be it, Yoona felt a part of her begin to fade away.
“Ju,” she pleaded with the single utterance.
Eyes began to water.
Yoona didn't wait. She grabbed the oxygen machine and set it into place.
She waited at Seohyun's side until she relaxed and color came back to her cheeks. Still, Yoona did not ease. She could only imagine what would’ve happened had she come home a second later. She should’ve been there to help. She should’ve been there to greet Seohyun in the morning, to take the workload for herself, to ensure she was fine and breathing in the middle of the night.
Stupid assignments and stupid Yuri didn’t matter if she lost this.
“You shouldn’t push yourself.”
“You can’t keep doing everything for me”
“Until you’re better, I will.”
“Where were you?” Seohyun ticked in a mix of anger and sadness.
Yoona’s mouth clicked shut. That hurt. It hurt because it was her fault. She should’ve been there.
“I’m sorry.” It was all she could say.
Seohyun softened, forgiving her as easily as usual. But none of her forgiveness came without another tally on the chart of Yoona’s guilt.
"Is it getting worse?"
A nod.
"What can I do?"
She was at a loss. She didn’t know anymore. Machines didn’t work, the medication didn’t work, her overworking herself and trying hard to cut Seohyun’s strain in half didn’t work.
Sad eyes met hers. She knew what it meant. Day to day living in the apartment would not be enough for her anymore. Yoona hated to admit it, but she had to. Seohyun already resigned herself to the fact. There was honestly no going up for her and soon Yoona would have to accept it until they were no longer a name on a waiting list.
“Okay.” Yoona brought Seohyun's hand to her mouth, kissing at her pale knuckles. This would be the hardest thing for her to do, but she knew they had no other choice. "Let’s get you dressed.”
-/-/-/-
Yoona slammed the warehouse door shut. Sunny greeted her with a wave as she walked across the room, bottle of juice and snacks in her arms. Yoona’s wave was halfhearted. She hated leaving Seohyun at the hospital like this, but it was what they agreed would be best for her. The only comforting part about it was that Yoona knew she was in good hands. The money Tiffany gave her ensured that she could put her in a place better than the one she’d taken Seohyun to before.
"The others are on the way."
Sunny plopped into her large, desk chair. Yoona pulled up a stool to sit. Her elbows rested on the table and chin on her fist watching as the Galaga screensaver gave way to a multiscreen setup of opened files and projects.
"How was your sleepover?"
Brilliant until Yuri had to go all stubborn on her.
"I don't kiss and tell."
Sunny winked. She double clicked the mouse to bring up the schematics for the Ion building. Only half of it was complete. Next to the window was a satellite view and a fragmented map etched with highlighter markings and scribbles.
"Everything Tiffany knew about me, you found that out didn't you?"
She patted the top of her central monitor. "This sucker can find almost everything and anything. You hid pretty well, but we eventually dug you up. It wasn’t easy.”
"If you can find me you can find anyone.”
"Who's the target?"
She was nervous to say. "A donor.”
Her faith in doctors no longer held and sitting by Seohyun’s side in that hospital room for the past few days only served to wane her hope even more.
Sunny gave her a sad smile. "I'll see what I can do."
Yoona didn’t know how to voice her appreciation. She wasn’t used to asking others for help. She could help herself. But things were now beyond her and that killed her.
The door banged opened to let the others in. Tiffany led them back with Taeyeon and Sooyoung on her heels talking quietly to one another. Yoona got up the same time as Sunny who snatched up her laptop.
"Miss Im,” Tiffany greeted. Yoona accepted and pocketed the envelope handed to her. "To the briefing table."
"Hey, pipsqueak.” A lanky arm draped over Yoona's neck, stopping her from getting too far.
"Hey, Mantis."
"About the other week. I, uh…” she scratched nervously at her messy, short hair. “I didn't know, you know?"
Yoona got it. It was a terrible apology, but she didn’t take Sooyoung for being elegant in the ways of speech. "Another shooting lesson and we'll call it even."
"Deal." She ruffled her hair and slinked away.
Yoona sat beside Sooyoung while Tiffany and Sunny took the other side leaving Taeyeon at the head. Her eyes found Taeyeon’s who nodded her acknowledgment. She still didn’t know how to feel about Taeyeon or her standoffish behavior directed at her but now wasn’t the time to dwell on the questionable actions of her boss.
The projector screen came to life with the click of the remote and Taeyeon began the brief.
“Today is Ion’s Annual Winter Showcase. This is the one time of year where they invite businesses and the public into their main hall to view the latest projects and future innovations. The joint project we're targetting with Z1 won’t be on display, but that’s not our goal. Today we will concentrate on bypassing their security. Sunny.”
“Sooyoung and I came up with a new tech we think will be able to get us access to their security system.” Charts and graphs and diagrams filled up the screen in a mirrored image from her laptop. “It’ll cloak itself as part of their mainframe and bounce back the zero’s and one’s I need to finally get in. We tried it on an embassy and it worked, but their security is nowhere near what we’ll be dealing with.”
“But we’re confident.” Sooyoung lifted a hand.
Sunny high-fived her. “Eighty-nine percent confident.”
“What’s the other eleven percent?”
Sunny shrugged to Tiffany’s question. “Their system could fry our gadget and we’ll have to start from scratch.”
“Or do it the old undercover and break-in way.” Sooyoung flashed Yoona a smile. The memory of her in drag popped to mind. Now that she thought of it, it wasn't even that good of a disguise. She scoffed.
Tiffany turned to the head of the table. “Taeng. What do you think?”
“I trust Sunny.”
“Hey.”
“And Soo.” She smiled at Sooyoung’s playful finger gunshots at her. “Tiffany, explain the operation.”
Her tablet emerged to take over the projector screen. The entire plot went up and Yoona reviewed it as Tiffany explained. "Sooyoung will be on rooftop to get us our ears while Sunny will be on the ground to make sure we get us our eyes. A few Z1 executives will be there. Tiffany and I will pose as another business to see if they'll take us behind the scenes as well as get a visual on the type of on foot security they have. We might be able to get an insight of their floorplan to see how many levels down they're conducting the project.”
“How do we even know they're doing this at Ion?” Yoona interrupted.
“All the biology has to be conducted at Ion because they have the labs for it. It would draw too much attention to cart hazardous materials from their facility to Z1 then it is to ship the tech into Ion.”
It made sense.
“Yoona,” Tiffany continued, “you'll go inside to help Sunny since she'll be stationary in the van making sure all of our connections work. Kwon will be there. What will benefit us is if you can get to her files. It'll help us know if she's in on the project or not."
Yoona nodded. "I can probably get a keycard."
