Chapter Fifty-Four: Enemies For Eternity
Midnight. The kind of quiet that feels like the whole house is holding its breath. No guards shifting in the hallways. No distant hum of the security system. Just the soft, nervous thump of my own heart.
I'd waited for this. Memorized patterns. Counted steps. Junho's stupid, smug napkin map was crumpled in my pocket—half a taunt, half a challenge. If you make it to the gate, he'd said, you deserve a medal.
I was three steps from the heavy, wrought-iron gate. The cool night air kissed my face, smelling like rain and freedom. My fingers brushed the cold metal latch.
"Going somewhere, little thief?"
The voice came from the shadows to my left. Smooth. Low. And utterly, completely calm.
My blood turned to ice. I froze, my hand still outstretched, and slowly turned.
Taehyun stood just outside the pool of light from a security lamp, his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't yelling. He wasn't even scowling. He just looked… tired. And beneath the tiredness, a deep, wounded disappointment that cut deeper than any anger.
Behind him, leaning against the stone archway of the servant's entrance, was Junho. He held a glass of something amber, swirling it idly. And when my eyes met his, he had the audacity to smirk. Then, slowly, deliberately, he winked.
The betrayal was a physical blow. "You told him," I whispered, the words scraping out of my dry throat.
Junho took a slow sip. "Obviously. You really thought I'd help you run from him?" He shook his head, a mock-sad expression on his face. "Please. You're lucky I didn't superglue your shoes to the floor."
Rage, hot and humiliating, flushed through me. "Traitor."
He shrugged, the picture of casual cruelty. "Haters gonna hate, princess. I work for him, not for your misguided sense of adventure."
---
Flashback: Rooftop Truth
A few hours earlier, under a sky threatening rain…
Junho found his brother on the secluded rooftop terrace. Taehyun was staring out at the city's glittering grid, a silent sentinel. Junho didn't sit. He stood beside him, the wind tugging at their clothes.
"She's planning to run," Junho said bluntly. No greeting. No preamble.
Taehyun didn't move. "I know."
"You know?" Junho's voice was tight with frustration. "And you're just letting her plot? She'll lie. She'll wait for a shift change, or fake a headache, or say she's going to feed those demon-spawn birds she talks to. And then she'll vanish. Poof. Gone. Back to whatever ghost life she came from."
Silence. Only the distant sigh of traffic far below.
"Why don't you just let her go?" Junho pressed, the question he'd been biting back for weeks finally breaking free. "She doesn't love you. She flinches when you touch her sometimes. She looks at you like you're a puzzle she's afraid to solve. Why are you doing this? The nail polish? The libraries? The way you watch her sleep like she's the only star in your sky? Why protect someone who just wants to escape you?"
Taehyun finally looked down, studying his own hands—hands that could orchestrate violence or trace a lover's jaw with equal precision. "Because she is, Junho," he said, his voice so quiet it was almost lost to the wind.
"She is what?"
"My oxygen."
Junho scoffed, a harsh, disbelieving sound. "You've lost it. Completely."
"Maybe." Taehyun leaned back against the railing, his gaze returning to the horizon. "But you'll understand one day. Not when you fall in love. Anyone can fall. But when you drown in it. The kind of love that isn't a choice. It's a sentence. It's the ground under your feet and the air in your lungs. You can't walk away from it because it is you."
Junho stared at his brother's profile, seeing not the untouchable kingpin, but a man standing at the edge of a cliff, utterly unafraid of the fall. "What if she never loves you back?" he asked, the question softer now.
A faint, sad smile touched Taehyun's lips. "That's not love's job," he whispered. "It's mine. To protect her. To carry the weight of whatever hurt her until she forgets how heavy it is. To stand so still, so solid, that she eventually runs out of reasons to run."
Junho was silent for a long moment. The first drops of rain began to fall, cool and sparse. "You sound like one of those tragic poets in her books."
