A Realisation Of The Heart

The golden beams of sun shone brightly over her naked feet, slowly waking her up from her deep sleep. Darah yawned in her bed, twisting around till her hand lazily grabbed the black phone at the corner. She blinked her eyes open slowly… It was 1am in the dead of night? But why is it so bright!? Darah forced open her eyes again and realised she had missed a zero after one. 

"It's 10!?" She got up like a recoiling spring and sat straight in her bed, hair messy and all over her face. She had to go to her institute today! The teachers are totally going to curse her if she got late after her long absence. 

This is weird. I'm getting used to this place! No, I'm starting to treat it like home! Darah cursed herself as she aggressively brushed her teeth. Of course who would turn down this royalty like treatment and that too, free of cost all because she was caught up in an unwanted hassle? Darah couldn't lie she felt like she hit a jackpot. 

"No no no!!!" She ran towards the bathroom. 

Ryu was downstairs, dressed in his formal attire to attend a meeting at Altec. He heard all sorts of weird sounds from upstairs but he brushed it off as just Darah being hysterical. He knew what it was about already but didn't care. He had other things to worry about. 

"Luca!" Darah was already begging for him from the stairs as she rushed down with her undone hair only to see Ryu smirking at his coffee. She squinted closely. She had told him yesterday about her plans! And here he was all dressed up but didn't even care to wake her! Darah suppressed her anger… Not like he was appointed to wake her up anyways. She sighed in defeat with her shoulders dropping. 

"Luca!!!" Darah cried out again helplessly. 

"Can you tone it down a bit?" Ryu raised a brow as he got up, pretending to be irritated. Darah had no words to say, oh no she didn't even want to look at his cocky face. 

"Look at how late I am. Someone should've got up early." Ryu shook his head in a disappointed manner but he wasn't anywhere near interested to attend the meeting himself, just that his father had begged him to because he was naturally good at impressing his experienced superiors. 

"Well I didn't ask for you to wait for me did I!?" Darah glared with her hands crossed over her chest. 

"I didn't want to wake her majesty up from her sound sleep. Guess I'm in the wrong here for doing so. Kindness has no value these days." Ryu smirked, heading to the door. Darah mumbled to herself looking elsewhere, probably cursing him but he secretly enjoyed it until he received a call. 

"Yes Leo?" 

Darah stopped too, hitting head on to his back. Is he made of rocks? She cursed and hissed, raising her hand to caress her forehead but another hand was already there, slowly pressing against her head. Her cheeks turned red in embarrassment. So warm… 

"Sir, I've caught all 5 of the culprits from that day. I've brought them to the warehouse. What should I do with them?" The young man asked calmly from the other side. The men who infiltrated into their ship were tied up and crawling over the floor hopelessly. 

Ryu was silent, lost in Darah's shy gaze. A small smile unknowingly crept  upon his lips as he gently caressed her forehead to ease the pain while she stared blankly like a little child. 

"Sir?" Leo asked again, softly. 

"I'm impressed." Ryu muttered into the phone, a cold aura replacing his gaze at Darah, which seemed hooked on her. His fingers slowly dropped from her head, tracing down to her cheek and then to her chin while he held it gently, as if he was examining her in a fond manner. She felt shivers run down her spine. 

"Good to know, Sir." Leo said proudly. 

"I'll be right there." Ryu pulled back his hand and cut the call at the same time. He seemed disappointed all of a sudden, not satisfied with something. 

"Aren't we going?" Darah asked softly. He felt too blank to answer that, let alone look at her.

"I guess there's a change of plans." He muttered to himself, not looking too happy. He was more concerned with the fact that he couldn't join a certain someone to drop them off rather than being somewhere on time. It wasn't practical to take her with him. Besides, the more he looked at her, the more he realised that he'd change his mind.

"Luca! Drop her off!" He ordered, saying nothing more to her as he walked through the door. She was left standing blankly not knowing what just happened. 