"Sunny, will that be enough?" asked Taeyeon.
"For top level it is. Any access to the labs has stronger security. I'll be able to know what type once I get into their system."
Sooyoung agreed, arm stringing over the back of Yoona’s chair. “Even if we can’t get visual, audio will be better than nothin’. I’ll get things configured as fast as I can.”
"Sooyoung’s right,” said Taeyeon before turning to Yoona. “Anything you can get us, we'll use."
"You got it, boss."
“Anything else?” asked Sunny booting down her laptop.
Tiffany motioned to Yoona. “I need Im to stay back with me.”
Taeyeon nodded. "Set your watches. We'll reconvene in four hours.”
-/-/-/-
She waited on the couch in the lounge area, poking a the sand in a large, zen garden set on the center of the coffee table. Tiffany emerged a few moments later, dressed down to trainer tights and a sports bra that showed off the flatness of her taut stomach.
"Change."
Yoona caught the bushel of clothes tossed at her. A pair of sweatpants and a simple muscle tee unrolled in her hands. Undoing her jeans, she began to change.
“How’s Juhyun?”
The use of Seohyun’s given name was more of a shock than the sudden question. No one called her that or asked about her but herself. How could they? No one knew she was there and no one but doctors and now the cube knew of her condition.
"She’s back in the hospital."
"How severe is it?”
Yoona shrugged. "Nothing we can’t handle.”
"We'll help you. We're doing this for her, too."
Yoona’s jaw tightened. She’d heard that line too much. At the end of the day, when this was all over, Tiffany and the others would be no more than those people she once knew. All they were was a vehicle to get to the destination Yoona hoped to arrive. They may be part of the journey, but they were just hitchhikers picked up in the middle who offered their two cents for a new tank of gas.
"Thanks, but I've taken care of it."
Changed, she followed Tiffany through another door into a smaller room adjacent to the main cube room. Mats laid out along the floor with weights and exercise machines against the wall. A punching bag hung back in a corner beside a rack of different sized gloves. Mirrors mounted on an opposite wall glared their shadows back at her until Tiffany flicked on the overhanging lights that lit up half their faces.
"This is where you say, 'welcome to my sanctuary'."
Tiffany eyed her with a hint of a smile. "Welcome to the diamond."
That was close enough of cooperation for Yoona.
"Do you have any fight training?"
War flashbacks of judo practice when she was eight hit her. That lasted about three months until she begged her dad to take her out. He did much to her mother's relief.
“None. Teach me your ways, sensei."
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “I learned quickly self-defense classes taken as a teenager weren’t enough for this lifestyle. After the incident, I made all of us take up to a certain level of combat training.”
“What incident?”
Tiffany shook her head and handed Yoona a roll of tape for her hands.
“I hope you never have to use this teaching, but it’s good to know. For your protection and the ones around you."
Yoona taught herself her own things for reasons just the same. Fighting wasn't one of them. She relied more on wit and deception to avoid and get out of tight situations. Remembering the way Sooyoung easily overpowered her and put her on the floor at the club suddenly put her lack of skill into perspective. She had a mouth, but she was unmatched against Sooyoung's gun and Tiffany's reflexes. That night could've been her end.
Stepping onto the mat, she stood opposite Tiffany who tied back her hair. Yoona didn't take her for a fighter. She was built small and walked with a back so straight you could skewer her perfectly through. She wouldn’t doubt her, though. All of the members had a sharpened skill set in something that made Yoona seem like a novice.
"Hit me."
“What?”
“Hit me.”
She wasn’t ready, but Tiffany was waiting. Yoona threw a punch. It landed on Tiffany's face, snapping her neck sideways. She didn't even blink.
"Again."
She swung. Tiffany dodged and countered with a swift fist into Yoona's stomach. She groaned out of surprise.
"Again."
Another attack and another counter. Two jabs hit her square in the gut and Yoona backed up, hand up to signal her need for a second. Tiffany let her have it, eyes staring down her nose at Yoona who held herself up on her knees. She didn’t know what was more intimidating, Tiffany in a business suit or Tiffany poised to fight.
“Ready?”
No, but Yoona nodded anyway. She stood up, fist up to block. Tiffany came at her quick. She threw one fake and one punch. Yoona was lucky enough to block a few of them, but the ones that hit her skin stung.
A knee blindsided her and Yoona lost her balance as it collided with her hip.
“Your last encounter with Kwon, what was it for?”
Yoona grunted and got back to her feet. “What do you think?”
"I didn’t get a report. For every meet up you have to report back to Taeyeon or me. If not, your motives look suspicious. We can't have that."
"I knew you were kinky, but this is a next level perv if you want me to spell out all the orgasmic details."
Tiffany rushed forward and Yoona dodged. She left her back open. Hands grabbed her quickly. One arm wrapped around her neck from behind while the other secured her arms at her sides.
“I’ve been there,” Tiffany hissed. She tightened her chokehold. “I know how hard it can be to carry the worries of someone you care about along with the pressures of an assignment. I put you on Kwon because I thought you could handle it - that you could put personal matters aside.”
She struggled to get the words out. "I do put them aside.”
Yoona jabbed her elbow into TIffany's side. Once, twice, three times.
She released her.
Yoona gasped for air, hands on her throat.
But she didn’t have time to catch a breather.
She ducked a swing. Tiffany was fast. She kept on her toes, bouncing. Her eyes constantly moved, staying focused and calculated. She looked lethal despite her outward appearance. Yoona knew better than to generalize someone by how they looked. It was always what lie beneath it all that held the truth.
"She’s weakening every day."
She really hated it when others talked about Seohyun.
"Seohyun's strong."
"You're not."
"I'm holding us together."
"You can barely hold yourself together."
Yoona charged for her. Tiffany easily pivoted out of the way and kicked her leg into her back. Yoona stumbled, knee hitting the mat for a second. She bounced back up. She wasn’t going to let Tiffany take control of her that easily. She was in control.
“Weak.”
Yoona sneered. “Get off my back, Hwang.”
“Attack me!”
She tried again, getting close enough to Tiffany to swing. She was sloppy in comparison, arms flying in uncoordinated jabs that Tiffany blocked easily, one right after another.
“She’ll die, Im.”
“No, she won’t.” Yoona punched.
Tiffany blocked. “And there’s nothing you can do.”
She put her all into the next hit. It struck Tiffany so hard in the face she stumbled backward. Yoona used the moment to strike again. She readied herself to take another blow at her stupid face, but she wasn’t thinking of any other part.
Tiffany ducked and her foot snapped out, knocking the wind right from her stomach. Yoona went sprawling. The force of the ground pushed what little breath remained in her out when her back banged against the mat.
