12 Chapter 12

Seoul, Korea

Khan Building

Once Lucien ordered drinks, the two sat at a table by the windows that gave an unrestricted view of the road and building across the street they needed to return to.

“Are you certain she tried to kiss you?” Lucien asked at length.

Kita looked over at him from the corner of his eye then shook his head in resignation.

His baby brother had five banana milks in front of him in different flavors and was sitting there sucking one down with a straw while waiting for his brother to enlighten him.

Kita was truly envious that his baby brother was able to find the silver lining in every situation and was always with a smile on his face and joke for every situation.

“Yes. There is no mistaking her lips parted in hopes of a kiss,” Kita said. “I should have let her face-plant into the railing as she was apparently trying to do.”

Lucien shook his head; his brother was a stubborn pain in the butt. “Did you give off some mixed signals that you were wanting to kiss her by chance?” he asked, stabbing a straw in the next carton of banana milk.

The thought was preposterous!

Never would Kita do such a thing, especially with a client or the person he was commissioned with protecting. That was, after all, what cost his family their honor and his last job.

“You did something, didn’t you?” Lucien accused.

“Of course not!” Kita snapped at him, trying to keep his voice down in the busy café. “I took the stairs to clear my head, as always, and when I started to open the door it flew open and she came barreling out like a mad woman! I barely caught her before she hit the railing. Since I was not expecting her to throw herself at me, I caught her awkwardly and she somehow got tangled in my tie and was choking me. All I did was lower my head down to keep from being strangled... How is that my fault?!” he demanded.

But they both clearly saw the cause of the misunderstanding, and it was one Kita would entirely fault the young woman for.

“You need to apologize,” Lucien said.

“I shall do no such thing,” Kita said, jutting his chin out in defiance. “Misunderstanding or not, she had no right to assume I would kiss her, or that I wanted to kiss her!”

There was a reason why it was Lucien sitting there with Kita at the moment, because if it was their sister they would have started beating on each other by now, and that would have led to an exchange of gunfire by now.

Lula and Kita were so much alike that they should have been the twins instead of Lula and Lucien being twins. Lucien was the calm, levelheaded one that loved adventure and seeing the world. Being a bodyguard and driver allowed him to do that, and until he had enough saved up where he can go out and do his own thing for a while, he’d hang with his siblings to keep them from killing each other.

“Brother, the young woman is an actress,” Lucien reminded his pouting, grumbling under his breath, brother. “Romances are all she knows, and from what the dossier Lula put together suggests, she is not very good as real world romance. She was stood up on national television by her fiancé at her wedding even! You have to put yourself in her shoes, Kita. A handsome stranger swoops in and saves her when she did not realize she needed him to. In movies that always leads to a breath stealing, heart pounding, moment between two attractive people then their lips meet.”

Kita gave him a look. “Oh dear God, you have been watching K-Dramas, haven’t you?” he groaned.

Lucien smiled wide.

That was answer enough.

“Yes, it is entirely my fault I look this good and have the reflexes that I do,” Kita agreed. “But that still gave her no right to try to kiss me, RomCom K-Drama or not.”

“Forever will you be a lonely bachelor that is terrified of women, and a gigantic pain in the butt,” Lucien informed him with a heavy sigh. “I swear, I am the only normal one of the bunch and that is not saying a lot.”

“I am not scared of women, especially that one!” Kita argued, motioning towards the tall building across the street. “I need to regain the family honor so I can-”

“Do what?” Lucien interrupted. “What exactly do you need to do? Our partial heritage demands that you regain the honor our family name had, something Dad is still mad about. But the French side simply does not care. Why can you not lean more towards the French side of our genetics?”

Kita shook his head. “You would not understand, Brother.”

“Because I was not a soldier like you?” Lucien asked. “Because of my disability I was not permitted to serve the country our father stems from. Because of Lula’s gender she was not required to. That does not mean that we did not want to serve. I wanted to be a solider as well, I wanted to serve, but because I was born deaf I was denied that honor. As the eldest heir it was your reasonability to carry on the family name and the honor tied to it, but at what cost?”

Kita didn’t have an answer for that because it was something he hadn’t been able to find sound reasoning for.

Japanese culture demanded that they serve their country, maintain the honor of the family name at all costs, and to take care of their aging elders. It was an honor serving, it was an honor to be in the court that he was, and it was maddening being under the same roof as his siblings and parents.

But, as Lucien pointed out, at what cost?

“I am ready for retirement,” Kita said at length.

“At 32?” Lucien asked with a chuckle. “Dang. This girl that tried to kiss you really messed with your head, didn’t she?”

“The girl has nothing to do with it,” Kita snapped at him. “My pesky baby brother that is asking all the things I should have been asking did. If you must know,” he sneered the latter. “Thank you for that.”

“You are very welcome, Brother,” Lucien said with a smile. “You know, if nothing else comes from this assignment, maybe we can get you laid?”

The drink Kita had just taken came out his nose, getting the attention of everyone in the café, and Lucien roared with laughter, nearly falling out of his seat in the process.