To Be or Not To Be A Family - Chapter 106

Thursday morning was a hot one. The sun was shining brighter. Young-Jae tossed and turned and went back to sleep. With all the care from In-Ho, Iseul and Ashma, Young-Jae was feeling better. His fever broke. His cough reduced, his fatigue was gone. But he wanted to sleep in today. He wanted all his energy as he knew he had to go back to the office today. Sunlight started seeping into the room but he kept his eyes closed.

He was still sleeping when In-Ho entered his room and quietly started packing his bags to go to Goseong Wanggok Village. In-Ho packed his clothes, medicines and shoes. The dress he was supposed to wear for engagement was kept on the top of the suitcase. No matter how quietly he was trying to pack there was noise. It alerted Young-Jae that someone was in his room.

“What is happening?” asked Young-Jae while squinting his eyes. She slightly raised his head to see who was inside his room.

“I am packing your clothes, sir,” said In-Ho, politely.

“We will leave tomorrow. Why are you packing today?” asked Young-Jae, yawning.

“Today is Thursday, you will go today,” informed In-Ho.

Immediately, Young-Jae jumped and sat on the bed. “What? Thursday, what about Wednesday?” screamed Young-Jae.

“It was yesterday, sir,” educated In-Ho. He closed the suitcase as he was done with the packing.

“Oh no, my presentation, my client, my JV, where is my phone?” He grabbed his cane and made a run toward his phone. It was in silent mode. There were only a few missed calls and no messages. No one in the office searched for him. What happened to his clients? Did they say yes to the JV? Or did he lose the contract? He looked around. His laptop was lying on the table. He opened the lid, it was off.

He remembered that he was making his presentation and left his laptop on. He missed one complete day and his laptop changed its place and was off too. What happened during that day? Where did his Wednesday go? Who handled his clients? Who gave the presentation? What happened to the people from Germany?

Presentation! He completely forgot bout his presentation. He knew it was incomplete. He was sure of that. He only made half of it. He looked around. All his papers were neatly placed in the drawers. He knew In-Ho would never touch it. He never touched his official documents, then who? Who would dare touch his laptop and papers? He knew the answer. There was only one person in the home who would do that.

In-Ho closed his closet and was about to exit. Young-Jae was feeling better but was coughing occasionally. Even his voice was back now, it was no longer raspy.

“Where is she?” he gritted his teeth.

“Who?” inquired In-Ho. He turned towards Young-Jae and looked at him.

“That girl, who else?” shouted Young-Jae.

In-Ho was still confused. There were two girls inside the house. He knew he would never ask for Ashma in his right mind. “Iseul?”

“Ashma!” yelled Young-Jae. “Call her.”

“Sir, she is getting ready to leave with you. Yong-Sun Sir would be arriving soon too,” informed In-Ho.

“No one is going anywhere till I talk to her. Call her, In-Ho,” Young-Jae always used to call him Pyo-ssi. He was scared as he called him by his name. He ran towards her room. He knocked at her door but no one answered. He pushed the door to open. She was gone, her suitcase was gone. The room was empty.

Ashma woke up early as it was the day they would be leaving for the ancestral village in Gangwon-Do. The whole day yesterday, Bong-Cha kept messaging her to pack her bags and get ready. Even in the morning she didn’t let her sleep and bombarded her with messages. So she left her bed early, took a shower, wore a white salwar suit and brushed her hair. Her bag was already packed last night. She took her bag and came downstairs.

Iseul prepared breakfast for everyone and Ashma helped her. Even the bags of Iseul and In-Ho were packed. They were supposed to travel in another car with a lot of raw materials for food. While In-Ho was searching for Ashma, the doorbell rang. Both Ashma and In-Ho reached the door at the same time.

“It must be Yong-Sun sir,” said In-Ho.

“I think so too,” replied Ashma.

In-Ho unlocked the door and opened it, but to their surprise it was Young-Mi. she stood there smiling at Ashma. She smiled back at Young-Mi.

“Hi!” greeted Young-Mi.

“Hi!” Ashma greeted back with a smile.

“I came to give these papers to him. He needs to sign it,” said Young-Mi.

“I will give it to him,” offered Ashma.

“Thank you. I should leave,” said Young-Mi and started moving backwards.

“Oh no, have breakfast and then leave,” requested Ashma.

“No, no, I have so much work to do. The JV has given me a lot of paperwork to do,” protested Young-Mi.

“I know. But I will not let you leave without having breakfast. It’s still early, you won’t be late for the office, please come in,” forced Ashma, politely.