She wanted to get up, but the lack of oxygen kept her down. She wheezed as weight fell over her, pinning her to the ground. Tiffany was on her, hands gripping her wrists and bolting them to the floor beside her head before they could lash out.
“Get. Off. Me.” Yoona jerked upwards.
She got loose only for hands to slam her back down. Her head bounced on the mat. Hard.
“You proved my point.”
“Fuck you,” she wheezed.
Like the strike of a cobra, Tiffany slapped her and immediately pinned her wrist back down.
“Be quiet.”
Yoona swallowed down the words she wanted to spit. She didn’t want to be struck again. Not when her head was spinning and throbbing. She was smarter than this. She needed to get herself together. Use her damn head - something that she always lost a little when Seohyun was brought into the mix.
She hated the fact Tiffany exploited her weakness like that. She hated the fact she allowed Tiffany to use it and win with her weakness like that.
“Don’t move,” Tiffany commanded. When she realized she wasn’t going to do anything, she stood up to tower over her. Tiffany spoke softly but curtly. “You're not just here because you're good at what you do. You're also here because you have a reason to succeed. Just like us. The only difference between you and us is that there's still hope of saving the one you're protecting. You can keep shutting us out or you can allow us to carry some of your weight with you.”
"Are you a con artist or are you a shrink?" Because the last time she checked, this wasn’t what she signed up for. She wanted the opposite - to be left alone.
“We’ve all been there!” Tiffany snapped. She caught her own temper and relaxed, hiding whatever that tiny show of vulnerability was quick. “We know how one slip can ruin everything. I won’t allow that. I won’t allow you to mess this up. The deeper we get, the less room for error we have. I need you at your best, Im.”
Yoona knew that. Tiffany was preaching to the choir.
“Sounds like someone has their own issues to deal with, huh, Steph?”
A foot snapped into Yoona's jaw.
The force rolled her onto her stomach. She coughed, letting saliva taint the mat beneath her. The arms she held herself up on gave out. Her body was aching and spent. She wasn’t strong enough to get up and make another move. She didn’t have the will to get back to her feet only to be brought down again. She was no match. She could do nothing. She was powerless.
Tiffany was right. She hated that she was.
Yoona felt tears well up in her eyes. She be damned to let them fall in front of her.
“There’s a shower through that door. Take it easy the next hour.”
Her teeth gritted in attempts to hide the tremble of her voice. “Go to hell.”
Placing a towel beside Yoona’s head, Tiffany stalked off.
The door banged shut behind her.
-/-/-/-
"You're alive."
Yoona rolled her eyes and slid the van door shut. The right side of her face was numb from the icepack she’d had against it all day. Tiffany’s kick was bad, but the swelling was even worse. Luckily it went down enough for her not to look like a puffy faced hamster anymore. She couldn’t say the same about the bruises on the other parts of her body.
“How does it look?” she asked, dropping into the chair next to Sunny.
The back of the van was gutted to accommodate screens and equipment with a privacy window sectioning off the front seats. It was like the setup plucked out of a crime movie right into real life.
“Better than Soo looked the first time. You’ve got a hard head.” Sunny knocked on her forehead with her knuckles. Yoona glowered though she found the gesture enduring.
"What put the log up her ass anyway?"
Sunny blew a long breath past her lips. "She wasn't always like that. Believe it or not, you never used to be able to shut her up. She had one of the loudest laughs. We would have to leave her behind on some assignments because one joke and she'd blow our cover. She even used to bake. Shit at it, but she tried.”
"What turned her goo into crust?"
Sunny's expression faltered. "She...there’s a lot that happened."
Cryptic. Yoona pursed her lips. The complete shift in Sunny’s body language kept Yoona from pressing for more. She could tell there was something being kept from her. She could tell it the same way she could with Tiffany.
"Where do you fall in all of this?"
"I'm one of the original recruits. The government doesn’t really like hacktivist. Go figure,” she snorted. “There were a few of us. The cops caught one and promised a shorter sentence if he named the rest of the ring. Taeng came to visit me in jail a few months later. I knew who she was - she was younger and wilder back then. I wanted out so I volunteered for the benefits of staying off the radar and she posted bail.”
Yoona didn't understand Taeyeon at all. “You trusted her?”
“Hell no, but I’d pick bozos over bars any day. I was going to stick around for a while, build up a base, and ditch once I found someplace new. In that time, I figured out that Taeng was alright.”
“What about Tiffany?” All Yoona knew was that she was carted off to Korea and Taeyeon worked her voodoo magic to reel her in. Considering how far up Taeyeon’s ass she was, Yoona knew there had to be more.
“She was after me. Their friendship comes from family ties more than the con. The Kim’s sort of raised her when she got here. Her father, he’s a busy man. You can fill in the blanks. You could say Tiffany feels indebted to them. She’s lost a lot, too, and when everything happened...she kind of....”
“Went Jekyll to Hyde.”
Sunny paled. Yoona knew that look. The one where you played back every painful moment all at once. Yoona was sorry she struck that chord. These girls were much like her, pasts forever haunting them.
"It’s almost time to move in,” said Sunny, switching them back into comfortable territory. “Are you ready?"
"Suit me up."
Sunny smiled and spun her chair to snatch something off the desktop. A tiny, black rounded piece was handed Yoona’s way.
"Put that in your ear. You'll be able to hear and talk to me and the others at all times."
Sunny held up a small, clear tube attached to the prongs of a plug except one of them was hollow. Inside was a tiny coil like a wire. When she shook it, the coil began to unravel and wiggle.
"This is a nematode. Find an outlet and insert this vermin tech right inside. It'll travel through the electric currents and attach itself to the mainframe. If successful, they should be able to bounce a semi-cracked script of the security coding back to me. It'll be enough to tap into a few of their cameras."
"Will it work?"
"By my eye bags, it better work." Sunny dropped the tube into Yoona’s purse and tapped it. "You're equipped with a taser, pepper spray, car keys, ID and cards, a transmitter for the radio, and a pack of gum."
"Peppermint?"
"Wintergreen. Don't chew it. It has an enzyme in it that triggers severe nausea."
Yoona dropped it right back in. "For enemy use only."
“Tiffany left a car for you in the back lot. Just hit the clicker and it'll beep for you to find when you’re ready to go." Sunny gave her a pat on the back. "You're all set. Go get'em.”
-/-/-/-
The Ionic Building of Science was much bigger than Yoona remembered. She walked in like the others, blending with the crowd. Kiosk outlined the lobby staffed by workers in business suits with their display screens, pamphlets, and practiced smiles. Most of the visitors were dressed the same with a few locals wandered in off the sidewalk. A group of university kids, mimicking the look of professionals, clumped close by their professor.
