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Eunji stared into her mirror, admiring how dolled up she was.  There was no particular reason for her being this dolled up; she always was.  As the second heir to Seoul International, she was always dressed nicely, and usually looked quite delicate.  As much as she loved it, at the same time she hated it.  As much as she acted all fragile and poised, part of her wanted to walk around in sweatpants and a t-shirt.  She wanted to be…normal.  And that would be the topic that caused chaos at the breakfast table…

“Eunji, why are you slouching?  Sit up straight, like a lady!  You better not act like this when we go see Mr. Kim and his son this afternoon!” Her father snapped.

Eunji rolled her eyes before fixing her posture.  She pushed a few of the items on her plate around before speaking up.

“Appa, why are you so eager to marry me off?  I’m only nineteen…”

“You know why.  Yoongi was already married at your age.  I gave you another year than I gave him; don’t complain.”

Eunji sighed.  She knew better than to argue with her father, so she said no more.  She supposed Mr. Kim’s son wasn’t the worst choice her father could’ve made, in fact, he might’ve been one of the best choices.  Kim Namjoon was his name.  He was smart, sweet, and overall perfect.  She knew him fairly well, as he was the childhood best friend of her older brother, Yoongi.  The thing was, she didn’t have romantic feelings for him.  She did, however, have them for his younger brother, Taehyung, who was much more her type and was also a close friend of hers.  Why she couldn’t be engaged to him, she didn’t know.  There was less of an age gap between the two of them than there was between her and Namjoon, and neither she nor Taehyung had the weight of a business on their shoulders.  Her thoughts wandered back to Namjoon, and it occurred to her that she hadn’t seen him since her brother’s wedding five years prior.  She supposed she’d give him a chance, as it appeared that she had no other choice.

She left the breakfast table, having barely touched her food, and called for her assistant to help get her ready to go shopping.  She decided she was going to dress her best, even if it wasn’t Taehyung she was meeting.

She dragged her assistant to the mall with her, insisting she needed help picking out a dress and accessories.  She decided she also needed new earrings for the cartilage piercings she had so defiantly gotten at the age of eighteen.  She wondered if maybe they’d gross Namjoon out and scare him off.

After about three hours of shopping, she finally settled on three pairs of earrings that she liked, one pair for each of her piercings, a crimson dress, and a pair of matching heels.  Five-inch heels, that is.  She headed home, and with five hours left, decided she needed a manicure and a pedicure.  She had them done in a crimson red, perfectly matching her dress and heels.  She had her hair curled and her makeup done, and after that, she had the help of her assistant to put her dress on, and she put all her earrings in. 

She sighed.  Why was she doing this?  She didn’t even like Namjoon.  She supposed it was routine; her father often dragged her to his meetings with other CEOs.  That required her to dress herself up, and it was now normal for her to go on two-to-five-hour shopping sprees in preparation for the meetings.  She wondered what normal girls did…  Did they go on crazy shopping sprees and doll themselves up?  She supposed not.  Those things were expensive to people that weren’t as rich as she was.  She looked in the mirror one last time before grabbing her bag and heading downstairs.  It was show time.

——————–

Eunji took another sip of her wine.  She and Namjoon had both barely said a word since they had arrived; their fathers had done all the talking.  She glanced out the window, noticing the deck just outside.  This gave her an idea.  She turned to her father and cleared her throat.

“Appa, I’m going out to the deck.” She stood up and turned to Namjoon. “Care to join me, Namjoon?”

“Um, sure,” Namjoon placed his glass back on the table before getting up to escort her outside.

Outside, Eunji leaned against the railing.  Namjoon, noticing she was quite taller than he remembered, looked down at her feet to notice her five-inch heels.  His eyes widened.

“Don’t those hurt?”

“Hmm?” Eunji asked, completely oblivious.

“Your feet…in those shoes…”

“These aren’t my highest pair.  The shoes are just part of the whole dirt-rich persona.  I was trained from the time I was young how to walk in them.  Does that answer your question?”

“Not exactly…”

“Basically, I’m used to wearing them, and my feet are usually numb before I can feel any pain.”

“That’s horrible.”

“You don’t have to act like you care, Namjoon.  I know you don’t.  This is all for show.  Just like our appearances, it’s all false.”

What she didn’t know was that Namjoon had had a crush on her for years.  Their marriage was only partially his idea; however, he would’ve agreed to it even if it hadn’t been.  He had never fallen out of love with her, despite not seeing her for years.  He hoped that someday she would love him with the same undying love he had for her, but he was afraid she never would.

“Eunji, you do realize just because it’s pretense doesn’t mean we can’t get along, right?  We might just be doing this to please our parents,” he paused, knowing that was a lie, at least on his part, before continuing, “but we can still be friends, right?”

She sighed. “I suppose you’re right.  Forgive me, I expected you to be nosy and stuck-up like all the other guys I’ve met.”

“It’s all right, I understand.” Namjoon looked up at the night sky, the stars barely visible through all the city lights. “I wonder what the stars would look like in raw darkness, you know?  Maybe deep at sea, on a boat with no light in sight. Just the stars.”

“It would be amazing, that’s for sure.  Maybe we should do that sometime.”

Namjoon was about to say something, but a sharp voice interfered.

“Eunji, Yoongi just informed me that his flight got in early.  I can’t get a hold of any of our other drivers at this time, so we have to go get him, Nari, and Jungju from the airport.  Let’s go.”

Eunji sighed and turned to Namjoon. “I’m sorry I have to leave so soon.  I’ll talk to you later.”

She followed her father inside but turned back to Namjoon to wave goodbye before she left.  He was definitely different, but that didn’t change the fact that she liked Taehyung, and Taehyung only.