"Wait-" She jittered outside only to see him giving Luca a wide set of instructions. 

"Take her home right on time, no lingering. The moment you feel a red flag coming your way, ring me up. Watch over her carefully. If I ever catch you slacking, there won't be a second chance. Is that clear?" 

Luca nodded to everything and bowed lightly before Ryu headed towards his sports car. He didn't even give her a glance before he sped off. How rude, Darah thought as she squeezed her lips to a side. Wait, why should I even care!? He owes me nothing! Ugh… Her lips drooped in sadness as she touched her forehead the way he did a moment ago. It was adorable… But now he's gone. Loser. 

Darah felt an eerie air of loneliness again as she saw his car disappear out of the gates. Her view was blocked by a tall figure smirking at her. 

"Looking quite sad there. But I've a question. Did you bribe him to keep you safe?" Luca asked in genuine doubt. 

"What, why? Do I look like I can afford it?" Darah furrowed her brows at him.  

"Yes, yes you do. Not like he needs money but he's pretty serious about you. Never seen him like that." Luca heaved a sigh, gesturing to her to follow him. Darah blushed at his words and kept thinking back to before until she found herself breaking into a suppressed giggle, biting her lips. Even though she knew deep in her heart that the way this was going was probably going to hurt her badly... Because he's probably done horrible things. Just thinking about it made her eyes doze slightly and her smile break halfway. 

_____

Leo had been trying his best to put his eyes to good rest for the past one hour. The sound of crickets was nothing compared to the painful grunts of the men he had tied up over the floor. 

"Mphh!!!" A scared man among the five sounded, making Leo open his cold menacing eyes at him. 

"Shut up! He'll be here any moment. " Leo warned, stomping his feet on the hard concrete floor. The man wailed in fear, crawling away from him. Leo watched pathetically, shaking his head but then turned behind to see the shutters opening in a high shrilling voice and then going down at the same pace. 

"Look what we have here!" A happy voice sounded from the side of the entrance as Leo looked amusedly at his boss. At first glance he thought it was a cigarette in Ryu's mouth but as he got closer, he noticed that it was a lollipop. Ah, such diverse interests his boss had, Leo thought. In order to not hinder his speech, Ryu took his hands out of his pocket and threw the  stick away to a corner while crushing the candy in his mouth. 

"This place has gotten messy." Ryu said, looking at the men carefully as they shivered at his deep voice. 

"Yes indeed. I can call up men to get things cleaned up, Sir." Leo agreed while looking at the corners to see lots of candy wrappers. Wonder whose it was...

"Sure. Anyways, who all do we have here!" Ryu muttered enthusiastically as he pulled a chair to his side and sat over it. 

"They weren't cooperative so I had to go a bit rough on them." Leo sighed. Ryu could see that from the way those men were totally beaten up. 

"Understandable, Leo. I'll give you all five minutes! Raise your hands If you'll tell me who ordered you to do this stupidity! Who'll go first!?" Ryu smiled calmly at the terrified men whose eyes looked like they'd fall out any moment. 

"Oh wait, apologies on my part. I failed to see you've all been taped up! How could you possibly raise your hands like that? Leo?" Ryu hinted at removing the restraints. Leo nodded as he went ahead to remove the tapes, one by one. One of the men immediately fell with his face below Ryu's shoes.

"Master Ryu! Please leave me!!! I won't repeat this, not even utter a word about this to anyone! Please!"

"Should've thought of it before you infiltrated into my ship, killed 5 of our men and stole millions worth of our commodities. Come on, say the name. Say his name and you'll be free." Ryu smirked, relaxing into his chair like a king. The man knew his fate was sealed so might as well spill the truth before he died.

"You know it already. L-Lang Han." The man had a single tear rolling down his terrified face. 

"He's really passionate about me, isn't he?" Ryu smiled faintly before a shot fired into the silent room.