Across the room, she saw Taeyeon, blonde hair covered by a black wig. Beside her was Tiffany, hair in a bun and tortoise shell glasses pretending to be her assistant. Her eye caught Yoona’s for a second before turning away. Her makeup was flawless. It would have to be to cover up the bruises Yoona knew she left on her face.
A banner held Zero1’s logo over a station with a large monitor and table spread with tiny models of devices that looked like cellphones. Yoona wandered over to it, joining the small group that stood by listening to the man speaking from behind the table until he was done.
The crowd began to mumble and mingle about the product once his presentation ended. Yoona was about to go when a body showed up at her side. Yuri cut her a dry look.
"President Kwon.”
Her attention turned to the man behind the table, returning his bow. "Mr. Park.”
"Thank you for allowing us a spot in your showcase." God, they sounded fake as hell.
"My pleasure." She turned to Yoona. "Find anything interesting?”
“It’s all very impressive.”
Yuri's cheek twitched. “If you like this then you should see what's on display at table seven. I’ll show you."
She expertly steered Yoona away without breaking her plastered smile. They merged with the rest of the crowd, letting the flow of spectators take them across the room and their joint voices shield their words.
“What’re you doing here?”
She threw Yuri's last words right back at her. “I wanted to see you."
Yuri's glare held no strength.
“You’re not going to run me out, are you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Good. I like seeing President Kwon in action. Sexy.”
Yuri side-eyed her. “Does your mouth know no filter?”
“You didn’t seem to mind that night.”
Red blazed along Yuri’s neck. Something poked her arm it was a keycard. "Room A104. I'll meet you there in five minutes."
Yuri sauntered away, hand tossing her hair so it hid the blush yet to fade from her skin.
"That was easier than expected,” Sooyoung spoke into her earpiece.
"You shouldn't doubt the power of my charm."
“You need something to compensate for your lack of ass.”
“It’ll take more than a microscope to find yours.”
“Ladies. Focus.” Tiffany hissed.
Sunny’s chuckling entered the line. “Now's your chance, Yoona. Go."
She weaved through the masses, head swiveling and eyes moving like any interested spectator. She read the signs on the wall, finding the right hallway and snuck around the corner. She glanced back, checking for security before ducking beneath a stanchion and hurrying to the room marked 104.
Waving the card in front of the sensor, the locks released and she stepped in.
It was a small space set up like a meeting room. Navy colored blinds held sunlight from the windows giving the interior a tint of blue. Yoona went to the closest wall in search of an outlet. None.
"Find one?"
"Not yet."
She hurried to the opposite wall. None. What sort of meeting room didn’t have-
"Kwon's headed your way," Tiffany whispered. "You have fifteen seconds."
"Pick it up, Bambi."
She hit the most back wall where a podium was shoved into the corner. She pushed it aside. Bingo.
"Yoon-"
"Found it.”
Sifting through her purse, she snatched the nematode and dropped to her knees. Stabbing the prongs into the socket, it sparked. The worm inside came to life, uncoiling to its full length before rushing into the outlet.
"Done."
"Yoona?"
She shot to her feet. Dizziness hit her at the speed and she blinked it away, pushing on a smile.
"Keycard, please."
Handing it back, Yuri swiped it through a small slit on the lock device so that numbers shined on the backing. Punching in a code, the numbers flashed red then went away.
"Fancy security." She'd have to figure out another way to pocket the keycard and get that code.
"I’m still getting used to it." Yuri moved to the far side of the room so she was out of eye line of the door window. Yoona followed. “You can’t come here like this.”
She laid it on thick. "I couldn’t stop thinking about you."
"Awww." Sunny giggled into her ear followed by Sooyoung’s gag.
It took everything in Yoona not to react.
"We can't do this,” Yuri sighed.
Yoona sank down to sit on the table. "Why not?"
"Because I'm-"
"-Always being watched. So what? You and I both know what happened wasn’t a mistake.”
Yuri faltered. She slumped against the wall, eyes refusing to meet Yoona's. Anything she'd say to counter Yoona would be empty considering. Yuri had her chance to shut her down, cut her off, kick her out. She was too telling in her actions. They spoke the truth against her words. And Yuri knew it.
"Like you said, loneliness breeds desperation."
Yoona smirked. "Desperation doesn't kiss like that."
“Why’re you doing this?”
She looked truly conflicted. Yoona almost felt bad for having to press into her so hard. But if she had to be honest with herself, she enjoyed this. She enjoyed getting under Yuri's skin. She enjoyed seeing her slowly fall little by little.
“I can’t help it.” Yoona slipped off the desk. She took a step forward. "Not when I’m near you.”
Yuri pinched her eyes shut. "You're playing with my head."
"You're playing with my heart.”
Yoona closed the distance between them. Yuri had nowhere to go and no other choice but to let Yoona trap her against the wall all over again. Hands smoothed landed on Yuri’s waist and smoothed along her curves.
"Don't throw me out,” Yoona cooed. There was only weak resistance as she pulled her off the wall enough for their bodies to touch. “Not yet. Not before you've had a chance to try."
Yuri’s fist rested against Yoona’s shoulders keeping her from closing in too quickly. "You’re not the first to say any of this.”
Foreheads pressed together. "Who says I can't be the last?"
Saying those words did something to Yoona. They sounded like lines plucked right off the page of a sappy, cliche, romance novel, but they were loaded. She saw the question hit Yuri hard. Yoona’s chest twinged. She might be the one playing with Yuri’s head, but she was also the real one playing with hearts. There was no way to completely detach herself from the entire situation. Not when Yuri was looking at her with those timid, expectant, lidded eyes. Yoona couldn’t remember the last time someone genuinely looked at her that way.
"You don't understand. This is hard for me.” Yuri dropped her head away.
Yoona drew her gaze back with a finger hooked beneath her chin. "Let me soften you."
She pressed their lips together. Yuri’s appetite was far less in comparison to that night, but she still took the bait. Nice and slow and easy. She ate up the kiss with a gentleness that Yoona liked only from her. It made her feel like she was being slow dipped into hot wax.
Yoona pressed in deeper, hands slicing down to take Yuri into her palms.
"No, no. Not here." Yuri removed Yoona's hands and returned them to her back.
“I want you.”
Yuri whimpered. “God, Yoona. You can’t do this to me right now.”
“I want to do everything to you right now.”
She kissed at Yuri’s jawline. Her neck craned back giving Yoona access to the soft skin there. She nipped soft enough not to leave a mark but hard enough so Yuri could feel the little pricks of sensation. A hand cupped her cheek, leading her back to plump lips.
