#;toshi

after sending her last text, it only took her about 10 minutes to get home, making her way inside and dropping her bag by the love seat in the main living room. she went to the kitchen, grabbing herself a bottle of water from the fridge and a small bowl of cherries (they were in season after all) before moving back into the living room and plopping herself on the couch as she waited for him to arrive. 

she was still in her practice clothes, her hair tied back, face clean of make-up but in need of some washing and care. it could wait for the time being, though. there were about a million possibilities with where this conversation could go, one of them including more sweating, so she wasn’t about to jinx herself and go wash up just to ensure that that would happen. of course, sitting there and thinking about if that was truly a possibility was a little torturous for herself. 

she was confused, too confused, when it came to minho. they had their past, which was complicated to say the least, full of ups and downs, including both hate and love - even though they had never said it. it was understood, or at least she thought it was. even now she doubted if it had been mutual. they had fought their war and found victory, but when the dust settled, he left. she wondered if he had just hated her the whole time and did it all to mess with her, teach her a lesson or something, but why would he come back and insert himself into her life again? and at such a big scale? was it to come back for more games? did he actually care? was he sorry? she couldn’t tell at all, and after their last encounter that involved an adult kind of sleepover, she needed answers. 

and she’d get them, he would be here any minute...

[ Message ⇸ ♕  恋人 ♕ ] ⇸ That’s fucking amazing! ⇸ I’m so proud of you. ⇸ Congratulations, Shiah <3 ⇸ Hahaha that could be arranged. ;)

this was it, the moment she had been working towards.

after the meetings with each of her siblings and getting their approval, along with getting toshi’s support, she was finally ready to confront her mother and end all of this nonsense once and for all. she was about to get a grip on her own life, to free herself from the restraints and restrictions her mother had set in place for her every waking moment of her youth. opportunity after opportunity had been spoiled for her, but now she was finally able to salvage something she had worked hard to gain. her mother wouldn’t dig her claws into shiah’s modelling career, no way.

she walked into the penthouse while squeezing toshi’s hand (he had been kind enough to come along with her for support in this), moving towards the living room where she knew her mother would be waiting for her. she had called in advance to let her know she had to come over and talk to her about something important. she would be ready and waiting, shiah knew.

at first her mother greeted her and her now-boyfriend with a warm and inviting smile, gesturing them inside, happy to see them holding hands. shiah knew her mother was probably thinking they were announcing a date for their wedding or wanted to discuss details about living circumstances. something domestic and concerning the engagement moving forward was probably what her mother expected, and the thought that shiah was about to prove her mother wrong in that was a little spiteful in how it made her gleeful, but she was filled with glee over it nonetheless. 

she gestured for toshi to sit. as long as he was there with her for this, that was all she needed from him, he didn’t need to say anything on her behalf. it was her battle. him being there on her side would just let her mother know she had his support and agreement in this too, which was all the help she needed from him. she turned to her mother, expression solid and strong, eyes hard and almost cold as she fixed her gaze on the elder woman.

“i’m calling off the engagement.”

he mother stared, blinked a bit, then laughed as if it were a joke. when shiah’s expression didn’t change, her mother blanched, panic clear in her visage. then her cheeks turned red with rage, her neck lighting up like a hot poker. her voice was booming with pure disgust and anger, “you will do no such thing.”

shiah was unmoving, unaffected by her mother’s demeanor, and held her ground. “i most certainly will, and you can’t stop me. toshi has agreed, all of my siblings have agreed. you know father will agree too. there’s nothing you can do about it.”

her mother nearly collapsed as her knees gave out and she fell back onto the sofa behind her, shaken and trembling with panic and fear, the realization of her failure with shiah starting to sink in. “this can’t be happening... no... everything was going so well... it was according to the plan... you were the one, shiah, you were going to make us great again. now you’re ruining us.”

that one hurt, but it wasn’t unexpected. her mother had been using her to try and fix her own failure this whole time. she had no regard for shiah’s well being or wants, it was a selfish patch up job she was trying to accomplish. it hurt her, knowing her mother never really cared about what she wanted to do with her own life. she just wanted to use shiah to better her own reputation.

“i’m not ruining anything. i’m doing what i want with my own life instead of patching up the damage from your divorce. the only person who doesn’t want me to chase my dreams and be successful is you, my own damn mother. you just wanted me to make you look better. you have myeongcha for that, you don’t need me. so i’m calling this off, and doing what i want with my own life. which means i’m going to keep modelling, i’m going to keep dancing, i’m going to go to school even, and i’m going to date toshi instead of being engaged right off the bat. i’m going to do what makes me happy. that’s why i went with father - no, dad. that’s why i went with him and not you, because he’s wanted nothing but for me to be happy doing what i want to do. he loves me for me. you don’t, and that’s your true failure.” 

it had been a battle with her nerves trying to make herself go to this brunch and sit down with him. she had called him up the day prior to arrange the meal out, and she had done her best to sound casual about it, as if it was just a ‘date’. it was much more than that though, and she knew that full well. he didn’t know what was coming though, and she had to do her best to explain before he freaked out about everything being flipped upside down on him.

with the confirmation from all her siblings (more or less) she was ready to go to her mother and confront her about her intentions, to call everything off. however it occurred to shiah that it wouldn’t exactly be fair to him to just call it quits without at least warning him and getting his input on it. she hadn’t realized it until now but her biggest fear in all of this was losing him. over the past months of being engaged to him she had grown fond and appreciative of what he had done for her as a person, unwittingly or otherwise. 

she had finally managed to force herself into the restaurant, her stomach dropping upon spying him at one of the tables. she took a breath, trying compose herself and put on her usual confident nature as she strode over, dropped her bag and sat across from him. she took a moment to look at him, not saying anything, simply taking him in, a soft, genuine smile forming over her lips. “hey...” god, she didn’t want to do this, she just wanted to talk to him, be with him, even just hold his hand and look at him. this felt impossible.

“i... called you here for a reason, i have some important stuff to talk about and it’s killing me so... can i ask that you just listen while i explain things? and when i’m done i’ll let you know and you can have free reign. you haven’t done anything wrong, this is a me thing.” she could only bite her lip in worry after spilling that, swallowing and trying not to die from the nerves consuming her like a black hole in her chest. 

Once upon a time, Shannon had despised this man. Toshi, Toshiro, Hyuk... She had really hated him. He had completely disapproved of her friendship with his sister from the start because he saw right through, saw her for what she was. To say that him seeing through her so easily bothered her was such an understatement, because he only saw the bad, he only saw through to one layer of her, and for that she had been condemned. She understood him wanting to protect his sister, but Shannon was not someone Soyeon needed to be protected from.

But she understood, and that softened her, because she wished she had someone to care for her like. It was her greatest wish, but she was too afraid to tell anyone such a deep, emotional thing. Her betrothal to this man at first had seemed like the worst possible thing that could happen, but now it was showing a silver lining. Perhaps he could give her what she always wanted: feeling loved. She would have to win him over first, and her pride was a hard thing to overcome. This gesture though... it could be a start.

His grandparents were incredibly pleased to see her and had let her in immediately. She offered them warm smiles and an affectionate handshake before heading off to Toshi’s room, knocking softly on the door. “May I come in?”

“.....”

He went rummaging in where his parents kept all the pictures and stuff. And, it seemed, Satoshi had found pictures upon pictures of his grandfather. Getting on his knees, he began to look through them.