"Then let the poems bleed," Taehyun said, his voice firming with resolve. "Because when the time is right, I'll tell you everything. Every secret I keep. Every reason I breathe. Every single night I chose staying awake, watching over her, over my own peace."
Junho didn't have a reply for that. But in the quiet that followed, punctuated by the soft patter of rain, he gave a single, slow nod. An understanding. A promise. He wouldn't help her run. He'd help his brother keep her.
---
Back at the Gate
Standing caught between them, the night air suddenly felt too thin. I wrapped my arms around myself, the hoodie doing nothing against the chill of failure.
"I just wanted to remember who I was," I said, my voice small. The fight had drained out of me, leaving only a hollow ache. "I didn't mean to… to hurt you."
Taehyun stepped forward, out of the shadows and into the dim light. The disappointment in his eyes was still there, but it was softening, melting into something infinitely more painful: compassion. He reached out, and his fingers were warm as they brushed a stray strand of hair from my cheek, tucking it gently behind my ear.
"I know," he murmured.
"Then why stop me?" The question was a plea.
"Because you don't have to search for yourself in the dark anymore, little one." His thumb stroked my cheekbone, his gaze holding mine with an intensity that felt like a shelter. "You've already been found."
Behind him, Junho made a loud, exaggerated gagging sound. "Ugh. I'm gonna be sick. Can we wrap up the dramatic reunion? It's cold."
Taehyun didn't look away from me, but he tossed a set of keys over his shoulder. Junho caught them effortlessly.
"Put the gates back on full lockdown," Taehyun said, his voice returning to its usual quiet command.
Junho jingled the keys. "Fine. But if she tries to bribe me with banana milk again, I'm keeping the ransom and the milk."
---
Eternal Enemies, Unlimited Sass
The failed escape changed nothing, and everything. Junho and I settled into a state of permanent, petty warfare. It was easier than acknowledging the weird tension of almost trusting someone who'd literally held a gun to your chest.
A few afternoons later, I was curled in a sunbeam on the main living room sofa, trying to lose myself in a book of poetry Taehyun had left for me. The sun was warm, the house was quiet, and for a moment, it was almost peaceful.
Then he walked in.
Kim Junho, in all his leather-clad, perpetually annoyed glory. His hair was messy, like he'd been driving with the windows down, and he smelled like motor oil and faintly of the toast I knew he'd burnt earlier.
"You're in my spot," he announced, stopping in front of the couch.
I didn't look up from my page. "You're in my atmosphere. Do you mind?"
"It's called breathing. A biological necessity."
"Well, do it silently. Preferably in another country."
He reached down and plucked the book from my hands, holding it up. "'Odes to the Night Sky'? Really? Let me guess—you're memorizing lines to sigh dramatically next time you attempt a daring escape via the laundry chute?"
I stood up, glaring. "I will shove you down that laundry chute if you don't give that back."
He smirked, dropping the book onto the cushion. "You've got a mouth on you, I'll give you that."
"And you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon."
"You know," he scoffed, crossing his arms, "you're lucky my brother's obsessed with you. Anyone else, I'd have tossed in the cellar for less."
I stepped closer, tilting my head up to meet his eyes. "Is that how you treat all women? Or just the ones who are smarter and infinitely more pleasant to look at than you?"
He leaned in, that infuriating cocky grin spreading. "No. Just the ones who wreck my peace, steal my brother's common sense, and think banana milk is a valid bargaining tool."
"No wonder you're single," I shot back. "You see a woman and your first instinct is to profile her for hostile activity."
He was close enough that I could see the faint scar above his eyebrow. "And you walk into a room like a Disney villain who didn't get the memo that the princess gig was taken."
I gasped, fake-offended. "You wish I was a princess. Then maybe you'd have to bow."
"Respect is earned, brat. Not bought with dairy products."
"And love is clearly impossible for a man who scowls at every female like she's an unpaid debt."