"Come tonight,” Yuri breathed into the kiss. She ran a hand through her hair. Yoona loved the way it felt to have nails graze along her scalp.
“When?”
"Eight o'clock."
“I’ll be there.”
Like second nature, she leaned in to kiss her once more. Yoona started to wonder where the act began and she ended. She didn't know. All she knew was that pretending to fall quickly for Yuri was easy and kissing her with breathless, inducing depth was easier.
"I'll go first."
Yuri pulled out of her hold, fixing her clothes back into order before she left.
“Good job you no good, dirty fox.”
Yoona laughed but on the inside she was pulsing. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
-/-/-/-
She dressed to match the class of the car she drove. Tiffany left it to her so she didn’t feel any guilt taking it on something deemed business (and she didn't feel bad for using up the tank before returning it after that brawl either).
“Kwon residence.”
“Minho, it’s me. Again.”
The door opened a second later showing Minho in the frame.
“Miss Kwon stepped out for a moment.”
“I can wait.” She went to step inside, but Minho kept her from advancing. "It's okay. She's expecting me."
He frowned. "Now isn't the best-"
“Yul?”
Yoona peered over Minho’s shoulder. Jessica Jung looked as if she’d stepped right out of a fashion magazine depicting the latest in sexy, chic, business wear.
Reluctantly, Minho moved aside to let her in. Yoona glanced at him knowing all too well what he was thinking. One slip and she could mess this up for Yuri even if Jessica was keen on what team Yuri batted for. She doubted an escort was something anyone wanted to flaunt around and introduce to business partners. She was glad there was a coat covering the black, sequin dress she wore just for Yuri's wandering eyes.
“Oh. Hello.” Jessica smiled with perfect poise. Her voice was high but dignified. Her makeup pronounced but clean. She embodied everything that those pictures said about her - chic, classy, collected, and cold.
Yoona straightened her back. “Hi.”
“I didn’t know Yuri was expecting other guests.”
“I’m family, actually.”
Jessica’s eyebrows lifted. “Beauty is genetic.”
“The papers don’t do you justice.”
“The media is kind to no one.” She combed a hand through her glossy, honey blonde hair, pearly whites beaming in a haughty smile poorly cloaked in humility. “Are you her…”
“Cousin." She saw Minho eye her from where he hovered at the end of the stairway. "I don’t get to visit often now that I live in China.”
"Hen gao xing ren shi ni.”
Yoona responded without a beat, "Wo ye shi."
Jessica smiled. Yoona passed her test. She thanked Fast Fingers Fei for those mandarin lessons at the club ages back.
“Should we wait in the parlor, Mr. Choi?” Her voice was so sugary when she addressed him. Yoona cringed at the cavity she felt forming in her molars.
"Right this way."
Yoona couldn't help but remember her first night with Yuri in here. She hid her smirk with a polite smile when Jessica sat on the couch where Yuri planted those first, tipsy, needy kisses on her arm. She felt a sense of pride knowing Jessica probably hadn't even gotten that much from her. But who was she to be jealous?
"How long are you in town for?"
Yoona hated small talk. She hated deliberate prying, information grabbing small talk even more. "A few days. Yuri's kind enough to let me stay with her. More room."
"You could get lost in here."
"Minho's had to call search and rescue on me more than once."
Jessica gave a fake laugh, hands folding over a crossed knee. Yoona glanced down. She squinted in the dim light. There was something off.
The sounds of a garage opening and closing creaked through the walls. Alarm system chimes rang and Yuri entered in followed by her in the flesh. She pause at the entrance to the parlor, surprise coloring her face when she saw Jessica and Yoona both stand at her arrival.
“Chairman Jung.”
“Welcome home.”
“I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I dropped by since you hadn’t returned my calls.”
Yoona could see why Yuri would want to avoid her. The woman was frightening stunning and seductively conniving. Not once did Yoona put her guard down and not once did Jessica stop analyzing her every move.
“I hope you haven’t waited long.”
“Oh, no. Your cousin has been humoring me.”
The only show of confusion Yuri gave was the shift of her eyes in Yoona’s direction.
“She’s good at that,” she went along. Yoona relaxed.
“Should I return another time? I don’t want to come between family affairs.”
“No, no, stay. I’ll have Minho start some tea and we can talk.”
“I’ll only take a bit of your time." Jessica turned to Yoona. "Is that okay with you?"
“Yeah, go. Talk business. Don’t mind me. I’ll wait upstairs and grab a shower?”
Yuri nodded. “Go ahead.”
“It was nice meeting you, Chairman.”
“And you.”
Yoona hit the stairs and skipped up to the east room. Waiting a few minutes, she wandered into the washroom and turned on the shower for show and dropped onto the bed. Her heart was racing. She didn't know if it was because of her own cover almost being blown or worry that Yuri would ask her to leave after being put at risk with Jessica. She wanted neither. She wanted the latter even less.
Taking off her coat, Yoona wandered across the room. She needed some air to cool the nervous sweat on her back.
Unlatching the tall, balcony doors, she left them open and walked out into the night. It was dark on the side of this estate. Far off were the lights of twinkling like distant stars. She was reminded of a night with Seohyun, curled up on a blanket on top of a hill.
"Do you see that space between those stars? If I die, that's where I'll be so when you look up you'll still find me."
"You'll always be with me. Here."
"To infinity."
"And beyond."
A shadow emerged on her left. Yoona blinked away the needles of tears. Thinking of Seohyun like that pricked her heart lately. Tiffany was right to challenge her. She was barely holding on now that Seohyun was in this stage. She wasn't that strong.
"I used to come out here after fights with my dad,” said Yuri. Her voice was smooth and steady but dynamic against the quiet. “I would stare at the city and tell myself there was somewhere better out there. I never wanted to be part of this. I was my father's insurance policy - an easy plug if something went wrong. I never thought it would happen and now I'm stuck."
"Me too." However, the best place to Yoona was a place stuck with Seohyun. She was already there.
Yuri sighed, eyes blinking away from the lights down to her hands that hung over the railing. “I'm sorry for Jessica. I didn't know she'd be here."
“I hope what I did was okay. I kept it family so she wouldn’t get jealous.”
Yuri blinked. “Jealous?”
“She was flirting with you, Yul."
Yuri's mouth parted in surprise. She shook it off, but the color in her cheeks remained. "You're mistaken."
"Her eyes were all over you.”
"You're teasing me."
"You like the thought of it."
"I like the thought of shutting you up with a kiss right now more."
"What are you-"
Yoona liked kissing Yuri, but there was something electrifying about Yuri kissing her first. The way her hand always cupped her face, pulling her in and holding her in place made Yoona smile against her mouth. She drew Yuri in with a hand behind her neck that slipped down to her shoulders.