Young-Mi was defeated by Ashma’s logic and she came inside. Iseul gave her a plate full of delicious food to eat. The smell of it was mouth-watering. Young-Mi closed her eyes and took in all the sweet smell of the food. The first bite took her to heaven. She knew that Park mansion’s food was delicious. The servants of the Park family made yummy food.

While Young-Mi was enjoying her food, In-Ho leaned toward Ashma. “He is asking for you,” whispered In-Ho.

“Why?” asked Ashma.

“Don’t know but was slightly angry,” informed In-Ho.

“Oh he is always angry, tell me something new,” said Ashma casually.

“Any problem?” Young-Mi noticed that Ashma and In-Ho were whispering.

“Oh no, no worries, please enjoy,” said Ashma.

The doorbell rang again the next moment. In-Ho signalled Ashma that he will go and open it. Ashma nodded and In-Ho went to open the door. Meanwhile, Iseul places two plates of breakfast as she knew what the second doorbell meant. After a few seconds, In-Ho returned with Yong-Sun.

Yong-Sun had a sweet smile on his face which vanished after his eyes fell on Young-Mi. He looked at Ashma and greeted her, “Good morning!”

“Hi!” Ashma smiled at him teasingly. She knew he was distraught after looking at Young-Mi. He hated that she stole a kiss from him. Ashma tried hard but was unable to hide her smile. Yong)Sun understood and rolled his eyes, hard.

“Good morning, Yongsuna!” greeted Young-Mi and batted her eyes.

“Good morning,” replied Yong-Sun indifferently.

Suddenly the whole kitchen echoed with a harsh voice, “What the hell? I have been waiting for you for ages. Why didn’t you come to me?”

“I was on my way, we have guests I cannot leave them be,” replied Ashma, casually.

“Bang-ssi and Yongsuna are not guests,” chided Young-Jae.

“What do you want?” asked Ashma, coldly.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was Wednesday yesterday?” shouted Young-Jae. All froze at his voice. It was filled with fury. His eyes widened with anger. Even his silver hair turned red with anger.

“Why didn’t your calender tell you that?” snapped Ashma.

“My phone was silent,” yelled Young-Jae. Yong-Sun kept looking to and fro to both ashma and Young-Jae and was listening to every word that was coming out of their mouth, no one was ready to back off.

“And whose fault is that?” Ashma tilted her head and spoke angrily.

“Shut up!” shouted Young-Jae. Young-Mi stopped eating with fear. No one dared to reply to him back but Ashma was fearless. She stood while directly staring into his eyes. Young-Jae continued, “Do you have any idea what you did? You destroyed everything. It was a deal worth billions and you destroyed it all.”

“Excuse me!” yelled Ashma. She moved a step forward and into Young-Jae’s face.

“Why did you touch my laptop? Why did you touch my paper? Why did you remove them from my table?” barked Young-Jae.

Ashma kept staring at him with one eyebrow raised. She chose not to answer his stupid questions.

“Why are you not answering me? What are you trying to do? Get me to lose my business. Was that your plan, serve me day and night to make me forget about my business? Is that what you want? My business, you think you are the elder daughter of this house, that is your birthright? You are no one, no one to me. I don’t care if you took care of me. My servants too took care of me. You are nothing more than a servant to me,” shouted Young-Jae in anger.

“Are you done?” Ashma said through gritted teeth.

“You dare talk back to me? How dare you?” shouted Young-Jae at the top of his lungs. He was too furious with Ashma. He thought she cost him deals worth billions. Young-Jae raised his cane to hit Ashma in his anger. Immediately Yong-Sun stood between them and grabbed Young-Jae’s hand in mid-air.

“Harabuhji! Enough! You have said too much. Don’t you dare hit her again?” shouted Yong-Sun.

“Don’t come in between us, Yongsuna,” screamed Young-Jae.

“Yong-Sun, let it be. He doesn’t deserve an explanation,” chided Ashma. No one else dared speak. All were frozen with fear. Everyone standing there knew what Ashma did for Young-Jae except him.

“Explanation? What explanation?” shouted Young-Jae.

“What she did for you?” yelled Yong-Sun.

“I know what she did for me,” said Young-Jae. He thought everyone was talking about how she took care of him, how she fed him with her hands, how she fed him his medicine, how she tucked him in.

“No, you have no idea what she did for you. You don’t even have the ‘I’ of ‘idea’ what she did for you.. Do you want to know, then listen,” snapped Yong-Sun.