Junho snorted, shaking his head as he finally took a step back. "Keep dreaming. You're like a mosquito that somehow got into the family vault. Annoying, persistent, and surprisingly hard to swat."
I narrowed my eyes. "And you're the damp, moldy patch ruining this mansion's otherwise perfect aesthetic."
Mrs. Han chose that moment to shuffle through with a basket of folded linens. She didn't break her stride, just muttered in Korean as she passed, "You two argue like an old married couple. It's exhausting to listen to."
We both swiveled towards her, identical looks of horror on our faces.
"WHAT?!"
---
Royalty Arrives (And the Mansion Loses Its Mind)
The peace—or rather, the loudly bickering stalemate—was shattered a week later by the roar of expensive engines.
From my perch on the upstairs balcony, I watched as not one, but two low-slung sports cars crunched to a stop on the immaculate gravel driveway, not bothering with the designated parking area. One was blood red. The other matte black.
"Oh, fantastic," Junho groaned, appearing beside me like a bad omen. "They're here."
"They?" I asked, watching the doors swing open.
"Brace yourself."
The first man who unfolded himself from the black car was all sharp lines and silent intensity. Black coat, black hair, eyes hidden behind sunglasses even though the sun was weak. He moved like a shadow, ignoring the guard who hurried forward, just tossing his keys at him like discarding trash. Kim Minho. He didn't say a word, heading straight for the front doors with the singular focus of a missile.
The second man, from the red car, was his opposite. He emerged with a flourish, dressed in a silk shirt the color of a pink sunrise and matching sunglasses. He held up two designer shopping bags and beamed at the house as if it were a waiting audience. "Hello, my neglected subjects!" he called out, his voice cheerful and loud. "The most handsome face of this cursed family has returned!"
Kim Jinwoo.
Chaos, it seemed, had arrived for a visit.
---
Dinner With The Demons
The formal dining table felt like a war council that night. Taehyun sat at the head, a calm island in the storm. To his right, Jinwoo held court, swirling a glass of red wine and narrating his latest international escapades as if they were an epic film.
Minho sat directly across from me, saying nothing. He just ate, his sharp eyes flicking between my face and Taehyun's, analyzing, calculating. It was deeply unsettling.
Junho was to my left, stabbing his roasted vegetables with a vengeance, radiating resentment.
"So!" Jinwoo announced, sloshing his wine a little. "Our dear, brooding devil is finally married. Tamed. Smitten. The world must be ending."
"Finish your food, hyung," Taehyun said, his tone mild but with an edge.
"I can't! This is historic. You, of all people. I had money on you dying alone in a tailored suit, hugging a customized pistol for comfort."
"He still might," Minho said quietly, not looking up from his plate. His first words of the evening landed like a stone in a pond.
I almost choked on my water.
"And you," Jinwoo turned his dazzling, mischievous smile on me. "You must be a sorceress. Have you brainwashed our stone-cold prince here? Or are you just that enchantingly irresistible?"
I recovered, offering a sweet smile. "A little of both, I think."
Junho made another gagging sound.
Minho finally set his fork down. He looked directly at me, his gaze cold and clear. "What happens," he asked, his voice soft but slicing through the chatter, "when her memories come back?"
The table went utterly silent. The playful glint vanished from Jinwoo's eyes. Junho stopped glaring at his plate and looked down. Taehyun's knuckles whitened slightly where he held his glass, his eyes fixed on the dark wine within.
All the air left the room. The question hung there, heavy and unanswerable.
All eyes turned to me.
I felt their stares—curious, wary, protective. I set my own glass down slowly. Then I looked right back at Minho, and I smiled. It wasn't a sweet smile this time. It was the smile of someone standing on the edge of a cliff, with no memory of how she got there, but with every instinct screaming to neither jump nor retreat.
To just stand her ground.
I had no answer for him. But in that moment, with the weight of the Kim family's legacy and suspicion pressing in from all sides, my silence felt like the most powerful thing in the room.