"You're tense."
"She winds me up.” Yuri hummed when Yoona began to massage her shoulders.
"Not what I want to hear when you're kissing me."
She chuckled. "I’m sorry...and I'm sorry for what I said that morning."
As much as Yoona hated to admit, that left a sour taste in her mouth. Her pride may or may not have been a little hurt that Yuri didn’t so easily give into her advances, but there was more to it than that. She felt like she was being kicked out and used. Two things she was used to but two things she didn’t want from Yuri.
"It reeked of bullshit anyway."
Yuri broke away from the kiss. She stared Yoona in the eye, foreheads still pressed together. There was clarity in her gaze, something Yoona never saw when drinks were involved. Now there was nothing in the way, not even that hesitant glint she had at the Ion Building. Yuri was open enough in that second for Yoona to look in. She didn’t know if she liked that.
"I haven't stopped thinking about you either.”
Yoona tensed. She didn’t know if she liked that either, so her mind said. The jolt in her stomach said differently. She definitely didn’t know how to feel about that or the shivers she got when Yuri’s hands smoothed down her sides.
"You're different."
"Good different?"
"Unexpectedly different." Hands snuck up her dress, palming at her ass. Subconsciously, Yoona's hips rolled forward to grind against her. “You make me want you in all the wrong ways.”
Yoona nipped at her bottom lip. “I’m liking this way.”
Yuri allowed her to claim her lips again. She'd fallen for that fleshy bottom lip, grown addicted to having it in her mouth. Yoona sucked it gently as thumbs hooked around the band of her underwear.
“This," Yuri said as she began tugging fabric down Yoona's hips, "is only one of them."
"I'd like to see the others."
Yuri grinned shyly. "In time."
"Is this you saying you're giving us a chance?" Her underwear slid down her ankles.
Yuri turned her to face out across the yard. She leaned against the railing as Yuri whispered into her ear, "This is my way of saying I don't want to be alone anymore."
Yoona's stomach twisted. She heard a whisper in the back of her mind echo Yuri's words in her own way. "I don't want to be afraid anymore."
She silenced them quickly. Now was not the time. She needed to keep the wall in place. She needed to filter Yuri into the part of her that could easily be broken away. She didn't need her getting deeper into her head, opening up tiny doors in parts of Yoona left dusty and untouched.
"You're a romantic aren't you, President?"
The sides of her dress inched up. Yoona shivered as cold air hit her bare thighs and chilled the moisture between her legs.
"Hopelessly."
A hand eased her forward so she bent over the metal bar. The base of Yoona's stomach burned with anticipation. She hardly let anyone take control, but the way Yuri did it with such slow, sensual grace didn't make her think twice about dropping the reins.
Fingers ghosted over the swell of her ass and she shivered when Yuri placed a soft kiss right below her ear.
"I thought we could start over with this."
Knees hit cement behind her and Yoona gripped the bars. With hands on the inside of her thighs, thumbs spread her folds for a nimble tongue to glide between her legs.
All rational thinking cut off there.
Part VII
-
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-10-24 01:47 pm (UTC)yoona is definitely catching something, you don't have to like someone to be possessive, i know but there's a glimpse of something here, although i hate lying, and i kinda really hate this fictitious con for some reason because i want some yoonyul realness (at least in this story)
ugh and the other cube girls... my gosh you're making them feel so damaged, i mean, i don't know but it makes me sad that something whatever it was changed happy fatini into this harder person. i don't know but when she kicked yoona in the face.... wow!
okay well bye see you at the next updations!
no subject
Date: 2015-10-30 09:56 pm (UTC)My poor cube bbys :( They’ve been through a lot and about to go through so much more. lol O almost took out that smack in the face but had to keep it in because i’m cruel :3
See you soon
wow 2
Date: 2015-10-24 10:22 pm (UTC)i really really want to see the pov of yuri, especially after getting together with yoona two more times. i don't know what she's thinking about her relationship with yoona. it could create a deeper understanding of both sides. But i get that you want to keep this writing style, and tbh it's not that bad. i think what made bloodline special was the dual-perspective of yoona and yuri that you gave us. just a friendly suggestion :3
seo's really going to die, it seems. i can just imagine yoona walking in and find her dead on the ground. i'm going shopping for kleenex soon. XP
i really like what you did with tiffany. sure, beating up yoona was just brutal and cruel, but i could understand why she was doing that. your tactic worked; I'm really curious about tiff's past now. i like all of the cube crew, but tiffany's just magical here. i hope you develop tiffany more as a character, maybe explain her past.
when will yuri find out what yoona's up to? hmm...
get out jessica, i want my SSS Yoonyul. SSS YulSic crashed into the wrong harbor. XD maybe yoonyul will run away from sica together. lol
mandarin comes in handy for the first time in reading a Kpop fanfic. thanks, mom. XD
"很高興認識你" (nice to know you)
"我也是" (me too)
will yoona betray the cube or yuri? i can't really tell at this point. enlighten me, pls.
see you next update!
silent reader from yesterday (lol)
Re: wow 2
Date: 2015-10-30 10:06 pm (UTC)Oh Yuri’s POV would be an interesting take, but it’s Yoona’s head that guides everything. It’s a story about Yoona completely as opposed to Bloodline where they both needed to drive the narrative. I think Yuri speaks in volumes in what she does more than she says. You’ll get to see a different side of her in the next chapter. Might get you into Yuri’s head a little more.
Is Seo going to die? I dunno~~~
Tiffany my special girl <3 we see her so much but no little. She’s Taeyeon’s second, mother died, part of a rich family, once a cheery person. No worry. I won’t keep Taeyeon or Tiffany a secret too much longer :)
Yuri will never find out :o hahahaha your distaste and your love for yoonyul is amusing /cackles/. I’ll see you next chapter. It’ll be a fun one
no subject
Date: 2015-10-25 01:30 am (UTC)EH??? MORE SINGING FOR YOU.
I read this at like 7:30 in the morning. GAHHHHH SO MUCH HAPPENED AND I STILL DIDN'T WANT IT TO END. Awesome chapter, so let’s get on it. >:))
THE FIRST SCENE. Boxxybutt, I am such a fan of morning after scenes. After a couple of ladies expressed their passion and the world’s calmed down to this…awkward conversation and hunger. :333 It’s also romantic and sexy how Yoona sneaks in tidbits about the sex. Good on her. I loved that.
Omggg this is like, your kind of fluff. Heh.
Yoona’s “I felt something last night”. Hmmmmmmmm. Dangerous for both her and Yul, tbh..
Minho, though. I await his tell-all book.
JESSICA (and Soojung yey) MENTIONED. >:((( I HAVE BEEF WITH YOU. BECAUSE I’M ROOTING FOR YOONYUL (and YoonFany still I mean Fany in a sports bra with Yoona is beautiful). I CANNOT HAVE THIS WOMAN INFRINGING. BECAUSE…
BECAUSE……
JESSICA SOUNDS SO HOT. I’M HAVING A HARD TIME JUST…I REREAD HER PARTS LIKE, “DAYUMMMMM SO SEXY D:” And YoonSic talked and I grumbled because they won’t hook up.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Yoona’s mission to install the nematode was so cool. I was like, “HURRY, BISH.” Then, YoonYul got smexy again and I was like, “DO ‘ER, BISH.”
Seohyun’s back in the hospital and supa duper fighter Stiffany’s hiding a really tragic past from Yoona. D: Siiiiigh. Foreboding, foreboding…I wonder what happened to my precious Fany.
Oh, and I’ve been intrigued: "Wintergreen. Don't chew it. It has an enzyme in it that triggers severe nausea.”—OMG. THIS WILL BE USED, WON’T IT? BLESS. I CAN’T WAIT.
Back to hot Jessica. Ya know, some of the imagery you put out there is similar to my WIP…<.< now I gotta change some shizz.
THIS COMMENT’S RUNNING LONG. THAT LAST SCENE WAS SO HOT I CAN’T EVEN. EXCEPT FOR YUL SAYING THAT SHE’S WOUND UP BY ANOTHER WOMAN. THAT AIN’T RIGHT. SHE MADE UP FOR IT. Unnnnnffffffff
THERE. This message is a mess. It's a MESSage. Yes, I edited again *just* to add that pun.
READY FOR THE NEXT, BOXXYHEAD. :DD
no subject
Date: 2015-10-30 10:12 pm (UTC)Okay you’re a fan of morning after scenes but omg let me tell you! On my reread of ghost, the morning after jeti’s first get down is so great? like it’s so yummy. omg unf. you’re great.
Fluff what? I don’t have no fluff in me <_< Yoona says and does a lot of dangerous things. I’d buy Minho’s book. You’re always falling for Jessica or Tiffany ^_^ I’ll take this as a success. But ayy yoonsic…you’ll see them again /shifty eyes/. So. Much. Foreboding. Trust no bitch. Hide you kids, hide yo wives. No one is safe out there. Dang it you mentioned the gum hahaha I actually forgot about it going forward with writing, but now that you’e mentioned it I bet I could slip in its use cause lol how funny would that be? “MESSage.” OKay, Checksfany imma leave you at that bye
YAAAS (06)!
Date: 2015-10-26 03:07 am (UTC)Sicaboo finally makes an appearance! She's so tenacious about trying to build ties with PresKwon. Love the fact that her exec asst is babyjung! They got each other's backs. Also, she's fluent in Chinese (and Yoong responded flawlessly) -- very nice!
And OMG Tiff is a brawler! StepHo ain't got time for untrained newbs with emotional target points. Boxxxxxxxx, these continual hints about "the incident" and how it changed the crew are killlllllling me (in a good way)! I'm looking forward to finding out what exactly went down.
Thank you for the update, Boxx! Can't wait till the next!
Re: YAAAS (06)!
Date: 2015-10-30 10:16 pm (UTC)So many hints dropped I’m surprised no one’s made the connections yet. However…some of the hints you’d have to squint for. Sort of…you’ll find out soon :D I can’t wait to get to that chapter ayyyy
See you son, bud
no subject
Date: 2015-10-26 08:31 am (UTC)I CAN'T HANDLE ALL THE THEORIES.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-30 10:17 pm (UTC)TELL ME YOUR THEORIES! :D
no subject
Date: 2015-10-27 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-30 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-30 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-28 08:43 pm (UTC)Boxxy.. please dont kill why Seo serious. ;.;.;.;.;.;.; my kokoro is hurting.
I want the Yoonhyun but i also want the Yoonyul. Why is life unfair?
Ugh! Mysterious
mafialeader Kim Taeyeon please stop being so akdjksjd. #thirstaeAlso, QUEEN JESHKA! Feisty little thing. Thats is all.
I'll keep my eyes open for the Dibidibidis.. suspicious bodyguard is suspicious.
And that ending scene!!!!! I'm screaming at dom!Yul. Baby girl knows how to werk it.
btw, most of my comments are like this, a mess, an utter mess ;_;Good day.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-30 10:20 pm (UTC)Keep your eyes on all them hoes
Your messy comments are life :3 thank you
From the person in love with your mind
Date: 2015-10-29 03:49 am (UTC)Let's start with the main thing I want to say before I get lost in my own thoughts:
I like how you started breaking down Yoona's defenses one by one. starting from that semi emotional break-down and slip of rationale on the last chapter and here with Yoona not being unable to get back the same level of indifference she had on the previous chapters. She thinks she's a lone wolf but she looks more like a snarling lost little puppy now, trying to scare off people using her cute little paws. Can't blame her for being in denial that needs other people though. She's so used to shouldering everything all by herself. After her father died, not only did she has to be strong for both her and Seohyun, but also she has to carry all this emotional burden from that night of the 'accident'. Add that to the things that came after: Seohyun being sick, them always needing to move places and the lack of another company to vent out to; all those those she had to endure while pretending to be alright in front of Seo. After going through all that, it must have been hard to let other's in, especially if that also means accepting that she's not as strong as she thought she was.
I love the morning after scene so much! Calm and slow, plus I get to see how Yuri is when relaxed. Too bad it was short-lived 'cause she shifted back to that president-Yuri persona as soon as Yoona found her. Regardless, it was a refreshing scene.
And since I mentioned Yuri.
Yuri, yuri yuri you are such a yuri. Gurl, you can try to be all cold and mysterious but your actions won't fool anybody. Boxx you're doing a good job portraying Yuri this way. She says something which her actions quickly contradicts. A tsundere lol (only softer and sexier and much much much more endearing.) Also, she's like a teenager. All that blushing lololololololol. And I can't believe she actually fell for Yoona's mushy lines. No complaints about that though, I like her like this. Shy, naive and gentle. Warm, soft and dreamy, hihi. Indeed just what Yoona needed. (About the predictions I was telling you about: 1. I really think Yuri is going to die. More of this later.)
Enough of Yoona and Yuri let's go to my fave: Stiffany.
{Tiffany rushed forward and Yoona dodged. She left her back open. Hands grabbed her quickly. One arm wrapped around her neck from behind while the other secured her arms at her sides.} – me: //sweats// adfkogjadfkljvakldfjvakldfv TOO HOT LA
FANY’S SO SEXY WHILE BEATING YOONA UP! OH GOSH FANY BEAT ME UP TOO! I'LL BE QUIET, I PROMISE!
Re: From the person in love with your mind
Date: 2015-10-29 03:51 am (UTC)I love how many hints you put in Yoona's visit in the Cube this time. More for me to collect. Btw, if Taeyeon DOES have something up her sleeve, I'm gonna call this a victory. I told you before I don't trust her.
The part with the nematode was very exciting, I am 'mental'-cheering for Yoona while reading. And the part with SooNa having a convo and Stiffany ruining it, I LOVE IT. Cute cute. I broship Pipsqueak X Mantis <3
:O @ jessica finally gracing this fic. gurl u some underground princess? ur regal presence, your highness, i cannot. im expecting (more like, dreaming of) a cat fight between yoonsic, just because. action action action! im looking forward for more interaction between these two, especially in Yuri's presence and watch them fight for her attention, (im still gonna push my yulsic. im happy just to see them on the same place at the same time, even if theyre not exactly doing anything. please dont fight me.) also! JUNG SOOJUNG. i wonder what's her role gonna be. sica's runner or something? i hope she gets tangled in the mess somehow, i want to see more of her.
I wont tell much about the sexin' at the balcony scene coz adfklgjadlfkafkladfjvkdfvafv. yuri taking the reigns YES!!!!! she really is a great lover. i dont want yoona to hurt her. the fact that yoona is playing with her feelings makes me wanna pull yoona's hair.
OH oh! I SAW THE CHAP PREVIEW!!! Office sexin' next chap, omo! YoonYul are such horndogs.
Be back for second part. I need to go. Byeeeeeee.
Re: From the person in love with your mind
Date: 2015-10-30 08:00 pm (UTC)I think Taeyeon and Co. (except Soo.) were involved in Yoona's father death. Yoona's father was on the Ion case even before (maybe for a different project. He probably worked with Taeyeon's father and Co., which includes Taeyeon, Sunny and Tiffany etc) and, on some point, had used YoonHyun as cover for visiting/studying the area to avoid suspicions.
I think the best friend Taeyeon was referring to and who Sooyoung replaced 5 years ago, which was coincidentally at the same year Yoona's father died, is Taeyeon's own father; the same person Tiffany wanted to protect at the time coz he and his family treated her as their own. (Explains Taeyeon's cold treatment towards Yoong and a line being maintained between Tiffany & Taeyeon. Idk. Tiffany's relationship with Taeyeon seems more of a professional one than a friendship. The affection seems one-sided.)
Tiffany fucked up at that time; She 1.) fell in love with the target?(I thought about Yuri before; that she was also the target before. That explains why Tiff isn't the one doing the hooker act and the more detailed data gathering from the trackers. But looking at how willing Tiffany is to go at Ion with Taeyeon despite Yuri being present there, even she's in disguise, and the clues that she might have been the reason the 'incident' happened, I gave up on the idea)/2) got too involved with the target (or too attached to someone else; someone within their own circle. the attachment hindered her from doing what was expected from her) /3) basically, she let her emotions get ahead of her and that caused the whole thing to ruin.
When the assignment fucked up, Yoona's father was caught by the police, he betrayed them
(based on the treason mentioned in chap 1), causes Sunny and some others to be put in jail.
The problem is that the fact that the person who named the rest of the ring and who'll get a shorter sentence in exchange doesn't add up to the fact that nothing was mentioned about Yoona's father being in jail. Perhaps, Seo's father helped him erase all evidence so he could go out with a clean slate instead of staying in jail? IDk. Im ????? in this.
Anyway, so yeah, he got out, probably tried to pull off the heist again, following the original plan (which was Taeng or her father's idea), but this time with only Seo's father's help. He let Yoona get involved due to need for more manpower.
If they had been successful or not, i have no idea (I didn't think u clarified that already) but I have a feeling they were and whatever it is they got from it, the gun that was in Yoona's safe was involved. Maybe, the real reward was inside the gun?
What's left of Taeyeon bestfriend and Co. found out about it (all of them had trackers inside them at that time too, right? just not as detailed), planned the accident/murder of Yoona and Seo's father. Taeyeon's father was probably in one of the cars that collided with YoonHyun's pops' ride, maybe Taeyeon was there too. Idk, I keep thinking of reasons why Taeyeon don't drive and this is all I could think of.
Taeyeon picked Yoona both for revenge and to reclaim what Yoona's father 'stole' from them (since the heist WAS their idea).
Yep, that's the theory.
Don't laugh. It's hard to make one that made sense if you don't have a clear time frame of what happened when.
Baseless predictions:
1. Yuri will die and become Seo's donor.
2. I will cry rivers of tears.
So, what do you think?
Re: From the person in love with your mind
Date: 2015-10-30 10:37 pm (UTC)Yoona my little turtle. All soft and vulnerably mush on the inside with this protective shell around her. But that shell isn’t indestructible and a single crack can mess up all the vitals underneath. You’re right. She is shouldering a lot. Only time will tell until she buckles.
“Boxx you're doing a good job portraying Yuri this way. She says something which her actions quickly contradicts.” :o thank you. Not many believed me when I said Yuri was a naive puppy. She’s also very much a romantic and /genuine/ flattery to someone whose been stuck with paying for “love” gets to her so easily. She is like a teen hehe you’ll see more of that. Okay, so Yuri is going to die. You’ve figure it out!
Of course you find a could be fatal chokehold hot >_> tsk this masochistic perv. Should’ve suspected this from how much you like Behind These Walls. You no trust TaeTae? But she’s an aloof little baby D: Can’t trust anyone around here tbh. Except maybe Sooyoung. Mantis has no secrets
“ im expecting (more like, dreaming of) a cat fight between yoonsic”…..keep dreaming lololol. Soojung is Jessica’s very personal assistant. Always right hand all the time. You’ll get more of these bbys. You’ll also get more loving Yuri oh how terrible it will be if Yuri finds out about Yoona’s falsity~
—
This theory is so in depth :o how long did it take you to come up with this?? It’s good. It puts all the pieces together in an exceptional way. I can’t tell you if you’re moving in the right direction or not because I”m cruel and you’ll have to figure it out yourself. Part 7 will help you a little more….if you know what to look for ;)
“1. Yuri will die and become Seo's donor. “ makes me think of Soo dying in My Spring Days and becoming the next donor. Sigh~
Good job on this.
Re: From the person in love with your mind
Date: 2015-10-31 08:08 am (UTC)Re: From the person in love with your mind
Date: 2015-10-31 09:23 am (UTC)